zigfried's Mr. Nutz review

Mediocre games make for rough reviews. This one definitely isn't one of your more interesting, but I'm not sure I can blame YOU for that. Like you said, it would be a cop-out to just bash the game, but what do you then say about a fifteen year old SNES game for kids? I KNEW you should've gone for Xenogears. Promise me that will make it back on the list at some point.

This paragraph bugs me:
The Sega CD's Popful Mail opens with a hilarious sequence depicting an elven bounty hunter chasing the villainous "Nuts Cracker"....

I think you're talking about an entirely new game. It's a strange... well, no it's a LACKING transition. As in, there is no transition. It took me quite a few reads to get your thought trail down. Now, I AM pretty tired, so maybe I'll read it in the morning and wonder how I couldn't follow that, but I do think there is some confusion here.

You know, it probably has less to do with transition and more to do with the similar names. When you went off about "nut cracker" as opposed to "Nutz" I started mixing up the games. When you mention Woody Land, I got even more confuzzled. So maybe a more distinct example would be called for?

I also commented on that paragraph. Stay tuned.

Now that the verdict's in, I'll explain:

The Popful Mail paragraph is an example that directly correlates to the two-sentence paragraph above it. For my argument about game design to work, it requires a positive example: something to show that there really are games that do things right. Playing Mr Nutz made me think of that scene from Popful Mail, which is why I chose that particular game as the positive example. I could attach the words "For example," to the front of the paragraph, but including those words sounds a little too pandering and hammer-on-the-headish. So in this case, point taken, but I'll have to leave it as is.

I referred to it as "The Sega CD's Popful Mail" so that the inclusion of the system name would clearly distinguish it as being a different game (since I'm assuming not everyone has heard of Popful Mail). I understand the point about the example seeming to come out of nowhere -- especially if people don't connect it to the preceding paragraph -- but getting the two games mixed up... uh, I don't really know what to say about that.

//Zig

When I first saw it, I couldn't help but wonder if this was a new hentai review by Zig. The name was certainly suggestive and it would have to be completely and utterly awesome. This disappointed me.

I'm not disappointed with the individual review so much as I'm admirable of an author willing to extend beyond his usual coverage and try and do something different rather than bash an easy target. He also reviewed a game everyone asked him to review! Cool!

That said, although Zig highlights some examples (Woody Land), I think more time might have been merited to the new wave of kid's games with, um, less than subtle adult jokes. The trend seems condescending towards children, the intended audience, and fits in nicely with the theme of kids deserving more from this package. They deserve more imagination, as Zig demonstrates, but they shouldn't come back in five years and realize the joke was on them either. Movies like the Shrek series appeal to adults and children with wit; there's not a lot of wit in dubbing a place "Woody Land."

I'll make a solitary stand: I though the review was outstanding even if my paraniod mind did initially think it was a dig at the kiddy DS games I've been covering for a while. It was a thought provoking piece that transended the goofy tale of an angry squirrel and made me think about how I look at videogames as a whole. As such, I thought it was perhaps the best review I've read all year.