My goodness...this is a cool game. It deserves a quick, snappy review. I'm not 100% sold on the whole dialog with the fellow reviewer, but given that it extols brevity in games, I think a review is best brief. I'm not sure how much reviews are ALLOWED to piggyback. I'd like to see interaction or respectful argument among reviewers, yet here this good effort feels forced. I can't make suggestions on that, sadly.
As for what I'd fix, I do think the action paragraph is a bit long, and I'd be more interested to hear if HMH actually takes a shot at being conventional, or if it's satirical all the way through. "Some memorable and innovative things?" I'm intrigued, beyond CATS.
Yet I feel that CATS doesn't necessarily show how ridiculous the whole RPG genre is--Zero Wing was, after all, a shooter. Isn't it more exact to say, with this sort of example, that there are reliably ludicrous cross-genre elements, and RPGs may focus on the worst of them, and do so to profit? I think that's a small problem with an entertaining tour de force review, when it sweeps me to a harsh conclusion that just doesn't seem justified on reflection. Clever zingers do not an argument make. Still, it was a lot of fun getting there.
As for what I'd fix, I do think the action paragraph is a bit long, and I'd be more interested to hear if HMH actually takes a shot at being conventional, or if it's satirical all the way through. "Some memorable and innovative things?" I'm intrigued, beyond CATS.
Yet I feel that CATS doesn't necessarily show how ridiculous the whole RPG genre is--Zero Wing was, after all, a shooter. Isn't it more exact to say, with this sort of example, that there are reliably ludicrous cross-genre elements, and RPGs may focus on the worst of them, and do so to profit? I think that's a small problem with an entertaining tour de force review, when it sweeps me to a harsh conclusion that just doesn't seem justified on reflection. Clever zingers do not an argument make. Still, it was a lot of fun getting there.
My principal said, 'Emo, Emo, Emo.'
I said 'I'm the one in the middle, you lousy drunk!'
-- Emo Phillips
I said 'I'm the one in the middle, you lousy drunk!'
-- Emo Phillips
