LowerStreetBlues's Xenophobe review

A good review putting this game into context of time. I only knew it from MAME, where it was one of those ones that seems too fiddly control-wise to persist with. Ditto Zwackery, which runs on the same hardware I think.

For a second when I started reading this, I was thinking of Xybots, and that made me think maybe there should have been more specific description of how the screen was arranged. But when I remembered what Xeno was, and I see your initial description is totally right. So this paragraph really makes for a redundant story that didn't need telling :)

Good point anyway. I was planning on screenshots clearing that up better, but when I took them I realized they didn't look too good scaled down and with only one of the three strips in use, so I trashed 'em.

Good to see you submitting again, even though you never responded to my HGmail!

Let's clear this up, because I feel like it's the third time someone has tried to put the screws to me, radicaldreamer, hence why I didn't answer:

Never wrote under another account here. Never been here before September last year, maybe later. Not some old-timer, except in the sense I'm a middle aged adult, and I'm thrown off by the weird vibes around here. Not sure why I have to justify this to you, let alone anyone outside site administration.

Capice?

Just curious.

Not that I think I have at all been part of any weird vibemaking, but if there's been this curiosity about you LSB that you say there has, it probably amounts to a compliment arriving by illogical means :)

When good reviews start materialising out of (relatively!) nowhere, I think a lot of folks around here think 'this person must be an already established reviewer'. Which leads to the next thought 'We must already know them.' And in that mindset, the 2 focus points for good reviewers have been gamefaqs and here. The core reviewing userbase on this site started out almost entirely as the people from the reviewing scene at gamefaqs, who left there variously for the attractions of this site and also because the gamefaqs culture was seen to change.

On top of all that, there's been a history of identity shenanigans - known writers changing IDs or writing other under names, to the extent this kind of thing has happened before, back at gamefaqs. IE - Someone sees a new reviewer and says 'You must be (such and such)...' no matter what protestations. I was guilty of doing this once myself back in more actiony times (like 8 years ago)

I hope this pile of political history maybe helps sort out any weirdness you have experienced and why. You've already said 'Damn your eyes, I am me!' which should be a good enough fob for everyone.

Great review! This was one of those games that seemed awfully popular back in the day, but has since been forgotten. You do a great job of recapturing the times while keeping an appropriately critical demeanor.

//Zig

Well that makes sense, but I would think a writer using a different name would have reasons, right to privacy and such. But I guess open speculation is just as much a right too.

I'll take it all as wishful thinking, but for full disclosure, I have been to GameFAQs before. And I even understand the change in culture bit, since I know they're pretty much second fiddle to GameSpot these days. Interesting to know. Apologies for being terse.

What Bloomer said. I doubt anyone had any intent of being a creepy by-god stalker, but we have had a number of great reviewers either stop or go into semi-retirements where they come back now and then to give more content.

You burst on the scene with one high-caliber retro review after another, so I can see why people would be interested in whether you are an actual newcomer to the site or an old eFriend deciding to make a return.

I apologize if this inquiry was in any way intrusive, invalidating, or even just annoying. From my perspective I didn't even realize it could be perceived that way.

The community we have here is small and every one knows each other, so when a new person shows up, everyone notices. As Bloomer mentioned, we have had old-timers come back under aliases. When we actually get genuinely new people, they are usually much more rough around the edges than you are. It can be hard to tell because most people who stick around learn a lot and get really good, but I still remember the fairly modest beginnings of long-time writers like Emp, Suskie, or even myself. Since you said this was the "third time," it sounds like I wasn't the only one who had this idea.

My suspicions were even a little more sociologically grounded, so it wasn't just writing skill. We have a bit of an in-group mentality here with our own culture and norms for how we write reviews, how we view games, and even how we express ourselves on the forums, though that's not to say there are no differences between some of us. You seemed to fit right in with that.

Again, apologies. There were no ill intentions from me or anyone else here.