Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: July 17-23 collection of reviews and stuff, courtesy of OD

Man, with four people and only six reviews, you'd think I'd be getting this out in a more timely fashion. Heh, jokes on you! Late as usual and non-repentant as always; that's the Rob Hamilton creed and I'm sticking to it.

Usual rules, which basically say that only one of Joe's three reviews is eligible. And the results are:



THIRD PLACE: Gradius Deluxe Pack (Saturn) by pickhut

Good compilation review. You get the basics, you mention both games and their place in the series; with particular emphasis on the improvements in the second game over the first as far as locales and ship set-ups go. Which leads into the big flaw of the second game, which is the checkpoint system and how it can screw you over. That's one annoyance I tend to have with many old shooters -- one mistake can ruin a good run no matter how many lives you have left. Which kind of ends your review on a wistful note, as you mention how the second game is better in so many ways, but in the end, the first game is the superior one just because it's more fair.

SECOND PLACE: Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum by JoeTheDestroyer

Whoa…this game went from sounding blah (but acceptable) to a nightmare with that paragraph about how if you don't find a certain secret warp, you're basically screwed about three levels later. Ah, the good old days of the NES and its artificial difficulty. And until then, I was thinking that it'd be an inoffensive game to screw around with some day when I was bored to the nth degree. Not anymore!!! You get extra points for the good job you do comparing how most of this game is a waste of time to how the warps in games like SMB conceivably make much of it a waste of time. That part worked well.

OVERDRIVE PLACE:

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

Thanks OD for getting this up without reminding. I really appreciate it; I really, really do. Haha. Congrats to the winners!

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

I was starting to get worried. It was Wed afternoon and I hadn't been reminded yet. Gave me a flashback to being a kid...you know, when the folks are mad at you and yelling, it's business as usual; but when they don't, you just crossed a line and things are going to be worse.

I thought I'd crossed that line. Fear drove me to get this done ASAP today!

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

Thanks, OD. Maybe I'll try and blast the rust off more often!

Congrats to Joe, and personal props to Pick; I really liked his review.

For us. For them. For you.

Appreciate the comments on the review, OD, it's been awhile since I've written a compilation review, so I was a bit worried I was being too long-winded. Thanks for the placing, too, nice to be in good company with Joe, and EmP taking the RotW spot. Congrats. Thanks for the comments, as well, EmP.

I head spaceshit noises.

Pick
I can't say you were long-winded, but I do like shmup reviews and am familiar with some of the Gradius games, so I might have been a bit biased towards that review.

One of these days, I'll get around to playing the Famicom Gradius 2 and SNES Gradius 3.

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle