honestgamer's Rock of Ages (XLA) review

:) nice review.

.."classical music" -- is it still Mozart's Requiem, like in the trailer? I mean.. crushing things down the hill to "Dies Irae" seems like pure win to me.

..one thing, though. At one side, you're complaining about the traps not working. And on the other you're saying all that matters is your skill at completing the obstacle course. Is the problem that the AI is too good, or something like that? ...Or was that something that changed as well once you got better at the game, like you say..?

The traps don't ever really make a huge difference, no matter where you place them. I filled choke points with traps (most of the course is open enough that there are too many routes to effectively cover) and still it had very little impact on the enemy... and his traps had little impact on me. It's a neat gimmick but, as my review notes, success mostly comes to whoever is best at getting through the course. That's sort of a duh and the traps were always meant to serve as a stalling tactic only, but they're not as effective here as the traps in say... Marble Madness.

I've been following this game for ages... Still no release for EU, but at least it's going to come to the PS3.

I adored the music, the design and historical locations, and the paper cutout characters of the demos. Kind of felt that you underplayed the sheer exuberance and originality of all that. The review has a higher score than the criticisms indicated you'd give it. But I'm relieved to know that the controls/loading times etc don't detract too much from the experience.

One issue for me: the personal stuff about your wife's comments in the intro and later in the review, and then ending with the comment about screaming like little girls struck me as a bit off. As if you were hinting at something about female reactions although I doubt that was your intention. Maybe I was expecting some kind of finishing comment from your wife which is why the final sentence seemed odd.

Yeah, I really don't look at a game and think "How are girls likely to receive this?" I think "How are gamers likely to receive this?" and there's not really a division in my mind. That's probably how it'll continue to be unless a game calls particular attention to something that prompts me to view it differently. I don't figure trying to channel my inner girl is going to make a review that's more helpful to any audience...

Marble Madness...apt comparison, that instantly gives me an idea of how this game - if you'll pardon the pun - rolls. I had flagged it more as a sort of Katamari Damacy at first.

I've never played Marble Madness, so the comparison's a bit lost on me. In any case, that doesn't hurt the review any; I'm just saying.

Anyway, I thought this was a pretty good review. I didn't have as much of an issue with score disparity as OD did. I estimated the tone of the review around more of a 7, but I think that has more to do with all the criticism coming near the end, where it's kind of just left hanging over us, and a relatively positive concluding paragraph isn't really enough to overshadow all of it. Still, I think you did a good job making much of that criticism sound like it doesn't matter that much (particularly the controls), and the positives you describe (like the humor, childish as it may be), sound like they make much of the game's appeal more than anything else.

If I had an Xbox, I'd probably check this out. It sound rather amusing, and I'm curious as to how exactly it makes fun of history, since, well, considering my background, I get a huge kick out of that sort of thing.