Review of the Week: Dancing Zombie Boxes (w/ guns) - September 12-18th

Review of the Week is a reader’s digest of sorts, featuring all the reviews written in a given week, and then judged by a self-important author with delusions of grandeur. That’ll be me today. Only the top three reviews shall be mentioned, in order of relevance. No reviews from the judge will be permissible (though, under a snazzy new rule we just invented, will be then eligible for the next week.), and in the event that another writer submits more than one review for the week, only the review the judge deems superior will be included.

More words follow:

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Enter the Gungeon (PC) by silversuriv

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It’s been a while, but someone’s used a food analogy!

Jam-packed

Booo!

Silversuriv’s been dominating the user review section, because that what he does; submit rapid fire reviews and press all the buttons. He’s putting the rest of your to shame! Not so much me. I have other stuff going on. Important stuff.

Despite the food analogy (I repeat, boo!) I prefer this Gungeon review to the Dance Magic one, but that’s probably purely down to having a better subject matter to talk about. I think the overbranching drawback many of his reviews can suffer from is that his use of lists make his reviews, well, listy, so there’s not a lot of scope left to talk about the game as a whole. But, in a statement designed to anger the purists, I do like the inclusion of the video. Because you’re pretty awful.

It’s a big thing to award a 5/5, but it feels backed up by this effort.

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Unbox [PC] by Jason

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Jason provides a tidy, informative review. That’s what Jason does, and we’re all the better for it. Maybe it’s a touch formulaic in how it lists all the pros then works through the cons if I’m trying to pick flaws (I am; it’s my job), but, as a person who knows nothing about Unbox, his review teaches me all I need to know about Unbox.

There’s not a lot to poke holes at. All boxes (ha!) checked, good review.

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Zombasite [Mac] by Rob

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The collection of disasters you suffered amuses me greatly (not least because I passed on the chance to cover this game, so there’s a sense of smug justification involved) but, in chronicling it, it led to a very solid review. It might just sound like rambling, but it’s also a clever way to deconstruct the game’s flaws, talk about how they affected you, and what you have to do to overcome them. Which was more or less turn them off and pretend they never happened until you obtain a better grasp of the basics.

But it’s a clever review, because rather than just state that and move on, you offer the reader your own experiences and let them come to that conclusion themselves. I don’t know if that was the plan, but it’s very strong stuff on your behalf, so you get some praise. You probably stole the idea off me in the first place, but you still pull it off very well.

I love the idea that your friends can turn into murderous ghosts a la Silent Hill 4. Almost as much as I like the fact you clearly named your clan for Michael Bolton. I’m also reminded you have a beatnik mac, and that’s hilarious.

EmP, I have to both thank you for handing me the win and congratulate you for outdoing yourself by setting a new record for most backhanded compliments in your reasoning.

Oh yeah, and the whole 'offer my experiences and let the reader be the judge' was my plan. By the time I wrote my review, I'd been playing the game off and on for a couple weeks and figured Jason would be getting antsy if I didn't submit something in the very near future; while also still not being really sure if I was doing things right (I mean, I'd guess virtually anyone could make progress if they eliminated a ton of stuff that makes things tricky AND lowered the difficulty as much as possible).

So I decided to write it like that, so people knew my personal experiences, so they can determine if those elements sound appealing and/or if the struggle to learn/master how things work sounds like it'd be worth it. It wound up being a fun way to write the review -- not played for laughs quite like a somewhat similarly themed one I did for some lame NES game (CastleQuest? Or something like that.) -- and was probably the best way I could have covered that game.

Thanks for a timely topic, and congratulations to the week's other winners!

I believe that formulas exist because they work very well indeed when properly executed, so I'm never going to shy away from one if I settle on the best way to cover a particular game and realize that it has been done before.

In the case of Unbox, the game has two issues that wind up feeling rather substantial, so the challenge was to find a way to gripe about those two issues without ignoring a lot of interesting things the game does commendably well. I ultimately decided that the best way to communicate that was to talk about those exciting things first, so that the reader will understand why someone might stick with the game--or try it in the first place--in spite of the frustrating physics and camera.

I completely agree; we all have go-to formulas. It was not my intention to make that sound like a bad thing -- otherwise I'd be shooting myself in the foot. Sometimes abandoning that formula leads to disaster, but, sometimes, it leads to a very good bit of writing such as the one Overdrive produced on this week.