RotW: September 26 to October 2, 2016: As water dripping through the sieve of my mind

Because I'm a very, very busy man, this RotW is a bit late. Note that I said I'm a very, very busy man; not that I have a memory roughly as effective as soggy bread as far as retaining stuff goes. Anyway, enough of my (perceived, imaginary) failings and other irrelevant stuff and now it's time to look at reviews. Four contestants this week, as Nightfire's slightly old review for Dune II gets moved to this week since he judged last week's fun and games. But, don't worry! Next week, when EmP is back judging, it looks like there will be A DAMN TON of reviews for him to judge!!!

READY! SET! Meh...

THIRD PLACE

pickhut's Demolition Racer: No Exit (Dreamcast)

WHERE I DON'T TALK ABOUT YOUR REVIEW THAT MUCH: You know, the thing that sucks about a Four Contestant week for RotW is that with three people getting awarded, it can come off as essentially saying the fourth person was subpar in comparison, which isn't the impression I'd want to give, as the Dear Esther review was well-written and a very intelligent and in-depth look at both the game and its genre. To me, picking third place came down to, more or less, the simple fact that it took a little while for that one to get going, with the paragraphs describing what a "walking simulator" is. Which isn't even really a criticism of your review, as it worked well in the context of you using a new release of Dear Esther to delve into its spot in history. It's just one of those things where, while reading this week's reviews, some things worked better for me personally than others.

WHERE I DO TALK ABOUT YOUR REVIEW: Meanwhile, this review jumped right into things and wound up being the sort of short-n-sweet deal that we tend to expect from Pick. Which is good, as I've never gotten into those combat racing games, so a longer and more drawn-out look probably would have bored me. While this is only a six-paragraph review (with a small "R.I.P. Dreamcast" addendum attached to the end), it tells me everything I'd want to know, with special focus placed upon the neat twist of making power-up crates harder to reach. While you note there are some flaws present, you do a good enough job of painting this one as a legit fun experience, it's easy to see how those flaws can be overlooked.

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SECOND PLACE

EmP's The Bunker (PC)

I thought both of your reviews were really good, but this one was a bit stronger, as Haven seemed to end sort of abruptly, while this one didn't feel that way. From reading about this game, it seems to be the sort of game that gets made a lot on Steam (in particular) nowadays that fits into a group I call "I don't really want to play it, but I do want to know what it's about!" Fortunately, we have the Internet, so I was able to easily find the game's plot twist, so that's taken care of…but I guess that's not the point. For me to get to that point, there has to be a compelling enough piece of writing about the game to grab my interest, which is what we have here. You do a great job of tying in your 32X reviews of lousy games along this vein to illustrate how this one is superior. You also do a good job of portraying the natural suspense of a somewhat broken man trying to explore a scary location, not knowing what he about to face, in a way that illustrates the general plot of the game without spoiling any revelations beyond "the outside world just might be FUBAR" from the War Room. Or, in short, this is a review that got my attention and made me want to find out something more about the game. Which is sort of the goal of doing this sort of thing, so I've heard.

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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Nightfire's Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (PC)

A couple weeks ago, EmP was talking about having a formula to reviews that a writer may go back to in reference to Venter's work from that week. As a humorous sidetone, that did strike a chord with me. I've written reviews where I liked how something went and then, later, I'll be reading an old review of mine from years back and I'll realize that thing I did that I liked was essentially cribbed from something I did years ago. And then I'll realize that I'm destined to fall back on certain things I've done over and over until I wind up being a self-plagarism-loving shell of myself. Anyway, I thought about that while reading this review, as it made me thing of that. Since starting up RotW again, I've read a number of your reviews and you tend to cover a lot of older computer strategy games and I know pretty much what to expect each time: a well-written and detailed analysis both from a historical and a gameplay perspective. Obviously, since you won, the formula works! I think the biggest strength here is just how you discussed how certain aspects of games like this we take for granted either made their debut in this game, or (like the box to "link" units together) hadn't yet been devised. It just was a very effective way to show this game's place in history, while also mentioning how it was a game that's held up as enjoyable even today.

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Time to get back to being very, very busy now. By which I mean: Work on my backlog of reviews, since as of this moment, I have one I'm almost done with and three more I need to start imminently. SEE! I WAS BUSY AFTER ALL!!!!!

There actually are only a limited number of ways to approach a persuasive essay, and by now they're quite well known and used fairly regularly. Reviews are essentially persuasive essays, so the list of available formats is mostly limited to the following:

Scatterbrained: Just ramble in a stream-of-consciousness approach. Ideally, you go back through and improve transitions and cut out awkward phrasing and word choice, but still, this doesn't adhere to a strong formula and works mostly because it feels refreshing if it's not done constantly and if the author's voice throughout remains engaging.

Balanced: List a strength, then immediately counter it with a weakness, or vice-versa, for most of the body of the review. The problem here is that you can sound wishy-washy. It's a good approach for mediocre titles.

Front-loaded: Describe most of the strengths (or weaknesses) up front, then finish off with the counterpoints at the end. This usually works, but is also risky if you present too strongly a counterpoint and it becomes one of the primary things the reader recalls about your argument.

Selective: Bring up all of the strengths, or all of the weaknesses, and "forget" to mention any counterpoints at all. This is actually the weakest sort of review a person can attempt, and readers tend to realize--even if they don't voice the complaint--that you're not a reliable writer (one potential solution to this problem is to bring up counterpoints as they would be relevant, to convincingly dismiss them as if they're barely even worth mentioning).

Narrative: You describe an experience from start to finish, in a linear fashion, and make observations along the way to relate events to your overall point.

Most other types of organization are really just a variation of one of those noted above, which is why I see no point in trying to avoid repeating a technique that works for you, especially once you've reviewed more than a few games. There are only so many ways to tackle a game review, and what's most important is that you suit your approach to the game at hand, and the impressions you want to relate.

Thank you for the win! I will admit that I do rely on a formula, at least for my retrospective reviews, and I seem to do it without even realizing it. It's just the way that my brain organizes everything that I want to say, I guess.

I think my style fluctuates between the Front-Loaded or Balanced approaches, with some Narrative elements thrown in as appropriate. I might try to challenge myself by writing a review in a different style at some point just to see what happens, though apparently people seem to enjoy my writing style as it is, so I might also just keep on doing what I'm doing.

Glad you liked the review, despite not being big on combat racing games! Thanks for the mention, and congrats to Nightfire for the RotW, as well as EmP and Otokonomiyaki for their contributions.

Man, it's a shame no real attempt for a successor followed Dune II, with the exception of those two attempts. They really should remaster or remake the game, without any additions. Maybe I might just give Dune 2000 a shot one of these days, in spite of knowing it won't have the same atmosphere of Dune II...

Edit: Oh god, I forgot the PlayStation version is in 3D...

I replied to this. I remember replying to this. Bizarre.

Thanks for the comments and congrats to Pick for covering a game I adore and to Nightfire for covering a game everyone adores. Really strong stuff all round.