So, I got my reminder to do this thing today and went to the list of reviews and audibly groaned because there were a lot. And then there was a lot of quality, which made picking which ones placed a lot more difficult. And that's not even counting my review that gets moved to next week's RotW. Which wasn't even any consolation because I wound up picking up a review by Nightfire from the previous week. In short: busy week, lot of good stuff, great for the site! Some games were huge names, some were much more obscure. Someone even tried to praise Venetica. I was shocked, but A for effort and all that!
THIRD PLACE
Fiddlestick's Final Fantasy XV (PlayStation 4)
A really strong and comprehensive review is presented here. There is simply a lot of information here, ranging from how long it took the game to be made and how that affected things, the interesting direction choice of focusing things on four dudes on a road trip, how much fun the sandbox atmosphere is as well as how much fun it is to fight stuff and how the main plot is the game's weak point, as the story is kind of rushed and threadbare in comparison to the richness of the world. It's hard to single out any specific part of this review as particularly strong -- it's just an overall excellent effort that barely edges out a number of others (in particular, Nightfire's review and Venter's pair of reviews) for placement.
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SECOND PLACE
EmP's Metal Head (the AWESOME Sega 32X)
Huh, you even sort of enjoyed this one for that system. That's it: Next up for you is the Atari Lynx or whatever that crap handheld was called. You did some good stuff here. At first, I was convinced this was a "damn with faint praise" review, as the opening "Metal Head isn't awful" line kind of reminded me of my feelings after playing Knuckles Chaotix for the same system. And to some degree, that mentality is present throughout the review, but at times you ditch the cynicism and deliver a really nice snapshot of a game that was ambitious for its time and determined to become something legitimately good on a misbegotten system. Noting how it was one of the few games to use bitmapping on a system designed for that effect was nice. Pointing out how there was a surprising amount of mission variety also was nice, as was mentioning different perspectives and night vision. This wound up being a really good review that surprised me, as you did a good job of balancing the line between "Ugh, another 32X game" and "Whoa, this is surprisingly good". As someone reviewing the hordes of Kemco RPGs, I can attest to how tricky it can be to getting that right.
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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)
Pickhut's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (PlayStation 4)
If I felt like it, I could probably make a case for your Double Dragon 4 review, too, based primarily around your reference to DD3's hilariously unstoppable spin kick. FunFact: In high school, I borrowed that game from a friend who told me it was virtually impossible and I'd hate it. When I returned it, I told him I beat it and proceeded to brag about how I just must be that much more skilled than him while describing late-game stuff like the dual mummy fight at the end and how I was so lightning-quick that neither could even touch me. And then I showed him how it was done -- by constantly spamming one move that nothing could contend with, only taking damage when I screwed up. He came close to punching me in the face that day, I think.
Anyway, that review didn't win. Your Resident Evil review won. It was simple a comprehensive effort that read effortlessly. You did a great job of conveying the survival horror aspect and how vulnerable your character is. I especially dug the part where you mention it's not trying to be the old survival horror games, but is channeling them and adding in elements from more modern games, in particular first-person ones, as well as movies such as TCM. And the part at the end about how the game falters late due to going into over-the-top action territory (including the bit about how RE titles are pretty susceptible to this sort of thing) is a good way of handling the whole "well the game was really good, but…" syndrome this one falls into.
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And now it's off to ponder other things, such as "If I knew you could only do a handful of quests after Horizon in Mass Effect 2 before the game forces you to go to the deserted Collector ship, maybe I would have done bigger quests than a couple random side quests you get from scanning planets and the first couple from the Firewalker DLC pack." I don't think I gained a single level doing that stuff and I can see things getting scary intense in this stage.
THIRD PLACE
Fiddlestick's Final Fantasy XV (PlayStation 4)
A really strong and comprehensive review is presented here. There is simply a lot of information here, ranging from how long it took the game to be made and how that affected things, the interesting direction choice of focusing things on four dudes on a road trip, how much fun the sandbox atmosphere is as well as how much fun it is to fight stuff and how the main plot is the game's weak point, as the story is kind of rushed and threadbare in comparison to the richness of the world. It's hard to single out any specific part of this review as particularly strong -- it's just an overall excellent effort that barely edges out a number of others (in particular, Nightfire's review and Venter's pair of reviews) for placement.
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SECOND PLACE
EmP's Metal Head (the AWESOME Sega 32X)
Huh, you even sort of enjoyed this one for that system. That's it: Next up for you is the Atari Lynx or whatever that crap handheld was called. You did some good stuff here. At first, I was convinced this was a "damn with faint praise" review, as the opening "Metal Head isn't awful" line kind of reminded me of my feelings after playing Knuckles Chaotix for the same system. And to some degree, that mentality is present throughout the review, but at times you ditch the cynicism and deliver a really nice snapshot of a game that was ambitious for its time and determined to become something legitimately good on a misbegotten system. Noting how it was one of the few games to use bitmapping on a system designed for that effect was nice. Pointing out how there was a surprising amount of mission variety also was nice, as was mentioning different perspectives and night vision. This wound up being a really good review that surprised me, as you did a good job of balancing the line between "Ugh, another 32X game" and "Whoa, this is surprisingly good". As someone reviewing the hordes of Kemco RPGs, I can attest to how tricky it can be to getting that right.
---
REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)
Pickhut's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (PlayStation 4)
If I felt like it, I could probably make a case for your Double Dragon 4 review, too, based primarily around your reference to DD3's hilariously unstoppable spin kick. FunFact: In high school, I borrowed that game from a friend who told me it was virtually impossible and I'd hate it. When I returned it, I told him I beat it and proceeded to brag about how I just must be that much more skilled than him while describing late-game stuff like the dual mummy fight at the end and how I was so lightning-quick that neither could even touch me. And then I showed him how it was done -- by constantly spamming one move that nothing could contend with, only taking damage when I screwed up. He came close to punching me in the face that day, I think.
Anyway, that review didn't win. Your Resident Evil review won. It was simple a comprehensive effort that read effortlessly. You did a great job of conveying the survival horror aspect and how vulnerable your character is. I especially dug the part where you mention it's not trying to be the old survival horror games, but is channeling them and adding in elements from more modern games, in particular first-person ones, as well as movies such as TCM. And the part at the end about how the game falters late due to going into over-the-top action territory (including the bit about how RE titles are pretty susceptible to this sort of thing) is a good way of handling the whole "well the game was really good, but…" syndrome this one falls into.
---
And now it's off to ponder other things, such as "If I knew you could only do a handful of quests after Horizon in Mass Effect 2 before the game forces you to go to the deserted Collector ship, maybe I would have done bigger quests than a couple random side quests you get from scanning planets and the first couple from the Firewalker DLC pack." I don't think I gained a single level doing that stuff and I can see things getting scary intense in this stage.
I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle
