Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Nov. 6-12, 2017 -- A Murderer's Row of Quality

A fairly simple week for me, with five guys doing eight reviews. Three of them (counting a hold-over) by EmP, who may be penalized a potential placement due to reminding me about the time I forgot a hold-over in one of my RotWs AGAIN. Also, I'll have a hold-over myself, so Jerec has a once-in-a-lifetime chance of giving me three wins in three straight weeks of him judging. And since he's nearing the end of his tenure doing this, it legitimately might be his only chance to get this accomplished, so c'mon buddy, DO THE RIGHT THING!!!!

*ahem* Onto the reviews and away from my blatant attempt to sway a judge!

THIRD PLACE

Joe's Creeping Terror (3DS)

In reality, every review I read for this thing was really good, with nary a weak link for me to instantly disregard. To briefly touch on the non-placers, Jason had two solid reviews for two simple Switch games. Unlike some of them I've read, I could tell he enjoyed the games and had more behind his words than a simple masochistic desire to cover every digitally-released game for the system (you know, like me and Kemco's mobile RPGs!). Wulverblade was my favorite of the two, but both were good. Jerec gave an in-depth comprehensive look at a mobile Animal Crossing game, complete with microtransactions that don't seem to be all that necessary. When I saw what sort of game I'd be reading about, I cringed a bit, but the writing was engaging and kept my interest.

So, what put Joe above these reviews and into THE PLACEMENT ZONE? Well, part of it may have been the horror theme, as I do enjoy my horror. Or, more likely, it was Joe's handling of the horror, as he took the stance of delving into what makes horror work and how this game fits into that thesis. Early on, the game works because it plays on the fear of the unknown and then moves to the more direct "fear of the massive man-monster trying to rip your head off". But, as he says, good horror needs to build on that and Joe does a good job showing how this game doesn't remotely do that. After you've gotten used to hiding from the enemies, it becomes easy, turning them into nuisances instead of terrifying monstrosities. And then, you discover you can easily fight them off. You know, just like all those times jocks would throw punches at something like Jason and totally didn't get brutally slaughtered for trying to stand toe-to-toe. Oh wait…that never happened --- that boxer in F13: VIII got his head knocked clean off his body for trying that shit. Heh, I watch that kill every couple months because it's so funny.

Anyway, Joe had a good theme here and tied it into the game's successes and failures nicely. Much like Jason and Jerec easily could have placed some, if not most, weeks, this review could have easily been first or second in many of them. SO WHY IS IT THIRD?

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SECOND PLACE

EmP's Dungeons 3 (PC)

Of the three reviews you submitted, this was both the oldest and the best. As said before, the GotG serial reviews do the job for reviewing each installment, but just lack something when considered as stand-alone reviews due to rehashing old ground, while trying not to spoil things. And besides, no Journey, no dice. The one for Zeron's Folly was nice and made me chuckle with the stuff about the horny monkey, while also getting annoyed by yet another game with a protagonist completely clueless about other characters being attracted to him (I recently played one of those Kemco games that did the same thing -- no matter how blunt the girl was, the guy was always like "What are you talking about?"), but I liked this one more. You really did a great job of providing information about the inspiration for this game, as well as pointing out how this particular series has improved and evolved from being a copy of Dungeon Keeper to being something nice all of its own. You did a great job of pointing out mechanics and how you have to start invading before you think you're ready to, simply because without invading, you won't get the resources you need to REALLY invade -- essentially discussing the balance good games like this have where you're never in a comfort zone, but without simply saying that. While I've not played previous games in this series, you did a strong enough job of describing how things have been changed and/or improved that I was able to understand what you were saying. Strong effort.

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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Pickhut's Alien Isolation (PS4)

You know, now that I've won a couple of these in recent weeks, calling first place "Overdrive Place" no longer feels like a mean joke I'm perpetrating on myself (mocking other people for sucking is bad; mocking yourself for sucking is…just kind of weird), so there's that!

Oh yeah, you and your winner. In a way, it was appropriate having this review and Joe's Creeping Terror review this week, as both games seem to have been the same, as far as starting out promisingly, but running out of steam partway through. I think what gives you the edge is a combination of your game having more meat to it (major release vs. 3DS game I'd never heard of, so not a surprise) and your descriptions of things. You really paint a good picture describing the Alien-free early stages and how they work with you learning the stealth stuff against human foes before having to go to grad school to keep away from the Alien. And how they don't always work due to the occasional glitch or stealth breakdown.. And then when you mention that the game runs out of ideas and loses its appeal after all the elements have been introduced, it's convincing because you did a good enough job of explaining the game's linear stages that it's easy to understand how the appeal fades quickly when new stuff stops being added to the mix. Very strong writing, here!
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Phew, that was a tough week to judge! Stop writing so good, people! (Disclaimer: The last sentence probably not approved by Venter)Hopefully, in the next week or two, I actually have time to get writing done. Have three reviews to do and I'm nearly done with a fourth game, but I've been so damn swamped that I'll be lucky to get one of those done next week.

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

Thanks for the comments, Overdrive. Also:

Stop writing so good, people!

This plea that people stop writing so good is most definitely not approved by myself. Please keep writing, everyone. The more, the better! It's good to see a RotW really mean something, right?

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

You say I should give you a win when I don't even place?

I like your moxie.

Thanks, though. Pocket Camp wasn't the most interesting game to write about, but I did want to have a review up for it early since it's not often that Australia gets the jump on the rest of the world with game releases.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

Thanks for the RotW and the kind words about the writing; good to know something positive came out of playing that game's second half! Always nice to place so high in a week with good competition, and good on everyone else on a solid week of writing.

Edit: basically said the same thing twice in one sentence... Still!

I head spaceshit noises.

I'll openly admit that though I enjoyed the games more than I suspected I would, I'm not sorry to see the last GotG review in my outbox. Well done for passing the Journey trap I laid for you.

The naive protagonist trope can grate, I agree, but I really like how they pulled it off in Zeran's Folly. A member of his all-girl-totally-not-a-harem crew keeps flirting with him more and more desperately and rather than being confused, he just understands it either literally or as innocently as can be imagined. It made me laugh a few times, and I'm a miserable sod.

Ta for the placement. I think Dungeons was the better of the three reviews I subbed as well. Brilliant game, too - it's important to me that the genre survives EA who have just shattered the record for negative down votes for their Battlefront II AMA on Reddit. What an awful, awful collection of people...

Congrats to Pick and Joe on reviews I also enjoyed.

For us. For them. For you.

I thank you for placement, and for getting this topic out.

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.