Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Jan. 18-24, 2021, with an added bonus of me copying Joe to talk about movies I watch

Back on track with this thing -- although a couple days later than planned. But I had a review to write, so there's that.

Looks like 4 reviews this time. There also is one review of mine, for Megadimension Neptunia VII that will get moved on to next week's deal. Much like Joe, I also watch random horror movies, although right now, I'm into the broad category known as "Stuff I find on YouTube" which seems to cover one hell of a lot. To cover the past handful of weeks:

Without Warning -- 1980 possible inspiration for The Predator, as the villain was an alien hunting humans on Earth. The difference being that this movie played out like a slasher more than an action movie. And had name guys like Jack Palance and Martin Landau chewing the scenery, with the highlight being Palance charging the alien at the end while repeatedly yelling "ALIEN! ALIEN!", but all drawn out like "AAAAAALLLLLLIIIIIIEEEEEENNNNNNN". That was great.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie -- 1974 Italian zombie film. Unlike the average Italian zombie film. the plot makes sense as long as you don't think about things too much. And there's not really much, if any, sleaze. But it is a fun movie that plays out like a mystery for the first half and then turns zombie muncher in the second half. With a glorious asshole of a cop working as the human villain impeding the main characters as they try to get to the bottom of things.

The Slayer -- About 1981 or so. This movie kind of was a precursor to Nightmare on Elm Street, as the main character has some sort of tie to an evil supernatural force that comes out when she's sleeping. Unless she was just insane…the movie is a bit vague as to what's really happening. And also really slow-paced. Kind of a blah outing.

Death Screams -- Another early 80s slasher. That wasn't overly memorable. Very little happened for a while and then people get knocked off one after the next with very little build-up or anything. Main thing I remembered was how the people casting the film thought it'd be a good idea to have a former Playboy (or Penthouse, wharves) model playing the role of a nice, prudish girl. And how a weird mentally handicapped guy simultaneously was an awkward goof who needed basic concepts explained to him…but also was a criminal mastermind, able to stalk and slay people like it was the easiest thing on Earth to do.

Redneck Zombies -- Guilty pleasure movie, as least if you like intoxicants…if not, the "pleasure" part might not apply and you'll just feel guilty for wasting time on trash. Moonshine-loving redneck stereotypes drink moonshine tainted by toxic waste, turn into zombies and kill people. A lot of it was aggressively stupid, but there were moments where the "blindly throwing darts at the board" approach to writing this thing did work out well.

Ju-On The Curse and Ju-On 2 -- The pre-Grudge Japanese Ju-On movies. Two 70 minute films that could have been combined into one 115 or so minute one, as a good chunk of the second movie was barely more than 30+ minutes of the first film being shown again. But I like this stuff. I actually do find the Asian concept of "if something is haunted, you're totally screwed if you have anything to do with it" to be kind of frightening. Checking on a truant student living at the house. You're dead. Moving into the house later. You're dead. A realtor trying to sell the house. You're dead. A cop investigating the deaths. You're dead. A friend of someone living there. You're dead. And there's no way out. You encounter the curse, it kills you and that's the end of that.

And now….the reviews.

Brian did one of his "review or blog?" works. Where I enjoyed reading it -- particularly because I bought Pillars a ways back and it's good to see someone on the site give it such praise, especially since I've discovered I REALLY struggle with getting through this sort of tabletop-derived RPG -- but found the bulk of it to be talking about more abstract things than the review essentials like "the plot" or "the basics". I did like your talk about this game's variation of THAC0 and a few other tidbits, but for pure review purposes, I could think of a number of aspects I'd be more interested in reading about than how the game handles all its gods and religions. But it's still a fun read that kept me interested. It just seems to be a better read for a person who has played the game and is interested in reading what other veterans of it have to say than a person looking for opinions and insights in order to determine if they'd want to pick it up.


THIRD PLACE

EmP's The Dungeon of Not Typing All That (PC)

This is a good "give the basics" review that definitely doesn't run long because you densely packed each paragraph with information. A little fell short, at least for someone like me, who has played roughly 3 gazillion RPGs over his life. Acting like belch or kiss moves in battle are all wacky and zany. I've played countless games where stuff like that is used as a skill and those games weren't looked at as trope-mockers! Still, taking that out of the equation, it is impressive to fit in this much information into a pretty short review. Didn't take long to get through it and I learned a lot about what this game provides. That works for me!

SECOND PLACE

Nightfire's DOOM Eternal (PC)

Over the years, we've occasionally brought up how some games are tougher to review than others. I think you may have hit on the toughest sort to really review: The not-as-good sequel to a great game. Where you enjoyed the game, but compared to the first one, it is lacking in a lot of ways and somewhat of a disappointment. The issue being that your disappointment permeates the writing and then you have a 3.5/5 review where you're listing off letdowns and flaws, one after the next, while occasionally tossing in a "it's still good and fun" line like you're almost trying to convince yourself, let along the reader. Been there, done that. This is a good, comprehensive review that tells me a lot about this game. Previously, the main stuff I'd heard about it was from a former site writer bashing stuff like those Marauders on Twitter, so it was nice to get a more fully-fleshed out critique of it. But it did have that vibe of a bash review littered with "But it's not THAT bad, guys…really, I swear!" lines and a couple paragraphs complementing a few aspects of it.

REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Pickhut's Arcade Archives: Gradius III (PlayStation 4)

This was a really good bash review. My only Gradius 3 experience was with the SNES port, so I'd only heard a few bits and pieces about this game's difficulty. You did a great job of summing that up for anyone with any familiarity with Gradius. Comparing the difficulty of the first stage here to the second or third in another game worked well for me and discussing how the game's checkpoint locations set you up to be utterly screwed over by a death is something any shmup vet can understand. This was just a really strong view where you avoided just trashing the game and simply took it apart by illustrating how its difficulty makes it all but inaccessible for most players.


And that's it for another week. Typed two RotWs and four reviews in January this year. Might need to sleep through a month or two to make up for that!

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

Yeah, Doom Eternal was a tough one to write for. I considered being even meaner and giving it a 3/5 (and I might actually adjust this later). I felt like 3.5 was enough of a statement on its own when compared to the universal 5/5s and 10/10s its predecessor received. But you're probably right, a game that I uninstalled right after playing probably deserves an even lower rating.

Thanks for the placement, and congrats to Pickhut for the win. :)

placid like acid

Thanks for the RotW! I'm glad my points got across as a reader, though I will admit I got a little snarky about the game towards the end. I actually originally didn't intend to review this game; when I first found out it was going to be an Arcade Archives release in December, all it did was bring up bad memories.

I guess my driving motivation for reviewing it was the fact that this might be a first time experience for many players, considering the arcade release didn't get that many ports. The SNES version may be based on the arcade game, but there's enough differences in terms of difficulty to consider them different games; it's not an AMAZING game, but I legitimately enjoy playing the SNES port.

Good on EmP and Nightfire for submitting solid reviews this week, too!

I head spaceshit noises.

Thanks for the props - super solid showing this week. Congrats to Nightfire (MORE THAN ONE A YEAR!) and Pick.

For us. For them. For you.

My understanding was that Without Warning did inspire Predator, and that Predator was a quasi-remake in the same way Q was a fake remake of The Flying Serpent.

I've heard of The Slayer, but not seen it. The description reminds me of numerous horror movies that revolve around dreams aside from NOES, like Dreamaniac and Bad Dreams (I saw the latter of those once on Cinemax or some channel like that back in the day, but I don't remember any of it). I'll probably watch it at some point since it is a video nasty and I just have to see what all the hoopla was about.

I've yet to see the original-original Ju-On movies, but I'm probably going to skip them. I'm so tired of that franchise after the The Grudge 2, and I haven't even bothered with any of the more recent Japanese installments.

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

The Slayer is a video nasty? Huh...I guess there was a good kill or so, but I've seen FAR worse before. I'll have to see if I can figure out how it got on that list.

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