Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 11th -- 17th October// EmP is STILL NOT mean!

Before I get bust writing words about the words written by other people, thank you to this week’s participants for helping out with the horror rush this year. The end is near, and, so far, this has been the year where we’ve needed the least amount of outside help. It’s been a good team effort. You’ve saved me from having to rush through a bad Resident Evil spin-off or having to go back to that weird Silent Hill CYOA they quietly released on the Game Boy. For now, at least.

OVERDRIVE PLACE - DeCap Attack [MD] Overdrive
The intro feels like a bit of a false start. After reading about how the game is an altered version of a Japanese game, I was immediately interested in what those changes might have been, or if we got the superior or inferior version. This is instantly dismissed; I feel like you either need to commit to your opening statement or not make it at all. There seems to be times when you talk around the game rather than about it. The first two paragraphs are the most guilty of this.

I think the review’s highlights are where you talk about the fact that, despite the cartoony graphics and diet-horror theme, it’s just an ordinary platformer that doesn’t feel like anything special. I thought that was communicated well and convinced the reader that it’s a functional game and nothing else. These middle-of-the-road games are the worst to write about, so props for getting through it with that message intact.

THIRD - Kid Dracula [GB] Dagoss
Rob teases a comparison to a Japanese console game; Dagos commits hard to the idea. It makes perfect sense in this context because the origins, it turns out, is very Japanese and the attempt to port it overseas is a bit of an oddity of itself. Maybe some would say that this information is superfluous, but I think we’ve all discovered by now that this person is not me. Maybe the rest of the review -- the bit talking about the actual game -- comes off as a little rushed through in comparison, though. Still, it has some very good lines in there, like the eating candy shot. I thought it was also a good idea to get across how, while it’s a dig at Castlevania, it plays more like a mobile Bomberman.

SECOND - Alan Wake Remastered [PC] Honestgamer

I did not see this one coming. The person to revive the Alan Wake streak wherein we’ve only had one solitary year where a Wake review did not feature? Jason “Luigi’s Mansion is a bit too scary” Venter.

Jason gets a few things wrong – the best part of the game is clearly the wave rush against the rock stage on the farm, and the game isn’t particularly scary. But he ties that last one in, and it’s interesting; when I discuss this game, I’ve done so with people who can talk for hours about Silent Hill and Resident Evil and so, for better or worse, we’re hardened to the horror aesthetic. Seeing Wake from a different perspective is refreshing for me personally, and it sets this review in a different tone than the ones we’ve collected here. I think Jason builds really well on this.

The review gets a bit listy near the end, when it starts to work through what the remaster actually contains, slogging through the DLC chapters (which I never actually got around to playing – you’ve played more of this horror game than I have!) but the review finishes string, going back to its message. Despite jumping at shadows (I’ll out pun you, yet!) the tale’s strong enough to make Jason power through.

FIRST - Simulacra [PC] Joe

All the reviews bundled into Joe’s comeback corner either made me interested in the games or gave me some idea of why I shouldn't bother with them, but there were two I thought were above the rest. It’s not a spoiler to mention that one of them is Simulacra, but I’ll mention briefly why it won out over Oakwood. I thought the intro to Oakwood was pretty confusing; you start yourself off at a point where you assume the reader is just going to know that this is a game bereft of passe ghosts and demons and is, instead, going to scare you with dinosaurs. The only indication of this is the screenshot, and you’re expecting a lot of heavy lifting from it if you think that’s enough to clue people in. Otherwise, it’s good stuff that intrigues me.

Likewise with Simulacra, which has a stupid name, but is a part of a weird new found phone subgenre that I doubt anyone would have predicted. I think this is written really well, proving solid examples of the puzzles within as well as enough plot to incite interest without overplaying your hand at either. I suspect this isn't a particularly long game, which makes picking what you’re going to discuss particularly tricky, which is a pitfall you manage to avoid. That said, I suspect that very last line may be something of an inside joke.

For us. For them. For you.

Thanks for the words. Who'd have thought that the game that would break my stronghold on second place (or placing in general) would have been a dull platformer that I had to really struggle to feel enough enthusiasm to simply write anything about?!?

Congrats to the actual placers. I really dug Joe's winning review. Not a game I'd be interested in playing, but his review did interest me enough to look up information on the game -- not what I'd expect from a game about searching out clues on a mobile phone.

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

Thanks for the topic and for your kind comments on my review.

While I thought the idea of a rock concert in a corn field while (essentially) zombies were rushing me was pretty cool and was even well executed within the game, it just didn't stand out for me the way it did for you. Still, I can understand why you would have felt it was a highlight.

I addressed the DLC the way I did because I didn't want to end the review without discussing them, knowing some people may not have experienced them yet, but I also didn't want to give them excessively lengthy descriptions and I felt most readers would be more interested on learning about the meat of the package, whether because they had played the game before and wondered how my impressions compared, or because they hadn't yet gotten around to it and wanted to understand how the game might feel to play in general.

It was a fairly easy review to write, to my pleasant surprise. I spent a lot less time on it than I do on most of my reviews, but also was happier with the end result. Win, win!

"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