Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: April 4-10, 2022 -- Quick-n-easy; just the way I like all my obligations to be!

This should be quick and easy, since there were only two reviews over the course of my week. One by Joe and one by templarseeker, who may be making a debut writing for the site. Maybe, I'm not one for paying attention to details. But now I am curious, so let's check it out. Yep, it's a debut, so that's cool.

To eat up space (and some time in the office), let's recap the movies I've watched over the last few weeks! Don't Go in the Woods was a hilarious slasher. Amateur hour at its finest with horrible acting, robotic delivery of lines because the vocals had to be dubbed in after the fact and a whole bunch of characters who only existed in order to be quickly dispatched. But the scenery was pretty! Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye was a very solid giallo that did that cool thing where it is a murder mystery, but carried a horror vibe for most of it with a creepy castle and a vampire legend to make you wonder just what was happening. So Sweet…So Perverse was another giallo. Not as good, but it was entertaining with its twists and turns.

April Fool's Day wasn't a perfect sort-of-slasher, but it was pretty endearing. Guess it helps when most of the actors involved actually had talent. Lizard in a Woman's Skin was another fun giallo that mostly was a police procedural, but also had a lengthy bit of psychedelic sexuality and a nicely suspenseful chase scene. Angel Heart was a very fun film that was a good example of one of my favorite sub-genres of horror that I like to refer to as MINDFUCK. The sort of film where there's a mystery of sorts going on and it's tricky to figure it out due to the film blurring the lines between reality and delusion. Jacob's Ladder probably is still my favorite of this sort, but this movie ranks pretty highly. Dawn of the Mummy was a fun bit of schlock. A mummy movie where the mummies act more like zombies, some hilariously bad acting and a total lack of logic on display. Works for me!

SECOND PLACE

templarseeker's Long Live the Queen (PC)

This review really could be helped by some diligent proofreading. A lot of run-on sentences, changes in tense and so on that made it a bit of a chore to read through. On a more positive note, your enthusiasm for the game was noticeable and you did well at portraying that. Even if the writing was kind of choppy, I still found myself interested by this game to a degree and,, considering you described it as a visual novel, that's saying something. Ask EmP, assuming his latest injury ever heals -- he's done a few visual novel games (and stuff that's similar) on my weeks and my commentary usually is to the effect that I resent him for making me read about this stuff. But this game seems pretty interesting. You did a good job of covering the basics and giving a few examples of decisions you might have to make, as well as letting the reader know it's a tough game where mistakes will lead to death. Clean up the writing and this could be a good review.


REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Joe's Lydia (Switch)

Man, if I had a kid, I could be a drunken knight in their imagination!! Okay, might not be the best thing to take from the review, but here we are. This was a really good review because it worked well at both describing this game, as well as discussing the pros and cons of how it tackled its depressing little message. Like you said, bringing the serious stuff to the forefront and then still continuing with the fantasy-land framing device is a weird way of doing things. On the other hand, it's a very short game -- a fact that, as you pointed out, helps things out because nothing outstays its welcome. All of which works to make your conclusion of this being a respectable title that just doesn't quite reach the pinnacle of "games that tackle serious topics".


Time to go back in my cage for a few more weeks!

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