Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: May 2-8 -- Giving Joe his props a month or so after I said I'd get to it soon.

For the first time in a while, I actually have time to do site stuff! Been a wild couple months. May and the beginning of June were hellish as far as work goes, with me being on the road seemingly all the time. And then, I did a lot of vacation stuff and was on the road for most of the last month doing things like going to race tracks and drinking heavily. So, now it's time to see if I can stay focused long enough to do this RotW and maybe type a review or three before I completely forget how to do that sort of thing.

At least this RotW will be easy. There are three reviews. They all are by Joe. So, time to read them and decide which one I like the best and add a few cursory comments on the others.

Also, movies! I watched a lot since the last time I contributed anything. Among the highlights were Deep Red (Argento's biggest-named giallo; amazingly over-the-top kills), Street Trash (just a wonderfully sleazy little film that did a fine job of applying my "nothing is too disgusting and wrong" sense of humor) and Razorback (cool and surreal Australian combination of a Jaws-style monster flick and a revenge movie). Also, a few that I consider varying degrees of guilty pleasure such as: Spookies (very troubled production; comes off as the creation of a child with a very hyperactive imagination), Ice Cream Man (Ron Howard's goofy-looking brother Clint as the killer, mid-40s and very attractive Olivia Hussey playing a woman who had to be roughly 70…with the main work making her look older being her clothes) and Uncle Sam (evil zombified soldier vs. non-patriotic assholes during a town's 4th of July celebration; also, children who can't remotely act in key roles).

Hyper Light Drifter (PS4): First off, in the opening paragraph, I'm pretty sure you meant the creator's battles with chronic illness, not "chronicle". Also, it should be "purse our lips" and not "purse out lips". I'll cease with the minor grammatical things now, but you may want to give this one a once-over to correct those and any others that may or may not be there. On a more cheery note, this was a really good review that makes this game sound intriguing. You do a good job of duplicating the feeling of not really knowing what's going on in your first few paragraphs of game talk and then slowly illuminate things in a way that it feels like the natural thought progression of a new player to it. That's always a great style to use with those games that don't drown you in tutorials and hand-holding and you did well with it, making this a fun read.

Primal Rage (SNES): Fun Fact: My best friend growing up had this game at one point. I think we played it together for a good 5-10 minutes before getting bored. Good times. I can barely remember it, so I don't know why it didn't click with me, but your review paints a convincing picture. An intriguing fighting game stripped down to the bare essentials so that it is playable, but simply not exciting and also possesses an awkward control scheme that makes pulling off a lot of moves more trouble than it's worth. I give you credit for pulling off a fair review that doesn't outright bash the game, but simply states that there isn't anything memorable about it -- which isn't something you'd expect to hear when talking about a fighting game featuring prehistoric creatures. And let's be real, with all the stuff you mentioned here, I doubt that even keeping the monkey piss kill would have kept things interesting for too long.

Vain Hotel (PC): Man, you do have a knack for finding all the great horror games, don't you? Between OctJOEber and random horror reviews, I've gotten such an education in stuff I hope I never play in a million years. I think you did a very good job with this one -- starting out by describing how this isn't the typical cheap crap horror game and actually is trying to forge its own path. And you also mention that it does a fine job with some of its imagery. But, in the grand scheme of things, it's less "different" than it is "different, but equal", as it struggles mightily in implementing fun stuff to do. The first part sounds like a generic walking simulator pretending to be horror, what with scripted poltergeists and all. The concept of a platforming stage does sound horrible. And the part at the end where you try to dodge bullies while a timer that's determined by your previous progress ticks down and you have to outlast it probably isn't how I'd want to conclude a game of this nature. One of those reviews where I could feel your joy at not playing yet another generic crap horror game, but also feel your disappointment at how this game failed in different ways.


REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Joe's Vain Hotel (PC)

This one wins. I've been a fan of your horror reviews, but have mentioned before that due to the same ol' same ol' nature of so many of those cheap Steam rejects, your reviews started to kind of blend together. Having a bad game that's a different sort of bad seemed to rejuvenate you a bit in writing about them, making it the most enjoyable of your three reviews.


Now, it's time to see if I can get these reviews done or if it'll be another month or two before anyone hears from me again. MYSTERY!

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

It's kind of weird what games we might have gotten to experience through no fault of our own, like when a friend bought something obscure that we would have passed over, but we wind up playing it anyway because another game is another game... and then we wind up liking it. Primal Rage was one of those games that never looked super appealing to me, even though I liked dinosaurs a lot as a kid and it kind of seemed relevant. But no friend ever bought it, so outside of glancing over it in Nintendo Power and I think maybe seeing it running on a demo unit at the video store, I never paid it much attention during its launch period. Seems my instincts there were spot-on.

Thanks for putting this topic together, overdrive, and for the mini-critiques on several of Joe's submissions. Congratulations also to Joe for beating Joe and Joe to snag first place!

"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