Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Overdrive handles 11/23 to 11/29 of 2008

A friend of mine's back in town right now. We hung out yesterday and had ourselves a number of brews. I'm not feeling so sturdy right now. Which makes me really happy that Thanksgiving was last week, leading to a lower-than-usual number of reviews. Well, Sportsman was really busy.....so he gets the unofficial and just made up OVERDRIVE AWARD FOR DILIGENCE honor. Congratulations. You've ensured my poor hung-over little brain is going to have to do a lot of reading. Or at least more than it likely can handle.

Standard rules apply. Only one thing per dude (or dudette) counts. No staff stuff counts. Yeah. Right now, if you want, just imagine me making my usual quip at EmP's expense. Be as creative as you want.



THIRD PLACE: Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS) by bigcj34

I do have to tell you that you did kinda have one strike against you entering this week in that I personally am not a fan of all these music-oriented Guitar Hero and Rock Band kinds of games. It's weird, because I love to listen to music.....but have absolutely no desire to sit down with a plastic prop to "play" a bunch of songs in a game. So, I definitely wasn't the target audience for your review and likely was far less receptive to it than the average staffer would be. However, you did really intrigue me with one particular point that made me think a lot. Right in your first paragraph, you mentioned how it's a legit challenge for a developer to "scale down" a game for a handheld system, while keeping it a good game. I can't even think of how many times I (or another reviewer) has played a port of a "big system" game on a handheld and been disappointed by how much it lost in translation (right off the top of my head, my review of the GBA Baldur's Gate port of the PS2 game popped into my head as one such disappointment. So, this made me interested in seeing how this game handled the transition and you did a good job of illustrating that it did pretty good in the process. Nice review that did a very good job of mentioning the pros and negatives of a Guitar Hero game on a portable system.

SECOND PLACE: Ikaruga (GameCube) by grassroots

This is your alt account, ain't it Sportsman? Interestingly, I liked your alt account review the most of any of the ones you submitted. I think a lot of has to do that since I never bought a GameCube, I probably have less knowledge about this game than any supposed shmup fan (which I pass off by saying I'm a retro shmup fan). You did a very good job of explaining the nuts and bolts of this game, so a guy like me who knows very little about this game was able to understand the polarity system and how it affects and influences the gameplay. And you sounding convincing in your primary argument that while the game's very good and deserving of praise, it really isn't this be-all, end-all classic that redefined the shooter genre.

OVERDRIVE PLACE: Mega Man 9 (PSN) (PlayStation 3) by dagoss

Very interesting review that, as someone who's played all those old school NES Mega Man games (but not to the level you have), I was easily able to get into. Thought you made a number of very good points here. Especially where you were talking about how this is a good game, but one that's extremely self-aware of how it is simply a re-hash of a beloved NES series. And that ties in greatly with your point of how that's a sign of the lack of originality. You have a game constantly telling you "this is retro Mega Man, dood!" because that's all it brings to the table. Sure, that's cool and all because those games were very good, but in today's day and age, that means this game will be little more than a novelty that fans of the series will play through and likely cast it aside for some kickass new game like that Valkyria Chronicles you were mentioning in your intro paragraph. You really did a good job of making that point clear.



Off for the ol' hair of the dog treatment so I can get to feeling better at some point today.....

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

Shouldn't Overdrive place be second place?

ZING!

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Thanks for the mention! My only RotW win is with a grassroots review (Animal Crossing) so maybe it's the better account after all.

The reason it's under this account is because I really don't like what I said and don't agree with it (I agree with the score but not the reasoning).

IF YOU WANT MORE BEATS FOR YOUR BUCK THERE'S NO LUCK.

Shouldn't Overdrive place be second place?

That better be a dig at Overdrive...!

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Finally!

There three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.