Maybe I'll start writing reviews if I post them here, you think?

That sounds like a great idea kids; let's post some reviews and let 'em have it, huyuk. Before you ask, I'm not digging up that old Writer's Lounge review thread of mine because the links are all dead and the arguments and critisisms contained within are boring.

The Polynomial

I'd repost the other reviews I have under my name on Gamespot, but I don't like any of them. It's great having written and then forgotten many of these reviews, because now I can make fun of them and not feel like an idiot. Well, okay, I'll psot some for you to attack viciously.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

This one's so happy I just want to punch myself in the face.

Persona 3 FES

This one basically says, well, here's how the game works, it's awesome. Dur dur dur.

Additionally, anything on Nailbittingcombats is fair game. For the record, my Final Fantasy X review is AWESOME.

Polynomial review was good; I checked out the game and now I'm clutching my dollar bills in front of that Steam window behind Firefox. Chance of download: 999.9%.

If I read another 10-score review of SMG2, I'm gonna stick my tongue in something unpleasant and call it a popsicle. Something hairy, and greasy, full of menstrual blood and yeast.

Persona 3 was the jump-off. I can't imagine a spinoff (excuse the pun) being any better. But since they did it with part 2, I'll dare to imagine. Great review here.

Oh, and the FFX review? *bookmarks*

Polymammarymal:

I lol'd when you said "choice cuts" sorry dude! :3 I want to hate on the review, but apart from the fact it was awesome, you never once mentioned synesthesia .I had no choice but to thumb that bastard up.

SMG2:

You know what I think they're on? LSD induced synesthsia. Oh crap, can I thumb myself down for that? :(

Persona 3:

"if Persona 3 threw you into its tangled yet orderly structure of balancing social simulation with fast-paced Dragon Quest-meets-Roguelike JRPG battling, the game would have been chucked out of more windows than when Metal Gear Solid fans learned the second game didn't feature Snake as the playable protagonist for the second and far larger act. (Oh, spoiler alert, sorry"

lol. I can't wait to play that SMT game with the really long title that isn't meant to be as good as the Presonas. I'm so cheap I'll buy that instead of a Persona. If it was cheap. Oh CRAP! You know this Persona review reminds me of some of my reviews except instead of sexism and racism you have wit to go with the beginning of the review which is also the beginning of the game. Oh, but there's busty chicks so i guess that's cool.

Lots of hyperbole be here, but it's awesome hyperbole. Hyperbole taht makes me want that vs. game. WTF were they thinking with the title? Jesus.

FFX:

"It's flaws are bleeding and messy, but like the Metal Gear solid series, I seem to love its flaws more than I revile them"

Brilliant typo. I hope it was deliberate. Genius if it was.

Thumbs down for the story comments. Oh crap, I can onyl do that to the screen. Well sir, *thumbs down*

P.S.

Honestly I enjoyed them all. I recently read some GT5 reviews---or bits of them, and this sort of stuff is just so much more refreshing and pleasent after reading crap like that. Thank you sir! Now I feel like writing a review, a cheerful one, not one that secretly wants to stab all the games journalists in their collective backs with a rusty fork, then force fed Gerstmann his own Kane and Lynch review printed on used CNET paper, and by printed I mean CNET employee faeces to go with the stuff he craps out and calls reviews.

Now I'm all pissed off again. Damn you!

^I think that is one of my best comments on here ever, and the typos make it all the better. lol@the multiple spellings of sinisdesia---hey, there's a new one!Foolz3h

Keep trying man! More spellingz!

So I played Polynomial. It's alright, but insanely repetitive.iloveflash

So what about this part of my review:

"the game's lasting appeal is only as long as your interest in the topic. If waves of fractals comprised of stars bobbing to your favorite song doesn't really sound like a great time, the minor gameplay involving the silly enemies won't convince you."

confused you? I mean, if you bought it on my reccommendation, I would have assumed you read my reservations.

I just played that game till it crashed. I got 400 million points and third place on the leaderboard. Talk about an eye orgy.iloveflash

Now you go and tell me that wasn't a 9.5 worthy level of pretty lights. I mean, come on.

Threw in a lot of reviews from the possitive pile eh?

Polynomial: Wow, I really need to check this out. I saw a demonstration of it and it was amazing. I would like to challenge anyone who still says games can't be art to play that and still say the same thing afterwards.

I think the question is what substance was you on when you wrote the Super Mario Galaxy review :P

The persona games sounds really interesting. They're on my long list of games I should check out whenever I get the time and money to expand my horizon and buy a Playstation system.

Now you go and tell me that wasn't a 9.5 worthy level of pretty lights. I mean, come on.

Aberinkulas

T'was admittedly the kind of high-octane production worthy of the score, yes. At least that's what I thought while playing it. You know, when the game was stuttering, sputtering, hacking and wretching at every frame rate? Messy. But cute, yes, very cute.

...I really don't know whether I like this game or not. :P

the game was stuttering, sputtering, hacking and wretching at every frame rateiloveflash

You're doing it wrong. Deep down inside yourself I think you already knew this. We both know you can do better. Next time, try this:

i ran teh gamez at 500 fps and it was garbage imo liek their was no point and it was so pretenious and it didnt work in wine loliloveflash

Final Fantasy XII review

More to come, including an editorial with me and Foolz.

Oh my **** GOD. GS just deleted my whole post. Frick, man.

Your review listed too many things as being good about the game, and too few things that were glaringly awful, so I thumbed it down. Among them: the story is not so great, the character development is, frankly, half-assed (let's try to keep at least Tidus as a standard here please), and the battle system features lag just for the sake of making it feel like an MMO--and that's what's making your fighting so slow. But the audiovisuals are indeed teh shiet, the game does set a mood worthy of honoring our previous trips to Ivalice, and overall, it is pretty addictive, this adventuring and hunting and stuff.

Oh my **** GOD. GS just deleted my whole post. Frick, man.

Your review listed too many things as being good about the game, and too few things that were glaringly awful, so I thumbed it down. Among them: the story is not so great, the character development is, frankly, half-assed (let's try to keep at least Tidus as a standard here please), and the battle system features lag just for the sake of making it feel like an MMO--and that's what's making your fighting so slow. But the audiovisuals are indeed teh shiet, the game does set a mood worthy of honoring our previous trips to Ivalice, and overall, it is pretty addictive, this adventuring and hunting and stuff.

iloveflash

So, basically, you didn't agree with me, so you decided to be petty and thumb the review down instead of discussing the issues in the game with me? Son, I am disssssapoint.

The story is excellent. I was constantly impressed with the writing and the plot.

The character development is far better than in any Final Fantasy game before it, save IX. Are you really offering Tidus as an example of good character development?  His constantly changing personalities was awful development, if you could even call it that. Not to mention that the translation of X made it so hard to understand what the heck anyone was saying.And how about VIII? You know, where mister tough and gruff suddenly turned into Rinoa's knight in shining armor in the process of about two seconds. I hear 6 had good development, as well as 9, but all the rest are bad at it. Final Fantasy stinks at character development; 12 is the only one that got it somewhat right.

I talked about how the fighting is slow. That's the game's one and only flaw for me; everything else was 10/10. I didn't know why they did it. I'm not a bloody developer. They fixed it in the International version, which would probably be a 10 out of 10 for me.

You're a mad man. The game's lovely and I love it. Just because I didn't mention the stuff you didn't like didn't make is a bad review.

Like I said, GS deleted my post. Let's try this again:

Character development. We can agree to disagree on this one. As far as characters go, Ashe and Basch are the only two "protagonists" required to sit through this mess, and any attempt at making everyone else fit into the story comes off as shallow and half-hearted to me. If I had to choose a better set of assisting protagonists, I'd list Larsa, first and foremost, then Vossler and maybe Reks as better candidates than a pair of hipsters, a Tony Stark ripoff, and a pron star. The fact that Ashe and Basch were treated as guests almost throughout the game (because the guests certainly had better reasons to be protagonists, as I just mentioned), only made things worse. In other words, nearly the entire cast had little to no connection to the actual plot. But of course if you can look past that, they're all interesting in some way. It still would've been better to bring their story arcs closer to home, but no one's dead-on horrible. I list Tidus as a standard because yeah, he was a more engaging protagonist than Vaan. Not moreso than Larsa, but definitely Vaan. This is not all subjective

You talked about how the fighting was slow, but I don't think you got in-depth enough, or drew the right connections. This game is slow because it is modelled after MMO's, which makes no goddamn sense. I'm talking about lag. You tell a character to attack, and they have a free-for all. Tell someone to use a technick, magic, item, summoning, or quickening, and they're "queued". The attack command has priority over everything, so the simple act of using a phoenix down can take you several turns if your opponents, which just murdered the character in question, decided they want to use magick skills to wipe out everyone else. If the attack command was placed in this queue system, at least things would be fair. But no: hold your phoenix down while two enemies cast a fifty-second long spell and two others bash away. This is the same issue I had with FFX-2, so it has become apparent to me that Square is doing this on purpose, using command lag to make things poopier for players.

I don't think this was a particularly bad review, but it's not the most in-depth. You list many positive things about the game that are spot on, but there are glaring flaws which you ignore or don't explore that deeply, mainly the characters and command lag, among other things like the lack of quality minigames, which was usually a staple in the series.

"The story is excellent. I was constantly impressed with the writing and the plot."

Oh dear lord...

You list many positive things about the game that are spot on, but there are glaring flaws which you ignore or don't explore that deeply,iloveflash

 BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THEY ARE FLAWS. I THINK THE GAME IS AWESOME AND THAT THE FLAWS YOU MENTION ARE NOT FLAWS, AND THAT YOU ARE WRONG. WHAT THE HECK IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THIS? I DIDN'T TALK ABOUT THE FLAWS THAT I DIDN'T THINK ARE FLAWS.

I mentioned everything I thought was important.Just because YOU think something is important that I didn't mention doesn't mean I'm wrong!

Notes:

-Final Fantasy minigames are all terrible and the removal of them is a godsend. If you liked any FF minigames, you're the reason why we can't have nice things.

-"I list Tidus as a standard because yeah, he was a more engaging protagonist than Vaan. Not moreso than Larsa, but definitely Vaan. This is not all subjective"

"Interesting" is a subjective term. Honestly, are you drunk? You're usually smarter than this.

I thought Tidus was the worst protagonist in a game I've ever played because:

1) He was annoying.

2) He was annoying.

3) He was bloody annoying.

4) Every once in a while his entire personality would change out of the blue to suit the mood.

5) His daddy issues were boring and uninteresting, which made up 60% of FFX's plot

6) Every time he did something I was screaming at the TV. "NO DON'T DO THAT GOD YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT"

7) He was annoying.

8 ) He was unrelatable.

9) He was so annoying I just wanted to stop playing the game because of him, despite the fact that the gameplay was a lot of fun.

Meanwhile Vaan is:

1) Mildly annoying, but at least consistant.

2) I wasn't screaming at him, except for the beginning when he wanted to break into the castle (though I thought that was pretty badass)

3) He may always be there, but the plot doesn't revolve around him. He gives us someone to relate to in the political heat.

-I don't understand the critisism that only some of the characters directly relate to the plot, considering that they came along for the ride. I mean, did you like KOTOR's cast? Not all of them directly related with the plot, but they were interesting; I'd say more interesting that FFXII's cast, but that's because KOTOR had about twenty times the diologue.

And FFXII's cast was far better than FFX's strong but silent type, strong but silent type, strong but silent type, strong but silent type, comic relief racist, and strong but silent type (whom were all so badly translated that none of them had personalities, just spoken words that sort of made sense if you bashed your head against the wall), or even FFVIII's cast of headstrong emo, headstrong emo, headstrong emo, headstrong preppy, and headstrong emo. And lets not forget FFVII's cast of dejected emo, dejected emo, racial stereotype, pretty face with no personality under the hood, pretty face with no personality under the hood, and so on.

As far as Final Fantasy parties go, XII doesn't have the best (that's IX's domain) but it's still better than most of the games in the series, as far as I'm concerned. It reminds me (again) more of a western RPG, like Baldur's Gate or KOTOR, and I like that.

-I liked the battle system, though I agree that sometimes a command can take too long to get around to being cast. But itt was just too slow. It was even too slow for MMO games. Compare XII to WoW or Everquest and you'll see that it's slow even compared to that. So I don't agree with your MMO assertion.

I said in the review that I think the game was trying to be more like KOTOR than an MMO, and I stand by that.  I think they would have done better by ripping off KOTOR more than they did, though they took most of what was there. In fact, the main niggles of the battle system would have been fixed had they removed the legacy Final Fantasy cruft like the active time battle loading bar nonsense.

However, I'm not arrogant enough to think I know why a developer did what they did. I can make guesses, but I do not know. I honestly think they slowed it down because they were afraid if it was too fast the FF feel would go away, but so much for that. 

-Foolz: I loved the story! I don't know why you're panning me for it. I honestly have no clue.

---

I'm genuinely surprised at the negative reaction my positive review of this game is getting. Seriously. I effing love this game. Why is my love for a game so troubling to everyone?

I liked a game you didn't. Get over it. Seriously.

Because it's the internet and if you disagree with someone you're meant to be mean to them. Anyway the story doesn't exactly suck, on papaer anyway. Unfortunately in its incredibly inept telling that's exactly where it stays with no relation to any of the incredibly under developed and pointless characters. Basch was basically the only person ever in your party that had anything to do with the story (I'm forgetting Ashe because she was so forgettable) and he didn't stick around for long. Plus the settings were kinda boring because they weren't well related to the story. They were hella pretty, though.

Anyway matters of taste aside I enjoyed the review. I did feel you could've perhaps gone into a bit more details about things, but it was entertaining, which is the main thing.

Okay me enjoying the review is still a matter of taste, but you see what I mean!

It's fair if you don't think of some of the game's flaws as flaws, but I do. Not saying this was a bad review because of it, I just can't recommend it. This is a textbook disagreement. A guy wrote a review about Alter AILA Genesis (quite frankly the greatest RPG Maker 2k3 game EVER CREATED) saying it was mediocre, and everyone bashed him for it in their comments. However, no one said his review wasn't fleshed out; it was probably bashed more than any other review BECAUSE he pointed out more about the game than anyone else. They just disagreed that those points made the game mediocre.

I have to say, I can't recommend a review based simply on its depth and the amount of work you poured into it any more than I can recommend a garbage video game because a team of people poured blood and sweat over it for a year and a half. If the review has points I disagree with or at least doesn't bother to mention certain things I think are VITAL about the subject matter, more often than not I'll lean towards not recommending it, save maybe if the plus points outweigh the negative points, and as I said before, I disagree with some of the plus points here. I suppose it would've been better for me to not rate this review at all since it was good anyway, but come on, when have you ever been a softy pants?

And for the record, I'd give XII an 8.5, the same score I gave IX. Didn't I mention I played both to completion more times than you? GS must've deleted that part. Hm. Well. Who's the fan now.

It's fair if you don't think of some of the game's flaws as flaws, but I do. Not saying this was a bad review because of it, I just can't recommend it.iloveflash

That's not the same as actively reccommending people stay away from it, as you did. There's a difference between indifference and active down thumbing due to a difference in opinion.

The thumbs are labeled as "helpful." Not "do you recommend this review" or "do you agree with this review." Furthermore, when I post my reviews to the Writer's Lounge, I would hope for WRITING TIPS and comments on the choices I made in expressing my views, not just being attacked senselessly for my opinion.

It all makes me feel like this is a massive waste of my time, if the comments I receive on this board are going to revolve around whether or not you agree with my views. Of course they won't.

A guy wrote a review about Alter AILA Genesis (quite frankly the greatest RPG Maker 2k3 game EVER CREATED) saying it was mediocre, and everyone bashed him for it in their comments. However, no one said his review wasn't fleshed out; it was probably bashed more than any other review BECAUSE he pointed out more about the game than anyone else. They just disagreed that those points made the game mediocre.iloveflash

It's sad that an opinion that disagrees with the collective gets shunned so quickly. Shows just how foolish and childish most people are when they're given the internet.

I have to say, I can't recommend a review based simply on its depth and the amount of work you poured into it any more than I can recommend a garbage video game because a team of people poured blood and sweat over it for a year and a half. If the review has points I disagree with or at least doesn't bother to mention certain things I think are VITAL about the subject matter, more often than not I'll lean towards not recommending it, save maybe if the plus points outweigh the negative points, and as I said before, I disagree with some of the plus points here. I suppose it would've been better for me to not rate this review at all since it was good anyway, but come on, when have you ever been a softy pants?iloveflash

I'm not petty enough to downvote a review because I disagreed with it. Call me what you will, but I've only downvoted reviews that weren't helpful, as they should be.

I'm not even sure what the heck you're talking about in the last sentence. Do I have a history of downvoting reviews I don't agree with?

And for the record, I'd give XII an 8.5, the same score I gave IX. Didn't I mention I played both to completion more times than you? GS must've deleted that part. Hm. Well. Who's the fan now.iloveflash

For the record: I don't care. Playing a game more than me doesn't prove anything, other than you have about ten times more free time to play games than I do.

For the record: It's amazing how quickly you dodged all of that text I typed in defence of my views. It's like you're...trying to deflect the blame! Oh, I see! I come up with well founded opinions based on a substantial portion of gameplay, you attack me, I defend them well, and then you say, "well I've played more than you, so nuah" and of course that is supposed to be that.

Way to bring up something completely irrelevant to the discussion. Thanks for completely derailing my reviews thread, wasting my time over a 0.5 score difference, and downvoting my review for no reason other than "I disagree with your thesis." I'm SO glad I came back to the writer's lounge for this.

Now that everyone gained +5 EXP from the above pointless conversation:

Diablo II

Ah, well my counter-argument to the Agro vs. Epona case is that, though the Epona control sheme is more fluid, it feels like you are riding a mechanical machine as oppose to actually living breathing creatures. Agro on the other hand feels real, because like any real creature, it has its own mind and thus it may not listen properly to your commands or it may even make a mistake here or there. One good example, is when agro makes a makes a mistake, you are inclined to show emotions such as anger or frustration at the horse which makes it feel real. While with Epona, the horse is incapable of making mistakes, and anything that goes wrong you got no one to blame but yourself since you are in FULL control.

xVxOblivionxVx

Cheer up, okay!

[quote="xVxOblivionxVx"]

Ah, well my counter-argument to the Agro vs. Epona case is that, though the Epona control sheme is more fluid, it feels like you are riding a mechanical machine as oppose to actually living breathing creatures. Agro on the other hand feels real, because like any real creature, it has its own mind and thus it may not listen properly to your commands or it may even make a mistake here or there. One good example, is when agro makes a makes a mistake, you are inclined to show emotions such as anger or frustration at the horse which makes it feel real. While with Epona, the horse is incapable of making mistakes, and anything that goes wrong you got no one to blame but yourself since you are in FULL control.

iloveflash

Cheer up, okay!

I remember reading a fifty page thread on Agro and Epona's handling after one of the writers on Rock Paper Shotgun called Agro "wonky." I should go find that thread; it was hilarious.

Please do!

The Diablo II review was another good read, though again I don't feel like you've hit on every detail. This time it's a game I haven't played, so I say that because I can't get a good picture of what you're talking about. For example, there's a sort of vague description of the battle system all throughout: it's point and click; loot is dropped randomly; dungeons are generated randomly; but by that alone I can't tell what you mean by the game being ageless or that it loses momentum in single-player. It would help if you elaborated on some of those points.

Please do!

The Diablo II review was another good read, though again I don't feel like you've hit on every detail. This time it's a game I haven't played, so I say that because I can't get a good picture of what you're talking about. For example, there's a sort of vague description of the battle system all throughout: it's point and click; loot is dropped randomly; dungeons are generated randomly; but by that alone I can't tell what you mean by the game being ageless or that it loses momentum in single-player. It would help if you elaborated on some of those points.

iloveflash

Hrmm. Someone who hasn't played Diablo? I didn't know they existed. I'm pretty sure my mother has played it at some point, and that's really about it. Go play the demo before you disappear in a cloud of smoke due to how you can't actually exist!

You just described Diablo in your post. You click on enemies until they die. There are lots of enemies, and they drop loot. I mean, I'll revise the review if I can, but I don't think that I can add any more information than that. Diablo is not a complex series, and as such doesn't really require a complex review.

I found the thread.

EDIT: I added a few sentences to help explain the series.

"You are the most wrongest man on the internet, Mr. Gillen."

"but horses are creature of the devil which the average right-in-his-mind man can only appreciate with some salt and pepper."

"Gillen, you're ruffling feathers. Stop ruffling!"

"If you try and ride Argo at full speed through the forest, then you probably don't have a soul."

"I call a horse fatwa on Kieron for blaspheming against Argo."

"

Reviews of horses in video games.

Oblivion. Pointless pantomime horse that you can play dolly dress up with. About as lifelike and believable as a preview of an FPS. 3/10.

Mount & Blade. Well oiled mechanical horse. Good for running over peasants like a wealthy matron in a chelsea tractor taking the kids to school. 7/10.

Shadow of the Colossus. Behaves somewhat like a real horse and is a joy to control. Utterly unacceptable. Angry spittle in the face/10."

And this is within the first 20 posts? Wow, people on the Internets!

The horse in SotC was easily the best horse riding in a game going. The only reason that's not up there with the best of imdb etc. is that it's meant to be funny. Pretty much as funny as you can get on the internet and mean it, though.

Anyway the Diablo II was good, but I too would've liekd to here a few more details on gameplay. Like when you said the different cIasses interacting with each is a game in and of itself in multiplayer. I'm sure it is, but that doesn't really tell me why! Nevertheless it was a solid review overall. Thumbs up.

God of War II

I've written a review of this game before, but I think I nailed it this time.

Awesome opening sentence, though the repetition helds it back a little. No need to explain the metaphor; it's obvious in its awesomeness.

Apart from that miss-step your in brutal form. One of your best.

Awesome opening sentence, though the repetition helds it back a little. No need to explain the metaphor; it's obvious in its awesomeness.

Foolz3h

You're right. I'll see if I can reword the opening.