| I've found actionbutton to be a step below the old reviews, perhaps for similar reasons that Tim now finds his honeymoon in Japan souring. The reviews there tend to be a lot more about being entertaining than enlightening, and their stated goal of having the average score being 1/4 stars has been thrown to the wayside. I also don't really play games anymore. There are a few potentially "important" things that I hope escapes IC and its graduates and becomes more mainstream. Reviews that explain the context of their creation, and reviews that examine the philosophy of the game design. Unfortunately these are hard, require work, and don't look any better on the glossy page. Some examples: Rogers wrote a fantastic review[1] of Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song that starts off by chronicling the entire career of its designer (Kawazu) and reviewing some of his earlier games with depth and insight. There are clear patterns evident in his early games, which are then used to give context to and explain the current game under review. The second is probably my favorite video game review, which is of Windwaker by Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh[2]. EJRW is a better and more insightful (but less colorful) writer than Rogers, but perhaps not as colorful. He made an old forum post I distinctly remember lamenting the laziness of linear game design, which is something of a cliche. When challenged for an alternative, he backed it up with a very interesting review of the use of "danger" rather than contrivances like keys or inventory items as a limit on exploration in Dragon Quest/The Legend of Zelda. As for this particular posting of Tim's, I don't really have much more to comment. Like I said in my original comment, it's classic Tim Rogers, and it's hard to explain what "classic Tim Rogers" is without just pointing people to another 15-20 articles similar in construction and content. It feels odd to write about it in a familiar tone since I was largely a lurker at IC (as I am here). [1] http://www.largeprimenumbers.com/article.php?sid=saga [2] http://www.insertcredit.com/reviews/windwaker/windwaker1.htm... |