Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 1st - 7th MARCH // The Backlog Wars

Marc has decided to step down from the RotW rota, so I’m screwed; he’s the only one who thinks I’m purposefully funny so over the couple of weeks, Joe and I will delve back and finish up the outstanding slots. Jason will take over Marc’s week in the rota going forward; I’ll update this all in the hub topic at some point. On the off chance he’ll see this at some point, I’d like to thank Marc for his time on these RotW topics; they’re a lot of work and he’s been a great help.

This week, Jason talks about monster trucks, Rob goes in hard with the cringe puns and Flob finishes his Remedy personal project where he’s now reviewed the entire backlog.

THIRD - Crisis Force [NES] Overdrive

I will later reward Rob’s retro combo by playing through enough of this game to obtain SITE EXCLUSIVE screenshots, which will then be viewed up to seven unique times.

I appreciate Rob’s inability to leave NES shooters alone, as I mentioned in the last RotW topic. But I don’t think this is his next example of his retro wheelhouse. I think the intro spends a lot of time setting up a premise that’s then hardly explored, and then the review seems to jump around a bit haphazardly. Still, there’s more than enough strong lines to carry it through. The description of the atypical weapons is brilliant, with the limited form coming a close second to the roaming shield description that’s massively sold by how you change your entire play style to take advantage of fully.

SECOND - Monster Jam: Steel Titans 2 [SWH] HonestGamer

For the most part, Jason’s more likely to review a clock then he is to drop an honest to goodness bash review, so this ⅕ outing feels like rare ground, indeed. If there was one issue running through it’s that the early stages of the game sometimes sound like the complaints can be aimed at the player rather than the game’s wonky mechanics, but this feeling is completely dismissed by the end of the review. I think talking about doing nothing but hitting the accelerator and making just as much progress as you would when trying to play the game as intended did a great job of highlighting that. From there, you keep putting the boot in, but in a fair, almost polite fashion. It’s like the anti-EmP bash effort.


FIRST - Control: Ultimate Edition [XBX] Flob

There’s a fair bit of ramble to this review, but I get why you’d want to set this review up as the finishing line of a personal project. Might want to go back and check some of the first couple of paragraphs, though; there’s a few little quirks, liking comparing two different things to a flea in as many lines.

My favourite part of the review comes after the first screenshot, when you just embrace the chaos of Control, turn off any filters and just run through the oddity gallery. I think your review suffers a little from listing all the good things then listing all the bad things, but you manage to keep your enthusiasm high throughout, which is what you need to do when doling out the 5 star ratings. This was further helped by your efforts in elevating the XBX port above all the others as the definitive way to experience the game. As a reward, I’ll try and build a link timeline to tie all five of your Remedy reviews together when I get a bit of time to myself. Good work!

For us. For them. For you.

Thanks for the comments on this one and Raiden Trad. I imagine I'll still be churning out retro reviews off and on for some time. Went a ways without doing one due to working on the backlog and getting addicted to all the stuff on PlayStation Now, but I sort of discovered I was missing the old school trips down memory lane, so I felt compelled to get back into doing those games during those periods when I'm not overly close to putting forth a review for something more modern that I'm playing.

Let me know if you or Joe wind up having reviews on these weeks you're covering and I can add them to my next RotW, if you want. Unless you're dividing Marc's weeks in a way so that isn't happening.

And thanks to Marc for his work on these over the last however long. When I started doing these reviews, Marc was one of those esteemed voices in the GameFaqs community who was always supportive of me and played a role in me improving at this style of writing, so it was great having him playing the role of judge again for us for a while.

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

Yes, thanks again to Marc for the RotW topics he put together during his time in the rota. I appreciated his insightful commentary and will miss it as I step into the mix myself once again. My hiatus went on longer than I had anticipated when I stepped away shortly ahead of this pandemic to make my move partway across Oregon.

Thanks to EmP this week, for taking care of part of the RotW backlog as we proceed toward a state of being caught up once again, like a cherry pie on a checkered tablecloth. I know that metaphor actually made no sense whatsoever, but it was the best I could do on short notice and I'm pretty sure EmP will read it.

Thanks also to EmP for the feedback on the review, and thanks to Flobknocker and overdrive for your contributions. Congrats to Flob on the win, even though I would have preferred to take the top spot. There's always a future week for that, I guess!

"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