Shallow Depths

Okay, that's just about enough messing about with things (and possibly losing the few followers I did have). Time to be getting on with things. I haven't said much about my 'reviews' recently. Since my last post about this I have tackled:

• 3D Dot Game Heroes
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 4
• Demon's Souls
• Flower, Sun and Rain
• Faceez
  
• Pinball Pulse: the Ancients Beckon
• Shank

I've been learning more about how to approach games (and applications) that aren't my usual thing. I don't mind, because it's a challenge and I might discover something interesting I wouldn't otherwise. But it also means suffering through some things.

3D Dot Game Heroes relies heavily on nostalgia for old Zelda games. Since I haven't played those games it was never likely to work for me. Twilight Princess is the only Zelda game I've played. It was interesting, since it was all so new to me, but didn't make me urgently want to play any other Zelda games, let alone the 2D ones.

I did really like collecting the glowing bugs in Twilight Princess, though. Maybe 3D Dot should have catered to my inner entomologist, then I might have appreciated it more.

Tackling Yu-Gi-Oh! was a scary prospect, and Faceez was even scarier. The less said about Faceez the better, I think.

In the case of Yu-Gi-Oh! you can tell I'm stretching because I resorted to lazy reviewing strategies, like beginning with a quick history of the series and its spin-offs. I'll have improved noticeably when I no longer have to fall back on that sort of thing. I know for a lot of people that's just part of the standard review formula, but it isn't the way I usually operate.

I wasn't planning to write about Flower, Sun and Rain but I was asked and it's an interesting one. It's yet another example for the list of games-Cha-likes-which-a-lot-of-people-hate, but that's okay. It's also a Suda 51 game I actually finished, which makes me feel a lot better. I have an unreasonable amount of guilt about killer7 and No More Heroes. I didn't even make it past the tutorial in killer7 *sigh*. Pretty embarrassing.

I also wasn't planning to review Demon's Souls, but after criticising 3D Dot I felt like giving From Software credit where it's due. The Demon's Souls review took me ages. I re-did the structure completely many times, trying to get the right messages across.

I think that was a useful process, but since then I've also been learning to limit the time I spend writing, not just improving the quality. It's a tricky balance, and I need to be strict with myself. I can't afford to spend that much time on everything.

Making myself write faster has been good for me, I think. Short term the quality suffers, but I think I'm starting to get better at it. Thankfully I also started on this particular challenge while reviewing some shorter download games.

Shank was an interesting prospect. I volunteered to look at it, even though I'm a beat-em-up novice. I enjoyed writing a harsh opening paragraph, maybe a little too much.