Need Feedback On Game Reviews

[retroguy]

Partially inspired by Tanooki's posts about getting back into the Game Boy, I'm thinking about writing a book or a blog or something with the intention of diving into the Nintendo DS library and primarily focusing on lesser known titles in the hope of finding some hidden gems. I've written the first couple of reviews and I'd like to get some feedback on whether or not I should continue. Any constructive criticism is welcome, but if all you're going to say is "this sucks" without telling me WHY it sucks using rational arguments, please don't bother. All that said, here are the two reviews:

Lego Friends

So I was looking for an alternative to Animal Crossing and came across this title. Having never heard of it, I looked up a review on YouTube and was somehow not surprised to see male gamers saying a game made for girls was terrible, one of the worst games they’d ever played, etc. Typical behavior for that bunch. Not one to take reviews at face value in any case, I decided to give it a try. I figured it would be mediocre like the other Lego games I’ve tried, but good for killing a couple of hours at least and was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s actually pretty darn good.

The game places you in the role of an unnamed cousin of one of the franchise’s characters who has come to stay with her for the summer. After a mercifully brief tutorial mode, the game turns you loose to meet the other characters and explore Heartlake City at your own pace.

What surprised me most about this game is how enormous the game world is, featuring no less than nine separate areas, with most of those having multiple sub-areas within them. Most areas have their own minigames which you need to do to advance the plot, but which you can come back to later to play the higher levels if you desire, and most of those minigames are fun, if a little simplistic.

The plot, which finds you running around town helping out the various characters and growing your friendship with them, is also simplistic but it works well for this type of game and it reminded me very much of the Equestria Girls film series, which I see as a plus since an actual Equestria Girls game hasn’t been made yet at the time of this writing. As you progress through the plot, you unlock many different pieces of clothing with the option of buying more with the in-game currency and I confess I got a little addicted to trying out different outfit combos in between story missions.

Some might find the fetch-quest heavy gameplay tedious and I can understand why, but I found that there was enough variety to keep me interested in playing to the end. Upon reaching the end, I saw that I had completed the game 76% and it has retained my interest enough that I just might go back to it at some point to see if I can get to 100%.

I give Lego Friends 3 ½ stars out of five.

Poptropica Adventures

Making a portable, scaled-down version of an online game seems like a brilliant idea. After all, nothing lasts forever and it’s nice to give fans of the game something to remember it by if and when the website closes. That’s the basic concept behind this title created by Jeff Kinney, who also authored the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid book series.

After creating your character, you are introduced to the owner of a museum with no exhibits. It’s your job to travel to the game’s three islands to complete quests and collect exhibits to put in the museum. The three islands are Mythology Island, based around ancient Greece, Superpower Island, based around common comic book superhero concepts, and Astroknight Island which, consciously or not, comes off as an affectionate parody of RPGs in general and Phantasy Star in particular.

As you might expect, the gameplay is very simple, but it is also very addicting, and I unexpectedly found myself playing through the entire thing in one sitting. Since the online game has 40 islands, reducing it to three might seem a little extreme, but it actually felt to me to be just the right length and it brought to mind an I Spy game my niece and I used to play years ago that similarly had different themed areas branching off of a hub.

Once you finish all the quests and collect the last museum exhibit, there really isn’t any reason to come back unless you feel like replaying the main game since the meager amount of extra content isn’t that exciting, but as a one-and-done kind of game, it works very well for what it is and I can see the appeal for the target audience.

I give Poptropica Adventures 3 stars out of five.

[Jorpho]

I'm thinking about writing a book or a blog or something with the intention of diving into the Nintendo DS library and primarily focusing on lesser known titles in the hope of finding some hidden gems.

Odds are no matter how well you write, you'll never have much of an audience. So it goes.

So I was looking for an alternative to Animal Crossing and came across this title. Having never heard of it, I looked up a review on YouTube and was somehow not surprised to see male gamers saying a game made for girls was terrible, one of the worst games they’d ever played, etc. Typical behavior for that bunch. Not one to take reviews at face value in any case, I decided to give it a try. I figured it would be mediocre like the other Lego games I’ve tried, but good for killing a couple of hours at least and was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s actually pretty darn good.

...

Making a portable, scaled-down version of an online game seems like a brilliant idea. After all, nothing lasts forever and it’s nice to give fans of the game something to remember it by if and when the website closes. That’s the basic concept behind this title created by Jeff Kinney, who also authored the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid book series.

Both of these paragraphs tell me practically nothing and seem to add no value, particularly for how short these reviews are. I know nothing about Poptropica Adventures and it seems unreasonable to expect as much of your audience; I'm still not entirely sure what constitutes the actual gameplay.

[JSoup]

Odds are no matter how well you write, you'll never have much of an audience. So it goes.

Which is why the blog is probably the better idea, depending on why retroguy is considering this in the first place.
If it's just something of a passion project, the blog will allow plenty of time to hash out thoughts and build an audience.
Here's a good example: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/

[retroguy]

Yeah, the blog idea was probably what I was gonna go with. Basically, I tried Lego Friends because I thought it couldn't possibly be as bad as the review made it out to be and I was so surprised by how decent a game it was that I felt the need to write my own review. That lead to me wondering what else there might be on the DS that's been overlooked for whatever reason and that lead me to think I should keep a diary of what I'm playing and review games as I finish them (or whenever I stop if the game can't hold my interest long enough to finish).

It seems to me that the DS library as a whole has been overlooked for the most part, so fans of the system might find some interest in an ongoing thing. I'll do another draft of the first two reviews and see if I can improve them and then go from there. For those curious, the next two in line are Camping Mama: Outdoor Adventures and Monster High: Ghoul Spirit.

[Tanooki]

Well you're welcome.

And no, it doesn't sucks. :P

Both work fine, and Lego Friends as much as they were I'm sure being jerks about it is in fact a girl targeted game because Lego Friends is a girls line of those building toys. You're not writing much in quantity, but there's enough quality there to make someone curious. There's not enough there to dig into why something is all that great, just a vague overview but it works maybe enough to get someone to take a peek.



Awhile back I was toying with doing what you want to do, had something going for a few months but then petered out on it due to other stuff getting in the way. It definitely would be fun to hit something that isn't talked about as much or covered well. The old Gameboy (and color) don't have much going for it with gameboyworld.com being about it and there's like a page worth of stuff and a whole lot of placeholder nothingness other than box art beyond which is a shame. I think in this day and with the media full blown reviews shouldn't be in order, but something of a summary of a game and its good or bad qualities to get someone curious. Same can be said with the DS. It sold into the 100+M club like the variants of the GB did, but once they were dropped peoples interest forgot all about them other than hardcore fans of the thing and nutty collectors who pokemon up all the shit for their shelves. With so much out there and being generally ignored, a good resource to get some curiosity going would be a good thing.

[retroguy]

Well, I guess it comes down to personal politics, but I've never really cared whether something was a "girls game" or a "boys game" or a "kids game" or whatever. To me, how a game plays is all that matters regardless of who it's aimed at. For example, I played a game called Imagine Detective awhile back that would be classified as a "girls game" and I thought it was an interesting, if overly simplified, take on the Phoenix Wright style of investigation gameplay. Likewise, the I Spy game I mentioned was unquestionably intended for young kids, but once again, it's fun to play so who cares?

[Tanooki]

Oh it's all politics and immaturity in the video gaming media, they're the worst form of media other than the pap trash who post crap online to demean public figures. I've got enough games here that would be considered for the kids like Kirby and Disney nes/snes stuff, and I have a lego collection, so I don't have much room to argue against it.