@MattyFTM: No problem, it's quite alright. I appreciate your piece on the wikis, it's a great way to put a spotlight on some of the more interesting concept pages.
Fantastic issue. Of course, I am part of the Luchazine staff and made an editorial as my contribution, so that would seem obvious, but this is REALLY good. Great content from everyone else.
" Total Annihilation was NOT the first polygonal RTS. Myth, a game the article failed to mention, came first. I am sad that game was not covered in the RTS retrospective. Starcraft was also NOT the most successful game of 1998. Pokemon Red & Blue came out in 1998, and that sold about double SC's numbers in its lifetime. Reviews are pretty good, can't say I agree with much brought up in the Limbo review. Anyways, still reading it, and it's good overall, even the RTS article. "
When I heard Bungie was making a new videogame, I was incredibly excited. When I found out it was a fps for the xbox, I was broken hearted. The Myth games were some of my favorite RTS games ever.
The level of quality stuns me. That probably sounds weird from someone who writes for the magazine, but I want to publicly complement the presentation this issue which i have nothing to do with. Read it guys! We really have some good written material in this issue. Oh, and yeah, I gave Limbo a more negative review. Bring it!
When I heard Bungie was making a new videogame, I was incredibly excited. When I found out it was a fps for the xbox, I was broken hearted. The Myth games were some of my favorite RTS games ever.
Similar, although my first experience with Halo was the Macworld trailer when it was a RTS. I was thinking, wow I'm gonna need a new PC!
I enjoy Halo a lot, but Myth IS my favorite RTS ever. It's too bad we couldn't have multiple late 90's Bungies.
Reading through it as always I wish I could debate and respond to the various editorial works but none except the Game Narrative In A Casual Context warrants a full response. Everything else I had caveats and extensions I wish were included and there were a few articles that were perfect on their own (Flash Games, RTS Retrospective, Donkey Kong, and Activision were all amazing and spot on). I wish the Experience of Getting Into Gaming was extended and more fleshed out if any were to be. It presented a great question and conclusion but I felt the anecdotes didn't address the question. In the end I'm being nit-picky sans one or two things but I guess that's bound to happen when I'm involved.
Also thanks to who reviewed Monkey Island because the severe lack of coverage on GB was disappointing. I already had my GameSpot review but I wanted a second opinion.
However the overall material here is at best VERY good (great even! *snagglepuss voice*) and at worst good with gaps making me want to debate the topic. This was a joy and/or stimulating to read, the gambling section was very entertaining and the awards turned out much better than I expected. Great addition with Rage! because I've had two relatively recent bouts with gamer rage (Borderlands and Batman) that just drove me nuts and that spoke to me.
Full disclosure I contributed blah blah. Whatever. A lot of great written material here that you can't really go wrong (i'm just too anal and nerdy about gaming to let go of some gaps). I can't wait to be a writer in the next one! I got some ideas cooked up for that issue (an Endurance Run feature possibly since I have experience doing that kind of thing).
@TheMustacheHero said:
" It still makes me rage at the image quality. PNG's PEOPLE! All these look like bitmaps or something. "
Also this. Nitpicks about articles aside, this is an issue that needs addressing fo' real.
@Diamond: I still break out Soulblighter or The Wolf Age out from time to time. The story in those games were pretty killer too! Goddamn, you've really got me going now and I kind of hate you for it. I really want to play some Myth again. I wanna throw some dwarven molotovs and stomp on some dudes with the trow.
Generally I'm not much of a reviewer, I prefer other types of writing. I find it hard to balance the objective information on the game, and my subjective opinions on the game in a review. My reviews generally end up being either a run-through of the games features, or a wildly opinionated piece with very little actual facts about the game. But I feel I did a pretty decent job with the MI2:SE review, and managed to find a decent balance between the opinion and fact.
That is another thing I'll say about working on the luchazine, I can feel my writing skills developing very quickly. And my confidence in my writing ability is increasing too. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a part of the magazine.
That was me, and you're welcome. Generally I'm not much of a reviewer, I prefer other types of writing. I find it hard to balance the objective information on the game, and my subjective opinions on the game in a review. My reviews generally end up being either a run-through of the games features, or a wildly opinionated piece with very little actual facts about the game. But I feel I did a pretty decent job with the MI2:SE review, and managed to find a decent balance between the opinion and fact.That is another thing I'll say about working on the luchazine, I can feel my writing skills developing very quickly. And my confidence in my writing ability is increasing too. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a part of the magazine. "
Every time I see your name, I now hear your accent. Why was I the last to know you were from the UK? =P
Aside from a lot of missing words here and there this was yet another great read and I loved the interviews this time around. I must say I'm surprised every time a new one of these goes online since every issue gets better and better.
Keep up the good work people. You've created one of best user generated content on this site.
That was me, and you're welcome. Generally I'm not much of a reviewer, I prefer other types of writing. I find it hard to balance the objective information on the game, and my subjective opinions on the game in a review. My reviews generally end up being either a run-through of the games features, or a wildly opinionated piece with very little actual facts about the game. But I feel I did a pretty decent job with the MI2:SE review, and managed to find a decent balance between the opinion and fact.That is another thing I'll say about working on the luchazine, I can feel my writing skills developing very quickly. And my confidence in my writing ability is increasing too. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a part of the magazine. "
Got any quick tips? I'm finding it difficult to review games because I too have a habit of just summarizing features in the game.
@natetodamax: I think the biggest thing I did was to make good use of adjectives while explaining the features. For example I described the graphics as "beautifully hand-drawn recreations of the original games artwork" and a character as a "lovable cartographer entirely dependent on his monocle to see". Those sentences clearly express my opinion of the graphics and characters, yet remove "beautifully" and "lovable" and they merely become descriptions of graphics and a character. I was still talking about the features for most of the review, but I was adding opinion to it through regular use of descriptive words.
Those are my quick thoughts on it anyway. It might be worth asking the other Luchazine writers about it too, since there are far more proficient writers on the team than me.
@MattyFTM: Another good way of writing can be to take the concepts you want to express through adjectives and turn them into even more descriptive statements. How are the hand-drawn recreations beautiful? Why is the cartographer lovable? Just something for you to think about in the future. Lately I've been actually trying to abandon adjectives for this technique.
Of course you just have to decide when that is necessary. Expressing thoughts in as few words as possible is important to ADHD kids who might prefer a video review anyways.
That was me, and you're welcome. Generally I'm not much of a reviewer, I prefer other types of writing. I find it hard to balance the objective information on the game, and my subjective opinions on the game in a review. My reviews generally end up being either a run-through of the games features, or a wildly opinionated piece with very little actual facts about the game. But I feel I did a pretty decent job with the MI2:SE review, and managed to find a decent balance between the opinion and fact.That is another thing I'll say about working on the luchazine, I can feel my writing skills developing very quickly. And my confidence in my writing ability is increasing too. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a part of the magazine. "
Got any quick tips? I'm finding it difficult to review games because I too have a habit of just summarizing features in the game. "
What's worked for me is writing it twice. I would review the game from a features perspective. Then sit down and edit the article, removing descriptions of the game that aren't vital and inserting judgments on those features after the fact. Then publish. It seems to improve any of the reviews I've written that felt a little too summary heavy.
That was me, and you're welcome. Generally I'm not much of a reviewer, I prefer other types of writing. I find it hard to balance the objective information on the game, and my subjective opinions on the game in a review. My reviews generally end up being either a run-through of the games features, or a wildly opinionated piece with very little actual facts about the game. But I feel I did a pretty decent job with the MI2:SE review, and managed to find a decent balance between the opinion and fact.That is another thing I'll say about working on the luchazine, I can feel my writing skills developing very quickly. And my confidence in my writing ability is increasing too. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a part of the magazine. "
Got any quick tips? I'm finding it difficult to review games because I too have a habit of just summarizing features in the game. "
What's worked for me is writing it twice. I would review the game from a features perspective. Then sit down and edit the article, removing descriptions of the game that aren't vital and inserting judgments on those features after the fact. Then publish. It seems to improve any of the reviews I've written that felt a little too summary heavy. "
Thanks for the responses, I'll be sure to take these into account in the future!
@GoranP: So i just wanted to mention that you all had no "Best of PC" award and that the MAFIA II is indeed also being released on the pc. Otherwise, glad to see Starcraft II got reviewed.
" Is there any other way of downloading the PDF without subscribing to Scribd? "
Second line in the first post there is a mediafire link to download it. Wish I knew that before signing up but now it's too late I suppose.
Will there be an application thread or are you guys all done with that? I don't want to be uncouth and send PM's for general writer application and break protocol.
Thank you everyone for your kind words and crits, we'll make sure to take them into account.
You don't have to sign up for Scribd to download, there's a direct link in the first post.
As for the few typos and the repeating paragraph on the Luchawards, all I can say is FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
There will be a more general application thread soon, but for now all the info is in the first post.
@mrhankey: We decided to leave out PC for now since there wasn't too much going on at E3 about it. Our game of the year awards will feature PC-related awards of course.
By the way, if the formatting is busted for some reason, it might be your browser's cache.
@natetodamax: Hey here are a few tips i use when reviewing something. It works for me and most of this stuff is relatively based on one's own quirks etc. but hey it may help.
(1) Play through (or watch whetever it is) you are reviewing completely and without discussing it with anyone. (2) After you are done talk about it with your friends, eventually after hashing out your general experience with somone else you will get to your takeaway feeling on a game. After talking about it for a while you will come down to the takeaway sentence or concept from your review (your theseis statement, i.e. i really conceptually liked the sparse artwork of Limbo but after playing it i felt that the gameplay was thin) Remember, a review of something like a game or movie is mostly your general opinion or feeling. People will get more out of it if they think they are hearing what you actually think. (3) Once you have your thesis done (your takeaway) add up all the other nuts and bolts elements of the game (i.e. graphics, sound design controls, UI) did any of them stand out as awful or did they work together to enhance or takeawy from what you thought was the takeaway part of the game experience. (4) when you write, focus on your theme, and then adress the other elements in relation to the theme (it will be easy cause stuff like graphics etc. is kind of black and white)
talk it over again with somf folks and see if the writing made you change your mind about the game.
AND if you ever get stumped or blocked. Just write stream of consciouness style about the game, random thoughts and eventually you will pull out what you feel about the thing you are reviewing.
"Super impressed with the interviews, genuinely interesting to read. I like how jakob needs a wasd tattoo on his fingers. I bet he is constantly getting asked what the fuck they mean. "Why do you have asd on your fingers?" :D "
LOL The WASD tattoos were a drunken thing. People outside of my work ask all the time, but the PC gamers up here always say "dood, that's the greatest tattoo ever!".
I would like to point out that the reviews this time were incredibly well-written and very detailed. Well done on those, guys.
@Marino: Thanks. In that case, you are going to super-duper love the design of the next issue. @jakob187: We actually just copied and pasted everything from Metacritic! How drunk were you when getting the WASD? The "fuck I can't remember shit" deal or the "last night was crazy" type of deal?
Thanks for all of the positive feedback everyone, I think the issue came out really well :)
@Diamond said:
" Total Annihilation was NOT the first polygonal RTS. Myth, a game the article failed to mention, came first. I am sad that game was not covered in the RTS retrospective. Starcraft was also NOT the most successful game of 1998. Pokemon Red & Blue came out in 1998, and that sold about double SC's numbers in its lifetime. Reviews are pretty good, can't say I agree with much brought up in the Limbo review. Anyways, still reading it, and it's good overall, even the RTS article. "
Firstly, TA was released September 30, 1997 whilst Myth didn't hit shelves until October 31, 1997. Therefore, TA preceded Myth as a 3D title. Secondly, even if this were not the case, from a technical point of view, TA would still be the first 3D RTS, while Myth would be the first 3D RTT.
Furthermore, there were an overwhelming amount of amazing games that I would have liked to have included, but I think you'll find trying to condense such a rich history into 1200 words is a task that will lead to many great entries being omitted. From the same year alone, I would have loved to have mentioned Dark Reign and Age of Empires, but I had to consider the overall history of the RTS genre - and I went with TA because I felt it was most fitting. As far as the history of the RTT is concerned, I again made the decision to omit Myth for the sake of brevity, as the I felt the Total War series was a clearer reference as it's a far more popular series, in fact one that is still going strong today.
As far as Starcraft sales are concerned; my apologies for not stating the words "RTS" or "PC". I thought it was clear from the context, but if it wasn't, my bad.
" What pepsicolagirl is really trying to say: you guys are shit, go fuck yourselves and die. While I pee on your grave. Hope this clears things up! :D "
" What pepsicolagirl is really trying to say: you guys are shit, go fuck yourselves and die. While I pee on your grave. Hope this clears things up! :D "
@Milkman: If I'm not mistaken, the review mentions how that despite its amazingness (which is not a real word), there is a layer of cheese in the story. I realize the bullet points may seem confusing, but they're meant to complement the review.
Firstly, TA was released September 30, 1997 whilst Myth didn't hit shelves until October 31, 1997. Therefore, TA preceded Myth as a 3D title. Secondly, even if this were not the case, from a technical point of view, TA would still be the first 3D RTS, while Myth would be the first 3D RTT.
Furthermore, there were an overwhelming amount of amazing games that I would have liked to have included, but I think you'll find trying to condense such a rich history into 1200 words is a task that will lead to many great entries being omitted. From the same year alone, I would have loved to have mentioned Dark Reign and Age of Empires, but I had to consider the overall history of the RTS genre - and I went with TA because I felt it was most fitting. As far as the history of the RTT is concerned, I again made the decision to omit Myth for the sake of brevity, as the I felt the Total War series was a clearer reference as it's a far more popular series, in fact one that is still going strong today. As far as Starcraft sales are concerned; my apologies for not stating the words "RTS" or "PC". I thought it was clear from the context, but if it wasn't, my bad.
Sorry if I'm mistaken about the dates. Basing it off my own memory, I know I saw Myth before TA in stores and in play. Maybe I'm thinking of the demos? The internet even seems pretty confused about the dates, IGN even says Myth came out March 1997, which I don't feel right about either... The significance of the 3D terrain and 3D accelerator support in Myth are probably the most important points for me. Myth made extensive use of 3D gameplay (with physics and tactics).
I can't complain about the choices you made as far as what titles you covered because they were your choice. As I said, I'm just disappointed. Obviously I'm a fan of the game and I feel it's all too often jilted. I could argue for the popularity, significance, and influence of Myth till the cows came home, but even finding solid evidence wouldn't change your article.
Guess I'll just have to push my own RTS opinions that much harder on BonusEXP in the future.
" One problem: The Starcraft 2 review listed one of the positives as "Amazing story" and then listed one of the negatives as "Chessy story". Wat. "
I think what the bullet points are trying to convey is that I felt the presentation of the story was phenomenal, while the actual story itself felt a bit stilted and cheese-ridden at times. Meaning, the single-player was a blast but it wasn't the story that made it so.
Again, I completely agree with every single thing you are saying and had the word limit been even a couple of hundred words higher, Myth would have been one of the first games I would have included. So maybe we can push your agenda together!
@Diamond: I really have to applaud your effort for mentioning BONUSEXP so causally in your posts. 10 points. And a cupcake. @ThatFrood: You shut your mouth! Don't act like you know anything about the game you reviewed. Noob! @JJOR64: What does it take to get two?
" One problem: The Starcraft 2 review listed one of the positives as "Amazing story" and then listed one of the negatives as "Chessy story". Wat. "
I think what the bullet points are trying to convey is that I felt the presentation of the story was phenomenal, while the actual story itself felt a bit stilted and cheese-ridden at times. Meaning, the single-player was a blast but it wasn't the story that made it so. "
Like the Avatar effect. It was a very enjoyable story, but not because the story itself was good.
@GoranP: It's hard work being an 'unofficial' community podcast producer. Have to get your name out there some way when you don't get stickies and front page mentions.
BTW, you're more than welcome to bump my podcast threads with a link to anything you make anytime you want :P
@GoranP: More like "hey, let's go get WASD tattooed on our fingers for the hell of it" with my cousin and our friend, and the week we were getting them, they both ended up having stuff come up that saw their money supply deplete while I was just gettin' paid. Sadly, they haven't gotten them, as I told them "dood, it's gonna fade pretty bad, so make a decision based on that".
@natetodamax said:
" @EpicSteve: I'm surprised you thought that black and white wasn't effective in establishing an atmosphere. I think it works wonderfully in Limbo. "
I think it was more about the fact that so many things looking for "atmosphere" are using black, white, or the mixture of both to desaturate stuff in order to create atmosphere. I don't know, but that's the way that I read it.
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