Okay, I'm calling an intervention on all this comic nonsense. This whole thing is ridiculous, and none so much as the fact that folks keep distorting screenshots in horrendous and grotesque ways. If you're going to make a comic review, I'm not going to judge you, but at least have the courtesy of stretching out screenshots to either 200% or 300% of their original size. Something that's a multiple of 100. It looks ridiculous when you stretch them by any value in between, or (gasp!) stretch them by clicking and dragging.
The poor screenshots never did anything bad to you or your parents. Please treat them with the same respect. :(
The Great 2012 Review Contest [Reviews: 94] [CLOSED]
Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk
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Meowskivich
- Blubber Bloat
- Posts: 2199
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- Contact:
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JSH357
- Liquid Metal Slime
- Posts: 1340
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- Location: Columbia, SC
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I have only been enjoying Char's comics, sorry to say. :( There's such a thing as oversaturation...
My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com
http://www.jshgaming.com
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Meowskivich
- Blubber Bloat
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It's how I decided to review all these games, and that's how it's gonna be.
Also, I 100% Momento Mori for the review.
edit:
Also, I 100% Momento Mori for the review.
edit:
Last edited by Meowskivich on Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Spoonweaver
- Liquid Metal King Slime
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Meowskivich
- Blubber Bloat
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I give this criticism of criticism of comic reviews a 3.2 out of 11.8, it's lacking any visual effects, and it's vague as to whom it's audience is.Spoonweaver wrote:Honestly... I love all these comic reviews. All of them.
Sure, they're poorly written and most are poorly drawn, but ultimately they're reviews.
Please don't start in with the review reviewing you guys used to do that basically led to no one reviewing anything.
Last edited by Meowskivich on Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
2012 In Review 026 - Pearl Tear
Pre-Thoughts:
I had no idea Sparrowhawk was still making games. Don't really check the gamelist on CastleParadox too often these days, so maybe I've missed a lot over there. I remember her and her brothers being like, at least competent with the engine so I expect it won't be terrible.... then again the description says it is a short game "for the heck of it" and that she "knows it is bad", so maybe I was wrong. I'll take your word for it. I am in for a rough time.
Thoughts-During:
Bonus points for the 200 kbs file size, and the quickest download of the contest to date!
Bonus points rescinded! It was only that small because you left out the exe!
I am in awe at how quickly I met the first two plot crucial NPCs. If that next NPC had been The Seer, this would be my Game of the Year.
These are possibly the slowest battles I've played.
Lesson learned: Don't talk to spooky looking world map NPCs until you've bought equipment. And hey, that miraculously is how you get a raft :3
Does every NPC in every town say the same things?
Man, you can trigger a lot of cutscenes out of order. and you can go to any island you want!
Slot machines are a cool effect even though they don't work.
Levelling up pays off supremely well. Battles are no longer slow.
Post-Thoughts:
Okay, not as bad as I expected, not as bad as it seemed like it was going to be at the start. The story is mostly straight forward. Every now and then you have to go looking for something/someone, but it's okay because the world map is about the size of most games town maps. That is NOT a bad thing. There's a few times in the story I'm not sure what exactly happened, or if I somehow skipped ahead to a town I wasn't supposed to be in, but it all kind of evened out. At first I was frustrated that almost no buildings had an interior and that shops and inns were run by talking to the door of their respective building, but having played through it and seen the scavenger hunt kind of mechanics, it was a really good decision to keep all the action on the main town map, where you can instantly see anything suspicious. If you had to go checking every house for changes, this would've been really ugly.
The graphics are pretty standard newbie game material, being neither good enough to really compliment or terrible enough to yell about. Some of the stuff is ripped, and not particularly well. A lot of the jokes are inside LOME stuff, so if you aren't related to Sparrowhawk you probably won't get it. At least I didn't. Hell, a lot of the jokes seem to just be "HEY, I'M ONE OF YOUR RELATIVES AND I'M IN THE GAME, BRAAAAAAR" and most of 'em end up to be miniboss fights. Speaking of battles, I thought that was going to be the worst part of this game. It turns out that stat gain on level up is VERY generous, including speed, so what start out as the most agonizing of battles eventually get to be decently balanced and then become a minor nuisance to your team of demigods. In a more involved game you might want things toned down a little, but for a story this simple and a world this small, it feels kinda nice to just cut to the chase.
That said, I wouldn't particularly recommend it. The narrative is all over the place, multiple characters talk in the same textbox, they didn't include game.exe but did include the font for some reason which isn't a federal offense but pissese me off. I like it more than a lot of the super slow boring games I've played just because it gets better so quickly. Probably worse ways to spend 50 minutes, but if the LOME gang don't even want to advise playing it on the download page, no reason for me to suggest it here. Plenty of other "newbie games" in the sea.
I had no idea Sparrowhawk was still making games. Don't really check the gamelist on CastleParadox too often these days, so maybe I've missed a lot over there. I remember her and her brothers being like, at least competent with the engine so I expect it won't be terrible.... then again the description says it is a short game "for the heck of it" and that she "knows it is bad", so maybe I was wrong. I'll take your word for it. I am in for a rough time.
Thoughts-During:
Bonus points for the 200 kbs file size, and the quickest download of the contest to date!
Bonus points rescinded! It was only that small because you left out the exe!
I am in awe at how quickly I met the first two plot crucial NPCs. If that next NPC had been The Seer, this would be my Game of the Year.
These are possibly the slowest battles I've played.
Lesson learned: Don't talk to spooky looking world map NPCs until you've bought equipment. And hey, that miraculously is how you get a raft :3
Does every NPC in every town say the same things?
Man, you can trigger a lot of cutscenes out of order. and you can go to any island you want!
Slot machines are a cool effect even though they don't work.
Levelling up pays off supremely well. Battles are no longer slow.
Post-Thoughts:
Okay, not as bad as I expected, not as bad as it seemed like it was going to be at the start. The story is mostly straight forward. Every now and then you have to go looking for something/someone, but it's okay because the world map is about the size of most games town maps. That is NOT a bad thing. There's a few times in the story I'm not sure what exactly happened, or if I somehow skipped ahead to a town I wasn't supposed to be in, but it all kind of evened out. At first I was frustrated that almost no buildings had an interior and that shops and inns were run by talking to the door of their respective building, but having played through it and seen the scavenger hunt kind of mechanics, it was a really good decision to keep all the action on the main town map, where you can instantly see anything suspicious. If you had to go checking every house for changes, this would've been really ugly.
The graphics are pretty standard newbie game material, being neither good enough to really compliment or terrible enough to yell about. Some of the stuff is ripped, and not particularly well. A lot of the jokes are inside LOME stuff, so if you aren't related to Sparrowhawk you probably won't get it. At least I didn't. Hell, a lot of the jokes seem to just be "HEY, I'M ONE OF YOUR RELATIVES AND I'M IN THE GAME, BRAAAAAAR" and most of 'em end up to be miniboss fights. Speaking of battles, I thought that was going to be the worst part of this game. It turns out that stat gain on level up is VERY generous, including speed, so what start out as the most agonizing of battles eventually get to be decently balanced and then become a minor nuisance to your team of demigods. In a more involved game you might want things toned down a little, but for a story this simple and a world this small, it feels kinda nice to just cut to the chase.
That said, I wouldn't particularly recommend it. The narrative is all over the place, multiple characters talk in the same textbox, they didn't include game.exe but did include the font for some reason which isn't a federal offense but pissese me off. I like it more than a lot of the super slow boring games I've played just because it gets better so quickly. Probably worse ways to spend 50 minutes, but if the LOME gang don't even want to advise playing it on the download page, no reason for me to suggest it here. Plenty of other "newbie games" in the sea.
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The Wobbler
- A Scrambled Egg
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- Location: Underwater
- Contact:
Allowing players to skip both battles and story and just going straight to the credits is actually a fantastic joke.
The Cool and Angry responses are both generally jokey choices, just different breeds of slimehole jerkiness. I agree that the Calm responses aren't very interesting here. Ideally, they'll be chosen in situations where being Calm would be completely inappropriate.
Thanks for the review and actually putting effort into your comics. I'm back to work on this one now so hopefully everything fits better when it's not a Rushed Out Contest Game.
The Cool and Angry responses are both generally jokey choices, just different breeds of slimehole jerkiness. I agree that the Calm responses aren't very interesting here. Ideally, they'll be chosen in situations where being Calm would be completely inappropriate.
Thanks for the review and actually putting effort into your comics. I'm back to work on this one now so hopefully everything fits better when it's not a Rushed Out Contest Game.
Last edited by The Wobbler on Tue Sep 17, 2013 10:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: 2012 In Review 026 - Pearl Tear
Thanks for the review.Gizmog wrote:Pre-Thoughts:
I had no idea Sparrowhawk was still making games. Don't really check the gamelist on CastleParadox too often these days, so maybe I've missed a lot over there. I remember her and her brothers being like, at least competent with the engine so I expect it won't be terrible.... then again the description says it is a short game "for the heck of it" and that she "knows it is bad", so maybe I was wrong. I'll take your word for it. I am in for a rough time.
Thoughts-During:
Bonus points for the 200 kbs file size, and the quickest download of the contest to date!
Bonus points rescinded! It was only that small because you left out the exe!
I am in awe at how quickly I met the first two plot crucial NPCs. If that next NPC had been The Seer, this would be my Game of the Year.
These are possibly the slowest battles I've played.
Lesson learned: Don't talk to spooky looking world map NPCs until you've bought equipment. And hey, that miraculously is how you get a raft :3
Does every NPC in every town say the same things?
Man, you can trigger a lot of cutscenes out of order. and you can go to any island you want!
Slot machines are a cool effect even though they don't work.
Levelling up pays off supremely well. Battles are no longer slow.
Post-Thoughts:
Okay, not as bad as I expected, not as bad as it seemed like it was going to be at the start. The story is mostly straight forward. Every now and then you have to go looking for something/someone, but it's okay because the world map is about the size of most games town maps. That is NOT a bad thing. There's a few times in the story I'm not sure what exactly happened, or if I somehow skipped ahead to a town I wasn't supposed to be in, but it all kind of evened out. At first I was frustrated that almost no buildings had an interior and that shops and inns were run by talking to the door of their respective building, but having played through it and seen the scavenger hunt kind of mechanics, it was a really good decision to keep all the action on the main town map, where you can instantly see anything suspicious. If you had to go checking every house for changes, this would've been really ugly.
The graphics are pretty standard newbie game material, being neither good enough to really compliment or terrible enough to yell about. Some of the stuff is ripped, and not particularly well. A lot of the jokes are inside LOME stuff, so if you aren't related to Sparrowhawk you probably won't get it. At least I didn't. Hell, a lot of the jokes seem to just be "HEY, I'M ONE OF YOUR RELATIVES AND I'M IN THE GAME, BRAAAAAAR" and most of 'em end up to be miniboss fights. Speaking of battles, I thought that was going to be the worst part of this game. It turns out that stat gain on level up is VERY generous, including speed, so what start out as the most agonizing of battles eventually get to be decently balanced and then become a minor nuisance to your team of demigods. In a more involved game you might want things toned down a little, but for a story this simple and a world this small, it feels kinda nice to just cut to the chase.
That said, I wouldn't particularly recommend it. The narrative is all over the place, multiple characters talk in the same textbox, they didn't include game.exe but did include the font for some reason which isn't a federal offense but pissese me off. I like it more than a lot of the super slow boring games I've played just because it gets better so quickly. Probably worse ways to spend 50 minutes, but if the LOME gang don't even want to advise playing it on the download page, no reason for me to suggest it here. Plenty of other "newbie games" in the sea.
I think the only reason Pearl Tear ended up on the list was cuz I did some minor updates to it out of boredom. It's actually much older than 2012. XP
"One can never improve enough nor should one stop trying to improve."
2012 In Review 034 Abel
Thoughts-Before:
Never heard of this game, never heard of this guy. The screenshot on the download page looks cool, but apparently the game is already cancelled so.. kinda pointless to talk about it. Still, maybe he'll uncancel it it's good enough, or maybe after I see it I'll agree with his decision. Who knows!
Thoughts-During:
Ugh! He didn't include game.exe. Again, this is one of the worst mistakes you can make. People who aren't familiar with the OHR will be unable to play your game. People who are will be more reluctant. Worst of all, version differences might render your game unplayable, or at least slightly broken. ALWAYS include the god damn exe!
These traits should have descriptions, but thumbs up for gender equality!
Oh, they do have descriptions, you have to choose one to get the description. I see.
Very Fallout, very cool!
Great showers!
Thoughts-After:
Super bummed this was cancelled! There's a little too much introduction, but the general idea is that it's a Fallout kind of world with magic. Your Armitek (Or Pip-Boy, if you prefer) lets you tap into your magical abilities, and you're member of an elite army who patrols the wastelands or something. You go through a bunch of basic training about armor, weapons, your armitek, and magic before you're free to roam the base, trying to find the Magic Bureau. I never did, but you can teleport to that map with debug keys, though there's no one of interest there.
Basically, once basic training is over, you wander around the base talking to people. Some lady lost her drivers license and you can do it with some perv in the motor pool to get it back. People are eating dinner, taking showers, all kinds of life though most of the NPCs don't talk.
There was the beginnings of a cool perk system, the beginnings of a cool conversation system, but as is often the case it seems like it was just too much for BlastedEarth to chew by himself. The maptiles were great, the walkabouts very simple but acceptable. Like Charbile said, the lady soldier in her undies is smokin' hot for OHR Hero graphics. Sorry friendly people, I'm a pervert.
I can't recommend it, but God do I wish I could. Nobody ever does rough-around-the-edges Sci-Fi in the OHR, which is a shame because it's an awesome style to work with. Reminds me a little of Doom RPG, actually. Would love to see more of it, especially if it was along the same lines as Abel was shaping up to be. Cancelled demos are such a bummer.
Also a bummer that it was posted on CastleParadox so I can't post spicy hot pics in my review! Maybe I do recommend downloading it after all....
Never heard of this game, never heard of this guy. The screenshot on the download page looks cool, but apparently the game is already cancelled so.. kinda pointless to talk about it. Still, maybe he'll uncancel it it's good enough, or maybe after I see it I'll agree with his decision. Who knows!
Thoughts-During:
Ugh! He didn't include game.exe. Again, this is one of the worst mistakes you can make. People who aren't familiar with the OHR will be unable to play your game. People who are will be more reluctant. Worst of all, version differences might render your game unplayable, or at least slightly broken. ALWAYS include the god damn exe!
These traits should have descriptions, but thumbs up for gender equality!
Oh, they do have descriptions, you have to choose one to get the description. I see.
Very Fallout, very cool!
Great showers!
Thoughts-After:
Super bummed this was cancelled! There's a little too much introduction, but the general idea is that it's a Fallout kind of world with magic. Your Armitek (Or Pip-Boy, if you prefer) lets you tap into your magical abilities, and you're member of an elite army who patrols the wastelands or something. You go through a bunch of basic training about armor, weapons, your armitek, and magic before you're free to roam the base, trying to find the Magic Bureau. I never did, but you can teleport to that map with debug keys, though there's no one of interest there.
Basically, once basic training is over, you wander around the base talking to people. Some lady lost her drivers license and you can do it with some perv in the motor pool to get it back. People are eating dinner, taking showers, all kinds of life though most of the NPCs don't talk.
There was the beginnings of a cool perk system, the beginnings of a cool conversation system, but as is often the case it seems like it was just too much for BlastedEarth to chew by himself. The maptiles were great, the walkabouts very simple but acceptable. Like Charbile said, the lady soldier in her undies is smokin' hot for OHR Hero graphics. Sorry friendly people, I'm a pervert.
I can't recommend it, but God do I wish I could. Nobody ever does rough-around-the-edges Sci-Fi in the OHR, which is a shame because it's an awesome style to work with. Reminds me a little of Doom RPG, actually. Would love to see more of it, especially if it was along the same lines as Abel was shaping up to be. Cancelled demos are such a bummer.
Also a bummer that it was posted on CastleParadox so I can't post spicy hot pics in my review! Maybe I do recommend downloading it after all....
Last edited by Gizmog on Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
Sorry for the double post, but an important warning: The Random Review Picker might be a little bit broken. I'd tested it somewhat conclusively, but there is a very real chance it will consider you "finished" when there's really a game left to go. I'm going to take a look at it and hopefully get it fixed by tonight. Since it's based on save games your progress should carry over to the new version without incident, but I can't guarantee that for sure.
I'm also told JSH had some kind of a freezing mishap that I will try to track down as well, though I've got no idea where in hell that could be coming from. In the meantime keep a copy of your save directory in case it goes bonkers on you, and keep track of the games you've played in case you have to hunt down the one that it "missed". It is conceivable that I just miscounted and this whole thing is just the wrong number on a line somewhere, and if that's the case I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
I'm also told JSH had some kind of a freezing mishap that I will try to track down as well, though I've got no idea where in hell that could be coming from. In the meantime keep a copy of your save directory in case it goes bonkers on you, and keep track of the games you've played in case you have to hunt down the one that it "missed". It is conceivable that I just miscounted and this whole thing is just the wrong number on a line somewhere, and if that's the case I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
Sorry for the triple post!
Okay, here we go. The completed set.
First batch:
001 SDHawk's Pilgrimage
002 Willy Electrix's Dreg Sector
003 Killtertriforce 007's Ephixial
004 Charbile's My Little Gahn
005 Fieron's Hamburgerman RPG
006 Spoonweaver's Clam Digger
Second batch:
007 - Cool Guy Bob Surlaw
008 - Dreadful Occupant
009 - The Kh'yurbi Lands
010 - Lsol Nocturnal Tears No Ingles
011 - Rouge's Revenge
012 - The Actor's Daughter
013 - Epic! The Humorous RPG
014 - Dungeonmen
015 -The Towers of Love and Energy
016 - Final Dragon Legacy
017 - Illusions
018 - No More Villains
019 - Memento Mori
020 - Alice Falls Asleep
021 - Silhouette
Final batch of reviews, comin in:
022 - AR PUH GUH
023 - Universal Wars
024 - Ortega Colonies
025 - Spirit Chronicles Rift
026 - Pearl Tear
027 - Open Trail
028 - Legacy
029 - KARRIBLE.RPG
030 - The Death of Von Stabbingmore
031 - Legendary Heroes
032 - Karate Fight
033 - Kinvesard
034 - Abel
035 - Super Penguin Chef
036 - Reign of Grelok
037 - Look, But Don't Touch
038 - Super Harem Builder 2012
Might go back and do some formatting and proofreading, but I think that about covers it.
First batch:
001 SDHawk's Pilgrimage
002 Willy Electrix's Dreg Sector
003 Killtertriforce 007's Ephixial
004 Charbile's My Little Gahn
005 Fieron's Hamburgerman RPG
006 Spoonweaver's Clam Digger
Second batch:
007 - Cool Guy Bob Surlaw
008 - Dreadful Occupant
009 - The Kh'yurbi Lands
010 - Lsol Nocturnal Tears No Ingles
011 - Rouge's Revenge
012 - The Actor's Daughter
013 - Epic! The Humorous RPG
014 - Dungeonmen
015 -The Towers of Love and Energy
016 - Final Dragon Legacy
017 - Illusions
018 - No More Villains
019 - Memento Mori
020 - Alice Falls Asleep
021 - Silhouette
Final batch of reviews, comin in:
022 - AR PUH GUH
023 - Universal Wars
024 - Ortega Colonies
025 - Spirit Chronicles Rift
026 - Pearl Tear
027 - Open Trail
028 - Legacy
029 - KARRIBLE.RPG
030 - The Death of Von Stabbingmore
031 - Legendary Heroes
032 - Karate Fight
033 - Kinvesard
034 - Abel
035 - Super Penguin Chef
036 - Reign of Grelok
037 - Look, But Don't Touch
038 - Super Harem Builder 2012
Might go back and do some formatting and proofreading, but I think that about covers it.
I know I've basically disappeared from INTERNET and that's not going to change for the majority of this semester I believe. But I still stop by every couple days or so, and I have to say that this Review Contest move was really, really great. I'm super impressed that someone actually managed to finish, and all of Gizmog's reviews were worth reading. This alone makes me want to finish the update I started for Tales 2, just to see what some people might say about the game. I hope this Review Contest idea continues into the future; I honestly think this is probably the best thing to ever come out of the community in the time I've been around (which has been a fair amount of time).
I am Srime