My first Game Review thing.

[Chanku]

Alright so I got bored and decided to write a game review for the game VVVVVV (yes that is 6 V's).

Hidden stuff:

The Story of VVVVVV is rather interesting and unique, You are on a ship when it hits interference and gets stuck in an alternate dimension, however the ship's crew evacuates the ship, or at least tries to. The Teleporters, due to interference scatters the crew members about and you take control of Captain Viridian, who must save the other crew mates and escape the alternate dimension in which you are trapped in and collect materials and find out clues about where you are along the way.

The graphics are somewhat something you would expect from an older game as the graphics are done in an 8-bit style, however the graphics work well with the game style and enhance the game to a bit, along with the music which does help the game and gives the universe more life to it.

The game-play is unique in the fact that unlike traditional 2D Puzzle Platforming games, you can't jump, instead you switch gravity to either fall or float. There are also trinkets you can get which unlock certain features. The game also seems to reward exploration and gives you a nice large world to explore, which is nice at times. There is a no-enemies mode and I suggest you turn it on for the first play-through as it is hard with it on. Also be prepared to die a lot. It's worth mentioning game's mechanics makes it hard and might cause you to quit every now and then, but more than likely you will come back to it. The game does have a lot of check-points so this way you don't have to worry about death that much, and death is more of an inconvenience that anything else as you don't have lives.

There is also a degree of re-playability as there is user-made levels, timed trails, bonuses and you can always go back and explore new areas and try new things. Also the Shiny Trinkets which you can pick up are something that you might want to try to get if you haven't done so already. However the re-playability is somewhat offset by the difficulty, which makes it harder to want to play it again, but also make you want to play it again.

In short the game is fun, and is addictive, but you will find yourself commonly quitting time and time again, due to the difficulty. However after completion you may want to try and build your own levels or try the user-made ones as well. VVVVVV, while unforgiving at times is fun to play and is worth the anger in some ways. The Graphics and Soundtrack enhance the game and refresh it in a way from the ways games are done today. This game will give you hours of fun, and frustration. I recommend this to anyone who likes Nintendo Hard Games (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ma...endoHard), who loves 2d Puzzle-platforms, and to anyone who has a bit of experience with games, and this game is not as much for the causal gamer in my opinion, although they can play this game as well. All in all this game is worth the money, time, and frustration needed. I give this game an 8.5 out of 10.

Feel free to critque it and help me edit it. Also I do need help writing an intro.

[Trar]

Good effort, but it could use some improvement.

I'll start with the grammar. There are a couple typos. If I were you, I wouldn't capitalize the aspects of the game such as the gameplay and soundtrack, or '2D Puzzle Platforming'. I also wouldn't add hyphens to words like replayability, gameplay and 'puzzle platforms' (I think puzzle-platformer is the better phrase).

Quote:Also the Shiny Trinkets which you can pick up are something that you might want to try to get if you haven't done so already.

This seems like a runon sentence.

Quote:However the re-playability is somewhat offset by the difficulty, which makes it harder to want to play it again, but also make you want to play it again.

What exactly do you mean by this?

Quote:The Graphics and Soundtrack enhance the game and refresh it in a way from the ways games are done today.

Could you elaborate on this?

Quote:In short the game is fun, and is addictive, but you will find yourself commonly quitting time and time again, due to the difficulty.

I've heard the same thing claimed about Super Meat Boy. Perhaps you could draw comparisons? I'm not a terribly big fan of games like SMB because I prefer games that are challenging, but not so challenging that infinite respawns are necessary for most of the players to progress; this element of the gameplay makes it contrast especially with the majority of platformers that preceded it. It's...different, at least.


The overall style of the review is also...somewhat lacking. As much as I talk shit about the community at Learn to Counter, most of the reviews are good and I'd point you to those (the ones that aren't Snarky Internet Voice shit) if the site wasn't down right now. I've messaged the guy who runs it, so keep an eye out.

Honestly, if I were to write game reviews I'd try to give a new POV to a game, if not at least a good overview of the game and what parts people might like or dislike, and what parts are objectively bad. I'd also compare it to other game like it. I'd also also gravitate towards writing about games that haven't gotten much attention, or failing that just old games that I used to play back in the day. But that's just me.

The rating scale...if I were you I'd stick to the five-point scale. It seems like it would work better with your overall conclusion.

Oh, yes, gameplay is a perfectly fine and valid word. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, because they're probably gigantic assholes. Language changes, words are made, you know...

[Chanku]

(04-10-2014 01:32 AM)Obama Wrote:  

Quote:However the re-playability is somewhat offset by the difficulty, which makes it harder to want to play it again, but also make you want to play it again.

What exactly do you mean by this?

Simple while the replayability kinda makes you want to not play the game, it also makes you want to play the game to see if you can do better.

Quote:

Quote:The Graphics and Soundtrack enhance the game and refresh it in a way from the ways games are done today.

Could you elaborate on this?

It's an older design and the fact that it was released recently, makes it somewhat interesting and refreshing in a way from the games that try to be more modern and have the latest and greatest graphics. Although some games do need this, some do not.

Quote:

Quote:In short the game is fun, and is addictive, but you will find yourself commonly quitting time and time again, due to the difficulty.

I've heard the same thing claimed about Super Meat Boy. Perhaps you could draw comparisons? I'm not a terribly big fan of games like SMB because I prefer games that are challenging, but not so challenging that infinite respawns are necessary for most of the players to progress; this element of the gameplay makes it contrast especially with the majority of platformers that preceded it. It's...different, at least.

I've actually never done much research into SMB, so I can't really compare them.

Quote:The overall style of the review is also...somewhat lacking. As much as I talk shit about the community at Learn to Counter, most of the reviews are good and I'd point you to those (the ones that aren't Snarky Internet Voice shit) if the site wasn't down right now. I've messaged the guy who runs it, so keep an eye out.

Well this was my first review

Quote:The rating scale...if I were you I'd stick to the five-point scale. It seems like it would work better with your overall conclusion.

I actually originally planned to, however I was a bit indecisive in the score with that and went to 10, where I felt I could rate it better. The game on a 5 point scale was between 3.5 to a 4.5 in my opinion.

[(´・ω・`)]

Also, Chanku, read reviews from Hardcore Gaming 101, particularly the newer ones. You'll thank me later.

[Trar]

Yeah, HG101 is good.

There's nothing wrong with using every possible point on the 5-point scale, including decimals. 3.7 is a decent score.

You'll improve. Just keep at it, and keep improving yourself. Observe constructive criticism of your work. I'd do research on games in general if you want to improve your breadth of knowledge, and call on it during reviews. It would also help to observe the amount of graft and the low standards in much of mainstream games writing today, although I'm ure yu already know Kotaku is just bad at this point.