Introducing From A to Zircon!

This is the blog that I'm going to be attempting to update weekly as I take on the NeoGAF 52 Games in 1 Year challenge, the rules of which are

If anyone else wants to do the 52 games challenge with me, feel free to use this thread to track your progress.

My first review of this year was for episode 1 of Life Is Strange, I've also posted 2 of 4 retrospective posts that will go over (in brief) my thoughts on the games I played last year.

Links:
The blog

 

My nineteenth review is up!

Even if you don't usually read my reviews I'd appreciate if you read this one because I think it's one of my best so far. This was also the first review that I prepared an outline for beforehand (My Limbo review was written after this one but posted before).

I would really appreciate feedback on this, even if it's negative (which I just see as constructive), because I've reached the point where I know now I want to pursue writing about games as a career, so other points of view would make a big difference to me.

It looks like I won't hit my goal of 52 games and reviews this year, but I'm confident I'll break 35 at least, got a few written that I haven't posted yet, and quite a few that are in the outline stages/partially written. I don't mind that I won't hit the goal, because when I started this it was mainly about playing 52 games in the year and making something productive out of that beyond clearing my backlog. But in doing it and reading more and more criticism of games I realized that this is actually what I want to do, so I've been focused more on writing well than pace of writing.

 

Not much to say except I really think your words flow well into one another and that you link the pieces of the article well. Maybe a touch more on the gameplay, although I presume it hasn't changed much since the 2nd game, but that's my only feedback, mate.

 

Well in that case...

I feel like your review falls too far into a plot summary in order to pad out the review with words. Less than half the words are actually spent reviewing the game. I feel like you should be spending time talking about the story in general terms and broad strokes while only being specific when you need to be. Far too often phrases feel clunky where you are trying to summarise certain events and regurgitate the plot. I can imagine you frequently getting stuck at the keyboard trying to articulate your thoughts. I would also rephrase the way you describe Uncharted's beautiful scenery, because hilly plains actually made me laugh, I don't know why but I immediately replaced it with hillbilly planes in my mind. But that one is probably on me

One of Uncharted 4's greatest successes lies in it's ability to dynamically tell it's story without resorting to cut scenes. The dialogue between the characters as they explores feels visceral and spontaneous, because to the player it is, as we take a moment to appreciate the fabulous sunset, the AI will stand aside the player and make some relevant, offhand comment. It may be scripted... no shit, but how the byplay between all the characters is time and location triggered makes Uncharted utterly immersive. Which I think you completely ignored in your review.

Talk about how the new mechanics meshed, story and gameplay, like the conversation trees or the rope. Did you like them? Did they feel tacked on? Did they just make so much sense that you wished they had come up with this shit sooner? This is a game review, I know Uncharted is an unquestionably cinematic experience but you do need to give gameplay some serious attention. What is the replay ability like? What emotions did the ending leave you feeling? Try to share more of your personal experience with this game, share some of yourself with the reader so that they can get a feel with how closely they should take what you have to say into their personal consideration when deciding whether or not they should buy Uncharted 4.

I feel like your review is only surface level. You need to take a dive down the rabbit hole and go deeper.

Damn, that was way more than I planned on writing... hope that helps at least a little

Good luck!