Five-Sentence Game Impressions

Using only five sentences per game, I'm going to share my thoughts on some of the titles I've played over the past few weeks. Some will be insightful, while others can be a bit more like nitpicks from an obsessed fan. The first batch of games I'll rant and rave about on Bitmob shall be Deadly Premonition, Lips: Party Classics, Espgaluda 2 Black Label, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.

Deadly Premonition

If you're a fan of classic survival horror and mysteries, you can't go wrong with Deadly Premonition and its $20 price tag.
The dialogue is the best damn thing about this game since many of the conversations are so unusual and funny, especially York's commentary on various real life movies.
The tank controls will irritate some players, along with the quality of the graphics.
I really wish that you could zoom the map out far enough to view the whole thing at once instead of just small portions.
The difficulty-based achievements do not stack, so you will have to replay the game several times if you want all the points.

Lips: Party Classics

Compared to previous editions of Lips, the tracks on this installment seem to require a stronger level of vocal skill to earn high scores on the online leaderboards.
Disc swapping has improved if you plan on singing songs from Lips: Number One Hits, but not if you intend on performing tracks from the original Lips.
Even though I like the song, I don't recall going to any parties that blasted Maroon 5's She Will Be Loved on the stereo.
The way that this game still only gives you an additional 250 achievement points instead of a true 1,000 points still bugs me.
Making an achievement that requires a player to record their performance was a brilliant way of bringing more attention to that underutilized option.

Espgaluda 2 Black Label

The standard edition of Espgaluda 2 Black Label is region-free, but I find it ridiculous that gamers won't be able to use the limited edition on an American or European console.
The scoring mechanics can be quite confusing, so I do recommend doing some research online if you don't understand Japanese.
The variety of modes gives the game much more replay value than Mushihime-Sama Futari Ver 1.5.
I actually managed to 1CC the game in one of the Novice modes, so even casual shooter players can achieve some form of "greatness" while playing.
I realize that they're two different kinds of shooter, but I felt that the visuals in Espgaluda 2 weren't as striking as DeathSmiles when it comes to enemy and boss design.

Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce

As much as I love Koei and enjoyed the 61 hours I spent playing Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, I already know that this game will NOT be my pick for 2010's Game of the Year.
I'm disappointed that this is one of the few Musou titles that does not support local cooperative play.
The game has a rather bountiful selection of missions, but Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 still has a larger total.
Koei shouldn't have messed with Xiahou Dun's "Just another victim!" line, as the new quote isn't as badass.
I encountered one hacked Lu Bu while venturing online, but I don't predict the landscape to be riddled with cheaters like Borderlands once was.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

The general frame rate is adequate, but the game is absolutely gorgeous during those rare moments when the animation hits 60 FPS.
Skill is more of a focus compared to Mario Kart, so you won't have to worry about crap like the Blue Shell punishing you for being the better player.
The online competition is fairly active and I haven't experienced any issues with lag.
If you hate Shadow, be warned that he seems to be this game's equivalent to Ken in Street Fighter 4 when it comes to Xbox Live character usage.
As much as I enjoy the game, I will say that I wish there was a wider variety of characters and stages since Sega has such a rich catalogue of games.

(3)

Carlos Macias

March 29, 2010

Nice work, David! Would love to read more of these!

Jonathan Betonio

March 30, 2010

@David: Nice work! For bonus points: no cheating with conjunctions and prepositional phrases. I can't remember the last time I saw a 5-word review, which I thought this was just glancing across the title.

There's certainly an art to validly capturing the essence of a work and hiding away irrelevant detail to clearly and concisely support your thesis as reviewer/critic/journalist/reporter/writer.

@David: You also got me to think of applying audition/job interview techniques to approaching video game review/reporting. Ever heard of a 15-second introduction or verbal resume? At its most basic, you're basically preparing bullet points, but in its best prepared form you basically refine what you know about a topic (i.e. yourself), your audience (i.e. a potential professional contact or employer or referrer), and your position (i.e. you should be hired), to a point where you can fluently recite a convincing 15-second blurb to get your point across to a likely person (say, like in an elevator or service queue wait).

Anyway, the 15-second sell is probably appropriate because of the parameters of the usual places it's intended for (chance initial impressions in public), but I think it's a useful model for what you're doing with 5-sentence impressions. The key questions are: 1) What's the typical length of time readers expect to read a certain type of writing? (I admit to frequently break expectations of comment length and treatment) 2) How do you signal what type of writing and its typical format you're working from? (your title here is clear, but there are ways to imply similar structural forms if it's used frequently enough to be understood. Questions that some ergonomics/usability research might help refine.

Your 5-sentence impressions share structural similarities to article-length reviews' summary points and final remarks/conclusions. Their familiar shapes lend them to relatively established styles that are easily digested, but you could explore ways to make your points more concise and "punchy", closer to the feel of one-liners, or you could expand your points a bit further for a slightly longer mini-review that's not frequently seen, as a potential experiment to see what works for both you and your intended audience.

Hehe, here's a 5-word sample review: "Play this very fun game!" (and you can replace "fun" with a more precise adjective).

Oh yeah, carryover from print media business, the concept of word counts. 500-word articles, etc. Not sure why the traditional numbers were chosen or established/accepted, but the process could be illustrative to see what might be good word counts (if at all) for a web article.

Ack, sorry for the theorycrafting. The most important thing is that you simply do and refine over time, according to what feels right to you and whatever training you pick up.