Welcome, one and all, to the unofficial Review Wars; a place where the review competitions never end! A coliseum where the pen truly is mightier than the sword. So crank up that inspirational music, take out your thesaurus and prepare to mince words.

For the most part, here's the basic way things will go down:

1. Reviewers will request a competition or sign up for an upcoming arranged competition.

2. Competitions will take place over the course of two weeks, two competitions will be allowed to overlap during any one week period.

3. Reviewers will have one week to submit their reviews to the supervisor.

4. The supervisor will distribute the reviews to volunteer judges, who will then have one week to judge the reviews based on a 25 point rubric.

5. Results will be posted as soon as they're gathered, barring any complications.

RULES & GUIDELINES

I. Entering a Competition

II. Scheduling

III. Writing a Review

IV. Judging and Scoring

V. Miscellaneous

AVAILABLE POSITIONS

I am seeking assistance with maintaining this thread, and at the moment have two types of positions available:

Competition Supervisor - Competition supervisors will help arrange competitions and take competition requests. They will collect reviews and distribute them to the judges, and then collect the scores from judges.

Regular Judge - A regular judge does not need to be available for every competition, but will be volunteering to receive a PM whenever judges are needed.

Also, feel free to submit a banner for this thread, no matter which banner I use, all submissions will receive credit in the acknowledgments.

SCHEDULE

Friday, March 27: Guilty Pleasure reviews due
Friday, April 3: Guilty Pleasure judging ends
Monday, April 6: Results posted

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all those who helped out with the planning of this thread. Particularly NewClassic, xitel, and Susan Arendt for all their valuable feedback and suggestions.

Regular Judges: mjhhiv, NewClassic, fightgarr

NewClassic:

Tome of the Ancients

It's pretty easy to forget how things start. Can you remember a day where 3D games were the minority? I remember those days, and I look back on them very fondly. I had hoped I was not alone, therefore decided why not combine my favorite hobbies? So, in honor of that, I want a review contest about old games.

Information

:
A 500 - 1,500 word review on a game that came on or before the year 1991.

Entry Rules

:

Must submit interest by 11:59 (GMT) on May 5th.

Must submit articles by 11:59 (GMT) on May 15th.

Room for 5 2 other judges. Will admit on a first come, first serve basis.

Reviews can be for any platform, including arcades, PCs, or home consoles.

Reviews must be video games.

Only one review per entrant.

Judge Information

:
Note, that judges will be required to make notes for every review read, will score to the contest's criteria, and will not be told whose review is whose until the end of the contest.
Judges: NewClassic, Labyrinth, Danzorz, ultimatechance,
Participants: Inverse Skies, The Necroswanson, Lord Krunk, Scotth266, Sighh, Dirk45, Hey Joe,

F.A.Q.

Q: Must the games be played on the original console, or is emulation acceptable?
A: Either will work, though keep in mind emulation rarely reflects the original audio correctly.

DeadWaker718:
Need anyone else to join this competition? I'm in if that's the case

Would you prefer to be a judge or a competitor? We need plenty of both.

I'm in as a competitor. As if you need an excuse to get NewClassic involved in a review contest. I'll alternate to judge for some competitions, to keep them from being too... repetitive. Although I can't turn down the opportunity to review a guilty pleasure.

spudz47:
Dare I try to join? I could write a decent review and the competition would be nice, but how do I review games on request if I don't have them? If I may review on a whim I could give this a try...

I'd be happy to have you as a competitor. There is no need to write anything on request. For this competition, pick something you hate to love and write a standard review for it. Let me know if you're still interested :)

Say Anything:
Sign me up to compete, if you would, good sir!

EDIT: Question. "or love to hate" That's pretty much the inverse of a guilty pleasure, but because you stated it I suppose it makes it fair game?

Great question. When I think of "hate to love," I think of that game that you find good despite knowing most would find it horrible. On the other hand, "love to hate" I feel would be a game so bad you play it just to laugh at how bad it is, which I still consider a Guilty Pleasure. So yes, fair game both.

dcheppy:
I'd love to join. As a competitor, but if you have an excess of competitors and not enough judges I would be a judge as well.

Also, how does the submission process work? Are you the supervisor? Do we just send you a message with the review?

So many guilty pleasures, I wonder which one I'll choose?

And added. Don't worry, I'll be giving some details about submitting the reviews in just a few days.

Say Anything:
Upping this because it's almost off of the first page. Also, question:

Are we allowed to make a topic with our review after we message you with it? I'd like feedback from all of the Escapist, not just two or three people.

Of course, not a problem at all.
Also, to answer your PM D_987, the reviews are due by Friday, March 26

Lord Krunk:
Oh, I am in this. However, can I have an extension? You see, I'm gone all week. I'll need to write it next time if I can compete.

Please?

Normally I'd say no, but given there are so many competitors, as long as it's in before the judging deadline, I'll accept it.

I deeply apologize to those who have already posted interest, but we've reached our judging limit for this competition and I've selected the judges on a first-come, first-serve basis. Thanks for the interest, though.

Also, updated the OP with details on submissions.