Article Submission Guidelines
Jul 20, 2006 15:17:38 GMT -5
Post by Discoalucard on Jul 20, 2006 15:17:38 GMT -5
Over the last year or so, I’ve been getting a lot more contributed articles here. This, naturally, is awesome. However there really hasn’t been anything in the way of writing guidelines – it’s pretty much just been looking at the style of the articles currently on the site and writing them like that. So, in order to make the guidelines a bit less nebulous, I present:
EDIT: The below instructions are outdated. Please refer to the Submission Guidelines on the site.
A GUIDE TO WRITING FOR HG101
Picking a Topic:
This is technically covered elsewhere, but here are the specifics. The general goal of this site is twofold: (1) Get people interested in games they may not have played otherwise, and (2) Educate people in retro games. As long as your proposed topic fits into one of those categories, that should be fine.
Generally, the less exposure the topic has on the internet, the better. However, keep in mind one important thing: fan sites tend to be written just for fans, for people who are already familiar with the games in question and want to learn more about it. This site is aimed more for people who aren’t familiar with the games in question, acting as an introduction to a given topic. Even the other fan sites I’ve done aren’t really geared towards people that aren’t already at least somewhat familiar with Castlevania or Contra. The idea of each article is to be thorough without being overwhelming. For instance, the King of Fighters article details the changes in each game in a broad sense, but doesn’t go into extreme specifics regarding different character variations, because that’s just a bit too much in detail for someone who’s not too familiar with the games, and would end up being a bit too obtuse.
Remember: you MUST be able to cover ALL games in a given series. Being obsessively thorough is a trademark of the site, and this should be consistent among all articles. You can pick themes, if you’d like – for example “Dune RTS” games if you just want to cover the ones by Westwood and skip the other crappy ones, or “Sting RPGs” if you just want to focus on one genre. If there's some super obscure entry that's beyond your ability to play, at least find some screenshots and give some facts about it (I did this with SMT NINE for the XBox, and much as I hate doing it, I don't have a modded Xbox at the moment.) If a series is too expansive, you may want to think about covering something else.
You also must cover all of the major console versions. You should definitely compare specifics between arcade and console ports on all systems, and find out if there’s any difference between regions. This is easy for 8/16-bit games, where you just need to download the ROMs, but grows more difficult for other platforms. You probably don’t need to go into much detail between the differences of most Xbox/PS2/GC games, because they’re probably the same, and if not, you can trust most professional sites for the differences. But definitely try to compare between PSOne and Saturn versions. Haven’t you seen all of those fights on the Shmups forums where people swear to God that the Saturn version is totally way better than the “awful” PSOne version? Wouldn’t you like to put these silly arguments to rest, provide a less fanboy biased view and supply some empirical evidence to answer these questions once and for all? This is one of the reasons this site exists. I know a lot of people don't feel like spending extra money on games they already own just to write a sentence or two saying "the game is exactly the same on the Saturn except for more slowdown and slightly better graphics." I like that kind of detail and that's what your article should ultimately strive for, but if that's beyond your reach, then Google it and read up on what other people have to say. I don't like trusting hearsay (and articles should never say "well, I heard this and this", because it can be inaccurate) but you can still use it as a guideline. If you hear about some things changed between Japanese and English versions, try to confirm it yourself, don't parrot what people say unless you either do the research or there are a lot of people backing it up. Ask on the HG101 forums if you’re unsure.
Try to cover home computer ports too, although this isn’t strictly necessary. I like to cover all of the weird Sega variations just because it leads for interesting picture comparisons, but don’t worry too much about, say, FM Towns Marty ports or anything.
Also, try to pick a game you can supply screenshots for. I have a video capture card and a fairly reasonable library of games, so if you need me to grab pictures for any Xbox/PS2/GC/360 games (don’t have a PS3 or Wii yet), I can – you’ll just need to ask ahead of time to see if I have it. If not, I may need to ask that you can ship me the game (don’t worry, I’ll definitely return it!) If you can provide things like save games for later levels (especially for PS2 games), or at least steal them from the save database at GameFAQs, it will definitely help out. Just remember that there’s a good chance it’ll take awhile before I can get around to snagging them, so it may be a long time before the article goes up.
Also, try to keep in mind topics that would be interesting to other readers. Just because you have an obsessive knowledge of video games based on Japanese quiz shows doesn’t mean other people care about them. And if you’re REALLY passionate about super obscure topics like this, you need to be able to make them relevant and make the reader understand why they should care. Which brings us to:
The Thesis / General Writing style:
The central idea of any article should be: Why is this game interesting? It seems to be a common conception that you only write articles about topics you like, but this doesn’t necessarily need to be the case. I’ve written a lot about Altered Beast and Alien Syndrome, two games I don’t care for much – but I’m a huge Sega fan, so I have this obsessive desire to be comprehensive. Even in these cases, you need to be able to identify what made these games popular. For Altered Beast, it was the huge graphics, and the sense of power you get from turning into huge monsters and smashing things. For Alien Syndrome, it’s all about the creepy atmosphere, the grotesque monster designs, the sense of urgency, and the fact that it rips off one of the best action movies ever made.
Secondly, you need to ask: why is this game significant? Final Fight, for example, took the formula from Double Dragon, tightened it up and inspired legions upon legions of clones. That’s pretty damn significant. Most importantly, you need to establish a sense of context to understand why something was important. The Lunar games for the Sega CD might seem like kinda generic RPGs in the 21st century, but back in the 16-bit days, it was pretty standout – it was one of the few text heavy console games with a decent translation, it had voiced characters, cinemas and a vocal song, and the publishers didn’t feel the need to change the anime-style cover artwork into something more palatable for Americans.
At the same time, you needn’t solely wear rose colored glasses. If a game hasn’t aged well, talk about it, and be specific. Going back to the Lunar games – localizations have been getting better, far more RPGs have been getting translations, most of the world is more comfortable with anime characters, and people are getting jaded with simplistic battle and character development systems. So with the playing field leveled, the weaknesses become more apparent, so more modern gamers may find them boring.
Your articles should try to stay away from fanboy gushing and aim towards being balanced. All games have flaws, and talking about weaknesses isn’t bashing it, it’s just to give the reader a clearer idea of what to expect. Plus, be sure to analyze why a given title failed or was received poorly. Lots of people are eager to blame shortsighted critics or poor marketing plans, but in reality, cult games are usually obscure for a reason, because there’s some element of the gameplay or graphic design that gamers might find off-putting. Like the graphics and characters of Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil were cool and interesting and all, but perhaps a bit too weird for most people to accept. You’ll want to analyze these, and give the reader some kind of idea of what side of the fence they’ll fall on. Try to be objective too. Obviously, if you’re trying to get people to play it, you’d want to skew more positive, but definitely address both sides.
Try to avoid wordiness at all cost. Your pieces should be detailed but still succinct. The biggest changes I make in articles is deleting extraneous information or rewording sentences to make them flow better. Try to avoid small sentences, and try to cram as much as possible without turning it into a run on. Also, remove any redundant information. If you’ve already established that the graphics are awful and the control sucks, you don’t need to bring it back up again in your conclusion sentence. Conclusion sentences aren’t even always necessary, depending on how you’ve written it.
Also, try to avoid using the first person. You can when you’re relating personal experiences or feelings, but your writing may come across weaker if you rely on it too much. For example.
BAD: “I think the graphics are outstanding.”
BETTER: “The graphics are outstanding”.
The latter speaks with more authority and is definitely preferable.
Also, don’t be vague in your criticisms or praises. Say more than “The graphics are nice”, or “The level designs kinda suck.” Give at least one example to support these statements. “The graphics are bright and fluidly animated, especially the main character.” Or “The level designs are repetitive, consisting of huge expanses of flat terrain and almost no variation in graphical design.”
You can be casual and informal – I’m not a stickler for things like that, and if you want to pepper your article with some humor, go right ahead. Add in with wacky anecdotes if you want, but don’t go on too many tangents. Try to avoid cursing unless necessary also. If it helps, pretend you’re on a message board, recommending a game to your peers.
I know some places consider it a no-no, but you can (and should) make some comparisons to a more well known games, since they’re an easy and direct way to hook readers (ex: “Senko no Ronde is like Virtual On mixed with a bullet hell shooter”, “Bubsy is sorta like Sonic except total rubbish”). Since this site is aimed at someone who is at least somewhat knowledgeable about games, you should assume they have at least some vague knowledge as to what these titles are, and also assume they’re familiar with video game vocabulary like “move sets”, “combos”, “frames per second”, “anti-aliasing” and stuff like that.
Structure:
For multiple game articles, it should flow like this:
Intro
Game
Game
Game (etc)
Miscellaneous Stuff
Rip Off Games/Homages
Anime/Manga/Movies/other media
Conclusion
The later sections can go in any order, and you can restructure various bits where you feel they make sense.
The Intro:
The Intro should establish a sense of historical context. Also do some research on the publisher, the people involved, or what kind of other games they’ve made. The more information you can find, the better, especially if you know how to dig through the Japanese Wikipedia to search for names, gameographies and connections.
After this, you should talk about the defining aspects of the series, and what elements are constant among all of the games. Beyond the basic game concepts, talk about graphic style (Are they consistent amongst all of the games? Who’s the character designer, if they’re important? Is it dark/bright, realistic/fantasy, serious/goofy?) and music style (composer, genres, etc.) This way, when you start talking about the actual games, you only need to address what’s different/unique about them, instead of stating the main points over and over and over again.
The Game:
In the actual game section, you’re analyzing the specifics of a given title, rather than the general concepts of the series. For certain topics, the first entry may be the briefest, usually because all of the main points were already brought up during the intro. For example: R-Type. Once you detail the gameplay system, talk about the pace and difficulty and graphic style, there’s not much to say about the first game.
When talking about later games, you can talk about additions and changes to the formula, what works and what doesn’t, changes in graphic or music style, and – most importantly – the high and low points. Try to be specific, if there’s a really cool stage or setpiece, or a really annoying plot element or level, bring it up. For, let’s say, a Mega Man article – once you’ve set down what the original games are all about, all you need to address are the different robots, the types of stages, how the music is, how the graphics have improved (if at all), the difficulty, and how it all ties together, while maybe bringing up how cool the dragon was in Dr. Wily’s castle or how breathtaking the intro was in Megaman 2, or how Bright Man’s stage was COMPLETE BULLSHIT in Mega Man 4.
Again, you’re trying to be balanced – bring up facts, talk about how you feel about those facts, and whether they make for a fun game. If you want to lavish praise or completely bash a game, you should do it reasonably, and make it perfectly clear why this particular entry is TOTALLY the best of them, or why this one completely sucks. You should also avoid being too inflammatory, because if you sound too much like a jerk, readers may tend to tune you out. You should also have a good grasp on the attitude of the fanbase towards certain entries, and maybe try to address common complaints in a sensible manner.
Again, bringing up Mega Man – to an outsider observer, all six games might seem practically identical. So you might want to bring up that the later games had worse music, or weaker boss designs, or unbalanced difficulty, or however you feel. If a fanbase is particularly nasty towards a game, and you feel that hate is unjust, defend it. If you think it’s overrated, make a case for it. Just try to avoid absolutes. For example, you’ll hear a lot of people say how Mega Man 4 MASSIVELY SUCKS – when, really, you could say it sucks in the context of other Mega Man games, but it’s still a fairly decent compared to other NES games, and shouldn’t be ravaged totally – it may just suffer from sequelitis, and fails because it isn’t as inspired as later games. Remember, not all gamers play titles in order, so it’s very possible someone could’ve played Mega Man 4 before Mega Man 2, and feel the first one is superior for whatever reasons.
When writing about RPGs and fighting games, you should talk about the major characters. This way, when readers see artwork or read people referring to them, they’ll be able to identify them. Usually RPGs have different rosters in each game, so they can be addressed in each individual sections. Only concentrate on the "main" characters, and perhaps the primary villain, or anyone else that you think is interesting. Fighting games usually have rosters that remain (relatively) consistent throughout each iteration, so they can be addressed in the intro. The exceptions are entries which have completely different character rosters. In the Power Instinct article, the intro covers the characters in all of the games except for Groove on Fight, which has its own unique roster addressed in the game section.
Rip Offs/Homages
Not entirely necessary, but you may want to examine other games that are extremely similar, or even spiritual successors. Cannon Dancer, for example, is not a Strider game, but is practically a sequel for all intents and purposes. How far in depth you want to go is up to you – even a casual mention is fine.
Miscellaneous
This is another optional section. It can include random trivia about the series including cameos, cultural influence, additional artwork or screenshots, and stuff like that. For Metal Slug, the boss designs is one of the best features of the game, so I included a screenshot gallery showing all of the more impressive enemies.
Anime/Manga/Movies/Other Media
Talk about the anime, comics, live action movies, or any other appearances. Don’t worry about really obscure doujin or koma (4-panel) comics, no one really cares. Try to get firsthand experience on these and analyze them, if not, just bring up that they exist.
The Conclusion
Not completely necessary, but you can round up any remaining thoughts, maybe talk about the future of the series, if any. Other websites should be linked, especially sources you used for your article.
Single Game Articles
Single game articles obviously need to be longer than series based articles. Professional reviews answer the question “Is this game worth my money?” You should be answering the question “Why is this game important?” Why, of all of the other tons of games that come out every week, is this game special? The object is, simply, to make it better and more detailed than professional reviews. Delve deep into the story, talk about specific scenarios or levels or situations. Detail all of the characters, with pictures, and devote a lot of space to the graphical style or music. Talk about how the game fits into a genre, if at all, and how well it meets its goals compared to its brethren. For example, I spend a lot of time in my Rhythm Tengoku review disseminating the rhythm game genre, and where Rhythm Tengoku fits into the scheme of that. If you’re looking for another example, compare HG101’s God Hand review to IGN’s, and see what it does differently. The Killer7 review analyzed it in a way that most other places didn't. The Psychonauts one went into the characters and a lot of situations that make it so worthwhile, while most reviews when it came out didn't really go into specifics.
Submission Guidelines:
Please e-mail submission to coolata42@yahoo.com. Include the text in a TXT, RTF, or DOC file, and include all of the images together in a zip file. Try to find the box shots in at least 250 x 250 resolution. Label the full size images “gametitle.jpg” and the thumbnail “gametitlea.jpg”. If you’re using Japanese or European covers, use “gametitlej.jpg” or “gametitlee.jpg” to differentiate. Include as many screenshots as possible. Pick which ones you want me to use and name them “gametitle-1.png”, “gametitle-2.png”, etc. Include as many as possible as well – it’s better to have extras, since there needs to be enough screenshots for the right column to match up to the text on the left. If there’s not enough, I may have to go back and request you supply more.
When taking screenshots, try to capture the most interesting moments of the game. You need to be able to show different parts of the game as well. Try to avoid using multiple screenshots of the same level, unless there really is no variation in graphics. If there are amusing cutscenes or dialogue, grab some of those too. If you’re playing a game that has been fan translated, please try to supply the original Japanese screenshots, as I definitely prefer them. If not, just make sure to clarify in the article that you’re playing a fan translated version.
Screenshots MUST be in the native resolution for the platform. Please do not supply screenshots that have been upscaled and filtered. Most screenshots should use the PNG format – however, if they grow too large (usually screens for PSOne and Saturn games can grow to be 100k+ each), then use JPG with extremely low compression. For anything captured from a video capture card, please supply the original image titled “gametitle-1.jpg” and a half-size image named “gametitle-1a.jpg”. Use very low JPG compression for these. Also, try to ONLY use S-video inputs. In general, S-video cords only cost about $10, and they really do look much better than composite images.
If there are character profiles, please try to supply portraits. They should be roughly 150 x 150, although you can make them smaller or larger if necessary, as long as they’re consistent. If they’re screenshots, they should be in PNG format, but otherwise use JPG if they’re scans. You can also supply a larger, full size image if you want to the reader to be able to click on them to get a bigger view. Please supply these in the format “charactername-1.jpg” for the full size, and “charactername-1a.jpg” for the smaller thumbnail.
For comparisons across platforms screenshots, please use the format “gametitle-platform.png”. (For example: “shinobi-c64.png”, “shinobi-sms.png”, “shinobi-genesis.png”.) Remember that when you take pictures, they should be in approximately identical situations, usually the first screen of the first level.
Formatting:
If you can provide your article pre-formatted in HTML, that will be amazing and practically guarantees your article will go up really quickly.
The Title tag should be “Hardcore Gaming 101 – Article Title”.
There’s some ad code that goes beneath that, but I’ll take care of it. Then there should be a logo, generally large in size. Just name this “logo.png” or “logo.jpg”.
The individual games section should look like:
[Bold]Game Title / Japanese Game Title [end Bold] – Platforms (Original Release Year)
The header table for each article contains three images. The left-most should use the American box cover, and the other two should be box covers of other regions if available. If not, just use screenshots here. If there’s no variation between box covers other than the logo, don’t bother putting them up. You may want to fiddle with the table width percentage values to make them look even. The captions below each image should indicate what region the box cover is, or the name of the game if it’s a screenshot.
Then comes the text. In general, I use 66% for the text cell and 34% for the image cell. For screenshots at a higher resolution – usually Genesis, screen captures, and some arcade games, you can fiddle with these so there’s more space for the screenshots (64% text, 36% images, for example.) Just do whatever looks right. Capcom CPS games have insanely high horizontal resolution, so I use 55% text, 45% image. Just make sure the width of image matches the width of the third image in the header table, so everything looks straight. There must be enough images to fill up space next to the text.
The character profiles are embedded tables, usually 100% in width. The image should be roughly 30% width, the text roughly 70%. You can fiddle with these depending on the size of the portrait. Try to avoid having the descriptions take up more space than the portrait.
Try to put no more than four games on a given page, depending on how many screenshots it uses. Break them up into more pages if necessary. For larger articles, put a table of contents in the introduction section.
For music, pick the best tracks, or what you think are representative of the feel of the soundtrack. I only use MP3, at least 128 kbps, 44hz, 16-bit, stereo. If you can't get them, I have my sources, just let me know which songs you want (official track names off an OST.) Only pick music that actually appears in the game, not fan stuff or arrange stuff.
EDIT: The below instructions are outdated. Please refer to the Submission Guidelines on the site.
A GUIDE TO WRITING FOR HG101
Picking a Topic:
This is technically covered elsewhere, but here are the specifics. The general goal of this site is twofold: (1) Get people interested in games they may not have played otherwise, and (2) Educate people in retro games. As long as your proposed topic fits into one of those categories, that should be fine.
Generally, the less exposure the topic has on the internet, the better. However, keep in mind one important thing: fan sites tend to be written just for fans, for people who are already familiar with the games in question and want to learn more about it. This site is aimed more for people who aren’t familiar with the games in question, acting as an introduction to a given topic. Even the other fan sites I’ve done aren’t really geared towards people that aren’t already at least somewhat familiar with Castlevania or Contra. The idea of each article is to be thorough without being overwhelming. For instance, the King of Fighters article details the changes in each game in a broad sense, but doesn’t go into extreme specifics regarding different character variations, because that’s just a bit too much in detail for someone who’s not too familiar with the games, and would end up being a bit too obtuse.
Remember: you MUST be able to cover ALL games in a given series. Being obsessively thorough is a trademark of the site, and this should be consistent among all articles. You can pick themes, if you’d like – for example “Dune RTS” games if you just want to cover the ones by Westwood and skip the other crappy ones, or “Sting RPGs” if you just want to focus on one genre. If there's some super obscure entry that's beyond your ability to play, at least find some screenshots and give some facts about it (I did this with SMT NINE for the XBox, and much as I hate doing it, I don't have a modded Xbox at the moment.) If a series is too expansive, you may want to think about covering something else.
You also must cover all of the major console versions. You should definitely compare specifics between arcade and console ports on all systems, and find out if there’s any difference between regions. This is easy for 8/16-bit games, where you just need to download the ROMs, but grows more difficult for other platforms. You probably don’t need to go into much detail between the differences of most Xbox/PS2/GC games, because they’re probably the same, and if not, you can trust most professional sites for the differences. But definitely try to compare between PSOne and Saturn versions. Haven’t you seen all of those fights on the Shmups forums where people swear to God that the Saturn version is totally way better than the “awful” PSOne version? Wouldn’t you like to put these silly arguments to rest, provide a less fanboy biased view and supply some empirical evidence to answer these questions once and for all? This is one of the reasons this site exists. I know a lot of people don't feel like spending extra money on games they already own just to write a sentence or two saying "the game is exactly the same on the Saturn except for more slowdown and slightly better graphics." I like that kind of detail and that's what your article should ultimately strive for, but if that's beyond your reach, then Google it and read up on what other people have to say. I don't like trusting hearsay (and articles should never say "well, I heard this and this", because it can be inaccurate) but you can still use it as a guideline. If you hear about some things changed between Japanese and English versions, try to confirm it yourself, don't parrot what people say unless you either do the research or there are a lot of people backing it up. Ask on the HG101 forums if you’re unsure.
Try to cover home computer ports too, although this isn’t strictly necessary. I like to cover all of the weird Sega variations just because it leads for interesting picture comparisons, but don’t worry too much about, say, FM Towns Marty ports or anything.
Also, try to pick a game you can supply screenshots for. I have a video capture card and a fairly reasonable library of games, so if you need me to grab pictures for any Xbox/PS2/GC/360 games (don’t have a PS3 or Wii yet), I can – you’ll just need to ask ahead of time to see if I have it. If not, I may need to ask that you can ship me the game (don’t worry, I’ll definitely return it!) If you can provide things like save games for later levels (especially for PS2 games), or at least steal them from the save database at GameFAQs, it will definitely help out. Just remember that there’s a good chance it’ll take awhile before I can get around to snagging them, so it may be a long time before the article goes up.
Also, try to keep in mind topics that would be interesting to other readers. Just because you have an obsessive knowledge of video games based on Japanese quiz shows doesn’t mean other people care about them. And if you’re REALLY passionate about super obscure topics like this, you need to be able to make them relevant and make the reader understand why they should care. Which brings us to:
The Thesis / General Writing style:
The central idea of any article should be: Why is this game interesting? It seems to be a common conception that you only write articles about topics you like, but this doesn’t necessarily need to be the case. I’ve written a lot about Altered Beast and Alien Syndrome, two games I don’t care for much – but I’m a huge Sega fan, so I have this obsessive desire to be comprehensive. Even in these cases, you need to be able to identify what made these games popular. For Altered Beast, it was the huge graphics, and the sense of power you get from turning into huge monsters and smashing things. For Alien Syndrome, it’s all about the creepy atmosphere, the grotesque monster designs, the sense of urgency, and the fact that it rips off one of the best action movies ever made.
Secondly, you need to ask: why is this game significant? Final Fight, for example, took the formula from Double Dragon, tightened it up and inspired legions upon legions of clones. That’s pretty damn significant. Most importantly, you need to establish a sense of context to understand why something was important. The Lunar games for the Sega CD might seem like kinda generic RPGs in the 21st century, but back in the 16-bit days, it was pretty standout – it was one of the few text heavy console games with a decent translation, it had voiced characters, cinemas and a vocal song, and the publishers didn’t feel the need to change the anime-style cover artwork into something more palatable for Americans.
At the same time, you needn’t solely wear rose colored glasses. If a game hasn’t aged well, talk about it, and be specific. Going back to the Lunar games – localizations have been getting better, far more RPGs have been getting translations, most of the world is more comfortable with anime characters, and people are getting jaded with simplistic battle and character development systems. So with the playing field leveled, the weaknesses become more apparent, so more modern gamers may find them boring.
Your articles should try to stay away from fanboy gushing and aim towards being balanced. All games have flaws, and talking about weaknesses isn’t bashing it, it’s just to give the reader a clearer idea of what to expect. Plus, be sure to analyze why a given title failed or was received poorly. Lots of people are eager to blame shortsighted critics or poor marketing plans, but in reality, cult games are usually obscure for a reason, because there’s some element of the gameplay or graphic design that gamers might find off-putting. Like the graphics and characters of Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil were cool and interesting and all, but perhaps a bit too weird for most people to accept. You’ll want to analyze these, and give the reader some kind of idea of what side of the fence they’ll fall on. Try to be objective too. Obviously, if you’re trying to get people to play it, you’d want to skew more positive, but definitely address both sides.
Try to avoid wordiness at all cost. Your pieces should be detailed but still succinct. The biggest changes I make in articles is deleting extraneous information or rewording sentences to make them flow better. Try to avoid small sentences, and try to cram as much as possible without turning it into a run on. Also, remove any redundant information. If you’ve already established that the graphics are awful and the control sucks, you don’t need to bring it back up again in your conclusion sentence. Conclusion sentences aren’t even always necessary, depending on how you’ve written it.
Also, try to avoid using the first person. You can when you’re relating personal experiences or feelings, but your writing may come across weaker if you rely on it too much. For example.
BAD: “I think the graphics are outstanding.”
BETTER: “The graphics are outstanding”.
The latter speaks with more authority and is definitely preferable.
Also, don’t be vague in your criticisms or praises. Say more than “The graphics are nice”, or “The level designs kinda suck.” Give at least one example to support these statements. “The graphics are bright and fluidly animated, especially the main character.” Or “The level designs are repetitive, consisting of huge expanses of flat terrain and almost no variation in graphical design.”
You can be casual and informal – I’m not a stickler for things like that, and if you want to pepper your article with some humor, go right ahead. Add in with wacky anecdotes if you want, but don’t go on too many tangents. Try to avoid cursing unless necessary also. If it helps, pretend you’re on a message board, recommending a game to your peers.
I know some places consider it a no-no, but you can (and should) make some comparisons to a more well known games, since they’re an easy and direct way to hook readers (ex: “Senko no Ronde is like Virtual On mixed with a bullet hell shooter”, “Bubsy is sorta like Sonic except total rubbish”). Since this site is aimed at someone who is at least somewhat knowledgeable about games, you should assume they have at least some vague knowledge as to what these titles are, and also assume they’re familiar with video game vocabulary like “move sets”, “combos”, “frames per second”, “anti-aliasing” and stuff like that.
Structure:
For multiple game articles, it should flow like this:
Intro
Game
Game
Game (etc)
Miscellaneous Stuff
Rip Off Games/Homages
Anime/Manga/Movies/other media
Conclusion
The later sections can go in any order, and you can restructure various bits where you feel they make sense.
The Intro:
The Intro should establish a sense of historical context. Also do some research on the publisher, the people involved, or what kind of other games they’ve made. The more information you can find, the better, especially if you know how to dig through the Japanese Wikipedia to search for names, gameographies and connections.
After this, you should talk about the defining aspects of the series, and what elements are constant among all of the games. Beyond the basic game concepts, talk about graphic style (Are they consistent amongst all of the games? Who’s the character designer, if they’re important? Is it dark/bright, realistic/fantasy, serious/goofy?) and music style (composer, genres, etc.) This way, when you start talking about the actual games, you only need to address what’s different/unique about them, instead of stating the main points over and over and over again.
The Game:
In the actual game section, you’re analyzing the specifics of a given title, rather than the general concepts of the series. For certain topics, the first entry may be the briefest, usually because all of the main points were already brought up during the intro. For example: R-Type. Once you detail the gameplay system, talk about the pace and difficulty and graphic style, there’s not much to say about the first game.
When talking about later games, you can talk about additions and changes to the formula, what works and what doesn’t, changes in graphic or music style, and – most importantly – the high and low points. Try to be specific, if there’s a really cool stage or setpiece, or a really annoying plot element or level, bring it up. For, let’s say, a Mega Man article – once you’ve set down what the original games are all about, all you need to address are the different robots, the types of stages, how the music is, how the graphics have improved (if at all), the difficulty, and how it all ties together, while maybe bringing up how cool the dragon was in Dr. Wily’s castle or how breathtaking the intro was in Megaman 2, or how Bright Man’s stage was COMPLETE BULLSHIT in Mega Man 4.
Again, you’re trying to be balanced – bring up facts, talk about how you feel about those facts, and whether they make for a fun game. If you want to lavish praise or completely bash a game, you should do it reasonably, and make it perfectly clear why this particular entry is TOTALLY the best of them, or why this one completely sucks. You should also avoid being too inflammatory, because if you sound too much like a jerk, readers may tend to tune you out. You should also have a good grasp on the attitude of the fanbase towards certain entries, and maybe try to address common complaints in a sensible manner.
Again, bringing up Mega Man – to an outsider observer, all six games might seem practically identical. So you might want to bring up that the later games had worse music, or weaker boss designs, or unbalanced difficulty, or however you feel. If a fanbase is particularly nasty towards a game, and you feel that hate is unjust, defend it. If you think it’s overrated, make a case for it. Just try to avoid absolutes. For example, you’ll hear a lot of people say how Mega Man 4 MASSIVELY SUCKS – when, really, you could say it sucks in the context of other Mega Man games, but it’s still a fairly decent compared to other NES games, and shouldn’t be ravaged totally – it may just suffer from sequelitis, and fails because it isn’t as inspired as later games. Remember, not all gamers play titles in order, so it’s very possible someone could’ve played Mega Man 4 before Mega Man 2, and feel the first one is superior for whatever reasons.
When writing about RPGs and fighting games, you should talk about the major characters. This way, when readers see artwork or read people referring to them, they’ll be able to identify them. Usually RPGs have different rosters in each game, so they can be addressed in each individual sections. Only concentrate on the "main" characters, and perhaps the primary villain, or anyone else that you think is interesting. Fighting games usually have rosters that remain (relatively) consistent throughout each iteration, so they can be addressed in the intro. The exceptions are entries which have completely different character rosters. In the Power Instinct article, the intro covers the characters in all of the games except for Groove on Fight, which has its own unique roster addressed in the game section.
Rip Offs/Homages
Not entirely necessary, but you may want to examine other games that are extremely similar, or even spiritual successors. Cannon Dancer, for example, is not a Strider game, but is practically a sequel for all intents and purposes. How far in depth you want to go is up to you – even a casual mention is fine.
Miscellaneous
This is another optional section. It can include random trivia about the series including cameos, cultural influence, additional artwork or screenshots, and stuff like that. For Metal Slug, the boss designs is one of the best features of the game, so I included a screenshot gallery showing all of the more impressive enemies.
Anime/Manga/Movies/Other Media
Talk about the anime, comics, live action movies, or any other appearances. Don’t worry about really obscure doujin or koma (4-panel) comics, no one really cares. Try to get firsthand experience on these and analyze them, if not, just bring up that they exist.
The Conclusion
Not completely necessary, but you can round up any remaining thoughts, maybe talk about the future of the series, if any. Other websites should be linked, especially sources you used for your article.
Single Game Articles
Single game articles obviously need to be longer than series based articles. Professional reviews answer the question “Is this game worth my money?” You should be answering the question “Why is this game important?” Why, of all of the other tons of games that come out every week, is this game special? The object is, simply, to make it better and more detailed than professional reviews. Delve deep into the story, talk about specific scenarios or levels or situations. Detail all of the characters, with pictures, and devote a lot of space to the graphical style or music. Talk about how the game fits into a genre, if at all, and how well it meets its goals compared to its brethren. For example, I spend a lot of time in my Rhythm Tengoku review disseminating the rhythm game genre, and where Rhythm Tengoku fits into the scheme of that. If you’re looking for another example, compare HG101’s God Hand review to IGN’s, and see what it does differently. The Killer7 review analyzed it in a way that most other places didn't. The Psychonauts one went into the characters and a lot of situations that make it so worthwhile, while most reviews when it came out didn't really go into specifics.
Submission Guidelines:
Please e-mail submission to coolata42@yahoo.com. Include the text in a TXT, RTF, or DOC file, and include all of the images together in a zip file. Try to find the box shots in at least 250 x 250 resolution. Label the full size images “gametitle.jpg” and the thumbnail “gametitlea.jpg”. If you’re using Japanese or European covers, use “gametitlej.jpg” or “gametitlee.jpg” to differentiate. Include as many screenshots as possible. Pick which ones you want me to use and name them “gametitle-1.png”, “gametitle-2.png”, etc. Include as many as possible as well – it’s better to have extras, since there needs to be enough screenshots for the right column to match up to the text on the left. If there’s not enough, I may have to go back and request you supply more.
When taking screenshots, try to capture the most interesting moments of the game. You need to be able to show different parts of the game as well. Try to avoid using multiple screenshots of the same level, unless there really is no variation in graphics. If there are amusing cutscenes or dialogue, grab some of those too. If you’re playing a game that has been fan translated, please try to supply the original Japanese screenshots, as I definitely prefer them. If not, just make sure to clarify in the article that you’re playing a fan translated version.
Screenshots MUST be in the native resolution for the platform. Please do not supply screenshots that have been upscaled and filtered. Most screenshots should use the PNG format – however, if they grow too large (usually screens for PSOne and Saturn games can grow to be 100k+ each), then use JPG with extremely low compression. For anything captured from a video capture card, please supply the original image titled “gametitle-1.jpg” and a half-size image named “gametitle-1a.jpg”. Use very low JPG compression for these. Also, try to ONLY use S-video inputs. In general, S-video cords only cost about $10, and they really do look much better than composite images.
If there are character profiles, please try to supply portraits. They should be roughly 150 x 150, although you can make them smaller or larger if necessary, as long as they’re consistent. If they’re screenshots, they should be in PNG format, but otherwise use JPG if they’re scans. You can also supply a larger, full size image if you want to the reader to be able to click on them to get a bigger view. Please supply these in the format “charactername-1.jpg” for the full size, and “charactername-1a.jpg” for the smaller thumbnail.
For comparisons across platforms screenshots, please use the format “gametitle-platform.png”. (For example: “shinobi-c64.png”, “shinobi-sms.png”, “shinobi-genesis.png”.) Remember that when you take pictures, they should be in approximately identical situations, usually the first screen of the first level.
Formatting:
If you can provide your article pre-formatted in HTML, that will be amazing and practically guarantees your article will go up really quickly.
The Title tag should be “Hardcore Gaming 101 – Article Title”.
There’s some ad code that goes beneath that, but I’ll take care of it. Then there should be a logo, generally large in size. Just name this “logo.png” or “logo.jpg”.
The individual games section should look like:
[Bold]Game Title / Japanese Game Title [end Bold] – Platforms (Original Release Year)
The header table for each article contains three images. The left-most should use the American box cover, and the other two should be box covers of other regions if available. If not, just use screenshots here. If there’s no variation between box covers other than the logo, don’t bother putting them up. You may want to fiddle with the table width percentage values to make them look even. The captions below each image should indicate what region the box cover is, or the name of the game if it’s a screenshot.
Then comes the text. In general, I use 66% for the text cell and 34% for the image cell. For screenshots at a higher resolution – usually Genesis, screen captures, and some arcade games, you can fiddle with these so there’s more space for the screenshots (64% text, 36% images, for example.) Just do whatever looks right. Capcom CPS games have insanely high horizontal resolution, so I use 55% text, 45% image. Just make sure the width of image matches the width of the third image in the header table, so everything looks straight. There must be enough images to fill up space next to the text.
The character profiles are embedded tables, usually 100% in width. The image should be roughly 30% width, the text roughly 70%. You can fiddle with these depending on the size of the portrait. Try to avoid having the descriptions take up more space than the portrait.
Try to put no more than four games on a given page, depending on how many screenshots it uses. Break them up into more pages if necessary. For larger articles, put a table of contents in the introduction section.
For music, pick the best tracks, or what you think are representative of the feel of the soundtrack. I only use MP3, at least 128 kbps, 44hz, 16-bit, stereo. If you can't get them, I have my sources, just let me know which songs you want (official track names off an OST.) Only pick music that actually appears in the game, not fan stuff or arrange stuff.