Fourced Reviews

* Fourced Reviews
* Rage Review
* Hollow Review
* Fluke Review
* Evanz Review
* Coming "Soon"
* Fourced Reviews Thumbnail
1/7

## **About**

Fourced Reviews is a series started on June 28th 2013 that stretches among four channels; **Rage**'s channel, **Hollow**'s channel, **Fluke**'s channel and **Evanz**'s channel. The idea of the series is that the four of them will give each other games the person wouldn't want to play and make them do a positive and serious review on it. Then the viewers are meant to vote on which person did the best and most believable review. The word 'Fourced' is a pun based on the fact that there are four of them and they are being forced to review the games. Each video starts off with a 2D animation made by **Curaxu** of an audio clip of the four friends revealing which game they will have to review. As of now there has only been one recording session and four episodes, one for each person, all uploaded on one day. A trailer for new episodes was later released but nothing has come of it yet.

## ***Rage:*** **Nightmare House 2**

The video starts with the animation of the four sitting at a table, Hollow drinking tea and Rage explaining what the series is. Then Evanz reveals that because Rage is so afraid of horror games he is giving him the game 'Nightmare House 2' to review. Rage walks off screen and yells 'God Damn it!' as Evanz assures that the game is full of jump scares. Rage returns and Hollow suggests that Rage have a facecam during the review. Rage says that while the rest of them merely have bad games, his game will literally make him feel pain and emotionally scar him and with that, the review begins. It cuts to Rage on the title screen saying he 'loves' horror games. Nightmare House 2 is a mod to the game Half Life 2 episode 2. Rage explains that this is a sequel to another mod only with more scares and then begins to play the game. It starts with him in a padded room and then walking down a dark hospital corridor with a 'ghost' running by as a jump scare causing Rage to scream. Through out the video, the pale faced Rage rambles sarcastically about the lighting, story immersion and mostly how hes super not scared and only acting like that to give the viewers the experience of someone who is scared playing the game. Because of the opening animation fully giving away the fact that hes afraid of horror games and his overall sarcastic tone when complimenting the game, its completely transparent and might have worked better if he simply admitted his fear yet still claimed to honestly think its a quality game. Rage's review was definitely more of a first impressions review because of the way he was just playing it and improvising what to say. Overall not the most 'believable' review but the fans really enjoyed the hilarious attempt and watching Rage try to keep and straight face to review something while being scared senseless.

## ***Hollow:*** **War Z/Infestation Survivor Stories!**

In the opening animation, Rage tells Hollow that 'War Z' or as its been renamed 'Infestation Survivor Stories' is the game he has chosen for him to review in the video. Hollow replies by saying 'I'll just be punching a zombie for 30 minutes and that will be the video.' to which the group laughs. The review begins with Hollow explaining that the game, like Day Z, is an online multiplayer based zombie game where you can contact other players who can attack you or choose to be friendly. Hollow does the voice over commentary while clips of him playing the game are on screen in proper review format. He cuts back and forth between his voice over and then footage of his experiences in the game such as him encountering other players or getting cornered by zombies. In some of his encounters he kills the players, gets killed by the players and in one he befriends a player and goes off attacking zombies with him. In the video he even mentions the whole 'punching a zombie for 30 minutes' thing he brought up in the opening. He clears up the misconception by pointing out that all you have to do is switch to first person and aim for the head to kill the zombies quickly. He cleverly points out the realism of it not dying from just being hit in the chest repeatedly. Hollow praises the sound design for adding to the atmosphere and the scarcity of ammunition for make the experience more tense. He points out the sleeper zombies that lay on the ground and wait to be aggro-ed and the group adding feature that does not exist in Day Z as an example of variety and how they are different. Hollow ends off the review with the near perfect sentiment of "Its not Day Z and it's never gonna be as good as Day Z but its not as bad as people think it is and make it out to be. I admit that I said this game was garbage and a waste of money prior to actually playing it. It was great fun with a friend or multiple people". Hollow's review actually seemed to be very honest and feel most like a real review. He made good points, although it is true that most games, even bad ones, can be fun with friends. This review left fans confused on if Hollow actually liked the game or not and that really speaks to the believable of it. Two months later Hollow even uploaded another video of him playing the game with Evanz.

## ***Fluke:* Dota 2**

In the video, Hollow tells Fluke that because he doesn't like serious hardcore games he'll be reviewing Dota 2 and he has to play an online match while he reviews. Like Rage's video, his review seems to be a first impressions review. Fluke pretends to know a lot about the game and gives hilariously incorrect information about it. He picks a dragon knight and manages to get himself killed immediately by the other team and the round ends with the other players reporting him. Fluke ends of the video saying 'I hope that based on my talent and ability that you go and play this game yourself. To be honest, If you don't, I don't fucking blame ya' which kinda tips of the audience to if he really enjoyed the game or not. A fun video to see fluke embarrass himself in front of Dota players and to see an outsiders view on the game. Fluke's review is not necessarily 'Believable' but more of a funny experiment, seeing someone going in blind to play Dota 2 and the viewers really enjoyed it.

## ***Evanz:* Bientôt l'été!**

The video starts with Fluke telling Evanz that he will be playing a french indie game called 'Bientôt l'été'. After looking in his steam inventory, Evanz replies with 'Is that even a game?'. The review begins to the perfect thing to explain away Evanz hesitation and make the review believable, he says 'When I got given Bientôt l'été I literally thought I cannot review this game. It is not a game. It is a visual masterpiece'. Evanz compares this to other more visually focused games like journey or dear Esther and points out how critiques loved those. He says 'It feels like an insult to call Bientôt l'été a game.' and points out that the title screen says 'This is not a game to be won. Play for experience'. The game is multiplayer and pairs you up with a partner and your meant to 'pretend to be lovers separated from each other by light years of deep space'. The game mainly consists of walking along the beach collecting sentences and phrases and then going to a cafe where you can say these phrases to your partner as well as smoke and drink. Evanz tells his experience with the game and how he stumbles upon elements of the game as if it was a story. This pretentious way of reviewing fit perfectly with the game and although we could obviously tell Evanz didn't like the game, it was possibly the best way you could positively present and review a game like that. Although the review was only 6 minutes, It felt very professional and realistic. He never really seemed sarcastic, He maintained seriousness throughout the video. Except for the funny little Easter egg at the end when he listed out words to describe the game; 'Spectacular, Heavenly, Impeccable, Terrific, Tremendous, Excellent, Superfluous, Transcendent, Genius, Amazing, Mesmerizing and Extraordinary.' which spells out 'Shittest Game.' when you use just the first letter of each. It was difficult for the fans to decide who had the best review but it was defiantly close between Evanz and Hollow at one point.

## **Aftermath**

The votes decided that Hollow had won with the most believable positive review. The fandom really took to the series and embraced it. It wasn't long until the viewers wanted to see more episodes of fourced reviews. Months past with no new episodes. An uproar of impatient fans demanded more while others waited silently. 'When is the next fourced reviews?' became an often asked question and fans began making jokes about it similar to Half Life 3 or other games, movies or series that were always 'Coming Soon' but never happening. Finally, about a year later, a trailer came out announcing that it was coming back.

## **'It Returns...' Trailer**

On October 31st 2014, Rage uploaded a live action trailer featuring him, Fluke, Evanz and Hollow. The sketch involved Fluke waking up on a sofa dressed as a witch and finding a book with his name on it. upon opening the book, He runs into Rage's bedroom wakes him up to show him the book. They call Hollow and text Evanz saying 'Its a code 4'. The end of the video says 'The games decided, The Stage is set. Fourced Reviews coming soon'. As of now, there has yet to be another episode.