"Great" Moments in Games Journalism and THE WALKING DEAD series discussion!

Orikaeshigitae

http://www.insomnia.ac

Ladies and Gentlemen: Alex Kierkeegaardee.

A duck!

Games journalism is slightly above right wing blogs in terms of respectability.

JoeUser

That guy does not care for Journey

Orikaeshigitae

A duck! wrote: »

Games journalism is slightly above right wing blogs in terms of respectability.

perhaps you missed the scare quotes in this and the previous thread, as well as the link i provided in the op, and in fact every aspect of this discussion

A duck!

He's the Armond White of game reviews, apparently. I'm sorry to have fed him with a site visit.

Seriously

apparently I have to subscribe to read this guy's reviews

oh ho ho


oh my friend

keep thinking positive

Sweeney Tom

One star review of Journey on said site wrote:

Essentially, whoever sees EVEN THE TINIEST HINT OF INNOVATION OR ORIGINALITY in this game, either got into games last week, and therefore simply doesn't know any better, or IS TOO DUMB TO MENTALLY STRIP A GAME OF ITS AESTHETICS AND MAKE MEANINGFUL MECHANICAL COMPARISONS, period.

One star for Journey
Burnout Paradise reviewed with worse score than Burnout 2
Super Meat Boy, LA Noire, and Minecraft all get 2 stars
Duke Nukem Forever gets 3 stars

Jesus christ I can't even

Orikaeshigitae

journey is pretty shallow, but then so are all of thatgamecompany's games

they're really good at presenting single mechanics in a neat way

Orikaeshigitae

A duck! wrote: »

He's the Armond White of game reviews, apparently. I'm sorry to have fed him with a site visit.

fortunately, as the next nietzsche and inevitable supplanter of all higher thought, he doesn't need ads

Sweeney Tom

The only thing on the front page that I didn't hate

that I can have an opinion on

is that review of Dead Space where he said he liked it

Tarranon

Seriously wrote: »

apparently I have to subscribe to read this guy's reviews

oh ho ho


oh my friend

keep thinking positive

after browsing the praise highlights, how can you afford not to shell out twenty five quid a year to have this man's thoughts penetrating your skull

Clint Eastwood

Sweeney Tom wrote: »

One star review of Journey on said site wrote:

Essentially, whoever sees EVEN THE TINIEST HINT OF INNOVATION OR ORIGINALITY in this game, either got into games last week, and therefore simply doesn't know any better, or IS TOO DUMB TO MENTALLY STRIP A GAME OF ITS AESTHETICS AND MAKE MEANINGFUL MECHANICAL COMPARISONS, period.

One star for Journey
Burnout Paradise reviewed with worse score than Burnout 2
Super Meat Boy, LA Noire, and Minecraft all get 2 stars
Duke Nukem Forever gets 3 stars

Jesus christ I can't even

Burnout paradise was trash though

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT

Tarranon wrote: »

Seriously wrote: »

apparently I have to subscribe to read this guy's reviews

oh ho ho


oh my friend

keep thinking positive

after browsing the praise highlights, how can you afford not to shell out twenty five quid a year to have this man's thoughts penetrating your skull

That is literally pennies a day!

Der Waffle Mous

I'm surprised this didn't immediately turn into the Kotaku thread.

wirehead26

What the fuck could he have liked about Duke Nukem Forever?

And no I'm not visiting his site to find out.

The_Scarab

Der Waffle Mous wrote: »

I'm surprised this didn't immediately turn into the Kotaku thread.

In a way, all threads are Kotaku threads.

Sweeney Tom

wirehead26 wrote: »

What the fuck could he have liked about Duke Nukem Forever?

And no I'm not visiting his site to find out.

I don't know

He has a two sentence summary on the front page, talking about how it fulfilled its promise and was worth the wait

And you have to subscribe to read reviews

Stale

Clint Eastwood wrote: »

Sweeney Tom wrote: »

One star review of Journey on said site wrote:

Essentially, whoever sees EVEN THE TINIEST HINT OF INNOVATION OR ORIGINALITY in this game, either got into games last week, and therefore simply doesn't know any better, or IS TOO DUMB TO MENTALLY STRIP A GAME OF ITS AESTHETICS AND MAKE MEANINGFUL MECHANICAL COMPARISONS, period.

One star for Journey
Burnout Paradise reviewed with worse score than Burnout 2
Super Meat Boy, LA Noire, and Minecraft all get 2 stars
Duke Nukem Forever gets 3 stars

Jesus christ I can't even

Burnout paradise was trash though

Hey...

we worked hard on that

Moriveth

Stale wrote: »

Clint Eastwood wrote: »

Sweeney Tom wrote: »

One star review of Journey on said site wrote:

Essentially, whoever sees EVEN THE TINIEST HINT OF INNOVATION OR ORIGINALITY in this game, either got into games last week, and therefore simply doesn't know any better, or IS TOO DUMB TO MENTALLY STRIP A GAME OF ITS AESTHETICS AND MAKE MEANINGFUL MECHANICAL COMPARISONS, period.

One star for Journey
Burnout Paradise reviewed with worse score than Burnout 2
Super Meat Boy, LA Noire, and Minecraft all get 2 stars
Duke Nukem Forever gets 3 stars

Jesus christ I can't even

Burnout paradise was trash though

Hey...

we worked hard on that

Don't worry

he's an idiot

that game was rad

The_Scarab

Not as good as Takedown though.

Olivaw

Paradise was incredible

Especially at infuriating me

God damn rubber banding AI bullshit

Moriveth

Olivaw wrote: »

Paradise was incredible

Especially at infuriating me

God damn rubber banding AI bullshit

Yeah the game got to a point where the AI was stupid good at... well, everything

but still

it was a lot of fun up to that point

Darric

Did this interview come up in the last thread:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/05/24/respawn-39-s-west-and-zampella-sound-off-on-upcoming-activision-lawsuit.aspx

Because it's amazing.

Viscount Islands

I liked Burnout 3 so much and Burnout Paradise was so disappointing.

PaperLuigi44

Revenge is one of my favourite games but I still dug Paradise, I never got tired of chasing unlockable cars along the winding mountain paths.

TheySlashThem

orik why would you inflict this upon us

Sweeney Tom

ThatDudeOverThere wrote: »

orik why would you inflict this upon us

You only hurt the ones you love

Doobh

Dude's got some incredibly bad opinions

why would anyone pay to hear them in detail

I think those blurbs cover the complexity of those reviews well enough

Orikaeshigitae

here's this: http://shshatteredmemories.com/greenvale/game-developer-magazine-interview

chiasaur11

Dubh wrote: »

Dude's got some incredibly bad opinions

why would anyone pay to hear them in detail

I think those blurbs cover the complexity of those reviews well enough

I think that's his plan. He makes infuriating review summaries, and charges people to see the full thing to find out what he's smoking.

Then he just has some dashed out thing there. The point isn't reviewing. The point is a quick, easy con job. Depending on how cheap his hosting is, I can easily see it turning a small profit.

Kind of clever, in a stupid way.

Stale

If you don't like Paradise, then you are probably fundamentally broken.

A duck!

I liked it, but I didn't love it. The AI was just dumb, and I got SO FUCKING TIRED of GnR, which I will admit is a stupid complaint but there it is. It was still great to just sit down and destroy shit for like twenty minutes.

Stale

It's not possible to get tired of GnR while tearing ass around and crashing your car


I'm sorry duck. I'm sorry you had to find out like this, but it's time you knew.

The Lovely Bastard

nope sorry getting sick of gnr is not something i'll believe is possible under any circumstances

not just while being a bad motorist

Sweeney Tom

Besides, you'd think hearing "Girlfriend" over and over would be more irritating than anything else

The song just didn't fit in the soundtrack

Kuribo's Shoe

Sweeney Tom wrote: »

Besides, you'd think hearing "Girlfriend" over and over would be more irritating than anything else

The song just didn't fit in the soundtrack

nope that was amazing

PaperLuigi44

You could toggle which songs played in the menu though

Orikaeshigitae

chiasaur11 wrote: »

Dubh wrote: »

Dude's got some incredibly bad opinions

why would anyone pay to hear them in detail

I think those blurbs cover the complexity of those reviews well enough

I think that's his plan. He makes infuriating review summaries, and charges people to see the full thing to find out what he's smoking.

Then he just has some dashed out thing there. The point isn't reviewing. The point is a quick, easy con job. Depending on how cheap his hosting is, I can easily see it turning a small profit.

Kind of clever, in a stupid way.

i wish it were a con. i really do.

here's a legit post of his, made in complete seriousness

Yes, something I've also mentioned in one of the essays, but it bears repeating here as well. No one besides me currently realizes the vast impact that these books (plus the philosophical ones) are about to have on the course of the intellectual endeavors of mankind, but I'll try to give you a rough idea. Basically, within the next few years:

1. The four main videogame books will be taught as the gospel in all university Game Studies programs in the world. Those professors who for whatever reason fail to use them, and prefer to use, oh I don't know, Jesper Juul's or that Bogost moron's or Sirlin's lol, or whoever else's books instead, will find themselves being continually challenged and ridiculed by their own students (and especially the smarter ones), who will have found out about me from the internet and also told all their friends (something which, by the way, has already happened in at least one instance, which I linked somewhere in the reaction thread but can't seem to find it at the moment).

2. In addition to the above, the Genealogy will become the number 1 text in all kinds of art studies. Film, painting, music, you name it; the Genealogy will become mandatory reading in all kinds of art theory and art history courses once the old guard has gone through its inevitable denial phase -- and perhaps being phased out themselves.

3. Orgy of the Will will become the number 1 text in all university philosophy programs, overshadowing everything, even Zarathustra (quite against my wishes, this last development, but it can't be helped).

4. And in addition to that, my books on Nietzsche and Baudrillard will become the number 1 scholarly/interpretative works on these two philosophers in any university philosophy program that involves them (and all of them should involve them).

5. And in addition to all the above, Orgy of the Will will have a tremendous impact on practically all the natural sciences, the humanities, politics, etc. To give some examples from the natural sciences, consider that there are still no physicists who understand the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, which I can explain in a couple of paragraphs. Or take medical professionals, who, when asked for their opinion on the matter, reply that immortality appears like an eventually achievable goal. Or take physicists again, with their "singularities", "double arrows of time" and other such idiocies. Not to mention psychoanalysis! which still doesn't realize that its number 1 concern should be the fight against ressentiment, and so on and so forth.


So, essentially, as long as some sort of freak accident involving killer comets or infected monkeys or whatever does not occur on this planet within the next few years, we will eventually get to the point where it will be impossible to go more than a few steps in any field of intellectual endeavor without at the very least someone recommending you one of my books, if not outright ordering you to fucking read them. And to get back to the videogame books, which are the closest on the horizon, my plan is as follows: all four of these books will be out by early summer at the latest. By that point I will have made a list of all the luminaries of the videogame industry, the usual suspects: Gabe Newell, the Bioware dudes, CliffyB, etc. -- several hundred, if not a couple thousand names. And then these dudes will be receiving a package in the mail from me that will include all four of my books, a free lifetime subscription to Insomnia, and a graciously written cover letter. Because I'll be damned if I am going to wait for the Gamasutra fuckfaces to mention my name to these people: I am just going to take matters into my own hands here too and see what happens. And what I think will happen is that before long you'll be seeing "CliffyB" etc. browsing the forum alongside you, and the Gamasutra fuckfaces will find it impossible to ignore me when all the industry's big names are talking about me in all the trade shows and conventions. -- Or at least that's my plan, at any rate, and I have a lot of faith in it.

And at the same time with all the above, I'll start getting in touch with Japanese publishers to translate these books, and then all of Japan's videogame industry will be getting their packages in the mail too, etc.

There's a slight snag to this plan, concerning money, however, because each of these packages will be costing me upwards of 50 euros inc. shipping, so if we are talking, say, 3000 people, that would be like 150,000 euros lol which no way in hell I can afford any time soon, but I'll start slow with a few packages a week (I'll have someone in my parents' publishing house take care of this), and work my way forward as sales of the books pick up and I can afford to increase the rate at which I send them out.

And there will be a similar plan with the philosophical books involving academic journals (mainly IJBS), and perhaps also art critics etc. as far as the Genealogy is concerned. We'll see. And at any rate, if anyone thinks this is too pushy (not that I care what anyone thinks, but just sayin'), Nietzsche had started to do pretty much the same thing a few months before he lost it. He had just been discovered by the Danish critic Georg Brandes, who was the first to teach Nietzsche's philosophy at a university, and he asked him to recommend to him several European intellectuals of the time, from Russia, France, etc., and also for their addresses, so he could send them his books and try to get some attention for his work -- attention which both the journalistic and academic establishments had been denying him for a decade. So there's nothing strange or abnormal with what I am doing -- I am just probably going to be doing it much more forcefully and methodically than anyone else, as is my style.

Seriously

who

is

this person

Platy

Our intellectual Messiah

Hobnail

So......Time Cube?