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Chud Games: Hype and Reconciliation

post #1 of 23
10/25/04 at 6:53pm
Thread Starter 
http://chud.com/dvd/283
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post #2 of 23
10/25/04 at 7:48pm
nick's right. halo 2 will own us all
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post #3 of 23
10/25/04 at 8:30pm
[strike]Nick Nunziata: Quite simply, still the man.[/strike]

My bad. Jeremy fucking Slater, making quite the run at Nick's title.

"Being excited for Halo 2 is fine; writing a 324 page piece of fanfiction where the Master Chief winds up screwing Samus Aran in the pooper is not."

Holy damn , that's still funny.
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post #4 of 23
10/25/04 at 8:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slater in the Pick the next CHUD Games article Thread
Yeah, sorry.

If I can crank out this Salem's Lot DVD review, I'll do something for Paper Mario 2 too. If that doesn't happen, you should all still buy the game. It's the best RPG of the year.
Heh, it's all good, man. I'm actually really glad you touched on E3 and the glitzy Las Vegas type fucking circus it's become in recent years. Anyways, very good article.

Good to hear about Paper Mario too.
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post #5 of 23
10/25/04 at 8:35pm
The thing about what Nick said is it seems to imply he's gonna love the game regardless, and, just like GTA and Zelda, there are always a lot of those kinda folks. I'm an enthusiastic gamer, and I love seeing enthusiasm for any upcoming release - I just don't want HALO 2 to be the Matrix Reloaded of video games. I hope it's fantastic, and I think the chances are pretty damn good that it will be, but I'm certainly going to play it before I label it brilliant.

Great article, as usual, Jeremy.
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post #6 of 23
10/25/04 at 8:52pm
Did you have that article ready to post Slater, or did you just write it after setting up that poll?

Either way, it's a good level headed look at the subject. The parallels with Doom 3 were spot on, there will be people who expect Halo 2 to change the world and they're gona be disapointed because it's not. There are people who will expect it to be different, when it's not, it's more of the same, which is all it could ever possibly be. Then there are sour bastards who are determinned to hate the game no matter what, and over ethusiastic gamers who are determinned to love it no matter what. It happens every time.
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post #7 of 23
10/25/04 at 8:52pm
Nice piece, Slater. Your advice is good and I've been going that route myself for a few years now...another example that immediately comes to mind is Fable. I found out about it, got excited about it, and then pretty much forgot about it until it was actually released. The result: I had a blast with it, and I still am. It certainly makes for a more enriching experience to judge the game based on what it IS rather than what the hype-machine has teased you with what it MIGHT be.
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post #8 of 23
10/25/04 at 9:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by YeLLoWsAmUeL
Did you have that article ready to post Slater, or did you just write it after setting up that poll?
Just wrote it this afternoon.

Thanks for the nice words, folks.
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post #9 of 23
10/25/04 at 9:33pm
Very well written, Slater. I think sometimes games actually don't live up to their potential/hype, which is cause for disappointment, but these days there are way more people being disappointed for the sake of being disappointed. I'm not sure what these people actually expect new games to deliver, but it seems that nothing's quite enough for them.
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post #10 of 23
10/25/04 at 9:40pm
That was a really great article, actually. I had never really thought about how ludicrous the video game promotion machine is. I've been out of the medium for a while.

Oh, and I found a new sig line.

Quote:
Being excited for Halo 2 is fine; writing a 324 page piece of fanfiction where the Master Chief winds up screwing Samus Aran in the pooper is not.
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post #11 of 23
10/25/04 at 9:55pm
Nice article slater. Although, I don't think there will ever be an end to fan boy bitching. Message boards were invented for fan boy bitching and thats something I will have to deal with forever.

Although the strange thing about Halo 2 is that the ACTUAL information available about the game has been so scant and superficial that I find myself obsessed with roving through fan boy ranting on message boards to actually find out real information about the gameplay (obviously from those who played the leaked version).

Anyway, I think Halo 2 is unique and I don't think DOOM 3 quite measures up to the halo 2 hypeage. Doom 3 was always purported to be a straight forward atmospheric shooter, no secrets, no fancy storyline, just graphics and guns. Bungie has been so tight lipped about the game and its been in production for SO LONG, that they just drove their fan base crazy with speculation.

I do agree that this hype is goign to lead to record sales, but I think I would have benefitted from a little more concrete info from Bungie seeing that they made me wait so long for the game.
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post #12 of 23
10/25/04 at 11:23pm
At this point, Bungie’s shooter could randomly eject itself from your Xbox in a shower of magical gold coins and start rubbing itself against your genitals and there would still be fans that bitched because it didn’t rub fast enough.

mmmmm....coins

Slater these articles keep getting better.....
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post #13 of 23
10/26/04 at 12:25am
Man that was great Slater. Just a fantastic and informing read. I have to admit i've stayed away from Halo 2's early word. I'm getting a sinking feeling about it now after reading this. God I hope its going to be great.
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post #14 of 23
10/26/04 at 1:07am
Nice work Slater. I don't understand the "I've been waiting for XXX for three years for this game and it better not suck." No, you haven't been waiting for three years. That implies it's been a constant distraction for three years, that you can't get through a day without Halo 2 pushing into your thoughts. If that's the case you need help. Hundreds of games have been released since Halo, and through that time I'm sure you could have found something to distract you from the Cortana-crush.

If the crapper's in use, you'll wait five minutes to take a leak. If you purchase Hott Halo Babes mail-order, you'll wait a few days for that discretely labelled package to land in your mailbox. If you propose to a fine woman you'll wait with horror and fascination for the day of your bondage. But any sane person doesn't wait through... isn't constantly thinking about and distressed by... the three-year development cycle of a game.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacob Singer
The thing about what Nick said is it seems to imply he's gonna love the game regardless, and, just like GTA and Zelda, there are always a lot of those kinda folks. I'm an enthusiastic gamer, and I love seeing enthusiasm for any upcoming release - I just don't want HALO 2 to be the Matrix Reloaded of video games. I hope it's fantastic, and I think the chances are pretty damn good that it will be, but I'm certainly going to play it before I label it brilliant.

Great article, as usual, Jeremy.
I may be full of shit, and I haven't heard Nick out-and-out proclaim it, but I believe he's playing through a review copy of Halo 2 as we speak. The bastard. I've leapt to this conclusion based on the advice of voices in my head, the guilty look on Nick's face every time someone mentions Steve Balmer's balls, and a few hints dropped by the Nunz here and there in gaming threads and reviews.
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post #15 of 23
10/26/04 at 2:00am
the reasons to hate nick just keep piling up...

damn you nunziata. remember when you said you would send me free stuff????!!?!
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post #16 of 23
10/26/04 at 3:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Sphinx always gets the sake
I believe he's playing through a review copy of Halo 2 as we speak.
I'll be on a plane to Georgia shortly with an XBOX controller in one hand and a couple of shurikens in the other...
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post #17 of 23
10/26/04 at 4:08am
Firstly, E3 has been a big fat showboat since the mid-90s at least. It's certainly not a radical shift in the last few years. It's always been about 25% business and 75% cock-waving.

Also, I think Slater has missed out an important element in this whole hype/disappointment cycle: some games really are disappointing.

Doom 3 is a prime example. That game bored me rigid. I wasn't hankering after every screenshot, I didn't wait for the game with bated breath. But I was expecting something rather more substantial than a purty-looking ghost train ride. That's not a side effect of hype, that's simply comparing Doom 3 to what other games are capable of, what other games are doing and the evolution of gameplay in general over the last decade.

Many people enjoyed it, and didn't mind that it was essentially a glossy remake of the original game. Indeed, a lot of people seemed to find that a genuine joy. But viewing it objectively, as an interactive software product in 2004, I found it to be desperately unambitious - and I know I'm not alone in that view among those "in the business".

I agree that the "preview culture" that has built up around games is not healthy, but I also think we need to be wary of going too far in the other direction and giving sub-par games a half-hearted pass just as some sort of response to an expected backlash. To me, that's a heartbeat away from the mentality that makes people enjoy films like Van Helsing by confusing frenetic sound and motion as "fun".

Pretty much any activity can be "fun" if you lower your standards low enough. I just feel that we do ourselves a disservice if we don't push for developers to exceed our expectations, rather than nearly meeting them.
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post #18 of 23
10/26/04 at 5:00am
Well said Dan. Another problem with previews is, that all the major "media" sites say nothing but good things about previews, which only adds to the hype.

This is something IGN is horrible with and the most recent example is fable. Now fable is a good game, but had you been reading IGN in the months leading up to it, you really thought fable was going to be the greatest game of ALL TIME...i was almost convinced that it would rock me, and then when the actual reviews came in and ppl started to be objective, "oh ya, its kind of limited and short, etc etc," and i was like...WTF!!?!? YOu spent all that time hyping this sucker up getting my excited, only to say oh ya, we neglected to mention things we didn tlike in the preview build.

The defense to positives on previews is usually, "the developer is still addressing issues", but that shouldnt stop these mags and sites from being truly objective in thier writeups.

And yes, DOOM 3 was disappointing period. I didnt succumb to the hype because I wasnt that interested to begin with, but honestly the game ended up being all Flash and no substance. The gameplay mechanics were mediocre at best. If I wanted to play an old school shooter I would play serious Sam, but for a supposedly AAA title in dev. for years you could think they would come up with new gameplay (something that as an older gamer that I really need to keep my interest) mechanics and not just make everything dark and make me fumble between a flashlight and gun to artifically raise the "tension".

I don't want to DOOM bash, becasue yes its very en vogue, but alot of the bashing is warranted. The game disappointed big time.
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post #19 of 23
10/26/04 at 10:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Whitehead
Firstly, E3 has been a big fat showboat since the mid-90s at least. It's certainly not a radical shift in the last few years. It's always been about 25% business and 75% cock-waving.

Also, I think Slater has missed out an important element in this whole hype/disappointment cycle: some games really are disappointing.

Doom 3 is a prime example.
Interesting points, Dan.

I agree that E3 has been steadily getting more commercial for a while now. My point is that ten years ago, when we only had three real video game magazines (in the States, at least) and thousands of online game sites didn't yet exist, the hype was more contained. It was still a media clusterfuck, but it was a largely self-contained one. But now the publishers know they no longer need to simply impress the representatives from Toys R Us and EGM...they also need to wow the readers of joesfuckincoolgamereviews.com and CNN Money. The Expo has gone from being a gamer's secret to something that's covered in Entertainment Weekly. I think that's a crucial shift in focus and tone.

As for the disappointment thing...yeah, I considered including that. But my best and most obvious example would have been Metal Gear Solid 2, and I figured two MGS-bashing editorials in a row would rightly be seen as Blunt-baiting. And I'd argue that when it comes to AAA titles--the ones that generate the real hype and inspire fanboy madness--are rarely *bad* games when they're finally released. Sure, there' s MGS2 and stuff like Daikatana, but the major, MAJOR releases are usually pretty solid.

As for your specific disappointment with Doom 3...well, I'd blame that on the fanboys, not the game itself. I remember Id Software *repeatedly* saying that D3's gameplay would be "old school Doom running and blasting." The developers kept saying how they were attempting to replicate classic Doom, only with a fresh coat of paint. If you sat down with the game expecting revolutionary plot twists and complicated game mechanics, blame the hyperbole-spewing game media or the uninformed gaming public.

I'm not saying it's not okay to be disappointed with something like Doom 3, but Id delivered exactly what they promised. They simply didn't deliver what the gaming public had been fantasizing about for three years, and that's why they're still getting crucified.
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post #20 of 23
10/26/04 at 11:11am
That's a great editorial, Slater. Especially considering the fast turnaround on it.
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post #21 of 23
10/26/04 at 11:21am
Just to support Slater's point about the gaming world trying to inhabit the same glitzy world as rockers and movie stars, I submit G-Phoria . I'm sure many of you know of this already. It's the awards show that G-4/TechTV presents. I didn't see this past year's show since ComCast has decided to remove that channel from the cable package I have, but I did catch bits and pieces from last year's show. It was clear that they were trying to go for an atmosphere similar to the MTV Movie Awards, but they fell. . . um. . . a little short. Ok, a lot short. Ok, it was painful to watch. The point is that here were people trying to push the gaming industry into a niche it really doesn't belong in, and the result was an awful awards show. It seemed obvious to me that it just didn't work.

Perhaps this past year's show was better. I dunno. At any rate, it's just one more element that supports Slater's point.
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post #22 of 23
10/26/04 at 11:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Angry Badger
At this point, Bungie’s shooter could randomly eject itself from your Xbox in a shower of magical gold coins and start rubbing itself against your genitals and there would still be fans that bitched because it didn’t rub fast enough.
And, on the other hand, this game could eject itself from your Xbox, rape your dog, rummage through your trash cans and steal money out of you wallet, and plenty of fanboys would be marveling at how wonderfully realistic it was, and how the bump-mapping made the canine-rape look so real...

The extremists on either side are annoying.
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post #23 of 23
10/26/04 at 12:12pm
What blows my mind is stuff like in the Halo leak thread. Someone posts someone else's negative review, and someone will leap up and start hurling insults, as if someone else not liking a game somehow makes it worse for you. And then there's the people dead set on hating a game that will display any negative point anyone makes against it like some kind of precious jewel as if to say, "You see? I was right all along, fanboys! Ha ha!". It's ridiculous. People, they're just games. I didn't think Halo was any great shakes. In fact, I thought it was pretty mediocre. Metal Gear Solid 2 had one of the dumbest storylines for a game ever, as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of GTA. But you know what? That shouldn't bother you. Not everybody is going to like every game. If we did, we'd all be broke by now.
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