IC Forum Archive

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posts: 3148

Something Awful has taken aim at bad gaming journalism - and put The Escapist as their ALOD.

Where are the #2 and #1?

[i]That's all for today. The top two spots will be finished out on Monday. Here is a hint about the two winning articles: they were both written by the same person and neither one is actually from 2005. They are so fucking horrible that they have transcended the limitations of linear time.[/i]

[b]Hmmmmmmm.[/b]

(PS: HTML :( )

Deets · Posts: 605

What's so awful about The Escapist again?

chazumaru* · Posts: 480

[color=orange]Give me back my orange, bitches.[/color]

[color=orange]edit: AND MY TAG.[/color]

aderack · Posts: 5018

[quote="Deets"]What's so awful about The Escapist again?[/quote]
It tries very hard. Particularly with its image.

Aside from that, not much. It's pretty okay, all in all.

extralife · Posts: 3316

Is Something Awful still relevant?

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

[quote="extralife"]Is Something Awful still relevant?[/quote]

Yes.

extralife · Posts: 3316

Also, 1 and 2 will predictably be from INSERT CREDIT.COM'S VERY OWN MR. TIMOTHY "TIMBILLY WILLIAM" ROGERS. I can't wait.

Quick Shot II Turbo · Posts: 468

http://www.beggarprince.com/ , the newly translated Sega Mega Drive/Genesis game, is available for preordering. It's rather pricey, though:
USA: $46
UK: £29
EUR: €43
Anywhere else: $52

As for the SA article: tim is #2 and #1, it was confirmed in the forums. I didn't like the article myself since I thought Zack/EPG had a better sense of humor than, say, Maddox.

KG's Darwinia review is awful, though.

aderack · Posts: 5018

Any idea what the packaging looks like?

And which articles, specifically? I figured if the top two were by the same person -- well. You know how people react to Tim.

Quick Shot II Turbo · Posts: 468

>>Any idea what the packaging looks like?
Nope, I'd like to know though. But they did a very good job on the logo so I've got my hopes up.

>>And which articles, specifically? I figured if the top two were by the same person -- well. You know how people react to Tim.
Also no idea, but the Astro Boy review might be one of them, because of the excessive bunnygirl talk. Or it might be something else.

Zack also had this to say in Kieron's workblog:
"You’re nowhere near as bad as Tim Rogers. Reading his articles is like watching urns full of ashes fall in slow motion while Carmina Burana plays in the background, only about Crash Bandicoot."
Which is a lot more funnier than being called a fucking moron. :)

aderack · Posts: 5018

That's a pretty good description, actually.

And. I think that's... part of what appeals to me about his writing.

extralife · Posts: 3316

What's more tired, I wonder: tim's articles to people that hate tim, or "I hate tim rogers" pieces to people that don't give a fuck?

Honestly. Tim doesn't give a fuck if some internet yokles hate him, and no one that reads tim's writing is going to care what the hell SA or Ziff Davis or Andrew Vestal has to say anyway. That's the biggest problem with SA, I think--what's the use?

Psiga · Posts: 3990

[quote="aderack"]That's a pretty good description, actually.[/quote]
That mental image amuses me as much as the average Tim Rogers article, so I have to concur there. Maybe if the urns were crashing in slow motion around a solitary goblet of million yen brandy (which is inexplicably untouched by the falling ashes), it would be even more accurate.

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posts: 3148

[quote="extralife"]Honestly. Tim doesn't give a fuck if some internet yokles hate him, and no one that reads tim's writing is going to care what the hell SA or Ziff Davis or Andrew Vestal has to say anyway. That's the biggest problem with SA, I think--what's the use?[/quote]

extralife, are posts this like a kind of mental speedbump, so people don't like you too much?

Hey, hey, is the SA thread open to the public? I mean, at the moment. Since I know it changes.

aderack · Posts: 5018

[quote="extralife"]What's more tired, I wonder: tim's articles to people that hate tim, or "I hate tim rogers" pieces to people that don't give a fuck?[/quote]
Well, clearly Tim's non-fans are still excited about their dislike of him. So!

Quick Shot II Turbo · Posts: 468

>>Hey, hey, is the SA thread open to the public? I mean, at the moment. Since I know it changes.

The Goon hivemind at work:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1760907&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

And here are Kieron's comments on the article:
http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?p=839

extralife · Posts: 3316

That thread is so ridiculous. It'd almost make me angry if it wasn't so stupid. It'd almost make me laugh if I didn't remember the SA forums are representative of 99% of the internet.

RobotRocker · Posts: 297

[quote="Quick Shot II Turbo"]>>Hey, hey, is the SA thread open to the public? I mean, at the moment. Since I know it changes.

The Goon hivemind at work:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1760907&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

And here are Kieron's comments on the article:
http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?p=839[/quote]

[b][u]Insert Credit[/b][/u]
like watching urns full of ashes fall in slow motion while Carmina Burana plays in the background, only about Crash Bandicoot.

Lobst · Posts: 96

If the last year's taught me anything about the Internet, it's that I have very thin skin -- thin enough that when people attack other people I have no prior connection to [i]but[/i] am in mild admiration of, I get all flustered about it.

I remember, for instance, when Penny Arcade wrote a comic and a newspost in response to a small, independent documentary that had been made about the online comics industry; apparently they weren't asked to talk about the subject, but people like Cat Garza and (I think) Scott McCloud were. Tycho caught wind of this and called Scott, a guy I deeply respect, a "charlatan", Scott responded in kind, and a nice, healthy e-shitfight was had by all. The issue faded into obscurity, but hey-- I'm not reading PA anymore. Gabe and Tycho thought that the only way to soothe their wounded egos was to sic their glowing-red-hot-with-retardation forum fanbase [i]not[/i] onto the people who made the documentary in the first place, but onto these incredibly creative people's websites, and as a result, I've lost all respect for them.

Something Awful is like that, but they do it, without provocation, every single day. Who knows why; the point is, they're a subculture of faux-elitist hate, and they get their kicks from spreading their machismo-laden hatred around to people who don't affect them in any way, like an insecure middle-schooler with anger management issues who takes great personal joy in watching bad things happen to his peers. It's like my father used to say; [i]They Really Are Just Trying To Get A Rise Out Of You,[/i] and it still rings true today.

The problem is, you can repeat that like a mantra all day if you want, but in the end, they never lose -- the worst that can happen for them is, they get to laugh at you, then they move on to something else that squirms when poked, and I continue to be sick of it. I wish something would happen to ensure that we'd see a lot less of that kind of mentality in the future and get that energy devoted to something more benificial to the advancement of the human race -- like comedy articles that - check this out - [b]aren't[/b] written at other people's expense!

But I doubt it.

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posts: 3148

So I suppose you support women who dress up dead children, people who write stories about people eating other people for sexual pleasure, and pedophiles?

extralife · Posts: 3316

SA is part of the mentality that states if you didn't learn about it in high school, you'd be better off masturbating to it than trying to respect it.

extralife · Posts: 3316

[quote="Dark Age Iron Savior"]So I suppose you support women who dress up dead children, people who write stories about people eating other people for sexual pleasure, and pedophiles?[/quote]

That stuff is just dumb. Do we really need a wesite that tell us, OK GUYS, CANNABALISM IS NOT COOL NOW HOW MANY SIMILIES CAN I USE TO TRY AND SOUND FUNNY WHILE GETTING THAT POINT ACCROSS

Sync-Swim · Posts: 634

I like SA, but that's probably because i'm shallow. Growing up in my family, I learned to occasionally take the piss out of myself while also ceasing to care what other people(that I don't even know) think about my hobbies a long time ago.

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posts: 3148

[quote="extralife"]SA is part of the mentality that states if you didn't learn about it in high school, you'd be better off masturbating to it than trying to respect it.[/quote]

THAT DOESN'T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING

Lobst · Posts: 96

[quote="Dark Age Iron Savior"]So I suppose you support women who dress up dead children, people who write stories about people eating other people for sexual pleasure, and pedophiles?[/quote]

No.

Are you being sarcastic?

extralife · Posts: 3316

[quote="Dark Age Iron Savior"][quote="extralife"]SA is part of the mentality that states if you didn't learn about it in high school, you'd be better off masturbating to it than trying to respect it.[/quote]

THAT DOESN'T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING[/quote]

It means all those assholes are so caught up in trying to not be "pretentious" (a word they don't even know the meaning of) that they decry all attempts to find meaning in anything outside of (predictably) the things we were all taught we're allowed to find meaning in. Instead, things are JUST THERE OK SO HAVE FUN WITH THEM AND SHUT UP. Alternatively, you could call people fags and discuss what the best masturbation material is. It's also a reference to obscene fandom, of which they are mostly all a part of, despite their intense hatred for it. Basically, the SA/Goon/Internet motto is "things are cool if they give you a boner, make you laugh, or are violent." If you take things for anything more than face value, you are an emo fag/some other buzz word that can be summed up in a non-clever photoshop image.

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posts: 3148

There will always be people like Something Awful, because there will always be:

A. freaks

B. people like you two who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about

extralife · Posts: 3316

And, of course, SA and its goons are the sole arbitors of knowing what the fuck people are talking about.

aderack · Posts: 5018

Lobst wrote:

I remember, for instance, when Penny Arcade wrote a comic and a newspost in response to a small, independent documentary that had been made about the online comics industry;

Actually. The issue was that Tycho has a long history with McCloud, whom he considers out of his fucking gourd, mostly through practical experience that the things McCloud keeps going on about simply don't work, from what Tycho has seen. I don't know either way, really.

It turns out that Tycho had been contacted about the documentary and asked to contribute, though he hadn't ever noticed that until he was told after the fact and he went back through and found the message. The point wasn't that he was annoyed that he wasn't asked for his advice. It's that he disagreed with the whole McCloud thing from the outset, which the documentary more or less fixated on. He found it ridiculous, so he made fun of it.

Then McCloud decided to read something else into the comic, and it set off lots of drama behind the scenes that didn't really have anything to do with Tyco. he just didn't give a shit.

TOLLMASTER · Posts: 1977

I remember being rather angry about Tycho speaking out against Wikipedia. It wasn't necessarily the thoughts that he expressed, but his reason for expressing them.

He, if I remember correctly, wanted to start a Wikipedia entry about a fantasy series that did not exist, and when he was told they didn't allow fake things to be in their encyclopedia, he had a hissy fit about it. He went on a diatribe (is that a word?) against Wikipedia, saying that allowing anyone to edit an encyclopedia was, in effect, the worst thing ever.

Of course, Wikipedia never made the claim that it was the best thing ever, or even particularly accurate. They try to maintain accuracy, of course, but the whole thing was a sort of large-scale experiment that people could happen to learn something from while browsing. And any idiot can start a website, get linked to, and show up on Google nowadays. Wikipedia just makes the process of random people cataloging ideas easier, it's not like they invented the idea. I don't see why someone would see the idea of people having control over what is said, when we live in a world that is often made of misinterpretations and outright lies.

His comics are pretty good though. Oh, wait, he doesn't actually make the comics.

Anyways, Something Awful. It's not that bad. They have a, shall we say, intensely strange and contradictory set of ideas. They want to hate elitism, but anyone who doesn't conform to their various in-in-jokes is a newbie outsider. But they, at least, have been a unique movement. It's hard to really judge them at the present time when they're still in an evolutionary process, so I guess I won't. I do kind of wish they would shut up or grow up, though.

oneEIGHTkevin · Posts: 465

I like that thread. Some linguica guy is awesome.

linguica wrote:

I am looking forward to you beating up on Tim Rogers. A while back on my site I haven't updated in ages, I made fun of him for one of his giant faggy monologues where he ran down the year's events in an article entitled a "fukubukoro" or something. Anyways he somehow found what I wrote and the next year when he wrote another immensely faggy yearlong wrapup he actually alluded to my denunciation of one of his faggy lies within the first few paragraphs. I was kind of proud of that.

He says this. So I found his website. www.failmath.com

And on the January 29th 2005 this guy said:

the vinculum gate · Posts: 2868

guys we haven't been referenced in a final fantasy game yet :(

oneEIGHTkevin · Posts: 465

the vinculum gate wrote:

guys we haven't been referenced in a final fantasy game yet :(

that's because we're fags

chosun · Posts: 288

TOLLMASTER wrote:

His comics are pretty good though. Oh, wait, he doesn't actually make the comics.

since the webcomic VG Cats came about, I've had an odd appreciation for Tycho's writing in Penny Arcade comics. good god, VG Cats desperately needs a writer. random violence, pointing out the obvious in a game, rape joke, repeat.

... yeah, that tends to be a big hit with gamer humour. guess he doesn't need a writer after all.

anyway, I can enjoy "make fun of stuff for no reason" slightly more than "make fun of something because they rejected my wikipedia contribution, DON'T THEY KNOW HOW POPULAR I AM ON THE INTERNET?"

Pat the Great · Posts: 122

chosun wrote:

TOLLMASTER wrote:

His comics are pretty good though. Oh, wait, he doesn't actually make the comics.

since the webcomic VG Cats came about, I've had an odd appreciation for Tycho's writing in Penny Arcade comics. good god, VG Cats desperately needs a writer. random violence, pointing out the obvious in a game, rape joke, repeat.

... yeah, that tends to be a big hit with gamer humour. guess he doesn't need a writer after all.

agreed. i read through a few VG Cats strips, and i dig the art style and the funny behind some of the jokes, but god damn that comic needs something a little wittier behind it to prevent it from just being Another Gaming Comic.

now back to the topic at hand:

tim rogers is pretentious but who cares
kieron gillen is pretentious because his name isn't american dammit
SA is preaching to the choir or the goons or whatever they call themselves
complaining about the Escapist's magazine-esque layout is so Summer 2005 people can we get on with it already, complaining about articles written about nonexistent internet girls is a little more interesting at least, come on people WHY DON'T YOU BITCH AT TGQ FOR ITS LAYOUT THEN AT LEAST IT WOULD GET SOME MORE LINKAGE

<3

extralife · Posts: 3316

I especially like the guy complaining about tim's articles being self-serving while linking to his blog entry about what he thought about tim talking about himself, and then what he thought about tim talking about Original Guy not liking tim because tim talks about things. What a clusterfuck of hypocrisy and inanity. It's the SA mindset in a nutshell.

Clutchbone · Posts: 160

I hate Something Awful because they've got like a hundred thousand members and some percentage of them are less than perfect. What a shithole it is everything that is wrong with the internet!!!

sn · Posts: 110

Clutchbone wrote:

I hate Something Awful because [IT IS A WEB FORUM AND WEB FORUMS ARE] everything that is wrong with the internet!!!

ker-fixed!

it is pretentious that I am pointing that out on a web-forum.

I reccommend the excellent "Some Complaining About Complaining" on McSweeneys:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/conversation/section1.html

we really don't have time to be internet jackasses!! quickly, on with the thinking and cleverness and goodness.

Intentionally Wrong · Posts: 673

DAIS, I'm starting to notice a pattern here. I'm going to go for the conversational meta-Godwin, the Conversational Terrorism list.

Let's review the thread, shall we? First, you posted a the initial article in the thread. I kind of assumed you were just pointing it out to be relevent/funny. Let's see what happened next.

Dark Age Iron Savior wrote:

extralife wrote:

Honestly. Tim doesn't give a fuck if some internet yokles hate him, and no one that reads tim's writing is going to care what the hell SA or Ziff Davis or Andrew Vestal has to say anyway. That's the biggest problem with SA, I think--what's the use?

extralife, are posts this like a kind of mental speedbump, so people don't like you too much?

When extralife suggested that Something Awful's brand of entertainment might not cause Tim to change his writing style, meaning the article's largely pointless, rather than debating the merits of the article (or even just claiming you thought it was amusing), your response combined a cheap shot with a hypothetical insult, structured in such a way that it questions the comment.

Dark Age Iron Savior wrote:

Lobst wrote:

they get their kicks from spreading their machismo-laden hatred around to people who don't affect them in any way, like an insecure middle-schooler with anger management issues who takes great personal joy in watching bad things happen to his peers.

So I suppose you support women who dress up dead children, people who write stories about people eating other people for sexual pleasure, and pedophiles?

I'm not sure whether this is more like the Salesman's Close, distorted active listening, or an attempt to portray Lobst as the lunatic fringe. To give a more extreme example, this might be a bit like Lobst saying he's against capital punishment and you responding that he must love rapists and murderers, then!

Dark Age Iron Savior wrote:

extralife wrote:

SA is part of the mentality that states if you didn't learn about it in high school, you'd be better off masturbating to it than trying to respect it.

THAT DOESN'T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING

Yeah, I'll agree that extralife's chosen an approach that doesn't make much sense. I think I see where he's going, but I'll agree that he's not doing a very good job of getting there, yet...

Dark Age Iron Savior wrote:

extralife wrote:

It means all those assholes are so caught up in trying to not be "pretentious" (a word they don't even know the meaning of) that they decry all attempts to find meaning in anything outside of (predictably) the things we were all taught we're allowed to find meaning in. Instead, things are JUST THERE OK SO HAVE FUN WITH THEM AND SHUT UP. Alternatively, you could call people fags and discuss what the best masturbation material is. It's also a reference to obscene fandom, of which they are mostly all a part of, despite their intense hatred for it. Basically, the SA/Goon/Internet motto is "things are cool if they give you a boner, make you laugh, or are violent." If you take things for anything more than face value, you are an emo fag/some other buzz word that can be summed up in a non-clever photoshop image.

There will always be people like Something Awful, because there will always be:

A. freaks

B. people like you two who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about

...and then, when he explains himself, you dismiss his entire argument by saying he has no idea what he's talking about, pretty much the definition of an "over your head" ploy.

I guess what I'm saying, here, is this: Dark Age Iron Savior, are you a troll?

It's okay, if you are! It'd be even better if you aren't, but I won't think any less of you either way!

Edit: Ha ha! Did you ever notice how McSweeney's approaches humor with like a lab coat and a pair of tweezers?

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

As mentioned in the original thread, its absolutely fucking ridiculous to get so worked up over S.A. To take them seriously is to take one's self too seriously.

DeusJester · Posts: 1388

FortNinety wrote:

As mentioned in the original thread, its absolutely fucking ridiculous to get so worked up over S.A. To take them seriously is to take one's self too seriously.

Yep, pretty much.

And, let's just own up to it: Tim's writing is the kind of thing that will inspire SA articles about it. When your entire website is based on knocking other people a down a peg, your worldview necessarily has to come across as bro-dude conservative.

That said, it's not like they're just lighting into Tim out of nowhere, either. Unless you're generally of the same mindset about games as Tim is (which is something of a tall order), then most of his articles come across as completely ridiculous, which is just compounded by the fact that they regularly eclipse 40,000 words in length, and he writes three of them a day.

You hear people say that all the time on HERE, for Christ's sake.

I still think the Darwinia review was worse than anything I've read of Tim's, though. I'm still not entirely convinced it was written to be "serious".

Psiga · Posts: 3990

Well, that was uneventful. It's kind-of The Worst of Tim Rogers, talked about by a guy who decided to not be funny. I want scathing wit, damn it. Put Tim in Fashion SWAT or something.

Quick Shot II Turbo · Posts: 468

dadum:
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3475

And a lot of it is true. It's just that, Zack hates tim for the reasons that I enjoy him.

But yeah, Zack is turning into maddox.

Szczepaniak · Posts: 815

I really, really like The Escapist and those who run it. They're awesome.

DeusJester · Posts: 1388

108 · Posts: 2600

huh?

does this mean i'm going to get lots of hits?

. . . do i know this guy?

IIOIOOIOO · Posts: 91

Congratulations on being internet-famous. You're like that "Hello my future girlfriend!" guy.

doomquake · Posts: 765

Just finished reading the SA post.. I was mildly disapointed.

It sort of felt like it was written by someone who had sort of briefly skimmed across a couple of Tim's articles, but hadn't actually bothered to read them. Not someone who truly understood it and hated it. Also it was suprisingly dull.

To be perfectly honest, I detested Tim's writing when I first began reading it, and found it awfully hard to get through it all. I even left a cranky anonymous reply on largeprimenumbers due to my frustration with the length of an article. It'd pushed me past my bedtime or something.

But for some reason, despite originally hating it, I kept on reading. Suppose it contains some sort of addictive quality to it. It's always very interesting.. raises a lot of thought provoking topics that I've gone on to ponder for long periods of time. Though I'll admit sometimes I do think 'oh god what the fuck is he talking about now?! this was a game review a minute ago..' but still, I really like it. The end. (that was meant to sound positive)

Psiga · Posts: 3990

DeusJester wrote:

I've seen toothier attacks on Tim's writing on these boards. That was a letdown.

Quoted for Truedattitude, homeslicer. Fo' shizzazzlez.

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing of value to come from this event is that I became aware of the slow-motion urn quote. That's awesome.

James · Posts: 1735

Deets wrote:

What's so awful about The Escapist again?

They had a big massive article lauding fatty prototype hoarders as some kind of cool underground network, and not in fact selfish, grasping butter children who should have their wares stolen and dumped.

And the layout is shit.