Games

[icycalm]

Tim recently posted three more reviews to his retarded manifesto.


Noby Noby Boy
http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=619

Canabalt
http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=618

Tetris
http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=622


And surprise surprise two of them are mini-games. Note that all these games are still supposed to be better than Civilization, Deus Ex, Planescape: Torment, GTAIII, etc.

So yeah, if anyone ends up reading or even skimming them and finds any remotely worthwhile comments, please be so kind as to post them here. I am too busy reading philosophy to bother with this dreck.

[icycalm]

I checked the comments of the manifesto page, because of this big huge lolargument that I took part in (instigated?) about a year ago, and came upon this little marvel:

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=385#comment-10636

LOVE and NUMBERS. do you think it is possible to actually make a game about falling in love, or is the inherent need to tie these things to progress, and tie progress to numbers going to make all attempts completely offensive? I think there’s a lot to say about this marriage (lolgetit) of emotional concepts to the inherent calculations that make up every game.

It's worth noting that this negativedge dude belongs to the IC/SB artfag circlejerk. He is the kind of person, in other words, to whom it would never even have occurred that videogames involve calculations of any kind if they hadn't been reading my articles religiously for the past three or so years.

And suddenly, lol and behold, these little fagots are awkwardly peppering their incoherent chatter with talk about "inherent calculations" or some shit!

Now, that may be seen by some as progress, and I will not deny this, but the fact is that the fagotry remains. So calculations or no calculations, all the nonsensical talk about "feelings", "love", "gay sex" and the like remains.

Basically, I am convinced that no matter what I write and no matter how many years may pass, the fagots will still understand less about videogames than any random nine-year-old who has barely even begun playing them.

"Love", lol.

AS IF LITLE FAGOTS COULD EVER POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND WHAT LOVE IS! AS FAR THEY ARE CONCERNED IT'S A MERE WORD, WHICH IF REPEATED OFTEN ENOUGH IN THE COMPANY OF OTHER GAY MALES MIGHT END UP NETTING THEM A BIG HARD COCK UP THEIR ASS!

Love, lol. What is love, fagots? Have you ever asked yourselves this? have you ever bothered reading philosophers or psychologists who have tried tackling this question? For if you don't even know what it is, how can you ever decide if it can be simulated or not?

"Philosophy"? "Psychology"? "Simulation"?

The fagots have no idea what all these things are. Which brings us back to Action Button reviews and its wonderfully gay comments section.

[icycalm]

Love is a sublimated form of the lust for domination. For this sublimation to occur, however, this lust must be extraordinarily strong. Hence, by virtue of its very virtuality (i.e. its fakeness, its non-existence), no virtual object could ever induce such a lust in a human being. Consequently love is a feeling which could never be aroused in the player of a videogame, except perhaps in a clinically retarded one (retards have much lower tolerance levels than fully grown humans: they cry easier, they get angry easier, they become happy easier -- and of course they fall in "love" easier).

End of story.

[Doctor Fugue]

I read these so-called reviews, but was unable to find any pearls of wisdom lodged inside a metric tonne of garbage. This shit is ridiculous.

IS THE GAME GOOD OR BAD? WHY IS IT GOOD OR BAD? Simple questions, yet we never get simple answers.

He has a total lack of discipline as a writer.

[SPACE_LANCE]

YEAH I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN

LIKE A FAGGOT COULD EVER FUCKING FALL IN LOVE. MAYBE WITH A RETARD.

THAT SKINNY LITTLE FAGGOT CAN'T WRIGHT AND NOBI NOBI BOY AIN'T HALF AS FUN AS STRETCHIN MY DICK AROUND.


AMEN BROTHER TIM ROGERS IS A FUCKIN QUEER

[icycalm]

Finally, someone who understands me! If you edit your post asap with proper punctuation I might not even ban you. And quoting this for the truth:

LIKE A FAGGOT COULD EVER FUCKING FALL IN LOVE. MAYBE WITH A RETARD.

[Mathis]

The difference in quality between Action Button's Arcana Heart review and Insomnia's is ridiculous. The review is so bad even the author seems to have realized it sucked.

[Mathis]

Action Button has three new reviews up, and they're all by one of the worst reviewers there, Samuel Kite.

Assassin’s Creed review

Left 4 Dead review

Brütal Legend review

[Nybble]

Left 4 Dead review

Do NOT by any means read this review. It is a complete waste of time. He tries to emulate Tim's ramblings, only to end it with this:

The best part about Left 4 Dead is that I thought about none of the above drivel while playing it.

So the preceding 7/8ths interview was a waste of time? Asshole. If you don't think it is worth talking about, why did I have to read it?

No matter who you are, you’ll love Left 4 Dead. Unless you hate first person shooters. Maybe even then, you’ll like it.

Unlike some bullshit zombie games.

This is the only part of the article (the last four horribly constructed sentences) that actually reviews L4D. No back-up, no clarification, and no reason for taking up precious bytes on the internet.

[Bradford]

Too late ... I have read it, and I am wounded...

Read it not, lest ye be struck blind!

[Khazar]

I played both Brutal Legend and Assassin's Creed 2 in the past month, so I tried to pull myself through those two reviews to see if there was anything of interest (harhar). I found this gem though:

Brutal Legend has a sound underlying premise. Where most games fall down, it stays strong, encouraging you to play it rather than order it to play itself.

[Nybble]

FINAL FANTASY XIII (**)

FINAL FANTASY XIII (**) (SHORT VERSION)

Tim is not joking, the regular one is pretty fucking long. Short version is a new review; Long version is more the notes he must have written during the playing of the game.

I am not sure why he gave the game 2 stars though. It seems deserving of a half star based on the reviews. (I lied, the audio may be what he liked, but only so he could show off his own band).

Also, I think he must have been reading some of Alex's articles:

It’s first twenty hours are a Circle-Button-Pressing Simulator — we say “simulator” because though you are, in the real world, pressing a button with a circle on it, the effects are mostly imaginary. You need only press the circle button ten times to win the average fight; nonetheless, you will press it maybe two hundred in the course of a typical fight. You will never press the circle button so many useless times anywhere else in your life.

He learned that games are simulation! But I'm still not sure what the difference is between average and typical. Does typical mean median? I'm confused.

Anyway, we said we weren’t going to talk about the story. Our heads would all dry up and crack in half like dehydrated footballs, more sand pouring out than could possibly fit inside said football, if we started analyzing the story on any level deeper than “lol”.

I think he stole your usage of LOL too.

[icycalm]

I've grown so tired of Tim's schtick I no longer have the energy to even click on any links that lead to his shit.

[icycalm]

I read the short review. It's in fact a pretty good review. With a couple of changes (including the rating, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the text) I wouldn't mind having it on this site.

What the fuck does he talk about in the longer one?

[icycalm]

lol, he has indeed been paying attention:

Final Fantasy XIII isn’t exactly like Final Fantasy VII in the “game play” department

which is a lot more than I can say for Gillen, Poole, Parish, Campbell and the other idiots -- not to speak of the hobags.

Now if only he grew some balls and started playing games that require actual intelligence and/or reflexes... well, that would be progress!

[icycalm]

From the long review:

Isn’t Final Fantasy about radically changing every core element of the game every single time? It is!

See, there's nothing you can do to improve your reviewing skills if you are an idiot. No amout of Alex Kierkegaard essays will help turn you into a non-idiot, unfortunately.

He actually thinks that every "core element" of each Final Fantasy game is "radically" different from those of every other. And he has played all of them! Several times through! Words fail me.

[icycalm]

Why can’t you just make something for adults?

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SEE THE RETARDATION HERE? HE GOES OUT OF HIS WAY TO ONLY BUY GAMES WHICH ARE DESIGNED FOR CHILDREN AND IDIOTS, AND THEN COMPLAINS THAT THE GAMES FOR CHILDREN AND IDIOTS THAT HE BUYS ARE NOT MADE FOR ADULTS.

WHY NOT JUST BUY REAL STRATEGY GAMES, TIM? THEY HAVE NONE OF THE PROBLEMS THAT YOU SPENT 40,000 WORDS ANALYZING IN YOUR IDIOTIC REVIEW, SO WHY NOT JUST BUY AND PLAY THOSE INSTEAD?

OH BUT YES, THOSE GAMES HAVE NO ANIMU... TIMBILLY, LIKE ALL ADULTS, NEEDS THE ANIMU YOU SEE. WITHOUT IT THE GAME IS NOT ADULT ENOUGH FOR HIM.

fucking fagot

[icycalm]

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=630#comment-10844

this review was, like many other action button reviews, written (giving away big secret ahead) while actually playing the game. however, i wrote it mostly during the post-game segment, just grinding around and blasting mission monsters.

you see, pausing the game, opening my laptop, tabbing over to google docs, and typing a few words about the game while i’m playing it has become an indispensable part of actually playing a game, for me.

so, in short, its insane length is a direct result of:

1. the amount of time i spent actually playing this game (a whopping 88 hours)

2. the fact that i type about as fast as i can put together a thought with any degree of shape to it

3. typing is about as fun as just plain thinking, for me

Emphasis is mine:

Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. In the first place, there are those who write without thinking. They write from memory, from reminiscences, or even direct from other people’s books. This class is the most numerous. In the second, those who think whilst they are writing. They think in order to write; and they are numerous. In the third place, there are those who have thought before they begin to write. They write solely because they have thought; and they are rare.

Authors of the second class, who postpone their thinking until they begin to write, are like a sportsman who goes out at random—he is not likely to bring home very much. While the writing of an author of the third, the rare class, is like a chase where the game has been captured beforehand and cooped up in some enclosure from which it is afterwards set free, so many at a time, into another enclosure, where it is not possible for it to escape, and the sportsman has now nothing to do but to aim and fire—that is to say, put his thoughts on paper. This is the kind of sport which yields something.

http://insomnia.ac/essays/on_authorship_and_style/

[icycalm]

Tim gave the site a banal April 1st makeover, with a pink color scheme, lots of stars and hearts and a cute cuddly pegasus, which makeover however he has not reverted a month later. I may be making things up here but I wouldn't be surprised if my calling him out on his hypocrisy in the last parts of my Genealogy has something to do with this. I.e. by making the site look like a joke site, so that he can effectively say to all the people who go there after reading me that "It's all a big joke and I didn't mean anything I said", et cetera.

In any case there are several new reviews up and they are all perfectly shite. It's like the higher I reach with my insights the more determined everyone else seems to be to dive deeper and deeper into stupidity and inanity, as if to say: "We'd rather hit the very fucking BOTTOM than be forced to agree with you on anything". Self-destruction in a sense, but not out of strength but out of weakness. Out of hatred and jealousy, that is to say.

And still, after all these years, my dear friend has not so much as directed a single comment my way, despite the reams of comments he has made on practically everyone else in this racket. He invited me to his birthday party once, by the way. You should have seen the exchange of emails after I declined to attend. You could have learned quite a bit about the real Tim RogersTM from them.

[zinger]

So you've met him in person, and you two were living in the same town at some point? Where's that?

[icycalm]

In Tokyo, dude, where else? Circa 2005-2006.

[icycalm]

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=999#comment-12307

the next game i review — well, after the review that is going to go up here in about fifteen hours (!), will be minecraft.

That should be fun. I am sure he got the idea from me too. Will be interesting tracking his reaction to my comments through his commentary. No doubt he won't bother referencing me, as usual. He links Kotaku in every other paragraph, but to so much as allude to me -- that he can't bring himself to do.

[icycalm]

And by the way, they have a shitty new God Hand review up:

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=999

I really have to play that game and properly review it. I think I have two copies of it too (US and Jap ones) somewhere. The internet is filled with hipster bullshit reviews by this point -- this latest one trashes DMC and the concept of "immersion" with some really stupid arguments. And Tim keeps shovelling that shit up on his frontpage. Meanwhile, the comments have been taken over by a half a dozen aspies who go on for pages and pages about basically nothing. It's even worse than the IC rebirth, in a way, since to even make fun of them would be boring. I know I said somewhere that the IC rebirty was worse than Action Button, but now I've changed my mind. Or perhaps not? They are both so fucking shitty it's just impossible to pick the shittiest one, I think.

[icycalm]

From Discord:

CULT|icycalm
lol Tim is bringing Action Button back
Though don't hold your breath because he has been saying this for a decade
Just a couple of weeks ago I teased him about it on Twitter
He never replied of course
I might have actually caused his renewed interest in the site
I teased him again: https://twitter.com/culturevg/status/12 ... 3774498817

Insomnia | Videogame Culture (@culturevg)
It... it's coming back? Can I relax? https://t.co/yAJFNrDQfs

Oh it's already back!
http://www.actionbutton.net/
For almost a decade there was a blank page with the message, "Relax, it's coming back."
It's all crap reviews and there's next to no demand for this type of content anymore
Even if he goes to the effort of posting a few more reviews, he will see no response, and will quickly tire of it and abandon it again
However, maybe the game-changer this time will be the Twitch and YT channels he says he's making
Just like they covered Insert Credit in boring podcasts, obscuring the old good material for years, he may have a new life as a Twitch/YT personality
But he's already being paid to sort of do this for Kotaku
So again, I don't see him being very motivated to keep doing it in his free time too for nothing
It's basically just temporary nostalgia
He'll indulge in it for a bit, and then shelve everything again
To persevere for the long-term in this business you need either:
1. To be paid for it, so that it's your livelihood and you'll therefore have to keep doing it robotically way past the point where you no longer enjoy it
or
2. You need to keep setting for yourself grand goals and projects like my essays or GOTY lists etc.
Otherwise just mindlessly churning endless reviews forever with no overarching goal can get stale for everyone
The clan too is part of those goals
Tim and his crowd never attempted anything like it despite having thousands of willing people, simply because they didn't like playing games lol, let alone the kinds of large involved games that make a clan worth building
I think I'll be an ass about this and copy-paste this analysis on Insomnia and tweet it to Tim
He gets free psychoanalysis and mentorship
I've explained his mental state precisely, AND told him what he needs to do if he wants to last in this endeavor
I have lasted as an indie (lol) publisher for about 4x longer than he has at this point
No signs of stopping either
I think I now run the longest-running independent videogame site in the world

[icycalm]

CULT|Some guy
Think he'll reply?

CULT|icycalm
Bah who knows
Even if he does, it will be something disappointing
Either some meaningless non sequitur to break the tension, or he'll just simply call me a jerk if I've pissed him a lot
I.e. no engagement at all with the subject at hand
That's every single meaningful interaction I've had with him since day 1
He could be making 5k on Patreon easily if he was smart
No need to work for Kotaku, no need to attend boring shows, he could just be doing his own thing for the rest of his life
If he came together with his buddies, and relaunched Insert Credit, they could bring the good old days back and this time be paid to do it
Maybe 10k or 15k for all of them on Patreon
I have been telling them to monetize Insert Credit since 2005 lol
But maybe they would fail if they tried now
They should have never shelved IC, and should have gone on Patreon immediately in 2012 or whenever it was launched
They had incredible momentum in the mid-2000s
They could have survived just fine on PayPal subscriptions until Patreon was launched
But they took the easy way out and got shitty jobs
Made shitty games no one remembers
For all the things I have against them, they were 1000x better than the new type of personality like Sterling or the YouTubers and streamers
The new people are utterly worthless, Tim and the IC crowd were at least genuinely entertaining and their site and forum was full of cool material even despite all the pretentiousness
Fuck it, I'll post this on Insomnia too
He should at least realize what opportunities he and his friends let fly by