The Errant Signal Thread

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, it was less about that and more about the fact that nobody makes shit look cool anymore. I mean, there are exceptions (japan *cough*) but there's a lot more CoD lookalikes on the PC than there is Borderlands. Imagine how much it would suck if the trend continued further and diablo, fighting games, and RTS games all tried to look photorealistic instead of being stylized.

Variety is a good thing, and there is plenty of shit you can use a graphics card for besides photorealism. Give me hundreds or thousands of animated 2D sprites over a close up of a handful of HD muddy soldiers any day.

 

[sea]

Interesting video, but I found the stuff about the visual style of a game being a reflection of its systems to be far more interesting than "photorealism as a goal in and of itself is dumb."

 

[Gerrard]

"Art style" is the bastion of meager artists. It's a cover up for not having fundamental skills or a developed aesthetic sense. It's the cart before the horse. An artist doesn't have an "art style," they have an interpretation of nature, shaped by their personality, culture, region. Developed through years of work, but not something calculated. Sometimes, like say, a Looney Tunes cartoonist form the golden age, the art style is influenced by function, which is to make a funny drawing. But what is Torchlight saying? It's neither funny nor observant of nature. It's "art style."

Damn right.

 

[Machocruz]

Since when does an art style choice have to have meaning? Runic is pretty up front with the fact they are a small studio that can't afford more elaborate graphics so they just choose something they could do reasonably well versus trying for something more costly/involved. That aside, trying to explain art is absurd.

So it's either "elaborate" graphics or random, made-up nonsense? Because that is what an art style without meaning is: random made up junk, and gimmickry. It might as well be stick figures for all it conveys.

Trying to explain art is only absurd to some modern art fags, who believe new age jazz about art being undefinable. And they believe this because it validates their lack of taste and ability. Never mind that people had been doing a pretty good job of explaining art for centuries.

 

[Destroid]

So our options are photorealism vs 2deep4u?

 

[Modron]

Not that I disagree but don't think he needed twelve minutes to say gameplay > graphics and that the graphical arms race is what is currently destroying the AAA (and to some extent the indie) gaming markets. Pretty much obvious stuff most people here have known for years.

There is no more graphical arms race. AAA games are content to make games that look like they were released in 2006. There has literally been < 5 games in the past 5 years that have pushed the graphical envelope. Everything is just UE3 designed for hardware from 2006.

Duh everyone knows pcs are just for console ports.

 

[Infinitron]

Errant Signal goes full femtard: http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/?p=403

 

[Damned Registrations]

Eh, it was good until the last few minutes there. I was surprised he had that take on it to begin with though, I'd have thought he'd be impressed the devs were willing to put in stuff like that (which suits the setting perfectly) even though you'd obviously get the kind of retarded response he had.

Though I have to admit, the whole bath time voyeur/rape thing is kinda creepy. Why the hell would you make a special rapist ending for that particular instance of the player being an asshole? Rest of it was fine though. The human trafficking thing was creepy too, but not in the same way at all. The bath thing was like something you'd find in a hentai game.

The whole 'slut shaming' thing though? Fucking retarded.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Why the hell would you make a special rapist ending for that particular instance of the player being an asshole?

It isn't a special ending. You get that same message if you jump on the heads of other people in the bar, and I believe choking them out and/or tranq darting them.

 

[Damned Registrations]

In that case it's not a big deal.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

He's mostly correct. Truthfully, Dishonored's plot and characterization are about level with, say, Skyrim. The reason their blandness stands out so much here, is that the setting is genuinely cool, imaginative, and well-characterized through a variety of different methods. I don't really get it, to be frank. Most of the flavor text you can read in the game, as well as what the heart says, is much better written than any of the dialogue in the main storyline. Maybe they should've just gone the Thief route, given Corvo a voice with lines dependent on the chaos level, and replaced the Hound Pits pub with handpainted cutscenes?

 

[Destroid]

Should rape and slutshaming never be depicted as happening in media ever? Your character really doesn't seem like a good guy from the video, is it such a surprise when he acts like a bad guy?

 

[sea]

Nice video, but I think his assessment of the game's characters are off. For example, Pendleton is very clearly the younger brother in his family - naive, fantasizing about taking over from his elders, getting revenge on them for humiliating and torturing him, but also because of this extremely open to manipulation. The reason he isn't crying over his brothers or cheering their deaths is because he is conflicted about killing them - he is eager at being able to finally be the "big brother" but he also realizes what he did was cruel and wrong. His calm and controlled demeanor is also very obviously a product of his upbringing as a noble, not evidence that he is cold and stiff and lacking in feelings. You don't get this with a casual reading, but rather have to connect the dots in his past, motivations, and the various things he says and does throughout the game.

Dishonored has good characters (in my opinion), the only issue is it doesn't present them with strong personality gimmicks you can figure out immediately. They're just "normal" people with traits that you can only understand through exploring them - this makes them far more realistic than the characters in most games. People are so used to BioWare-style "here I am, this is who I am and what I do in 10 seconds" characters that anything more subtle and requiring more interpretation is lost on them.

Er, just reached the ending. What the fuck? Slut-shaming because you can seduce Lady Boyle as a way to get her out of the open and kill her? Romances with Callista? Piero going into a conversation about an objective after that scene takes place, which is obviously just a scripting oversight or developers being a little lazy? Talk about going full retard. The game does have some troublesome depictions of women but it's in keeping with the time period and setting. Dishonored isn't meant to be "historically accurate" but it's pretty clear that the society it takes place in has clear gender roles and hierarchies; it's not trying to make a statement or point in it. "Camster" usually has smart things to say but this was just inexplicably dumb and contrived critique.

 

[Murk]

Ok so wholesale slaughter is cool as a means to achieve whatever end but looking at a woman bathing = going too far?

And the game give's you the option to not jump in the bath tub and cuts it short of some Irreversible style rape scene. What's the problem dude, that a game offered you a kind of evil you weren't used to? After all that rambling about power and responsibility and not abusing power you can't see how that's just another incarnation?

Meh, he's just another guy. He stops short of turning into a cartoon character like Yahtzee but is still too severely limited in the few aspects he over-emphasizes repeatedly. The videos are ok, but he'd be better off dropping the attempts at humor and just presenting information.

 

[Infinitron]

Indie game edition: http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/?p=419

I picked the game up ostensibly because of Kyle Gabler's unique art style and pedigree. While I was expecting something cute I wasn't expecting something this genuinely good. However, it's gotten very little buzz, which surprised me.

 

[Metro]

It caught my eye on Steam but I usually relegate this stuff to bundle fodder. Looks like it's yet another 'self-aware' game that seeks to mock shallow games while polluting the market with yet another shallow game. We need less social commentary and more attempts at actually producing something better. As far as the 'don't waste your life doing X' pedantic, I'll take that to heart and not waste my time playing this game.

 

[AngryEddy]

This guy is suck a fucking retarded dweeb. All of his "video game reviews" are more about "Does this game agree with my, the great Campster's politics?". He went on a rant about how "The outside world is scary" and "You're burning books, which contain knowledge!!!", it just has nothing to do with the game itself. From this, and his whole "Dishonored is an evil platform of woman-hating, and rape legitimizing", he is just an annoying, radically, political gamer, who couldn't conduct a proper review if his life depended on it. Here was my favorite excerpt from the video "Little Inferno uses it's shallow, time sink, gameplay, as a way not to make money, but to GIVE AN UPLIFTING MESSAGE ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO WASTE TIME", this is what he cares about. Not the game, but the goddamned imaginary message he thinks exists.



Let me save you guys 10 minutes, so you don't have to watch this whiny leftist "gamer":

Little Inferno has no real gameplay to speak of, it's just typical, arrogant, indie shovelware, and you're better off saving your money.

 

[Gozma]

Another game I win by not playing anything in the genre

Again I wait for the TBS satire that urges me to get out there in the real world and live life to the fullest by organizing real terrorist attacks

 

[Infinitron]

Commentary on Half-Life review:

 

[Metro]

Now this guy is commentating on himself? Give me a fucking break.

 

[Grunker]

Now this guy is commentating on himself? Give me a fucking break.

He pretty much said it was like the worst video ever. Being too hard on himself.

You dislike Errant Signal?

 

[Infinitron]

There are things to dislike about Hipster Campster, but being self-critical isn't one of them.

 

[Metro]

Now this guy is commentating on himself? Give me a fucking break.

He pretty much said it was like the worst video ever. Being too hard on himself.

You dislike Errant Signal?

Dislike? Not really. Is he trying a bit too hard? Yes. It's not a matter of whether he was or wasn't critical of himself... it's the fact he decided to make a video out of it in the first place. Next up: Total Biscuit on Total Biscuit.

 

[Grunker]

Now this guy is commentating on himself? Give me a fucking break.

He pretty much said it was like the worst video ever. Being too hard on himself.

You dislike Errant Signal?

Dislike? Not really. Is he trying a bit too hard? Yes. It's not a matter of whether he was or wasn't critical of himself... it's the fact he decided to make a video out of it in the first place. Next up: Total Biscuit on Total Biscuit.

To be honest, TotalBiscuit could use such a video. Maybe he'd realize how retarded he was.

I can't find anything wrong with a bit of self-critique now and again, I must confess.

 

[Metro]

Again, it's not the self-critique it's the publishing of it. Doing it yourself, learning from your mistakes, then incorporating the improvements into future videos seems like the better idea. Tomorrow I guess he'll post his trip to the cardiologist.