• Noah Caldwell-Gervais - Postal, Hatred, and Weighing the Worth of Asshole Simulators
    73 replies, posted
[video=youtube;kivtv6wabBk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kivtv6wabBk[/video] I don't agree with everything that's said but I'm more or less interested in what everyone else thinks.
I tried to watch this all the way through and consider what he had to say, but I couldn't.The analogies barely hold water, the 'jokes' are unfunny and his points seem to be really... missing the point, to put it in the best way I can. I'm sure he says something interesting eventually, but I stopped watching when I got up to "toxic masculinity stole my car."
I think you owe me an hour and a half.
Well somebody takes himself too seriously
Wasn't there a couple of articles say that some video game shouldn't be fun. Wouldn't mass murder fall under that?
I thought it was very insightful.
[QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49089390]I thought it was very insightful.[/QUOTE] Simply going "Here's an idea" doesn't really lead to anything insightful if it isn't very good.
[QUOTE=megafat;49089453]Simply going "Here's an idea" doesn't really lead to anything insightful if it isn't very good.[/QUOTE] I thought the ideas were pretty good.
I can confirm that much that was said about the POSTAL series and Running With Scissors is incorrect.
[QUOTE=27X;49089266]I think you owe me an hour and a half.[/QUOTE] I don't really disagree, though I know many people here think pretty highly of Gervais. I actually discovered him through FP and much of it is pretty good though I have to agree I'm not as big on this one.
He's literally the only #AGGer I've ever known other than two buddies at BW, one in Edmonton, one in Austin with his head relatively on straight , but this video perfectly highlights the entire issue with #AGG in a rather succinct package. With most games, whether he likes them or not, he devotes a section to "why". That doesn't even exist here. It is literal political discourse right out of the box. Yes, Postal exists directly in part to ______ the rustled jimmies, and yes they do stuff that is deliberately designed for the maximum asshurt, and that's never been in dispute, but you don't get to reframe that first push by modern political standards, and you don't get to retcon the team's motivations then with what pisses you off now, ESPECIALLY in the mechanics department. I don't get to talk shit about how shitty Picasso's paint thinning is now, because we have so much better methods and techniques now for doing the same thing. He also frames the team's goals in terms of his literal teen angst, which belies total and complete and utter bullshit. It is literally fabricated back justification and a liberal dose of good old oh teh noes I done gots the white guilts thems poor peoples I's done did made funs of, oh lawds I neveh done do'd it again... Which again is neither here nor there, but he never gets out of that mode. Usually in the series retrospective he maintains awareness he's projecting his opinions after the fact, none of that occurs here. Total loss of perspective and reviewers place in the piece. Also saying this game is 100% pander about white males while liberally killing and making fun of white males [B]in game[/B] is Sarkeesian level cognitive dissonance retardation. Saying this _____ is "totally ironic" and ______ is totally not ironic and also digital oppression, when they [I]are both mechanically and thematically the same exact thing[/I] makes you look like an idiot. It's like the end of his ME series video where you're just supposed to ignore that Mac Walters and Casey Hudson entirely obviated player agency and goals [B]in every way possible[/B] and just say "AYYY LMAO, you fucked me spending several hundred dollars and several hundred hours, but hey good on you for being brave and "bittersweet" in that there ending and totally Joss Whedon Citadel DLC lol lel lel lol in joke fancervix lol meme", I'm totally gonna preorder Andromeda even though the team appears to have learned all the wrong lessons and also incorporated the boring fetch quests of Skyrim instead of say, playable races and cool ass Kirkbride backstory" cause I'm not supposed to be mad... but yet here, I [I]am[/I] supposed to be mad, because this game series is thinly disguised white male oppression fantasy given an open canvas. Having met the RWS team, I find it a disservice that they are both racially and sexually diverse (in both meanings here) and he is either deliberately ignoring that or his politics won't allow him to admit otherwise. There are times when his subjective surmising has been right (FEAR 3 being blatantly misogynistic) but this is one of those times when his politics blinds him to any attempt at objectivity, and that's typical #AGG mansplaining. Not only is he wrong, but his opinions don't retroactively change reality 12 years ago either, and neither do any other "journalist"'s. His guilt over being a teenage twatbeast aren't anyone else's vehicle for criticism, much less his own, and he doesn't speak for anyone else either, unless they choose it to be so.
[QUOTE=27X;49092143] His guilt over being a teenage twatbeast aren't any else's vehicle for criticism, much less his own.[/QUOTE] The whole "I [i]used[/i] to be a edgelord teen who thought he knew everything, but [i]now I know better[/i]" attitude is something that really grates on me. It's still a self-centred point of view used to feed into your own ego, just by admonishing who you used to be and by extension everyone like that. Like, everyone thought they were the only one who had life figured out when they were 15, getting out of that mindset isn't an accomplishment it's just growing up.
[QUOTE=Janus Vesta;49092272]The whole "I [i]used[/i] to be a edgelord teen who thought he knew everything, but [i]now I know better[/i]" attitude is something that really grates on me. It's still a self-centred point of view used to feed into your own ego, just by admonishing who you used to be and by extension everyone like that. Like, everyone thought they were the only one who had life figured out when they were 15, getting out of that mindset isn't an accomplishment it's just growing up.[/QUOTE] He never really said it was an accomplishment, merely that he did grow up, as everyone did and was able to observe the game in a different light.
There's a stark difference between "I was 14 and didn't know what context was or how it applies to, ya know, [I]everything[/I], and "I was 14 and an egotistical awkward antisocial maladroit, and now I'm 27 and a different kind of manically political maladriot and just as inflexible and stentorian in my views as I used to be, now I just happen to get my views from other people instead of making them myself". For a literal hipster who's so hipster that he dropped out of college because of the [I]man[/I] that works at a pizza place but would like to critique games full time for gainful employment, he's leaning pretty goddamn hard on the stereotype button to start slinging big ass rocks with only one hand, which leaves no other hand free to catch rocks.
Love how he takes the devs putting themselves in the games and being super awesome at face value. It couldn't POSSIBLY be that they're taking the piss out of themselves. You know, i was semi on-board with with him until around the halfway point then he just goes off the fucking rails and it turns into gutter trash.
[QUOTE=27X;49089266]I think you owe me an hour and a half.[/QUOTE] why did you watch the whole thing if you already didn't like the direction he was taking his criticism by the 10 minute mark
[QUOTE=27X;49093687]There's a stark difference between "I was 14 and didn't know what the context was or how it applies to, ya know, [I]everything[/I], and "I was a 14 and an egotistical awkward antisocial maladroit, and now I'm 27 and a different kind of manically political maladriot and just as inflexible and stentorian in my views as I used to be, now I just happen to get my views from other people instead of making them myself". For a literal hipster who's so hipster that he dropped out of college because of the [i]man[/i] that works at pizza place but would like to critique games full time for gainful employment, he's leaning pretty goddamn hard on the stereotype button to start slinging big ass rocks with only one hand, which leaves no other hand free to catch rocks.[/QUOTE] I think you're being unfair bringing his personal life into this.
Because that doesn't obviate him having a point or making salient observations, and he does have several; but most of them are are totally slathered in sanctimonious faux-outrage, apparently mostly outrage that he was a closet douchenozzle for a period of his life. [editline]11th November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49094145]I think you're being unfair bringing his personal life into this.[/QUOTE] Then you didn't and haven't watched shit, because he uses personal life regularly as both mirror and thesis justification, unlike most #AGGers he actually puts his money where his mouth is.
[QUOTE=cherry gmod;49093531]He never really said it was an accomplishment, merely that he did grow up, as everyone did and was able to observe the game in a different light.[/QUOTE] I don't think that maturity holds any merit in geek culture. It's a culture that glorifies escapism, so you're definitely bound to find silly stuff. It's very easy to roll eyes over the lack of humility if the speaker isn't mature themselves.
I really like Noah, but I didn't enjoy this video at all. It has the same problem that Vampires one had: Sitting on a high horse and saying that he's too intelligent and smart for such low humor, therefore, this game is bad. But I have to give the award of the worst moment to the part when in the middle of destroying Postal 2's choice of humor he mentions that he liked Goat Sim. [editline]11th November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49094145]I think you're being unfair bringing his personal life into this.[/QUOTE] But he uses his personal life as the reason to hate P2 through all the video.
Is it worth the hour and a half? I'm fine if someone could give me a quick summary of his opinions.
[QUOTE=Marden;49095606]Is it worth the hour and a half? I'm fine if someone could give me a quick summary of his opinions.[/QUOTE] Even if you disagree strongly with someone (and boy I did), you should still fully listen to his opinion. If you like his other videos, watch this.
I have left several comments on the video, but the creator has yet to acknowledge them. Nonetheless, I see him still replying to other comments and [url=https://twitter.com/MrGervaisWrites]he's retweeted our tweets[/url], albeit with no reply. I'd figure someone who spent such a length of time to put together a critique of a developer would jump at a response from the developers themselves, but all I'm getting is a deafening silence.
[QUOTE=Marden;49095606]Is it worth the hour and a half? I'm fine if someone could give me a quick summary of his opinions.[/QUOTE] Social Justice good being a hipster good postal or anything like postal bad counterculture storytelling bad
[QUOTE=Marphy Black;49097094]I have left several comments on the video, but the creator has yet to acknowledge them. Nonetheless, I see him still replying to other comments and [url=https://twitter.com/MrGervaisWrites]he's retweeted our tweets[/url], albeit with no reply. I'd figure someone who spent such a length of time to put together a critique of developer would jump at a response from the developers themselves, but all I'm getting is a deafening silence.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't be bugged by it. He isn't looking for insight, he's just interested in confirming his views by remaining rigid. Ceasing to look for extra variables because it contradicts his unfounded assertions about the dev team. There's no need to rationalize with an individual who refuses to admit fault with his current self.
His whole Postal is for edgy arseholes and straight white men have no reason to feel a disenfranchised unless they're in a particularly vulnerable situation is a bit lost on me. But he's clearly not stupid.
[QUOTE=Marden;49095606]Is it worth the hour and a half? I'm fine if someone could give me a quick summary of his opinions.[/QUOTE] It is like one of those videos you would normally see in a cringe thread, with the challenge being how long you can keep on listening to the bullshit until you just shake your head once again and turn it off. Made it about 25 minutes in. Decided to click it away the moment he started complaining about toxic masculinity about jacking cars in video games and how toxic masculinity also stole his car in real life and torched it when he was 19 years old. (Lucky prick too, that he could afford a car like that when being 19 years old.) Normally, I am a guy with a high tolerance for bullshit, but that bit, along with the 25 minutes prior that could be best summed up with ''I don't like this game and its devs at all, I only play games for mature people like me these days'' instead of 25 minutes of blabbering on about his teenage edgelord years (actual edgelord stuff I presume, not the Nicholas Nyberg way of being a pedo), ending up in about a five minute monologue how he wanted to murder someone which somehow was all the fault of games like Postal 2. And before that, you got a monologue of him complaining about islamophobia for about 5 minutes, while completely missing the fact that literally everyone is a complete stereotype in POSTAL 2. Or you know, that POSTAL 2 isn't the most serious game on Earth considering that kicking thrown grenades and rockets is a very valid way to survive firefights. Yeah, I don't know what the fuck either. Man, with the amount of projecting towards the RWS staff during the first 25 minutes, you could have sworn that Vince Deserio and Mike Jaret really did piss all over his desk while using his cat as a makeshift silencer. And apparently he bitches about Gamergate too somewhere in the remaining one hour and five minutes I didn't watch. Probably about that Milo cameo in Paradise Lost and RWS being openly pro-GG, but I cannot be arsed to listen to this guy's drivel for over more than a hour more if he just keeps blabbering about stuff not even slightly related to the game. With the way stuff was going about 25 minutes in, I wouldn't be surprised if he would claim that liking certain Pokemon is a form of ''toxic masculinity'' at this point. I want my 25 minutes back already.
You know, for people who are bashing someone for being too "inflexible" in their argument; you seem to just write him off and not listen to any of the actual legit points he brings up, just because he happens to disagree with you on one thing like gamergate or whatever it is you think he's an idiot for. Now that's not to say a lot of his points in this particular review reek of the 'teenage edgelord' kind of destructive criticism he spoke so negatively about from his earlier years. You can still hear that constant contrarian point of view in the backround of his delivery.
I only had time to skim through it but it honestly seemed less of a discussion of the genre and more of a rant on Running With Scissors. I frankly don't understand "toxic masculinity stole my car". Isn't making such a blanket assumption with no basis akin to saying "The urban market stole my car"? It's making an assumption based on stereotypes with no evidence.
I was actually with him when he touched on how butthurt the target audience would be if they were the butt of KKK jokes on what not, but he lost me too when he started in with the 'toxic masculinity burned my car down'. I might revisit this video later.
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