Fuck this place

[GeeZa]

If Stu was in charge of any degree of games journalism it'd probably just make me want to give the fuck up trying because I know he'd be waiting with some idiotic crap about reversed controls

It's not *necessarily* idiotic crap though is it?

...but sometimes it'll do what the Rev hates so much and reverse your controls, and I don't like that either, because basically that's your race fucked right there (or severely impaired anyway). I think they could have left the control-reversing out, really.

[Yak]

If Stu was in charge of any degree of games journalism it'd probably just make me want to give the fuck up trying because I know he'd be waiting with some idiotic crap about reversed controls

It's not *necessarily* idiotic crap though is it?

...but sometimes it'll do what the Rev hates so much and reverse your controls, and I don't like that either, because basically that's your race fucked right there (or severely impaired anyway). I think they could have left the control-reversing out, really.

It is when he's ascribing it to a game where it in fact doesn't exist.

[PeeknPoke Lee]

is it still kicking off here?


Who's wining?

Lee

[Gilby]

I've laid fairly low on this since he flounced out. For those who missed the soap op, I was the 'tossy little troll' he was busy 'batting away' when all of this went off.

What I was saying to him at the time has been and gone, so there seems little point in defending it. All I can say is that I probably overstepped the mark somewhat, but I was prodding him for a reaction I guess (a behaviour which is continually attributed to him).
I found out exactly what I suspected - that he's much much better at dishing it out than he is at fielding it, and if he's losing ground, he needs to go nuclear and claim that the entire world is against him, unfair and unjust and so it goes on.

Me, I think that all journos of his ilk are akin to kids who throw objects off tall buildings. They feel brave and mischevous because they can't get caught. They can even yell a few obscenities at those below cos they'll never actually have to face them. I've never found this 'style' anything beyond pathetic, which is pretty much what I was saying to him (and a point that he chose not to address ONCE in his increasingly insulting replies).
The music press (closer to my neck of the woods in terms of experience) is full of such wankers, whose sole purpose for writing it seems, is to prove that they 'know better' than the artists and their audience. Well to me, those are the only two people that matter. I don't see that gaming is much different. (I may well be wrong). These people take great joy in slagging bands and their fans, which to me seems utterly pointless. More music has been recorded than it is possible for one human to listen to in a lifetime, - so why focus on the negative? These people rarely contribute anything positive. When they do, it tends to be in the form "this shits all over bands like [insert currently popular act]". Well, I just don't see that this is bringing anything to the party (other than to try to prove that they are 'cool' cos they like something you've never heard, and hate something that you like, but you 'shouldnt').
To feed your ego by trying to forge some kind of persona and 'status' as a tastemaker or judge and jury is frankly, the work of a delusional mind at best. I never read reviews. I read articles, yes. Interviews - all the time. Someone elses opinion? Couldn't give a toss. I disagree with most of em anyway. Hell, I disagree with my own first impressions all the time after a few listens, so I don't even agree with myself. But it's only me that decides what's worth persevering with. Nobody leads me.

Boils down to:
I believe that any creative endeavour is about the intent of the artist and the response of the audience. Anything else is just noise, ego and quite frankly, intellectual masturbation.
Your views, of course, may vary. That is the very nature of opinions....

[Rod_S]

actually *trying to make stuff to standards that they believe in*.

That's exactly what the Rev is doing with his reviews though, surely? I'm honestly not trying to be a cunt here, it's just easier to see both sides of the argument as an outsider as it were. He has integrity and standards just as you do, as all of us do, which is why there's the occasional conflict and flaring of tempers.

Er, no. Legendary, Belly of the Beast, plasma pistol on charge to the sword-monkeys, doubletap with the Marine Pistol. Down they go. Nade and zaps to clean up the Jackals and Grunts, wait for the Hunters, bag the Active Camo then stick a plazzie to their smashing Jaffa orangey bit. Bang, done.

It's really not a problem.

You've gotta tell me this was after you'd at least attempted it on Heroic a bazillion times like the rest of us pathetic mortals. Please?

is it still kicking off here?


Lee

No we're all being just like Fonzy.

[Acronym]

No we're all being just like Fonzy.

Jumping the shark?

[guythp]

Well, for what it's worth (and it's not a lot), I'm not too fussed about it all. A part of what I read about yakyak was, or is, that it's jeff's house (in a crazy, "virtual" sense) and that you don't go into someone's house and be nasty to them.

That aside, I found him a litle rude generally and very harsh to those who criticised him (as in " I dissagree with what you're saying, stu", "Ok, but you're wrong and you're a cnut"*), I only really remember him from the speccy days and I haven't really read his articles in retro gamer either (although, in the rev's defense, I imagine he doesn't refer to every version of every game as being "breath-taking", as the rest of the team seem to ).

So, my two-pence (so to speak) is that I'm not sorry to see him go. Fine if the bloke wrote some interesting stuff (To stir things up I'm sure 'Mien Kampf" was an excellent read, altough I've not yet read it meself.), he seemed (to me) to not really be a very nice person. It certainly is interesting to see how the forum is divided here. Also, if you're gonna leave, why not just leave? Why post, then check the post later on to see the response and reply to post on it? (sorry if someone else has mentioned this, I have dial up, see?).


.. Apologies for any mis-use of punctuation or spelling, I've had a couple of ciders.



*not actual quote

[betamax]

but I was prodding him for a reaction I guess...

I found out exactly what I suspected - that he's much much better at dishing it out than he is at fielding it, and if he's losing ground, he needs to go nuclear and claim that the entire world is against him, unfair and unjust and so it goes on.

So essentially you were out to cause trouble. Round of applause here please!

[sillytuna]

Phew, long thread. I met Stu once, a long time ago when I was struggling to get into the industry with our first game. I took issue with his review of our game too, so I've been on the receiving end somewhat.

Truth is that if he genuinely could shut that ego away he could be a great reviewer. He often makes very good points about games that others don't mention.

In reality, his ego takes over and he simply doesn't make sense half the time. He's like a horribly twisted version of his Amiga Power days. At least, at the time, you could respect his honesty and willingness to talk.

To slam a game - and make it available free - purely because it doesn't mention that it *may* have been inspired by another game is truely ridiculous. The casual game market is full of clones, but many are brilliantly done. That's life, deal with it. We all know the law on this - well those of us in the industry - Stu has no right to be above the law.

Legally speaking, if I mentioned on a game that it was inspired by Game X and it was also very similar, and I was selling it, I'd put myself in a very dubious position. My sollicitor would never allow it and for good reason.

As for his actions on various forums, it's all very well people here saying "well, he was entertaining, don't hound him out" but he seeks controversy and he deliberately winds people up time and time again, often rudely, so there really is no sympathy to be had. It isn't funny to be on the receiving end.

Stu, if you're reading this, how about you go back to honest game reviews and genuine respectful articles? I used to like your humour too. However, I can't stand the ego, the numerous personal attacks, and the frequent lack of respect you show to pretty much anyone these days.

I'm also sorry to hear about your situation - I know about these kind of things all too well myself - but the way forward is not by having a go at all and sundry which is what you always do.

You're a great writer - get back to it and show the world how games should be reviewed. No more "I am the Rev blah blah blah". Just honest reviews.

[GeeZa]

If Stu was in charge of any degree of games journalism it'd probably just make me want to give the fuck up trying because I know he'd be waiting with some idiotic crap about reversed controls

It's not *necessarily* idiotic crap though is it?

...but sometimes it'll do what the Rev hates so much and reverse your controls, and I don't like that either, because basically that's your race fucked right there (or severely impaired anyway). I think they could have left the control-reversing out, really.

It is when he's ascribing it to a game where it in fact doesn't exist.

Sure, but as with Wipeout on the PSP, it's often used as a lazy and cheap-ass trick. It wasn't clear to me that you were commenting on a specific game. Was that something to do with T3K?

[Yak]

actually *trying to make stuff to standards that they believe in*.

That's exactly what the Rev is doing with his reviews though, surely? I'm honestly not trying to be a cunt here, it's just easier to see both sides of the argument as an outsider as it were. He has integrity and standards just as you do, as all of us do, which is why there's the occasional conflict and flaring of tempers.

Well, I'm sorry, but I figure that actually trying to do something positive in the biz by actually creating games is more effective than just flapping gums about it and, indeed, attacking those who genuinely *are* trying to make a difference.

I don't agree that he's that "great" anyway. I think a lot of the time he just states obvious things very shrilly, and people go "Oh yeah, I agree, guy's a genius!".

I remember his writing about Kameo, and he went right off on one about training levels, and positively *fulminated* about the fact that the second level of the game began with a training level. Obvious thing: "training levels can be annoying", yes they can, we all know that, hardly a Pulitzer-prizewinning observation. And you know what? I played the game, got to the second level where there was indeed a training mission, and you know what? It was over in about 30 seconds. It was fuck-all as far as training level annoyances go. If I'd've reviewed the game I'd've made the point that thank fuck the training bit *wasn't* annoyingly long. But why let the truth get in the way of a good old rant-of-the-obvious, eh?

[Purple Grapefruit]

The amount of support in this thread has been rather unexpected and a little bit heart-warming, so thanks for that to everyone who said something nice, particularly the people who said "I don't often agree with him but it's good to have him here anyway".

I didn't know the Rev liked such things as people being nice, didn't quite fit
with the image i have of him, Mmhmm.........silly me,suppose everyone needs a little niceness every now and then......even rhinos.


Well "the Rev" i don't know if you are still reading this thread or even care
about the opinions of little minnows like me.

I wish you happiness and success on your travels.I am sorry to hear of your misfortunes.I am sad to see you go and will miss yor caustic wit, even if at times you where as agreeable as a cheese grater being applied to a ballend.To me you where interesting enough to keep reading your posts in spite of that fucking awful sig (believe me, for me to keep interest in spite of that , takes some doing).

Good luck.

I would offer you a but i suppose that's not your scene.
Perhaps the offer of a molotov cocktail for your usage, would be more your kind of thing, but sadly i'm all out of those at the moment



*edited to avoid misunderstandings x2*

[GeeZa]

I remember his writing about Kameo, and he went right off on one about training levels, and positively *fulminated* about the fact that the second level of the game began with a training level. Obvious thing: "training levels can be annoying", yes they can, we all know that, hardly a Pulitzer-prizewinning observation. And you know what? I played the game, got to the second level where there was indeed a training mission, and you know what? It was over in about 30 seconds. It was fuck-all as far as training level annoyances go. If I'd've reviewed the game I'd've made the point that thank fuck the training bit *wasn't* annoyingly long. But why let the truth get in the way of a good old rant-of-the-obvious, eh?

Again, I have to say this is *somewhat* unfair if you are referring to the the mini review he posted on his own site. I do recall vaguely when he was pressed here on defending the score he made it clear he was scoring it relative to other similar games he'd experienced. Anyway, I've reproduced it below for people to make their own minds up. It was pretty obvious that he thought the game was dogshit for various reasons and level two being merely one of them. How the fuck I've got myself into defending him against you I have no idea but I'm going to stop immediately. I dunno, I saw a fair bit of stress and maybe even a little desperation in his reaction to gravy (who I don't think honestly meant any harm from my reading) and just feel the guy should be cut some slack and not fucking laid into when he's unable/unwilling to respond properly. Sounds like he's had a genuine shitter of a year. Give the guy a break ffs.

KAMEO: Staggeringly, unbelievably, appallingly bad. Take everything that was wrong with Donkey Kong 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day, multiply it by five, shove it in a boring generic world with zero draw distance, inflict impossibly weak "humour" on it in the midst of otherwise dismally po-faced "fairies and monsters" sub-Harry Potter plotline crap, bury it in needlessly complex controls and hopelessly vague, unfocused goals, interrupt it every 12 seconds for autosave, and put a massively tedious tutorial level in AS LEVEL TWO, after you've just spent 45 minutes using all the moves it's now laboriously trying to teach you. Would have been a serious embarrassment to the N64, but as the future of videogaming it's going to make people kill themselves. 1/10

[Gorecki]

Well, I'm sorry, but I figure that actually trying to do something positive in the biz by actually creating games is more effective than just flapping gums about it and, indeed, attacking those who genuinely *are* trying to make a difference.

There's two points I'd like to make about that quote as it seems to echo similar sentiments from other posters that people don't think that Stu contributes anything positive to the videogames industry and simple whines and bitches about stuff.

The first is that strong, robust and independant minded critical analysis is vital to the continued success and progression of any form of art or entertainment. This is something that videogames, more than any other form of entertainment, is desperately lacking. The vast, overwhelming majority of videogames journalism boils down to nothing more than a perfunctory description of the game at its most base level followed by a percentage point at the end. This is, in my opinion, having a massively detrimental effect on the quality of the games we play as the same faults get made time after time simply because there's no respected circle of critics to discuss and debate the problems. Stu, for all his many, many faults is one of the incredibly rare exceptions to this rule and is (again in my opinion) doing something constructive for the games industry by challenging the problems that he perceives to exist.

Secondly, he spearheaded the monumental failure that was the FairPlay campaign, a campaign to lower the price of videogames. Given the current disgusting price of XBox360 games, I honestly can't believe that any video game enthusiast would call this attempt anything other than 'trying to make a difference'.

[Snakey]

The first is that strong, robust and independant minded critical analysis is vital to the continued success and progression of any form of art or entertainment.

KAMEO: Staggeringly, unbelievably, appallingly bad. Take everything that was wrong with Donkey Kong 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day, multiply it by five, shove it in a boring generic world with zero draw distance, inflict impossibly weak "humour" on it in the midst of otherwise dismally po-faced "fairies and monsters" sub-Harry Potter plotline crap, bury it in needlessly complex controls and hopelessly vague, unfocused goals, interrupt it every 12 seconds for autosave, and put a massively tedious tutorial level in AS LEVEL TWO, after you've just spent 45 minutes using all the moves it's now laboriously trying to teach you. Would have been a serious embarrassment to the N64, but as the future of videogaming it's going to make people kill themselves. 1/10

Err... yes.

Just incase you don't know, there's not one single part of that that isn't a blatant lie.