I agree! This wasn't pretentious, it was whimsical. An interesting, if dark, interpretation that I think makes the game work better. L.A. Noire has a non-plot with an unlikeable main character in a sea of unlikeable characters. The police force is a cliche playset of characters so stock you could make soup with them.Thrust said:You know what ? I actually like this guy, he does have SOME valid points, and seems like we shouldn't take him too seriously.
Damn man. It kind of hurt reading that. Know you were trying to sound pretentious and all but this just crossed some lines.BGH122 said:Out of what? Out of what?!Viking Incognito said:50 out of what?
"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.
"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.
"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.
With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.
"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.
The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.
My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.
Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.
I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.
I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.
"Out of what?" the question squealed.
Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
Haha I was so pretentious that it was offensive? That's a newly discovered skill!Haukur Isleifsson said:Damn man. It kind of hurt reading that. Know you were trying to sound pretentious and all but this just crossed some lines.BGH122 said:Out of what? Out of what?!Viking Incognito said:50 out of what?
"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.
"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.
"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.
With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.
"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.
The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.
My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.
Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.
I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.
I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.
"Out of what?" the question squealed.
Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
That site reminded not a little of Insert Credit in its heyday. I actually miss that kind of videogame's critique.Alex Cowan said:Saying that, I'm one of those artsy types (Yes, The Great Gatsby has wonderful symbolism, thank you), and I see a value for this style of critical analysis in the video game industry. One doesn't go looking to someone with a degree in English Literature to answer the question "Should I buy x book?", one goes to them for an analysis of themes, an exploration of character and authorial intention, rather than the arbitrary fault-finding of commercial reviewers, and this is the function that this site holds.
That's how I feel about review scores in general. Specific points discussed have much more value than numerical points.Alex Cowan said:Saying that, the fact that they feel the need to tack a review score on the end seems completely arbitrary and worthless - that would be like a critic doing an extended analysis of, say, Wagner's use of motif in Tristan und Isolde only to turn around and rate the opera out of 100. Especially considering how precise their scores are... (they gave Bulletstorm 73. Why 73? Why not 75? What specific 2% worth of the game were missing that you felt it just didn't quite hit 75?)
Yeah it is kinda impressive. But the truth is that this kind of thing CAN be done well. It's only pretentious if there is no real thought behind it. Which I am assuming applies to your otherwise fine writing.BGH122 said:Haha I was so pretentious that it was offensive? That's a newly discovered skill!Haukur Isleifsson said:Damn man. It kind of hurt reading that. Know you were trying to sound pretentious and all but this just crossed some lines.BGH122 said:Out of what? Out of what?!Viking Incognito said:50 out of what?
"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.
"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.
"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.
With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.
"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.
The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.
My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.
Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.
I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.
I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.
"Out of what?" the question squealed.
Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result. I was basically engaging in reductio ad absurdum: taking his unreasonable questioning of a prompt to the extreme by questioning the very concept of 'quantitativeness' and, by extension, numeracy to reveal that no such thing existed and our very reality is therefore illusory.Haukur Isleifsson said:Yeah it is kinda impressive. But the truth is that this kind of thing CAN be done well. It's only pretentious if there is no real thought behind it. Which I am assuming applies to your otherwise fine writing.
I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.
So fiction is not allowed to be interpreted, just read as it is? Or do you maintain this stance only towards videogames?BGH122 said:The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result.
Ah but you can always say that you were doing that after someone calls you out on your pretentiousness.BGH122 said:The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result. I was basically engaging in reductio ad absurdum: taking his unreasonable questioning of a prompt to the extreme by questioning the very concept of 'quantitativeness' and, by extension, numeracy to reveal that no such thing existed and our very reality is therefore illusory.Haukur Isleifsson said:Yeah it is kinda impressive. But the truth is that this kind of thing CAN be done well. It's only pretentious if there is no real thought behind it. Which I am assuming applies to your otherwise fine writing.
I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.
I was basically taking the piss of his desire to appear profound, regardless of whether or not the profundity made any sense.
Although people on this thread reckon that his site is a joke site after reading a few reviews, so I might have actually created a backfiring parody.
That wasn't my point. Fiction is most definitely allowed to be interpreted, but only within the context of the fiction. It isn't a valid criticism of a scene to say that 'this scene doesn't match up to real life expectations!' because such a criticism is arbitrary to the scene unless its intent was to match up to real life expectations.Ericb said:So fiction is not allowed to be interpreted, just read as it is? Or do you maintain this stance only towards videogames?BGH122 said:The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result.
Well that's fair enough, one may seek whatever enjoyment one wishes from a fiction. However, to then proudly declare that the fiction doesn't make sense or seems odd because of how the reader has chosen to view it isn't valid literary criticism. I think this harkens of the following quote from earlier:Haukur Isleifsson said:And yeah I get that you were kind off making a point by not making one. So in a way there was probably some thought behind the whole thing. And I personally find it entertaining from time to time to arbitrarily apply real world logic to fiction to see the absurdities that we have come to accept as the norm.
(I've left the original text there so people can follow our discussion if they wish, otherwise our discussion will sound arbitrary and pretentious and then we'll sound like hypocrites!)Haukur Isleifsson said:[...]BGH122 said:Out of what? Out of what?!Viking Incognito said:50 out of what?
"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.
"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.
"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.
With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.
"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.
The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.
My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.
Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.
I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.
I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.
"Out of what?" the question squealed.
Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.