The Escapist's new Monday show: Jimquisition

[Jillers]

I donno,they shouldn't? Games work best when the story works with the gameplay and the two reinforce each other. That's not to say good games can't be cinematic. Shadow of the Colossus has cinematic moments using the environment and the camera, but not 45 minute cut-scenes.

Who says these are the rules?

[Deedles]

I donno,they shouldn't? Games work best when the story works with the gameplay and the two reinforce each other. That's not to say good games can't be cinematic. Shadow of the Colossus has cinematic moments using the environment and the camera, but not 45 minute cut-scenes.

Games can be as different in their build as they can be in genre.

I always saw cut-scenes as the parts of the game where the story and the plot os being moved forward. When I played through Final Fantasy 10 I loved when I got to see a new cut-scenes, because they contained some character interaction and development, I got to know more about the world I was playing in and I got to see the plot twists.

So some cut-scenes are long, so what? I'd rather sit and watch a 40 minute cut-scene that tells me what it's meant to tell me well without rushing through all of that story and information just because "it has to because it's a game". Games are wide variety of things, one of those things is being an interactive story, which is basically like saying that it's an interactive book or movie.

Some games, like the Mario Party games aren't story game and thus have somekind of a weak ass story, but that's because everyone knows that the aim of that game is plain and simple fun. Look at a game like Call of Duty 4, there's not that many cut-scenes, and you're mainly playing the game for plain and simple fun, while it also had a great single player campaign. Then we have games like Shadow of the Colossus, the 'plain and simple fun' factor doesn't really belong here. It is a game that is meant to pull you in through acting like a story, a story that you're getting to know by playing through it and seeing it develop in front of your eyes, it's meant to grab you by the heart and drag you in by it. While the gameplay is good, it's the story that sets it apart, it's the story that touched the players and created it's fan base.

A lot of people might think that games like Heavy rain took it too far, but while I never finished it because the story made me feel utterly depressed, I thought that the game was in general good and I liked the innovation of it. It was something new, something I had never really seen before.

EDIT:
TLDR: Some games are made simply for the game play, but a lot of games are made because of it's story too, remove that element and the game is only half of what it's meant to be. If it isn't your cup of tea, then fair enough, but don't go saying that it's wrong just because you don't like it.

[MattAn]

Like wow guys, Jim Sterling has been a pretty well known games writer for a long time now. Way to get trolled.

Really? Because I've never heard of him. And now that I have, I wish I still didn't. The ONLY good thing about this poor excuse for a video was FFIX's Jesters of the Moon playing in the background.

He's a fuckwit. Plain and simple. He's certainly no "journalist" or "reporter"..

Actually, fun fact.. WHY IS THIS SHOW ON THE ESCAPIST WHEN ENN IS NOT!? Have The Escapist staff gone completely fucking mental? They cancel ENN, then bring Top 5 and Jimquisition.. Huh. Show About Games Show has improved a hell of a lot since they started.. But they were finding sketches that worked. Jimquisition/Top 5 is a different story. It's made by one person, for starters..

Then again, Top 5 HAS stepped up in quality and Lisa seems to be making an honest effort to make the show worthy.

I should also ask.. What were this ads relating to the show about? I'm in Pub Club, couldn't even see any for it while logged out? How "awkward" are they?

[Kag]

He's a fuckwit. Plain and simple. He's certainly no "journalist" or "reporter".

It's an intentionally rant-y editorial piece. Of course it's not journalism. Why would you even say that?

Also, I can't find the tweets, but I'm pretty sure Sterling is one of the group that thinks calling what he does journalism is pretentious. He's apparently on pretty good terms with the GJAIF guy, so, basically yes, exactly.

[Master Gunner]

Nonetheless, he is being payed to produce these videos, so I would expect a higher standard of quality from him.

[Wolfenbarg]

Like wow guys, Jim Sterling has been a pretty well known games writer for a long time now. Way to get trolled.

Really? Because I've never heard of him. And now that I have, I wish I still didn't. The ONLY good thing about this poor excuse for a video was FFIX's Jesters of the Moon playing in the background.

He's a fuckwit. Plain and simple. He's certainly no "journalist" or "reporter"..

Actually, fun fact.. WHY IS THIS SHOW ON THE ESCAPIST WHEN ENN IS NOT!? Have The Escapist staff gone completely fucking mental? They cancel ENN, then bring Top 5 and Jimquisition.. Huh. Show About Games Show has improved a hell of a lot since they started.. But they were finding sketches that worked. Jimquisition/Top 5 is a different story. It's made by one person, for starters..

Then again, Top 5 HAS stepped up in quality and Lisa seems to be making an honest effort to make the show worthy.

I should also ask.. What were this ads relating to the show about? I'm in Pub Club, couldn't even see any for it while logged out? How "awkward" are they?

Didn't Graham and crew decide to discontinue ENN in favor of the new show that they're currently cooking up? They didn't seem very broken up about it, and said all the feedback they got from the newsroom episodes was very informative for what they had planned next.

Lisa was a much better pick than Jim. I had actually heard of her as a games journalist for one, and I had seen her in Angry Joe's videos before. Her show sucked at first, but quickly jumped up in quality. The thing about her bad first episode though was that it showed potential to get better, while Jim's doesn't have legs at all. He should just continue writing highly inflammatory articles for the Escapist if he must be present at all.

Basically, the Escapist waives preroll ads in favor of a weird windowed one that surrounds the video player. I had seen those before, but the Jimquisition one is kind of obnoxious. It's basically the same as his little video tag on the right side of the site, only it surrounded the entire video, and clicking on or around the player would send you to his video.

[Kag]

Nonetheless, he is being payed to produce these videos, so I would expect a higher standard of quality from him.

Agreed. Fortunately, it looks like he's taking the criticism seriously and looking to improve as the show goes on.

[Bananafish]

Does this mean Stephen Colbert is a racist?

Steven Colbert doesnt employ racist slurs or ironically call for the mass murder of black people because unlike Mr. Sterling he is not a mental child that debases himself and his audience with an embarrassing form of shock value

[Kag]

Fish. Listen. You realize that Jim Sterling isn't reading this thread, right? If anyone is reading this thread, they already know that you hate Jim Sterling WITH ALL OF YOUR HATE. You don't need to mention it in every post.

Anyway, the Stephen Colbert character is actually pretty racist. He's a parody of republican pundits like Bill O'Reilly, so it pretty much goes without saying that he's super duper racist, although considerably more subtly. I don't think we can reasonably extrapolate from that that Stephen Colbert the real earth person is racist.

[Bananafish]

i am glad you have come to your sense and have stopped making excuses for him

[Elomin Sha]

Children, calm down. Don't make me retrieve the whip from the case.

[Matt]

Uhh. Steven Colbert obviously parodies the right wing by way of a character he has created, and which he plays to the camera with a wink and a nudge.

The person Jim Sterling plays in his videos and writings is not obviously a character. Maybe it is and he plays it too straight, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

The character 'Stephen Colbert' is not Stephen Colbert. Jim Sterling appears to just be Jim sterling.

-m

[Matt]

This discussion reminds of the people that try to excuse Rush Limbaugh on the grounds that 'he's a satirist' and 'if you're offended by him, you just don't get it'. No. RL is just a hateful shithead that spews absolutely inexcusable bile without a shred of wit or self-awareness for the sole purpose of generating shock and outrage.

I truly don't know enough about Sterling's history as a games writer, or about the persona he's portraying in jimquisition to condemn him, so I dont know if he's more colbert or more limbaugh. maybe he's playing a character, and i haven't picked it up, but if that is the case, it's far from apparent.

-m

[Kag]

i am glad you have come to your sense and have stopped making excuses for him

I am just skeptical that a real person could actually believe any of the retarded shit that Jim Sterling says.

Does he think that games aren't movies? Yes. Does he want to rape Nicole Weibe? Probably not, because that's retarded.

That, and, yes they are jokes. Not particularly great ones. Maybe destructive, but, definitely jokes. That is and has always been confirmed.

[Theremin]

i am glad you have come to your sense and have stopped making excuses for him

I am just skeptical that a real person could actually believe any of the retarded shit that Jim Sterling says.

Glenn Beck. Trolls who believe their shit can happen.

Unlikely, but possible.

[Kag]

Although, Jim Sterling does insist that he's not trolling when he gives unpopular reviews, so anything's possible I guess.

[Matt]

Going back to the Rush Limbaugh comparison, for a second:

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus--li­­ving fossils--s­­o we we'll never forget what these people stood for."

Even if he doesn't mean this literally, does this make him a humourist, or a really terrible person?

-m

[Kag]

I feel like it's unfair to characterize someone as evil because you think they make shitty jokes.

Rush Limbaugh is a terrible person because of all the heinous shit he actually does mean literally.

[Matt]

Highly debatable.

-m

Edit: you just said sterling wouldn't say something about raping a woman seriously because, "that's retarded" but you have no problem believing Limbaugh seriously wants to kill every liberal in the united states?

[Kag]

Edit: you just said sterling wouldn't say something about raping a woman seriously because, "that's retarded" but you have no problem believing Limbaugh seriously wants to kill every liberal in the united states?

Considering US politics, that's not that crazy. Also, Rush Limbaugh will defend the insane things he says. Jim Sterling's official position is "jokes."

[Alja-Markir]

The difference between the two being that Rush Limbough isn't going to hurt his position by defending himself, because he's famous, whereas Jim quite likely would hurt his own position because he's a nobody. He can only act the way he does so long as he hides behind the excuse of "lol, jokes".

He's a troll. It's simple to be one. You say something inflamatory. People respond with distaste or anger. You pick out the single most potentially controversial thing that someone said against you and act scandalized or mock them for it. Even when the arguments against you are sound, make it their fault by twisting things around, by employing straw men, by getting them so upset at how vitriolic and shit-headed you are that they slip up and give you another opening to lunge at. The key is to always be attacking people and making it into their fault, instead of yours.

Jim says off-color things. People take him to task for what he said. Instead of acknowledging their argument or trying to find middle ground (but unable to mock them outright for flaws they made in anger or disgust), Jim plays the old "YOU MAD, BRO?" card. It's not HIS fault he said really off-color things, because ~SUPRISE!~ he was joking, lol! He's not the dick, you are! Because you didn't get the joke and got all srs about nothing, right? You're just a drama queen, omg, what a assclown, amirite?

~Alja~

[Wolfenbarg]

Edit: you just said sterling wouldn't say something about raping a woman seriously because, "that's retarded" but you have no problem believing Limbaugh seriously wants to kill every liberal in the united states?

Considering US politics, that's not that crazy. Also, Rush Limbaugh will defend the insane things he says. Jim Sterling's official position is "jokes."

Rush Limbaugh defends his position because as long as he says such wild things, he maintains a large amount of attention. The guy has a publicist who helps him maintain this image, otherwise people wouldn't care less about the guy. How many non-conservatives would tune in or follow stories about him on the news if he wasn't busy seeming batshit?

But back to Jim. Let's just take his casual gaming article from the Escapist as an example. I'm sure he honestly believes that they have a great deal of potential for the future of gaming. Nintendo already proved the value of casual gamers, and that value was roughly a shitzillion dollars. Getting their attention to concepts other than gimmicks or shovelware is the current push, but how does Jim demonstrate this to an audience of core gamers? By telling them that they are the inferior players, that their opinions should be invalid comparisons for developers in the near future, and blamed them for new IPs like Enslaved not picking up as much attention as another slew of sequels. Would casuals have given Enslaved a chance? Of course not! If casuals were the target audience, the game wouldn't have sold 10,000 units.

So basically, his style is being a total dick. Is he legitimately a dick? Probably not. But odds are he'll just spend his time at the Escapist being a dick.

[Tycherin]

Personally, I had never heard of Jim Sterling before this thread. I watched the video, and it struck me as overly ranting; more importantly, though, it seemed like it could just as easily have had zero video. The whole thing could have just been a podcast.

Now regardless of what I think about Sterling himself (who, I'll admit, seems a bit of an unsavory character), I'll still applaud the Escapist for this move. They're taking advantage of the fact that, as an internet-based outlet, they have a much easier time trying new things than other media. The big E has tried several new things in the past few years, and some of them have turned out really well (case in point: Unskippable). Maybe Sterling will change his tune and start making better videos, like Lisa Foiles did. Maybe he will become even more ridiculous and become a decent comedy show. If not, the Escapist always has the option of cutting him, or at least letting the series die out. You win some, you lose some. If there has to be a Jim Sterling for every Extra Credits, I think I'm okay with that.

[tak197]

RE: Stephen Colbert, he has kids and he won't let them watch his show, because he has told them that he plays a character on the show, but doesn't want them to see that character for fear they may think he believes the stuff he says.

RE: Rush Limbaugh, anyone who lived in or near Cape Girardeau county Missouri back in the 90s knows how celebrated Rush is. that is to say Rush SENIOR. He was a very well respected public figure in that area, and everyone loved him. However, they all really disliked Junior.

Finally, Jim Sterling needs to realize that the "ranty, childish vlog" format isn't really what the Escapist is paying him for, and it seems like he took the advice to improve the video quality. However, the tweet about "the silent majority" he speaks for is ridiculous. For me, I find it fishy when people who are up against largely negative opinions claim to be "speaking for the silent majority", because it seems like they are grasping at straws to stay in the good graces of the public. If he had said that his video was of him "speaking on my own opinion, which I know many others agree with", it would be less fishy to me. It's like the John Kyl stuff from Colbert Report, the whole "not intended to be a factual statement" fiasco.

Speaking of which, John Kyl hates gamers because they support the Taliban. #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

[Lisra]

Hm.. his casual gaming column made me want to ask him to step outside for some reasoned argument.. and his video didn't entertain me one bit. The valid points he made, and there were some, I already knew about. I don't need him telling them again.

Overall: Meh. Will watch other stuff instead.