Comments on Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog: Haiku Quest – the MAKING OF

So everyone who don't think that any JRPG can ...

2010-09-18T16:39:36.386-04:00

So everyone who don't think that any JRPG can be called a roleplaying game are idiots? I'm sorry but isn't that, as you would put it, narrowminded?

Clarity in genre definition is a good thing. It helps us describe games properly. I see nothing that would make any JRPG I have played (outside of Chrono Trigger) more of a roleplaying game than say, Monkey Island, who nobody would call a roleplaying game.
Japan isn't too good with genres, after all, they call Strategy games "Simulation" games.
Though this is a good trait in them, as they are usually the ones to break genre conventions or mix them wildly together.

Also, figured this would be interesting, as it fits within the same theme of games like Haiku Quest.

http://www.gamespot.com/users/allmybase/video_player?id=cSA0kjCv5bwKuDTZ

It's a game with a singing bear for PS2. You take care of the bear and come up with songs together with it, that it then performs for you.

my experience with the game was the following 1. ...

2010-09-06T13:03:21.716-04:00

my experience with the game was the following

1. saw it posted on the article forum
2. decided to gave it a try
3. found the game extremly annoying
4. quickly closed the game

the whole christhoper walken joke went completly over my head altough i find it really amusing that people fell for that

I thought the game was truly great, and I'm so...

2010-09-05T22:39:49.966-04:00

I thought the game was truly great, and I'm so glad you're not apologizing. I'd have loved the game without the whole Walken thing, but it made it just a little more awesome. The ridiculous boasting about its features, the whole presentation was great. It was... great.
I guess people would've wanted you to display a big "NOT ACTUALLY CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, IT IS A JOKE" disclaimer, but I believe in my heart it's always better to upset a few self-important people than ruin the aesthetics of a good joke/work/beautiful thing.
Thanks.

Here's the problem, I think. Other websites an...

2010-09-05T19:30:18.385-04:00

Here's the problem, I think. Other websites and people read about the game and this is their thinking process:
1, No way Walken would give this guy the time of day,
2, wait, HG101 doesn't do pranks, maybe it's true?
3, I'll check for myself.... well, Sketcz says the audio files are low quality, so I can't tell...

Now let's not take it too seriously and treat it as a misunderstanding. Let's move on.

Blindly trusting someone is not the same as loyalt...

2010-09-05T16:53:56.824-04:00

Blindly trusting someone is not the same as loyalty, but tatamount to stupidity. Would you follow someone who you highly trusted off of a cliff and then complain that that person got you killed?

It was all a silly prank and one we shan't be ...

2010-09-05T15:07:00.234-04:00

It was all a silly prank and one we shan't be repeating in the future, but I don't see "disrespecting the readers" in there. I see the "disrespecting the blog culture that's more obsessed with posting headlines than investigating actual content, and getting all flustered when their shallowness is exposed".

What can I say? My father's East Bloc mindset ...

2010-09-05T13:50:31.970-04:00

What can I say? My father's East Bloc mindset is still with me. ;)

@DiscoAlucard There is a gaping chasm between bei...

2010-09-05T11:58:13.051-04:00

@DiscoAlucard

There is a gaping chasm between being "light hearted" and disrespecting for your readers. JS effectively demonstrated the latter.

I'm not surprised the HG101 staff would support him. I highly doubted seeing an apology or at least a dissenting thought from you guys. Not that I want an "apology". But I can't understand how you fail to see why some people would be upset when JS essentially says to his readers, "it's your fault for trusting me". That's a very disappointing thing to hear from a journalist I formerly held in high regard.

"Wyvern is common in Europe, but babayaga (wi...

2010-09-05T11:14:45.515-04:00

"Wyvern is common in Europe, but babayaga (witch) isn’t"

Only if your Europe still ends at the Iron Curtain ;)

To the folks that are taking this seriously -- th...

2010-09-04T21:49:52.600-04:00

To the folks that are taking this seriously -- this IS site with a totally ridiculous name, with logos done in WordArt in MS Paint, and whose mascot is my cat with a Terry Bogard hat. It's not like we don't take pride in our work, but we've got a sense of humor about it, you know? Just have a laugh (maybe?) and move on.

The cynicism is solely geared towards the sites wh...

2010-09-04T05:57:29.248-04:00

The cynicism is solely geared towards the sites who reposted without fact checking, no?

I liked it as a simple concept of a game, I dont k...

2010-09-04T05:18:54.731-04:00

I liked it as a simple concept of a game, I dont know if was for better or worse I knew about the ending before completing the game.

You could have made the voice worse to seems to make more "believeble" as an old game, otherwise it was not a loss of time.

I agree with Zack. This "explanation", h...

2010-09-03T12:43:56.138-04:00

I agree with Zack. This "explanation", however voluminous in verbiage as it may be, is half-assed at best.

What upsets me even more is not the prank itself, but your utter contempt for your readers. The fact that you keep insisting that it serves us right is very disappointing to hear from a man I highly respect as a journalist. Do you not remember that it is your readership that is the lifeblood of HG101, its blog, and the various other publications you participate in? It should be humbling--and shame you deeply--that your readers should trust you enough to not doubt the validity of your claims. Why would you seek to violate this trust?

Had Kotaku or some other garbage gaming site perpetrated this, I can assure you that I could not have cared less. But I didn't expect this cynicism and contempt for your readers to come from you and HG101. John Szczepaniak--I thought you were better than that.

I liked the game, Sketcz. I do think the little p...

2010-09-03T11:25:14.880-04:00

I liked the game, Sketcz. I do think the little pranks were for the worse rather than the better, though. And I maintain the ending was really stupid. It's like you simultaneously had a good idea for a really fun game and a bad idea for a joke or two and somehow felt the need to taint one with the other.

But hey, you obviously found it amusing and I suppose the data you collected for your social experiment will someday benefit the human race, and I got a free half hour of enjoyment, so no one's really the worse for the wear.

Zack- Wow, the terms sarcastic or facetious must n...

2010-09-03T03:15:14.762-04:00

Zack- Wow, the terms sarcastic or facetious must not be in your vocabulary. And boy, if people were actually upset by this, wow...pretty damn stupid. I guess it's not socially acceptable to do things like this unless it's a national holiday, huh?

Sketcz- That thing about haikus being equippable weapons seems a lot like Drakengard in retrospect.

Now that you mention ED, they have a whole article...

2010-09-02T21:08:12.542-04:00

Now that you mention ED, they have a whole article devoted to the kind of dumbassery perpetuated this week on HG101: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Social_experiment.

This was a very silly prank made worse by your insulting insinuation that it is the public--not yourself--who ought to be ashamed. Indeed, you feel as if you're readers somehow "deserved it".

Many people regard this place as a trusted source of information on games. You could have garnered much goodwill over your game had you just been honest about it from the start. Instead, you acted like an imbecile and shat on the very readers that is this blog's and main website's lifeblood--and that's what bothers me most. Not the initial prank, but your contempt for your readers.

Had this been Kotaku or some other garbage site, I wouldn't have cared. But it was HG101. John Szczepaniak--you're better than this. What a disappointment.

Sketcz this whole fiasco was, for lack of a better...

2010-09-02T15:10:08.451-04:00

Sketcz this whole fiasco was, for lack of a better word, completely and utterly retarded.

Seriously, have you no shame? No guilty conscience about potentially souring newcomers to DA's site/blog? You're a pathetic mess, a toddler wreaking absolute havoc in his household for the thrill of it, then using an equally infantile "justification" to try and avoid trouble when caught. To be fair, it's not just you. It seems that you can get away with anything by calling it a "social experiment" these days. I just figured that with all the intelligence you usually post with, that you would know better. I guess that was all empty posturing on your part.

As for the game, I didn't even have to download this game (luxury of being on a Mac I suppose) or the zip to smell your BS (wakeup call: you are a terrible liar or at least a horrible marketing executive who couldn't sell water to a man who was dying of thirst) so I never told anyone anywhere about this game.

And really, at the end of the day what did you accomplish besides making both an ass of yourself (and by proxy, HG101) and a crappy game to boot? (Crappiness inferred by other comments, as I cannot play the game myself.)

I can't congratulate you on your continued effort to bring HG101 to the level of SpikeTV and Encyclopedia Dramatica, but I can at least admire your persistence in flagrant idiocy.

Wait, wait, wait, there were people who actually t...

2010-09-02T12:12:06.262-04:00

Wait, wait, wait, there were people who actually thought all that to be truth?! Even I wasn't that gullible and pretty much figured it was a joke. When I first read this article and saw sites that actually reviewed the game, I was like "What, someone actually spent time reviewing it," based on the 'voice actor'. Shame on them indeed.

If it wasn't so hot where I live I would have downloaded it the day you posted the article. Now, despite the heat, I'm going to download it to enjoy a few good laughs.

Oh, though now I read those Haiku above, I thought them to be totally clever, ESPECIALLY the Tetris one! Anybody who saw visions of masturbation REALLY need to get out more. Sexual references where the LAST thing that came into my mind untill you mentioned the fact, leaving me how they could even see such things though the 'normal' human mind. That or they were butt naked in their office writing their reviews.

...and you spelled Treets wrong, it should have been Teerts. XD

hey now, i actually did download the zip and liste...

2010-09-02T07:56:42.331-04:00

hey now, i actually did download the zip and listen to the files! i thought the longer audio clips didn't sound like him at all, but i was fooled by the shorter clips. i only thought it _sort of_ sounded like his strange way of talking after comparing the clips with some videos on youtube -- i figured it probably would have sounded more like walken if he had recorded under better conditions.

so, please count me in the gullible (and probably stupid) crowd! the announcement post seemed sincere enough, and i figured since walken had done some video game voice acting work before....