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| Sorry, was off the grid when you originally posted this thread. by Mischief Maker 07/14/2012, 8:55pm PDT | ||||
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| First of all, I think Xoxak basically pounds icycalm's article into the dirt in the first minute of this video:
My own comments: I seem to recall one of Icycalm's most repeated points when his site was still viewable by the public is that videogames should be considered more like sports than like movies. As any Sportball Fan knows, the resaon we love the Sportland Sports is because they do so many points. Is it any wonder people infer that he's a proponent of scoring in videogames? I... I had to skip ahead to the conclusions. Having walled himself off from any sort of criticism, his writing style has become downright obnoxious. This makes his old Arcade Culture article look positively terse. And GOD DAMN, icycalm calls superplayers nerds who would have much more Strong, Healthy, Fulfilling lives if they stopped pouring so much energy into videogames on page 374 of his book on videogames? No wonder he needed to wall himself off from criticism. From what I could gather, icycalm hates scoring systems because they harm immersion in games which stops them from distracting icycalm from the Strong, Healthy, Fulfilling life he leads. Really, I don't see how figuring out, memorizing, then pulling off the perfect survival route through Contra Hard Corps is any different than figuring out, memorizing, then pulling off an optimal scoring route in Dodonpachi. Something tells me the only reason he's still playing these Cave shmups is because he feels obligated to for the sake of his reputation. Ultimately, if I were to sum up icycalm, I'd say he was a guy who pointed out that modern games are getting too goddamned easy in the QTE-tastic modern age, and said it more shrill and angry than anyone else, which was entertaining and drew in many like-minded gamers, myself included. Alas, I don't think he actually has the gaming chops to back up all his bravado and now he's written himself into a manliness corner. He sneers at credit-feeding, but he can't compete with the big boys for score (and to be honest, neither can I), so he's spinning himself in furious circles trying to prove that low-rank 1CCing of arcade games is the ultimate sweet spot of videogame masculinity. When that fails to convince even his own ego, he puffs himself up further with good old Wittgenstein because, sheeit, where else do you see reviewers smart enough to discuss Megaman and German philosophers in the same sentence? |
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