The Gamer's Quarter

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

I was surprised to log into my cpanel earlier today and discover that insomnia has had a few visitors from the main page of GQ.

And I say I was surprised because it is a fact of lifr that many of the head honchos around here hate my guts. God help me if I know why but anyways.

So then I checked the GQ frontpage and, sure enough, there was an insomnia banner there. A banner, if I may add, which I didn't even know we had.

So I am here. Please don't assrape. Or knock yourselves out, I am kinda enjoying the assraping I am regularly treated to at LPN and, in any case, I now have my own forums where I can express my opinions without having to worry about trigger-happy hatemongering admins and their evil sidekicks (mods). Matter of fact, there are no mods on the insomnia forums and never will be. There are no admins either except me, of course. And the day I fuck with someone's opinions (by using the edit/delete/lock buttons) is the day I quit the internets.

Amen to that.

But I was planning to register here anyways, the fact that you linked insomnia just made me do it sooner. There are two reasons I am here. I will proceed to explain both of them in this thread later. I gotta get breakfast now. See ya soon, space cowboys.

SuperWes · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 5:24 am Post subject:

Hey man. I linked to insomnia because I like another god. I'm slightly indifferent to you, so if you cause drama I won't hesitate to ban you. Just a warning! Your site isn't bad, so I know you can contain yourself if you want to.

-Wes
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

OK, here's the hugeass post. I am now going to tell you why I joined these forums. And I'll do that whether you like it or not. If you don't like it then just click on some other thread you lazyass lurker you. (If you have the attention span of a fly then you can scroll to the bottom where I've neatly summarised my reasons bullet-point style.) Or you can just give up and die, I could care less.

When shapermc first mentioned GQ on the insertcredit forums, I thought that the project didn't have a chance. And it was not only because a 16-year old who hadn't even had sex yet (and whose first system was probably a PS2) would be among the staff. It wasn't just because of the cheeky tagline or the orange color scheme. No, the main reason I thought that GQ would be dead on arrival was that the magazine would be quarterly. I mean who the fuck would want to wait 3 months to get a review/preview or whatever.

And when I took a long at the contents of the first issue my doomsday prophecies for GQ were simply reinforced. Looking at the contents, all I could see was reviews for big-name games like MGS3, SH4 and KD - with the longest most pompous-sounding titles that Toups could up with in his wildest dreams. I pointed my browser elsewhere, such was the force of the 100-megaton pomposity that struck me so violently it hurt my brain. Yeah, I gave up on GQ before even reading one sentence. Ajutla and the pompous titles did it for me.

ANYWAYS.

After the MTV fiasco, I was forced to re-examine my stance vis a vis GQ. I MEAN IF ITS ON MTV IT HAS TO BE GOOD RIGHT?

Right.

So I actually downloaded the second issue and "flicked" through it. And to my surprise, I couldn't see any reviews and such. And so I kept flicking, reading the odd paragraph here and there (the only article I've read so far in its entirety is dhex's one about NGJ - props to dhex, I really enjoyed it). So the mag was NOT going to be about reviews and such and so the "quarterly" business didn't matter anymore.

Anyways, so now I kinda like the mag. I am going to sit down, read both issues cover to cover, and write an article about it. And attach a score at the end from 1 to 5. We have a section on insomnia where we'll be reviewing videogame sites and magazines, and scoring them. That's what we do instead of just linking our buddies' sites. There will be no bannerlinks on insomnia. If our readers want to find out which site/mags we like, and why, they can just read our reviews.

So I will be writing the first such review and I will be reviewing this site. What I'd like to do when I've finished the review is post it here and maybe some of you can correct me if I've made any glaring mistakes or omissions.

OK, that's one reason out of the way. Now for the second and final one.

I post on many forums where people complain all the time how bad the reviews and articles suck on all the major sites/mags out there. Bitch bitch whine whine and no one ever does anything about it. GQ looks nice and all but it is not going to solve this problem. Because, at the end of the day, when a new game comes out we all run to the IGN or whatever for the review because there's nothing else out there. We all run to IGN for the pics, the news, the previews. And if you deny this and you lying to yourself man.

So I made the best-looking videogame site out there (with instantly updatable PHP and whathaveyou) and I invite people to come forward and show us what they can do. I know there are a lot of people here who can write (and everyone can write better than the IGN fools, for that I have no doubt) and I invite each and every one of you to submit reviews/impressions/articles here.

Here's the summary for those of you with short attention spans:

I joined these forums to:

1. Post my review of GQ and get feedback on it before I publish it on insomnia
2. Get people interested in writing for what will soon become the no.1 alternative videogamesite on the internets

Other than that I'll leave you all alone and won't be posting outside of this thread. Later.
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Mister Toups · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 10:18 am Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Persona-sama · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject:

I like your insomnia banners.
The choice of colors and fonts are very pretty.
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dessgeega · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:

i give gamer's quarter a 3.7 out of noodles.
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

There's a lot of comments to reply to, but right now I'll only say a few things on scoring, because in my opinion it's the most important point raised so far.

All the alternative game journalists seem to think that scoring is useless.

You guys are simply not thinking big enough. That's why all the alternative game sites out there never get big enough to challenge IGN and co.

Imagine that you have a site which, over a sufficiently long period of time, builds a database of hundreds, even thousands of reviews. Great, well-written reviews all of them.

And then a 16 year-old boy wanders in blindly and starts checking the SNES reviews. Now, you have 325 SNES reviews, the boy just wants to pick a couple of games to play, how teh fuck will he choose which reviews to read? If he reads all of them he'd waste a few months (or a few years if they are Tim Rogers/Toups-size reviews).

Similarly for the site/mag reviews. If we were planning on reviewing our buddies' sites, then scores would be unnecessary. However, reviewing (or just linking) our buddies' sites, is pointless (as I am sure you all realize even though you have adopted this policy for your own site).

We will be reviewing hundreds of sites and websites. Scores are absolutely essential. Just ask Roger Ebert.

In conclusion, please sign up to our forums. Thank you, I'll be back for more.
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dessgeega · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 2:34 am Post subject:

the only roger ebert review i ever found useful didn't have a score.
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Mister Toups · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 8:07 am Post subject:

Gamesarefun.com is kind of attempting the same thing. Gamefaqs.com kind of already has the same thing done. Granted it's all user-submitted and many of the reviews are retarded but it's already there.

If you are hoping to have better quality reviews than those sites, I suggest finding better writers. So far the only stuff worth reading on that website has been written by you.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

dhex · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:54 am Post subject:

scores are pretty useless, unless one is familiar with both the publication's biases, the author's biases and their own tastes vis a vis those biases.
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

Mister Toups · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 10:30 am Post subject:

I agree that the quality of writing on those sites is bad. Gamesarefun has the most needlessly long reviews of any website I've ever visited. Their news is good, though.

The point is, though, that need is more or less already filled. If what you are attempting is just a refinement of that, well, that's admirable enough. Like I said, good luck. It's the not the sort of thing that really appeals to me; if completed it would probably be like pitchfork media, which wouldn't be bad.

What we really need is something like the all music guide, which I don't see your website becoming. There already is an all game guide but it's woefully incomplete and not particularly clearly written. Frankly I don't think videogames are at a point where something like an all games guide is really possible. Ten more years, perhaps. Right now, no. There isn't enough Regular, Good Games Journalism to warrant its existence. You can't just fiat it into place.

Either way, your website isn't the sort of thing I could participate in. I have a hard time writing reviews in the traditional style and I certainly can't do it on a timely basis. I'm not interested in your challenge to demonstrate my writing skill. I think it's already been established and I'm comfortable and confident with where I am. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you find some better writers. The Violent Knee Attack article is an unfocused wash, with some good points buried in it. If you are aiming to have a site that's mainly informative, though, articles like that won't do you any favors.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

SuperWes · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 11:02 am Post subject:

Hmm. I'm actually failing to see what makes insomnia's toilet humor any more acceptable than IGN's. Actually, icyclam reminds me a lot of IGN PSP's mailbag guy.

-Wes
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

dhex · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 11:39 am Post subject:

shnozlak · . Joined: 05 Jul 2005 Posts: 33

Your site (insomnia) has been ok/good so far. Your mildly annoying and so was violent knee attack bitch; it didn't seem to have much of anything to say. The genji/gunz reviews are informative though the gunz review was a little annoying. Specifically the 'Korea' bit.
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player 2 · . Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 585 Location: Madison, WI USA

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

Oh and something else.

If you think that Insomnia is "toilet humor" material, WHY TEH FUCK DID YOU LINK US ON YOUR FRONTPAGE MORON?

I guess your frontpage is advertising ground for useless/shitty sites that your buddies run.

And that's not the only thing wrong with this place.

Now you can go ahead and use your edit/delete buttons to put words in my mouth.
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Persona-sama · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:45 am Post subject:

I read the Gunz impression.
There's this one part that bothers me. Well, bothers me enough to comment about it:

"And that's the thing. Like most other Korean games, Gunz is not exactly mindblowingly different. It's not innovative. It's just the game that you'd expect from a country that plays both Counterstrike and Tekken."

Koreans in Korea don't play Counterstrike. At allt.
Only the ones in America do.

Another God likes the taste of Americanized Koreans.
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

another god needs to check his facts more.

We all have our faults and everyone of us will improve (except the GQ crew, of course, they are perfect). It's not like we've done this before you know.
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player 2 · . Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 585 Location: Madison, WI USA

Heh, I guess I got that one wrong.

BUT!!

I do like the taste of Americanized Koreans.

Seriously.

Does anyone know why they taste better?
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

Mister Toups · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:08 am Post subject:

No MSG?
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

dhex · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:13 am Post subject:

wouldn't that lead to stringyness if stored too long?

maybe the answer then is freshness?
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SuperWes · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:46 am Post subject:

player 2 · . Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 585 Location: Madison, WI USA

I'm in kind of a predicament right here, so...

icyclam may be excessively abusive on the forums (i.e. this thread), but those last two quotes were from me. And I don't think that it's toilet humor as much as it is me being honest with how I speak. I know it's not games journalism, but I'm not a journalist. I write about games in a way I'd like to read about games.

I mean, this is one of my favorite reviews ever. And yes, I did just link to Maddox.

I would really like to say, "You know, I'm sorry for the way we write," but I kind of don't want to apologize for it. icyclam's just an asshole when it comes to forums especially when his site gets called "toilet humor". But he loves games as much as any of you guys do. As do I. That's why Insomnia even exists. So, I guess now it's just, "sorry for Icy being a douschebag in the forums."

I have no idea what my point is right now. I think I just felt it was necessary to respond because sometimes people get into real shit on the forums, and that isn't necessary at all.

Wow, wtf, I sound like a complete pussy. Thanks, assholes.
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

dhex · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:45 am Post subject:

we need a good tsunami so you can get all emo about life and philosophy and stuff again, man.

like, what's it all mean?
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

We don't have time for that.

I'll be banned soon.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:22 am Post subject:

time's just like, a construct, man. you've got to deal with the time in your mind before your mind can catch up with the times.
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

Oh wait wait. I TAKE IT ALL BACK. You called my bluff!

PLEASE put our banner back on your frontpage! We got 23282034324 hits within 24 hrs after you linked us!! Please please legendary SuperWes, I'll be your bitch and whatever!

And I'll be real nice too, never insulting anyone, never causing drama/controversy/actual discussion. PLSTHXVERYMUCHOKAYSORRYLOLIREPENT!

... ... ....

...
...
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

Is this discussion controversial yet?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:03 pm Post subject:

no, just stupid.
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icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:18 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:26 am Post subject:

i for one like the frontend. it's very simple. and simple is the new complex.

by masthead do we mean the listing of contributors or the nameplate (i.e. the title of the publication on the front page, which for some reason many folks now call a masthead...)
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SuperWes · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:57 am Post subject:

Nameplate.

-Wes
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dhex · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 10:13 am Post subject:

a bold retitling of sorts or just a polish? i'm not terribly down on the new courier-ish no smartquote thing, but it's not terrible either.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

icycalm · . Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Hellas/Nippon

dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

What is it with you and "causes" ?

These things aren't that dire, you know.

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:02 am Post subject:

there are less dire causes.
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