6 ms·

Marine Heavy Gunner dev notes - 'Nobody picked up that it was a parody'

102 points by dan_sim 17y ago

mahmud 17y ago
Funny, light read :-)
ianbishop 17y ago
"Another interesting note, we DID have ragdoll physics. But what happened was when you killed a Vietcong their body would shrink down to the size of a child and seizure on the ground flailing and screaming." Hilarious. Despite the overwhelming complexity and pressure of the game industry, I can imagine getting to create something like this with a small team of friends would be absolute bliss.
- krakensden 17y ago
  You missed the money quote: "After a firefight it looked like you had wiped out an entire orphanage"
  - JoachimSchipper 17y ago
    You also missed the "one full year of crunch time" part. It wasn't all gun and fames.
stcredzero 17y ago
'Nobody picked up that it was a parody' Closely related quote: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." --Henry Mencken
- gruseom 17y ago
  My radar went off on this one, because I've heard it attributed to both Mencken and P.T. Barnum. But it turns out Mencken did say it - or rather, he said something that resembled it: No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 19, 1926) This is another case of a quote that mutated over the years into a pithier, more rhythmic form. An interesting divergence is that Mencken never explicitly said the American public.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    Mencken being the elitist he was, probably never saw the "great masses" in finer detail. American or otherwise, to him they were nothing but a bulk; a gray, disgusting pile of intellectual and material poverty. Him and Buckley have elevated crypto-fascist snobbery to a new level.
    - gruseom 17y ago
      I'm not sure you're right about Mencken. I have the impression that he was more of a cynic than an elitist, not a groveler before wealth and power. There's a series of interviews with him on YouTube, done by a protégé of his as a kind of oral history. I dabbled with listening to them a few months ago and remember one anecdote. Mencken described how he enjoyed walking through neighborhoods of Baltimore at night, looking into well-lit living rooms to learn what he could about how people lived. For the most part he thought people's taste was appalling, but he mentioned that one poor black woman's house had struck him as being arranged with some of the best taste he had ever seen. I don't know that much about Mencken but my guess is that "good taste" was high praise. About Buckley, on the other hand, I agree with you. I've watched some of the interviews he did in his prime and seen nothing but an oily, pretentious jerk, sure that his establishment platitudes are convincing arguments. Those pieces really have not aged well. I'm thinking of the ones where he "debates" Chomsky ("I'd smash you in the goddamn face") and, infamously, Gore Vidal ("Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.") Some intellectual hero.
      - mahmud 17y ago
        I hope you're right about Mencken. Maybe its his German sensibilities that I am reading too much into; I can understand why someone with an enlightened continental leaning might find American then, and still now, barbaric. And thanks for reminding me of Buckley's youtube disasters. I now have enough material to entertain a crowd this Australia day BBQ :-)
      - ellyagg 17y ago
        So, what should you do if someone keeps calling you a crypto-nazi in a televised debate? I'm pretty sure that if Buckley and Vidal had been having a debate about civil rights, and Buckley repeatedly called Vidal a "crypto-faggot", under the pretense that doing so was vaguely related to civil rights, and then if Vidal had made a rejoinder similar to the one quoted, you'd be applauding it. Remember, it was Vidal's essay about Buckley that twice inspired libel suits and forced Esquire to print an apology. (Note: Not a Republican and not a fan of Buckley, but a fan of the truth.)
josefresco 17y ago
anyone have a mirror of the download?
jws 17y ago
Under CHEAT CODES: > crappymode = all guns are now my voice (kudos to my compatriot in crime) bang! bang!
- whatusername 17y ago
  Partly also explained here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ash51/shhh_share_the_secrets_of_your_trade_lifes_little/c0j5r0k http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ash51/shhh_share_...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
catch23 17y ago
I love the youtube links at the bottom... they point to... youtube.
- xsmasher 17y ago
  Found one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXLewW_aeuo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXLewW_aeuo
yread 17y ago
I laughed at the crappymode as well and a friend pointed me to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwxN8sCIOOE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwxN8sCIOOE Half-life with a voice plugin :)
bobbyi 17y ago
Your six person, six month, $200,000. budget game is reviewed THE SAME as a three year, three hundred person studio game Why wouldn't it be? The point of a review is to tell me how good the game is, not to reward you for effort.
- xsmasher 17y ago
  They probably don't have the same retail price at launch. Do they also go to shows at a local clubs and complain that their stage show isn't as good as the Rolling Stones?
- coryrc 17y ago
  I understood that a different way-- Those reviews sound like any other game review. I think he's saying the reviews should have been harsher.
reitzensteinm 17y ago
It got 50% on metacritic, which isn't too bad. For 6 people for 6 months, it's actually quite an achievement.
ilamont 17y ago
The gaming format of a wisecracking band of heavily armed soldiers blasting their way through a foreign country while spewing curses and black humor is a trope that never gets old. Fast-forward to 2010, and Battlefield Bad Company has a very respectable rank on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=battlefield+bad+company&x=0&y=0&sprefix=battlefield+ba http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_14?url=search-alias...

102 points by dan_sim 17y ago

Funny, light read :-)

"Another interesting note, we DID have ragdoll physics. But what happened was when you killed a Vietcong their body would shrink down to the size of a child and seizure on the ground flailing and screaming." Hilarious. Despite the overwhelming complexity and pressure of the game industry, I can imagine getting to create something like this with a small team of friends would be absolute bliss.

krakensden 17y ago
You missed the money quote: "After a firefight it looked like you had wiped out an entire orphanage"
- JoachimSchipper 17y ago
  You also missed the "one full year of crunch time" part. It wasn't all gun and fames.

stcredzero 17y ago

'Nobody picked up that it was a parody' Closely related quote: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." --Henry Mencken

gruseom 17y ago
My radar went off on this one, because I've heard it attributed to both Mencken and P.T. Barnum. But it turns out Mencken did say it - or rather, he said something that resembled it: No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 19, 1926) This is another case of a quote that mutated over the years into a pithier, more rhythmic form. An interesting divergence is that Mencken never explicitly said the American public.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Mencken being the elitist he was, probably never saw the "great masses" in finer detail. American or otherwise, to him they were nothing but a bulk; a gray, disgusting pile of intellectual and material poverty. Him and Buckley have elevated crypto-fascist snobbery to a new level.
  - gruseom 17y ago
    I'm not sure you're right about Mencken. I have the impression that he was more of a cynic than an elitist, not a groveler before wealth and power. There's a series of interviews with him on YouTube, done by a protégé of his as a kind of oral history. I dabbled with listening to them a few months ago and remember one anecdote. Mencken described how he enjoyed walking through neighborhoods of Baltimore at night, looking into well-lit living rooms to learn what he could about how people lived. For the most part he thought people's taste was appalling, but he mentioned that one poor black woman's house had struck him as being arranged with some of the best taste he had ever seen. I don't know that much about Mencken but my guess is that "good taste" was high praise. About Buckley, on the other hand, I agree with you. I've watched some of the interviews he did in his prime and seen nothing but an oily, pretentious jerk, sure that his establishment platitudes are convincing arguments. Those pieces really have not aged well. I'm thinking of the ones where he "debates" Chomsky ("I'd smash you in the goddamn face") and, infamously, Gore Vidal ("Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.") Some intellectual hero.
    - mahmud 17y ago
      I hope you're right about Mencken. Maybe its his German sensibilities that I am reading too much into; I can understand why someone with an enlightened continental leaning might find American then, and still now, barbaric. And thanks for reminding me of Buckley's youtube disasters. I now have enough material to entertain a crowd this Australia day BBQ :-)
    - ellyagg 17y ago
      So, what should you do if someone keeps calling you a crypto-nazi in a televised debate? I'm pretty sure that if Buckley and Vidal had been having a debate about civil rights, and Buckley repeatedly called Vidal a "crypto-faggot", under the pretense that doing so was vaguely related to civil rights, and then if Vidal had made a rejoinder similar to the one quoted, you'd be applauding it. Remember, it was Vidal's essay about Buckley that twice inspired libel suits and forced Esquire to print an apology. (Note: Not a Republican and not a fan of Buckley, but a fan of the truth.)

josefresco 17y ago

anyone have a mirror of the download?

jws 17y ago

Under CHEAT CODES: > crappymode = all guns are now my voice (kudos to my compatriot in crime) bang! bang!

whatusername 17y ago
Partly also explained here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ash51/shhh_share_the_secrets_of_your_trade_lifes_little/c0j5r0k http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ash51/shhh_share_...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

catch23 17y ago

I love the youtube links at the bottom... they point to... youtube.

xsmasher 17y ago
Found one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXLewW_aeuo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXLewW_aeuo

yread 17y ago

I laughed at the crappymode as well and a friend pointed me to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwxN8sCIOOE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwxN8sCIOOE Half-life with a voice plugin :)

bobbyi 17y ago

Your six person, six month, $200,000. budget game is reviewed THE SAME as a three year, three hundred person studio game Why wouldn't it be? The point of a review is to tell me how good the game is, not to reward you for effort.

xsmasher 17y ago
They probably don't have the same retail price at launch. Do they also go to shows at a local clubs and complain that their stage show isn't as good as the Rolling Stones?
coryrc 17y ago
I understood that a different way-- Those reviews sound like any other game review. I think he's saying the reviews should have been harsher.

reitzensteinm 17y ago

It got 50% on metacritic, which isn't too bad. For 6 people for 6 months, it's actually quite an achievement.

ilamont 17y ago

The gaming format of a wisecracking band of heavily armed soldiers blasting their way through a foreign country while spewing curses and black humor is a trope that never gets old. Fast-forward to 2010, and Battlefield Bad Company has a very respectable rank on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=battlefield+bad+company&x=0&y=0&sprefix=battlefield+ba http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_14?url=search-alias...