Totalbiscuit does Brutal Doom.

[kristus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4kLpBUHf9E

Thoughts?

[Marcaek]

He could be less of a tool.

[DooM_RO]

Marcaek said:

He could be less of a tool.

I agree, he didn't show much of the good stuff.

P.S People are already doing their best at damaging the mod's reputation. Very lame.

[plums]

* I hate Brutal Doom's aesthetic (gameplay changes are OK-ish, at least for iwad levels) but as has been said before by others, I think something which gets more people interested in Doom is ultimately a good thing. TotalBiscuit is certainly well known, and hearing him tell people to give Doom a try, and praising Doom not just for the BD changes but for what was right in the first place, is good evidence of this. This would not have happened without a mod as big as BD.

* Obviously TB can't be expected to know everything about source ports, community drama, or Doom modding in general, but it was amusing/frustrating hearing him say "they" a lot when talking about BD's changes, only to then say "everything was made by just one guy," seemingly attributing not only the whole of BD but also aspects of Gee-Zed-Doom to Mark. Oh well!

* LOL at him saying he didn't remember the maps being so big while wandering around MAP02. Also that secret door is right there, why aren't you running at all, rrrrgh!

[dew]

plums said:

"everything was made by just one guy"

I was just randomly clicking through the vid, but I caught this one and flipped table. Probably the greatest lie commonly spread about BD. This bit's by far the worst offender, but it's generally a poorly informed let's play. It only shows how much nostalgia bias TB uses when he says BD retains Doom gameplay. He obviously didn't bother to play those three Doom 2 maps back to back with vanilla (and by this I don't mean exe, just the IWAD on any port).

[DooM_RO]

dew said:

I was just randomly clicking through the vid, but I caught this one and flipped table. Probably the greatest lie commonly spread about BD. This bit's by far the worst offender, but it's generally a poorly informed let's play. It only shows how much nostalgia bias TB uses when he says BD retains Doom gameplay. He obviously didn't bother to play those three Doom 2 maps back to back with vanilla (and by this I don't mean exe, just the IWAD on any port).

I agree, it's obvious he didn't do a lot of research.

EDIT: Please don't turn this in another Brutal Doom hate thread.

[Marcaek]

DooM_RO said:

I agree, he didn't show much of the good stuff.

P.S People are already doing their best at damaging the mod's reputation. Very lame.

I was talking more about how he responds in the comments.

[Enjay]

I've never really been very impressed with Totalbiscuit. I think he is overrated. That being said, he's far from the worst and makes some decent comments.

The video is OK. My opinion of TB has not changed.

[DooM_RO]

Marcaek said:

I was talking more about how he responds in the comments.

Yeah, he seems like a very disagreeable person (at least when talking on comments/twitter)

[Phml]

Enjay, are there any Let's Players/youtube game reviewers you like, if any? Not being confrontational, I'm genuinely interested in your opinion.

Edit: thanks. Good points.

[dew]

DooM_RO said:

EDIT: Please don't turn this in another Brutal Doom hate thread.

As much as I don't like BD, my post wasn't commenting on BD itself. I'm just disappointed that Total Biscuit, this great sentinel of righteous gameplay, fell into some of the most obvious pitfalls with it.

[Jodwin]

DooM_RO said:

I agree, he didn't show much of the good stuff.

It's TB, the only game videos he's done that isn't based on first impressions, interviews or other forms of early information are Deus Ex and Brothers. First looks and showcases like this are what he does, and that's that.

As for the video, sure watching it as a Doom nerd hurts, but for its intended audience which is CoD kids and other people who have never touched a source port in their entire life it's more than good.

[plums]

Jodwin said:

As for the video, sure watching it as a Doom nerd hurts, but for its intended audience which is CoD kids and other people who have never touched a source port in their entire life it's more than good.

I think this is pretty important to keep in mind. Brutal Doom feels pretty different than vanilla or even unmodded GZDoom to us, but to someone used to COD and Halo, BD and vanilla aren't that different.

As for YouTube comments: never read those, no good will ever come of it.

[Acid]

Jodwin said:

As for the video, sure watching it as a Doom nerd hurts, but for its intended audience which is CoD kids and other people who have never touched a source port in their entire life it's more than good.

I highly agree. As a recent TB viewer (started from his Wrack video), he does mention a few times his preference for old school shooters, but judging from his lack of any source port/modern knowledge, this video is no different from his first impressions series.

[hardcore_gamer]

I was actually going to create a thread about this but it appears you have beaten me to it.

Anyways, I think its nothing but awesome that Doom is getting some more attention.

I personally love Brutal Doom because it introduces so much extra depth into the gameplay. I don't think its just a gore mod.

Also, as much as I love vanilla Doom I feel that a lot of the negative comments about the mod smack of elitism.

[Enjay]

Phml said:

Enjay, are there any Let's Players/youtube game reviewers you like, if any? Not being confrontational, I'm genuinely interested in your opinion.

To be fair, no, not really. I find the whole "let's play" thing a bit odd. I mean, I don't mind sitting with a friend watching them play through something - in fact that's fun - but watching a stranger play through something where I can't see what his hands are doing, where I can't see his face, chat back and forth about the game well, it just leaves me pretty flat. Also, they tend to be drawn out and dull (IMO) because they run at the pace of the game and not the pace of a review or something meant to be watched for entertainment. Many LPs are tens of minutes long and, a lot of the time, not just an awful lot has happened during the entire duration of the video.

I don't mind a good game review (in fact I like them and find them useful) but I'd usually rather read one than watch a video because it's much easier to go to the bits that interest me than have to sit through someone talking about nothing in particular over a loading screen as they wait for the game to start.

Add all that to the fact that most (though by no means all) youtube let's players have poor presentation skills, bad sound equipment, make too many inane comments or mutter nonsense to fill the dull moments during play and, worst of all, screech or scream into the mic and... well, yeah, it's not my cup of Darjeeling really.

To give Totalbiscuit his due, he is a lot better than most and doesn't suffer too much from some of the problems I have with these types of videos (as mentioned above). So I guess my biggest problem is more with what he does (ie LP-style videos and associated game videos) rather than how he does them.

[Luke Dacote]

I wouldn't call myself a fan of TB but I've seen a couple of his videos that I've enjoyed and agreed with. This wasn't his best though. First off, I'll say that I do enjoy Brutal Doom. Yeah the novelty wears off pretty quickly but I won't deny that it's over-the-top violence is cathartic in it's own right (And what Doom fan hasn't wanted to play as the crazed Doomguy from the comic?). But I don't agree with TB's assumption that the mod basically makes Doom playable again. I can still have a lot of fun playing Vanilla Doom at any time. Sure the graphics have dated and its not exactly going to blow younger players out of their seats but the core game is still just as fun as it was back in the mid 90s. And this ain't no nostalgia thing. I only started getting into Doom during my early teens and that was only the PSX version. The experience of playing Doom on PC is quite new to me and I've probably played it more than any other game this year.

Also I'm with Enjay. Aside from a few videos here and there, I don't see the universal appeal of Let's Plays. Most of them are too drawn out and dull. And the fact that YouTube Let's Plays have become so popular that many people are doing them as their sole careers just perplexes me.

[hardcore_gamer]

Luke Dacote said:

Aside from a few videos here and there, I don't see the universal appeal of Let's Plays. Most of them are too drawn out and dull. And the fact that YouTube Let's Plays have become so popular that many people are doing them as their sole careers just perplexes me.

Its not as stupid as you think.

My PC is connected to my TV, and sometimes when I am bored and its getting late and I kind of need to go to bed don't want to rigth away I just put on a lets play of a game I like such as Quake or Doom or whatever, and then just watch and watch while I slowly fall asleep.

Let's plays are great to watch while trying to fall asleep, because their nature means that they both last for every long and also that you probably don't miss anything that important as a result of being sleepy.

[plums]

Luke Dacote said:

I won't deny that it's over-the-top violence is cathartic in it's own right (And what Doom fan hasn't wanted to play as the crazed Doomguy from the comic?)

I was wowed with the violence in Doom back when it came out and I was in my early teens, but at this point I don't care about it at all, and anything that increases the gore I find distracting at best. (I know, BD is more than just gore.)

As for Let's Plays, I like them if they're well done enough because I can get an overview of a game/mod/etc. in a small amount of time by skipping through the videos quickly. I rarely watch a whole one. I really agree with Enjay that a lot of them are done poorly, which is kind of a problem of YouTube in general. Someone with a runny nose, a shitty mic that cuts out, panned hard-left and either mumbling or yelling loud enough for the sound to clip lasts about 3 seconds before I mash the close tab button in disgust. :P

[Magnetick]

I'd hate to sound like one of "Those guys", but I kindeh' have some moral issues with Sgt. Mark 4, most of you should be aware of why by now.

Also kind of bothers me that some of my friends pretty much won't play it without Brutal Doom...

[DooM_RO]

Magnetick said:

I'd hate to sound like one of "Those guys", but I kindeh' have some moral issues with Sgt. Mark 4, most of you should be aware of why by now.

Also kind of bothers me that some of my friends pretty much won't play it without Brutal Doom...

Why do people care? The mod is cool and that's all that matters.

[darknation]

I really don't see the problem with this review.

Summation; Brutal doom is a fun mod. Doom had excellent level design that still stands up today. Modern railshooters are shite. I'm Total Biscuit, generalist with no specific interest or specialist knowledge of doom, doomworld, the guy behind brutal doom or whatever drama you faggots have been cooking up for the past ten years, thanks for watching.

[Clonehunter]

Magnetick said:

I'd hate to sound like one of "Those guys", but I kindeh' have some moral issues with Sgt. Mark 4, most of you should be aware of why by now.

Also kind of bothers me that some of my friends pretty much won't play it without Brutal Doom...

Moral issues are so last season. Didn't you know it's all about oneself and total narcissism? Who cares what anyone else says!

[Jodwin]

Enjay said:

I don't mind a good game review (in fact I like them and find them useful) but I'd usually rather read one than watch a video because it's much easier to go to the bits that interest me than have to sit through someone talking about nothing in particular over a loading screen as they wait for the game to start.

Difference is, though, that with a video you can actually see how the game plays. Obviously you can't see everything since there's no way a 10-20 minute video could show an entire game, but you can still see how the movement works, how fast a game is, what the mechanics are like and so forth. If you go by written reviews alone it's much harder to figure out what the game really is like unless you know absolutely everything about what the writer likes or dislikes and then somehow piece that together with what's written.

[Sharessa]

Shit, I was gonna post this myself. Looked like something you guys would be interested in. Oh well, I posted it in the Facebook group.

Anyway, this kind of makes me want to play Brutal Doom, which looks kind of fun (weird melee stuff aside). It's been years since I actually sat down and played any Doom, so I think it's high time that I do again.

Enjay said:

(stuff)

The funny thing is, TB would agree with you. He hates Let's Plays and reviews and claims he doesn't do either. His WTF Is... series (which this video is very similar to) aren't reviews so much as just a 15-30 minute look at the game to get first impressions, which is usually enough to form an opinion on whether or not the game is worth buying. Personally, I enjoy his opinion more than most and base my impressions of games off of his stuff very often.

And he really dislikes Let's Plays for a lot of the reasons you describe there. He HATES Pewdiepie (which is funny now that they're partnered with the same network and TB's friends and collaborators are doing videos with him) and thinks the idea of someone filming gameplay footage of themselves running around a game for hours with inane comments to be terrible. His WTF IS... videos are relatively short and don't show the whole game, so really don't count. He does do a long-running LP of Terraria with Jesse Cox, though he rationalizes it as more of a talk show with gameplay going on in the background. Still, it's probably one of the best LP series out there due to the dynamic between the two. Most of the other stuff on his channel is gaming news and competitive gaming (he got his start as an e-sports commentator after all).

hardcore_gamer said:

My PC is connected to my TV, and sometimes when I am bored and its getting late and I kind of need to go to bed don't want to rigth away I just put on a lets play of a game I like such as Quake or Doom or whatever, and then just watch and watch while I slowly fall asleep.

Shit, I do the same thing, for similar reasons. It's easy to fall asleep to some mindless banter and repetitive gameplay footage. Better than staring at the walls and giving in to the dark recesses of my mind, at any rate. I usually choose games I've already played through, so I know what I missed while I was sleeping.

darknation said:

I really don't see the problem with this review.

Summation; Brutal doom is a fun mod. Doom had excellent level design that still stands up today. Modern railshooters are shite. I'm Total Biscuit, generalist with no specific interest or specialist knowledge of doom, doomworld, the guy behind brutal doom or whatever drama you faggots have been cooking up for the past ten years, thanks for watching.

This.

[Captain Red]

Love his video just on the basis that he called it "Gee-Zed-Doom". because that's the right way to say it. Suck it Yanks.



I never really considered what Totalbiscuit does as Let's Plays (Let's Playing?). I just took it at his word as a 'first impressions' which is actually pretty useful for consumers.


EDIT:^^^ What Dan said.

[durian]

Hmmm... he doesn't do a very good job of distinguishing between port features and BD features (often using the very ambiguous 'They've done x'), which - even if he hasn't been following the DOOM scene for the past 20 years - shouldn't have been very difficult.

[chungy]

I don't enjoy Brutal Doom

, but whatever, people can play games however they like -- the point is to have fun.

All the same, it'd have been better if he played maps that were designed more for ZDoom or Brutal Doom itself, watching him play through the Doom 2 levels and abusing crouching and jumping was just awful. While he was commenting on "brilliant level design", he missed almost the entirety of The Gauntlet because he used the port's extra maneuverability features to skip all of the supposed-to-be-required parts.

Also yes, the implications that it was all "done by one guy" is annoying and totally wrong, and well his use of the word "interpreter" was especially odd, I don't think he'd call game engines as such anywhere else, but maybe he does :)

On that point, if I were able to tell TB one thing: it's that recommend people actually start out playing Doom with Brutal Doom enabled is a bit akin to recommending that they just watch the new Transformers movies because it's "modernized". But that's my opinion :)

[Touchdown]

I don't care for Brutal DOOM, it's fun to play with for 5min and then it's too much of everything. The only thing that annoys me are people saying that:

* It's DOOM as it's meant to be.
* It's how id would have created DOOM if they had the tech.
* It's how DOOM 4 should be.

As for TB, he should have checked which features actually come through Brutal DOOM and which through GZDOOM.

By the way, how do you pronounce GZDOOM? Gee-Zee or Gee-Zet? I always use the latter.

[Gez]

kristus said:

Thoughts?

Could have embedded it.

I don't really care for either TB or BD, and was merely curious about what the outrage was about.

TB calls GZDoom an "interpreter". Huh. Also, TB? You don't need to move Steam's wad file around; GZDoom is perfectly able to find it in its original folder. He confuses the Wolf 3D and the Doom skill level names (name-dropping "I am death incarnate"), but that's not really important. He should also learn that he can change the HUD to the full-screen alternate one and he would get ammo counters for the magazines. He seems to be quite confused with regards to what comes from using a modern port with advanced features, and what comes from using a mod -- he seems to be crediting GZDoom to SgMk4... I hope BD comes with a readme file containing due credit, too, because quite often TB says SgMk4 made all this on his own. But TB doesn't strike me as the readme-reader kind of guy.

As for his opinion on Brutal Doom, he's certainly allowed to have them. If he enjoys it, good for him! It's quite obvious his intended audience isn't people already involved in the Doom community.