By Kieron Gillen on October 14th, 2008 at 11:12 am.
Following yesterday’s Consolevania post there was some in-thread discussion around Kevin Leddins. Which prompted Cheeba to actually put the first part up on Youtube too. which means we can present the Complete Kevin Leddins. Kevin Leddins is… well, it was kind of in response to the fallout around (“Don’t mention the War!” - Ed). It’s mocking several people, but, mainly – I fear – me. To be honest, the first time Jim saw it, after watching the end he said “Yeah – that’s pretty much what it’s like”. We fucking reviewed the game. Both vids beneath the cut…
Basts.
14/10/2008 at 11:43 Irish Al says:
Can open. Worms everywhere.
14/10/2008 at 11:51 Man Raised by Puffins says:
The was some Kevin Leddins action in videoGaiden series 2 as well, see here. I’m sure there was more than one Eternal Pixel segment, but youtube isn’t forthcoming.
14/10/2008 at 11:52 Crispy says:
lollerriffic :D
“I know, I’ll watch some ‘Indy’ films!”
“Catcher in the Rye” !
14/10/2008 at 11:56 parm says:
Well, I lol’d.
And after having originally ridiculed New Games Journalism, I think that compared to the standard of “traditional” games journalism we see on the interwebs (Top 10 Massive Pairs Of Tits In Games! Another Review Where We Give 80% To A Distinctly Average FPS Whose Publisher Took Us Out For A Really Nice Meal And Paid For Some Hookers!) I think I’ll take thoughtful articles about the personal impact of games (with occasional rude words) any time.
14/10/2008 at 12:04 ZenArcade says:
wait, so new games journalism is real?
hahahaha
14/10/2008 at 12:09 ZenArcade says:
Uuh, i think i misread that last post. Oh well. Anyway, sorry to say but I think the Consolevania piss-take is spot on. It’s propsterous. I love RPS and your writing, guys, but the piss take is incredibly funny and spot on aswell.
14/10/2008 at 12:11 Dexton says:
Parm been visting the Games Radar website recently?
14/10/2008 at 12:17 kwyjibo says:
There’s more Kevin Leddins in videoGaiden series 2, where he does a weekly roundtable discussion in the style of Newsnight Review.
14/10/2008 at 12:21 Kieron Gillen says:
Life Imitates Art.
KG
14/10/2008 at 12:40 Confidence Interval says:
Wow, that was a pretty involved piece of satire. Flattering that they see you as the Second Coming, though.
14/10/2008 at 12:43 Kieron Gillen says:
Well, it’s more that they’re saying that I think I’m the second coming. Which is also funny, because it’s true.
KG
14/10/2008 at 12:54 The Klugman Revolution says:
I’m not enjoying these videos at all and I usually think quite highly of the Conselvania/videoGaiden bunch.
But this feels less like satire and more like puerile mockery. Isn’t the singular message of these videos “New Games Journalism is a bit pretentious”? Which is a very easy thing to accuse anything that seeks to “go against the grain” of, especially if you’ve got a Scottish accent and are unselfconsciously fat.
I very much admire, what I perceive to be, the intentions of NGJ (there, I acronym’d) and don’t see any reason to delight in what feels like a serious of tediously simplistic put downs, even if they are seemingly endorsed by Mr. NSJ himself.
Or is it all far more light-hearted than I’m appreciating and I’m entirely missing some kind of larger joke here?
14/10/2008 at 13:03 Ergates says:
He dis you bad.
14/10/2008 at 13:08 Alec Meer says:
It’s actually a lot funnier if you know Kieron.
14/10/2008 at 13:12 mpk says:
But this feels less like satire and more like puerile mockery.
Don’t know much about the Scottish mindset do you? You’ve just encapsulated the basis of all jokes told north of the border. It’s the inferiority complex we have.
14/10/2008 at 13:12 ZenArcade says:
i think it’s because NGJ could potentially lead to some sort of intellectual snobbery. Something which scares me, because there’s been a recent trend in giving things names in the industry as of late. I.e. casual gamers, hardcore gamers, etc, it’s all a load of shit. and NGJ could lead to pure snobbery. Snobbery in an industry which, lets face it, is primarily about caving in zombies heads in with axes and tearing mutant freaks to shreds with big guns. Lets not get too ahead of ourselves Someday we’ll be playing games that are intellectually engaging, but right now? We’re just blowing people away with big guns. Lets not get all pretentious about it.
I’m not accusing keiron of snobbery here, i dont think anyone is, i’m just saying there’s probably some very silly people on the internet that could mistake NGJ as an excuse to get all snobby on halo playing teenagers.
I would love to see games become an art form, but lets keep our feet in the ground as well.
14/10/2008 at 13:13 Senethro says:
Are you suggesting that you’re somehow too good to be entertained by puerile mockery every once in a while?
14/10/2008 at 13:17 Confidence Interval says:
mpk is right. I failed to make a lot of friends when I first moved south of the border because I tried to establish relationships on the basis of exchanges of puerile mockery. Took me a while to figure out that that’s a particularly Scottish thing that people elsewhere don’t always get (or appreciate).
In the spirit of New Games Commenting-on-websites and making fancy artistic and historical references: you can see the roots of this in e.g. the Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flyting_of_Dumbar_and_Kennedie
Just for your education :-)
14/10/2008 at 13:32 The Klugman Revolution says:
Are you suggesting that you’re somehow too good to be entertained by puerile mockery every once in a while?
It tend only to be entertained by puerile mockery when I believe the subject of that mockery deserves it.
14/10/2008 at 13:32 phil says:
In terms of mockey, their NGJ stuff is actually fairly sophisticated, for contrast they’ve also claimed Rare’s girlfriends served as fluffers for Bungie’s girlfriends and that Rare mothers collectively ‘grabbed their goolies.’
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hJUDoVsyjAU&feature=related
Their Christmas special with Dominic Dimond was well, special.
14/10/2008 at 13:34 The Klugman Revolution says:
Muh! Where’d the option to edit posted comments go? Its typo city in Klugmanland today.
14/10/2008 at 13:36 Rab Florence says:
First off, I promise I’m not here because I’m googling for any mention of Consolevania – I’m a regular reader of this site. HONEST.
Just wanted to say what I’m sure I’ve said before about these bits. The Leddins bits were making the point that in the hands of a gifted writer like KG the whole NGJ thing is a force for good, but in the hands of shit writers empowered by that manifesto it would be a fucking nightmare. As it proved to be in many cases.
Also, swearing and puerile mockery.
14/10/2008 at 13:40 J says:
Firstly, Consolevania is brilliant.
@ZenArcade
I think being worried about intellectual snobbery is a bit silly.
There’s so much snobbery in gaming already.
I.e The Sims, Console FPS, Casual Games, PC v Console, Strategy gamers looking down on action gamers (and vice versa), idiots dissing consolevania, Performance etc.
Just look at poor Alec’s posts on Civilization Revolution.
I swear the whole idea of hardcore gamers has been around forever.
I don’t see why a little intellectual snobbery will make things much worse.
The way I see it there’ll be some vaguely overly intellectual stuff, it will anger anti-intellectual people and they’ll abuse the overly intellectual people.
Some of that will be stupid stuff. Some of it will be funny.
See: Kieron being called HP Warcraft for his Darwinia review, said Consolevania sketch (though I think calling Consolevania anti-intellectual is probably unfair).
People who want intellectual-ish stuff about games get it, people who don’t can ignore it, everyone gets some jokes.
Win Win situation.
14/10/2008 at 13:40 Meat Circus says:
@Rab:
I’ll take the swearing and puerile mockery, if that’s fine with you.
As far as I can tell, RPS’s overlords spend so much time mocking themselves that we poor minions barely get a look-in.
And it’s just another form of racism.
14/10/2008 at 13:41 Kieron Gillen says:
Rab: Brettonians? Geek.
KG
14/10/2008 at 13:43 Julian Montebartholemieau, Esquire says:
U got merced innit.
Julian FCKN Rignall FTW
14/10/2008 at 13:49 Rab Florence says:
You’re no stranger to a can of Chaos Black primer, Kieron.
14/10/2008 at 14:04 The Incomplete Kobzon says:
Soon games will have ads in them and be free. This way the need for games journalism will be eliminated. No one will miss it
14/10/2008 at 14:15 Meat Circus says:
In the future, all games reviews will be written by the semi-sentient slime that encrusts the sides of comments threads of Eurogamer articles.
All one needs to know, after all, is whether or not a game is (a) gay, and (b) better than Halo 3.
Everything else is an implementation detail.
14/10/2008 at 14:18 The Klugman Revolution says:
Can a game really be gay? Discuss.
Also @ Rab:
SORRY FOR MISSING POINT, SCOTLAND!
14/10/2008 at 14:22 Cousin says:
Rock Paper Shotgun vs Consolevania: The Warhammer Battle?
14/10/2008 at 14:25 Meat Circus says:
@Cousin:
THERE IS ONLY WAR (and occasional kissing with tongues).
14/10/2008 at 14:26 parm says:
Klugman: Google “Cho Aniki” sometime.
In the future, games will be reviewed by putting a 30 second snip of the first level up on YouTube and then letting 13 year olds comment on it. The more stupid you feel after reading the comments, the better the game.
14/10/2008 at 14:36 ZenArcade says:
@J
Fair play – i’m in a rare position of being able to enjoy most games of most genre types. I have gameplay elements that i obviously prefer, but really I don’t have solid preferences. So when I see little rivalries like the ones you mentioned in your post, it’s disapointing, like the whole strategy v. action “gamers” is weak.
I’ve know conflict has existed between “types” of gamers for an aeon, i just discounted it as peurile fanboy arguments, as little internet message board arguments that didn’t matter much. and it doesn’t. But now we have acctual marketing terms. “casual” gamers, etc. It’s really sad to see kids (and adults) describing each other as these ridiculously unfair marketing terms. We’re now being targeted as mere statistics and consumer figures by publishers who put profit before the players.
And the “potential snobbery” really wouldn’t help either, so I hope it doesn’t get like that.
14/10/2008 at 16:28 Kieron Gillen says:
Rab: Yeah, but *Bretonnians*.
KG
14/10/2008 at 16:37 The Klugman Revolution says:
Google “Cho Aniki” sometime.
parm: Explain!
14/10/2008 at 17:08 Okami says:
@parm: Beat me to it…
@Klugman: http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/sexual-games/pics/cho-aniki-bakaretsu6.gif Explanation enough?
14/10/2008 at 18:20 Doctor_Hellsturm says:
Can i just say that the ongoing dissing about Bretonnians and “being no stranger to a primer of Chaos Black” cracks me up. I think you clearly tie in the nerd contest. And HP Warcraft, good one.
14/10/2008 at 18:38 parm says:
No explanation needed. JFGI.
(unless you want an explanation as to how I know, in which case… uh… I have a reeeaaaally good reason that I’d love to explain, but… Look! Over there! Ponies! *runs away)
14/10/2008 at 19:23 Weylund says:
Kieron, don’t hate on the Brets, man. They’re not completely stereotypical. They just really, really like horses.
God, I hate Fantasy. Why can’t WAR be WAR 40K? Why!? And why can’t the same level of thought and detail that went into the Fantasy rules be applied to 40K? Aaagh!
As for the NGJ jokes… yeah, that’s pretty funny. We Americans enjoy puerile mockery too.
14/10/2008 at 19:54 Mike says:
I think the two here are funny in that sort of completely-off-its-head way. But the Videogaiden stuff was just great. I think it’s more representative of the way things like the Guardian handle games, rather than the ‘inner circle’ of journalists do.
Anyway, good stuff.
14/10/2008 at 19:56 Mike says:
Also, Kieron? I’m sick of you constantly sexualising Princess Peach.
14/10/2008 at 20:16 Mario says:
As long as I get ma 60% he can sexualize her as much as he wants.
14/10/2008 at 22:31 Akirasfriend says:
Oh fuck. A war between CV and RPS. WHICH SIDE DO I TAKE?
Sorry boys, I’m with Fat Rab and Not As Fat As Rab But Still Fat Ryan on this one. NSJ, yeah?
15/10/2008 at 00:29 Fumarole says:
Wow, from the perspective of someone who has never visited Consolevania nor heard of NGJ (or NSJ) this is a highly puzzling set of videos and posts to match.
15/10/2008 at 04:20 Nick says:
Don’t diss the Bretonians or they’ll do their Mighty Ducks charge at you.
15/10/2008 at 13:12 J says:
@ZenArcade
Yeah, I’m the same but I guess I never quite managed to completely ignore those rivalries so I always saw there as being a bit of snobbery around. Yours is probably the better attitude to have.
15/10/2008 at 14:38 KindredPhantom says:
LoL
15/10/2008 at 14:45 KindredPhantom says:
What happened to being able to edit your own posts until the concrete set?
I just noticed Kieron has his own entry in Wikipedia and shamingly it mentions nothing of RPS. It also made me wonder why RPS doesn’t have its own wiki entry as it seems to be on the external links for a lot video game related entries.
15/10/2008 at 14:52 Jim Rossignol says:
Edit function is broken at the moment, we’ll fix it as soon as we can.
16/10/2008 at 22:49 andrewdoull says:
Rab Florence: Have there been that many “shit writers empowered by this manifesto”? Other than me?
19/10/2008 at 21:33 Maniac11919 says:
It’s both terrible and hilarious that the only two exceptionally tan individuals in these pieces are misrepresented. To me that just says “they’re all the same” and sounds much like the subtle racism we’re used to seeing from that England place with the rain and the tasteless food… And I have to say I find it hilarious.
I know I’ll pay for my sins eventually…