By John Walker on March 22nd, 2011 at 2:41 pm.
I’m trying to work out exactly what I think about the video below showing the studios at Timegate, as they work on Section 8: Prejudice. It’s certainly uncomfortable. But then it’s trying to be. It’s not exactly endearing toward women, but then it’s not to men either, and they’re obviously taking the piss. It’s certainly a unique approach to the usually excruciatingly boring behind-the-scenes videos we see of development studios. But I’m not convinced it’s the right one. It’s an insecure woman pretending to care about the game so she can flirt with the developers. Er. Oh, whatever they were trying to do, it doesn’t work.
In fact, I think it’s insulting to everyone involved. Funnily enough it quickly just becomes the usual bored developer talking heads despite its efforts. If anything, the misfired attempt to spoof this ends up highlighting how dull it can be to hear a guy talking about his manshoots game.
You can read Jim’s hands-on preview of the game here, and perhaps some slightly more helpful footage here. It’ll only cost $15 on launch, which comes with a five hour single player mode, a co-op mode, and the 32 player multiplayer that made the first game’s name. This is only part one of a series of such videos. Oh good. Cheers to VG247.
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Isn’t it enough to just make a game that works and isn’t boring and like prison ass to look at anymore?
Also, wow. Looks miles faster than the original. This ain’t your daddy’s Section 8. Incidentally, if the original was your Daddy’s section 8, you’re too young to read.
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Oh dear. It’s immediately painful.
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That was nearly too painful to watch.
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Hideous.
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Oh dear
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What a shame.
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What a shame.
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What a shame.
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Desperate
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What a mustache.
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A bomb!
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Bam! Tit job… oh wait.
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Right.
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I don’t see much “behind the scenes” happening. I mean, we see some guys in a studio, but then all we hear about are gameplay features better demonstrated by the snippets of in-game footage they show — what everyone will find out anyway when they play it.
What about concept art? WIP character models? Wireframes? What tools they’re using? In the end it’s just a narrated trailer hidden in a really bad joke.
Jibb
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Well, that was cringeworthy.
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Dear: Oh
While I’m generally in favour of devs not taking themselves too seriously in their promo material, this really didn’t work well. I mean this whole “Who here is single?” just comes across as creepily desperate instead of desperately funny.
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That’s ‘the office’ level of cringeworthy….
what a shame.
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That… That’s exactly what it felt like… I think they were going for that actually, now that you said it it becomes obvious…
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Agreed they were clearly trying for office level of cringe worthy but funny, but utterly missed the satirical edge that the office contains.
Which is more to do with their amateur acting skills than anything else.
Dry satire in that style is probably the hardest form of comedy (which is probably the hardest form of acting).
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What a shambles.
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They managed to make jetpacks and robo-stomp boring.
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You really need to go so low to make a promo video these days?
If the game is worth talking about, talk about the game, don’t add stuff that is painful to watch…
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Oh for the love of
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Cod?
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I guess that, if the girl was even hotter, then we would be complaining so much. Then again, that’s exactly why it’s offensive.
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Oh, it hurts.
The trouble is, I can picture the kind of pub conversation that led to someone thinking that this was a really good idea. And then volunteering to script it.
“Hey guys, I’ll do it! I mean, I’ve never written anything before, but how hard can it be? I’m funny, right? I have a great sense of humour, right, guys?”
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Partway through, someone should’ve just randomly cherry picked a quote from Deus Ex to cause maximum confusion (I suggest “I spill my drink!” instead of “A BOMB!”) and ran.
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The woman who tells her to get out of the area where people are trying to work: Why do I get the impression this video was not her idea?
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If they wanted to do something humourous they should have mocked that Switchblade Razorwank laptop video. By taking themselves far far too seriously. If they wanted to be better than the video they made, they could have just had puppets doing the interviews. Twatbarrage.
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I would. Both of them.
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$15 huh? Interesting. Is the SP campaign a proper campaign (albeit short) or is it just MP maps with bots like the first one?
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It’s a proper campaign; around 5 hours, legitimate SP maps, etc.
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“in the next episode”
Oh no, please don’t…
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This has made me actively depressed
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Eh, the marketing dept. tried to do something funny and interesting, and it didn’t work. Don’t think it’s trying to be offensive. Reminded me a bit of the Samantha Bee character on The Daily Show, actually.
Anyway, I thought Total Biscuit’s Section 8 preview did more for getting me interested in the game. Maybe more gameplay footage > poor comedy skits?
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Agreed. This wasn’t really on my radar prior to watching Total Biscuit’s video, but it looks like a lot of fun. Definitely worth a punt at £10.
I couldn’t even be bothered to watch this much more than a minute though. I don’t think anyone is trying to say this is offensive in anyway, just crap.
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I’m looking forward to Prejudice, but wtf was that o_0
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I just hope the game has some players. I liked the first one and played it from beta to release but then *ghost town*. Hoping this one holds some players which at $15 it should. Its nothing amazing but is a good romp with fast action/movement.
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Ew. Just… ew.
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