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X2
2010-10-11, 05:36 AM
So there's this song/album/video game/movie/book that's come out and everyone loves it. They say it's the best of it's kind for all time, a classic, a must own. So you are intrigued obviously however when you finally partake you are dissapointed almost to the point of outrage.

While you admit that it's good, even great perhaps you are frustrated beyond belief at the uproar it's created. Sure, it's good but it couldn't see BEST EVER through a pair of binoculars. So now you hate it. No to any fault of its own but because you don't feel it deserves the praise it has recieved.

So any cases of this with you? Remember, for it to be Stairway to Heaven Syndrome you have to admit that it has merits but feel that they do not come close to what everyone else thinks. Of course this is all a matter of opinion so it differs from person to person.

Among mine are, in no order:

Halo Franchise
First two Godfather movies
Stairway to Heaven
Led Zeppelin in general really
The White Album

Milskidasith
2010-10-11, 05:49 AM
There's already a tvtropes article about it:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HypeBacklash

It's a lot easier to say "Hype Backlash" than it is to say "Stairway to Heaven Syndrome" anyway.

Also, I'm surprised you'd put the Halo franchise on the list of things generally considered good; if you are on the internet for any period of time, 90% of people seem to think it's either bad or mediocre.

Avilan the Grey
2010-10-11, 07:17 AM
I have never felt this way about anything. But then I am used to being the odd guy that has interests nobody else have (I am a geek, so It's hard to discuss Dragon Age or table top RPGs or things like that at work).

Basically I have never understood the phenomenon.

Dragor
2010-10-11, 07:27 AM
I don't think this is down to the source material but the hype alone. High expectations are lofty goals that are rarely, if ever, reached. Even if someone does claim to reach those dizzy heights, they're usually playing it up. I'm guilty of this when I anticipate a game or something similar, for example.

Try and forget about the hype and simply appreciate it for what it is. And, well, if you don't like it after that, it might just not be your cup of tea. The world moves on. :smallsmile:

Leecros
2010-10-11, 07:38 AM
It's a lot easier to say "Hype Backlash" than it is to say "Stairway to Heaven Syndrome" anyway.

but then he wouldn't be able to get people to make the oblique Led Zeppelin reference.

though personally Stairway to Heaven is one of the only songs by Led Zeppelin that i actually like so...meh



in terms of hype backlash...
i've quit buying First-Person shooters because of it, every FPS that i've bought (outside of Halo) has been muddy brown, drab, and redundant. Here's lookin at you Call of Duty
That doesn't remove Halo from the list though.

other than First-Person Shooters the only game/music(don't really discuss music)/ film that i've seen/played/heard that would collapse under the hype backlash was Command&Conquer 4. I didn't like the changes they put in to the gameplay and don't understand why they changed it so drastically...1,2, and 3 were great. It was also short with an unfufilling ending. :smallfrown:

Avilan the Grey
2010-10-11, 07:39 AM
Try and forget about the hype and simply appreciate it for what it is. And, well, if you don't like it after that, it might just not be your cup of tea. The world moves on. :smallsmile:

Exactly. Hype is just that; hype. I guess the way I work I both tune out when the hype is getting too much (basically at some point all the "Coolest thing EVER!" ads, posts and previews just becomes white noise to me) plus I am pretty good at judging things on their own merits.

Emperor Ing
2010-10-11, 07:43 AM
Free Bird
Bohemian Rhapsody
Ridin' Dirty (Probably more localized though, it's a hip-hop song by Chamillionare)

Call of Duty (The incarnations 3 and beyond)
XKCD

All of these things just make me clutch my head and groan in utter despair. While i'm sure legions of...people will dissagree with me on the last one...violently, at least I can justify myself with that it wouldn't be my opinion if I didn't say it.

Telonius
2010-10-11, 07:55 AM
Sometimes the thing in question might actually have been very different or innovative. But because it was so good at what it did, people used ideas from it after the fact - so often that now when we look at the original, it seems really clunky in other respects. "Citizen Kane" is a great example of this. Judging the movie by modern standards, it's kinda so-so. But a lot of the techniques it used were totally revolutionary at the time. A bunch of the old German flicks of the 1920s fall into this category as well. It's really rare that something gets gigantically popular and stays that way for more than the life of the artist.

To take an example of that, check out Al Jolson. Dude in the 1920s-40s pioneered a decent chunk of the music touring industry and starred in the first full-length movie with sound. If there had been charts back then, they'd probably have registered him being more popular than Elvis or the Beatles. But nowadays if most people know his music at all, it's because of Looney Tunes. It was so popular that it was parodied, and the parody is the only thing people remember (and even that's beginning to fade out among younger people). The music just really, really sounds like it was written in the 30s.

EDIT: I also often suffer from what I think I'll call the "Rain Song" syndrome - the incurable belief that one of an artist's "minor" works is superior to the most famous.

Dienekes
2010-10-11, 09:29 AM
Lady Gaga, I have no reason why she was hyped up to me in the first place though.

A lot of what I grow to hate is not from over hyping, but over exposure. Free Bird specifically comes to mind when it was added to the Guitar Hero games. Ugh, could not get away from it.

Also, X2, congratulations, you are the first person I know who disliked the original two Godfathers.

On Citizen Kane, while I think the techniques are indeed inspiring for it's time, part of why I still think it's a great watch is the story and characters. It's really just the life story of a man corrupted by money, and that is what kept me watching, in my eyes one of the most complex characters in cinema ever. It didn't need the drugs, sex, and violence that normally apply to such stories, relying solely on the actors. Alright it's not one of my all time favorites, but I think it's interesting that it pulled off a story that even now few people do on film.

warty goblin
2010-10-11, 09:53 AM
So lemme get this straight, this is a thread about hating things because other people like them? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, pathetic?

0Megabyte
2010-10-11, 10:00 AM
Also, I'm surprised you'd put the Halo franchise on the list of things generally considered good; if you are on the internet for any period of time, 90% of people seem to think it's either bad or mediocre.

...and yet, in the real world, the series is very popular, and sells millions of copies...

Perhaps the "90%" (admittedly not something you're citing as an accurate statistic, which is fine) you hear from are merely a loud minority?

Emperor Ing
2010-10-11, 10:09 AM
So lemme get this straight, this is a thread about hating things because other people like them? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, pathetic?

Actually, it's not so much about contrarianism than it is about how X, Y, and Z seemed overrated to you and how overexposure caused you to absolutely despise them.

In addition to my list, I HAVE to add Bioshock. Okay, it's a pretty inspired game by its enviroment and stuff, but it all goes downhill after that. It's an alright game, but CERTAINLY not deserving all those Game of the Year awards it won.

Mx.Silver
2010-10-11, 10:11 AM
Pink Floyd. Yes, I'm aware that this makes no sense given how much Prog I listen to, but there it is.

Similar examples of heretical hype backlash include:
Led Zeppelin
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Neil Gaiman's American Gods (I'm aware saying this around a group of nerds is tantamount to flamebaiting but I really, really, don't like this)

Not sure if The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a thoroughly middle-of-the-road novel that has been inexplicably hailed as the newest 'must-read') counts, as it's a bit recent to achieve classic status.


So lemme get this straight, this is a thread about hating things because other people like them? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, pathetic?
I think it's more about things you were distinctly underwhelmed by or disliked which are themselves very highly rated.

toasty
2010-10-11, 10:13 AM
Yea, @halo: every single "gamer" in my dorm except me appears to love Halo and think Halo Reach is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Me, I played Halo Reach for about 30-45 minutes and decided it was Halo 2 with shiny graphics. Not sure what the big deal is.:smallconfused:

I remember when I finally got around to seeing Slumdog Millionaire and that not being near as awesome as I thought it would be. I still thought it was awesome, but not the most awesome movie ever. I still think its only a rather decent movie, but whatever.

Zen Monkey
2010-10-11, 10:23 AM
The Star Wars series - Sword and sorcery made possible by lasers and bacteria. Not horrible, but I don't understand the fan worship either.

Led Zepplin - Some decent guitar work, but I find the vocals almost unbearable

The Rocky Horror Picture Show - I never understood why everyone watching with me was so entertained, and why they still laughed at their own interaction with the film for the 100th time

Star Trek - I get the appeal of a decent weekly adventure show, but not the obsession of the fans who treat it like a religion.

Soccer/Futbol - Lots of running around, for an uncertain amount of time, ending in a 0-0 tie. I played this for two years, just as fun activity for a child, but as a spectator I'd rather watch someone do their taxes.

Athaniar
2010-10-11, 10:26 AM
Knights of the Old Republic 2. Amazing, perfect plot, better than the first one... Are not words I would use to to describe it. In my opinion it's awful, with an absolutely boring plot and characters.

valadil
2010-10-11, 10:29 AM
Pink Floyd. Yes, I'm aware that this makes no sense given how much Prog I listen to, but there it is.


While Pink Floyd was pretty experimental they (aside from Gilmour) were never as technically competent as the prog genre demands.

I don't like the Beatles. I don't mind them, but I've never seen what the big deal was.

I can't stand Joss Whedon. Buffy never appealed to me, but I really thought I'd like Firefly and Dr. Horrible. No such luck. He gets so much credit for making you fall in love with his characters, but I just want to strangle all of them.

RabbitHoleLost
2010-10-11, 10:31 AM
Mine is a little bit different-
If something is hyped up before I am exposed to it, I am then determined not to be exposed to it.

Examples:
Firefly
Bioshock
KotOR I (I loved II, and people cracking on it and praising the first to the point of worship make me very, very reluctant)
Much of the popular modern anime (Bleach, Naruto, etc)

The Beatles were a big case of this for me until someone brought me to see Across the Universe, and I became hooked.

WalkingTarget
2010-10-11, 10:32 AM
Neil Gaiman's American Gods (I'm aware saying this around a group of nerds is tantamount to flamebaiting but I really, really, don't like this)

Nah, I'm about as big a fan of Neil (and of AG in particular) as you can get, but I completely recognize that it doesn't click with everybody.

Same as with Tolkien and Lovecraft, honestly. I love their books/stories, but there are legitimate reasons to not like them.

Telonius
2010-10-11, 10:33 AM
The Rocky Horror Picture Show - I never understood why everyone watching with me was so entertained, and why they still laughed at their own interaction with the film for the 100th time


That tide seems to be ebbing (http://www.theonion.com/articles/rocky-horror-picture-shows-cult-following-just-doe,18137/).

The_JJ
2010-10-11, 10:35 AM
Not sure if The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a thoroughly middle-of-the-road novel that has been inexplicably hailed as the newest 'must-read') counts, as it's a bit recent to achieve classic status.

Author's foreign and died, and it tackles social issues in support of abused women. It probably suffered a mite bit in translation.

Can't explain the rest of your deviances but whatever. :smalltongue:


Yea, @halo: every single "gamer" in my dorm except me appears to love Halo and think Halo Reach is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Me, I played Halo Reach for about 30-45 minutes and decided it was Halo 2 with shiny graphics. Not sure what the big deal is.:smallconfused:

Nonono you see, it's Halo 1 with shinier graphics. And jetpacks. Ergo awesome. [/not sarcasm, but then I just mooch Xbox time off my friends, instead of actually spending my own goddamn money. Also, no need to put "gamer" in quotes. It makes you sound a wee bit pretentious. The point of game is to game, which often means alien gibbets and friendly humiliation.]

Also, clicked on this because I thought 'oh, other people listen to Stairway (live version off How the West Was Won) on repeat too?' :smallredface:

The trick to going into Stairway is not to go into it expecting it to change your life. The lyrics are nice but nonsensical, and it's better live. For all we love to sing 'Theres a lady who knows it's just a spring clean for do you remember laughter' all that's just there to put some melodic dressing on a great guitar solo, a wonderful opening, nice chord build up, the lot. And a random flute.

Still, I think Over the Hills and Far Away is better, but that's just some nostalgia. Used to sing along with my sister, and normally I'd swear she'd try to drive me to insanity with the dreck she'd make me listen to.



Soccer/Futbol - Lots of running around, for an uncertain amount of time, ending in a 0-0 tie. I played this for two years, just as fun activity for a child, but as a spectator I'd rather watch someone do their taxes.

See, and I can only watch this because of the hype. Step into a bar full of British or Dutch expats and the whole game takes on a new flavor.

Also, the alternatives are golf (um, no) American football (3 plays, commercials, 4 plays, commercial break, kickoff, commercial break), baseball (Stop itching yourself and throw the ball!) hockey (like soccer, only with more fighting) tennis (back and forth and back and boooooring) and basketball (like tennis, only with more goddamn drama because every other player thinks he's God.) Nascar (tuuuuuuuuurn left. Now let's see the world's most exciting tire change. Still boring.)

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-10-11, 10:39 AM
Assassins' Creed II has been a terrible disappointment ot me, because it was recommended (not quite hyped) by people who are most likely to understand why I really don't like it.

Mx.Silver
2010-10-11, 11:00 AM
Can't believe I forgot this the first time, but FFVII should be on my list as well.


Nah, I'm about as big a fan of Neil (and of AG in particular) as you can get, but I completely recognize that it doesn't click with everybody.

Sadly, yours is not a common attitude amongst the Gaiman fandom. I've been likened to a fascist for criticising it in the past. Not on the internet either.




Author's foreign and died, and it tackles social issues in support of abused women.
True, but it doesn't excuse the fact that Blomkvist is a blatant author avatar nor the truly horrendous pacing problems. Neither of which can be blamed on the translation.

truemane
2010-10-11, 11:01 AM
The real fun of hype-backlash is the built-in irony. Here you have these people railing against the mindlessness of the teeming millions, calling out to them to think for themselves, while they themseves are also allowing their tastes to be defined by the majority. Just in the opposite direction.

I giggle with glee whenever I see it happening. And point it out to people when I can. And get in fights over it. And giggle some more.

Mx.Silver
2010-10-11, 11:12 AM
The real fun of hype-backlash is the built-in irony. Here you have these people railing against the mindlessness of the teeming millions, calling out to them to think for themselves, while they themseves are also allowing their tastes to be defined by the majority. Just in the opposite direction.
You're not describing Hype Backlash, you're describing the 'it's popular so it sucks' attitude. Hype Backlash is when you dislike a work that happens is highly rated by the majority/ do not find a work to be deserving of the praise it gets. What you're describing is when someone dislikes a work because it's highly rated by the majority. Hype backlash is a criticism of public opinion based on the quality of the work rather than a criticism of the quality of the work based on public opinion - to put it simply. So your comment doesn't really apply.

nihilism
2010-10-11, 12:18 PM
what?.... stairway to heaven NOT brilliant?
stairway to heaven is in my opinion close to the best song ever written.
bioshock is a great game!

the godfather is a tad over hyped but still completely brilliant

Telonius
2010-10-11, 12:43 PM
what?.... stairway to heaven NOT brilliant?
stairway to heaven is in my opinion close to the best song ever written.


Nah, not quite the best.


I also often suffer from what I think I'll call the "Rain Song" syndrome - the incurable belief that one of an artist's "minor" works is superior to the most famous.

chiasaur11
2010-10-11, 12:50 PM
So lemme get this straight, this is a thread about hating things because other people like them? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, pathetic?

...Yeah, kinda.

I mean, sure, I hate some popular stuff. Glee, Eat Pray Love, not too fond of Modern Warfare 2.

But I try to hate them on their own merits or lack thereof, and generally when something I hate is described by multiple reliable sources as having artistic value, I can accept that it's at least in part a personal thing. I hate Croupier and ain't wild about Children of Men (film, crazy about the book), but I can accept the fact I'm missing some very nice artistic flourishes and suchlike, or value them less highly.

So, yeah. It kinda feels like bragging over colorblindness, you know? You may spot a few things others might miss, but there's a world of experiences out of reach, and that's something more to be regretted than celebrated.

Tirian
2010-10-11, 01:15 PM
Also, X2, congratulations, you are the first person I know who disliked the original two Godfathers.

I'd like to see a little bit of explanation on why he doesn't like them. I've known people who thought that they were meh compared with, say, Scarface. And that's kind of blasphemous but it's also kind of the point. The Corleones were real people who sit down and eat family dinner and tuck their kids in at night AND they (well, the men at any rate) are tenacious crime lords. When you get to be old enough to sit through a movie that provides atmosphere in addition to action, you ought to give the Godfather movies a chance. (Okay, except nobody liked the third one.)

I find the whole subject tricky. I remember once listening to Billie Holiday's music and telling a jazz critic that I've heard other people doing her thing better. And that position understandably upset him, because the REASON other people are doing that is because every female vocalist since then is reacting to the existence of Billie Holiday. And that's a good thing to know, but does it mean that *I* need to go back to the source? The only way I could appreciate her music as much as that critic is if I were able to imagine the state of music before she came along, and I can't so why bother?

So, yeah, the Beatles are awesome whether you can see that or not, and that's fine with me.

The Glyphstone
2010-10-11, 01:18 PM
That tide seems to be ebbing (http://www.theonion.com/articles/rocky-horror-picture-shows-cult-following-just-doe,18137/).

The fact that you're citing The Onion in this thread is delicious, delicious irony.

VanBuren
2010-10-11, 01:19 PM
I find the whole subject tricky. I remember once listening to Billie Holiday's music and telling a jazz critic that I've heard other people doing her thing better. And that position understandably upset him, because the REASON other people are doing that is because every female vocalist since then is reacting to the existence of Billie Holiday. And that's a good thing to know, but does it mean that *I* need to go back to the source? The only way I could appreciate her music as much as that critic is if I were able to imagine the state of music before she came along, and I can't so why bother?

So, yeah, the Beatles are awesome whether you can see that or not, and that's fine with me.

A good point. You don't need to personally enjoy it, but you should understand what makes it groundbreaking and significant.

BRC
2010-10-11, 01:25 PM
I get the impression this is less about "Popular things suck", and more about "Good things get overhyped". And It's an understandable effect, all media is subject to personal taste, which is why some people like beethoven and others like death metal.
A good situation where this shows up with Youtube videos. Everybody here must have, at one point, had a friend come up to them and say "Hey, you have to see this AMAZING video on Youtube! It's HILARIOUS".
So they show it to you, and yeah, it's funny, but not exactly your cup of tea. The entire time you're watching it, your friend is watching your reaction, and once it's over they inevitably, between fits of giggles, ask you "Wasn't that Great?".

And that is when hype backlash hits. Your friend is obviously convinced this video is great, you disagree, but if you say that, then you need to provide a reason, and you are pulled between telling the truth, and avoiding what you imagine will be a long and pointless discussion about a clip of somebody ramming somebody else with a shopping cart.

Telonius
2010-10-11, 01:26 PM
The fact that you're citing The Onion in this thread is delicious, delicious irony.

You're welcome. :smallwink:

Yora
2010-10-11, 01:45 PM
I "really" listened to stairway to heaven for the first time.
Why do people think this is special? DO people think this is special? On a 1 to 10 scale, I'd give it a 3 or maybe 4, completely forgetable.

Waaay back in the 90's the kids at my school were all drooling about how awsome Blade is. When I finaly saw it with my brother, we both just thought "what is this stupid junk?" And we're moderate film nerds and have enjoyed a lot good, and not soo good movies. But Blade really was just bad.

Just recently I got around to watching Record of Lodoss War. It's not bad, but really nothing to get exited about.

Telonius
2010-10-11, 01:58 PM
I "really" listened to stairway to heaven for the first time.
Why do people think this is special? DO people think this is special? On a 1 to 10 scale, I'd give it a 3 or maybe 4, completely forgetable.


I think one of the biggest reasons is that it doesn't resort to the usual verse/refrain structure that most songs take. It has sections you could almost call "movements," builds up over time in a way that most popular rock songs don't, has some awesome guitar solos, and is cryptic enough that it's not immediately apparent what (if anything) the thing is talking about. Musically speaking, it's quite a bit more interesting than most of what you hear on the radio. At least a couple of the other songs mentioned (Bohemian Rhapsody, Free Bird) share some of those characteristics.

Tengu_temp
2010-10-11, 02:15 PM
Mine is a little bit different-
If something is hyped up before I am exposed to it, I am then determined not to be exposed to it.


This doesn't strike me as a very wise choice. What if you would like something that is hyped, and miss it only because of your stance?


The real fun of hype-backlash is the built-in irony. Here you have these people railing against the mindlessness of the teeming millions, calling out to them to think for themselves, while they themseves are also allowing their tastes to be defined by the majority. Just in the opposite direction.

That's not how it works. Hype backlash is about finding things less fun than their hype suggests because of your own opinion, not just to be contrarian.

My personal greatest example of hype backlash is Arcanum. Everyone goes on and on about how great that game is, while when I played it, I found it boring, clunky, ugly and badly-balanced - it wasn't a bad game, but it was average at best. Such wasted potential.
FF4 would count, but I played it before I've heard all the people claiming it to be the best RPG ever.

Nerd-o-rama
2010-10-11, 02:40 PM
Surely everyone who told you about Arcanum was also complaining about it being "boring, clunky, ugly and badly-balanced" (maybe sans the boring, only a few of the dungeons really get bad about this). Its fans like it in spite of those flaws. Maybe people we just being irresponsibly hyperbolic, which is what I'm doing whenever I say "best whatever ever".

What was like this for me...I was Hype Averted to James Cameronatar for a while. I ended up finally watching it and thinking it was very cool to look at and some of the sci fi was really intriguing, but the script and plot were pretty third-grade play. (Even Sigourney Weaver couldn't save some of her character's dialog. Ugh.)

As for actual backlash backlash...I'm going to say Fate/Stay Night. I am still totally in love with the setting and several of the characters in general, but the Visual Novel itself was just completely unreadable to me, and that made me rather angry at the more dedicated fans. Then I talked to some sane ones who said I was more or less correct in my assessment that Nasu is a better ideas guy than a writer. Maybe I should give the anime a chance...at least it'd go by quicker.

The_JJ
2010-10-11, 02:42 PM
I "really" listened to stairway to heaven for the first time.
Why do people think this is special? DO people think this is special? On a 1 to 10 scale, I'd give it a 3 or maybe 4, completely forgetable.


:smallconfused::smalleek::smallyuk::smallmad: :smallannoyed: :smallsigh::smallconfused:

:smallfrown:

Over-hyped I get, but a four?

Eh, probably how people look at me when I go 'Oh, yeah, Half Life, whatever. Didn't really like it. Portal was okay.'

Speaking of which, Portal. Can we stop memeing now? It's just silly. Just admit it; Valve isn't coming out with Episode Three anytime soon. They're fallible, stop worshiping them.

*Glances at personal shrine to GRRM* ... totally different thing. I don't go telling people Winter is Coming all the time.

Except when dramatically appropriate.

Tyrant
2010-10-11, 04:25 PM
About the only book/movie/song/game I can think of that qualifies (for me) is Avatar. It's not a bad movie (there are far worse movies out there), but I don't think it's anywhere near what the hype makes it out to be. I would say Twilight, except I think the hype is primarily centered on a (relatively) small group and most others just ignore it. I would say The Phantom Menace, except that was more a matter of not living up to expectations built up over almost 2 decades and not a matter of failing to live up to hype.

Maybe I'm just good at ignoring hype and I watch most movies I have an interest in before any type of hype can set in (like opening weekend, cherry picked early review snippets don't count as real hype to me). I think time is a huge factor here. If you have a song that has been held up for decades as the be all end all of music, eventually the current generation will say "not really" because they have been exposed to considerably different music for most of their lives and any cultural importance will probably have been lost on them. It's nearly impossible, if not impossible, to envision how the world was before x,y,z occured and changed things after living in a world where that change has rippled out and deeply impacted the media in question to the point that the changes which were revolutionary at the time are now taken for granted. I know I'm guilty of that as well.

Edit: How could I forget Halo. I've never understood the appeal of that game, much less the devotion to it.

Cubey
2010-10-11, 04:43 PM
Speaking of which, Portal. Can we stop memeing now? It's just silly. Just admit it; Valve isn't coming out with Episode Three anytime soon. They're fallible, stop worshiping them.


Memes is the worst thing to come out of Portal. And I like memes. It's just that the Portal ones are really overused and annoying.

Anyway, I usually find that I like what is praised to me by people I know. Maybe their tastes are just so compatible with mine?

But I could still find examples of this syndrome. There is Arcanum, like Tengu said. And there is also Death Note, with which I did not experience this kind of thing - but that's because I actively chose to avoid watching it, fearing that I would. A lot of people praise the series, but judging by what my friends said, I wouldn't like it.

Innis Cabal
2010-10-11, 04:46 PM
That tide seems to be ebbing (http://www.theonion.com/articles/rocky-horror-picture-shows-cult-following-just-doe,18137/).

Frankly. Seeing anything over 300 times is bound to do that.

DeadManSleeping
2010-10-11, 04:57 PM
I don't understand people who avoid anything that is greatly recommended to them. Approximately 50% of the things I am absolutely in love with would never have met my eyes/ears if not for the incessant prattling on about them. If I refused to listen to/watch things based on how much people talked about them, then there'd be less things in this world that I loved. That's a pretty depressing reality, and I can't comprehend why someone would put themselves through that willingly.

That said, if the hype doesn't tell me anything attractive about it, then I'm much less likely to care. Give me good info or GTFO.

Now, let's see, what was really hyped up to me that I didn't end up liking (that wasn't already completely outside my normal range of taste)?
Many RPG systems
Every FPS anyone ever told me I should play
Many, many animes (not all of them, but a lot)
Dragon Age
FFXIII (my friends all loved it. I thought it was okay)
Minecraft
Recettear
Dwarf Fortress
The Big Lebowski (it wasn't a BAD movie, and I'd watch it again, but I don't like it enough to remember a single quote)
Good Omens (it was an okay book, but it was less enjoyable than everything else I've read by Neil Gaiman by a very large margin)

And I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

But the vast majority of things that have been pitched to me that even sounded like they MIGHT be appealing, have been rather enjoyable. Obviously, I don't let other people control my tastes, and I have been increasing the rate at which I will go and find something that nobody else I know likes. But even though that leads me to great discoveries, I can't find it all on my own, and for that, I listen to the words of those around me. We're social creatures. We're built to listen to each other, because it's really, really effective most of the time. So, if you're one of those people who is intentionally obstinate about seeing hyped-up stuff, quit it. You're pissing off your friends by being dismissive of them, and you're cheating yourself out of a good time.

Raistlin1040
2010-10-11, 05:09 PM
Nirvana. I chalk this up to being from Washington State, and having our entire culture worshipping at the altar of Kurt Cobain, but I just don't understand what the big deal about a decent songwriter who could play three chords and barely sing is.

AshDesert
2010-10-11, 05:11 PM
For me, the most disappointing movie I've ever seen was Apocalypse Now. I absolutely love the Godfather movies (good thing they never did anything stupid like make a third movie 15 years later...) and it was a great movie, but it just didn't live up to Coppola's resume or any of the suggestions friends gave me about it.

VanBuren
2010-10-11, 05:52 PM
Nirvana. I chalk this up to being from Washington State, and having our entire culture worshipping at the altar of Kurt Cobain, but I just don't understand what the big deal about a decent songwriter who could play three chords and barely sing is.

That's not true. At least half of our culture revolves around Jimi Hendrix and various recipes involving salmon.

RandomNPC
2010-10-11, 06:24 PM
I would like to bring Avatar into this.

I mean unobtanium? seriously, a mineral named aftr how unobtainable it is? Just give Tolken and D&D a nod and call it mythril. Or be original and put in a scene explaining that it's so new they haven't named it yet, because the guy who found it first still wants to name it steveanium.

Avatar tells a decent story, but the culture was way to obviusly ripped from earth, and feather dusters on dry land?

Emperor Ing
2010-10-11, 06:33 PM
I completely agree here, there's such so much wrong with the movie it's ridiculous. The only thing Avatar really has going for it is the really shiny graphics.

Also, how the hell do waterfalls come from floating islands?!

Trog
2010-10-11, 06:46 PM
So lemme get this straight, this is a thread about hating things because other people like them? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, pathetic?
You do realize you're hating on a thread a lot of people like, right? :smalltongue:

Well I like Stairway to Heaven well enough I suppose though I recall a local classic rock station once putting it at the top of their top 1000 songs of all time list and I didn't really see it as being that great.

I blame the backward lyrics in it. :smalltongue:

As for things that I found over-hyped I'd have to say that's it's hard to tell because not many of my friends hype stuff and when they do I already know their tastes so I can often determine if it is worth checking out or not. As for over-hyped things on the internet I know I've come across many but the only thing coming to mind is most anime shows. I've found a couple that I like but most of them haven't been very compelling to me personally. *shrug*

Raistlin1040
2010-10-11, 08:29 PM
That's not true. At least half of our culture revolves around Jimi Hendrix and various recipes involving salmon.Ah, I forgot about the salmon because I don't eat fish. I'd say that Cobain is far more popular than Hendrix today, though.

Nerd-o-rama
2010-10-11, 09:15 PM
I would like to bring Avatar into this.

I mean unobtanium? seriously, a mineral named aftr how unobtainable it is? Just give Tolken and D&D a nod and call it mythril. Or be original and put in a scene explaining that it's so new they haven't named it yet, because the guy who found it first still wants to name it steveanium.

Given the context the name is stated in, and the fact that it's only said once, you can fanfic it that "Unobtanium" is just a nickname used by pretentious ignorant bastards like the corporate rep who said it. It's just referred to by various other nicknames and euphemisms in other scenes, so we might not know the scientific name at all.

Macguffinium would have been a better name given how it doesn't do anything on camera except inspire people to want it.

Otogi
2010-10-11, 09:25 PM
I'm currently in this with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Which is really weird because I actually psyched myself up for it, only to really not wanna see it. And it's not because I think it's bad (it actually looks really good and it's pretty well recommended here on the Playground), but some of the fans really spoiled it for me.

At first it was them getting a little to hyped about it, but it didn't bother me and, hey, I've done it before and everyone I've known has, too.

Then it was infatuation with seemingly every part of the movie, from the characters to the references, to the special effects and the soundtrack. A tad annoying, but also a really good sign for a really good movie (especially from what I saw here).

What really drove me from it, however, was the reaction to the new of the film's failure at the box office. It was tolerable at first because it was understandable disappointment and bewilderment. But then, the RAGE came, incessantly, until I found this at the end of a near page long rant praising the SP:



Too bad most people don't have the brains to even know what a metaphor is, let alone figure what one is supposed to mean...people have no sense of poetry these days, and they expect things to be taken only at face value. They expect everything to be too straightforward. We're supposed to be evolving - improving - as a species, but the only thing I see, is us getting stupider, uglier, and fatter as a species, from witnessing people's personal taste (or lack thereof), and of course, the problem that Americans seem to have with obesity. (I find that stupidity leads to getting fatter - when you don't know what food's bad for you, or just don't care; otherwise, I wouldn't bother mentioning it).

Yep, because Scott Pilgrim didn't do well and we have films more straight forward than what we'd like, apparently we're devolving as a species. Because of our taste in movies.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wallbanger.jpg

Now, there was more to this rant about how we'll keep getting things like dumb action films and bad romantic comedies because people keep paying to see them, but as everyone else had pointed on the thread it was posted on, the idea that this pertains to us ruining us as species is a croc and it should have happened much earlier considering much older film trends, and really, that entire last part pretty much destroyed the rant's credibility. The amount of RAGE that was thrown around Scott Pilgrim's failure at the box office made me start to turn against the thing, especially since it was under pretty reasonable circumstances and because what was happening wasn't anything new. So finally, when the family wanted to go see a movie, I voted against it and we saw Inception. I wasn't disappointed, but still, I can't help but feel like I should have at least tried to see it considering what I've heard. Maybe when it comes out on DVD, but the hype pretty much killed any chance of me seeing it the theaters.

chiasaur11
2010-10-11, 09:53 PM
Now, there was more to this rant about how we'll keep getting things like dumb action films and bad romantic comedies because people keep paying to see them, but as everyone else had pointed on the thread it was posted on, the idea that this pertains to us ruining us as species is a croc and it should have happened much earlier considering much older film trends, and really, that entire last part pretty much destroyed the rant's credibility. The amount of RAGE that was thrown around Scott Pilgrim's failure at the box office made me start to turn against the thing, especially since it was under pretty reasonable circumstances and because what was happening wasn't anything new. So finally, when the family wanted to go see a movie, I voted against it and we saw Inception. I wasn't disappointed, but still, I can't help but feel like I should have at least tried to see it considering what I've heard. Maybe when it comes out on DVD, but the hype pretty much killed any chance of me seeing it the theaters.

Fair enough.

And Inception is really good. Also shockingly popular with the mainstream, putting the whole cultural decay into question.

Also, the "Facebook" movie everyone was making jokes about was really good, proving the internet is incredibly bad at punchlines.

But returning to Pilgrim?

DVD's out next month on the ninth. I'd say a rental or somesuch would definitely be worth it. Remember, if you let someone like that deprive you of an Edgar Wright film, the (group one dislikes in a comical manner) win.

Otogi
2010-10-11, 09:58 PM
Fair enough...

...DVD's out next month on the ninth. I'd say a rental or somesuch would definitely be worth it. Remember, if you let someone like that deprive you of an Edgar Wright film, the (group one dislikes in a comical manner) win.

And that's fair enough. To be honest, I've actually used that "I'd fight her 7 evil ex's" line you coined because, well, it's a pretty good line. I'll definitely put on "Movies to see because something somehow jadded me towards them" list (which is small, so all the better!)

Tyrant
2010-10-11, 10:13 PM
Also, the "Facebook" movie everyone was making jokes about was really good, proving the internet is incredibly bad at punchlines.

Not to derail, but what jokes are you talking about? I didn't see anything in the trailers that could lead to any kind of internet wide joke and the movie itself was decent. Just curious if you can point me in the right direction or throw out some examples.

chiasaur11
2010-10-11, 10:31 PM
Not to derail, but what jokes are you talking about? I didn't see anything in the trailers that could lead to any kind of internet wide joke and the movie itself was decent. Just curious if you can point me in the right direction or throw out some examples.

The movie was great, and even from the trailers a lot of smart people were raving.

But I remember dozens of posts when it was announced on various sites going, essentially "Facebook? Movie? HAHAHAHA they'll make movies of anything."

Shpadoinkle
2010-10-11, 10:43 PM
The Dark Knight. I... don't get what was so great about it. The way people were talking about it a couple years ago you'd think it was the next Citizen Kane, but after I watched it, I was compeltely underwhelmed.

It wasn't bad, and yeah, Heath Ledger's monologues were excellently done, but the rest of it... I can't rememer a thing about. It was just completely forgettable.

warty goblin
2010-10-11, 10:47 PM
You do realize you're hating on a thread a lot of people like, right? :smalltongue:


No, I'm critiquing, or perhaps criticizing. That's a very different thing than hating, something I reserve only for things that are truly loathsome.

Tyrant
2010-10-11, 10:58 PM
The movie was great, and even from the trailers a lot of smart people were raving.

But I remember dozens of posts when it was announced on various sites going, essentially "Facebook? Movie? HAHAHAHA they'll make movies of anything."
Ah I see. I honestly thought it was going to turn out to be a horror movie when I saw the first preview I saw (it had a slower song that I swear I have heard elsewhere in a faster form and a slow montage of profile pages), until it got to the point with what the movie was about. I did like the movie though.

0Megabyte
2010-10-11, 11:02 PM
What really drove me from it, however, was the reaction to the new of the film's failure at the box office. It was tolerable at first because it was understandable disappointment and bewilderment. But then, the RAGE came, incessantly, until I found this at the end of a near page long rant

I have to admit... that's not a good reason to hate anything. By that logic, you should really hate America because of the people from those AOL chatrooms, and Christianity from the people who burned non-Christians at the stakes, etc.

I mean... there are legitimate reasons to dislike things, but because some fans acted improperly? That's silly! Scott Pilgrim didn't say those things, some weirdo did.

X2
2010-10-11, 11:03 PM
I completely agree here, there's such so much wrong with the movie it's ridiculous. The only thing Avatar really has going for it is the really shiny graphics.

Also, how the hell do waterfalls come from floating islands?!

I was too busy thinking of better movies to notice that. But I have a simple explanation for it...

...

...

...gnomes. Wizard gnomes at that.

Also I notice people missing the point. The fact is that you admit it has merits but it's not that good.

VanBuren
2010-10-11, 11:07 PM
Ah I see. I honestly thought it was going to turn out to be a horror movie when I saw the first preview I saw (it had a slower song that I swear I have heard elsewhere in a faster form and a slow montage of profile pages), until it got to the point with what the movie was about. I did like the movie though.

It was a choral version of a Radiohead song. Honestly, I hate the later trailers where it doesn't open with that part.

X2
2010-10-11, 11:07 PM
I'd like to see a little bit of explanation on why he doesn't like them.

It insisted upon itself :smalltongue:

But seriously, I thought it was very good movie. Not my cup of tea but I styill thought it was good. But even taking that into account "best movie of all time"? Really? Naaaahh... Not even close. It was well done but it mis-stepped on the whole entertainment part of it. Y'know the reason I went to see it in the first place?

If a movie wants to be deep, complex and blah blah blah then fantastic. But don't let it get in the way of entertainment please. I would rather watch a dumb, hammy and shallow-as-a-teaspoon action flick with 2D meatheads mouthing off catchphrases if it's entertaining than a complex, challenging and innovative bore if you see what I mean.

But once again, I did like it. But I wouldn't watch it again.

TL;DR: The Godfather is a good movie, but because of its lack of entertainment appeal to me I didn't think it came close to being the greatest of all time.

chiasaur11
2010-10-11, 11:45 PM
It insisted upon itself :smalltongue:

But seriously, I thought it was very good movie. Not my cup of tea but I styill thought it was good. But even taking that into account "best movie of all time"? Really? Naaaahh... Not even close. It was well done but it mis-stepped on the whole entertainment part of it. Y'know the reason I went to see it in the first place?

If a movie wants to be deep, complex and blah blah blah then fantastic. But don't let it get in the way of entertainment please. I would rather watch a dumb, hammy and shallow-as-a-teaspoon action flick with 2D meatheads mouthing off catchphrases if it's entertaining than a complex, challenging and innovative bore if you see what I mean.

But once again, I did like it. But I wouldn't watch it again.

TL;DR: The Godfather is a good movie, but because of its lack of entertainment appeal to me I didn't think it came close to being the greatest of all time.

I would write a response, but smarter people than I have done so.

An example. (http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/journey-of-saga-pt-6/)

0Megabyte
2010-10-12, 01:05 AM
If a movie wants to be deep, complex and blah blah blah then fantastic. But don't let it get in the way of entertainment please. I would rather watch a dumb, hammy and shallow-as-a-teaspoon action flick with 2D meatheads mouthing off catchphrases if it's entertaining than a complex, challenging and innovative bore if you see what I mean.

...

TL;DR: The Godfather is a good movie, but because of its lack of entertainment appeal to me I didn't think it came close to being the greatest of all time.

I need to stop looking at this topic. It's bound to annoy me at least a little of the time.

However, luckily, whether you like the Godfather is of no concern to me! I'm just popping in to say this:

Your viewpoint and mine are clearly different. The shallow-as-a-teaspoon action flicks simply aren't entertaining to me. What's the point? Where's the emotion? Is Armageddon supposed to make me feel something?

I'm not saying all movies need to be angsty as all heck. But I've been spoiled too long on good movies.

Of course, if you simply didn't enjoy the movie, if your tastes just find the Godfather a bore... well, that's your right. That isn't right or wrong.

However, neither your singular subjective opinion, nor mine, are the arbiters of whether a movie is the "greatest ever" or not. Or to be more realistic, whether a movie is "great" or not.

I didn't enjoy the Graduate. The ending didn't ring true to me, and the situation was unpleasant for me to watch. I just didn't get any enjoyment.

However my subjective opinion does not make the movie any less "Great." Even if you could find an objectively "greatest movie ever", there would still be a large portion of the world's population who simply would not enjoy it.

As for the Godfather, you even mentioned that it was a good movie. It had intrinsic worth. You didn't enjoy yourself, but you still recognized its worth.

The movie is also influential. Movies made after the Godfather are made in part as a response to that movie's themes. A great movie does that. Whatever it's faults, Star Wars is a "great film" at the very least because of its influence in shifting what kinds of films are made, the way it is referenced and responded to in later films, and how it changed special effects. Any single person disliking the film, and I've met them, doesn't change those facts.

Those are two reasons for a film's greatness which aren't based on your own personal enjoyment. And it's important to have reasons like that, because it's always, always possible to dislike a particular "great" film due to personal biases, preferences, pre-existing expectations, or because your cat died that day and you really didn't know the film was going to be a tear jerker.

Dumbledore lives
2010-10-12, 01:13 AM
The Dark Knight. I... don't get what was so great about it. The way people were talking about it a couple years ago you'd think it was the next Citizen Kane, but after I watched it, I was compeltely underwhelmed.

It wasn't bad, and yeah, Heath Ledger's monologues were excellently done, but the rest of it... I can't rememer a thing about. It was just completely forgettable.

I completely agree with this, I saw it and I found it just... average. There hasn't been too much I was disappointed by, though I found the Godfather movies kind of underwhelming. Good movies but not the best ever.

The Grue
2010-10-12, 01:28 AM
Shockingly it would appear that I am inb4FinalFantasy. :O

On a more serious note, the only one I can think of that has (maybe) not been mentioned is Rocky Horror. And Rent.

X2
2010-10-12, 02:15 AM
Snip

You didn't really say anything new there did you? Unless you're under the impression I'm stating as fact that it isn't the greatest. Heck how would I know? I didn't think so. If it came off as me stating it as an opinion then my bad but I know it was.

Besides, I'm a minority in considering my favourite movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Dead_II) the "greatest movie ever" so it all comes down to that wonderful word opinion again doesn't it. I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot more of it.

Why are we even debating this when we all know what the greatest movie of all time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills_Chihuahua) is? I'm totally kidding. Please believe me

Emperor Ing
2010-10-12, 11:17 AM
I dunno why, but I feel like i'm the only person in this entire forum who actually likes the Halo games. :smalltongue:

*casts Protection from Tomatoes*

The Big Dice
2010-10-12, 11:31 AM
I dunno why, but I feel like i'm the only person in this entire forum who actually likes the Halo games. :smalltongue:

*casts Protection from Tomatoes*

I like the Halo games too. I also like Stairway, Zeppelin in general and the Beatles too.

But I do understand the concept that things can be over hyped. And sadly it's often the good things that get over hyped. Or at least it's the good stuff that gets people raving about it after the fact. Stuff that gets the KFC mug treatment tends to be not so good and gets hyped to try and get lots of attention for it.

Saph
2010-10-12, 11:57 AM
I dunno why, but I feel like i'm the only person in this entire forum who actually likes the Halo games. :smalltongue:

Not the only one. :smalltongue:

I think part of it might be that the Halo games don't really do anything incredibly novel or groundbreaking. They're good because they're consistently high quality all-round.

You REALLY notice the difference when you switch to a different FPS, though. I tried playing Resident Evil 4 (or whichever the latest one is) a little while ago, and I quit after an hour. The control system drove me nuts after how fluid Halo's controls feel.

Thrawn183
2010-10-12, 12:07 PM
Soccer/Futbol - Lots of running around, for an uncertain amount of time, ending in a 0-0 tie. I played this for two years, just as fun activity for a child, but as a spectator I'd rather watch someone do their taxes.

Hey, you never know when someone doing their taxes is going to suddenly start screaming and crying. On the other hand, in futbol, people are always screaming and crying and you never know when one of them is going to have a legitimate reason to.

nyarlathotep
2010-10-12, 06:48 PM
I really dislike a lot of anime specifically Evangelion, though apparently everyone else loves it for some reason. Don't get me wrong there is a lot of good anime out there but it seems like most of the really popular ones just rub me the wrong way.

Claudius Maximus
2010-10-12, 07:03 PM
I really like Evangelion but I have to admit that it is extremely overrated. Same story with TTGL. For me it's not that they're bad so much as the praise is so hyperbolic.

I don't think I really experience this "syndrome" though. Disliking something just because a lot of other people like it strikes me as a bad way to form opinions. I also like a lot of things I can't stand the fandom of. Why let those people ruin something for you?

kyoryu
2010-10-12, 07:47 PM
Sometimes the thing in question might actually have been very different or innovative. But because it was so good at what it did, people used ideas from it after the fact - so often that now when we look at the original, it seems really clunky in other respects. "Citizen Kane" is a great example of this. Judging the movie by modern standards, it's kinda so-so. But a lot of the techniques it used were totally revolutionary at the time. A bunch of the old German flicks of the 1920s fall into this category as well. It's really rare that something gets gigantically popular and stays that way for more than the life of the artist.


And... this is exactly what I came here to say. A lot of the "classic great" stuff seems old and cliche now, because it's been redone to death.

Example: Aliens. Someone who didn't know better would accuse it of being just another Generic Space Marine story, without realizing that it really popularized the entire genre. It didn't retread the tired old ground, it *made* the ground that everyone else retread.

Hendrix is the same way. You might listen to Hendrix now and go "meh, he's pretty decent", but that loses on the fact that he was basically inventing a lot of what he did.

Same with Nirvana. Around '90, rock was sucking. You had hair metal, and thrash. And then along comes Nirvana with something that people just weren't used to hearing. Is a lot of their stuff kinda raw by today's standards? Sure. But that's with having the benefit of listening to all the bands that were influenced by Nirvana in the first place.

Tyrant
2010-10-12, 08:07 PM
I don't think I really experience this "syndrome" though. Disliking something just because a lot of other people like it strikes me as a bad way to form opinions. I also like a lot of things I can't stand the fandom of. Why let those people ruin something for you?
I'm pretty sure that isn't what is being said. People aren't disliking these things because they are popular. They are saying that they don't live up to the hype, or that the hype ruined their enjoyment of it. My example was Avatar. I can see that there is an okay movie in there somewhere, but it's nowhere near what the hype makes it out to be and if you go just by the hype it should be pretty underwhelming. It's not me saying "Avatar is terrible because other people say it's the best movie ever", it's me saying "Avatar is nowhere near the best movie ever and the level of hype is puzzling". At least I think that's where this started.

Claudius Maximus
2010-10-12, 08:54 PM
I completely understand saying that something wasn't as good as the hype made it out to be, but I just don't get how the hype itself could ruin something for you. Posts like "The Godfather is supposed to be great, but I didn't like it" are fine, even though I might disagree, but "Scott Pilgrim is supposed to be great, but the people who have seen it are kind of annoying so I refuse to watch it" is just baffling to me.

X2
2010-10-12, 09:19 PM
I dunno why, but I feel like i'm the only person in this entire forum who actually likes the Halo games. :smalltongue:

*casts Protection from Tomatoes*

I said in the first post that I liked the Halo games. I just didn't think they were "OMFG teh best gaemz of all tim!!!!"

Tyrant
2010-10-12, 09:32 PM
I completely understand saying that something wasn't as good as the hype made it out to be, but I just don't get how the hype itself could ruin something for you. Posts like "The Godfather is supposed to be great, but I didn't like it" are fine, even though I might disagree, but "Scott Pilgrim is supposed to be great, but the people who have seen it are kind of annoying so I refuse to watch it" is just baffling to me.
Yeah that reaction to Scott Pilgrim is a little extreme.

X2
2010-10-12, 09:41 PM
Man, this whole Scott Pilgrim thing is getting out of hand. I don't think people should get so angry over something that's supposed to be a fun bit of escapism.

WhiteHarness
2010-10-13, 06:21 AM
For me, it's anime in general, but Haruhi Suzumiya in particular. I just don't get why this show is so popular. What on earth could be so appealing about it?

Emperor Ing
2010-10-13, 06:45 AM
Soccer/Futbol - Lots of running around, for an uncertain amount of time, ending in a 0-0 tie. I played this for two years, just as fun activity for a child, but as a spectator I'd rather watch someone do their taxes.

Thank you.


I like the Halo games too.


Not the only one. :smalltongue:

I think part of it might be that the Halo games don't really do anything incredibly novel or groundbreaking. They're good because they're consistently high quality all-round.

Yay! I'm not alone! :smallbiggrin:

Nerd-o-rama
2010-10-13, 08:23 AM
For me, it's anime in general, but Haruhi Suzumiya in particular. I just don't get why this show is so popular. What on earth could be so appealing about it?

Little details, the quality of the drawing and animation, the fact that it, while not super-"deep", does not spell everything out and does allow room for thought and interpretation is why I liked Haruhi in particular. That and the cute girls. And possibly the easily-relatable nerd-self-insert protagonist.

I do agree that it got really, really, really overhyped, and the second "season" suffered for that greatly.


Anime in general is too broad a category with too wide a fanbase for me to really explain, but it could be simply just because it's different from US TV. It also has a much wider variety to it than US animation simply by the fact that there's more of it. Honestly, for my part, I try to judge shows independently of medium and country of origin.

Otogi
2010-10-14, 02:31 PM
Sorry I haven't be able to post a rebuttle, guys, I've been really busy and I don't have a lot of time to answer a lot.

The problem that I was having with Scott Pilgrim fans wasn't the RAGE by itself, but the mixture of hype and RAGE. For every vitriolic post or video I saw about it, they hyped the movie into near astronomical levels. Everything seemed perfect to them and without any fault, which happens, of course, but the sheer amount of posts coupled with the RAGE pushed it into the status of "Wow, this sounds amazing!" to "Wow, that's actually kinda hard to believe" in my head, with that final rant I posted annoying the crap out of me to dissuade me. I asked my dad and my brother what they thought of it, and they said it was pretty good, but neither of them were wowed about it, so I put my vote for the family visit towards something else that piqued my interest.

But that in no way means I hate the film, or even the fans (well, most of the fans). It still looks pretty good, even if I'm skeptical about the "Wow" facotr of it. I just didn't want to see it when it came out. After I saw Inception, I started to change my mind, but not enough to pay for the gas and tickets to see it. On DVD, on the other hand? Sure, I'll give it a try.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-20, 08:20 AM
So there's this song/album/video game/movie/book that's come out and everyone loves it. They say it's the best of it's kind for all time, a classic, a must own. So you are intrigued obviously however when you finally partake you are dissapointed almost to the point of outrage.

While you admit that it's good, even great perhaps you are frustrated beyond belief at the uproar it's created. Sure, it's good but it couldn't see BEST EVER through a pair of binoculars. So now you hate it. No to any fault of its own but because you don't feel it deserves the praise it has recieved.

So any cases of this with you? Remember, for it to be Stairway to Heaven Syndrome you have to admit that it has merits but feel that they do not come close to what everyone else thinks. Of course this is all a matter of opinion so it differs from person to person.

Among mine are, in no order:

Halo Franchise
First two Godfather movies
Stairway to Heaven
Led Zeppelin in general really
The White Album

I love Zeppelin, though, and Stairway to Heaven, it IS a great song.

Even though most of the people that say they love it have only ever heard it once, a lot of people do like it, and it IS on of the greatest slow rock songs I've ever heard. Hell, I have Zoso on vinyl and still listen to it.


-snip-

You can't forget the thousands of raving "fans" that have never even heard of Scott Pilgrim and act like it's some act of god.

Personally, I've never heard of it and the movie looks really stupid. Didn't see it, didn't hear anyone even talk about it after it came out. All is well.

X2
2010-10-20, 09:03 AM
Even though most of the people that say they love it have only ever heard it once, a lot of people do like it, and it IS on of the greatest slow rock songs I've ever heard. Hell, I have Zoso on vinyl and still listen to it.

I was going to put Led Zeppelin IV on the list but I figured I had picked on Led Zeppelin too much already.

Also it isn't called Zoso. Heck I'm not even sure it's called Led Zeppelin IV because they didn't print a title on the freaking cover! But I'm positive it's not Zoso. On word of the band themselves it was a pure coincidence that that symbol looked like letters of the alphabet.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-20, 09:07 AM
I was going to put Led Zeppelin IV on the list but I figured I had picked on Led Zeppelin too much already.

Also it isn't called Zoso. Heck I'm not even sure it's called Led Zeppelin IV because they didn't print a title on the freaking cover! But I'm positive it's not Zoso. On word of the band themselves it was a pure coincidence that that symbol looked like letters of the alphabet.

I know, but there's really no other thing to call it, being that those are the only "words" of the cover, and certainly saying "the one with stairway to heaven" wouldn't help my case at all.

But, Zeppelin IV works, too.

The Big Dice
2010-10-20, 09:35 AM
I know, but there's really no other thing to call it, being that those are the only "words" of the cover, and certainly saying "the one with stairway to heaven" wouldn't help my case at all.

But, Zeppelin IV works, too.

Zep IV is the one I've always gone with. It seems to make sense, and this is from the band that gave us Box Set and Box Set 2.

Sipex
2010-10-20, 09:56 AM
I have to agree, this is more over-hype (and possibly a difference in taste) than the source material sucking. For example, Rocky Horror for me (although that might be because my roommate used to watch it all the time and sing along with it).

It's a bad symptom of today's media. You like something because you didn't overhype it, you find out someone else likes it (or a group of someone elses) and you all gush about the things you like because you're excited. Someone who hasn't experienced it gets too excited and overhypes it.

From there you get into the odd arguements of "Oh you don't like it because it's popular to hate." which can be true, but hard to proove.

It's just a big mess in the end.

Yora
2010-10-23, 06:50 AM
Yesterday I watched Silence of the Lambs. It's okay and yes, Hopkins plays very well. But it really shows that it's based on a novel and that it's heavily cut down to fit into 2 hours. Not that it's bad, but by its reputation, I expected much more.

onthetown
2010-10-23, 07:15 AM
Twilight. Everybody raved on and on about it, I read it and watched the movies, and it just wasn't that great. Good for preteen girls and people who like that sort of thing, I guess, but I have no idea how it became such a smash hit and has inspired a million and one internet wars. It's not that I hate it, I just don't understand any of it.

And... sorry, guys... Harry Potter. The first few books were great, but then (IMO) they kind of lost a lot of quality as the movies and books started coming out each year. I thought the seventh book was absolutely horrendous. The movies are okay, but Goblet of Fire was a huge disappointment, as well. I'm glad they're doing the last one in two parts, otherwise they'd have to butcher it like they did with GoF. Again, it's not that I hate it; they're okay, but I have no idea how it got all the hype surrounding it.

Cell phones are a big one, and I actually ended up hating these after awhile. We've lived without them for years, yet people are attached at the hip to them. Why do you need texting and cameras and internet and keyboards and all that other crap when you have a computer or laptop or camera apart from the phone? People are stunned when I say mine is just for emergencies, since I'm always out in the middle of nowhere in the country during the day, and it's just a crappy little $20 flip phone from a grocery store.

Other than cell phones, I don't have any overhyped thing that I really hate. I just get frustrated trying to understand the hype.

Jaros
2010-10-23, 07:44 AM
Cell phones are a big one, and I actually ended up hating these after awhile. We've lived without them for years, yet people are attached at the hip to them. Why do you need texting and cameras and internet and keyboards and all that other crap when you have a computer or laptop or camera apart from the phone? People are stunned when I say mine is just for emergencies, since I'm always out in the middle of nowhere in the country during the day, and it's just a crappy little $20 flip phone from a grocery store.

We lived without the internet for ages too, and it's become part of our everyday lives now.

That said I do agree with you, I have a cheap phone and I mainly just use it for checking the time and in case I need to arrange meeting someone. I think the camera on my last phone was broken for several months before I even realised.

Edit: oh, and I use it for the alarms too, it's a useful tool, but I can't imagine spending more than £40 or so for a good one.

Moff Chumley
2010-10-23, 12:09 PM
I do hate cell-phones... but I'm still gonna insist Halo is the most fun I've ever had playing video games.

Tichrondrius
2010-10-23, 12:57 PM
Man, I loved the Scott Pilgrim movie so much.

So much.

chiasaur11
2010-10-23, 02:42 PM
Man, I loved the Scott Pilgrim movie so much.

So much.

Join the club.

Kim obsessives to the right, obsessive Knives fans to the left.

Tichrondrius
2010-10-23, 02:54 PM
Ah. Er.

*Steps Left.* :smallamused:

Jaros
2010-10-23, 03:04 PM
I'll be over here then *goes right*

Dragosai
2010-10-23, 03:05 PM
This is really little more then "me hates it cause it popular, and I will appear cool by not liking it."

The most common when is when some claims to no longer like a band once said band gets popular. Or "yeah I like (band name), well only their old stuff".

Most people grow out of this, the few that don't well I think forum rules stop me from going there.

Jaros
2010-10-23, 03:09 PM
This is really little more then "me hates it cause it popular, and I will appear cool by not liking it."

The most common when is when some claims to no longer like a band once said band gets popular. Or "yeah I like (band name), well only their old stuff".

Most people grow out of this, the few that don't well I think forum rules stop me from going there.

Not quite, it's when people are singing the praises of something so much that by the time you see/read/hear it, it's not nearly as good as other people built it up to be

Emperor Ing
2010-10-23, 03:18 PM
This is really little more then "me hates it cause it popular, and I will appear cool by not liking it."

Yes, because all 6 billion human beings on earth think and act exactly alike, therefore we absolutely have to like all the same things.

Curses, foiled again. :smallmad::smalltongue:

Moff Chumley
2010-10-23, 03:19 PM
*huge dive to the right*

Also, I think Animal Collective and Arcade Fire fall into this catagory.

kyoryu
2010-10-23, 03:29 PM
This is really little more then "me hates it cause it popular, and I will appear cool by not liking it."

The most common when is when some claims to no longer like a band once said band gets popular. Or "yeah I like (band name), well only their old stuff".

Most people grow out of this, the few that don't well I think forum rules stop me from going there.

Or its close sibling "They were cool before they sold out."

There's a Tool song about that (NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R890wISHwG4

Emperor Ing
2010-10-23, 04:09 PM
One band that I can think of that did legitimately "sell out" (basically, their old stuff is, by the consensus of their fans, better) is Green Day. Alternatively, Falloutboy.

Jaros
2010-10-23, 05:07 PM
One band that I can think of that did legitimately "sell out" (basically, their old stuff is, by the consensus of their fans, better) is Green Day. Alternatively, Falloutboy.

I heard one of the songs from American Idiot on the radio the other day, and remembered there were actually some pretty good songs on that album. But yeah, I do agree with you

thompur
2010-10-23, 05:33 PM
One band that I can think of that did legitimately "sell out" (basically, their old stuff is, by the consensus of their fans, better) is Green Day. Alternatively, Falloutboy.

Could you please define "sell out"?

Tichrondrius
2010-10-23, 05:44 PM
I loved Green Day up until American Idiot. I loved that too. They were still top tier for me, man. American Idiot had a lot of great songs, and so did all their albums before it.

I legitimately didn't like their new album. I wanted to. I tried. I can't. There isn't one memorable song on it.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-23, 11:26 PM
One band that I can think of that did legitimately "sell out" (basically, their old stuff is, by the consensus of their fans, better) is Green Day. Alternatively, Falloutboy.

Powerman 5000.

Raistlin1040
2010-10-23, 11:42 PM
Green Day didn't sell out, in my opinion. They changed their style. They were snotty 18 year old punks who grew up to be snotty 30 year old punks, and then they realized that there was more to life than singing about doing drugs and arguing with one's parents. I mean, I like their old stuff too, but I wouldn't call what they did "selling out". Fall Out Boy, I don't think they sold out either. I don't like them, but they just changed their look and genre. I think that's a band's right.

Talkkno
2010-10-24, 05:24 AM
Dragon Age, it's a pretty decent game, but its basically a repackaged Neverwinter Nights with a shinier box.

Closet_Skeleton
2010-10-24, 07:05 AM
Could you please define "sell out"?

Usually it means that they started just trying to make money and tried to increase their appeal by moving away from what had once made them unique.

Often what really happens is just that they're popularity grows faster than their creativity.

shadow_archmagi
2010-10-24, 08:08 AM
Dragon Age, it's a pretty decent game, but its basically a repackaged Neverwinter Nights with a shinier box.

I like to refer to all of Bioware's games as "Baldur's Gate X" or "Space Baldur's Gate X" with X being whatever number they're up to now.

But honestly? When you're famous for your plot and dialogue, keeping the same mechanics and then making a game with new plot and dialogue is a pretty reasonable strategy.


I love allistar and sten and minsk and mission and HK-47 and...

Emperor Ing
2010-10-24, 08:29 AM
Could you please define "sell out"?


Usually it means that they started just trying to make money and tried to increase their appeal by moving away from what had once made them unique.

Often what really happens is just that they're popularity grows faster than their creativity.

I usually define "sell out" as what Closet said, but from the fanbase, it's what is presumed to happen when a band reaches their peak* and they work with new genres/record with Jay-Z/etc that results in a massive decline in the quality of their music. Call it as erroneous as you want, I didn't make it up. I used Falloutboy and Green Day as examples because their early stuff is amazing, their most famous works are still pretty damn good, and their latest stuff is unbearable.

warty goblin
2010-10-24, 10:56 AM
I like to refer to all of Bioware's games as "Baldur's Gate X" or "Space Baldur's Gate X" with X being whatever number they're up to now.

But honestly? When you're famous for your plot and dialogue, keeping the same mechanics and then making a game with new plot and dialogue is a pretty reasonable strategy.


I love allistar and sten and minsk and mission and HK-47 and...

I'd actually say that Bioware manages a greater mechanical diversity than they do narrative. Mass Effect is a very different thing than Dragon Age or KoTOR from a gameplay perspective. In terms of story, and particularly the techniques used to tell the story however their titles are fairly homogeneous.

Mx.Silver
2010-10-24, 11:21 AM
Dragon Age, it's a pretty decent game, but its basically a repackaged Neverwinter Nights with a shinier box.

I'm rather conflicted about Dragon Age. I mean, I really want to love the game but I just can't manage it. It's hard to pin this down to any one factor but it just lacks that kind of compelling quality the Bioware games usually have. The sheer length of the game doesn't help matters (it's strange to go after a game for being too *long* but DA:O may actually have reached that).

I wouldn't say it's comparible to NWN though. You can at least get enjoyment out of DA's main camaign, for example.

The Big Dice
2010-10-24, 12:17 PM
This is really little more then "me hates it cause it popular, and I will appear cool by not liking it."

The most common when is when some claims to no longer like a band once said band gets popular. Or "yeah I like (band name), well only their old stuff".

Most people grow out of this, the few that don't well I think forum rules stop me from going there.
I never grew out of that, but in my defense I prefer AC/DC when Bon Scott was alive, I prefer Iron Maiden from the period up to and including Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and I think that Metallica might have hit the mainstream with the Black Album, but they also lost the prog/thrash edge that was what appealed to me about them in the first place.

It is perfectly valid to say that you like a certain era of a band or TV show, writer, comic book or whatever and that other eras don't appeal to you. As long as you're being honest about your own personal preferences and aren't going to be smug and superior about it.

Or its close sibling "They were cool before they sold out."
Selling out is literally taking the company money to produce what the company wants from you, rather than following your personal artistic path.

Oddly enough, it tends to be younger acts that sell out. X Factor and American Idol contestants are sellouts, as they literally sign the right to choose what they perform over to Simon Cowell. Bands that become popular after a period of being more underground aren't selling out. Though often by the time they hit mainstream success, they are tired of doing whatever it was they did to get that success. Which is why there's often a change in style from those kind of acts.

Moff Chumley
2010-10-24, 12:51 PM
Except Yes. They sold out, hard. :smallbiggrin:

kyoryu
2010-10-24, 12:55 PM
I usually define "sell out" as what Closet said, but from the fanbase, it's what is presumed to happen when a band reaches their peak* and they work with new genres/record with Jay-Z/etc that results in a massive decline in the quality of their music. Call it as erroneous as you want, I didn't make it up. I used Falloutboy and Green Day as examples because their early stuff is amazing, their most famous works are still pretty damn good, and their latest stuff is unbearable.

Keep in mind that people change over time. Most people don't have the exact same tastes in music now that they did 5 years ago, or a decade ago. Bands should be expected to change their style over time - it's natural. I could argue that not changing their style is more of a sign of selling out than changing it is.


I'd actually say that Bioware manages a greater mechanical diversity than they do narrative. Mass Effect is a very different thing than Dragon Age or KoTOR from a gameplay perspective. In terms of story, and particularly the techniques used to tell the story however their titles are fairly homogeneous.

Yes, Bioware games have pretty standard structure - intro mission followed by starting mission, followed by three missions that can be tackled in any order, followed by a penultimate mission, followed by the finale.

And, there will be a number of characters that you can choose to have a love affair with. They will offer the three classic paths (Good, neutral, and ponce), which will have limited impact on the game except for a few dialog options. You might think this would impact the ending, but the ending is typically the result of a single choice made at the end that overwrites whatever you've done before.

Sound about right?

They do have greater mechanical diversity... but unfortunately the mechanics are usually rather mediocre compared to the full gams that they draw inspiration from. As a tactical/cover shooter, Mass Effect is *weak*.


I never grew out of that, but in my defense I prefer AC/DC when Bon Scott was alive, I prefer Iron Maiden from the period up to and including Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and I think that Metallica might have hit the mainstream with the Black Album, but they also lost the prog/thrash edge that was what appealed to me about them in the first place.

Well, for Metallica at least, I think that's mostly a result of Burton's death. It was pretty clear what musical influence he had on the band. Justice was like a Metallica cover band or something... at least with the Black Album, they stopped trying to pretend.


It is perfectly valid to say that you like a certain era of a band or TV show, writer, comic book or whatever and that other eras don't appeal to you. As long as you're being honest about your own personal preferences and aren't going to be smug and superior about it.

No, no, no, that's not true at all. My opinions are the only ones that are valid. Everyone else is just wrong in their ignorance.

Oh wait, sorry... I'm not 16 and/or autistic. You nailed it.

Dragor
2010-10-24, 01:14 PM
Selling out is literally taking the company money to produce what the company wants from you, rather than following your personal artistic path.

Oddly enough, it tends to be younger acts that sell out. X Factor and American Idol contestants are sellouts, as they literally sign the right to choose what they perform over to Simon Cowell. Bands that become popular after a period of being more underground aren't selling out. Though often by the time they hit mainstream success, they are tired of doing whatever it was they did to get that success. Which is why there's often a change in style from those kind of acts.

... But the problem is, a lot of people (in my personal experience) who will call bands out on 'selling out' consider selling out and becoming mainstream synonymous. Any band which isn't underground and enjoys popularity with a mass audience is obviously a sell-out act who sold their souls to the corporate devil and lost their artistic vision. Obviously this isn't true, but I think there's a lack of distance between the two definitions of 'mainstream' and 'sell-out/selling out'.

I'll totally agree that X-Factor and any other 'talent show' iteration requires anyone joining to sell their artistic rights wholeheartedly. It's a shame, really. Not all of them are terrible artists.

Jaros
2010-10-24, 01:19 PM
I wouldn't say it's comparible to NWN though. You can at least get enjoyment out of DA's main camaign, for example.

Hey! I'll have you know I really enjoyed the first two chapters of NWN!

Seriously though, can anyone else just not be bothered by the time they get to chapter 3? I can play through all of Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark but whenever I get to that point on the original campaign I just end up leaving a save file I never load again

warty goblin
2010-10-24, 01:32 PM
Keep in mind that people change over time. Most people don't have the exact same tastes in music now that they did 5 years ago, or a decade ago. Bands should be expected to change their style over time - it's natural. I could argue that not changing their style is more of a sign of selling out than changing it is.

It's certainly a sign of stagnation. There's quite a few bands whose music I enjoy and have multiple albums of which I only own one or two. Usually this is because all of their albums sound basically the same, so I have no reason to buy more.



Yes, Bioware games have pretty standard structure - intro mission followed by starting mission, followed by three missions that can be tackled in any order, followed by a penultimate mission, followed by the finale.

And, there will be a number of characters that you can choose to have a love affair with. They will offer the three classic paths (Good, neutral, and ponce), which will have limited impact on the game except for a few dialog options. You might think this would impact the ending, but the ending is typically the result of a single choice made at the end that overwrites whatever you've done before.

Sound about right?

Beyond the structure, there's the bit where as far as I can tell they all involve you saving the world/galaxy from some sort of designated evil species, and a more or less infallible protagonist. They are, in a word, pulp. Grade A Refined High Quality Pulp to be sure, but pulp.


They do have greater mechanical diversity... but unfortunately the mechanics are usually rather mediocre compared to the full gams that they draw inspiration from. As a tactical/cover shooter, Mass Effect is *weak*.
I am in complete agreement. Gears of War, whatever one may say about its aesthetic*, plot (or lack thereof) or anything else is a vastly better cover shooter. The guns aren't that much better, but the level design simply blows ME out of the water.


*I've never understood the bitching about Gears' look. Yes it is very grey and brown, but it's a very deliberate, well designed style. Nor was it jumping on some sort of bandwagon with that art style; remember when it came out the dominant SF shooter was Halo 2.

Tirian
2010-10-24, 01:45 PM
Keep in mind that people change over time. Most people don't have the exact same tastes in music now that they did 5 years ago, or a decade ago. Bands should be expected to change their style over time - it's natural. I could argue that not changing their style is more of a sign of selling out than changing it is.

One thing that is perhaps common to songwriters that become famous is that the things that interest them enough to write songs about change. A garage band could really be speaking to where my life is. Eight years later, that band is more technically adept and can mix an album really well, but now they're singing about the hassles of celebrity and the terrors of their cocaine addictions and they sound inauthentic when they try to recapture the raw emotions of their original albums because they just plain aren't hungry any more.

I don't think that's "selling out" on the artist's part or that it's smug for the customer to decide that they are no longer interested in what the artist is producing. People grow, and as a consequence people grow apart.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-24, 02:31 PM
Well, at least most of the bands I like can't be found at hot topic.

That place is cool, until you notice most of the people that shop there are just in there to buy the new cool album and buy gir-themed merchandise, even though they haven't even seen Invader Zim and stuff like that.

I hate most of the people that shop there.

Moff Chumley
2010-10-24, 03:03 PM
Hot Topic=Cool?

:smallamused:

Hardly.

chiasaur11
2010-10-24, 03:29 PM
*I've never understood the bitching about Gears' look. Yes it is very grey and brown, but it's a very deliberate, well designed style. Nor was it jumping on some sort of bandwagon with that art style; remember when it came out the dominant SF shooter was Halo 2.

Because it's so grubby looking target IDing can be difficult?

Every character is built like a brick house, so, unlike the first Halo, you can't quickly and easily prioritize the toughest hostiles, and even IDing friendlies would get hairy without the glowing signs one everyone's back.

And Halo might have been the big thing in Fi-Sci shooters, but look at near future Clancy stuff, or WWII. Brown and grey were becoming dominant before Gears hit the scene.

warty goblin
2010-10-24, 04:09 PM
Because it's so grubby looking target IDing can be difficult?

Every character is built like a brick house, so, unlike the first Halo, you can't quickly and easily prioritize the toughest hostiles, and even IDing friendlies would get hairy without the glowing signs one everyone's back.

You need to play more milsims, where your enemy is three hundred meters away in camouflage and hiding under a bush, one bullet can kill you and the supersonic rounds mean you don't even get any warning. Those are games where target IDing is hard. I never had any trouble finding or prioritizing my targets in Gears.


And Halo might have been the big thing in Fi-Sci shooters, but look at near future Clancy stuff, or WWII. Brown and grey were becoming dominant before Gears hit the scene.
In the case of WWII games, grey and brown isn't so much a stylistic choice as a reflection of how things look after they are repeatedly blown up.

The Big Dice
2010-10-24, 04:17 PM
... But the problem is, a lot of people (in my personal experience) who will call bands out on 'selling out' consider selling out and becoming mainstream synonymous. Any band which isn't underground and enjoys popularity with a mass audience is obviously a sell-out act who sold their souls to the corporate devil and lost their artistic vision. Obviously this isn't true, but I think there's a lack of distance between the two definitions of 'mainstream' and 'sell-out/selling out'.

I'll totally agree that X-Factor and any other 'talent show' iteration requires anyone joining to sell their artistic rights wholeheartedly. It's a shame, really. Not all of them are terrible artists.

It does make me laugh how people are willing to turn their backs on their favourite artists just because those artists did what everyone wants to do: they became successful.

People really don't get what selling out actually is. Green Day and Iron Maiden never sold out, they did what they do for so long that it went from cool to uncool and back to cool again. Without ever really changing in the mean time. AC/DC are like that too.

Vanilla Ice, on the other hand, could have been Emineim but 20 years earlier, except the record company he signed to said "We will promote your album and give you 1.5 million right now as long as you make the album we want with the people we wat you to work with."

He freely admits now that he sold out and that it was a huge mistake artistically hile being exactly the right thing to do financially.

Nathan Explosion hits the nail on the head when he announces that Dethklok will perform the album they swore never to play live. "Not because it is the right thing to do artistically, but because it is the right thing to do financially."

And you'd be surprised how much money a band doesn't make. Record companies lend you an advance, which has to pay for everything from upgrading your equipment to recording the album and paying everyone involved a suitable fee. And then you have to pay that all back to the company.

If you don't pay it all back on the first product you release, the debt is carried over to the next thing you put out.

Why do you think concessions and merchandise are such big things? It's where the artists really make their money from.

kyoryu
2010-10-24, 05:20 PM
I don't think that's "selling out" on the artist's part or that it's smug for the customer to decide that they are no longer interested in what the artist is producing. People grow, and as a consequence people grow apart.

Absolutely. But that doesn't usually require a superiority complex from one side. I don't mind "I don't like they're newer stuff." I do get annoyed by "they sold out!" Example: I like the Police, and Sting's earlier stuff. His later stuff bores me to tears. It's just not for me. That doesn't mean that I look down on him or where he's taken his career. Similar thing with Peter Gabriel.



And Halo might have been the big thing in Fi-Sci shooters, but look at near future Clancy stuff, or WWII. Brown and grey were becoming dominant before Gears hit the scene.

Well, when pixel shaders really hit, they gave devs the ability to render realism to an extent that wasn't possible before. It *was* overdone for a while, but that was probably inevitable. Frankly, we're just now getting out of that mode. It's about time!

Lhurgyof
2010-10-24, 09:48 PM
And Halo might have been the big thing in Fi-Sci shooters, but look at near future Clancy stuff, or WWII. Brown and grey were becoming dominant before Gears hit the scene.

Halo being the big thing is Sci-fi shooters? I bring to you Perfect Dark. Much better than the original Halo, and it came out before.

warty goblin
2010-10-24, 10:13 PM
Halo being the big thing is Sci-fi shooters? I bring to you Perfect Dark. Much better than the original Halo, and it came out before.

Big here is being measured by sales numbers and general influence. Like it or not, it would be fairly hard to draw up a list of important games of the first decade of the twenty-first century and not include Halo.

VanBuren
2010-10-24, 10:36 PM
Big here is being measured by sales numbers and general influence. Like it or not, it would be fairly hard to draw up a list of important games of the first decade of the twenty-first century and not include Halo.

And in any case, I thought Halo was better. Only just, though.

Closet_Skeleton
2010-10-25, 06:28 AM
Doom and Halflife weren't exactly small Sci Fi shooters before Halo came out either. Or are we only talking about consoles?

I never understood PC gamers saying that things were getting dumbed down for console gamers until the PC version of FEAR 2 took out the ability to lean because there wasn't the room on a 360 controler for a lean button.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-25, 07:14 AM
Hot Topic=Cool?

:smallamused:

Hardly.

They do carry the super mario brothers movie. That's pretty damned cool.


Big here is being measured by sales numbers and general influence. Like it or not, it would be fairly hard to draw up a list of important games of the first decade of the twenty-first century and not include Halo.

Ah, I thought you meant in the way of groundbreaking mechanics. Wheras the Perfect Dark storyline is basically the same as Halo 2.

Plus, it included many "groundbreaking" mechanics (bots in multiplayer matches, counter-operative mode, reload animations), but nobody seems to remember it. It had to be my favorite game ever made until Left 4 Dead.

Lord of Rapture
2010-10-25, 08:56 AM
For me, the original Fallout and System Shock 2 hit me with this. Hard. Everyone's gushing about how great those games were, and how the successors are so crap compared to them.

So I played them. They were good. They had nice ideas that I wish were seen more often. But other than that, they weren't all that great. Fallout's combat was absolutely balls, and System Shock 2's story couldn't get me to care about anything that was going on. Sure, they were fun, but compared to modern games? Pretty much on the same level.

EDIT: Huh? Cubey got banned?

Cristo Meyers
2010-10-25, 04:13 PM
For me, the original Fallout and System Shock 2 hit me with this. Hard. Everyone's gushing about how great those games were, and how the successors are so crap compared to them.

So I played them. They were good. They had nice ideas that I wish were seen more often. But other than that, they weren't all that great. Fallout's combat was absolutely balls, and System Shock 2's story couldn't get me to care about anything that was going on. Sure, they were fun, but compared to modern games? Pretty much on the same level.


Same here, only replace System Shock 2 (which I've never played) with Baldur's Gate 2. I still have yet to finish Fallout because I just can't force myself to deal with the absolutely tar-pit like slowness and dullness of combat. Baldur's Gate 2 I'll never finish, got rid of the disk. The difficulty spiked right around the time I started wondering why I was bothering with the game when the only thing I really cared about were the character's dialogue.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-25, 09:03 PM
For me, the original Fallout and System Shock 2 hit me with this. Hard. Everyone's gushing about how great those games were, and how the successors are so crap compared to them.

So I played them. They were good. They had nice ideas that I wish were seen more often. But other than that, they weren't all that great. Fallout's combat was absolutely balls, and System Shock 2's story couldn't get me to care about anything that was going on. Sure, they were fun, but compared to modern games? Pretty much on the same level.

EDIT: Huh? Cubey got banned?

Without getting off-topic, who's cubey?

VanBuren
2010-10-25, 09:11 PM
Without getting off-topic, who's cubey?

OMG! He's been retconned out of existence!

warty goblin
2010-10-26, 12:56 AM
Same here, only replace System Shock 2 (which I've never played) with Baldur's Gate 2. I still have yet to finish Fallout because I just can't force myself to deal with the absolutely tar-pit like slowness and dullness of combat. Baldur's Gate 2 I'll never finish, got rid of the disk. The difficulty spiked right around the time I started wondering why I was bothering with the game when the only thing I really cared about were the character's dialogue.

If you combine these two complaints you get my reaction to KoTOR. I never even got off the first world. The story bits were fine, everything else was bad. Environmental design? Boring; I had no desire to explore or actually look at the game. People complain about Halo repeating levels, at least those were well enough designed and imaginative enough to be worth looking at, which is far more than I can say for KoTOR's first world. Combat? I have actually had more fun flossing; this is in no way an exaggeration. It's like somebody managed to combine the most tedious parts of turn based and real time combat, leaving out the precision and elegance of the first and the fluidity of the second.

I wish more games had well done characters and stories, but I'm not about to put up with that level of bad design to get them.

The Glyphstone
2010-10-26, 10:30 AM
Without getting off-topic, who's cubey?

Someone who, if they had ever existed in the first place, is not a permitted topic of discussion. Hint hint.

Lord of Rapture
2010-10-26, 10:31 AM
Someone who, if they had ever existed in the first place, is not a permitted topic of discussion. Hint hint.

Oops. :smalleek:

Sipex
2010-10-26, 10:34 AM
I'll second KoToR. It's story system was great and detailed but more often than not I found it overbearing. I eventually turned off the sound so I could quickly read the relevant text and skip through the dialog.

Combat was underwhelming too considering it was "Sit there and let your guy attack for a while" until you hit jedi.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-26, 01:50 PM
Assassin's Creed.

At least the second one, anyways. It seems that there's really no way for you to die, at all. Ever. In any way. At all. Unless you sit there and LET the guards attack you for about... 12 minutes.

Also, Bioshock. Oh boy, I just took another 5 steps and have to backtrack for another freaking 20 minutes to get the next upgrade to get me through here.

BRC
2010-10-26, 02:20 PM
I think this thread is drifting from "Hype backlash" to "Complaining about things you don't like"

Dragosai
2010-10-26, 03:46 PM
... But the problem is, a lot of people (in my personal experience) who will call bands out on 'selling out' consider selling out and becoming mainstream synonymous. Any band which isn't underground and enjoys popularity with a mass audience is obviously a sell-out act who sold their souls to the corporate devil and lost their artistic vision. Obviously this isn't true, but I think there's a lack of distance between the two definitions of 'mainstream' and 'sell-out/selling out'.

I'll totally agree that X-Factor and any other 'talent show' iteration requires anyone joining to sell their artistic rights wholeheartedly. It's a shame, really. Not all of them are terrible artists.

Yeah this is the problem "selling out" really needs to be clearly defined when being talked about.
Personally I don't think Greenday sold out and I do agree their last release was really bad. I would call the Greenday situation "jumping the shark" yeah its fine for a band to change their music style some fans will still buy it no matter what, some won't, and some might like the new direction. Most bands that do this don't care much; they just want to make music.
IMO selling out is best represented by Matchbox 20 when they started out they were a pure punk band and the lead singer has been quoted in many interviews saying they changed to pop because they knew they would get a record deal and make money that way. And boy did they push selling out hard as their pop suck knows no limit.
I am very slow to label a band as "selling out" for one reason;
Let’s say you are in a garage band right now there is no way you can tell me you are hoping to never make it big time and get millions to do what you love making music, you can't tell me you want to just stay a nobody sitting in the garage forever. I take that back I know someone in a garage band who has told me flat out he hopes he never "makes it big" because that is selling out, I have never seen anyone that was so good at lying to themselves as he was.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-26, 05:48 PM
I think this thread is drifting from "Hype backlash" to "Complaining about things you don't like"

I guess, I'm just noting things that are really hyped up and extremely subpar.

There's also badlands. I really hate the theme song, and after that game came out everyone was playing that music. Dx

Ruins the game for me, other than some of the other problems in it.

VanBuren
2010-10-26, 08:18 PM
I guess, I'm just noting things that are really hyped up and extremely subpar.

There's also badlands. I really hate the theme song, and after that game came out everyone was playing that music. Dx

Ruins the game for me, other than some of the other problems in it.

I'm assuming you meant Borderlands, unless you actually did mean the 1989 arcade game.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-26, 09:38 PM
I'm assuming you meant Borderlands, unless you actually did mean the 1989 arcade game.

Yes, sorry. Substitute Borderlands for Badlands. But yeah, don't like that game.

VanBuren
2010-10-26, 09:48 PM
Yes, sorry. Substitute Borderlands for Badlands. But yeah, don't like that game.

Really? I thought the game was good, and I also like Cage the Elephant too.

Lhurgyof
2010-10-27, 07:11 AM
Really? I thought the game was good, and I also like Cage the Elephant too.

The song is kinda meh to me to start with, but add in the fact that everyone liked that song after the game came out, and the fact that it was always on TV, it ruined it for me.

Dragosai
2010-10-27, 08:54 AM
The song is kinda meh to me to start with, but add in the fact that everyone liked that song after the game came out, and the fact that it was always on TV, it ruined it for me.

I rest my case.

Sipex
2010-10-27, 09:05 AM
I think this thread is drifting from "Hype backlash" to "Complaining about things you don't like"

See, this is completely possible.

Or it may just be "They said something bad about something I like. It can't be valid."

Either way it's just a thread of baseless accusations.

Emperor Ing
2010-10-27, 09:10 AM
BRC is right for once, this is about hype backlash, not things that suck.

So just to nudge back on topic....yeah. Bioshock was an alright game, but I would never think for a second that it's the OMFG GREATEST GAEM OF ALL TMIE!!1 that was implied from it's ridiculous hype.