What can I say…
Something Awful: The Internet Makes You Stupid
Just as Alice took existing material and showed a lack of creativity by dumbing down and “darkening” an already dark tale, Bad Day LA stubs its toe on the foundation laid by South Park. It has a simplistic style, it has politics, it has poop and puke, it has over the top violence, and it has characters saying crass things. It just has no idea what to do with any of it, aside from fuck up.
Some people like it. Some people hate it so much that they burst organs on their way to raping it in their reviews.
43 responses to “Awful Day LA”
Don’t even listen to them, Am! And don’t think that you made a bad game, it’s great, and Something Awful should s*** a d***! You’ve got an unique style, but these bastards are not ready for it! Alice was great and became a classic, just like Bad Day L.A. will.
Hey man, don’t worry about that! It doesn’t matter what the mass says, this game is very pleasurable and unique! The design is funny, the gameplay is exciting… ok, the violence depends on You, but it’s not necessary.
Great job again, as Alice where too, one of my biggest inspirations!
Ouch. Hope it doesn’t put you off.
I liked the demo and I think it showed some possibility but I’ll admit it felt a bit linear (although I’d guess it was heavily constrained by making it a demo and download size).
So wait a sec, you can actually take critisism about your game without bursting a forehead vein? Thats something you don’t see often enough.
You also forgot to respond to this part:
“As much as McGee rants and raves about EVIL corporations benefitting by manipulating the common man, it’s worth noting that he outsourced Bad Day L.A. to Chinese workers so he’d only have to pay slave labor wages, then he proceeded to ridicule them as mindless drones far beneath him…” -SA
“It is what it is.” It sucks
I see 0 comments. Must mean that the deletion for SA trolls is on overdrive.
You can certainly criticize SA’s abrasive, aggressive, and inflammatory review- it’s what they do, after all. However, what about a response to the hypocrisy allegations under the Awful Link of the Day section?
Dongs.
Don’t pay attention to Farrell’s infantile mud slinging.
Bad Day LA is unique, and even though I wasn’t amazed by the demo – I’m sure I’ll find myself playing it again just for the embedded political humor.
Do you personally whip the Chinese programmers that make your games, or do you hire people to whip them for you?
..for reminding people that the game industry is being run by has-been profiteers that maxed out their creative potential years ago.
If the Chinese worked 100% to the spec like you suggest, then I guess you’re entirely to blame for the poor technical quality.
Dude, Something Awful makes fun of everything. They targetted you not because they hate your work — although it’s quite possible since you can never please everyone — but because they knew they’d get a reaction out of you.
Incidentally, I like your work, but I’m not going to deny that I like Something Awful’s brand of humour as well. It’s certainly not for everyone, but there’s no point getting offended by it or taking it seriously.
i love how any shmuck with a computer can code a shitty game in his sleep and somehow gain a following of vapid drones. don’t quit your day job.
unless, of course, some fool hired you to write a choppy game that tries to be edgy and topical and only succeeds in pulling EVERY punch.
seriously.
Weirdest thing: I downloaded the Bad Day LA demo yesterday and tried it out, and today my feelings about it is posted over on SA.
Face it, dude; that is one horribly broken game. I didn’t like it at all, because there is nothing there to like. Combat, interaction, script, direction… it was like playing something from ten years ago.
I honestly have no idea how this demo could ever be released, and I really hope you’re hard at work fixing the game for the retail release.
You’re right those idiots will never understand the hilarity of the adventures of a zany black man and his squirrel compadre. They’ll never appreciate Nintendo 64 quality graphics and a pong level interface.
Although SA tend to hammer the point they’re trying to make to an unrecognisable pulp, there is still a point in there. I was hoping this game would actually be good satire, something witty and intelligent, something that would make me think. I have only played the demo, ofcourse, but what I saw/heard was just badly written, never presenting an interesting view. But worst of all – it just wasn’t funny.
I would like to hear an answer to Mike’s question about Chinese labor.
Meh.
What can I say?
Business is business, and criticism is criticism.
People can bitch about most anything. I just hope that the release of Bad Day LA won’t prompt dozens of idiots to make accounts on the forums just to flame you, as if that’d do anything to actually improve the crappy world we live in today which is full of stuff much worse than what’s featured in some video game.
I’ve only played through a few minutes of the demo, and for a demo it seems pretty decent.
But it’s just a demo, not to be an accurate representation of the entire game. At least take what time that you have to listen to these criticisms and tweak your game to the best of your ability.
And let’s not forget that this is a site which dedicates an entire section of itself to reviewing crappy Hentai games.
Joke/satire reviews?
Suuuuuure…..
Seems to me just an excuse to jack off to Hentai rape games while at the same time ranting about how stupid they are.
In all honesty, I played the demo through twice… and it’s not really good at all. This type of game is good for the Grand Theft Auto crowd who still think poop jokes are hilarious. Maybe if you would’ve stuck with Americans, this game would actually play well.
ha HA
sheeple
way to go man.
i bet that took a long time to think up.
Is this that guy who is ina fued with the Hatfields? Get over it man.
The site is SOMETHING AWFUL. Why would they not review AWFUL hentai games that deal with things I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole covered in fire?
Likewise, why would they NOT deal with this game that looks in the graphical vein of South Park 64 and has all the sanctamonious self-satisfaction of an Andy Warhol painting?
Also, I would like to bring up again that nobody has found a real argument to the whole “cheap Chinese labor” point. Can ANYONE find an excuse?
Also, I simply cannot take seriously a man who has humor as dry as this:
http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4012
Though I’m also one of those people fed up with people moaning about Dead Rising’s save feature, I wanted to put a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger after the first ten lines, just to end the pain done unto mine eyes.
And this is coming from a man who actually likes Doonesbury comics.
In response to Capn Jack:
If these hentai games are as crappy as they are, why take the time to review every single one individually?
Personally, I don’t believe such games deserve any such attention at all. It’s like rating bondage porno (for obvious reasons): there’s no point in reviewing an individual selection unless you’re a true fan of that kind of stuff.
Do I like enema-fetish porno? No. So why the hell should I go out of my way to review something of the sort simply to say how shitty it is?
I don’t contest Farrell’s right to criticize. I even said to American to review any criticisms that he comes across, seeing as the point of criticism is to point out someone’s flaws so that one can improve based upon those observations.
But it seems this guy’s just making a whole lot of hoopla over a demo.
Not only that, he’s saying that the political points presented in Bad Day LA are simplistic and juvenile.
So what? It’s a fucking video game! We ain’t talking about Nietzche here like some Xenosaga game. We’re talking about someone who intentionally put in lots of low-brow humor, simply to amuse and to help sell the game to a mainstream audience. Business is business, like I said. I mean, compare the sales of a game like Beyond the Good and Evil with crap like Postal 2.
As for the “cheap Chinese labor” point, I rarely pay attention to those posts, so I can’t really say if the man is being hypocritical or not.
Even if he is, it’s all business. I can’t defend American in this regard because I don’t know all the details, but cheap labor is cheap labor. Who doesn’t want to save a buck, even if it’s at someone else’s expense?
At least these people have a job instead of lounging around unemployed.
Also, it’s clearly stated that another reason why McGee chose Chinese labor is because of their loyalty to the vision of their employer. He’s not insulting his workers at all. What he said was in jest. If any of you have been around the forums for at least a few months, you’d notice that the guy has a quirky sense of humor.
Not to say that this whole labor thing is something really defensible (it’s not, really), but it’s not like McGee’s the only guy who outsources jobs, nor is he the only hypocrite in regards to this issue.
The only review that matters is the one that you give it before it ships.
If you are ranking higher .5 to 1pt higher than the average score, then you can sit back and reassess what you think the game was meant to be and where it failed.
Bad reviews will always exist when reviewers have a favourite genre or game. Some are looking for Art, some are looking for fun. Fun is different for some reviewers and their readership, but their is a middleground of gamers that just want to have blast that will go out and buy EVENT titles.
If it’s niche and they don’t get it. Well pity them, don’t give them airplay on your site.
Reply:
Then I’m sure you must dislike shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000, which take horrible sci-fi/horror movies and mock them.
Some of us enjoy taking things that are bad and making the most of them. We laugh at the people who make tem and the people who truly enjoy them. The worse the material is, the more you can laugh at how truly twisted the real fan-base is. SA is just MST3k for modern culture.
In reponse to the political aspects, if you’re going to make a game that has even the faintest intent to point out flaws in the current system by which we live, wouldn’t some sort of even partially developed satire be more effective. You cite SA’s brand of humor as being too dry, but if you ask me, I’d take it any day to being clubbed in the face with this.
With regard to the labor aspect, I am well aware of how a lot of our information technology jobs are being performed in areas like China and India. In doing this, though, jobs are being take from Americans. Read a book called “The World is Flat”, by Friedman. It talks about how in a few years, the only jobs left in America will be things that cannot be imported (i.e. services and direct physical production). People who want to complain about the decline of the American economy and how the current administation is the problem should observe their own actions and the impact they have.
I believe the reviewers at SA are just jealous and angry.
Say what you will, that article made me laugh my ass off.
everyone here is coming out of their white supremist closet…who gives a rat’s ass where it was made, jesus christ what is this, the 50s?
As soon as I discovered Alice it quickly became one of my favorite games ever! (and one of the only ones I played until the very end, which doesn’t happen quite often with me on PC games).
I’ve played the Bad Day LA demo, I don’t like it as much as Alice but it still is a very good game. You are one of the only video game designers I truly respect. And most critics can’t tell what a good game is anyway, they just follow the flock.
Don’t worry, SomethingAwful is a place full of pretentious wanks whose sole purpose is to put down other’s work, knowing full well that the only thing they can achieve is mediocrity.
It’s no place of dynamic entertainment, merely a cesspool of incessant elitism and third-rate humour.
Come on over to 4chan sometime. You seem like the guy that would suit us.
Very very slightly related – one of the SA editors (Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka) has been selected by Uwe Boll to fight him, for his next craptacular film..
Hannah, you may not have a problem with it, but when a slew of SA trolls are involved turning the other cheek is the least of his problems.
It’s pretty sad you went from Alice to this. They bring up a lot of good points; ones that you should probably pay attention to for your future games, such as: the ability to remap controls and change screen resolutions is something that has been pretty standard since.. well, this century. Political satire is always an admirable pursuit, but your heavy-handed way of delivering it in this game is something I’d expect to find on some teenager’s political activist myspace page. SHEEPLE! THAT’S GOLD RIGHT THERE. Sorry that people don’t like your work, but don’t let it deter you from more scathing political and social commentary, thinly disguised in a crappy video game ported straight from 1997.
personally i liked the concept of the game i liked the bad graphics i liked the zombies – their funny – but i didn’t enjoy the execution because mainly i felt like the game is in a rush that it’s just not long enough.. but it was fun playing it!
BTW does anyone know what happened to the first ConceptArts? american you had on your old site really dark conceptarts of “bad.day.la” and it was so brilliant, i saved it but is there more?
It is a good satirical game that isnt meant to be a masterpiece…..its kinda like watching the mooninites on ATHF……the worst looking yet best characters…..another thing is….with all the GTA clones comming out, this is a game where you actually save people and try and help people out. Interesting concept…..cool game….minimalistic probably because they would rather the game speak for itself not the graphics engine….or just the fact that its pretty low budget!
“Some people like it. Some people hate it so much that they burst organs on their way to raping it in their reviews.
“It is what it is.”
Well, so far I have failed to see, on average, a game site (or their readers for that matter) “like it”.
And you are absolutely right – it is what it is:
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/927569.asp?q=bad%20day%20la
There are people who didn’t think that Alice was brought to us by a God? There’s something wrong with those people.
Alice was pretty good, but, I’m sorry to say, Bad Day LA was terrible. Sure, SA like to really rip people on their reviews but I must say that they are honest. I happen to agree with EVERY point they made about why Bad Day LA is a bad game.
Don’t let it put you off though, just make sure your next project comes out right.
Yes, I know, I’m replying to 9 month old posts. While I agree that Bad Day LA looks pretty mediocre, I also disagree with the average SA goon’s views.
CapnJack: You seem to act like SA’s opinion is the only real one that should always be taken seriously, and that enjoying anything that SA finds “awful” makes you a complete idiot whose only purpose in life is to be mocked by those with ‘superior’ tastes.
SA is a generally mediocre website that’s filled with inane rants and opinions masquerading as humor. Further lowering their credibility is the huge amount of hypocrisy they’ve shown over the years. Articles about how horrible and “pedo” anime is coupled with horrible J-list dating sim ads, furry mocking while ignoring the fact that Shmorky has a history of drawing furry porn and finding cartoon animals attractive and other things like that really make me wonder why so many people, a great deal of which I actually respect, find SA’s front page so funny and amazing, usually reading SA’s criticism as some sort of holy scripture.
I don’t really hate all of SA: Bobservo and a few other writers are genuinely funny and entertaining, and Mega64 is the best thing on SA by far. But the main editors have no right to shit on other people’s work when their own comedic work is extremely lazy, hypocritical and glaringly mediocre on all aspects. Half the shit they do is basically comment on and introduce Goon-created content.
…Now that I think about it, making people pay to join your forum and post funny stories, rants, photoshops and comics then using them on your main website to get more fans is a genius idea. You’re basically making people pay to work for your humor website, which is a pretty smart thing to do. Nevermind everything I said so far, SA is AWESOME!
just ignore my bitching above, that was a really crappy post.
hope all this doesn’t get posted
while I’m at it, I agreed with that post and I usually enjoy Dennis Farrell’s SA articles. There are obviously good SA articles and bad ones and my rant above was mostly pointless and poorly written.