Berserker Preview

Posted by Tim Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:12:00 GMT

That upcoming controversial game from Michal (Soldat) and Sigvatr. Swearing involved.

Posted in , , ,  | 90 comments

Comments

  1. Eclipse said about 2 hours later:

    it sucks :\

  2. failrate said about 3 hours later:

    At this moment, I can’t tell if that is genius, or idiocy.

    Idius? Geniocy?

    Will probably play it.

  3. Xander said about 3 hours later:

    …huh…

    I was kind of expecting something a little more shockingly violent. I think Tig Duels may just me more violent than that. Not that violence is everything, but for Berserker I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be everything.

  4. Dominic White said about 3 hours later:

    Yeah, echoing that this might have been controversial, say, a decade ago back when Bloodlust Software was able to almost sorta-kinda shock someone. Now, it just seems rather tame.

    All hinges on whether the gameplay is decent, though, but can’t see too much evidence of that in the video there. Hopefully there’s more to combat than ‘Mash attack, hope enemy falls down before you do’.

  5. deadeye said about 3 hours later:

    I wanted to see some defilement of corpses :(

    Consider me disappointed.

  6. CosmoKid said about 3 hours later:

    Perhaps the game is too early along to judge, but all of the interesting features (besides violence) that were supposed to be in this game, aren’t. The physics-based improvised damage and really brutal violence promised weren’t shown. Why would you release a trailer that completely fails to showcase the interesting parts of the game?

  7. Prio said about 3 hours later:

    Ummmmm. This is very, very early in development, I hope?

  8. rndll said about 3 hours later:

    That reminds me of Franko: The Crazy Revenge! for Amiga. Which isn’t exactly a compliment ;-p

  9. Zaphos said about 3 hours later:

    I like how this is the second TIG posting under the category of “Unicorns” :D

  10. PoV said about 4 hours later:

    The screams sound fantastic. :)

  11. Gazillion said about 4 hours later:

    So controversial….

  12. Monsieur LeBoeuf said about 4 hours later:

    Mister The Beef wants to know how this is any different than The Art of Theft.

  13. Smithy said about 5 hours later:

    Might be fun, I imagine the screams would get tiring pretty fast after hearing them fifty times over though…

    Thus far, all independently developed games that went for the controversy market have sucked.

    But by the standards of the other controversy games, (JFK shooter, Columbine massacre, Happy unicorn adventure, etc etc,) I’d say this looks the most promising of the bunch.

  14. failrate said about 5 hours later:

    AFAICT, this demo really only showed off how sound works in multiplayer, innit?

    Also, bald rednecks without shirts love to run (see also, COPS).

  15. Zeno said about 5 hours later:
    I made a video because the basic fighting with bots is ready, so the game is playable! This is an early version so don’t bitch if you find any bugs and glitches in the video. There’s still a lot to be done, nevertheless I see that the game will make an impact.

    So sayeth MM. So yeah, it’s not even supposed to be a “preview”, more of a progress report.

  16. konjak said about 8 hours later:

    Highpoint was “I HATE YOU!!”

  17. sinoth said about 8 hours later:

    Underwhelmed much?

  18. raigan said about 8 hours later:

    i’m waiting to see exactly how the alleged anal raping works..

  19. crackers said about 8 hours later:

    That is hilarious, mean men who are bald beating each other along to Manowar. It’s either the indy game of the year or the biggest gay joke of the year.

  20. Splinter of Chaos said about 8 hours later:

    Raigan: I imagine much like it does in Halo. You keep crouching and uncroching really fast while masturbating to screen shots of Duke Nukem Forever (yes, they’re actually still making it!).

    The question is: Unlike in Halo, can you do it IN THE GAME? And I hope the answer is not “only if you hit the screen.”

  21. 21GP said about 9 hours later:

    i hope that IS the answer

  22. Splinter of Chaos said about 10 hours later:

    On second thought, good point…but going back to the first: you can never use my computer.

  23. Lim-Dul said about 12 hours later:

    Splinter Chaos - ROFL!

  24. Trotim said about 15 hours later:

    This is actually very good if you consider that they JUST STARTED actually making the game, geniuses.

  25. Sigvatr said about 15 hours later:

    We are not trying to make this game simply controversial; we are also trying to make it FUN.

    This is PRE ALPHA; not alpha, not beta, not even near to being finished yet. So, stfu.

  26. Xander said about 16 hours later:

    Hmm, well it would’ve been a little more helpful if the video had been annotated as such on Youtube rather than just ‘First Preview’. As Zeno said it’s more of a progress report, which is fine. It’s just not that interesting to watch…

  27. sinoth said about 16 hours later:

    Sigvatr is charming. Friends with Mr. Smart, I assume?

  28. tk said about 17 hours later:

    I’m confident this game will turn out really good, as will link dead.

    As for it not being controversial enough.. rest assured, judging by sigvatrs previous works, this game will be so controversial by the time it’s completed that our friend sinoth here will be shitting himself in a fit of rage and disgust.

  29. Jad said about 17 hours later:

    This game is gonna FUCK YOUR ASS

    :D

  30. moi said about 17 hours later:

    HEY GUYS LOOK AT ME I AM COOL. SKOOL IS DUMB LOL

  31. Data said about 18 hours later:

    I’m surprised at the overall negative reaction here - I was both impressed and amused by this first glimpse of the early work in progress.

    Now let’s see a Romero and Wilson set of characters going at it! Someone is going to have to step up to the plate and make that mod, man.

  32. Stij said about 18 hours later:

    Eh, I’m not a huge fan of MM or Sigvatr, but I’ll wait until we get an actual playable build before I judge this game too much.

  33. JW said about 18 hours later:

    Looking pretty nice. Will there be voice chat so you can do the shouting yourself? And will there actually be weapons?

  34. Zeno said about 18 hours later:

    I demand spoon-shanks.

  35. fish said about 18 hours later:

    sigh

  36. anonymous said about 19 hours later:

    also: pruno.

  37. Pyrrhon said about 19 hours later:

    I would have thought this game was awesome when i was twelve.

    This is not controversial, it’s just pathetic.

  38. BeamSplashX said about 20 hours later:

    I have to say it’s been a while since I’ve heard “I HATE YOU!” said in such a manner in a game. Actually, I can’t recall it being in any other game. You could probably scare the crap out of someone by playing these voice clips into their room.

  39. Pixel Mort said about 20 hours later:

    Ragdoll kung-fu meets Postal?

  40. failrate said about 20 hours later:

    Nice, moody lighting effects :)

  41. UFIA said about 20 hours later:

    DO. NOT. WANT.

    Another new Soldat? Sure! Postal 1.5: The Prison Rape Years? Not so much.

  42. ZombiePixel said about 21 hours later:

    I don’t get all the hate, here. The video is an early preview and it’s already more stylish and well presented than 80% of other indie games.

    If only this had been a generic Japanese vector-graphics bullet-hell shooter or an 8bit 100x100 squinty pixel art platformer. Then the praise would flow!

    I’m not asking to love or even like games like this. I’m just asking that TIGsource keep room for games that aren’t deliberately abstruse.

  43. Sigvatr said about 21 hours later:

    Don’t forget black and white games with lines and ten million translucent glowing balls flying everywhere.

  44. lowpoly said about 21 hours later:

    Ya, I guess with the blurb for this video and the recent interview, people might be underwhelmed, but this is nothing more than a technical test along the lines of MM’s dynamic lighting videos and such on his blog.

  45. Tr00jg said about 21 hours later:

    I lol’ed. Seriously, I found it funny.

    It looks boring though. I want more ludicrous screaming please.

  46. deadeye said about 22 hours later:

    ZombiePixel: I don’t get all the hate, here.

    Well, Sigvatr promised mutilation, humiliation, defecation, and a whole host of other -ations. Sure, it’s probably just not implemented yet, but come on… don’t release a video of a game where you can shit on a corpse without dropping some trou.

    They just put out a video too early.

  47. Sigvatr said about 22 hours later:

    I don’t think we put out a video too early at all. We have been showing off things from our games from the very beginning. I blame the media.

  48. sigfan said about 22 hours later:

    Sigvatr doesn’t care what you think.

    in fact, he doesn’t care so much that he wrote a blog post about it.

    http://sigvatr.com/blog/

    remember, if you don’t like the way this game looks, clearly you’re a misguided idiot.

  49. cactus said about 23 hours later:

    I like the idea of making a violent game just for shockvalue (I’ve wanted to do that myself, but haven’t been able to). I thought Electric Retard did a good job at that and it certainly was a very interesting read. I hope that this game will turn out equally disturbing :)

    The vid wasn’t too impressive, but I’m sure it’s too early to base anything on. Good luck with it, S/M ;)

  50. fish said about 23 hours later:

    its exactly because Sigvatr promised mutilation, humiliation, defecation, and a whole host of other -ations that i think this game is worthless.

    sigvatr is an angry angsty man-teen who’s only defining characteristic is that he is shocking.

    (the first and about the only thing he says about himself on his blog is that he is shocking. shocking is sigvatr. we fucking get it)

    and mind you, we’re talking about juvenile toilet-shock. nothing actually though provoking, nothing that denounces any kind of injustice. its guys running around screaming they are going to fuck eachother up the ass. because that’s shocking.

  51. Sigvatr said about 23 hours later:

    This game isn’t about shock value. Have you ever been playing a game and killed some dude you really hate and go over and tea bag him or shoot his corpse? Berserker is about hatred. Some guy rapes you in the game, so what do you do? Cut his dick off with a chainsaw. It is about releasing your anger into a computer game with no boundaries.

  52. Zulgaines said about 24 hours later:

    I reserve all judgments until I see a open to the public release.

  53. sinoth said about 24 hours later:

    http://sigvatr.com/blog/ ^ Sigvatr’s blog post is priceless. He releases a mediocre video, and when he doesn’t get a glowing response he cries about how awful the TIG community is. Bravo, sir. You’ve somehow turned our lack of enthusiasm into a rant about how we’re encroaching upon your design. The issue here isn’t that we find your game too questionable or extreme. You simply released a shoddy pre-alpha video and got a negative response. Suck it up, continue developing, and blow us away with some fecal-physics in the next vid.

  54. fish said about 24 hours later:

    im gonna go out on a limb here and say that sigvatr is 14 years old.

    not that there’s anything wrong with being 14 years old, but he’s certainly giving them a bad rep.

  55. Stij said 1 day later:

    Actually, from that one video he posted, he looks like he’s in his 20s.

    But yeah, I agree with Sinoth on this one.

  56. fartron said 1 day later:

    As a progress update, it’s pretty good. But it’s not an update that deserves echoing on every gaming blog, since it’s ultimately not that interesting to those not closely following the game’s development.

    As for Sigvatr, he may only be 14 in his mind.

  57. PHeMoX said 1 day later:

    Actually, sigvatr is right with his last sentence:

    just shut the fuck up and be grateful for your free treats.

    because really, no matter what he or Michal ‘promised’ anyone, this was simply an alpha video showcasing nearly nothing. Perhaps they didn’t expect people to be negative, perhaps they did, but wining about a very early version of a game is childish in my opinion.

    Besides… they don’t own us anything, so basically we don’t have the rights to even complain.

  58. fish said 1 day later:

    like i said, im not whinning about the game. i couldnt possiblky care less about the game.

    all im saying is: sigvatr is crass.

  59. Stij said 1 day later:

    ^Yeah, my problem is with the guy making the game, not the game itself.

    Also, PHeMoX: “we don’t have the rights to even complain”? You’re telling me just because the game is free it’s exempt from criticism for some reason? I agree it’s kind of dumb to judge a very early alpha version of a game, but still.

  60. Vinícius said 1 day later:

    At moment seems to be boring as hell.

  61. Sigvatr said 1 day later:

    This entire thing is overblown. Michal has been releasing videos, screen shots, whatever on more than a weekly basis for many months for both of our games. This video isn’t any different. It’s just another video of our progress. We can’t leap from programming movement and punching all the way down to a completed game in a week.

    My point is that you are expecting way too much from us. Give us the time we need to implement features instead of bitching about how we haven’t finished an entire game in two weeks.

  62. Fishy Boy said 1 day later:

    From the looks of things, it seems the fighting could be pretty deep, actually. It LOOKS simple, but I think when you play it it’ll feel much different.

  63. Smithy said 1 day later:

    I think I take Fish’s side on this.

    I don’t care about the game. In fact, I no longer remember the game’s name and lack the will to scroll up to see what it is.

    Mainly, I dislike the attitude Sig shows in his failed PR campaign.

  64. deadeye said 1 day later:

    @Sigvatr:

    I understand that you can’t complete a game in a week. I understand that you have not yet implemented the rape and mutilation yet.

    My point is it’s pointless to post a video of a guy who can run and punch in a game where you are supposed to be able to shit on corpses. There are a million games where guys run and punch. All I’m saying is you’re blowing your load too early. Hold back on the videos until you have some disgusting stuff to show, otherwise people will say “not impressed - where’s the gore?”

    If you had waited until you had some gore to show, you would have gotten a much better response, even if it meant a couple months quiet development where we don’t see any progress at all. It’s not like we’re going to forget you’re making the game.

  65. BenH said 1 day later:

    “im gonna go out on a limb here and say that sigvatr is 14 years old.”

    He’s 21, but he still acts the same way as he did 6-7 years ago.

  66. contra said 1 day later:

    yeah let’s all forget about the game and comment about how much this guy sucks because that’s what indiegaming is all about!

  67. Sigvatr said 1 day later:

    “He’s 21, but he still acts the same way as he did 6-7 years ago.”

    still awesome

  68. renkin said 1 day later:

    Haha, the intro is awesome.

    whistle whistle AAAAARGGHH! whistle

    Other than that, it seems to suck really bad.

  69. PHeMoX said 1 day later:

    “Also, PHeMoX: “we don’t have the rights to even complain”? You’re telling me just because the game is free it’s exempt from criticism for some reason?”

    No, not at all, not exempt from criticism, but obviously people are overreacting or at least criticizing the ‘game’ for other reasons than the content shown. You’ve basically said it yourself, your problem is with the guy making it, not with the game…

    Does it really make sense to you to more or less just hate on the video because you don’t like the game-idea or the people behind it? People that answer that question with a ‘yes’ should really grow up.

    “They just put out a video too early.”

    How can you possibly put out a video too early when it’s a work in progress video???

  70. Stij said 1 day later:

    Ergh.

    I still think the game could be good (especially if it’s anything at all like Link-Dead, which looks amazing), I just don’t really like Sigvatr.

    That is all.

  71. Kein said 1 day later:

    Personally I think Sigvatrs art and style are fantastic and lend greatly to the feel of whatever project he is contributing to. I for one am looking forward to Beserker and Link Dead.

    That being said, there will be people criticizing your work everywhere. No need to get melodramatic, stop being such a pussy.

  72. cream said 1 day later:

    epic

  73. UFIA said 1 day later:

    Game idea being not terribly innovative and Sigvatr being a “shock jock” of indie gaming aside, meh. I’m just totally uninterested. I get the feeling (garden hose of rage aside) that Sig really gets off on people loving or hating him, and I’m not going to bother mustering the emotion.

    On the plus side, we have several weeks or months of TIGS playing Divine to “that doggie in the window.”

    See? That was entirely offensive, in a creative, subtle, and maybe even funny way. Minus points for being an inside joke.

  74. pooper said 1 day later:

    awesome thread

  75. Exoduster said 1 day later:

    To jump on the bandwagon, the gameplay looks boring (Hold attack until one of you dies? Sign me up! To play something else.) , the screams are annoying, and the attempts to shock me are childish.

    Over all: Meh.

  76. Vydas said 1 day later:

    Sigvatr and the Wannabe Philosopher Mystic Michael remind one of the early 90’s comics work of Rob Liefeld and his Extreme Studios.

    They thought they were being shocking, extreme, macho action to the max, but instead were merely sad and untalented.

    In their defense, most of them were nice guys, where as WPM and Little Siggy are just laughable.

    Careful boys, the marketing tactic you chose to use can work, but has a low success rate, and tends to be crippling in the long term.

  77. Smithy said 1 day later:

    Overreacting? I don’t know about that, Phemox.

    If you scroll up the comments seem pretty tame. People were underwhelmed by a progress report being advertised on the front page as a preview. The comments remained tame until Sig showed up and started blasting everyone because he’s only been developing the game for two weeks.

    I didn’t know that. I’m pretty sure most of the other folks here didn’t know that either. That’s why we come here. To learn more about new indie games on the horizon. The indie scene being what it is, I think it’s fair to say that most of us haven’t even heard of the game until it was posted here, and most of us certainly were oblivious to how long it’s been under development…

    We took the video as a preview the second we saw it being announced as a preview. In that context, people’s reactions were all pretty normal.

    In conclusion: Sig=Troll.

  78. PHeMoX said 1 day later:

    @Smithy: I do understand that. But… I’m pretty sure Sigvatr’s “So, stfu.” comment was meant for the very first person commenting on this who said “It sucks :" and mainly other people who seem to have been oblivious to the fact that this game isn’t under development very long yet. It seemed that people overreacted to his explanation/comment there, because just look at the comments áfter that.

    By the way, it’s not Sigvatr’s fault that people didn’t know that it’s not long under development yet. Apparently people assumed a lot of things based on the title of this video. In his defense people could have simply clicked the link in the TIGsource article that directs to Michal’s blog, because then they would have known.

    We took the video as a preview the second we saw it being announced as a preview. In that context, people’s reactions were all pretty normal.

    Actually, I don’t disagree with you there, but perhaps ‘preview’ simply wasn’t the correct title. ;)

  79. The Economist said 1 day later:

    On controversy. Remember the 2005 film Chaos?

    Exactly. Despite featuring many of the same attempts at “shock factor” as this game is going to deliver, the indie film got some press in ‘05 and quickly sank into obscurity. This is why I really don’t understand the whole reason of ratcheting up the shock factor. It just strikes me as a bunch of fluff.

  80. Tim said 1 day later:

    I post here voluntarily, just so you guys know..

    The last time I wrote a lengthy description about anything, I was castrated for it. You really can’t win on the internet.

  81. Toom said 1 day later:

    IF YOU DAMN KIDS DON’T SETTLE DOWN THEN SO HELP ME I WILL TURN THIS BLOG AROUND AND THERE WON’T BE ANY HILARIOUS-BUT-OBVIOUSLY-EXTREMELY-EARLY ALPHA VIDEOS FOR ANYONE.

  82. BenH said 1 day later:

    Are we there yet??

  83. BenH said 1 day later:

    Also, keep doing what you’re doing, Tim. I personally think its awesome that you’re able to dig up so much news so often. I haven’t a clue where you find it all, but keep it up. :D

  84. ptoing said 1 day later:

    Indeed, keep on doing what you are doing. The video was labled as Preview one Youtube so you did not do anything wrong.

    At the moment it does look rather boring, but then again it’s early in development.

    On the other hand I do not see how this game is about hatred more than about juvenile shockvalue. Hate is a rather strong feeling and actually hating someone you play a game against is rather unlikely.

    Looking at stuff like EL or Spreekillers.com I would say that Sig is all about shockvalue, gets old fast after some time.

    Also, how is ER banned in Germany? I am in Germany and can view the site, same goes for rotten.com.

  85. PHeMoX said 1 day later:

    Looking at stuff like EL or Spreekillers.com I would say that Sig is all about shockvalue, gets old fast after some time.

    True, but you can only go so far before people REALLY will start looking at you as if you’re insane and in desperate need of a straight-jacket. ;)

  86. moi said 1 day later:

    This whole enterprise was overblown and overhyped from the start.
    So far I’ve watched two vids about this game and both were based on shock value and attitude (one of them being totally devoid of any game footage).
    Blame it on the devellopers themselves.

  87. The Economist said 3 days later:

    So that block of text above with the statement of “I agree” is from [Sig’s blog] (http://sigvatr.com/blog/).

    And the whole thing is Sig just engaging in whining, the same sort of shrillness and haughtiness seen from any thin-skinned Internet primadonna. God, just ignore this kid.

  88. theaznman121 said 3 days later:

    I’m a long time player of Soldat, and this was completely out of the water…although I can see some influences of Soldat to this game (Namely, 2D and mouse control).

  89. Wmyrogmy said 4 days later:

    I have to disagree with fish - he’s more like 15.

  90. TehSilentOne said 5 days later:

    ..so this guy made spreekillers.org, and you’re surprised that he’s an jackass?

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