Whenever I want to voluntarily give myself a migraine, I go and read a post by Joystiq’s Vladimir Cole. After that, I’m out for a good three or four hours in the fetal position in a soundproof room with no sunlight.
Now, my newly reformed objective self allows for some criticism of Nintendo. I realize they aren’t a god, and that they make some mistakes (VC pricing, lack of N64 VC rumble, and Wii Memos come to mind). However, when someone dismisses and entire game on the basis that they cannot read the signposts, and instead must go up to them and push a button, I find my hands drifting towards the keyboard for the inevitable rebuttal.
So, let’s go on a point by point journey through Vlad Land, shall we? Don’t forget your boots, kids, it gets pretty deep.
All the leaves are brown. (And the sky is grey.) Imagine being a freshwater fish after a heavy rain. All around you: brown. Zelda’s like this. The game’s muddy color palette doesn’t sparkle in the way that previous iterations of the venerable Zelda series sparkled.
Oh Vlady Vlad, didn’t you play Gears of War? Taupe is in! Did you confusingly try and place Wind Waker in the Wii and mistakenly put in TP instead?
But wait, there’s more. Twilight Princess doesn’t just “fall flat” because of graphics, or the fact that it’s built on a GameCube engine (this is news?!), but because you can’t read those infamous sign posts that have been with Zelda since The Adventure of Link.
“In the latest Zelda, the game’s designers have been forced to sabotage game play to atone for the console’s graphical shortcomings. Example: roadside signs are illegible. In Zelda, merely reading signs becomes laborious and annoying. You must first walk up to the sign. You must then press the controller’s “a” button. When you do this, the game zooms in on the sign (taking a moment to do this). The game then shows you the text of the sign. Finally, having read the sign, you must hit another button to zoom away from the sign and regain control of your character. If your character were blind and had to read via Braille, then bumping into signs and fumbling a button would be appropriate. But such a kludgey mechanism merely rankles here, because most modern games have legible signposts.”
I’m digging the teenage angst AND the subtle attempt at humor in this section. Note the word ‘attempt.’ Vlady von Outtolunch also criticized the fishing in TP, something I’m sure will tick off Blake, who loved this mini game at E3.
Vlad’s posts have become fewer and farther between as of late. Personally, I can only hope this is because Joystiq’s higher-ups have reigned him in a bit given his tendency to post wildly off topic rebuttals to his own articles, which themselves were either confusing or wildly biased to begin with (I can relate, but then again, I’m not getting paid or getting free Wii’s in the mail from Nintendo).
So, to recap: TP fails because of signposts and enhanced GameCube graphics. I think it’s a grossly unfair assessment, given the positive hands-on impressions from so many other outlets (including C. Grant of Joystiq), and borders on “personal vendetta” territory. This is an important launch title for the Wii, maybe even the most important. Is the criticism fair? Do you want more from your Zelda? Regardless, who’s jumping on the Vlad wagon? Shotgun!
Vlad failsjack FTW!
Oh my god. That's funny.I think this guy is looking for a reason to hate Twilight Princess. It's quite funny, really.I think the signposts are traditionally in another language/character set, anyway, aren't they? They were in OoT and WW. They'd be impossible to read in any case, and if they were in plain english, that would seriously take away from the atmosphere of the game.
He is a troll lookinmg for attention. Please dont feed him.Also, his criticism are wat too stupid to be taken seriously. Zelda looks like its going to be an incredible game if colour palette and sign reading are his criticism,
I don't want to sound rude, but how about posting news and other such Nintendo related positive articles instead of personally bashing another person's work. Opinions on games are fine, but don't bash somebody else's opinion, especially when you haven't played the game all the way through, nor do you own it. Your "article" was more painstaking to read than his. How about instead of bashing people, you post something more gratifying?
I agree with theJON. Vlad had an opinion and I thought he was right in some respects. Zelda games have always had a sort of colourful look to them, and the new one looks like some of those old RPGs that came out for the PS2 at launch – dull. Of course there is the arguement that the game is about the control. Let's face it though. You don't buy a Corvette that purposely has rust all over. Presentation is just as important as gameplay.I went to Joystiq and looked at some of the comments bashing him for that opinion. Honestly, I would say get over it, and just enjoy the game yourself and not worry that ONE person doesn't.
"So, let's go on a point by point journey through Vlad Land, shall we?"NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooo@theJON and lionzub,Oh, if only what you are saying were true.Its saddening to see those with little experience comment on such things.This is not simply about one mans opinion that differs from Jacks. If that were the case, your criticism would be accurate.Unfortunately, the truth to the matter is that Vlad Cole has deep hatred for nintendo and people who like nintendo games. His thinly veiled insults deguised as ludicrous posts have gone on for months. He has taken to using joystiq as a personal vendetta machine.He uses nintendo fans to drive traffin by intentionally riling them up.My only regret is that so many of us fall prey to his simple little ad revenue increasing antics. If we would learn to ignore him, he would stop this.Don't confuse his posts deriding the quality of nintendo products for some public service. They are not. He has pretty much written his opinion of twilight princess before he ever played it.Don't give him the respect you would someone simply voicing their opinion because the reality is quite different. He is doing one thing and one thing only. He is using is distaste for Nintendo to drive ad revenue. Its obvious if you read joystiq enough, which many people like me have quit doing. As you can see from their traffic reports, their numbers have decreased ever since Vlad got back from his internship at Microsoft. Thats right folks, you heard right. Vlad Cole works for Microsoft.
PSWii60, it doesn't matter who Vlad is. I don't want to read an article displaying this site's opinion where it's a negative article directed toward a single person. EVERYBODY is entitled to their opinion and it's taken to another level when Jack called him stupid. Sure, you can have opinions, but DON'T ridicule somebody. That's unprofessional.
Well, Anonymous, if this is the future of Infendo.com, then I'm not sure I really want to be a part of it.
Palettes aren't all brown. Sure brown may be a dominant colour in towns because the stone and the wood they NEED to make buildings with are brown.Brown is dominant elsewhere because the mountain rocks have to be brown, and maybe DIRT is brown.The grass has a realistic colour and is not all green. There are plenty of lush green areas in screenshots, too. And snowy areas. You should see the forest temple. And I don't know how he can say that the fish will wake up to see brown. The water in TP is shimmering and realistic and clean, NOT brown. I actually think theJON is Vlad.
I think it was a great article and agree with Jack that Mr. Cole makes some pretty silly points. Fact of all matter is that there is something to read rather than nothing. I'll be happier to find 5 articles like this with one article about something specifically relevant to Nintendo as opposed to coming here and only finding that ONE specifically relevant article. Content is nice to have. If you don't like a post then skip it. If its still so harmful to you, then maybe you should lock yourself in a closet. The scary world will be filled with such amazing things. Things you may… not… like! Oh my!
Don't bash him just based on his opinion I remember you making generalizations about Gears of War just based on others reviews. It kinda goes both ways.
"Opinions on games are fine, but don't bash somebody else's opinion"Yeah, I mean come on, other big-names like Penny Arcade would never do something as ridiculous as making fun of the opinions on Joystiq, a "retard rodeo" if you will…. O WAIT.btw, you just criticized his opinion, which is that Vlad's opinion sucks. You are now a hypocrite. Congrats!It's his site, he can write about whatever he wants. And last time I checked, videogame blogging consists of about 99% criticism of other people's opinions. Get off your high horse plzthx.
How am I a hypocrite? I didn't call anybody stupid, which he did. And I don't understand where you go on saying he's correcting anybody."I'm digging the teenage angst AND the subtle attempt at humor in this section. Note the word 'attempt.'"Yeah, come on. I'm done arguing, believe what you want, but I believe this is pretty unprofessional. I don't care if Penny Arcade makes fun of people, we're not Penny Arcade.
"we're not Penny Arcade."I forgot what year it was that you purchased infendo.com…Many of their articles take shots at people. If you don't like that, read a different site. I personally like it.Oh, and I REALLY think you picked the wrong one to defend. This Vlad guy is really a dick…
Criticism is important. It keeps people honest. If you're going to rant on about a game you obviously have an ingrained bias against, for whatever reason, you deserve criticism.I am still unsure why you're upset, thejon. This post is fine, it highlights a badly written article and started a thread which corrected the errors proposed by the aforementioned article. The more criticisms of unreasonable reviews and reviewers the better.
Anonymous, I'm not defending Vlad, I'm just saying I don't agree with Jack's personal opinion to bash a writer, regardless of what he says. And, no I don't own Infendo, but I do participate in this community and I am a mod on the forum. I'm not saying I own anything …And man, I'm not saying anything about you opinions, keep reading stuff like this, I'm fine with that, I'm just saying that I don't think it's fine. I'm done arguing. Let's agree to disagree on this, yeah?
Actively blogging alongside both Jack (on Infendo) and Vlad (at Joystiq) I can honestly say the two are more alike than meets the eye; writing more extreme articles to encourage progressive thinking. When taking lightly, they can be a good thing.Is it just me or is pre-launch tension at an all-time high?
"Is it just me or is pre-launch tension at an all-time high?"No Blake, Its must simpler than that. Vlad is a jerk. You know it and I know it.I have had at least half a dozen bloggers (most from joystiq) tell me privately that they can't stand the guy. His writing is often an attempt to promote thought, I agree, but he not-so-cleverly squeezes an aweful lot of nintenhate in there at any opportunity.I don't care if someone hates nintendo, of course not everyone is going to love them. But he continuously hijacks joystiq via his posts to promote that agenda.It's bad blogging, pure and simple. I would say the same thing if you were pulling this shit with MS or Sony. Fortunately, its clear you make a concerted effort to be fair. In fact, I have seen many articles on joystiq written by you that bash on Nintendo which is fine, because you do it in a spirit of fairness. He clearly is not. If you could ever get him to be honest, I'm sure he would tell you that he wishes nintendo would go out of business.Oh, also, in case people on here don't know, Vlad routinely deletes responses to his articles (particularly the well thought out ones) that point out his bias under the explanation that said posts are "off topic". He will usually leave posts that are poorly written bashes on him so that it looks like the only people who don't like him are intellectually challenged brats.I must say, I am much happier since I quit reading joystiq. Hopefully next summer when Vlad goes back to work for Microsoft, joystiq will be good again. I can't stand having a corporate shill run a blog site. It just ruins the candor.
I know my blood was boiling after watching so many people getting FREE Wii systems from a friggin' ice cream truck. Not because those sites are not deserving, but because I still have to wait.But yeah, I think everyone is a little testy .. pre-launch stress? pre-holiday stress? mid-terms? For me, it's all of the above.I don't get the impression that Infendo's future is to deride and pick apart other bloggers and their sites. There are other sites for stuff like that. Infendo, to me, has always been a great place to have passionate discussions. This thread is an obvious example of that. The majority of the comments aren't simple "JACK SUCKS" postings, but build an ongoing discussion between a variety of people from around the world. To me, that's pretty friggin' cool and what makes Infendo an incredible place to share my thoughts.
…aside from enjoying vlad being called out *again*… is anyone else amused that vlad spent his sat night dreaming up that article? no wonder he's bitter!
@PSWii60Sorry that you had to write all that mate, but you have to realize that it's a complete waste of your time (if you actually do anything else). Someone will always be right in their own eyes, it's called an opinion, and there is nothing you can say to disprove it.@AnonThe second screenshot looked pretty cool with the snow and such, rest still looks dull and badly coloured.Anyways I'm done on the subject myself.
"Someone will always be right in their own eyes, it's called an opinion, and there is nothing you can say to disprove it."Sorry that you can't read mate. I never tried to disprove anything. I never once claimed Vlad is "wrong".In fact, his complaints are more or less accurate. The color palette does seem dominated by earth tones and you DO have to hit A to read a sign.Trying to disprove opinion would be pure folly.Nowhere in my post did I refute his opinion so your response makes no sense and is a complete waste of time.I simply pointed out that the kid has an agenda that people should be aware of. I'm exposing motives not refuting opinion. I'm not trying to prove him wrong and I have no idea where you get that idea. And as I said, hopefully joystiq will improve once vlad goes back to work for microsoft.There really are some good bloggers on there (including blake). Its sad that one hack in charge can damage a site so badly because of his own personal agenda.
@PeeWii60:I like how you try to desperately strengthen your arguements through personal attacks to other people. Get a life.Once again I'm sorry that you had to waste your time writing all that, it is not a matter of me not being able to read, it is a matter of me having better things to do than to read your half-wit responses.Follow theJON's advice and just agree to disagree.Peace.
For better or worse I appreciate criticism. Keep it coming. However, this post has veered way off course from some of the good points made above. Everyone take a break! Go check out some of Infendo's lighter posts from today on sensor bars and Wii placement.
"I like how you try to desperately strengthen your arguements through personal attacks to other people."What?How can I "desparately try to strengthen my arguement" when I openly admitted that I wasn't arguing to begin with? There ARE no arguments.Again it seems you don't read the post, which is fine, but then why bother to respond?Personal attacks? I don't recall making any personal attacks. Unless you're referring to my observation that you didn't read my comment, which it appears has been repeated.I would gladly agree to disagree if you would agree that there is no disagreement.I can't be more clear. I am not arguing with what vlad said. I am not arguing with what you said. Get it yet? _I_ get it, but maybe thats because I can't "get a life".If "getting a life" means hopping on blogs and pounding out nonsensical responses that do little more than show that you didn't even read to post you're commenting on, then you can keep your "life", I'll be just fine without one.