For Old Man Murray

[Shamus Young]

For Old Man Murray

Shamus rants about why the videogame website that launched a thousand careers isn't "notable" enough for Wikipedia.

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[Serenegoose]

I dig you probably wrote this more than 30 seconds before you posted it, but I think maybe you should mention that it is actually back on wikipedia? That the awesome outcry from the gaming community got it put right back where it ought to be?

I mean, I'm not commenting on the quality of the article, which is high, of course - simply that I think people after reading it might base their comments on the assumption that it's still gone, when wikipedia has reversed their decision on the matter. But still, awesome to see other people that care enough to write about the impact that it has/had.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Well said, Shamus! Even if the page is actually back up on Wikipedia and your article is slightly out of date. You still get Awesome Points though. What I'd really like to see is a section on the Wikipedia page about the Wikipedia removal controversy itself. That will probably never happen, but a man can dream.

 

[Irridium]

Clearly they read your article, and cowered. Or just took it off to piss you off, then put it back up after you ranted, just to annoy you.

Either way, I find it funny.

EDIT: Oh, also at your site, it seems the youtube videos are showing "missing plugin". I could tell you at your site, but I'm already here. So yeah.

 

[Milkman Dan]

Thinking back to when I was reading OMM and posting on POE (and even submitting a few sites) shouldn't make me feel old!

 

[Fearzone]

Maybe the adventure game review made a good point (I mean, how did Myst harm adventure games--by making mediocre ones look bad by comparison?), and it was kinda funny when the guys monitor exploded, but Rune was a great game. So that means: they are full of shit. Too bad Wikipedia didn't stand up for its principles.

Anyway I used to read FiringSquad more days than not but I never heard of these guys before now.

 

[Galad]

That site looks like an awesome thing. Let me see if I can sum it up in a pseudo-mathematical equation

Zero Punctuation - speech + writing - speed - fugly toilet similes + git_off_me_lawn_damn_kids = Old Man Murray

I hope it looks as right to you as it does to me

On a side note, as much as I like it, I'd like to disagree with their review of Rune. Sure, the melee combat was just as boring as they describe it, but the world the hero explored was very impressive despite the Y2K graphics. High points of the game:

1. A 3 minute long cutscene of riding a huge dragonfly at high speed through caverns and other underground landscapes and

2. Loki


^ 3:50 -5:50ish - navigating the maze leading to Loki, while being driven mad under his mad evil godly laughter - no sarcasm here, they did one hell of a job with the laughter. When you finally find the exit - "No, no, no, damn you!" which was a nice touch

5:50ish - end - Loki's deranged rambling, again in a cutscene. Even more amazing (and possibly disturbing) than his laughter you hear while exploring the maze.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

Actually if you listen to the in game developer commentary, it would seem that both Chet and Erik worked on Portal as well as many of the other games such as Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

 

[Zukhramm]

Never heard about the site, but then, when it closed down I was young and did not care about video games. Well, I cared, just not the same way I do today. Thank you for bringing attention to the side. Or rather, thank you Wikipedia, for make people write about this old site. I guess something good came out of the the decision.

 

[sjmck]

"at OMM they would write a three-page deconstruction of the game that is so savage and so complete that we can be sure Roberta Williams has never read it, because she's still alive."

Shamus, I'm curious why you think Roberta Williams would kill herself over a criticism of a game designed by Jane Jensen. Also, referring to an examination of a single puzzle in an adventure game as a complete deconstruction of the game seems like a bit of an overstatement.

 

[searanox]

All I can say is, here here. Old Man Murray was and still remains a brilliantly funny and insightful games web site... it's not uncommon that I'll go back every now and then to re-read some old articles. It's incredible just how many of their complaints are still relevant to the world of gaming.

I'm not at all a fan of Wikipedia's requirements for notoriety, since the implementation feels extremely arbitrary. They removed an extremely detailed 5000+ page article on Warhammer 40,000 lore a year or two ago, and yet at that same time you could look up horribly dubious articles like "list of fictional ducks". While I'm sure there are noteworthy fictional ducks, the decision-making is often made far too quickly and - here's the catch - without much input from people who are actually interested in the article's content in the first place. Wikipedia claims to be a generalist encyclopedia, and this is how they rationalise such decisions, yet where and how to draw the line is never really clearly defined and seems to favour certain spheres of culture over others.

 

[UtopiaV1]

Thankyou for directing me to another time-sink on the internet! First TV-Tropes, and now this! Stop it, I have to go to work at some point!!!

I'm reading through their articles now, great stuff. Who needs sleep? The dead, that's who! And that's why they have a terrible sense of humour. Not like these guys...

 

[snave]

Hehe, thanks for the reminder on this one! I recall rolling around laughing at his death of an adventure game piece (narrated by Francis the talking France) many years ago. And vaguely to being linked there at least once since.

As an aside, I wonder if Wikipedia's longest page still exists: the list of all Unicode variations.

Edit: Hey, it is! And the hilarious opening comment stating the article needs expansion still exists too. I see a little expansion in that a logo has been added, although I swear the subpages were all on there as a list way back when. XD

I guess "page must be readble by a human" isn't an article notability criteria.

 

[Lord_Kristof]

Umm, Rune is one of my favourite TPP games of all time so I guess that means I didn't see it as an offense to entertainment, huh?

Well, I guess some people have to hate my favourite games, since I hate so many popular games... seems only fair, but still, this stings a bit!

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Minor issue Shamus: wouldn't that particular puzzle have been designed by Jane Jensen? Or did Roberta Williams also work on GK3?

I must add though that the suicide of adventure games is clear in that piece.

Otherwise a good piece on a great albeit long gone site.