de-rez: Hitman

[DarthTirith]

Eh, I was expecting more. The high standard of comedy ZP has reaches this and surpasses it.. Way surpasses it. I am not comparing them, the videos are nothing alike after all. What I am saying is I expected something a little more high quality from this website.

The comedy was way to forced, the set up was not only strange and bland but it seemed a little random. The first page comment had this in bag, its a SAYTV. Maybe with some improvement in the set up and pacing this could be something, but right now its nothing more then what I could get by going into Youtube and searching for the word comedy.

I might be missing the big joke here, I haven't played a Hitman game since Hitman 1, and I haven't seen the movie. I base my comment on what this clearly is.. A parody of a game which I haven't played. Perhaps you need to play the game or watch the film to understand it, something which brings me back to ZP, I don't need to play the games he talks about for a laugh.

I'll watch the next one to see if its improved, but I don't hold out for much.

 

[Doctor Shenanigans]

@smellygoat

I'm nineteen, just for reference. I laugh at tons of juvenile shit. I thought Team America was awesome, and was moved to *tears* by Yahtzee's naming Link 'Fagballs'.

Thus, I consider any attempt to excuse the lack of real humour as being too 'juvenile' for me to appreciate a poor defense at best, and insulting at worst. There aren't any jokes actually *made* in this video, other than the 'this person has an accent and oh look he talks a lot and is obviously not very bright what a character he is.' And that got old by the second time it was done.

@everyone else defending the video by saying 'it's a first attempt'

Um, no, it's not. The video with which they won the contract with the Escapist is not this one. They won the contract with a Ghost Recon parody, which is also on the site. The slipshod, poorly edited, derivative thing that they've got going on is kind of a habit, and has no place on a website with such a high standard of content and polish.

 

[Zelmor]

Sorry mate, that was not even a wee bit funny. I think you shouldn't go with the medium of video only because of the fortune in numbers Yahtzee's weekly rant can bring every Wednesday. That is somewhat unique in style.

It's not about the video quality, it is the cheap and bad humor it uses that let me down. I think the Escapist should stick to their quality articles about gaming, the industry and whatever strange things you can stumble upon (geocaching article made me wanna be a wizard too), but hey, who am I to tell you which direction you guys should take in your business model? This was a bit of stain on the else clean and nice look of the Escapist Magazine, but one cannot make a change if one fears mistakes. Nice try, now do something else.

a reader

 

[hasam]

I'm pretty sure that the Escapist doesn't need the sort of people who think that De-Rez is comedy gold hanging around.

hmmm have you seen the idiots who argue over who has the right to claim first post on zp forums, the place isn't exactley full of pipe smoking, tea sipping upperclass folk who chuckle to themselves over clever humour...

 

[Arbre]

Sorry mate, that was not even a wee bit funny. I think you shouldn't go with the medium of video only because of the fortune in numbers Yahtzee's weekly rant can bring every Wednesday. That is somewhat unique in style.

It's not about the video quality, it is the cheap and bad humor it uses that let me down. I think the Escapist should stick to their quality articles about gaming, the industry and whatever strange things you can stumble upon (geocaching article made me wanna be a wizard too), but hey, who am I to tell you which direction you guys should take in your business model? This was a bit of stain on the else clean and nice look of the Escapist Magazine, but one cannot make a change if one fears mistakes. Nice try, now do something else.

a reader

Maybe the Escapist is going too fast to build an audience. In the process, may even be loosing what the site originally was known for.
I didn't really come here to get my daily dose of LOLZ, and I think Yathzee fills that spot with style and intelligence well enough.

 

[Doctor Shenanigans]

I'm pretty sure that the Escapist doesn't need the sort of people who think that De-Rez is comedy gold hanging around.

hmmm have you seen the idiots who argue over who has the right to claim first post on zp forums, the place isn't exactley full of pipe smoking, tea sipping upperclass folk who chuckle to themselves over clever humour...

Kinda my point, dude. ZP is actually empirically *funny* and it attracts retards. Can you imagine the dross this would bring?

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

Well... I'll say this, it wasn't bad. But, as most of the others have said, it definitely needs work. You've got some moments- 47 showing up dressed as a clown was (funny) ridiculous- but you've also got some of the other kind of moments- like 47 showing up and going "Oi! I'm wearing all your clothes!". That was... kinda dumb. And you guys could definitely use a better setup, takes, what have you. Right now the quality is about the same as the one my 13-year old brother made with a couple of his friends.
So, work on acting, try to have more moments like clown-47, and try to up your camera/lighting stuff. You really could make something out of this; at the moment it's just sort of average.

 

[Arbre]

I'd rather have more reports on Project Horseshoe.

 

[akaFortySeven]

the lighting doesn't matter, it is like they are trying too hard I'm not saying i could do better but it's like Yahtzee's occasional s***e review it's difficult to be funnie all the time, but that was really sad I hope they do better in the comming weeks.

 

[end_boss]

I won't attack production values, because I don't mind the "we made this because we were bored and had nothing better to do" feel of these kind of movies. What I will criticize, however, is that the humour did not hit the target. The scene did little to cater to fans of the game, and certainly did not even find a mainstream appeal. Therefore, fans of the game won't find it funny because they don't relate to it, and the non-fans will be almost completely lost. To sum it all up, there was a complete absence of wit. It very well may have been funny to discuss, saying "What if Agent 47 was like this..." but in execution as a comedy sketch, it fell flat almost immediately.

 

[immortal88]

I'm curious why a number of you want to let the production quality on this slide?!

The articles on The Escapist are top notch, well written and edited. No one would read them if they were plagued with spelling and grammatical errors. For that same reason, this film needs to adhere to higher production values. Whatever medium you choose, if you're going to publish it anywhere other than YouTube, spend the time and money to do it right.

At the same time, I wonder how this snuck past editorial veto? Did the editors watch it before it was posted? If the second installment is equally devoid of value, I'd appreciate it not making an appearance on the site.

 

[Hachura]

I'd like to relate a story, if I may:

Like many, you've probably got a friend who's an absolute blast to hang out with in person. He's probably not friends with many of your other friends, but as far as you're concerned that's fine because hey, it's not like you're making them hang out with him.

Now let's say that this friend of yours has a creative hobby, say fr'instance, painting. He loves doing it, but is actually pretty atrocious. Everything he creates is either heavily derivitive of something someone else had done far better years ago, or else it's just so poorly executed that any aesthetic value the work might have posessed at the start has been completely wiped out. But you don't say anything to him because he's a pretty nice guy and again, it's just his hobby; it's not as though he's making you look at them.

Except one night you got really drunk and told your friend just how awesome you thought his art was, and offered to let him hang some of his terrible paintings in your house. The next morning you sober up and find one of his monstrosities in your living room, and have to pretend like this is what you wanted or you'll lose this friend. You convince yourself that it isn't so bad, that maybe he'll just leave it at the one painting.

And then he starts hanging more and more, and inviting gangs of his other friends to your house to view his masterpieces. Your house is now full of loud, stupid people looking at terrible paintings and what's more your old friends don't want to come over anymore because your house is full of idiots and bad artwork.

Do you see where this heavy-handed metaphor is leading us?

I'm pretty sure that the Escapist doesn't need the sort of people who think that De-Rez is comedy gold hanging around. Of course, that's just one man's opinion, but it should be noted that I am one man with a fully functioning sense of humour which remained completely undisturbed through the entire runtime of that video.

Oh, my god. Genious! I needed a good laugh after viewing the video, which is what I must call 'sub-mediocrity at its finest'. Shenanigans, YOU should be contributing material!

 

[Hawkzor]

lmoa i dont care if you ban me, but your a dickhead. just banning some account because he thought this episode was shit, well fuck you.

I think the red card was figurative.

 

[Jinky Williams]

I think the disappointment from everyone largely stems from this being put on The Escapist, where almost all of the content is fairly polished. It was about the expectation level. This looked like the guy's first shot at this type of thing. Not that this is bad, but it didn't match the expectation for a piece with more professional production values.

Admittedly, Yahtzee's ZP is a tough act to follow. Especially so because he had already had some time to up his game a bit before he started doing stuff here.

But I'm personally excited and behind this venture and want to see it mature, and I'll be watching it every week when it comes out. I think it's to de-rez's benefit that it's nothing like ZP (it's not trying to be a game review, etc).

 

[Hengst2404]

For me and my money we have a few things going here. First it was free and didn't cost us anything other than a few minutes of time and attention. Second, I have seen better videos done on youtube that had less production values and were obviously done by amateurs.

As far as the folks that say we need to allow them to improve or make more shorts before we judge, well not really, not really at all. If I watch a movie and it is horrible, do I owe it to the director to watch the sequel? If I play a really bad shovel ware game, do I owe it too the developer to improve and give the sequel a try? If folks hate the video, then that is an acceptable reaction and should be expected by anybody who creates something and puts it out there for others to view and judge.

Ultimately I think they tried too hard and just weren't really funny. All the other issues of production values and the rest can be overcome if the material itself is funny. For this short, I just didn't see the humor.

 

[Lightbulb]

I know this is going to come across really strange, but I actually like this. Well, to be more specific, I like the premise. In other words, I like what it could have been, rather than what it is. Let's call it a missed opportunity and hit the restart button, this could be awesome.

If I may, here is a potential skit that could have played out instead:

Premise - Every video is to feature someone we could call "Joe" or "Jane", as in to represent someone who is from "real" life and they happen to meet characters from games - this is what I understand the setting of the videos to be from this one.

Set the scene, guy just relaxing and working out. Instead of having 47 talk, just have him show up. Guy working out wonders why this man is staring at him and tells him to bugger off. Show various items around the man working out that 47 looks at, try to imply possible uses as weapons. Have 47 keep showing up, not talking, in different "disguises", but its obvious that the man is bald and still creeping the man out. Finally, just as 47 sneaks up behind the man working out with like a piano wire, have the character from Assasin's Creed pop out of no where and do 47 in, then join a crowd of passerby or climb up a wall or whatever. Hopefully the implied would be that Joe Average is going to get it but with sudden delivery 47 gets it ... oh, and for added silliness if its felt its needed, instead of death by blade, use comedic death by cream pie and have the stoic Joe Average break into knee laughter. Could even do like a photo shoot type thing where its like a fan having their pic done with their star, standing over the pie in the face 47 with thumbs up or whatever.

Just an idea, could have went differently than say "Oy! I'm wearing your clothes!" *shrug*

That sounds like it could be really funny.

 

[cttomasso]

I want to point out something. I'm the 3rd place winner, and my idea was My life, the ___ Game, in my pilot the video was ripping off an adventure game, like Return to Zork.

While it's not earth shattering that we would come up with similar ideas, I believe it lends credence to the fact that this idea works. It's the execution that needs some refining.

Here's the key I've found with making effective game videos that Hollywood and most other people do not understand.

It's not enough to make the content funny or interesting when talking about a video game - Yahtzee knows this - that's why his jokes are often times funnier than just dry wit because they (the visuals specifically) mimic the structure/presentation of the game. That's why Lego Mario (other than being a fantastic idea) has so many hits on Youtube.

My advice (take or leave it) is to keep on the idea - it's solid. What everyone is saying here about lighting and camerawork is correct, but start thinking in terms of videogame visuals. Ever seen the GTA Sketch by Dave Chapelle? The camera is in 3rd person, just like in GTA. Think in terms of the perspective of a gamer, not an idle Youtube watcher. Your jokes will be more focused and visually interesting.

Example: Third person camera angles, bad game cut scene editing and dialogue, load screens, health bars.

My two cents. May you take them and make them two million cents. Right, still not a lot of money.

Chris

 

[rockstar_450]

Although it isn't nice to have a page full of negative criticism, that's all that can be done here. This video is NOT funny.

De-rez tries far too hard and rehashes the same joke over and over. Given that Hitman is now a movie and has 4 games to pull fun at it is mind boggling that no joke really made any reference to the game?? Just walking up to the same guy saying "i'm a hitman" dressed in different clothes repetitively and getting chased at the end.

For your next movie make it more relevent to the topic that you are trying to satire, work on your timing and delivery and try and use a variety of jokes and humour.

I'm sorry, but if we don't give negative criticism then we will get terrible gags like this consistantly. Hopefully De-rez will read these and use them constructively to better his movies

 

[Arbre]

I think the disappointment from everyone largely stems from this being put on The Escapist, where almost all of the content is fairly polished. It was about the expectation level. This looked like the guy's first shot at this type of thing. Not that this is bad, but it didn't match the expectation for a piece with more professional production values.

Admittedly, Yahtzee's ZP is a tough act to follow. Especially so because he had already had some time to up his game a bit before he started doing stuff here.

But I'm personally excited and behind this venture and want to see it mature, and I'll be watching it every week when it comes out. I think it's to de-rez's benefit that it's nothing like ZP (it's not trying to be a game review, etc).

I'd point to Hengst2404's post. If the stuff is not polished at all, why bother with it on Escapist?

 

[smileyboybob]

i thought it was funny and not try to impress me too much. I think the whole, as Hawzor put it, "Shot in the afternoon youtube video makes it funnier".