Berserker Preview

By: Tim

On: January 21st, 2008

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

Posted in Previews, Unicorns, Unique / Bizarre, Videos

Sigvatr

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.
Zulgaines

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

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.
fish

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.
Stij

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

But yeah, I agree with Sinoth on this one.
fartron

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.
PHeMoX

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.
fish

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

all im saying is: sigvatr is crass.
Stij

^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.
http://www.oitobits.net Vinícius

At moment seems to be boring as hell.
Sigvatr

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.
Fishy Boy

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.
Smithy

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.
deadeye

@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.
BenH

“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.
contra

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

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

still awesome
renkin

Haha, the intro is awesome.

*whistle whistle* AAAAARGGHH! *whistle*

Other than that, it seems to suck really bad.
PHeMoX

“Also, PHeMoX: â€œwe donâ€™t have the rights to even complainâ€? Youâ€™re telling me just because the game is free itâ€™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???
Stij

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.
Kein

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.
cream

epic
UFIA

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.
pooper

awesome thread
Exoduster

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.
Vydas

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.
Smithy

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.
PHeMoX

@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 Ã¡fter 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, peopleâ€™s reactions were all pretty normal.*

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

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.
Tim

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.
Toom

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.
BenH

Are we there yet??
BenH

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
http://ptoing.net ptoing

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.
PHeMoX

*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. ;)
moi

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.
The Economist

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.
theaznman121

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).
Wmyrogmy

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

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