I too regard my creative output as the one chance I'll have to self-ouroboros. Thanks to AI, I can finally be a closed system and never encounter a new idea, forever.

Just arguing with the biggest, most transcendent dipshits, who now think I'm an elitist because I brought up CHINATOWN.

One day, I'll learn to simply go shout at a brick. It'd be more productive.

Apparently tonight was my night to argue about dumb shit on social media.

Sorry, everyone. I was really bad about this kind of thing 15-ish years ago, and sometimes I backslide.

Nah. You're being willfully obtuse. Not the same thing at all.

Take it easy.

IGN has more than one writer. It is not a monolith.

It's not elitism. I just know more about what we're talking about than you do, and you've chosen to get offended by that.

Have a good night.

Kiki, if that is your name, we're *both* saying the analysis wasn't that deep. You've looped around to agreeing with me.

"This game's narrative/stylistic presentation annoys me; here's why" is a perfectly fine review. If you feel insulted by it, that's more on you.

Yeah, you're projecting again. I've been in academia; no academic pursuits are noble.

Again, it is not pretension to use useful terminology.

It is simple analysis. "It's trying to be a specific kind of old movie, and because I really like these old movies, I can say that it's not doing a very good job." The end.

It's also ridiculous to accuse criticism of "selfishness." It's an opinion piece.

Why is it an invalid area of critique to discuss film theory in a game that is deliberately basing the vast majority of its narrative presentation around a specific style of film?

I did not even try to call MOUSE high art. My point was that you'd strayed into the realm of "this is just pop art; why are we discussing it at all?"

"Over-analysis" is a wholly separate issue, and you've moved the goalposts again. Twice.

There's a whole art-theory argument about this: high art vs. low art. If you want to argue that MOUSE, as low art, isn't worthy of what's essentially very simple analysis, then I disagree.

We've been doing that this entire time, yes.

You can make the argument that MOUSE is "low art" and isn't worth critical discussion, but I've always felt that's an arbitrary distinction.

The piece explicitly says why. It can be summarized as "I am very familiar with noir; here is why MOUSE doesn't understand the genre it's aping." It's not a satire, and it not taking itself seriously is not a shield against the charge of narrative dissonance.

Not simultaneously, no.

I have said it a couple of different times, man: it's not a parody. It's got comedic elements, but not even the game itself says it's a satire.

In fact, that's part of the point of the IGN review, that it's an ill-fitting genre clash.

I do know that "journalist" and "critic" aren't the same thing.

Dude, I'm the one who brought up CHINATOWN. It's not in the review. You don't even know what you're arguing about.

You are making up arguments that do not exist in the piece.

The point, re: body count, is raised in the context of a discussion of the role of violence in noir. Bringing Wile E. Coyote into it isn't even apples vs. oranges; it is apples vs. the state of Wyoming.

It takes more than the existence of humor in the game's narrative for it to qualify as satire, man. Simply "straightforward film noir, but with mice and jokes" is not inherently a parody. CHINATOWN has jokes in it. It's still noir.

You don't understand what you're mad about, or why.

That's you bringing your own preconceptions into the piece, big dawg. We have a long-standing term for a game that contradicts its own gameplay with its narrative, so that term got used. Doing so is not elitist. It is trusting your audience to understand an uncomplicated point.

It isn't a parody. It is not attempting to satirize film noir or old cartoons. It's simply replicating the aesthetic.

Not even the game describes itself as a satire/parody. The Steam page calls it a "noir-fueled detective story." It's a deliberate homage.

And now you're moving the goalposts.

The review explicitly says, to summarize, that MOUSE is a perfectly serviceable retro FPS that makes poor and frustrating aesthetic choices. That is a perfectly valid avenue of critical inquiry. There isn't a damn thing "elitist" about it.

You have quoted a part of the review in which it is being explicitly judged on what it is (bad noir/a worse detective story), in order to argue that the review is judging the game on what it is not.

From here, it looks like you're voluntarily missing the point in order to get and stay mad online.

I haven't written anywhere near as many IGN reviews as Will has, but I can tell you that they do not lean on you to produce specific numbers. An IGN review is the opinion of the individual who wrote it. The end; no moral.

Those other reviews are by 2 wholly different people. Apples and oranges.

You aren't engaging with the argument he actually made.

He cites his preferences in noir to support a critical argument that MOUSE only superficially engages with the genre that it ostensibly celebrates. It's not "this is not a noir I like"; it is "as a noir fan, this is how it misses the point."

Finally reading the IGN review for Mouse: P.I. For Hire. THAT'S what everyone is mad about? A review that says the gimmicks overstay their welcome, they doesn't do anything more/interesting/coherent with the aesthetics, and is a reference fest?

Y'all will NOT survive the winter lmao

There's also an Al Ewing story, I think it was in his U.S.AVENGERS, where Billy and Teddy get a perfectly happy future. They're an old married couple and everything seems fine.

But there are too many Days of Future Past.

Tired today, so I've been reading through a bunch of old comics.

I'd like to write a superhero book someday where the characters get a glimpse of their hopeful, utopian future. I get that most of these were written during the Cold War, but every superhero universe is fat-packed with bad futures.

It's not a question of the brevity of the pitches or the lack thereof. It's the volume. I could employ a full old-school newspaper department every week and we'd still miss a few games.