Hey Duders,

This is a little late, but BioShock Infinite was the first game in awhile where I adamantly avoided spoilers. (The last game where I actively avoided spoilers was Mass Effect 3). I was really glad that I avoided learning pretty much anything about the game, other than the obvious facts, before playing it. However, I kind of turned into this antisocial crazy person the week of the game's release, avoiding twitter and refusing to talk to anyone about the game until I finished it, which gave me the idea for this sketch. Thought I would share it here, and hope you enjoy.

Were you able to get through BioShock Infinite without getting spoiled? Did you go to any special lengths to not get spoiled, or do you really not care about spoilers? Interested to hear what you guys think.

-James

I hate spoilers! (no really) Pretty good effort, I won't say I laughed but I did enjoy watching it.

Well, you put a lot of work into the editing which paid off but that script was uh...something else.

Your delivery was sound and you are obviously benefiting from fine production values but I can't say much for the writing if I'm going to be honest with you mate.

Keep at it though, I see potential here. Don't be frightened of backlash, legitimate constructive criticism of anyone's early work is the only way we can improve ourselves.

Hey Guys,

I have some youtube spam but I'd like to pretend that it has discussion value. Should I add some questions to the end of my post? Do you think that will work? Want to share your thoughts? Should GB just add a forum dedicated to shilling for youtube channels?

Hold on can you slow down and stretch these jokes out a bit longer please, I'm still not sure when to laugh.

Can you convulse in a contrived, snake-like fashion and stress EACH AND EVERY PUNCHLINE a bit more to just communicate that it's a comedy, please? I wouldn't wanna miss any of the jokes.

This is me being a huge dick, but seriously though knock it off.

Jesus I was trying to be polite but nothing can hold back the inevitable slaughter.

Calm down, it's not like he's as bad as Angry Joe

I'm sorry to say this, but you are pretty pathetic

@johnsublime: I hate almost all YouTube personalities but Angry Joe isn't half bad. Sometimes he can be actually funny. Sometimes.

Still miles above trash like Tobias or anything coming out of Machinima.

Also it was funny since I didn't have my headphones plugged in and started the video up, skimmed it - and right away I knew that he was talking about Elizabeth being on the back of the box, then he flips the box over and points to her. Yup.

I find Angry Joe the epitome of why I despise Youtube personalities. Doing more than most to offshoot from reviewing to make horribly hammy, unfunny "sketches" that go on far too long.

He presents himself as a fighter for the core gamer, the voice of the silent majority standing up for us lowly cretins to the big wigs, but his lack of knowledge and his sometimes insultingly stereotypical behaviour in interviews doing little to his "cause".

I'd highly recommend seeing these two videos to understand where I am getting at. One in which he whines for 25 minutes about how Geoff Keighley gave a poor interview when Joe himself couldn't get any of his facts straight, assuming Geoff to have prepared to batter him down when in fact he was just terrible to begin with. The other being a cringeworthy meeting with Felicia Day.

I never expected to take Geoff Keighley's side on anything but of course this was before I saw Joe.

Constructive feedback though: Avoiding spoilers is a fun concept to write a sketch on, but why you chose to frame that as a fake review I have no idea. You should've dropped one of those 2 concepts, because trying to do both at once isn't believable, and isn't a real parody of anything because nobody in real life did that.

The archetype of a character who's extremely fucking annoying is a really hard one to pull off by themselves, because obviously you run into the risk of being perceived as extremely fucking annoying; and in this case you did. Like I was saying before: loosen the hell up, stop hammering in a push-pin with a sledge-hammer, and learn to shave off all the excess fluff and anything that doesn't actually enhance the punchline. One good joke with 3 weak ones on either side is just burying your best work in a tonne o shit.

The MAIN thing I wanna say is that you showed your hand too early, at 10 seconds, and held up a fat sign saying "I am a comedian, this is all a joke and I wanna try to make you laugh today." It was a pretty natural and believable skit up until that exact joke- and it's not even a fuckin banger! You had all this credibility and cashed it in on a pretty weak joke.

You need to start thinking of this as a high-stakes game. When and how to reveal that the whole thing's a gag can be PIVOTAL, and leaving in one weak joke, or staying on a good one for too long, can also be pivotal- I'm saying that this tiny shit can be used to awesome advantage, or ruin the whole sketch by itself if you don't seriously think it over. It's baffling to me that you've invested in setting up an identity and having the green screen and the animated graphics n all this decoration before learning to make critical decisions on how scenes are written and delivered.

You've Changed and Blowing Up are WAY better than this. No fluff, the suspension of disbeliefe is broken ON the punchline, no horrible over-acting, that stuff's leagues better.

Also don't dress your video project up as an open question about spoilers, and stop putting fucking hashtags in your videos, because oh my god that shit is dirtbag central.

Only if you have less than 10 posts (half of which have your videos embedded; and of course one or two innocuous posts to throw people off the scent.) confirming that you have no real investment in the community aside from trying to promote yourself. Because then I'll appreciate being marketed to.

The fact that you're not funny makes this terrible. Sorry.

your head is shaped crazy

Hey guys,

To those who gave feedback, I have to say I appreciate it. Even for the comments that are harsh, it can be a bit hard to read, but I'm a big boy and can handle it. The only thing I can do is to keep working at getting better at making videos. So to those of you who checked out the video and gave your honest feedback, thanks.

As for why I'm sharing it here, I'm not just trying to spam the boards. I honestly love Giant Bomb (I've been listening to the Bombcast every Tuesday for the last few years), and I'm a fan of what the community comes up with. I make sketches for my YouTube Channel, and since this one was related to video games, I thought it would be a good way to introduce myself. Haha, maybe I was wrong there.

Also, I was behind the camera, but trust me when I say that my head is shaped WAY CRAZIER than the guy in the video.

-James

Some of you guys don't have to be as shitty as you're being. That being said, you kinda have to expect that posting vids on a community you're not really an active part of so that's just gonna happen. I get trying to get your name out there but yeah.

@i_smell: I agree with some of what you're saying. I think the strongest material is in the 2nd half of the sketch, and it probably takes too long to get there. My philosophy in sketch comedy is to cut away the fluff and get straight to the point (I think having the game of the scene become really apparent as soon as possible is a good rule of thumb, because it gives more room to execute, play around with the joke, build stakes, etc). But I do agree with you, timing is everything, when you reveal a joke, how long a gag plays out, how long to hold on a reaction shot.

The hashtags in the video you're referring to are put there as a joke. Pay attention to them. The hashtag changes throughout the sketch. Hashtags are dirtbag, but I also think they're hilarious in how dumb they are.

But really, thanks for checking out my other stuff and taking the time to give me some feedback.

I don't really get what everyone thought was so bad. I wasn't in stitches or anything, but wrapping your tv in a trash bag and then calling the gameplay confusing got a chuckle out of me.