Jar Time w/ Jeff: Double Fistin' Jars & Cans - 01/11/2012

Pretty sure that the device at the end is for hunting shit. Not idea why someone would make one with a dog noise unless you're hunting dogs though.

While I can get why Jeff diesn't like Sonic anymore I think the character is still above insurance commercials, although the prospect of seeing video game characters in insurance ads has me intrigued.

yay

Best intro ever.

I must say that it is quite obvious that Jeff really isnt a PC gamer. For him older console games like Mario or Zelda are the games that he remembers fondly.

My first computer was a commadore 64 and I got my first PC in 1989. I have always been mainly a PC gamer. I do play console games from time to time but my choiche of a gaming platform is usually a PC.

For Jeff Half-Life wasnt a particularly special game experience but for me Half-Life as a game was something of a revolution in terms of how action games were designed before Half-Life came out. At the time action games were mostly about large waves of enemies coming at you and about bosses with very large hp pools which you generally killed by using circle strafing. Basically what i am trying to say is that action games were mostly like Serious Sam or Painkiller in their design.

Half-Life on the other hand was the first action game of its kind with somewhat intelligent enemies and with an actual plot in the game.I know that I am committing a sacrilege with my next words but for me personnally the greatest game in the world isnt Ocarina of Time. It is the original Half-Life game.

Half-Life won 50 different PC game of the year awards when it came out. Portal is a nice game but at least for me it really doesnt hold a candle to the original Half-Life.

Here is a link to the Gamasutras article from year 2006 in which they asked their readership to vote which game in a FPS genre "brought the genre forward in the biggest way - whether it be an early game that helped define the FPS, or a more recent one which took those core ideas and developed a more rewarding experience than before".

The readership of Gamasutra consists mostly of people working in the game development industry:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1832/the_gamasutra_quantum_leap_awards_.php

JARTIME

@ip007 said:

Been waiting for the next installment!

me too. i love his insight.

I thought I would try to clear up a few things as a media studies student. Media violence does desensitize viewers to real violence and it does make people more accepting of violence as a solution to problems. This has been studied and replicated over and over again as it's one of the issues that plagues this area of study. Whether or not video games have a more severe effect than other media is up in the air, I think, but most research suggests it does in some form. The impact of media violence, though, is not as significant as the impact of personal tendencies towards violence or exposure to real violence. Basically, it has an effect, but the effect varies by person and is not the biggest contributing factor to violent actions. Keep in mind, media studies is a study of averages and not 100%s. Just because someone consumes a ton of violent media doesn't ensure they will show the effects described.

Anyway, super tangent. Love these videos because it's nice to get the opinion of a single game critic totally unfiltered. I think Jeff is crazy for not thinking Alyx is a great character, but I'm glad he said it cause it reminds me that not everyone loves HL2 as much as I do. He makes a good point about those boat sections though, they are a slog!

I really do wonder about the future of Half-Life. I only got into the series because HL2 came stubbornly attached to the box that contained Portal, but I ended up loving the heck out of it. It did drag during many parts, but I was still having loads of fun the entire time (as someone who almost never plays FPS's).

I do think Valve is in a rough place though. HL3 cannot play like HL2. It's "outdated" by all shooter standards, even if it's still good (modern logic). The gravity gun was what really sold me as something unbelievable in a shooter, but they can't keep bringing it back, can they? The portal gun has probably finished its stride too.

Valve needs to re-invent the wheel again, and I don't doubt that they can, but they're in for a rough future with the series.

The future of videogaming scares me too. Handhelds are sorta on the way out (or changing form) and everyone seems afraid to jump on the new consoles without enough stuff they can improve upon. The Wii U is in a weird place, I want to be positive about it but there's still not a single (non-port) game for it in the picture yet. They really need to get back into the habit of releasing a console with a solid Mario game. Hopefully they've got something amazing in the worlds, but we'll see.

Love the segment Jeff!

Jeff hates Half-Life

love this feature, straight talk from Jeff! awesome :)

Good stuff.

Pretty awesome video, always cool to get your insight on the industry and its future!

Entertaining and informative as always.

I have seen Jeff in that shirt for years now. lol.

I think saying the physics were the main reason people liked Half-Life 2 is wildly misjudging the appeal of that game.

Some people just liked the way it played, and the storytelling. I don't know why that's so hard to understand.

@mystakin said:

I thought I would try to clear up a few things as a media studies student. Media violence does desensitize viewers to real violence and it does make people more accepting of violence as a solution to problems. This has been studied and replicated over and over again as it's one of the issues that plagues this area of study. Whether or not video games have a more severe effect than other media is up in the air, I think, but most research suggests it does in some form. The impact of media violence, though, is not as significant as the impact of personal tendencies towards violence or exposure to real violence. Basically, it has an effect, but the effect varies by person and is not the biggest contributing factor to violent actions. Keep in mind, media studies is a study of averages and not 100%s. Just because someone consumes a ton of violent media doesn't ensure they will show the effects described.

Thanks for your input, mystakin. I'm just wondering about a point you raised. You say that media violence desensitizes consumers, but that it might not be the reason to push a specific person over the edge (i.e., video games are not the "one thing" that causes violent actions). However, since there seems to be a net effect on average, isn't that exactly the bad news that we have been afraid to hear? To put it differently: isn't a society that, on average, has been desensitized towards violence much more dangerous than a society which contains a few people that have been "pushed over the edge"? If a society is more willing to enter a war for unjust reasons, because it has lost its sensitivities towards violence, isn't that much worse than one nut job who goes on a rampage to kill 10 people in a post office? What do you think?

@the_korben said:

@mystakin said:

I thought I would try to clear up a few things as a media studies student. Media violence does desensitize viewers to real violence and it does make people more accepting of violence as a solution to problems. This has been studied and replicated over and over again as it's one of the issues that plagues this area of study. Whether or not video games have a more severe effect than other media is up in the air, I think, but most research suggests it does in some form. The impact of media violence, though, is not as significant as the impact of personal tendencies towards violence or exposure to real violence. Basically, it has an effect, but the effect varies by person and is not the biggest contributing factor to violent actions. Keep in mind, media studies is a study of averages and not 100%s. Just because someone consumes a ton of violent media doesn't ensure they will show the effects described.

Thanks for your input, mystakin. I'm just wondering about a point you raised. You say that media violence desensitizes consumers, but that it might not be the reason to push a specific person over the edge (i.e., video games are not the "one thing" that causes violent actions). However, since there seems to be a net effect on average, isn't that exactly the bad news that we have been afraid to hear? To put it differently: isn't a society that, on average, has been desensitized towards violence much more dangerous than a society which contains a few people that have been "pushed over the edge"? If a society is more willing to enter a war for unjust reasons, because it has lost its sensitivities towards violence, isn't that much worse than one nut job who goes on a rampage to kill 10 people in a post office? What do you think?

I certainly think this is a fear present in media studies, and one the news likes to pray on, but it's sort of hard to test or prove. In an unjust war, for example, there's so many factors that go into entering a war that putting blame solely on the shoulders of desensitization seems extreme. One could just as easily point fingers at the government for not pursuing more non-violent solutions, or news reporters for not reporting enough anti-war opinion pieces. You could say these people are desensitized too, but they are also professionals. It is their job to recognize their biases and work through them.

I think there are dramatic problems tied to media violence, but not necessarily caused by it. The real issue is media illiteracy and a belief that one is immune to media's influence. I feel the solution to most media problems is education of the effects media can have and how to avoid those effects. Media literacy is preached over and over again in this field of study, and for good reason. Many problems sort of solve themselves once you know they exist.

@Grillbar said:

when talking about half life and portal combo this is what i want

To me, that looks like it just totally breaks every scenario. The portal gun doesn't really accomplish anything of interest, it merely lets you create some portals so you can shoot a guy in the back. Additionally, being able to make a Portal on any surface would completely break any large city environment, and let you portal your way outside of the level.

I'm not saying that something worthwhile couldn't be done in a game where you have both a portal gun and actual firearms, but they'd have to really think about how the game is designed, even more so than how they incorporated the gravity gun into Half-Life 2. The idea has some potential, but that video certainly doesn't sell me on the idea.

@Nardak said:

For Jeff Half-Life wasnt a particularly special game experience but for me Half-Life as a game was something of a revolution in terms of how action games were designed before Half-Life came out. At the time action games were mostly about large waves of enemies coming at you and about bosses with very large hp pools which you generally killed by using circle strafing. Basically what i am trying to say is that action games were mostly like Serious Sam or Painkiller in their design.

Half-Life on the other hand was the first action game of its kind with somewhat intelligent enemies and with an actual plot in the game.I know that I am committing a sacrilege with my next words but for me personnally the greatest game in the world isnt Ocarina of Time. It is the original Half-Life game.

At what point did you think Jeff was trying to undersell how influential Half-Life 1 was? He actually corrects the guy who wrote in, since that guy said Valve has only been important for the last 4-5 years, and Jeff said they became a big deal ever since Half-Life came out.

And aside from that, all of his complaints are specifically about Half-Life 2. I really like that game, but it admittedly didn't "change the game" as much as Half-Life 1. It just took the model of "story-based FPS", and added better world detail, better physics, and a physics gun to take advantage of those first 2 features. And the physics/physics gun angle hasn't been used very much since in the FPS genre, other than in places like BioShock where you just throw explosive red barrels at people. HL2 was great and deserved the praise it got, but I don't think it permanently moved the FPS genre forward in the same way as its predecessor.

The only way he indirectly mentions Half-Life 1 is by saying that Portal is Valve's best game, and in saying that, Jeff isn't necessarily meaning that it is their most important or most influential game.

My point is, I don't know why you bothered to write your screed on why everyone should respect Half-Life 1, because everybody is already on the same page as you, including Jeff.

oh god watching this after tnt this week is hilarious cuz he actually got his ass kicked on tnt

I her you dont like Half life

About violence in videogames, Penn & Teller put it nicely:

@sparks50 said:

I her you dont like Half life

I just wonder if Gabe is trolling us Half-Life fans at this point. On the computer screen you can clearly see that it reads "Half-Life 3".

Well anyway in the Reddit image: http://i.imgur.com/SPv2Y.jpg

Of course it could be a Photoshop job done by someone else.

@LastNinja Thanks, dude. That was neat.

Ghost riding the whip is clearly what's ruining are society.

Lost me at the Valve bashing. I think Jeff needs to take a year out, he seems sick of it all. not that I want Mr Positive all the time but it seems to sway heavily the other way.

i'd like to complement Jeff on his excellent use of blue-orange lighting scheme lol

Fuck you @Jeff and your monkey noise at the end. My dog was sleeping at the end of my bed, and started barking at my computer, right next to my ear immediately. Gave me the scare of the week, thanks.

Jeff seeming somewhat melancholy about the future of games (and possibly the world) towards the end there.

@cyraxible: 17 minute mark.

How do i submit questions for this?

@DeadPan: Jeff's Formspring.

Dual wield wut?

@Megafaun said:

Lost me at the Valve bashing. I think Jeff needs to take a year out, he seems sick of it all. not that I want Mr Positive all the time but it seems to sway heavily the other way.

Are all people required to have the same taste in games? I don't care for Half-life at all and I don't really like Portal 2 either. There are a bunch of very specific things, particularly in the case of Half-life 2, that I really dislike. Some people don't like the games you love, that doesn't mean they're messed up.

@Hizang: lol yeah...I should really get a smart phone, but I'm still stuck into a three year contract, maybe this summer :S.

Killing animals? Not cool Jeff, not cool.

@Megafaun said:

Lost me at the Valve bashing. I think Jeff needs to take a year out, he seems sick of it all. not that I want Mr Positive all the time but it seems to sway heavily the other way.

Because everyone has to enjoy what you enjoy right? i hated both HL and HL2, wasn't a fan of L4D either.

I can respect what HL and HL2 but in terms of enjoying them, i didn't, i am not a huge Valve fan. You just need to learn to deal with peoples opinions.

Good question 8 years later about digital content from PS3/Xbox360 era. Is it all still out there or is it slowly going away?