As a Giger/Beksinski freak, it actually caused me to avoid this game because I thought it would just be one of those things where people rip off a popular style as like a shallow gimmick. I'm pleased to hear that actually the team put a lot of thought and heart into the adaptation of these aesthetics. Good stuff!
I pledged to the Kickstarter back in 2016/2017, being drawn in by the Beksinski influence, I kind of wish there was more of that than Giger because there's a lot of Giger out there in games, but it was still absolutely stunning. I think as a survival horror it isn't great, if it focussed as a walking simulator or puzzle adventure it would have been much better, it's style over substance, but the style is too good.
I think when we ask people how a game makes them feel, most will reply with how the gameplay, the mechanics, the control of it felt. They don't think about how they feel when they looked at the sunset on a cliff that led to nowhere for the main story, how they felt talking to an NPC that didn't provide them a sidequest or a reward, how they felt seeing a statue and wondering what the implications of it being there was. Scorn definitely asks more to feel about what you see and experience rather than what puzzles you solved or how you had to run around and fight the monsters.
Complaining that scorn doesnt have a jump button is so funny considering most 3D Zelda games before BOTW had no jump button either but no one complained about that
yes we did. Just because you didn't pay attention to it doesn't mean people didn't complain. I complain about every game without a jump. Being stopped by a 2inch wall is irritating and flow breaking
if you think nobody complained about a lack of jump button in zelda, you weren't paying attention. It was literally one of the first criticisms a reviewer or player mentioned upon first playing them on release, and years after such knowledge was commonplace. It's so jarring that even when you know about it, it still baffles new players.
Yeeeessss finally someone that gets this game. Media literacy and curiosity among the typical game reviewer is shockingly low and in return shapes what is being made. This results in games that are forever the same and the stagnation of the medium, and the medium in turn then fails to attracts a more diverse and curious audience. We need more games like Scorn.
After growing up as a former Edgy Teenager surrounded by Geiger's imagery and Tool music videos, the world felt warm and familiar, a cosy desolation. I found the entire thing quietly monastic, existing in a world where decay and rot feels like a manual mechanical process rather than a biological one. I don't think the combat should be removed, but it definitely needs to be rebalanced, especially around save points and health stations. The number of times I've been stuck in an unwinnable loop is too damn high. It doesn't feel that hard of an issue to fix;even if it were something as dull as feeding the health stations something to regain healing potential would vastly improve things.
Oh another tangential connection (Re: Tool and art) another person who was in the circle with my friend and Geiger was/is Alex Grey - whom a lot of people remember exploding after doing the cover art for 'Lateralus'. (Needless to say we had many interesting conversations when he was still in the states, mostly while eating vegetarian and/or vegan pizza. He was never 'name dropping' it was always in funny anecdotes, his style evolution, or interesting topics such as how a creator/artist is perceived when their work becomes high profile enough that they aren't just globally recognized but it's also "merchandise" and how that raises the question of motivation/integrity externally and internally.)
@@searchingfororion In a high school art class I watched a documentary about Grey. I don't know if it was made before he worked with Tool or if he just wanted to focus on his solo creative works, but the whole thing never mentioned Tool once. Definitely recognized the style immediately anyways though, amazing that you got to hang out with him!
@@gearandalthefirst7027 Oh *I'm* not cool enough to have hung out with Alex - though I did get to see him speak at the museum when he stopped by and lent an art peice to the city. My comment was poorly worded (I was expanding on thoughts in the other one I made earlier about my artist friend who was close to Geiger *and* the mention of Tool made me remember his friendship with Alex Grey as well. I'm sleep deprived so I realize it was messily written) I *do* know that when Alex talks about that art piece he doesn't mention it being album art. I think that's inconsequential to him, at least in discussion of his process. I must admit I'm curious as to how a documentary about his work would be presented in a high school because he's very forward about certain "consciousness enhancers" that are very closely linked to what he's translating in the mediums. I didn't think they would be quite that direct about the topic in a school. I'm even trying to make my meaning clear and still have the reply post. I am genuinely curious.
OMG yes, PREACH! There's a jump button in FNaF Security Breach and it's so broken they kept adding invisible walls in every patch because you could jump in many places to skip parts of the game. Worst of all the jump mechanic is completely pointless anyway aside from 2 vent entrances that could've just easily been changed.
That solution is so fascinating to me! That they would rather put up new invisible walls whenever a new exploit was discovered, rather than removing the mechanic that created the problem in the first place.
I put Scorn in the same category of games as Rain World for me. They aren't games for everyone. In fact, I often tell people when I bring up Rain World they maybe shouldn't buy it because they may not understand and connect with the gameplay. But the profound emotions that it gave me, in the base game and with the Downpour DLC with expanded characters and stories, will be with me for life. In fact, the games have similar overarching themes of the quest to transcend the barriers of reality and the choice to pursue it through a brute force method. (and the equally disturbing reality of another ending where you pursue true enlightenment and what happens when you let the power that gives you go to your head).
Great essay! I agree with a lot of what you said. I enjoyed Scorn because it literally feels like what it would be to be thrown in a completely alien world. No explanation, no exposition, you just are there, and is up to you to find out what to do.
I don't know if you're aware, but you can avoid the enemies all together. They have a set path they'll go down (if you don't interupt it). enter some hole or slide out of the area all together and be gone forever.....well, at least most of them.
The 2016 build did a better job on that, the creatures in the full build still do attack and should've had the AI reworked or improve off the 2016 one.
This reminded me to buy and play Scorn so i could finish the video. I rarely regret purchases as little as this. The evironmental story telling sucked me in from the first minute and kept me going til the very end, and im very happy i didnt misinterpret what they were saying based on what you read from the art book. I hope i can get my hands on a physical copy myself. I hate reading digitally, and i want to know everything i can in vicious, exquisite detail. Thank you for this video. :o)
Havent finished the video yet, but so far I'm just happy I found it. I didn't even realize that the game was this poorly recieved in wider circles to be honest. My biggest critique of this game when i finished it was that I wished i could experience even more, followed by maybe a small note about how i felt the action elements felt a bit like a disconnect in their inclusion and i wish that they were blended in or built up to a bit better. I still consider this one of my favourite games of all time. This video has provided a weird whiplash of finding out people hated it followed by the immediate validation of you expressing my exact feelings towards it in response so far lmao Edit: also I'm glad I found your channel and I like your vibe btw!
Thank you, I'm glad that you like the channel! I'm also glad that you got to experience and enjoy the game without all the negative discourse around it. I bet it was more freeing that way!
@@pimscrypt oh yeah, absolutely! Though at the same time, I do find it interesting thinking about what caused people to have the reactions they did, and the specific nuances of what makes experiences like this enjoyable to certain people. It’s a shame that the critiques were so reductive and stated so objectively either way though, it really reduces that conversation and makes it a lot more frustrating to hear. The final product just oozes intent and passion, nothing criticized actually felt like an oversight. I know these observations don’t add much in response to a video that’s quite literally about this, but idk, being exposed to the negative sentiments towards the game is making me think lmao.
I watched a respectful horror gamer play Scorn and nobody else and I'm glad. Hearing all the negative reactions is baffling to me. I found Scorn viscerally disgusting and repulsive. I hate the way it makes me feel. But I still understand and respect what the game is. I feel like I got the devs' intentions from the very start. Maybe I'm one of those people these critics hate and they would think I'm arrogant. Yeah, alright. I think they're idiots. Agree to disagree.
Oh dang thanks for explaining this to me, I could not figure out what scorn was getting at. Welcome to your 30s, I promise there is more than just realizing your body is slowly decaying
I might not like Scorn because it's mainly a puzzle game (as far as mechanics go), but I don't think that its developers trying to make a game-as-art should be considered a flaw at all, even if they had failed. What annoys me most about some people, like that cowboy (2:51), is not that they doesn't understand the game they talk about, but their patronizing anti-intellectualism*. If you analyze that guy's words, what he hates about the game, and what makes the game bad for him, is that it is artistic ("artsy fartsy"), and (in his mind), art is a bad thing. In Pixel A Day's video essay on Dear Esther, Kat says: «When we say something is pretentious, then, what we’re actually saying is “I don’t find meaning in this, and therefore, there is none”.» At the same time, I wonder if my own hostility against these kind of people comes from an analogous place. When I say someone is stupid, what I am actually saying is «I don't find meaning in their words/action, and therefore, there is none». I mean, I mock them the same exact way they mock the things I like, or mock people who like the things I like (like in that clip from The Boys Unknown, 3:17 - 3:47, 30 damn seconds of just mocking a game that tries to be its own unique thing, damn I'm angry again!) And just for kicks, Kat also says: "What Dear Esther achieves, being partly literature, is a set of things that literature typically aims to achieve. It’s an emotional story that aims to move you. It creates empathy by making you - literally - walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It takes you on a journey to a different place. And it challenges you to abandon black and white thinking. But, it doesn’t have a jump button, so I guess it’s shit!" *Anti-intellectualism is harmful, truly harmful. It heralds fascism, among other plagues. So, maybe they're just idiots after all.
It's interesting that this video is the first time I've ever heard of any of the reviewers with clips featured in it except for Yahtzee Croshaw, and his Zero Punctuation reviews are intentionally done in an overly-acerbic character for entertainment, which becomes extremely clear when watching any of the other content he's involved in. Everything I've seen regarding Scorn has been generally even more positive than this video was. But I disagree with the idea that calling something "artsy-fartsy" or "pretentious" is automatically anti-intellectual. On the creative side, there are definitely cases where artists have done the equivalent of dressing a rat in the finest velvet robes and gluing a golden crown to the top of its head and calling it a king, in a farcical inversion of The Emperor's New Clothes. If the core idea or plot is simple, hackneyed, or overdone, it feels like an incredible waste to drape artistic flourishes over it and pretend that gives it depth, much like pulling up to a drive-thru restaurant in a stretch limo would be considered rather crass. On the critical/analysis side, things can get just as bad or even worse, when someone observing a piece of art is so determined to find a deeper meaning in it (or, in the most terrible cases, find a specific meaning that lines up with their preconceived personal ideas/beliefs/etc.) that they end up simply making the art a canvas for building their own edifice of artifice, or simply use it as a soapbox, and claiming it to be what's really there in that piece of art if you just look hard enough. This one gets progressively worse over time, because as more and more analysis/critique is applied to a work, dredging up everything that's either indisputably in the work or clearly implied by it, later critics feel a push to reach even farther out and grab at the barest of straws to have an interpretation of it that's still novel. All that said, I don't think Scorn is pretentious: as this video about it says, it doesn't just draw visual inspiration from the work of Giger and Beksiński, as so many other works have done, but integrates interpretations of those pieces and their mood into nearly every aspect of the game, its setting, its mechanics, and its story. It's not dressing a rat up in a xenomorph costume. Unfortunately, for better or worse, it is emphatically not my kind of game. I'm interested in seeing footage of it and hearing others talk about it, but I have a general dislike of playing survival horror games, games with guns that have janky gunplay, "solve puzzle to proceed" games, and games where the only possible ending is a bad one (unless there's a hell of a lot of writing and plotting put in to justify that) and from everything I've seen, trying to play Scorn would just be a frustrating experience for me. But it seems to be a very interesting art piece, and, as this review said, its style seems to become its substance in more ways than one. I'm glad to be able to appreciate it to some degree, even if it's not through the standard method of actually playing it.
I'm glad someone else noticed the "this is beneath me and literally worthless" type speech from more negative reviews because yeah it IS a fash talking point, and a very scarily common even by people who you wouldn't consider fash. It's like an insidious little wedge.
This is one of the best video essays I’ve found on this game, I’m glad to see there is a community of people that were willing to give it a chance and really take in the world building and environmental storytelling that’s at play.
I owe you a fabulous comment for this fabulous look and incredible video, but I need a nap so in the meantime have some much-deserved engagement. Random aside: A friend of mine is an artist that knew/worked similar circles as H.R Geiger when they were both "coming up." He's pointed out Easter eggs in his friends work, I've seen photos of them in cafe's together. It's wild.
@@pimscrypt Well I'm glad I could bestow something in return. I know it sounds made up, but it's true. It's funny how I think of them in reverse now. "Oh hey, Andrew's friend! Yeah." He moved to Europe full time ages ago and (I'm not joking) *paints chapels* as well as gigs different art academies. Obviously a generation gap (and we crossed paths in the weirdest and most boring way possible) but I now my perception of Geiger is vastly different. Especially since these were casual conversations about things they had as buddies and inside jokes. (For example the "easter egg" thing is pretty literal; they had a thing where they were "competing" to hide egg/ovum imagery in their respective pieces and see when/if a member of their group could spot it before an art interpreter/museum ect. Apparently there's a *lot* of commissioned work where the owners have no idea about the hidden eggs.) So there's a fun thing for you. Also, I think he would have liked the game and probably would have said something positive. From what I know about the man behind the 'myth' - never publicly, but he would certainly have had a chuckle with friends about those "review" clips. From what I understand, he was a *lot* less "serious" about his work than people think (and the way some "hardcore" fans will get about it) I know at least one of the most popular/acclaimed ones is a bit of a joke - satires of his own style hidden it; because capitalism obviously.
Basically, it takes very little mental capacity to be furious at something, to hate it and to rave about how terrible it is. It takes significantly more mental capacity to learn more about it, to take it at face value on its own merits, and to actively seek to understand it, even if ultimately, you still don't like it. And that's why we are cursed to suffer an endless stream of insufferable outrage reviewers and negativity merchants online. As pretentious as they act As they bloviate, it's a performance that requires very little activity between the ears.
I really like this essay! I absolutely agree that critics often refuse to engage with media on anything other than their first reading of it or the terms they want to meet it on. I think one thing I would push back on though is that one sentiment echoed in the essay is that you do terrible things or twist your body “because you’re curious” or “to see what comes next” but a lot of those things are required for linear progression. I don’t think it’s a choice when your alternative is “stop playing the game”. I think there’s also a message to be gleamed from that (“sorry mole man I gotta juice you or I’m trapped in this room forever”) with the requirement of interfacing with technology as the absolute baseline for being allowed to participate in the world as a whole, but I don’t think it’s presented as a choice or for the sake of curiosity. I also do think Scorn has a lot of “gameyness” that isn’t justified by its premise. Genre isn’t a necessary constraint but is very helpful in establishing tone and communicating how to interact with it to its audience. Exploring a great solemn world and learning how it operates by its own internal logic seems much more coherent to what Scorn is trying to say than even including FPS elements at all, which don’t have enough survival elements or horror elements to be a part of either genre. If the FPS elements were cut, it would also eliminate the need for a UI which would make the game even more about immersion. Including combat in a game is a conscious decision and a lot of games pushed back against that decision (Outer Wilds, Subnautica) I can’t help but feel the game shot itself in the foot by showing all those gameplay demos with the gun as a primary focus, especially because I don’t think the combat adds much poignancy to the game’s message aside from the struggle for survival, which the parasite’s inclusion does more effectively anyways.
Leaving a like for the appreciation of a really marvelous piece of media. It's funny that some people seem drawn to its esthetic, while other people just actively refuse to engage with it.
I heard another review on this, and I wish I knew which one, but there is a story and he explained it so well I completely understood the story. Yes the enemies and gunplay was shitty but you can avoid the creatures, and I sorta think that's a point. I didn't actual play, I don't have a good PC to play this but I watched a playthrough then this awesome video and EVERYTHING made sense. Thanks for sharing your opinion too and sticking up for this game it was great.
Got in on release and loved it.The Game being misunderstand somehow matches with the Work it was based on.They threw trash at gigers first works back then. And in gaming its a completely different beast with critique
Seeing you play a puzzle game, it could be interesting to see your take on The Talos Principle 1 and 2 too. The second one had some very pretty brutalist architecture, and both got very philosophical on the story and themes.
I think I've had friends recommend the first one to me before, but for similar reasons to why I initially didn't want to play Scorn, I never picked up The Talos Principle. Might happen some time in the future! And while I won't be talking much about the puzzles in that game, in the video after the next I will actually be talking about another puzzle game. 👀
The lead writer for The Talos Principle, Jonas Kyratzes, also worked on the story for the game Clash: Artifacts of Chaos by ACE Team. It's a prequel to the Zeno Clash series. Can very warmly recommend it. I It's not as heavy on the philosophy as the Talos Principle, but regardless of that it's *very* much worth looking into. The land, Zenozoik, has its inspirations in obscure prehistoric animals like the Entelodont ("Hell pig"), Deinotherium and Platybelodon, as well as medieval art monsters from the works of Hieronymus Bosch and the Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel. Zeno Clash isn't outright horror as such, but the world is truly fascinating. There is only one city called Halstedom, no true laws, not even written language or currency. There is no real central unified culture: people decorate, protect and restore themselves and their home with all manner of objects. It's a violent place where if you have a problem with someone, you simply slap the poop out of each other and get on with your day afterwards. But there is another significant group aside from Halstedom. In the forests, there live a group known as the Corwid of the Free. They are Zenos who have essentially, willingly, become maniacally obsessed with a single thing or practice. Like a tribe of fetishists. Not in the sexual sense, though. And it's not a mental affliction or corruptive force either. People just decide they want to do one thing in their lives forevermore, not caring about any form of pain or hindrance. The Corwid Oxameter chose to only walk in one direction straight ahead. When there was a tree in the way, he simply resided there until he died. The Corwid Arminia peed on herself and died anonymously, and that's just what Arminia did. Helim felt he needed to be invisible, and so he clawed out the eyes of any living creature on his way. In the words of Metamoq, the Corwid and combat teacher of the main character from Zeno Clash 1 and 2, "if you are satisfied, and do what you feel must be done, then you have reached perfection." And then he killed himself by holding a bomb made from a skull near his face. @pimscrypt if you have read this, I duly hope i have kindled a candle of curiosity to explore Zenozoik, and hope it may become a strange, ugly, beautiful and comfortable hearth of wonder as you experience and learn more of it. Thank you for the video on Scorn. Wish you and others well, and have a good one.
Finally able to watch this and so glad I did! I was fascinated with Scorn when it first got teased in 2014 because of the setting and I've had it on my wishlist for a while, just haven't got around to buying and playing it. Funnily enough I do get your point about people having their own ideas of what the game would be, because I actually found myself confused at times as to what kind of game it was meant to be. This video has definitely moved the game to the top of my wishlist, I love how much of the story seems to be told through the world and how you have to accept it by it's own rules. It's also fascinating to see how reproduction is both a huge part of the setting but also so clinical and mechanical, really fits giger's work. Utterly fantastic video, love it so much and will definitely be rewatching it many times.
I was a tier 1 kickstarter backer and got the alpha and beta demos. The game design of what was to what became were drastically different, however…aside from the aesthetics and mechanisms, SCORN really IS a MASTERPIECE!! I just wished it was a bit longer…considering that it was initially going to be released in x2 parts. Part 1 was initially to be called Dasein. I think when ebb/Kepler got Microsoft money/support they merged their x2 parts into a single game.
…another thing I’d like to add. Did you know you don’t need to pick up any weapons! Aside from the xeno pneumatic xeno weapon/tool. You also don’t have to engage in combat at all if you are just patient with the wildlife/fauna. Not many people actually know that. There are unavoidable things you need to kill or sacrifice to continue onwards but the need to kill as means to an end are nigh.
honestly still don't know what the fuck scorn is about even after genuinely *trying* to understand it (your read on it helped though) but it still was very emotional for me. some pieces of art, you don't get it, your brain doesn't understand but some more primal part of you responds to it. this game makes me feel like that. that feeling is so important too
I see your point. But I think it's important to consider Video Games not just as art, but as a medium. When you consume, absorb and dig into the works of these two artist. That would consist of: looking at the painting, being drawn to it, you deciding you like it, and then trying to interpret its meaning. These steps take 5 minutes at most, there's more of course, but that's that in a nutshell. But when it comes to video games, this process takes an infinitely longer more time. Looking at a painting is not the same as playing a game, that requires hours upon hours of your life, and not only that, you have to physically finish the game. Meaning you have to exert effort and brainpower to finish combat encounters/puzzles or whatever the game challenges you with. While I do agree that people saying there's no story in this game, and that there is nothing beneath the surface is wrong, I think its important to understand where they're coming from. These people spent 40$ for this game, and spent 6 hours of their life going through. They're experience with the game is horrible, they did not have a good time, so I don't blame them for dismissing the game and refusing to look deeper. I won't blame them for extending and deepening their understanding of something they had a very unpleasant experience with. The problem here is not media literacy, I think that's such a cop out way of going about this argument, as its just pinning the blame on one side instead of looking at everything. A good example here is Signalis, that one is rich in terms of deeper meaning and also uses works of artists as inspirations, but that is not all that it has to offer, it also offers a great time as a game. So now everyone who played the game pretty much looked deeper into it, as you naturally want to understand something better if you love it. The fact that Signalis got as successful as it did, with tons of people discussing its story, meanings and interpretations up to today, 2 years after its release is a testament to the fact that media literacy isn't dead in the gaming world, games just tend to fail to channel it from people. I think Scorn's problem, and games like these who are meant to be "deep" is that, they are so caught up in their deepness that they start losing track of everything else. I think Scorn's problem is not about its story. I think the problem Is that the game is just not that good of a game in its own right to make most people want to look into it. I personally like the game, I've watched pretty much all Scorn video essay on youtube, but that does not mean I don't understand where most people are coming from regarding this game.
I freaking loved Scorn! It felt exactly like how I feel the original RE is described as: clunky but therefore horrifying. You don’t have the best controls and abilities, so you worry that you’re doomed. That’s great for a horror game with puzzles and combat!
This reminded me of one review video, where the reviewer was playing Tenchu, a game about stealth. He complained how that game sucked and how hard it was. Problem was that he played this game like hack and slash, running around and killing people.
It is really fascinating to me how far someone might go to try and play a game on their own terms, when so many of its mechanics tell them to do the opposite.
Well said. Also this is most definitely a coincidence that they came out within a month of each other, but this Scorn analysis goes really well with IPOS's Conservative Horror video essay regarding theme/topic.
I guess there is *some* kind of thematic overlap there? Either way, I think it’s a shame what happened to that video. Zane had some very good points in it that I think a lot of people needed to hear.
what happenstance! finished playing scorn a couple days ago after putting it off for so long and your video wonderfully bookends that experience lol the word dissonance does perfectly encapsulate all the negative reviews, either through willful ignorance or just being bait i had such a wonderful time with the game itself and sincerely hope more people give it a chance, my only criticism was that the inclusion of weapons & combat felt unnecessary, maybe someone on the team insisted because they worried the game wouldn't appeal on its own merits, bah, still a great game in the end and just as worthy of peoples time
I still remember when a lot of people were trashing God of War 2018 for not having a jump button. I also still remember seeing lots of people finishing Dark Souls having no idea what was going on and wondering if it had any story; imagine what would happen today to someone who complained Dark Souls had no story. Shadow of the Colossus is considered one of the best games in history, but I'm pretty sure that if it was released today a lot of people would be saying it's shit.
Honestly, I bought this game fully knowing its gonna flop in some way. But still, naive as it sounds, I wanted to fund this studio for what they may put out in the future. In the end, I really liked my experience with scorn but though, I have seen and done everything and it leaves me wanting for more. I hope this company grows and learn from their first game and create great new stuff in the future.
I’m a little surprised to hear that so many people hated on the game. The game is exactly like what I imagined it would be. I like it quite a bit, but unfortunately for me, the combat was too difficult for my poor skill level. Ammo was way too sparse for me to get through it.
I am very late but very happy to listen to your thoughts on this game. I watched a couple of friends play this (I can't play scary games but love the horror genre) and we all had kinda mixed feelings about it honestly. Loved the aesthetic and found it very creepy. The story is simple and very effective as you said, but some of the game play was clunky (for lack of better word) for them and at times the puzzles were a little frustrating.
I just finished this game a couple days ago and obviously I’m still watching content about it so it is heavily on my mind. I started out in virtual reality but then my headset crapped out but either way I had a hard time telling how long I had been playing the game.. It could be brutally frustrating and at times it felt almost like work, but I found it really immersive and I went into it without any preconceived notions at all. Kind of like when I know I’m gonna watch a movie I don’t read reviews. I would’ve liked the game to go on longer, but I felt that it was incredibly well executed and very original, there’s just really nothing out there quite like it. For any flaws it may have I think it was an overall success. The combat was much like the puzzles themselves. Sometimes it made sense to avoid the creatures and you had to think through your actions, knowing that you could run out of ammo or health. I feel like people want to go Han Solo and run down the hallway blasting and you just can’t do that in this game
Amazing perspective on the game! I personally genuinely loved the game when I first saw it. The type of criticism it gets is really funny because this is the type of people who will cry about "game journalists" "IGN" et. Then, think a game with a very obvious vision that is not what they want it to be. It's not the shootter of their dreams or don't have a jump button. (Thought tbf, I would love a Scourn aesthetic shootter...)
I didnt and dont have the game, I just love it for trying something new and being a new type of game, it's like a mix of Silent Hill, Biopunk genre & Journey and it's creative, however you can see that EBB Software wanted to do more especially with the Artbook but they just werent lucky or fortunate.
And "funny" thing with Giger and the weirdly sexual themes- from reading I recall, Giger was unnerved, even afraid, of sex. This is mixed with his worries on technological dependance- giving us the biomechanical, violent orgies and guns that shoot sperm infants. Plus if I had to make interpretation of the game, there would be two: One is the one I had before I read the artbook- you are the last 'healthy' cell in a dying organism, organism dying of cancer. And in the end you die with it, as you lead the cancer into the brain. The second, with the artbook read- you are expiriancing a world dying like a body, because one of the races present on it decided to selfishly destroy the balance that kept this worldbody running for the sake of their own greedy ascenssion.
If I had a nickle for every time a game in recent memory for a game got backlash for having "vague" storytelling (IE: a lack of dialog textboxes and spelling everything out) with a relatively simple story, backlash rooted in jumping and the lack thereof in some or all parts, and an art department that absolutely cooked, I'd have two nickles but it's a shame it happened twice. It's a shame media literacy and empathizing and caring about art is so heavily looked down upon in some particularly vocal gaming circles. I like it when a work wants me to chew on it and think about it's themes and how it makes me feel.
I watched a play through of scorn (I don’t have a computer to play games on). I liked that it had ‘no story’. I thought the guy surviving was the story. I don’t know if it would have had the same feeling to it if you had a bunch of things telling you what happened. I like the thing of not knowing what exactly happened but you know something went wrong a long time ago. Also I love how they have the sad slug from I have no mouth and I must scream but big.
the game, to me is a perfect example of style over substance. The game was beautiful, but so detailed that I had a hard time seeing what was supposed to be what. No clear landmarks etc. Also, as MANY people said: The combat is just terrible. It's not like in survival horror, where it is kinda clunky on purpose, but the player can adapt to clear rules. Combat here always felt like a game of luck, which was frustrating. I gave the game hours before giving up after looking forward to this for years.
Obviously I disagree. Though the point I disagree with most is that, contrary to survival horror games, the combat in Scorn *wasn’t* “kinda clunky on purpose”. I think it’s perfectly fine not to like the combat, but I don’t find anything to support that the rhythm of combat in Scorn isn’t completely purposeful. I also don’t see what’s luck based about it?
@@pimscrypt It wasn't, the devs had to make compromise and we're not big or fortunate enough with money & they still did the best with the limitations.
Having not followed the press cycle and response for this game, the idea that it would be weird or obviously a mistake for the combat in a horror game to feel disempowering is genuinely bizarre to me. Do none of these people remember Silent Hill?
Personally I somehow avoided all the conversations of people thinking this would be a doom-like and Scorn ended up being exactly what I expected and loved it. 99% of criticism is "Wait this isn't the doom clone I made up in my head" and drop the game after 10 minutes. I feel like some valid criticism are the save points which were pretty bad on day 1 and being a little too dependant on the art book, but even then the main story, themes and events of the game are pretty clear if you just get the vibe. And man that ending still haunts me, I was so invested in the idea of escaping that alien hell into another dimension where the flesh of your body is no longer a concern, only for said flesh to come back stronger than ever and make the worse scenario come true, your entire existence being totally consumed by the flesh you were trying to liberate yourself from the entire game, a really downer ending that will never leave my mind fuck the parasyte
I never heard of this game before this video but I'm interested, despite watching the whole thing. I'm glad you showed the people whining about artsy games because unfortunately there's way too many people like that. I showed one of my songs to an aunt one time and she had no interest in it. I was caught off guard. She supported my music and my style and lyrics, but one song in particular she just didn't like. Her reasoning is 4 words. "It's 6 minutes long" That's literally it. I got no legitimately feedback. She just didn't like long songs. Queen is one of her favorite bands. Does she skip Bohemian Rhapsody? Absolutely not.
I couldn't call Scorn a masterpiece but it's definitely high in my list of excellent games. I had mixed feelings on my first playthrough but I liked it more after the second one. Also, regarding combat: it's almost completely optional. In the very first encounter you only have your melee weapon and see a medium monster that takes 5 hits to kill. Most people I watched run straight to fight it but if you just watch it from a distance, all it does is go into a hole and disappear. You don't have to fight it. Most enemy encounters can be skipped by either watching them go away, hiding from them behind cover or running past them. And if you do decide to fight them, their friends will come and help kill you. I think what the game tries to tell here is that this weird world has its own ecosystem with creatures just minding their own business. You're not welcome here but if you let live, you will live too. The game gives you weapons but they're more for self-defense than aggression. This is where I think most complaints come from, people approached this game as a shooter rather than strange exploration game with guns. If fighting was not in the game, more people would enjoy it.
I've played it, and I disagree. The actual background story and lore to the game was actually kinda interesting, but you also only got that from the art book most people are not going to see. But as a video game you play, it fell pretty flat. I think they should have removed the combat, it was not fun. Just make it a straight first person adventure game/walking sim. I don't hate it or anything, but to wait years for a game that looked really cool to get a 5 or 6 out of 10 is pretty disappointing.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 I don't know, I've never considered the combat bad in SH2 myself. It's certainly not amazing, but it's fine for what it is, it works. I felt the combat was quite bad in Scorn though, bad enough that it can affect the game negatively. Though to be honest, even without the combat I think I'd still be pretty lukewarm on Scorn, based on my history of not liking the vast majority of walking sims I've played.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898admittedly I've not played scorn so I have no actual opinion one way the other on the reality of the game, but "this gameplay element feels bad but adds to the game" and "this gameplay element is bad and does not add to the game" are two very different concepts. If the combat in Scorn doesn't add to the story or even removes from it then it could have been removed in pref for an exploration of the world walking sim (or replaced with something else) the vibe I'm getting from the game I was actually surprised there Was combat. But I guess that's on me. I have played SH2 though and thought the "bad" combat was more intentional than not, not on the level of the "bad" camera angles of the first in terms of evoking horror and suspense, but still, you're unequipped to fight well and so you're not fighting well, you're supposed to be vulnerable. (I'm not really telling You that, just thinking out loud.) Maybe I'm wrong maybe SH2 didn't intend to have "bad" combat, but if it didn't, it still didn't feel out of place or impact the popularity of the game as a result, where as Scorn might be suffering from out of place combat elements executed badly. Hmm feel like I just talked in a circle. Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying Scorn combat Is bad or should be removed, just that it feeling bad and it needing to be removed are two connected but distinct arguments.
@@adam2802 I suppose an issue might be that the game, as a game - as in, something requiring and facilitating the experience of play, is just not engaging by the virtue of its nature. Take, for example, Pathologic. It's also a very clunky, very unforgiving and "unfun" game when it comes to many of its parts. Yet, I would argue, it is still very engaging. You are engaged within the act of play because there are choices to be made, both on a large scale and a diminutive scale. What objectives should I complete and what should my route be to maximize my efficiency? Can I make it in time to complete this timed objective? Should I cut through this alley even though I don't know the path? Can I defeat this enemy without taking damage or wasting ammo? Should I use this medicine to ensure I won't die or hold out because an NPC may need it later on? Scorn, from what I've seen and heard (haven't played it either), does not seem to facilitate that to the same degree. It's very nature is contrary to the experience of an engaging game. You don't consider long term decision making to the same extent (although it is still present in part with resource management), it's micro decision aren't on the same scale (although still present with combat and puzzles in particular). Through wanting the player to feel powerless and lost, whilst providing little in terms of communicated mechanical expression, they have made an experience that is intentional and works as intended, yet an experience that is intended to be unfun at the core. Hence why I personally always had my hangups with walking simulators and horror games in particular. It's like there's this inherent paradox present in the very nature of games and their relation to expression that, at once, allows the communication of certain experiences to be all the more powerful, yet those expressions are also what make these experiences bad for the idea of the game as a "game". Is a game that's "bad" as a "game" good as a game because that is what the game is meant to be?
This is a indie game made by a team who are inexperienced & lacking with budget and they wanted to do more but couldn't, the Artbook has alot of things that couldn't be added, maybe if EBB Software was bigger, had bigger budget and experienced that it could've been better but that's not the case, it's still well made and creative.
It's worth noting that game journalists by nature of their job rarely have positive takes on games that you have to live with a bit to enjoy. They have to process so many games so quickly that all they'll see of most games is the first handful of hours of gameplay, and they'll probably be thinking of what kinds of game to compare it to in their writeup/script. When you have something that doesn't really fit any of the boxes they're trying to sort them into, they'll be struggling with their script as they play the game. (I've literally seen streaming game journalists having this problem, their attention just isn't on the game very much because they're just not focusing on doing what the game is asking them to do.) Also, while I didn't recognize every journalist in there, there's one who I would suggest you should always watch with a grain of salt (or, well, pick one up when you sit down to watch, he's got plenty). Yahtzee Croshaw is hilarious and enjoyable, but part of his charm is the sarcastic and witty slander he levels at most games he covers. (Sometimes it's more like a good natured ribbing, but the games he's unequivocally positive about are pretty few and far between)
18:02 I didn’t realize Drake was in this game. Seriously though, scorn was a game I slept on, mainly because of all the negative press surrounding it, but this video made me consider giving it another shot. It’s nice to know (and a relief) that to the game had something to say, a trait that’s getting increasingly uncommon in modern media. Also, have you played rain world: downpour? It’s a fantastic work of art with a lot of profound things to say about life, your place in the ecosystem, and region. It’s one of my favorite games, but until you master it, it’s about as fun as having your balls crushed by a hydraulic press. Like scorn, it was also trashed by critics for not being “fun” until you actually put in the effort to engage with it and meet it on its own level.
I adored the idea of Scorn. I beat it, and it felt like i had played half, maybe a third of a game. I did nothing but leave me hungering desperately for more. And i suppose that is ths best you can ask for, a feverish wish for more. Also, would have been more up my alley for more of that delicious erotic fleshy hellscape to be played with.
I first want to mention that I've been waiting for this game since day 1. I remember when it was going to be broken up into 2 parts. I then, finally got to play it on my Steamdeck and it was...meh. This is NOT a game made for a 3 inch screen. This thing is a painting with so much depth and detail that you really need a large screen to see all of it, much less appeciate it. On the deck, I couldn't see object indicators nor did I notice the insane amount of background detail. So when I had to chance to buy this brand new for Playstation 5 on physical disc (Collector's Edition), there was no hesitation. And I'm glad I bought it because I so f'n love this game. Scorn is an utter masterpiece when it comes to atmosphere and anxiety of being immersed in a threatening Gieger nightmare. I've seen some negative reviews about it being a slow burn and the maps being confusing. I'd compare Scorn a lot to Carrion. Even though they're different games, both do a great job of guiding the player through maps, objectives, puzzles, and enemies. Neither game will spoonfeed the player, but if you're paying attention, you'll make it through. Which is why I found the level design in Scorn to be quite brilliant. The intricacies of creating a believable alien world and the complexity of having that un-human way of existing within it have NEVER been done to this level. Period. It's not a Redbull guzzling knee twitching Call Of Duty gamer's dream come true. In its pacing, it's much more akin to a Silent Hill 2 game, and if you're willing to immerse yourself in this world, you'll probably have nightmares about it. I did.
Im playing it atm and it just kind of seems like a random series of hallways and rooms that for whatever reason you have to go through, fiddle with a knob here, press this membrane there. Once the novelty of it wears off it feels rather empty
@@TasmanianTigerGrrr the puzzles were designed to keep the virus out. Brains and intelligence over organic infection. I found the puzzles to be quite interesting and vastly different from most horror games. When you realize the atmosphere is a character in the game, the puzzles make a lot more sense. Maybe try playing past the first level.🤷🏼♂️
Sorry for the out-topic, but can I recommend Bungie's Marathon trilogy? I think it's a very avanguardist saga of Doom-clones, even in the horror genre.
I dropped off Scorn when the enemies appeared. The combat (especially that first weapon) made me feel miserable in a different way to the rest of the game. Maybe I’ll pick it up again someday after seeing this
Did you know the 2016 Build had enemies alot more docile and don't attack if you avoid them? Example being a conjoined Chicken enemy just walking past you and gives a look before turning and keep walking, no acid spit, the devs say that behavior is still there but the full build shows otherwise, it's the one change that should honestly be done because that's misleading, though everything else is fine and good.
@@artistanthony1007 There are a few enemies that climb around the environment but don't attack and die in one hit, but I think I would have preferred the ones that are in your way be docile unless provoked too
Very interesting and beautiful analysis. But it's strange you don't mention David Kronenberg. His influence is visible absolutely everywhere in the game. All the biomechanical devices we interact with look exactly like what you see in his movies. I mean, the weapons are clearly inspired by the ones in Existenz. So if you own the artbook, I assume the devs didn't mention his work in there, which I almost find concerning. Maybe it's because he's still alive contrary to the other artists mentioned, and there may be a problem with copyrignt or something. Yes it's really that similar.
I admit I could have put more emphasis on the Kronenberg connection, though I do mention his name once in the video. As for the art book, it's been a while since I read it, so its quite possible that he is mentioned in there as well.
@@pimscrypt My bad then, sorry about that. I missed the part when you mention him. 😅 To be honest I didn't hear a single review or essay mentioning his work. Yet it's so prevalent in the game that I expected it. Plunging your hands in disgusting biomechanical devices is kind of his thing. lol
people complain about a missing jump button when most AAA "notice me hollywood and netflix" games have no jump option at all? What the heck? XD And the complains about the story. Reminds me of a friend of mine when I showed him John Carpenters the thing and room 1408. Constantly asking question or waiting for a main goal, like dude, there is not much they can do about this thing and as the movie already stated, it's just a very bad room. XD Just let the vibe take you in. XD Also personal headcanon, I kinda like to see Scorn as a sequel to I have no mouth and I must scream. Like AM is gone for a long time, and his last victim kinda created (not on purpose) some kind of new enviroment and live forms around them, with one of them, finally taking them out of their missery while slowly walking towards their own entrapment... but thats just my personal headcanon. ^^;
I get frustated with the game long time ago after playing it on the release and decided to leave it there, but last month I wanted to finish a few things on the catalogue and ended playing it completely in two days. While I ended up enjoying the game way more than expected, especially the history and the beautiful designs, there's a point were you have to be real and recognise that combat isn't working to tell a narrative about the violence of the world or simply to scare, the combat is not working because they couldn't translate the feeling of horror from Silent Hill to a first person pov, it's get lost in the middle. The puzzles get better as the game progresses and become more intuitive, but the starting point of the egg puzzle is insane, that's just bad organization, you have to let people discover how the world goes in little steps before getting into that abstract kind of riddle, that let the majority of the people that is playing frustated.
Well EBB Software is new & small and wanted to try a game differently so I don't fault them for lacking in that, it's though why the Artbook exists because they can explain and do more that the game couldn't. I suggest they just try smaller traditional games before coming back and figuring what to do better especially to help get budget increased.
I think the problem with scorn is that to many people, the point of it being an actual video game is largely pointless. Being able to interact with this fascinating world is cool, but the gameplay itself is not fun in any way at all to many. I believe it is not a fair argument to assume that many of the reviewers do not wish to interact with an artsy game, I find it hard to believe so many would have NEVER played and liked such a game in the past. The problems you have listed of the janky combat, and puzzles being too grounded in an alien world, seem more then valid for someone to dislike the game, especially since the three main things you do is watch and experience the bizarre world, fight, and puzzle solve. I've heard many people say they would RATHER scorn focus on more exploration and interesting puzzle solving instead of including combat at all. People know artsy games exist, you don't HAVE to put in a combat system. All these problems compound in their uninterest in digging deeper to find the story. If people are already not liking anything about the game, and see the gameplay elements as genuinely bad, they will not give the time of day to think about the story. I would even hazard a guess that, seeing as some people view the gameplay as bad, they likely think that there is no possible way scorn could be telling a nuanced story. Despite this, some who DO understand there is a story and subtext behind it all still don't like it. For instance, Penguinz0 played through the game, and right after saying there isn't any story he states that some people are speculating the story is about motherhood, he just wants more direct story telling. That seems to be one of the core issues, there IS a narrative, but there isn't much of a story, not a satisfying one anyway. You don't really know what you are doing as you go through the game, you are just doing things to proceed, but your progress is not rewarded in any way that many players truly care about. You get new weapon upgrades but people want to interact with the combat as little as possible to begin with. your other reward is just progression itself, seeing more of the world and the story unfold, but that simply isn't enough for them when they aren't enjoying the act of playing the game at all. In terms of story you can grasp with your first playthrough and no additional thought afterwards, it really is just "walk around and then die." Many people will never think about the opening cutscene relating to the ending, because they don't really feel anything at all to ever think back on the game to begin with. As mentioned in the video, the ending is essentially exactly what happens at the end of "I have no mouth and I must scream." The big difference from scorn and... IhnmaIms is that there is SOME hope and something to look forward to in I have no mouth, the stockade of canned food in the ice caverns. There is a clear glimmer of small hope in a hopeless world, and ultimately there is a payoff with Tim killing the others and ending their torment. He gets punished beyond his imagination for this, but ATLEAST Ted gets to stick it to AM one last time, and make him acknowledge that even though AM has wiped humanity off the map, he has to live knowing humanity got the last laugh, they get to die, but AM will never be able to cover all his bases, or truly live, or ever die. Contrast this with Scorn, you don't really get to throw a tiny wrench in anyone's plans. But you also don't get to achieve much of anything at all. A bleak story is good, but there usually needs to be some glimmer of hope to strive for, even if it'll just be snatched away so that you can care to do something about all the bleakness around you in the first place. It's not like you even care about your protagonist to begin with, they are fused with the parasite and that's just it, the most you could even really feel is "I guess it's sad that they were transformed into some obelisk" but you don't care for them in particular. The angle that "humanity persists" is the main takeaway is of course more satisfying, but again some people do not enjoy the game enough to think about it at all after the credits role, let alone deeply introspect on it. Apologies for the light novel of a comment. Great video!
Great video man. I too enjoyed this game, and am in love with it's art style. However, just a small critique. Personally, I saw the pro-life and pro-choice arguments taken to their extremes in this world. Where birthrates grow out of control on one end, and sapient life becoming nothing but a tool in other areas- a horror of unrestrained growth and freedom on one end (conservative ideology) and the evils that the cold sterility of suffocating order can bring (liberal ideology)- both of which suck in their extremes. Obviously, I don't know the intent of the developers, but as someone who loathes the illogical hatred of either the right or left, I felt compelled to comment on that comment. I'm fairly certain that the cold sterility of life becoming just a tool would more easily fall under the purview of those who dehumanize something they see as less than human (a mere collection of cells, if you will) or believe that people are less capable of succeeding without help based on nothing but race, than those who are typically overprotective of their idea of life; moreover the eugenics program is typically met with far more hatred from those obssessed with humanity remaining as the idealized being they promote. Again, both sides suck in their extremes, but a lack of self awareness on one side, and a view of nothing more than evil charactures on the other, is a point of particular frustration for me- not toward you specifically, but toward this needless division in general. Most people are good, even the ones we disagree with in nearly every metric (espeically all the stupid bullshit that the left and right want us to argue, because debates without solutions are a hell of a distraction from the things that we can we can both agree on, and hold our leaders accountable for. Moral of the story, for the politicians, fuck Republicans, fuck Democrats- neither of them give a fuck about you. But the people on both sides are by and large moderate and pretty kick ass). Anyway, good video and take it easy.
I mean scorn wasn’t bad, i just wished the stuff that was scrapped from the game was still in the game, the scrap content would’ve made the game better.
I liked it. Gunplay wasn’t so good but hey, if I woke up in a fucked up world and was missing my penis and half my face then I’d be in shock. The first weapon I picked up I would turn on myself
The thing about not having a jump button, is it makes you feel crippled in ways even Scorn probably wouldn't benefit from. If you press the button trying to jump and nothing happens, it's like you're chained to the floor for no reason, it feels wrong on a visceral level. Even a 5cm hop in the air would make it feel like you are embodying the character rather than piloting a roomba.
I see your point, though I question that you are anyone would feel that way if it weren’t for previous games that had already conditioned you to feel that way. I also believe there have been plenty of first person games where immersion wasn’t sacrificed by the lack of a jump button. The original Doom being one of the most obvious examples, and it works there because the main character’s arms are visible and expressive. Same goes for Scorn.
I'll stick by my guns- this game would work a lot better as just an expansive artbook or even a comic. Jumping for a game, as much as it managed to work, was way too much of a hastely decision for the devs. And if I'm to say something about the game itself- it's far far far better if you have not read the artbook or listened to any theories. Making your own sense on what happened and where you are is far better when you play. Becausae with the artbook read and theories heard you gonna see how much is missing, how much more there could have been even without the words (BLAME and NeisancE says hello) As for the people "Offended" by the game being weird and "esotheric" - you smell like the people who are "Afraid of modern art" (Jacob Geller namedrop), people who fear making their own mind about what they see and what they read, fearing engaging with what you read or play. It's not a high nosed thought- it's a disapointed thought. (and then people like these bitch about "games being shallow")
I liked Scorn fine enough but it's really an annoyance to hear phrases like "media literacy" thrown around so smugly. On the one hand it's silly to have the baseline appreciation for a game start at "can jump," but on the other hand it's absolutely fine to not enjoy a game because it isn't fun or interesting, which is actually the core complaint there beyond the objective request itself. I don't think wanting a game to be fun or interesting is an anti-intellectual desire, but I understand how it might feel good to think that. I think a key illustrative moment was when you suggested that the wall of bodies was a critique of pro-life as when I saw it, I was looking at the reductio ad absurdum of anti-natalism in the sense that this is a metaphor for what anti-natalists assume of childbirth. Yet I can simultaneously acknowledge that I get the same sense of scorn from looking directly at HR Giger works themselves, rendering Scorn little more than one of those interactive Van Gogh exhibits but for the one niche painter (Beksinski not Giger) me and other aging internet edgelords like. It's an interesting novelty in that it's at least a visually interesting way to reframe a place I've been many times before, it's no masterpiece simply because it acknowledges something nostalgic and familiar.
My intention was not to be smug, which is why I made an effort to repeat the fact that it’s totally fine not to enjoy the game, for whatever reason. Saying that “there is no story”, that it’s for people who like to “smell their own farts”, that there is “no context”, that is anti-intellectual. That isn’t a refusal to engage with the game because it isn’t fun, but because one refuses to try and understand it. If you find Scorn to be too familiar, or that it only has a nostalgic appeal, fair enough. I would personally not base what is or isn’t a masterpiece based on how familiar it is to me. I consume so much horror media nowadays that tropes and plot lines have started to feel way less unique. So for me it’s all about the execution. How well have all the puzzle pieces been put into place? And to me, Scorn did it beautifully. And I ultimately believe I would still think that had I not been aware of its aesthetic influences.
I have nothing against walking simulators in fact there are some that are incredible. And while scorn is not technically a walking simulator, it's one of the most boring and tedious games I played in a long time. Because of how much I dislike it, my favorite part of the game is when it was finally over. It felt like such a chore to play the thing. with pointless combat and some puzzles which were easy to understand but Annoying to complete. And it not having any story did not help things. It's pretty rare that a game disappoint me on the level that this one has.
As a Giger/Beksinski freak, it actually caused me to avoid this game because I thought it would just be one of those things where people rip off a popular style as like a shallow gimmick. I'm pleased to hear that actually the team put a lot of thought and heart into the adaptation of these aesthetics. Good stuff!
I pledged to the Kickstarter back in 2016/2017, being drawn in by the Beksinski influence, I kind of wish there was more of that than Giger because there's a lot of Giger out there in games, but it was still absolutely stunning.
I think as a survival horror it isn't great, if it focussed as a walking simulator or puzzle adventure it would have been much better, it's style over substance, but the style is too good.
If you want a shallow Beksinski ripoff, you should check out ‘The Medium’.
I think when we ask people how a game makes them feel, most will reply with how the gameplay, the mechanics, the control of it felt. They don't think about how they feel when they looked at the sunset on a cliff that led to nowhere for the main story, how they felt talking to an NPC that didn't provide them a sidequest or a reward, how they felt seeing a statue and wondering what the implications of it being there was. Scorn definitely asks more to feel about what you see and experience rather than what puzzles you solved or how you had to run around and fight the monsters.
Complaining that scorn doesnt have a jump button is so funny considering most 3D Zelda games before BOTW had no jump button either but no one complained about that
Broke: Super Mario Brained
Woke: Zelda Brained
yes we did. Just because you didn't pay attention to it doesn't mean people didn't complain. I complain about every game without a jump. Being stopped by a 2inch wall is irritating and flow breaking
if you think nobody complained about a lack of jump button in zelda, you weren't paying attention. It was literally one of the first criticisms a reviewer or player mentioned upon first playing them on release, and years after such knowledge was commonplace. It's so jarring that even when you know about it, it still baffles new players.
The final image with the parasite reminds me of the game Darkwood. I highly recommend looking into it if you're into grim survival horror.
I’ve been meaning to play it for years. I hope I’ll get around to it soon!
Yeeeessss finally someone that gets this game. Media literacy and curiosity among the typical game reviewer is shockingly low and in return shapes what is being made. This results in games that are forever the same and the stagnation of the medium, and the medium in turn then fails to attracts a more diverse and curious audience.
We need more games like Scorn.
AMEN!!
Exactly this
That's because media literacy and curiosity are shockingly low among gamer bros in general.
3:25 I unironically describe the behaviour of people in situations like this as glorifying stupidity. They're going that extra step.
Yep. The whole idea of things being "pretentious" is basically "I don't understand this and feel threatened by it"
Yes. This is gamer guys in a nutshell, sadly.
always love to see scorn appreciation
It deserves all it can get!
After growing up as a former Edgy Teenager surrounded by Geiger's imagery and Tool music videos, the world felt warm and familiar, a cosy desolation. I found the entire thing quietly monastic, existing in a world where decay and rot feels like a manual mechanical process rather than a biological one.
I don't think the combat should be removed, but it definitely needs to be rebalanced, especially around save points and health stations. The number of times I've been stuck in an unwinnable loop is too damn high. It doesn't feel that hard of an issue to fix;even if it were something as dull as feeding the health stations something to regain healing potential would vastly improve things.
Valid criticism. I also want to say that I had the same teenage experience, especially with the Tool videos haha!
Ahh... Tool was my "gateway" into experimenting with German.
Oh another tangential connection (Re: Tool and art) another person who was in the circle with my friend and Geiger was/is Alex Grey - whom a lot of people remember exploding after doing the cover art for 'Lateralus'.
(Needless to say we had many interesting conversations when he was still in the states, mostly while eating vegetarian and/or vegan pizza. He was never 'name dropping' it was always in funny anecdotes, his style evolution, or interesting topics such as how a creator/artist is perceived when their work becomes high profile enough that they aren't just globally recognized but it's also "merchandise" and how that raises the question of motivation/integrity externally and internally.)
@@searchingfororion In a high school art class I watched a documentary about Grey. I don't know if it was made before he worked with Tool or if he just wanted to focus on his solo creative works, but the whole thing never mentioned Tool once. Definitely recognized the style immediately anyways though, amazing that you got to hang out with him!
@@gearandalthefirst7027 Oh *I'm* not cool enough to have hung out with Alex - though I did get to see him speak at the museum when he stopped by and lent an art peice to the city.
My comment was poorly worded (I was expanding on thoughts in the other one I made earlier about my artist friend who was close to Geiger *and* the mention of Tool made me remember his friendship with Alex Grey as well. I'm sleep deprived so I realize it was messily written) I *do* know that when Alex talks about that art piece he doesn't mention it being album art. I think that's inconsequential to him, at least in discussion of his process.
I must admit I'm curious as to how a documentary about his work would be presented in a high school because he's very forward about certain "consciousness enhancers" that are very closely linked to what he's translating in the mediums.
I didn't think they would be quite that direct about the topic in a school. I'm even trying to make my meaning clear and still have the reply post.
I am genuinely curious.
Seeing that Scorn was inspired in part by Journey is so interesting.
I can kind of see it in some of the environmental design, not to mention being a lonely protagonist attempting to make sense of those environments.
You see a high structure at the beginning and you immediately know you have to go there? I though the same.
OMG yes, PREACH! There's a jump button in FNaF Security Breach and it's so broken they kept adding invisible walls in every patch because you could jump in many places to skip parts of the game. Worst of all the jump mechanic is completely pointless anyway aside from 2 vent entrances that could've just easily been changed.
That solution is so fascinating to me! That they would rather put up new invisible walls whenever a new exploit was discovered, rather than removing the mechanic that created the problem in the first place.
I put Scorn in the same category of games as Rain World for me. They aren't games for everyone. In fact, I often tell people when I bring up Rain World they maybe shouldn't buy it because they may not understand and connect with the gameplay. But the profound emotions that it gave me, in the base game and with the Downpour DLC with expanded characters and stories, will be with me for life. In fact, the games have similar overarching themes of the quest to transcend the barriers of reality and the choice to pursue it through a brute force method. (and the equally disturbing reality of another ending where you pursue true enlightenment and what happens when you let the power that gives you go to your head).
Great essay! I agree with a lot of what you said. I enjoyed Scorn because it literally feels like what it would be to be thrown in a completely alien world. No explanation, no exposition, you just are there, and is up to you to find out what to do.
Thank you so much! And I absolutely agree!
I don't know if you're aware, but you can avoid the enemies all together. They have a set path they'll go down (if you don't interupt it). enter some hole or slide out of the area all together and be gone forever.....well, at least most of them.
The 2016 build did a better job on that, the creatures in the full build still do attack and should've had the AI reworked or improve off the 2016 one.
This reminded me to buy and play Scorn so i could finish the video. I rarely regret purchases as little as this. The evironmental story telling sucked me in from the first minute and kept me going til the very end, and im very happy i didnt misinterpret what they were saying based on what you read from the art book. I hope i can get my hands on a physical copy myself. I hate reading digitally, and i want to know everything i can in vicious, exquisite detail. Thank you for this video. :o)
Havent finished the video yet, but so far I'm just happy I found it. I didn't even realize that the game was this poorly recieved in wider circles to be honest. My biggest critique of this game when i finished it was that I wished i could experience even more, followed by maybe a small note about how i felt the action elements felt a bit like a disconnect in their inclusion and i wish that they were blended in or built up to a bit better. I still consider this one of my favourite games of all time. This video has provided a weird whiplash of finding out people hated it followed by the immediate validation of you expressing my exact feelings towards it in response so far lmao
Edit: also I'm glad I found your channel and I like your vibe btw!
Thank you, I'm glad that you like the channel! I'm also glad that you got to experience and enjoy the game without all the negative discourse around it. I bet it was more freeing that way!
@@pimscrypt oh yeah, absolutely! Though at the same time, I do find it interesting thinking about what caused people to have the reactions they did, and the specific nuances of what makes experiences like this enjoyable to certain people. It’s a shame that the critiques were so reductive and stated so objectively either way though, it really reduces that conversation and makes it a lot more frustrating to hear. The final product just oozes intent and passion, nothing criticized actually felt like an oversight.
I know these observations don’t add much in response to a video that’s quite literally about this, but idk, being exposed to the negative sentiments towards the game is making me think lmao.
I watched a respectful horror gamer play Scorn and nobody else and I'm glad. Hearing all the negative reactions is baffling to me. I found Scorn viscerally disgusting and repulsive. I hate the way it makes me feel. But I still understand and respect what the game is. I feel like I got the devs' intentions from the very start. Maybe I'm one of those people these critics hate and they would think I'm arrogant. Yeah, alright. I think they're idiots. Agree to disagree.
i watched jerma play scorn i liked when he put SCORN on his sound board
Oh dang thanks for explaining this to me, I could not figure out what scorn was getting at. Welcome to your 30s, I promise there is more than just realizing your body is slowly decaying
Thank you! I'm slowly getting used to it. LOVE the username by the way!
As a 41 year old woman, god I miss my 30s.
Strategically deploying this after a long day at work, super excited to see you talk about this game 🙏
I hope you enjoy it!
I might not like Scorn because it's mainly a puzzle game (as far as mechanics go), but I don't think that its developers trying to make a game-as-art should be considered a flaw at all, even if they had failed. What annoys me most about some people, like that cowboy (2:51), is not that they doesn't understand the game they talk about, but their patronizing anti-intellectualism*. If you analyze that guy's words, what he hates about the game, and what makes the game bad for him, is that it is artistic ("artsy fartsy"), and (in his mind), art is a bad thing.
In Pixel A Day's video essay on Dear Esther, Kat says: «When we say something is pretentious, then, what we’re actually saying is “I don’t find meaning in this, and therefore, there is none”.»
At the same time, I wonder if my own hostility against these kind of people comes from an analogous place. When I say someone is stupid, what I am actually saying is «I don't find meaning in their words/action, and therefore, there is none». I mean, I mock them the same exact way they mock the things I like, or mock people who like the things I like (like in that clip from The Boys Unknown, 3:17 - 3:47, 30 damn seconds of just mocking a game that tries to be its own unique thing, damn I'm angry again!)
And just for kicks, Kat also says:
"What Dear Esther achieves, being partly literature, is a set of things that literature typically aims to achieve. It’s an emotional story that aims to move you. It creates empathy by making you - literally - walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It takes you on a journey to a different place. And it challenges you to abandon black and white thinking. But, it doesn’t have a jump button, so I guess it’s shit!"
*Anti-intellectualism is harmful, truly harmful. It heralds fascism, among other plagues. So, maybe they're just idiots after all.
It's interesting that this video is the first time I've ever heard of any of the reviewers with clips featured in it except for Yahtzee Croshaw, and his Zero Punctuation reviews are intentionally done in an overly-acerbic character for entertainment, which becomes extremely clear when watching any of the other content he's involved in. Everything I've seen regarding Scorn has been generally even more positive than this video was.
But I disagree with the idea that calling something "artsy-fartsy" or "pretentious" is automatically anti-intellectual. On the creative side, there are definitely cases where artists have done the equivalent of dressing a rat in the finest velvet robes and gluing a golden crown to the top of its head and calling it a king, in a farcical inversion of The Emperor's New Clothes. If the core idea or plot is simple, hackneyed, or overdone, it feels like an incredible waste to drape artistic flourishes over it and pretend that gives it depth, much like pulling up to a drive-thru restaurant in a stretch limo would be considered rather crass.
On the critical/analysis side, things can get just as bad or even worse, when someone observing a piece of art is so determined to find a deeper meaning in it (or, in the most terrible cases, find a specific meaning that lines up with their preconceived personal ideas/beliefs/etc.) that they end up simply making the art a canvas for building their own edifice of artifice, or simply use it as a soapbox, and claiming it to be what's really there in that piece of art if you just look hard enough. This one gets progressively worse over time, because as more and more analysis/critique is applied to a work, dredging up everything that's either indisputably in the work or clearly implied by it, later critics feel a push to reach even farther out and grab at the barest of straws to have an interpretation of it that's still novel.
All that said, I don't think Scorn is pretentious: as this video about it says, it doesn't just draw visual inspiration from the work of Giger and Beksiński, as so many other works have done, but integrates interpretations of those pieces and their mood into nearly every aspect of the game, its setting, its mechanics, and its story. It's not dressing a rat up in a xenomorph costume.
Unfortunately, for better or worse, it is emphatically not my kind of game. I'm interested in seeing footage of it and hearing others talk about it, but I have a general dislike of playing survival horror games, games with guns that have janky gunplay, "solve puzzle to proceed" games, and games where the only possible ending is a bad one (unless there's a hell of a lot of writing and plotting put in to justify that) and from everything I've seen, trying to play Scorn would just be a frustrating experience for me. But it seems to be a very interesting art piece, and, as this review said, its style seems to become its substance in more ways than one.
I'm glad to be able to appreciate it to some degree, even if it's not through the standard method of actually playing it.
I'm glad someone else noticed the "this is beneath me and literally worthless" type speech from more negative reviews because yeah it IS a fash talking point, and a very scarily common even by people who you wouldn't consider fash. It's like an insidious little wedge.
@@-K_J- it totally is, yeah. Most people don't even want to think about it, I think.
This is one of the best video essays I’ve found on this game, I’m glad to see there is a community of people that were willing to give it a chance and really take in the world building and environmental storytelling that’s at play.
I owe you a fabulous comment for this fabulous look and incredible video, but I need a nap so in the meantime have some much-deserved engagement.
Random aside: A friend of mine is an artist that knew/worked similar circles as H.R Geiger when they were both "coming up." He's pointed out Easter eggs in his friends work, I've seen photos of them in cafe's together. It's wild.
That's neat as hell!
@@pimscrypt Well I'm glad I could bestow something in return. I know it sounds made up, but it's true. It's funny how I think of them in reverse now. "Oh hey, Andrew's friend! Yeah." He moved to Europe full time ages ago and (I'm not joking) *paints chapels* as well as gigs different art academies.
Obviously a generation gap (and we crossed paths in the weirdest and most boring way possible) but I now my perception of Geiger is vastly different. Especially since these were casual conversations about things they had as buddies and inside jokes.
(For example the "easter egg" thing is pretty literal; they had a thing where they were "competing" to hide egg/ovum imagery in their respective pieces and see when/if a member of their group could spot it before an art interpreter/museum ect. Apparently there's a *lot* of commissioned work where the owners have no idea about the hidden eggs.)
So there's a fun thing for you.
Also, I think he would have liked the game and probably would have said something positive. From what I know about the man behind the 'myth' - never publicly, but he would certainly have had a chuckle with friends about those "review" clips. From what I understand, he was a *lot* less "serious" about his work than people think (and the way some "hardcore" fans will get about it) I know at least one of the most popular/acclaimed ones is a bit of a joke - satires of his own style hidden it; because capitalism obviously.
Basically, it takes very little mental capacity to be furious at something, to hate it and to rave about how terrible it is. It takes significantly more mental capacity to learn more about it, to take it at face value on its own merits, and to actively seek to understand it, even if ultimately, you still don't like it. And that's why we are cursed to suffer an endless stream of insufferable outrage reviewers and negativity merchants online. As pretentious as they act As they bloviate, it's a performance that requires very little activity between the ears.
VERY well put!
I really like this essay! I absolutely agree that critics often refuse to engage with media on anything other than their first reading of it or the terms they want to meet it on.
I think one thing I would push back on though is that one sentiment echoed in the essay is that you do terrible things or twist your body “because you’re curious” or “to see what comes next” but a lot of those things are required for linear progression. I don’t think it’s a choice when your alternative is “stop playing the game”. I think there’s also a message to be gleamed from that (“sorry mole man I gotta juice you or I’m trapped in this room forever”) with the requirement of interfacing with technology as the absolute baseline for being allowed to participate in the world as a whole, but I don’t think it’s presented as a choice or for the sake of curiosity.
I also do think Scorn has a lot of “gameyness” that isn’t justified by its premise. Genre isn’t a necessary constraint but is very helpful in establishing tone and communicating how to interact with it to its audience. Exploring a great solemn world and learning how it operates by its own internal logic seems much more coherent to what Scorn is trying to say than even including FPS elements at all, which don’t have enough survival elements or horror elements to be a part of either genre. If the FPS elements were cut, it would also eliminate the need for a UI which would make the game even more about immersion. Including combat in a game is a conscious decision and a lot of games pushed back against that decision (Outer Wilds, Subnautica) I can’t help but feel the game shot itself in the foot by showing all those gameplay demos with the gun as a primary focus, especially because I don’t think the combat adds much poignancy to the game’s message aside from the struggle for survival, which the parasite’s inclusion does more effectively anyways.
Welcome back!
I never really left, but I'm going to try and stick to a more realistic release schedule from now on haha!
Leaving a like for the appreciation of a really marvelous piece of media. It's funny that some people seem drawn to its esthetic, while other people just actively refuse to engage with it.
I heard another review on this, and I wish I knew which one, but there is a story and he explained it so well I completely understood the story. Yes the enemies and gunplay was shitty but you can avoid the creatures, and I sorta think that's a point. I didn't actual play, I don't have a good PC to play this but I watched a playthrough then this awesome video and EVERYTHING made sense. Thanks for sharing your opinion too and sticking up for this game it was great.
Got in on release and loved it.The Game being misunderstand somehow matches with the Work it was based on.They threw trash at gigers first works back then.
And in gaming its a completely different beast with critique
Seeing you play a puzzle game, it could be interesting to see your take on The Talos Principle 1 and 2 too. The second one had some very pretty brutalist architecture, and both got very philosophical on the story and themes.
I think I've had friends recommend the first one to me before, but for similar reasons to why I initially didn't want to play Scorn, I never picked up The Talos Principle. Might happen some time in the future!
And while I won't be talking much about the puzzles in that game, in the video after the next I will actually be talking about another puzzle game. 👀
The lead writer for The Talos Principle, Jonas Kyratzes, also worked on the story for the game Clash: Artifacts of Chaos by ACE Team. It's a prequel to the Zeno Clash series. Can very warmly recommend it. I
It's not as heavy on the philosophy as the Talos Principle, but regardless of that it's *very* much worth looking into. The land, Zenozoik, has its inspirations in obscure prehistoric animals like the Entelodont ("Hell pig"), Deinotherium and Platybelodon, as well as medieval art monsters from the works of Hieronymus Bosch and the Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel.
Zeno Clash isn't outright horror as such, but the world is truly fascinating. There is only one city called Halstedom, no true laws, not even written language or currency. There is no real central unified culture: people decorate, protect and restore themselves and their home with all manner of objects. It's a violent place where if you have a problem with someone, you simply slap the poop out of each other and get on with your day afterwards.
But there is another significant group aside from Halstedom. In the forests, there live a group known as the Corwid of the Free. They are Zenos who have essentially, willingly, become maniacally obsessed with a single thing or practice. Like a tribe of fetishists. Not in the sexual sense, though. And it's not a mental affliction or corruptive force either.
People just decide they want to do one thing in their lives forevermore, not caring about any form of pain or hindrance.
The Corwid Oxameter chose to only walk in one direction straight ahead. When there was a tree in the way, he simply resided there until he died. The Corwid Arminia peed on herself and died anonymously, and that's just what Arminia did. Helim felt he needed to be invisible, and so he clawed out the eyes of any living creature on his way.
In the words of Metamoq, the Corwid and combat teacher of the main character from Zeno Clash 1 and 2, "if you are satisfied, and do what you feel must be done, then you have reached perfection."
And then he killed himself by holding a bomb made from a skull near his face.
@pimscrypt if you have read this, I duly hope i have kindled a candle of curiosity to explore Zenozoik, and hope it may become a strange, ugly, beautiful and comfortable hearth of wonder as you experience and learn more of it.
Thank you for the video on Scorn. Wish you and others well, and have a good one.
Finally able to watch this and so glad I did! I was fascinated with Scorn when it first got teased in 2014 because of the setting and I've had it on my wishlist for a while, just haven't got around to buying and playing it. Funnily enough I do get your point about people having their own ideas of what the game would be, because I actually found myself confused at times as to what kind of game it was meant to be. This video has definitely moved the game to the top of my wishlist, I love how much of the story seems to be told through the world and how you have to accept it by it's own rules. It's also fascinating to see how reproduction is both a huge part of the setting but also so clinical and mechanical, really fits giger's work.
Utterly fantastic video, love it so much and will definitely be rewatching it many times.
I was a tier 1 kickstarter backer and got the alpha and beta demos. The game design of what was to what became were drastically different, however…aside from the aesthetics and mechanisms, SCORN really IS a MASTERPIECE!! I just wished it was a bit longer…considering that it was initially going to be released in x2 parts. Part 1 was initially to be called Dasein. I think when ebb/Kepler got Microsoft money/support they merged their x2 parts into a single game.
…another thing I’d like to add. Did you know you don’t need to pick up any weapons! Aside from the xeno pneumatic xeno weapon/tool. You also don’t have to engage in combat at all if you are just patient with the wildlife/fauna. Not many people actually know that. There are unavoidable things you need to kill or sacrifice to continue onwards but the need to kill as means to an end are nigh.
honestly still don't know what the fuck scorn is about even after genuinely *trying* to understand it (your read on it helped though) but it still was very emotional for me. some pieces of art, you don't get it, your brain doesn't understand but some more primal part of you responds to it. this game makes me feel like that. that feeling is so important too
I see your point. But I think it's important to consider Video Games not just as art, but as a medium. When you consume, absorb and dig into the works of these two artist. That would consist of: looking at the painting, being drawn to it, you deciding you like it, and then trying to interpret its meaning. These steps take 5 minutes at most, there's more of course, but that's that in a nutshell. But when it comes to video games, this process takes an infinitely longer more time. Looking at a painting is not the same as playing a game, that requires hours upon hours of your life, and not only that, you have to physically finish the game. Meaning you have to exert effort and brainpower to finish combat encounters/puzzles or whatever the game challenges you with. While I do agree that people saying there's no story in this game, and that there is nothing beneath the surface is wrong, I think its important to understand where they're coming from. These people spent 40$ for this game, and spent 6 hours of their life going through. They're experience with the game is horrible, they did not have a good time, so I don't blame them for dismissing the game and refusing to look deeper. I won't blame them for extending and deepening their understanding of something they had a very unpleasant experience with. The problem here is not media literacy, I think that's such a cop out way of going about this argument, as its just pinning the blame on one side instead of looking at everything. A good example here is Signalis, that one is rich in terms of deeper meaning and also uses works of artists as inspirations, but that is not all that it has to offer, it also offers a great time as a game. So now everyone who played the game pretty much looked deeper into it, as you naturally want to understand something better if you love it. The fact that Signalis got as successful as it did, with tons of people discussing its story, meanings and interpretations up to today, 2 years after its release is a testament to the fact that media literacy isn't dead in the gaming world, games just tend to fail to channel it from people. I think Scorn's problem, and games like these who are meant to be "deep" is that, they are so caught up in their deepness that they start losing track of everything else. I think Scorn's problem is not about its story. I think the problem Is that the game is just not that good of a game in its own right to make most people want to look into it. I personally like the game, I've watched pretty much all Scorn video essay on youtube, but that does not mean I don't understand where most people are coming from regarding this game.
I freaking loved Scorn! It felt exactly like how I feel the original RE is described as: clunky but therefore horrifying. You don’t have the best controls and abilities, so you worry that you’re doomed. That’s great for a horror game with puzzles and combat!
Agreed!
I haven't played Scorn yet but this made me want to replay Soma so bad haha
It's always a great time to replay Soma!!
This is the game i always wanted after beign a fan of Giger
Scorn will always be my favorite game.
This reminded me of one review video, where the reviewer was playing Tenchu, a game about stealth.
He complained how that game sucked and how hard it was.
Problem was that he played this game like hack and slash, running around and killing people.
It is really fascinating to me how far someone might go to try and play a game on their own terms, when so many of its mechanics tell them to do the opposite.
3:42 This guy sounds like a caveman of video games. It's hilarious.
Well said. Also this is most definitely a coincidence that they came out within a month of each other, but this Scorn analysis goes really well with IPOS's Conservative Horror video essay regarding theme/topic.
I guess there is *some* kind of thematic overlap there? Either way, I think it’s a shame what happened to that video. Zane had some very good points in it that I think a lot of people needed to hear.
what happenstance!
finished playing scorn a couple days ago after putting it off for so long and your video wonderfully bookends that experience lol the word dissonance does perfectly encapsulate all the negative reviews, either through willful ignorance or just being bait
i had such a wonderful time with the game itself and sincerely hope more people give it a chance, my only criticism was that the inclusion of weapons & combat felt unnecessary, maybe someone on the team insisted because they worried the game wouldn't appeal on its own merits, bah, still a great game in the end and just as worthy of peoples time
I still remember when a lot of people were trashing God of War 2018 for not having a jump button. I also still remember seeing lots of people finishing Dark Souls having no idea what was going on and wondering if it had any story; imagine what would happen today to someone who complained Dark Souls had no story. Shadow of the Colossus is considered one of the best games in history, but I'm pretty sure that if it was released today a lot of people would be saying it's shit.
Honey get the absinthe, new Pim dropped!
Absolutely iconic comment. I want it on a shirt!
@@pimscrypt haha right?! 😆👌
Great video!
Thank you so much!
I love the game and pre-ordered the art book way back. Im glad the team stuck to their guns!!
Honestly, I bought this game fully knowing its gonna flop in some way. But still, naive as it sounds, I wanted to fund this studio for what they may put out in the future. In the end, I really liked my experience with scorn but though, I have seen and done everything and it leaves me wanting for more.
I hope this company grows and learn from their first game and create great new stuff in the future.
I’m a little surprised to hear that so many people hated on the game. The game is exactly like what I imagined it would be. I like it quite a bit, but unfortunately for me, the combat was too difficult for my poor skill level. Ammo was way too sparse for me to get through it.
I am very late but very happy to listen to your thoughts on this game. I watched a couple of friends play this (I can't play scary games but love the horror genre) and we all had kinda mixed feelings about it honestly. Loved the aesthetic and found it very creepy. The story is simple and very effective as you said, but some of the game play was clunky (for lack of better word) for them and at times the puzzles were a little frustrating.
Thank you Mandy!! It's a shame that your friends felt so mixed about the game, but I can understand the reasons.
I just finished this game a couple days ago and obviously I’m still watching content about it so it is heavily on my mind. I started out in virtual reality but then my headset crapped out but either way I had a hard time telling how long I had been playing the game.. It could be brutally frustrating and at times it felt almost like work, but I found it really immersive and I went into it without any preconceived notions at all. Kind of like when I know I’m gonna watch a movie I don’t read reviews. I would’ve liked the game to go on longer, but I felt that it was incredibly well executed and very original, there’s just really nothing out there quite like it. For any flaws it may have I think it was an overall success. The combat was much like the puzzles themselves. Sometimes it made sense to avoid the creatures and you had to think through your actions, knowing that you could run out of ammo or health. I feel like people want to go Han Solo and run down the hallway blasting and you just can’t do that in this game
Amazing perspective on the game! I personally genuinely loved the game when I first saw it. The type of criticism it gets is really funny because this is the type of people who will cry about "game journalists" "IGN" et. Then, think a game with a very obvious vision that is not what they want it to be. It's not the shootter of their dreams or don't have a jump button. (Thought tbf, I would love a Scourn aesthetic shootter...)
I didnt and dont have the game, I just love it for trying something new and being a new type of game, it's like a mix of Silent Hill, Biopunk genre & Journey and it's creative, however you can see that EBB Software wanted to do more especially with the Artbook but they just werent lucky or fortunate.
And "funny" thing with Giger and the weirdly sexual themes- from reading I recall, Giger was unnerved, even afraid, of sex. This is mixed with his worries on technological dependance- giving us the biomechanical, violent orgies and guns that shoot sperm infants.
Plus if I had to make interpretation of the game, there would be two:
One is the one I had before I read the artbook- you are the last 'healthy' cell in a dying organism, organism dying of cancer. And in the end you die with it, as you lead the cancer into the brain.
The second, with the artbook read- you are expiriancing a world dying like a body, because one of the races present on it decided to selfishly destroy the balance that kept this worldbody running for the sake of their own greedy ascenssion.
I really like both of those interpretations actually!
I love when something is a misunderstood masterpiece 🔥
More common than one would think!
If I had a nickle for every time a game in recent memory for a game got backlash for having "vague" storytelling (IE: a lack of dialog textboxes and spelling everything out) with a relatively simple story, backlash rooted in jumping and the lack thereof in some or all parts, and an art department that absolutely cooked, I'd have two nickles but it's a shame it happened twice.
It's a shame media literacy and empathizing and caring about art is so heavily looked down upon in some particularly vocal gaming circles. I like it when a work wants me to chew on it and think about it's themes and how it makes me feel.
I watched a play through of scorn (I don’t have a computer to play games on). I liked that it had ‘no story’.
I thought the guy surviving was the story.
I don’t know if it would have had the same feeling to it if you had a bunch of things telling you what happened. I like the thing of not knowing what exactly happened but you know something went wrong a long time ago.
Also I love how they have the sad slug from I have no mouth and I must scream but big.
To me, the guy was to just get to the Tower and see where he can go from there & to escape the world, Idk how it's no story.
and an incomplete one. It's really sad how much they cut last minute...
Perfect video
Thank you!! 💜💜
yeah there's no art anymore in the world, now it's just "artsy fartsy sucks lol"
Great video. It’s got me interested to try Scorn despite my aversion to horror games. 😄
Nice!! It’s a really good time to try it to! It’s apparently real cheap during the Steam summer sale.
I'm a simple lady. I see an artsy looking game, I like.
Good taste!
I was waiting for this one.
Hope you'll enjoy!
I surely did.
The "this is the future Republicans want" bit got me good, haha.
Welcome to your 30s, it's definitely one of my fav decades and I hope the same will be for you!
Thank you!! I hope so too!
the game, to me is a perfect example of style over substance. The game was beautiful, but so detailed that I had a hard time seeing what was supposed to be what. No clear landmarks etc. Also, as MANY people said: The combat is just terrible. It's not like in survival horror, where it is kinda clunky on purpose, but the player can adapt to clear rules. Combat here always felt like a game of luck, which was frustrating. I gave the game hours before giving up after looking forward to this for years.
Obviously I disagree. Though the point I disagree with most is that, contrary to survival horror games, the combat in Scorn *wasn’t* “kinda clunky on purpose”. I think it’s perfectly fine not to like the combat, but I don’t find anything to support that the rhythm of combat in Scorn isn’t completely purposeful. I also don’t see what’s luck based about it?
@@pimscrypt It wasn't, the devs had to make compromise and we're not big or fortunate enough with money & they still did the best with the limitations.
Having not followed the press cycle and response for this game, the idea that it would be weird or obviously a mistake for the combat in a horror game to feel disempowering is genuinely bizarre to me. Do none of these people remember Silent Hill?
Awesome video!
Thank you so much!!
Personally I somehow avoided all the conversations of people thinking this would be a doom-like and Scorn ended up being exactly what I expected and loved it. 99% of criticism is "Wait this isn't the doom clone I made up in my head" and drop the game after 10 minutes.
I feel like some valid criticism are the save points which were pretty bad on day 1 and being a little too dependant on the art book, but even then the main story, themes and events of the game are pretty clear if you just get the vibe.
And man that ending still haunts me, I was so invested in the idea of escaping that alien hell into another dimension where the flesh of your body is no longer a concern, only for said flesh to come back stronger than ever and make the worse scenario come true, your entire existence being totally consumed by the flesh you were trying to liberate yourself from the entire game, a really downer ending that will never leave my mind
fuck the parasyte
I never heard of this game before this video but I'm interested, despite watching the whole thing.
I'm glad you showed the people whining about artsy games because unfortunately there's way too many people like that.
I showed one of my songs to an aunt one time and she had no interest in it. I was caught off guard. She supported my music and my style and lyrics, but one song in particular she just didn't like. Her reasoning is 4 words.
"It's 6 minutes long"
That's literally it. I got no legitimately feedback. She just didn't like long songs.
Queen is one of her favorite bands. Does she skip Bohemian Rhapsody? Absolutely not.
Five minutes in and I'm going to stop watching this and finally go play Scorn. Back in a bit.
Heck yeah, you should!
I couldn't call Scorn a masterpiece but it's definitely high in my list of excellent games. I had mixed feelings on my first playthrough but I liked it more after the second one.
Also, regarding combat: it's almost completely optional. In the very first encounter you only have your melee weapon and see a medium monster that takes 5 hits to kill. Most people I watched run straight to fight it but if you just watch it from a distance, all it does is go into a hole and disappear. You don't have to fight it. Most enemy encounters can be skipped by either watching them go away, hiding from them behind cover or running past them. And if you do decide to fight them, their friends will come and help kill you.
I think what the game tries to tell here is that this weird world has its own ecosystem with creatures just minding their own business. You're not welcome here but if you let live, you will live too. The game gives you weapons but they're more for self-defense than aggression. This is where I think most complaints come from, people approached this game as a shooter rather than strange exploration game with guns. If fighting was not in the game, more people would enjoy it.
I've played it, and I disagree. The actual background story and lore to the game was actually kinda interesting, but you also only got that from the art book most people are not going to see. But as a video game you play, it fell pretty flat. I think they should have removed the combat, it was not fun. Just make it a straight first person adventure game/walking sim. I don't hate it or anything, but to wait years for a game that looked really cool to get a 5 or 6 out of 10 is pretty disappointing.
Would Silent Hill 2 be better without combat? Combat in that game is considered bad but the game is considered the best horror game ever made.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 I don't know, I've never considered the combat bad in SH2 myself. It's certainly not amazing, but it's fine for what it is, it works. I felt the combat was quite bad in Scorn though, bad enough that it can affect the game negatively.
Though to be honest, even without the combat I think I'd still be pretty lukewarm on Scorn, based on my history of not liking the vast majority of walking sims I've played.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898admittedly I've not played scorn so I have no actual opinion one way the other on the reality of the game, but "this gameplay element feels bad but adds to the game" and "this gameplay element is bad and does not add to the game" are two very different concepts. If the combat in Scorn doesn't add to the story or even removes from it then it could have been removed in pref for an exploration of the world walking sim (or replaced with something else) the vibe I'm getting from the game I was actually surprised there Was combat. But I guess that's on me.
I have played SH2 though and thought the "bad" combat was more intentional than not, not on the level of the "bad" camera angles of the first in terms of evoking horror and suspense, but still, you're unequipped to fight well and so you're not fighting well, you're supposed to be vulnerable.
(I'm not really telling You that, just thinking out loud.)
Maybe I'm wrong maybe SH2 didn't intend to have "bad" combat, but if it didn't, it still didn't feel out of place or impact the popularity of the game as a result, where as Scorn might be suffering from out of place combat elements executed badly.
Hmm feel like I just talked in a circle.
Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying Scorn combat Is bad or should be removed, just that it feeling bad and it needing to be removed are two connected but distinct arguments.
@@adam2802 I suppose an issue might be that the game, as a game - as in, something requiring and facilitating the experience of play, is just not engaging by the virtue of its nature.
Take, for example, Pathologic. It's also a very clunky, very unforgiving and "unfun" game when it comes to many of its parts. Yet, I would argue, it is still very engaging. You are engaged within the act of play because there are choices to be made, both on a large scale and a diminutive scale. What objectives should I complete and what should my route be to maximize my efficiency? Can I make it in time to complete this timed objective? Should I cut through this alley even though I don't know the path? Can I defeat this enemy without taking damage or wasting ammo? Should I use this medicine to ensure I won't die or hold out because an NPC may need it later on?
Scorn, from what I've seen and heard (haven't played it either), does not seem to facilitate that to the same degree. It's very nature is contrary to the experience of an engaging game. You don't consider long term decision making to the same extent (although it is still present in part with resource management), it's micro decision aren't on the same scale (although still present with combat and puzzles in particular).
Through wanting the player to feel powerless and lost, whilst providing little in terms of communicated mechanical expression, they have made an experience that is intentional and works as intended, yet an experience that is intended to be unfun at the core.
Hence why I personally always had my hangups with walking simulators and horror games in particular.
It's like there's this inherent paradox present in the very nature of games and their relation to expression that, at once, allows the communication of certain experiences to be all the more powerful, yet those expressions are also what make these experiences bad for the idea of the game as a "game".
Is a game that's "bad" as a "game" good as a game because that is what the game is meant to be?
This is a indie game made by a team who are inexperienced & lacking with budget and they wanted to do more but couldn't, the Artbook has alot of things that couldn't be added, maybe if EBB Software was bigger, had bigger budget and experienced that it could've been better but that's not the case, it's still well made and creative.
It's worth noting that game journalists by nature of their job rarely have positive takes on games that you have to live with a bit to enjoy. They have to process so many games so quickly that all they'll see of most games is the first handful of hours of gameplay, and they'll probably be thinking of what kinds of game to compare it to in their writeup/script. When you have something that doesn't really fit any of the boxes they're trying to sort them into, they'll be struggling with their script as they play the game. (I've literally seen streaming game journalists having this problem, their attention just isn't on the game very much because they're just not focusing on doing what the game is asking them to do.)
Also, while I didn't recognize every journalist in there, there's one who I would suggest you should always watch with a grain of salt (or, well, pick one up when you sit down to watch, he's got plenty). Yahtzee Croshaw is hilarious and enjoyable, but part of his charm is the sarcastic and witty slander he levels at most games he covers. (Sometimes it's more like a good natured ribbing, but the games he's unequivocally positive about are pretty few and far between)
18:02 I didn’t realize Drake was in this game. Seriously though, scorn was a game I slept on, mainly because of all the negative press surrounding it, but this video made me consider giving it another shot. It’s nice to know (and a relief) that to the game had something to say, a trait that’s getting increasingly uncommon in modern media.
Also, have you played rain world: downpour? It’s a fantastic work of art with a lot of profound things to say about life, your place in the ecosystem, and region. It’s one of my favorite games, but until you master it, it’s about as fun as having your balls crushed by a hydraulic press. Like scorn, it was also trashed by critics for not being “fun” until you actually put in the effort to engage with it and meet it on its own level.
I adored the idea of Scorn. I beat it, and it felt like i had played half, maybe a third of a game. I did nothing but leave me hungering desperately for more. And i suppose that is ths best you can ask for, a feverish wish for more. Also, would have been more up my alley for more of that delicious erotic fleshy hellscape to be played with.
Hopefully that upcoming game Necrophosis will scratch that itch! I’ve been interested in seeing more of it myself!
I first want to mention that I've been waiting for this game since day 1. I remember when it was going to be broken up into 2 parts. I then, finally got to play it on my Steamdeck and it was...meh. This is NOT a game made for a 3 inch screen. This thing is a painting with so much depth and detail that you really need a large screen to see all of it, much less appeciate it. On the deck, I couldn't see object indicators nor did I notice the insane amount of background detail. So when I had to chance to buy this brand new for Playstation 5 on physical disc (Collector's Edition), there was no hesitation. And I'm glad I bought it because I so f'n love this game. Scorn is an utter masterpiece when it comes to atmosphere and anxiety of being immersed in a threatening Gieger nightmare. I've seen some negative reviews about it being a slow burn and the maps being confusing. I'd compare Scorn a lot to Carrion. Even though they're different games, both do a great job of guiding the player through maps, objectives, puzzles, and enemies. Neither game will spoonfeed the player, but if you're paying attention, you'll make it through. Which is why I found the level design in Scorn to be quite brilliant. The intricacies of creating a believable alien world and the complexity of having that un-human way of existing within it have NEVER been done to this level. Period. It's not a Redbull guzzling knee twitching Call Of Duty gamer's dream come true. In its pacing, it's much more akin to a Silent Hill 2 game, and if you're willing to immerse yourself in this world, you'll probably have nightmares about it. I did.
Im playing it atm and it just kind of seems like a random series of hallways and rooms that for whatever reason you have to go through, fiddle with a knob here, press this membrane there. Once the novelty of it wears off it feels rather empty
@@TasmanianTigerGrrr the puzzles were designed to keep the virus out. Brains and intelligence over organic infection. I found the puzzles to be quite interesting and vastly different from most horror games. When you realize the atmosphere is a character in the game, the puzzles make a lot more sense. Maybe try playing past the first level.🤷🏼♂️
Sorry for the out-topic, but can I recommend Bungie's Marathon trilogy? I think it's a very avanguardist saga of Doom-clones, even in the horror genre.
I tried playing one of the when I was in my early teens. Never really clicked for me unfortunately.
I see.
Dope outfit, Pim 🦇
Thank you!! I was considering another one, but I think I made the right choice!
Nicee
Thank you!
You deserve more subs!!!
Thank you! I've been hearing that ever since I started haha! Maybe one day!
Calling this game masterpiece is the biggest overstatement I heard in my entire life.
@@glasatv1463 Somehow I doubt that.
I dropped off Scorn when the enemies appeared. The combat (especially that first weapon) made me feel miserable in a different way to the rest of the game. Maybe I’ll pick it up again someday after seeing this
I hope you do!
Did you know the 2016 Build had enemies alot more docile and don't attack if you avoid them? Example being a conjoined Chicken enemy just walking past you and gives a look before turning and keep walking, no acid spit, the devs say that behavior is still there but the full build shows otherwise, it's the one change that should honestly be done because that's misleading, though everything else is fine and good.
@@artistanthony1007 There are a few enemies that climb around the environment but don't attack and die in one hit, but I think I would have preferred the ones that are in your way be docile unless provoked too
Very interesting and beautiful analysis. But it's strange you don't mention David Kronenberg. His influence is visible absolutely everywhere in the game. All the biomechanical devices we interact with look exactly like what you see in his movies. I mean, the weapons are clearly inspired by the ones in Existenz. So if you own the artbook, I assume the devs didn't mention his work in there, which I almost find concerning. Maybe it's because he's still alive contrary to the other artists mentioned, and there may be a problem with copyrignt or something. Yes it's really that similar.
I admit I could have put more emphasis on the Kronenberg connection, though I do mention his name once in the video. As for the art book, it's been a while since I read it, so its quite possible that he is mentioned in there as well.
@@pimscrypt My bad then, sorry about that. I missed the part when you mention him. 😅 To be honest I didn't hear a single review or essay mentioning his work. Yet it's so prevalent in the game that I expected it. Plunging your hands in disgusting biomechanical devices is kind of his thing. lol
*subscribed*
Heck ye!
people complain about a missing jump button when most AAA "notice me hollywood and netflix" games have no jump option at all? What the heck? XD And the complains about the story. Reminds me of a friend of mine when I showed him John Carpenters the thing and room 1408. Constantly asking question or waiting for a main goal, like dude, there is not much they can do about this thing and as the movie already stated, it's just a very bad room. XD Just let the vibe take you in. XD
Also personal headcanon, I kinda like to see Scorn as a sequel to I have no mouth and I must scream. Like AM is gone for a long time, and his last victim kinda created (not on purpose) some kind of new enviroment and live forms around them, with one of them, finally taking them out of their missery while slowly walking towards their own entrapment... but thats just my personal headcanon. ^^;
Scorn is just like FNaF 4 FR
I should’ve lead with that.
@@pimscrypt BTW I 100%ed FNaF 4
I get frustated with the game long time ago after playing it on the release and decided to leave it there, but last month I wanted to finish a few things on the catalogue and ended playing it completely in two days.
While I ended up enjoying the game way more than expected, especially the history and the beautiful designs, there's a point were you have to be real and recognise that combat isn't working to tell a narrative about the violence of the world or simply to scare, the combat is not working because they couldn't translate the feeling of horror from Silent Hill to a first person pov, it's get lost in the middle.
The puzzles get better as the game progresses and become more intuitive, but the starting point of the egg puzzle is insane, that's just bad organization, you have to let people discover how the world goes in little steps before getting into that abstract kind of riddle, that let the majority of the people that is playing frustated.
While the story is there, I think it does a very bad job of explaining itself
Well EBB Software is new & small and wanted to try a game differently so I don't fault them for lacking in that, it's though why the Artbook exists because they can explain and do more that the game couldn't. I suggest they just try smaller traditional games before coming back and figuring what to do better especially to help get budget increased.
I think the problem with scorn is that to many people, the point of it being an actual video game is largely pointless. Being able to interact with this fascinating world is cool, but the gameplay itself is not fun in any way at all to many. I believe it is not a fair argument to assume that many of the reviewers do not wish to interact with an artsy game, I find it hard to believe so many would have NEVER played and liked such a game in the past. The problems you have listed of the janky combat, and puzzles being too grounded in an alien world, seem more then valid for someone to dislike the game, especially since the three main things you do is watch and experience the bizarre world, fight, and puzzle solve. I've heard many people say they would RATHER scorn focus on more exploration and interesting puzzle solving instead of including combat at all. People know artsy games exist, you don't HAVE to put in a combat system. All these problems compound in their uninterest in digging deeper to find the story.
If people are already not liking anything about the game, and see the gameplay elements as genuinely bad, they will not give the time of day to think about the story. I would even hazard a guess that, seeing as some people view the gameplay as bad, they likely think that there is no possible way scorn could be telling a nuanced story. Despite this, some who DO understand there is a story and subtext behind it all still don't like it. For instance, Penguinz0 played through the game, and right after saying there isn't any story he states that some people are speculating the story is about motherhood, he just wants more direct story telling.
That seems to be one of the core issues, there IS a narrative, but there isn't much of a story, not a satisfying one anyway. You don't really know what you are doing as you go through the game, you are just doing things to proceed, but your progress is not rewarded in any way that many players truly care about. You get new weapon upgrades but people want to interact with the combat as little as possible to begin with. your other reward is just progression itself, seeing more of the world and the story unfold, but that simply isn't enough for them when they aren't enjoying the act of playing the game at all. In terms of story you can grasp with your first playthrough and no additional thought afterwards, it really is just "walk around and then die." Many people will never think about the opening cutscene relating to the ending, because they don't really feel anything at all to ever think back on the game to begin with.
As mentioned in the video, the ending is essentially exactly what happens at the end of "I have no mouth and I must scream." The big difference from scorn and... IhnmaIms is that there is SOME hope and something to look forward to in I have no mouth, the stockade of canned food in the ice caverns. There is a clear glimmer of small hope in a hopeless world, and ultimately there is a payoff with Tim killing the others and ending their torment. He gets punished beyond his imagination for this, but ATLEAST Ted gets to stick it to AM one last time, and make him acknowledge that even though AM has wiped humanity off the map, he has to live knowing humanity got the last laugh, they get to die, but AM will never be able to cover all his bases, or truly live, or ever die.
Contrast this with Scorn, you don't really get to throw a tiny wrench in anyone's plans. But you also don't get to achieve much of anything at all. A bleak story is good, but there usually needs to be some glimmer of hope to strive for, even if it'll just be snatched away so that you can care to do something about all the bleakness around you in the first place. It's not like you even care about your protagonist to begin with, they are fused with the parasite and that's just it, the most you could even really feel is "I guess it's sad that they were transformed into some obelisk" but you don't care for them in particular. The angle that "humanity persists" is the main takeaway is of course more satisfying, but again some people do not enjoy the game enough to think about it at all after the credits role, let alone deeply introspect on it.
Apologies for the light novel of a comment. Great video!
Nooooo, I don't wanna play iiiiiit but you made it sound so coooooool, but I am such a wuuuuussssssss. Nooooooooo
It's worth it, I promise!! Maybe it'll help if you have someone to play it with you?
@@pimscrypt I guess I'll try that!
Scerkin to scorn
After nearly a decade of waiting we got (SOMEHOW) rushed out, boring walking simulator. Scorn is a misunderstanding not misunderstood.
Great video man. I too enjoyed this game, and am in love with it's art style. However, just a small critique.
Personally, I saw the pro-life and pro-choice arguments taken to their extremes in this world. Where birthrates grow out of control on one end, and sapient life becoming nothing but a tool in other areas- a horror of unrestrained growth and freedom on one end (conservative ideology) and the evils that the cold sterility of suffocating order can bring (liberal ideology)- both of which suck in their extremes. Obviously, I don't know the intent of the developers, but as someone who loathes the illogical hatred of either the right or left, I felt compelled to comment on that comment. I'm fairly certain that the cold sterility of life becoming just a tool would more easily fall under the purview of those who dehumanize something they see as less than human (a mere collection of cells, if you will) or believe that people are less capable of succeeding without help based on nothing but race, than those who are typically overprotective of their idea of life; moreover the eugenics program is typically met with far more hatred from those obssessed with humanity remaining as the idealized being they promote.
Again, both sides suck in their extremes, but a lack of self awareness on one side, and a view of nothing more than evil charactures on the other, is a point of particular frustration for me- not toward you specifically, but toward this needless division in general. Most people are good, even the ones we disagree with in nearly every metric (espeically all the stupid bullshit that the left and right want us to argue, because debates without solutions are a hell of a distraction from the things that we can we can both agree on, and hold our leaders accountable for. Moral of the story, for the politicians, fuck Republicans, fuck Democrats- neither of them give a fuck about you. But the people on both sides are by and large moderate and pretty kick ass). Anyway, good video and take it easy.
I mean scorn wasn’t bad, i just wished the stuff that was scrapped from the game was still in the game, the scrap content would’ve made the game better.
I liked it. Gunplay wasn’t so good but hey, if I woke up in a fucked up world and was missing my penis and half my face then I’d be in shock. The first weapon I picked up I would turn on myself
under 1 hour gang
Oh if you love the length of this video you're gonna love the next one even more!!
@@pimscrypt this was actually about me being early but I'm still excited
The thing about not having a jump button, is it makes you feel crippled in ways even Scorn probably wouldn't benefit from. If you press the button trying to jump and nothing happens, it's like you're chained to the floor for no reason, it feels wrong on a visceral level.
Even a 5cm hop in the air would make it feel like you are embodying the character rather than piloting a roomba.
I see your point, though I question that you are anyone would feel that way if it weren’t for previous games that had already conditioned you to feel that way. I also believe there have been plenty of first person games where immersion wasn’t sacrificed by the lack of a jump button. The original Doom being one of the most obvious examples, and it works there because the main character’s arms are visible and expressive. Same goes for Scorn.
This just in: Link to the Past is a terrible game because it doesn't have a jump button. More at 11pm.
How can’t that little guy jump, huh?? Got legs doesn’t he?? Damn liberals canceling knees now!!
I'll stick by my guns- this game would work a lot better as just an expansive artbook or even a comic.
Jumping for a game, as much as it managed to work, was way too much of a hastely decision for the devs.
And if I'm to say something about the game itself- it's far far far better if you have not read the artbook or listened to any theories.
Making your own sense on what happened and where you are is far better when you play.
Becausae with the artbook read and theories heard you gonna see how much is missing, how much more there could have been even without the words (BLAME and NeisancE says hello)
As for the people "Offended" by the game being weird and "esotheric" - you smell like the people who are "Afraid of modern art" (Jacob Geller namedrop), people who fear making their own mind about what they see and what they read, fearing engaging with what you read or play.
It's not a high nosed thought- it's a disapointed thought. (and then people like these bitch about "games being shallow")
I liked Scorn fine enough but it's really an annoyance to hear phrases like "media literacy" thrown around so smugly. On the one hand it's silly to have the baseline appreciation for a game start at "can jump," but on the other hand it's absolutely fine to not enjoy a game because it isn't fun or interesting, which is actually the core complaint there beyond the objective request itself. I don't think wanting a game to be fun or interesting is an anti-intellectual desire, but I understand how it might feel good to think that.
I think a key illustrative moment was when you suggested that the wall of bodies was a critique of pro-life as when I saw it, I was looking at the reductio ad absurdum of anti-natalism in the sense that this is a metaphor for what anti-natalists assume of childbirth. Yet I can simultaneously acknowledge that I get the same sense of scorn from looking directly at HR Giger works themselves, rendering Scorn little more than one of those interactive Van Gogh exhibits but for the one niche painter (Beksinski not Giger) me and other aging internet edgelords like. It's an interesting novelty in that it's at least a visually interesting way to reframe a place I've been many times before, it's no masterpiece simply because it acknowledges something nostalgic and familiar.
My intention was not to be smug, which is why I made an effort to repeat the fact that it’s totally fine not to enjoy the game, for whatever reason. Saying that “there is no story”, that it’s for people who like to “smell their own farts”, that there is “no context”, that is anti-intellectual. That isn’t a refusal to engage with the game because it isn’t fun, but because one refuses to try and understand it.
If you find Scorn to be too familiar, or that it only has a nostalgic appeal, fair enough. I would personally not base what is or isn’t a masterpiece based on how familiar it is to me. I consume so much horror media nowadays that tropes and plot lines have started to feel way less unique. So for me it’s all about the execution. How well have all the puzzle pieces been put into place? And to me, Scorn did it beautifully. And I ultimately believe I would still think that had I not been aware of its aesthetic influences.
Imo not a masterpiece. Just shock value
Scorpion and the frog is not a political allegory, it is a philosophical allegory. Also stop using this game to make some leftist democrat propaganda.
Tell that to sociologist Jean-Claude Passeron.
@@pimscrypt Don't need to, I liked and analysed this philosophical allegory many years before. It's even in the film ''Natural born killers'' dude!!!
@@pimscrypt Originally it's a buddhist tale. Not very political. But whatever...
@@MidnightatMidian I think you should check out the concept of critical lenses. A whole lot to learn there!
I have nothing against walking simulators in fact there are some that are incredible. And while scorn is not technically a walking simulator, it's one of the most boring and tedious games I played in a long time.
Because of how much I dislike it, my favorite part of the game is when it was finally over.
It felt like such a chore to play the thing. with pointless combat and some puzzles which were easy to understand but Annoying to complete.
And it not having any story did not help things.
It's pretty rare that a game disappoint me on the level that this one has.