Jim Sterling

He's blunt to a fault, and I won't argue against anyone who finds himself obnoxious. Personally I quite like hearing his opinions, but he's certainly cut from a coarse cloth, like Totalbiscuit for example. I do find his honesty refreshing though in a landscape polluted with a lot of bullshit pandering.

I can't get past how annoying his voice is. Watched some of videos (usually by mistake when wanting to watch Zero Punctuation) and didn't think much of them or the manner he presents his opinions and thoughts - even when making good points.

I wonder why I don't find him so irritating as others? I'm not usually one for coarse humour, and things like him licking dildos on-screen can get more than a bit tiresome, but I like the general cut of his jib.

Will give my opinions on his Youtube discussion when I've watched it, but I'll probably not have many, since it sounds like I agree with him.

Not for Andy, Walking Sims with one being praised highly from Jim

Sterling has grown on me a lot recently. I'm over my initial dislike of his voice, he's not attached to the escapist and the stuff I've seen recently has been amusing and I've agreed with it.

I'm a fan of his work. It did take a bit of effort to get over his voice, but I tend to agree with him more often than not and he does entertaining critics on games I'd never look at otherwise.

Jim talks Dynasty Warriors

Watched that earlier today and loved it.
Amusing to think how much I used to dislike Jim, I'm a big fan nowadays.

I'm a big of his, that's why I thank him for letting me give him $1 a month.

On Musou games, I'm so-so on them as I liked Hyrule Warriors, Dragon Quest Heroes I like a lot but I also own Warriors Orochi 3 on Wii U and I just couldn't get into it at all just not a fan of it but I like the look of Arslan: The Warriors of Legend and will get Hyrule Warriors Legends also want to get Mystic Heroes on Cube.

That I like the gameplay but not the setting of the main series or I like the settings of the ones I bring up which is a enough to over come the gameplay.

Digital Homicide attempting to sue. Hilarious stuff; just utter incompetence. A full court debate is the only way to follow up the work of comedy gold that was the skype podcast.

JayMoyles wrote:

Jim "I'm in the clickbait business now" Sterling

Is it time to address this? Or is it too sordid a subject for this lovely cheery forum?

I'm not sure what their is to address, I've not read his YL review but did his Zelda one, both of those seem to be the ones people have got a little worked up about.

I sort of agree with his Zelda review, I even gave it the same score even though for different reasons.

I've not followed Jimmer so much recently - he's the sort of abrasive critic whose great to listen to when his opinions converge with one's own, but I can't say I derive much pleasure from watching 15-20 minute jimquisitions that I strongly disagree with. So, recently, he's been on an anti Ninty binge, which would be fine were it not for my view that he's pushing things too far to make issues appear more severe than they actually are. That's not to say, "I think he's forcing an extreme position on purpose for clicks," but rather that I see things quite differently at times. So, when I'm looking for entertainment, sometimes I find it best to just close a Jimquisition.

Having said that, I watched his latest Jimquisition, which was excellent.The right mix of calling out obnoxious behaviour and informing me about stuff I didn't know anything about, with some crass and weird comedy.

I've not read any Zelda reviews since buying it, and won't until I finish the game, but I'm sure he's got solid reasons for giving it a 7. His written work is normally pretty solid. A 2/10 for Yooka seems very low but I've not read the review nor played the game, which by all accounts has starkly divided critical opinion anyway. Wouldn't say he's doing things for clicks on his website either, whenever it gets ddosed he links to cached reviews on social media and it's patreon where he gets his dollah.

He knows how to whip up controversy for his own gain. I'm in pretty much the same boat as Muss: I've unfollowed him on twitter and that but I'm not opposed to watching Jimquisitions on subjects outside of the Nintendo sphere where I know he's just gonna rub me the wrong way.

That's a pretty good summary of how I feel, Muss. I don't quite believe he doesn't do it 'for the clicks': he likes attention, like the rest of us. And while I don't believe he consciously gave BotW a poor score (he has too much integrity for that), I do think the fact that he was on a Nintendo rampage at the time will have subconsciously influenced him. I think he's more influenced by his emotions than many, hence the occasional pettiness.

At the same time, I think he's a good writer and comic, albeit some of his cruder humour doesn't do it for me.

Although I've not watched any of his stuff in ages, I much prefer our own Jimmer's opinions than those of Mr. Sterling. He is capable of real insight, natch, but when being horrible is your thang, I struggle to get into that and/or stick with it. Is the time right to give him another go, Jim lads?

Definitely not! He's on a real grumpy streak right now, much of it aimed at ol' Ninty.

Drunkalilly wrote:

Definitely not! He's on a real grumpy streak right now, much of it aimed at ol' Ninty.

Some of it is fair though, just because they're Nintendo doesn't mean they're exempted from a bit of ridicule.

Of course not, but it does mean I can't be arsed to listen to it! I generally disagree with his points, so it's not entertaining me, so I skip it. Easy as pie.

I explored his videos for a few months last year and enjoyed the ones where he lays in to really bad Steam games. Given the universal praise for Zelda, his Zelda review did feel a bit "look at me" but it was the Yooka Laylee one that took things too far for me. 2/10 is Superman 64 territory.

ZeroJones wrote:

Although I've not watched any of his stuff in ages, I much prefer our own Jimmer's opinions than those of Mr. Sterling. He is capable of real insight, natch, but when being horrible is your thang, I struggle to get into that and/or stick with it. Is the time right to give him another go, Jim lads?

Drunkalilly wrote:

Definitely not! He's on a real grumpy streak right now, much of it aimed at ol' Ninty.

Absolutely this. His tendency for the hyperbolic (as Mr. Jones #2 describes above) and the vitriolic means it grates no end when he disagrees with you. (Incidentally he gave SF0 a 2/10 as well.)

If you don't click with the controls, though... and, as I've said in the past (and will have said in the future), if a review contains the phrase "divisive controls", you've already lost. I can understand why the 2 - just that I would never give the game that myself.

Y'know - I might check out the Zelda and YL reviews when I've played the games.

gjones wrote:

I explored his videos for a few months last year and enjoyed the ones where he lays in to really bad Steam games. Given the universal praise for Zelda, his Zelda review did feel a bit "look at me" but it was the Yooka Laylee one that took things too far for me. 2/10 is Superman 64 territory.

This more or less encapsulates my thoughts on Sterling as of late. I can understand some of his criticisms for Zelda, but I think it's been coloured by his recent hate for Nintendo. The Yooka review - I cannot see it as anything more than a review for shock value. A 2/10 is ridiculous. From all the footage I've seen, the game looks fine - it might play a bit shonkily and if you weren't a fan of collect-a-thon platformers, I can see where a 4 or 5 might stem from. A 2 means the game is broken and just seems to be there to get eyes onto Jim's website and Patreon campaign.

To be fair, a Jim Sterling 2/10 is accompanied by the descriptor, bad, as opposed to broken, on his website. In my own 1-10 scale I'm not even sure which point represents broken. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was thoroughly broken upon release, and only made playable through fan made mods, but it still garnered a cult following and I enjoyed it. Even in its broken state I'm not sure how many would have given it a 2 back in the day. It's a flawed comparison, Vamp's an action rpg with multiple choices so if the story and world are interesting enough it can get away with goofier controls and buggier... bugs (bugger it) than a platformer. Even so, I personally see this all as an instance where people's 1-10 scales are clashing, a sitch made particularly jarring given his recent work.

When I look at Yooka, I admit I don't think I'm looking at a game I'd score a 2/10, more a game I'd like to buy when it's on sale (having not played a Banjo game I sort of want to take this on at a lower price point in case it's not the sort of thing that gels with me). However, if I found the combat "brainless", the dialogue "painful",the metroidvania elements frustrating over intriguing due to level design, and the mini-games not even "slightly enjoyable," then I could see my hypothetical self knocking the game down to below a 4/10. The fact that it's a very good looker would probably heighten the hypothetical negativity because I'd anticipate so much more.

I'm not disputing that Jimmeh does things to self promote, he's a one man band so everything he does is self promotional to an extent, and he's obviously going to be aware of how many online are going to treat a 2. But at least within the vacuum of his own website and its unscientific scoring rubric , I don't see his score as too outrageous. Ctrl+C, & Ctrl+V the review onto IGN or Gamespot, and maybe the score becomes higher. In his own den though, he doesn't really find any redeeming features in Yooks, only things that gave him a bad time. That seems to fit his scoring metric fairly enough.

Maybe, as a big fan of his older stuff (not keen on a lot of his recent work), I just want to believe a 2/10 is not some sort of stunt. Maybe I've got too much faith in his integrity. Maybe I don't see how giving such a low score to a hotly anticipated game helps his bottom line. Or maybe it says as much about people reacting really negatively to his review as it does Jim [Not that I'm accusing anyone here of overreacting with anywhere near the level of puerile internet vitriol of the sort which would go out of its way to take down a website because it said a thing about a game that they didn't agree with, none of you are scum! However, as fair as I think it is to question whether recent events have coloured Jim's work, I think it's also only fair to ask whether those same events have equally skewed our own views towards his work.].

To each to their own, of course. I've disagreed with plenty of his reviews in the past. I can certainly see why this review in particular has soured folks though, in part because it's obviously a game a lot of folk have been, and still are, looking forward to. But also because even if one can argue that his score fairly reflects his own rubric, reviews don't exist in a perfect void so whenever a score is slapped on something it's only natural for people to compare it to how they themselves score things as well as how other websites do the same.

I suppose what I'm saying is scores are bollocks. (I actually like review scores)

Muss wrote:

To be fair, a Jim Sterling 2/10 is accompanied by the descriptor, bad, as opposed to broken, on his website. In my own 1-10 scale I'm not even sure which point represents broken. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was thoroughly broken upon release, and only made playable through fan made mods, but it still garnered a cult following and I enjoyed it. Even in its broken state I'm not sure how many would have given it a 2 back in the day. It's a flawed comparison, Vamp's an action rpg with multiple choices so if the story and world are interesting enough it can get away with goofier controls and buggier... bugs (bugger it) than a platformer. Even so, I personally see this all as an instance where people's 1-10 scales are clashing, a sitch made particularly jarring given his recent work.

When I look at Yooka, I admit I don't think I'm looking at a game I'd score a 2/10, more a game I'd like to buy when it's on sale (having not played a Banjo game I sort of want to take this on at a lower price point in case it's not the sort of thing that gels with me). However, if I found the combat "brainless", the dialogue "painful",the metroidvania elements frustrating over intriguing due to level design, and the mini-games not even "slightly enjoyable," then I could see my hypothetical self knocking the game down to below a 4/10. The fact that it's a very good looker would probably heighten the hypothetical negativity because I'd anticipate so much more.

I'm not disputing that Jimmeh does things to self promote, he's a one man band so everything he does is self promotional to an extent, and he's obviously going to be aware of how many online are going to treat a 2. But at least within the vacuum of his own website and its unscientific scoring rubric , I don't see his score as too outrageous. Ctrl+C, & Ctrl+V the review onto IGN or Gamespot, and maybe the score becomes higher. In his own den though, he doesn't really find any redeeming features in Yooks, only things that gave him a bad time. That seems to fit his scoring metric fairly enough.

Maybe, as a big fan of his older stuff (not keen on a lot of his recent work), I just want to believe a 2/10 is not some sort of stunt. Maybe I've got too much faith in his integrity. Maybe I don't see how giving such a low score to a hotly anticipated game helps his bottom line. Or maybe it says as much about people reacting really negatively to his review as it does Jim [Not that I'm accusing anyone here of overreacting with anywhere near the level of puerile internet vitriol of the sort which would go out of its way to take down a website because it said a thing about a game that they didn't agree with, none of you are scum! However, as fair as I think it is to question whether recent events have coloured Jim's work, I think it's also only fair to ask whether those same events have equally skewed our own views towards his work.].

To each to their own, of course. I've disagreed with plenty of his reviews in the past. I can certainly see why this review in particular has soured folks though, in part because it's obviously a game a lot of folk have been, and still are, looking forward to. But also because even if one can argue that his score fairly reflects his own rubric, reviews don't exist in a perfect void so whenever a score is slapped on something it's only natural for people to compare it to how they themselves score things as well as how other websites do the same.

I suppose what I'm saying is scores are bollocks. (I actually like review scores)

7.8 Too Many Words