thread of tim rogers content (do not read if you hate tim rogers)

the incomparable tim rogers has been a full-time contributor to kotaku since last year. I have loved tim rogers' writing, but it's possible that talking-fast-over-a-video is him at his finest. here's a thread for tim rogers content past present and future!

this week he did a video review of Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition which makes me…kinda want this bugfuck game…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep5SWvImTRU

mostly for my own future reference, here's a wayback machine link to action button dot net, which is currently missing with a message that says "relax, it's coming back", featuring his 18,000 word review of Final Fantasy XIII which I think is a high point.

I'm guessing you dont mean this guy!

http://artslab.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Tim_Rogers_1.jpg

I don’t.

no, that's him

i fondly remember his long, digressive "reviews" of earthbound, chrono trigger and super mario bros 3 being really important to my own writing at a certain time in my life, and i'm sad to find out the website is down now so i can't spend 2 hours reading all three again!

i like his videos way more than his written stuff

the part of the hyrule warriors video starting around 13:30 where he tries to explain the appeal of musuo games is wonderful

I have a mixed opinion of Rogers as writer. He has some annoying tendencies for sure, but his perspective and his style feel so unique and inimitable. I like his absurdist wordplay. I like his overall design philosophy. I could do without about half of his loopy digressions on his travels and lifestyle...at the same time, a large part of his appeal (for me) is the way his writing is always crammed-to-bursting with vivid and unnecessary detail. I'd be lying if I said his stuff didn't influence me, though if you asked me to define said influence, I'm not sure I could. Anyway, his God Hand review is pretty funny.

rereading the FFXII review last night, there was a lot of 2010 bro-type/edgelordy language and imagery that he's mercifully moved on from.

I've met him irl a few times. he's relatively nice but does not stop talking

xp yeah, I was reading that and "blade raped" made me cringe. Glad he has matured a bit.

yeah i've met him at pax a couple times since my friend did the music for his game - he's basically the same person you see in his videos, it's not a put-on

recently ive been listening to the Violence Island podcast:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151130033625/http://earthblows.com/

it's a battle royal of random characters. interestingly the one they taped in October 2014 "Must See Killing Spree" begins with a fight between Dick Solomon and Dr. Huxtable himself, and Tim Rogers wastes no time saying that there are some deep, dark "grandmother terrifying" things about Cosby. he never comes out and says what he was accused of but it's clear he saw/heard the Hannibal act from the same month and he took that stuff seriously. just kind of interesting, i was listening to that and had to look up that it was 4 years ago. an entirely different world.

as for his personality, he doesn't seem all that different from music hipsters i've talked with. then again hipsters hate nothing more than their own kind.

this is the best and worst of tim rogers, al in 5 minutes

https://jalopnik.com/should-you-honk-at-people-in-anger-a-cargument-1826083140

imwo honks are the only non-violent way to communicate to other cars. someone needs to invent smart honks that figure out if you are trying to merge lanes or whatever and produces a tone the other car understands and can communicate to the driver.

Tim Rogers reported from E3. Videos are up from the booths of the major publishers. There's also this video. https://kotaku.com/the-weirdest-things-we-found-at-e3-2018-1826928317

Good stuff from Tim recently: Judge Eyes demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je7hYYjr9Mk

Eyebrow-raisey Shadow of the Tomb Raider preview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8lgFc6vFyU

Affectionate DQXI review

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4iTbUGItU0s

Oops forgot to remove the m on that last one, here’s the embed for those who prefer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iTbUGItU0s

let's see if tim can sell me on forza horizon 4, a candidate for my biannual Fancy Graphics Game Impulse Purchase

I like his series about translating Final Fantasy VII, funny and informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZefYEaNUJ7w

Tim made me want Forza Horizon and it’s not a thing I should want.

Tim plays, screams at Mega Man 11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7GR5GQy9XU

I can't tell if I prefer exasperated Tim or chill Tim

the two types of tim rogers content i love are his scripted review vids that all take poetic turns in the 2nd half (e.g. hyrule warriors, forza horizon 4) and his on-site vids from E3/conventions

Tim and I have the same Game of the Year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru3yZzhhnS8

Does not disappoint.

This also reminds me that I need to 1) go back and beat Celeste & 2) pick up Obra Dinn ASAP

those two are tied for my goty

i downloaded obra dinn the other day and i'm trying to con my partner into trying it out with me tonight!

and rogers' #1 same as mine too. it was a good year for games!

kinda sold on this guy

Obra Dinn is awesome btw, and i don't think i will ever come close to figuring out the fates of everyone

I’m going to sit on my hands on that one for a while owing to my Switch Only policy but I’ll stop waiting in a year or so. I loved Papers Please, what a game.

^same

good list. hollow knight s/b #1 tho

He even says there's nothing wrong with it and struggles to find a complaint (too dark to play on the NYC subway, lol), so at the least it should be higher!

Sheesh it’s not like a scientific ranking.

I agree with him though: Hollow Knight is very good and Celeste is the best platforming video game and basically a perfect realization of what video games are good at

Hollow Knight is also a 2017 game

hollow knight is low b/c he played it last year jeez yall didn't listen to all 44 minutes did you xp

year of impact

PCs are powerpoint

of course I paid attention to all 44 minutes, and I might do it over again!

it's possible that talking-fast-over-a-video is him at his finest.

This is a terrible thing to say about anyone, but having a look at the Shadow of the Tomb Raider video you might have it right.

The sheer amount of video editing he must do for these is pretty intense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y48DgYY6GVA

shooting zombies is the vegetarian version of murder

his story about jonathan blow (#4, braid) is interesting and kind of sad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqnAx3gx99w

this is one franchise I just solidly dng

just tim timming all over the latest podcast, in post. use caution if you like tim rogers.

i will probably finish it. it's just so ludicrous. Frank's audio is missing, and so he fills in the spaces in the conversation from his famously great memory.

Loved that episode and all the credit in the world to editor esper for making it even slightly comprehensible

Yahueh!

This sounds amusing, looking forward to it.

Brandon's upcoming game "Demonschool" has a demo on Steam if the urge strikes you. Looks pretty neat... a retro tactics game with some Persona flavor

I played a little of the demo, it's cool. The combat system is neat, the art & music is beautiful. Every character seems to talk like Brandon, though.

I mean this without any disrespect, it’s great whatever way, but Frank’s podcast Video Game History Hour is fantastic to fall asleep to.

Wow, so apparently Tim abruptly left Insert Credit in what sounds like a particularly nasty way. Bad enough and cruel enough that it sounds like Frank and Brandon are cutting ties with him entirely. Frank more/less calling him a toxic person.

Real bummer.

I like his content and I understand being bummed about this.

But also looooollll I can so easily imagine him being, uh, difficult.

for sure openly a headcase

he should make more action button episodes now that he has some free time

100%. I was expecting him to leave the show at any moment, he hasn’t sounded like he’s wanted to be there for a while now. Shitty he had to do it the way he did though. Guy seems like he’s for sure uhh, got some stuff going on mentally and emotionally.

yeah i never listened to much insert credit but it didn't take much to notice his lack of respect for the other guys was very thinly veiled

I check out his Twitch streams a bit but they've been kind of a downer lately..

Also i get the impression he pretty much does nothing put work on his Action Button episodes. I think the next "season" probably won't have long gaps between episodes.

one would hope, considering that the first 7 AB eps came out over a 28 month period, and he's now at 25 months since his last one. Maybe he's gonna pull a lasagna cat and flood the streets all at once, but I'm pretty over his deal at this point.

hard to argue. should we change thread title? lol

looking forward to seeing whatever the heck though

Damn, I'm kinda surprised and bummed to hear about this. I always kinda thought his dickishness to Frank and Brandon was a bit, and that they got along off mic. Shows what I know!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ActionButton/comments/1gdyxwr/insert_credit_361/
lol, thread locked with all comments deleted except a few screenshots of Tim's defense of himself from discord that don't exactly make him come off well.

All he wanted was the right to suddenly quit, not respond to texts, and be given two weeks or so to mull over what else to maybe say.

Strange dude. As much as I've enjoyed a lot of his work, the pompous, contemptuous, negative side of him seemed to be growing. And he's clearly kind of a compulsive liar. Not a new thing, but speaks to the "head case" thing.

The few hour solo hosted "36 Best 360 Games" episode he released right before the announcement was unexpected and I was pretty stoked to see it pop up. I'm not sure what the general consensus is on that, but I found it a little insufferable? Leaned more into the sides of him I don't care for.

Anyway, this isn't a "i never really liked this guy who might be an asshole" thing, just a general recognition of a slide. Won't make excuses for abusive behavior, but he's exuded a "i wish i was dead" aura on the show for the past few months so idk. Feel for his cohosts. Wasn't just a professional relationship.

Was caught of guard by how much this bothered me so spent too much time thinking about it over the last few days. I guess it's because it was becoming harder and harder to ignore how his asshole-ish tendencies really were bothering the other hosts - thought his interactions with Ash Parrish in particularly were a bit ehhh though she handled it well imho. So to have it confirmed that Frank and Brandon (at least) were indeed at the point of 'fuck that guy' reminded me of actually relationships in real life where the wool comes off your eyes and you realise you've been putting up with a real POS for no good reason for a while.

HOWEVER

That's parasocial as fuck? Dude has been unprofessional and a dick to his one-time friends. Who cares, I don't know any of them. Unless more info comes out, is it naive to say that this is none of my business as an audience member and I can go on enjoying the output from both sides of this divorce?

Similar here. Got to the point of searching his take on his Discord. I don't know why I bothered to join it... like maybe there was a list of music or something I wanted to see. Anyway I think his side was basically already covered here via Reddit and it's pretty lame. Jaffe is on the server too and was talking some shit about how there aren't really parasocial relationships, that it is just indicative of a lack of "skill" in making someone your friend. That is weird as it implies one would want that. I have no idea who he is other than a guy hosting a podcast I've listened to like 20 episodes of, and who's also annoyed at Tim Rogers.

I barely game and am probably about done with both sides of this divorce. I did stumble across the fact that Action Button started as a mobile game dev and made my favourite iPhone game ever, though ("Ziggurat") so this is a point for. Had no idea that was Tim.

Tim's on Twitch doing his weekly Action Button thing. Got all serious for a minute and said he needed to make a statement about everything that's been going on this week. Turned it into a gag and announced that he's kinda into the Venom movies. Alex Jaffe (!?) is on there now and they're joking around about superhero movies like they're best buds and everything's cool.

I have no idea what's going on here lol.

podcasters should having a cooling off period before they go public with their drama

They may be physically incapable of stepping away for a minute

yeah lol

I'm reading this, maybe too cynically, as Tim flattering up Alex (who I never gathered as being a genuine buddy of Tim's) in the wake of this to have him on his Twitch stream to make him look totally cool and chill.

I would like to think Alex isn't that dumb and pathetic and I'm totally missing some information here, but it certainly presents as a wtf thing to do right now.

"Step away for a minute" OTM

After over 2.5 years since the last upload, Action Button has returned as the long rumored LA Noire video is finally premiering with a stream on YouTube and it’s apparently 9 hours long?

ha noticed this pattern with other pods/youtubers where they keep getting longer and less frequent the last fall of civilizations took forever to come out then it was 7 hours on the mongols, guess its cool theyre digging so deep

thats too much i'm putting my foot down. i don't want an entire tv season worth of video on one game

idk if i want to watch it all but i appreciate the passion

la noire is such a weird pick for going that deep on compared to like doom or pac-man or tokimeki memorial which are all genre-defining games. curious to at least see what his angle is even if i dont watch the whole thing

ahh ok the angle this time is basically a fancy let's play. that makes a lot more sense for the length

Is that game worthwhile, or was it important for some esoteric reason ("the first game with motion cap," or whatever)? What is his hook?

still in the prologue.. does he does the terrible film noir voice the whole time? might have to sit this one out...

Is that game worthwhile

i played it a few years back in preparation for this review (lol) and enjoyed it well enough. driving around the historical recreation of LA in bonkers cars like the stout scarab is worth the price of admission alone

This is very very bad! 9 hours of plot recap via overwrought hard boiled pastiche (I mean I fell asleep 30 min in, woke up 2 hrs later and skipped to the end to confirm that yes indeed this isn't going anywhere -- safe assumption there's nothing good in the middle).

Retreating inside a bubble of internet sycophants hasn't been good for this guy. And, minor point, if you're showing signs of catastrophic ego replying to comments with faux-Musk "looking into this" isn't as funny as you might think.

i love but also hate tim rogers. there’s something about the way he talks in the videos, he sounds like a nerd trying to make his voice sound deeper and it comes out forced-gravelly. i think it’s at least partly ironic as he leans into it during punchlines but it’s almost unbearable. his sense of humor is hit or miss for me. one time i had one of his videos on in the background and he was talking at length about some experience he had playing video games in college and it made his life sound extremely depressing

being flagrantly unhappy is for sure part of his whole thing

i personally think hes great just cause something is annoying or somehow unsatisfying doesnt mean its not you know good, hes def the most ambitious talking about video games person ive encountered, which i mean maybe low bar def a lot of people in there who have never read a book, but still his level of understanding of and passion for the medium seems pretty deep, tho im not really a gamer so i cant really be a knowable judge of expertise its more of a this is what people who know what theyre talking about and care about it sound like thing

at the end of the last of us ep he does an extended retelling of the game in the style of cormac mcarthy at first i was like this is deeply silly but then minute in i started to think it was pretty good

in conclusion imo his work is artful

agree w lagoon on all of the above but so far the only thing that feels artful abt the new one to me is that it might take me 2.5 years to get thru which is a clever way to reference the 2.5 years it took to make

the new one doesnt sound great tbf but i havent checked it out yet

New one is a real dud. Pretty much plays to all his weaknesses and none of his strengths. Made it through first hour awake and second hour drifting in and out of sleep and I think that’s all I can take, especially since I’ve already played through this not particularly great game already.

Even on the official thread on the Action Button Reddit there are basically no fans of it.

ok lol lets do this

https://i.imgur.com/BxomVDR.png

I agree with you completely lagoon, except that I've unfortunately watched the new one

damn people really are not liking it lol im only 15 minutes in so idk, i will say noir as schtick kinda hurts my feelings since i love raymond chandler

my fav stuff hes done are still some of the old kotaku review vids particularly the forza horizon 4 and hyrule warriors ones. all the same insight and weird gonzo tangents but in a much more digestible 20-minute package

the cyberpunk review was interesting because I can't think of anyone else who delves into not just the mechanics of games but why they work both in function and as a subjective reviewer. the entire video breakdown of how many minutes of cutscenes versus action versus travel time is just pure statistical wonkery but then he'll launch into how the dramatic bits resonated

it's like a car mechanic disassembling the entire car and then later going on a cross-country drive to enjoy the experience once everything's back together

Let's Play: Dress Up with 1940s Menswear