Caltrops - Rants





	[quote name="Ice Cream Jonsey"]Old Man Murray (aka OMM) was a computer game commentary and reviews site, well-known for its highly irreverent and satiric tone. It was written and edited by Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw. Old Man Murray was perhaps the most critical of game criticism sites, and was harsh on games that were overhyped or received strong reviews elsewhere, most notably Trespasser and the King's Quest series. Common targets of OMM news updates included John Romero[1] and American McGee.[2] Contents [hide] 1 Themes 2 Appearances in other media 3 References 4 External links [edit]Themes A major theme in Old Man Murray criticism was the accusation that many new games failed to add any original ideas to the medium. Gabe Newell cited the opinion of Old Man Murray as a factor when designing the popular and iconoclastic Half-Life. Old Man Murray often took aim at the conventions embedded within game genres, such as the "bizarre dream logic" required to solve puzzles in various adventure games (most notably Sierra Entertainment titles), or the ubiquity of crates and cowardly scientists as a design element in first-person shooter titles. For example, Old Man Murray's writers devised the tongue-in-cheek review system, dubbed "Start to Crate",[3] an "objective" way of determining the quality of a game by determining the time an average player must play until seeing a packing crate. In Half-Life 2: Raising The Bar, a making-of documentary, Gabe Newell mentions that there was such a worry about the crate cliché that eventually the team gave up and made a crate one of the first things the player sees and manipulates, figuring that this "was the Old Man Murray equivalent of throwing yourself to the mercy of the court". The Old Man Murray forums were a hotbed of discussion on games and other topics. When updates began to slow on the main website the forums remained active. When Faliszek removed the forums, many of the regular posters migrated to a new site called Caltrops.[4][5][6] The Old Man Murray website is still up as of 2011, but for archival purposes only; the site is no longer updated. The founders of Old Man Murray continue to run Portal of Evil and its affiliate website system. Faliszek and Wolpaw were hired as writers for video game developers Valve in 2005.[7] In March 2006, Wolpaw won a Game Developers Choice Award for Best Writing for his contributions to the game Psychonauts. Old Man Murray's mass appeal may have been related to the numerous 'Red Herring' objects in adventure games of the time, in which players would gather objects and try to solve puzzles with them, such as the infamous gas cans in 'Jagged Alliance,' and because of errors such as 'divide by zero,' which was related by one user to the mouse itself. [edit]Appearances in other media On the Quake 3: Arena map Q3DM19, the OMM logo is on the back of the antenna lift. The Old Man Murray website appears on all the monitors within the game Postal². Old Man Murray is thanked in the first level of Serious Sam by avatars of the game's programmers. Old Man Murray had been one of the game's few media champions during its development cycle, thanks to its uncomplicated, Smash TV-esque gameplay.[8][9] [edit]References ^ "Romero vs Erik" . Oldmanmurray.com. 1999-02-13. Retrieved 2009-09-15. ^ "American McGee's Alice Review" . Oldmanmurray.com. 2000-12-12. Retrieved 2009-09-15. ^ "Crate Review System" . Oldmanmurray.com. 2000-04-26. Retrieved 2009-09-15. ^ http://www.sqaforums.com/printthread.php?Board=UBB33&main=441669&type=post ^ "ACWraith's Fooldom Come - In Memory of Old Man Murray" . Byond.com. 2005-07-07. Retrieved 2009-09-15. ^ "View topic - How did you find Apezone? - Explaination, [sic] stories, etc" . ApeZone.com. Retrieved 2009-09-15. ^ [1] Chet Faliszek's Steam forums account, created in Jan 2005 ^ "Seriously, What The Fuck Is Going On?" . Oldmanmurray.com. 2000-06-04. Retrieved 2009-09-15. ^ "Serious Sam: The Interview" . Oldmanmurray.com. 2000-06-09. Retrieved 2009-09-15. [edit]External links Old Man Murray Categories: Video game review websites \| Comedy websites Log in / create account Article Discussion Read Edit View history Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Toolbox Print/export This page was last modified on 5 February 2011 at 23:55. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Contact us Privacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimers[/quote]