Yep, I was browsing his abandoned channel of old playthroughs and it was chock full of shit like this. His Afro Samurai playthrough comes to mind as well in terms of how awful it is. It boggles my mind how stupid someone can be that plays so goddamn much. It’s like if you reached a boss that clearly has a giant red glowing circle on it and then being completely dumb founded as to where to shoot it.
EDIT: Oh jesus, he did a Starcraft 2 playthrough, this is gonna be epic.
“They’re attacking my expansion AND my base?! This is such horeshit.”
I’ll try and hunt it down again. Found this, guess this is why he was perma banned from SRK regarding the illegal sticks and why Blip banned him for racism.
Doing this as one’s job usually, oddly enough, produces the opposite result of being good or even competent. I remember a review a while back for Metroid Prime Trilogy, in a professionally published capacity, that spent zero effort educating the player about how the games are played nor what makes them good. The author barely bothered to explain what the Trilogy pack offered. Instead they somehow went on for two pages about how the games are awesome classics. Not why, but just making it a material statement of fact.
Various amateur reviews on Amazon were more helpful than the ‘pro’ was. Pretty sad.
Mind you, in dsp’s case I think we could use his reviews and opinions as a useful metric on how good a game is. How obnoxious is he while playing it (on a scale from “barely tolerable” to “winds up in a lowlight reel making fun of him”). Does he hate the game? If he hates it and ended up being featured in a mockery video over this, then while this is not a guarantee… the odds are pretty good that you have a real gem on your hands and should try to buy it at your next opportunity.
I use this tactic for the more mainstream games that I’m on the fence about. Chances are if IGN and Gametrailers give it a 9 or 10 I pass, when they hand out 6’s and 7’s I’ll usually give it a closer look.
Oh my goodness. I just got done watching the video you posted above, the one regarding his Blip ban. Let’s go over some of the, uh, lowlights.
The blatant racism really stands out. That’s not a “I said it ONCE… it was wrong, I am sorry, and I will not do it again” thing. It’s not even invoking stereotypes in a playful, non-harmful way. He repeatedly used that ‘joke’ in ways that would not have gone over well if he did it in a public place. Using racial or regional stereotypes for humor involves treading a very fine line. A line dsp took a running start and used a pole vaulting stick to make sure he jumped as far past it as possible. Edit: Then just to prove that wasn’t a one-time slip of judgement, he uses racism ‘humor’ again in his MGS1 play-through as I just found when I started watching it just now. Aggh!
Insulting his fans makes me stare in amazement. Are you kidding me? People went to the trouble of sending him fan-messages like that, and he publicly mocks them? Sure, some of them are semi-literate at best… but you don’t go publicly shaming them for doing something nice. If you want your fans to be literate, set a good example and they’ll (hopefully) follow it. The only way insulting your fans is acceptable is if you make it absolutely clear up front that it’s done in good humor and your remarks are so obviously in the realm of playful teasing that nobody takes offense. Other than that, your options are to either not reply (most people understand celebrities cannot answer every message personally), or only focus on a handful of really good messages to highlight; again setting a good example for other fans to emulate. Sincerely insulting them on the other hand is just… ngh. I’m stunned to believe he thinks he can get away with that long-term.
Yet the real gem is him talking about threatening people off casual play stations at a tournament though, about how people are “afraid of a fight!” I’m not seeing fear there, not at all. I’m seeing saint-like patience and tolerance of dsp from those players, or else they were not willing to eat an arrest for assault on someone clearly not worth it. ‘Afraid of fighting’ him… no. Just no. He’s easily in the bottom 1/3rd of physical health among tournament attendees, and I really doubt he has enough of a fighting or martial arts background to make up for that. I do not like his chances in a real confrontation. The best thing he has ever done for me regarding this sort of thing is being one of many inspirations for getting back onto a decent exercise routine; “I don’t want to wind up like dsp” is a powerful motivator.
He was kicked off of Blip after 2 warnings too. He did a “Top 10 Racist DSP Moments” montage AFTER he was warned for racism already.
The fight thing is great, him and Viscant were supposed to have a real life fight at Evo a few years back but they were warned not to by the organizers, but I wonder who would have won though. From the pics I’ve seen Viscant looks like a small to average dude where DSP is clearly fat to obese in size. So did Viscant have some sort of martial training to take down the fatter heavier Phil, or would Phil simply use his size and weight advantage to sit on the smaller Viscant?
Frankly? I’d put my money on virtually anyone else in a fight over dsp. Would even give you decent odds a child could take dsp or at least make him work for his victory, fighting him as if they were Little Mac from the NES Punch-Out game. That is, having to jump as high as they can to punch their opponent in the face and all that. It’s hard to say which video would be more fun to watch; the one of the brawl itself or the one where he invents excuses for why he lost a fist-fight to a 6 year old.
Mind you, Evo made the right call telling Viscant not to do it. “We allow fights at our venue” is really bad publicity, and is one of those things that opens you up to both legitimate lawsuits and trouble securing locations in the future. You can imagine a hotel’s management reacting to this. It’d go something like: “Ahh, yes. The ‘Evo’ fellows, was it? Aren’t you the ones who tolerate actual fights as a side event? No, I’m afraid we’ll have to refuse to host your tournament at our facility. Good day.”
Edit: Almost done watching the Metal Gear Solid 1 lowlights video. I… I… I…
…I…
…How did this guy get to be any good at Super Turbo? Or breathing, for that matter? Watching him incessantly mock Kojima has actually improved my opinion of the MGS series. I think I need to make a serious effort to track down the rest of the games in it that I’ve missed and enjoy them.
Mike Watson said it was the Playstation version of ST they played on, so it was all a matter of DSP knowing how to play that port of the game than Mike being out played.
The more of this I watch, the angrier I get and the more I think about taking back that “he has a non-zero chance of becoming a decent broadcaster” thing I said a page or so ago. It’s clear he has been given second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. chances. It’s clear people have tried to show him why he’s being an awful person. None of it helps. This is astoundingly awful.
While not spectacular, he was definitely tournament caliber at ST 7 to 8 years ago. Like I mentioned earlier, I think he assumed his knowledge of ST would automatically leap frog him ahead of most players this generation of fighting games. Suffice to say that wasn’t the case and instead of learning these games, or at least admitting he was out of his element, he carries on with this holier than thou attitude making excuse after excuse. Sadly this attitude towards fighting games seems to have taken over his attitude in general at this point.
What’s really sad is that DSP seems to actually be liked in these vids while showcasing some real skill. Shame he turned into what he is today.
uberpr0: That’s what I was watching while writing half of my remarks yesterday and it was the tipping point that pushed dsp into “either this is some incredible acting, or he truly is that vile and irredeemable” for me. Given I know someone who acts almost exactly like him but doesn’t do it publicly, I’m assuming dsp is sincere in behaving the way he does and it’s pretty disgusting. Watching him repeatedly hit himself with rocket splash and run into his own claymore mines was hilarious, though!