Stray Souls: A Bad Game Made By Bad People (The Jimquisition)
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
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Stray Souls is an absolutely terrible horror game. With its baffling bugs, nonsensical writing, A.I. art, suppression of criticism, and hateful director, it truly is one of the worst games of the year. Oh what spooky Halloween fun!
#StraySouls #Horror #AI #Horror #Twitter #Controversy #Halloween #JimSterling #Jimquisition #StephanieSterling #JamesStephanieSterling #Games #Gaming #Videogames
It's entirely likely that Yamaoka didn't actually compose any music for Stray Souls. More likely, he sold peices he'd already composed and rejected, scraps from the "cutting room floor." It lets the composer make some money with minimal effort, and low-budget producers and developers get to attach a big name to their work and also get better-quality music than they normally would for that price point.
I did not know this was a practice in the composer business, but even if you made it all up I at least really WANT it to be true right now.
@@goranisacson2502 It is in the movie business, so I see no reason why video games can't do the same thing.
"I tried it (...) enthralling (...) literally (...) incredible, amazing, outstanding (...) Has all the quality hallmarks..." -Steph Sterling on Stray Souls
I knew it! You just gotta read between a lot of lines.
Truly, one of the games of all time
I love that we've reached a point where the most vicious form of criticism you can throw at a game is just... showing the gameplay and describing what's happening.
That “creepy” animation looks like they were going for the legendary hallway scene from Pulse. They swung. They missed. They missed to such a degree we need the Hubble to see how far they missed by.
The ark angle is at least 10°, but as it's still the closer object at 5 light-years away the math isn't done yet.
Hubble is currently struggling to see it. Oh wait right, it can't because it left the multiverse. It's currently somewhere outside of space and time. Where it belongs.
Based on the title, I assume this is a game where you play as an alley cat and fight gigantic demon bosses, correct? How do you mess THAT up?
Messing stuff up is what contemporary video game developers do best
I need that game
@@Dr170new people suck, old model better
I think you're confusing it with Catbourne.
@@TCMcBiscuits No, that was the title of the indie RTS game I pitched, based around raising an army of armored cats to try and stop the spread of the Black Plague. It's because they actually killed the poor pets by mistake, so it's a correction of history, really, as those cats would have been their best hope to stop the rodents. But I had thus spelled it Catborne, as an illness is carried.
9:13 - Is... is the player character fucking yawning? A sasquatch the size of a house is in front of you, and you're open-mouth yawning?
Fuck, even the game itself thinks it's boring.
Edit: And a few seconds later, Steph confirms that he's yawning. Unbelievable.
I know, I had the exact same reaction 🤣
At least when the protagonist from Persona 3 Reload yawns, it’s one of a few idle animations that can trigger while dungeon-crawling, specifically outside of battle, I might add!
Honestly, with the amount of subjectively good art made by objectively bad people out there, it's nice to have a piece of objectively bad art that's also made by objectively bad people that we can collectively piss on before setting alight (well, piss around anyway. Don't wanna get a water infection or parasites).
That's just the world, bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things, through circumstance or on purpose both, granted both of those tend to be rarer than the vice-versa(usually, depending on person).
The Wagner paradox.
I saw a really funny article recently about a program called Nightshade that can be used to taint a picture such that it will corrupt AI models trained on it. Enough such images could result in the created model being completely useless, generating wildly out of context gibberish. You know, like how AI used to generate back when it was fun and not an attack on real artists. The researches estimated it would take 'thousands' to corrupt a large model like dall-e (which, given that that was trained on billions of images is a drop in the bucket), but smaller models take significantly fewer, showing noticeable artifacts after only a handful of poisoned images.
And the best part is, there's no way to 'fix' a broken model, since they don't work in ways that you can debug like a traditional program. AI models are giant intricate black boxes that you can't really fine tune outside of providing further training. So once a model is poisoned, it's poisoned forever.
Ah, the "putting sugar in concrete to prevent it from solidifying" approach to sabotaging AI
SF6 A.K.I. : Nightshade...
You know your poisons... My Master would approve.
@@Damian_1989excuse meWUT
@@Ramsey276one Yup, for some reason regular table sugar is able to prevent cement and concrete from hardening. Usually it's a negative, but if, say, you need to stop an accidental release from hardening and making the area unusable, or keep some authoritarian/military compound from being built (Like, say, a dickhead neighbour's new garden shed foundation), pouring some sugar into it will keep it from hardening!
@@rubywest5166 the modern human society still has its quirky glitches, huh?
Happy Nightshade sowing!
years ago when ai art meant "this person does not exist" I used to say that it had excellent horror potential and the folks that kept using the same damn five images from a google search result of "scary picture" in their games should just use slightly fucked up ai images instead. I was wrong as hell, I'll take yet another goddamn inexplicable framed painting of saturn eating his son any day over that
The painting of Saturn eating his son does go hard though.
I thought it was Mr. Saturn and I was very confused that I missed an Earthbound creepypasta picture.
"It's fucking grim" took a moment, but holy shit that visual gag was good. I know it's not an important part of the video, but I loved it.
Zmanzilla has been killing it with the visual gags lately 🤣
I hope Grimm consented
I almost sprayed breakfast cereal all over the screen at that one!
I came here just to praise it.
Can confirm, the forest troll boss or whatever it's supposed to be is definitely from the store. Source: saw it in a vid for a game called Zombie Girl, as a "Werewolf". Pity too, because I quite like the creature design (I also liked that head-spider thing that showed up in every shitty Greenlight asset flip too), and I actually like the monsters that were shown in this vid. If it were ONLY being a shitty game I'd consider it on sale or something, but this dev doesn't deserve the support.
As a WEREWO--
Did they not know what a werewolf IS?!
@@Ramsey276one considering that it was being used in a pseudo porn game (boob physics & clothing damage, but no nudity), I think the better question is: Do they even CARE what a werewolf is?
@@DrakeBarrow They would if they were actually in it for the monster loving, but as it is sounds like the typical tiddybabe asset flip dev who just wants to take horny 12 years olds' (parents') money.
"It's grim that I have to check if developers are fascist or bigots before buying a game." Oh Steph, sweet, naive Steph. I'm a black metal fan, vetting shit is now hard coded into me haha. (I do get your point though, it's a sad reflection of how much those pernicious ideologies have penetrated the mainstream)
I mean, you could start by going with a type of metal where the lyrics aren't _required_ to have the vocalist scream about how everyone should be un-alived, at least twelve times per minute. Slight exaggeration perhaps, but yeah... there's expressing one's frustration with a society and culture that does not value human beings, emotions, dignity, justice, nor most other things... and then there's just screaming furiously into the void until you grow hoarse. Well, whatever floats your boat.
@@hazukichanx408 I make expressly anarchist & anti-racist black metal, and I'm aware of dozens of other artists who do similar, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make?
That a lot of people in your genre have a reputation for screaming edginess for the sake of edginess, and that reputation turns into a generalized and accepted stereotype, i guess
Is this a thing with black metal specifically? Because in other metal genres people seem to be mostly very welcoming and explicitly anti-fascist or am I just being ignorant?
@@neruwu Black metal has a higher proportion of shitheads, partially because some of the most influential early artists were shitheads as well. There is a subgenre of black metal called NSBM that is expressly fascist. It's somewhat fringe, but there is a lot of tolerance of it, as well as a host of other bands that either use dogwhistles or share members or stages with them. Metal generally can have problems (lots of people committed to being "apolitical" making the problem fester), but black metal has a reputation. Thankfully there are a decent number of people in the genre who recognise the problem and try to make it a contested space.
The Cousin It and Ben Grimm gag... There are no words... Whoever's editing these videos... You deserve all the praise, you beautiful bastard, you...
Heehee, thanks!
bloody genius.
Did Itt ask Grimm for dinner first?@@ZMannZilla
I can get not wanting to use the abused "Spooktacular," but you missed a golden opportunity to call it your "Halloween Spunktacular."
"Spunktacular" would have been too good for this game though...😔
@@fritzthelibrarygoblin I mean... it DOES have the equivalent creative value of a wad of discarded jizz. I feel its appropriate.
The difference between AI Art and NFTs is that the general population understands neither of them but finds AI Art hilarious. Its going to be significantly harder to get rid of AI Art because it can have a practical use to people.
Not with the Nightshade program.
AI art is too useful when state actors literally use it to justify war goals and military operations now. Fucking madness.
WOW. I did not know that HRT could do that. I mean... I guess congratulations???
Also HELL YES Thank you for showcasing "Sorry We're Closed". Saw a bit of it on IndieLand this weekend and WOW what a game.
just because you bagged an OG team silent member who's probably struggling for work anyway does not make your shitty game any more legitimate. akira yamaoka oversaw the release of the worst silent hill games to date and dude didn't care. dude wants that 💰
I find this whole situation absurdly comical. A Silent Hill ripoff with AI-generated "art" ironically ended up with its only shred of legitimacy because of an ACTUAL artist lmao!
As an illustrator (whose work is in the databases) I very much appreciated that AI segment, made that October day a little brighter. Thank god for you!
Your makeuo skills have gotten really legit
Thank you! I only started doing it myself a few months ago. Really proud of how far along I've gotten.
@@JimSterling Reading this made me smile. I'm so happy about your journey and your success!
@JimSterling it's not easy, good makeup is like a painting on the face, I dabbled in drag for awhile and I don't think the average guy knows how much skill and money it takes. Makeup is damned expensive.
@@JimSterling Genuine question as a lass who understands makeup is horribly smelly and wierd to have stuck on the face, how smelly is it, or do you become noseblind to it?
Or am I just oversensitive to smells and sensations and things touching my skin?
@@Roadent1241 It depends a lot on what kind of make-up it is. Like, I get used to eyeshadow so much so that I forget it's there and then get it everywhere when scrathing my eyes, while the lip glosses I have feel weird and sticky and smell so strongly I don't want to use them. For me the less "wet" it is the easier it is to get used to it. Where you put it and how much also affects, powder on cheeks feels like nothing to me while heavy eyeshadow takes a bit to get used to.
As for the smell, I don't think make-up smell strongly. Unless you get something that's scented, those suck. Eye powders and eyeliners smell like nothing on skin. Lipsticks have a waxy smell that does take some time to get used to.
"backing up into the house"... c'mon! "went cottaging arse-first" was right there!
I see bashing of so-called "AI art", I immediately click thumbs up! Simple!
Fun Fact: the majority of this game is, in fact, a massive asset flip! Most of the locations and monsters, including the dad character, are all store bought assets. They really barely cared!
The cryptocurrency to NFT to AI pipeline seems to share significant overlap with the pipeline that leads to fascism. Probably just a coincidence though, right?
But of course! Nothing to see here!
Pay no attention to the fascists behind the curtain!
Tear lord that "creepy" witch thing at the top of the stairs looks like me standing up when I've had a bit too much to drink lol. Are they sure they were going for scary and not relatable?
Man why didnt I find your channel before girl??
I loved your video, every little bit of it. Im brazilian and we are suffering a lot of this fascist sh*t here as well. Cant get anymore of it so thanks for your critics!
as nice as it is to imagine fascists losing money on hot garbage, i don't believe for a second that anyone who says "gonna buy this now" (or similar) in response to bigotry *actually* buys the game in question. they're just assholes trying to hurt people.
They never do, yeah.
About the Stray Souls' dev liked tweets: people mention he's liked racist tweets, but they never mention just HOW racist these tweets were. The dev liked several tweets of black people getting beat up and even a black child DYING. The racism is a million times worst than I ever expected. Bobvids made two videos on the topic.
As an artist and animator, I find myself saying “Ai ArT” (and “LiVe AcTiOn ReMaKe”) in the same voice you say “tRiPLe A gAmE”
It's at least cool to get a preview of Bloober's "Silent Hill 2."
Between Shadows of the Damned, The Medium, and now this, i think Yamaoka REALLY needs to get himself a better agent.
I think you also put the issue with AI art perfectly. As I was just discussing with a friend a couple days ago, even if it's "placeholders", even if it's an solo dev who "can't afford" otherwise, even if the art is good and "passes" as real art, it's still all something created using stolen work from real artists. The issue isn't quality, and it isn't a matter of how it's being used, it's fundamentally being created through plagiarism and exploitation by using the work of others as data without their consent.
In other words, regardless of the quality of the art or the context in which it's being used, AI art as it stands now is universally theft.
Also, gold star for the villain tweets, I'd watch an entire video of those.
Huh I didn't know Yamaoka was involved with this (just started the vid, IDK if it's mentioned). But yea def. Didn't play shadows of the damned (honestly haven't heard of it) but did play the medium. I remember liking it, nothing amazing by any means but just alright. I do remember it ran like shit.
At this point any big name of the industry being attached to an indie project should be a red flag. They're pretty much always used as a selling point to a mediocre or bad game
The possessed boglin on top of the pinball machine, wiggling it's thumb. It truly is Halloween.
Ok I saw that the title said "Stray Souls", but my brain processed it as "Stray Gods" and I was about to be mad
I KNEW Monday was coming! And Jesus Christ this turned out to be worse than I thought.
Y'know, I "joked" that the dev of Stray Souls sounded like it could have done with an old-fashioned fixin', but the miserable little creature has already tucked its tail and fled. Which is kinda disappointing, and frustrating. After all, if some transphobic brute was stomping and snarling openly, they'd be a lot easier to bag than some scurrying, cowardly, verminous little plague-bringer. If there's anything we need most in this war, it's an easy target.
When you said the game was made to be Silent Hill but bad I find it very telling it looks like a game made by someone who was aspiring to reach the "heights" of SH Homecoming and Downpour.
I love it when steph puts on the wresling glows an delivers a smack down.
Okay wow, first time a game's bad animation has actually made me physically ill. After like a minute in to that boss fight I've got a splitting headache out of nowhere and had to stop watching because I was genuinely starting to feel nauseous. Did manage to notice that, on top of seeing under the map when you roll, both your character's weapon and the boss kept randomly blinking out of existence for a split-second.
Seeing the character dodging alone was disorienting and that is just a clip!
A capella skeleton warriors? My, how you SPOIL us.
This video is nice to see because I played their demo and gave them some lengthy feedback on their server, and I was the only person they never responded to. THIS IS VENGEANCE!!!!!!!!!!
If youtube doesnt stop turning off my notifications to you i swear i am going to frown and shake my head but will continue watching things on youtube because youre here.
This game is broken in ways that I've never even knew were possible. I've NEVER seen a game that appears to literally just have a design document describing the story in more depth than ever shows up elsewhere in the game. Also the giant gold gun the protagonist uses is canonically the gun used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln that's been infused with mystical power.
If anything, I respect Stephanie Sterling's sick more than Stray Souls. At least you can say the former was the product of an actual person.
lol that's pretty good
Oh man I was starting to worry wasn’t gonna get my weekly fix of James Stefanie sterling
Wonder if you heard about the statement then "apology" by the devs on Warhammer 3 with a statement of "“The right to discuss is a privilege-it is not an entitlement you earn by playing the game" while talking about people coming into forums and wanting to stop boycotts among other things. it happened recently though lol
I mean, they aren't wrong; one definitely has the privilege to discuss without having to play the game.
@@arturoaguilar6002 I think you misunderstand this was part of a larger statement but the intent was not to allow more discussion, they were saying you don't merely get to discuss freely because you own this game, or thats how it came off to the community, as they have bin review bombed to hell and they released an apology they pinned on steam for their remarks.
Also the freedom to discuss the game wether you own it or not isn't a provlivge, discussion of any topic is a basic right we should all have lol
Christ, this game (Stray Souls) is painful to look at. I Often roll my eyes at people complaining about frame rates, but....good GOD. Glad to hear the director is a piece of shit, because normally I'd feel bad for developers who failed this hard.
Ah, fellow "shut up about the fps" acolyte
@@quantumblauthor7300 Exactly! Unless its as bad as this trash, or Blighttown on PS3 Dark Souls, I don't wanna hear about it.
yeahhh, there's a fundamental difference between consistent low fps as a thing that you can get used to and jerky shit that looks atrocious and gives you motion sickness.
I can deal with the low fps on most N64 games, but I would not be able to deal with jerky shit like Stray Souls.
Apparently the house from the beginning of the game is an asset that a bunch of cheap horror games use
Steph giving the man(boy) permission to call her a slur is just too funny.
At 12:44 you literally see the PC looking away from the monster as he shoots how do you fuck up the lock of the head movements while aiming and shooting. It almost feels like half or 3/4ths of this game was made by an A.I using common assets even more poorly than a human asset flipper.
I always marvel at how easy it is to part all the bigots from their money. One big reason I don't respect most conservatives, is they have the gall to bloviate about financial responsibility and how the poor just need to handle their money better, while they, themselves, piss away their money on absolute garbage. It's like Christ, have some god damn standards for your purchases and donations and make sure you get your money's worth. If you can't at least do that, at least don't be critical of the state of other's finances.
I don't want to infantilize the wonderous composer, but can someone fucking rescue yamaoka? i'm sure there's good games being made that could pay his rent.
Steph looks like such a cool gothic Auntie in this intro. Also I think the spooky sombre piano music at the beginning was made by Myuuji.
You may not call it a spooktacular but it’ll always be one in my impossibly skeletal heart 🖤
It united the divided people.
What if the Forest Troll Boss teaches you that not all encounters can be solved with a gun?
Phew, the episode is out! I was worried this might be the first Monday ever that Steph misses…
wow this look is such a SERVE, loving the bow especially
I'm dumb and getting old. What dose "SERVE" mean?
It's a shortened version of something like, "oh you are serving gorgeous-ness" - total compliment
Almost thought you skipped a week! Great video, as always!
Classic and brilliant rant on what the term "AI" has risibly come to mean.
I had to pause because I was laughing so hard at the "Not blowjobs" line and visual used for it.
The dancing alien at the beginning needs to come back for every video
Many NFTs were made via AI art so it makes sense tech bros went from one to the other since they already were working alongside one another.
Love the use of Richard O'Brien stills posting a video the day before Halloween. Thanks for the giggle!
the last time I saw a Jimquisition video, was long long ago, so thanks youtube, if we were in school I would pin your underwear to a locker.
Anyway
It was before the transition and the person then, and the person now, roughly the same personality, but who I am seeing now looks way more relaxed, and approachable. And reminds me of one Cyborcat.
It looks to me the opposite
Sterling is less approachable now
@@isauldron4337 why? The thing is, if no one told me she is trans, I would not have even known. Just watched and wondered who this lady is.
@@isauldron4337 it seems like you're just afraid of women
I thought Steam had some really strict anti-AI policy. I'd heard it was getting rid of any game that had any AI content... Did this game get through because it had a publisher?
Apropos of nothing, I wanted to say that bow looks amazing on you Steph!
You've got a Bride of Pinbot... damn Steph! Jealous!
My personal dream is owning an Elvira and the Party Monsters.
15:30 Thank you so much for framing something so evil so directly. Truly.
I love how the game has “Souls” in the name, they didn’t get the memo to copy the formula like every other game these days and instead just tried a parasitic naming convention. Only way I could forgive a game like that if it were some sort of free satire game.
Light Spirits: Professor of the Final Blessing
I was getting worried there, wondering where your Monday vid was. Have a good halloween.
Why must JSS look so absolutely cute in this video? The bow is awesome!
4:01 A Kwanzaa of Krap and a Ramadan of “Really, game developers? You allowed this dreck to be made?”
The ONLY thing I think is justified to use AI art for is like a small studio just wanting to fill in backgrounds a bit, like say you're making a Metroidvania and there's portraits all over your creepy mansion, instead of a small team putting in countless hours to make dozens of different paintings for the aesthetic I think randomly generating them is fine.
Or one idea I saw in a Rimworld playthrough was people using AI generation to make pictures of the nonsensical art your colonists create in the game, given that no sane human would draw half the things Rimworld pawns make I think using AI to do it for a fun little gimmick is totally fine.
If you're using it to be totally cheap on important stuff in your game though then no, piss off.
ah.. I just came back to youtube, last time I was here was like.. 5 years ago? it is certainly a surprise to see Jim... i mean..
Those hopping/crawling things look like Sligs from Oddworld. Oooooh, terrifying.
How can anyone even see in that game? Its dark and the colors are all muddy. And thats just the tip of the garbage berg
Finally somebody else who hates the word "Spooktacular" as much as I do
In my country I can say shes full of spunk and has a nice fanny and it be fine.
At first I thought my phone's brightness was all the way down when I saw the in game footage. It wasn't my phone.
Its a miracle you played this without getting sick. The way the camera swings wildly, the frame stuttering, and the atrocious motion blur make me feel a little unwell
wth, i didnt know any of this crap happened. i ended up supporting it mainly because indie horror. to see that the director is transphobic and the game using AI content is trash. i wish i could refund it
Wondered where this was this morning.
Thank you for using the standard-issue creepypasta narration piano solo in the intro.
It looks like only every third frame is shown while in control. Then the cutscenes are totally fluid! Often, when I am pulled to the floor, and dragged feet first towards the door, I often get up and wonder how I tripped the fuse box.🤔
You really got me scared today, Steph, glad i got my weekly fix 😅
"AI art" is neither of those things.
6:20 - This is a one-for-one (but terrible) ripoff of a scene from the Guillermo Del Toro produced film, Mama, in which the character of Mama, quite ironically, is portrayed by Javier Botet - a hetero man - in a dress. I was going to posit that their transphobia was the reason for Mama’s inclusion as a “monster” in this “videogame,” but now I’m convinced that would be giving them too much credit.
I feel bad having to break the news to my partner that this game sucks actually. He's a huge Silent Hill fan and when we saw the sponsorship on Ghost Files we were a bit excited. :/ I let him know the music is good, but the game is a miss. Thank you for making this review!
I immediately thought of the Ghost Files sponsorship too. I'm sure that was another calculated effort by the dev to get more sales.
Bobvids getting mentioned on the Jimquisition? The crossover I didn't know I needed!
AI can suck it.
Man, Akira Yamaoka just keeps getting dragged into these awful "inspired by Silent Hill" projects huh
I wish I could work with you...like actually. You are one of the people I would genuinely trust to be around...plus I am very animated about gaming. Plus you helped me feel good about coming out in my princess attire and not feeling bad about it
And there have been some terrible Silent Hill games too. For this to be worse is saying something. There have been really crap Project Zero (Fatal Frame) games better than Stray Souls. That game The Medium that tried being a Silent Hill 'successor' was better than this, and I can't tell you the last time I complimented The Medium (it was short?).
Trans rights are human rights. Women's rights are intersectional. Marginalised people having basic human rights does not somehow take away from your rights.
Love your dress it's amazing
It's the very first dress I ever bought when I came out. It's so fancy I rarely ever wear it.
God, now I need to know... What did Jon Blow do?
Well there's me singing Astro Farm for the next 5 years, until I'm sick of it enough to invoke Space Pirates
AI generated imagery isn't art. Art is a form of expression, that is literally the only objective metric you can actually use to define what art is. AI is presently incapable of expression. Kindly stop calling it art, you are only validating the techbros by calling it art. This isn't even gatekeeping like when some ahole called my gmod comics "not art" and rubbed his art degree in my face when I objected to that declaration, it's an objective fact.
Art isn't a concrete object, it's a concept that changes from person to person. The only way objective fact could be linked to it is if you believe in Plato's universe of ideas, in which somewhere there is a physical object that is art. Do you know what objective means?
What you're saying literally is gatekeeping. Calling it fact without any evidence doesn't make it fact. Art is interpretive, and you could just as easily say slinging shit on a canvas isn't art. But to many people it is.
And now he's posted an apology on twitter xD
Stephanie, you're lookin' fab.
The gameplay of this game makes me feel sick if I look at too long
The virgin Big Hairy Forest Bloke vs the chad Dragon's Dogma Ogre
The fact a game called "Stray Souls" is not a Fromstyle cat-based murder simulator, is _incredibly_ disappointing to me.
Wtf happened to you lol. Haven't watched for years
If I had a bit fewer morals, I might make something like this and pretend to be a transphobic POS on twitter. Then, once the refund period ends, say "LOL! you just paid for my GRS!"
But I care too much about the quality of my work, and there's too much hateful sentiment toward us right now.