Alex Ward flips out during MTV interview

by Jared Rea { Feb 14th 2007 at 1:00AM }

Did you play EA's notoriously over-hyped shooter, Black? We mean, did you really play it? Enough to understand the subtle geopolitical message that gelled together the very fabric of the game? Would you say you beat the game?

If so, don't tell Alex Ward that. As MTV News' Stephen Totilo found out, using such common terminology for completing a game in the presence of Criterion's creative director is enough to warrant a long-winded rant against Western gamers.

Between finding hidden messages in Pac-Man and taking absurd leaps in logic when analyzing the speech habits of Americans, Ward spits fire for just under five minutes of insanity. Totilo attempts to get him back on track regarding the plot (or lack thereof) of Black, but even after a few zingers Ward just keeps on trucking.

Let's see. An arrogant British man grandstanding about the stupidity of Americans? Yeah, that's real creative. About as creative as Black.

[Update: added embeddable video so everyone can enjoy. Thanks, Stephen!]

Tags: alex ward, AlexWard, beat, black, criterion, Pac-man, stephen totilo, StephenTotilo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Miniboss @ Feb 14th 2007 1:09AM

Oh, he's still mad about that whole Revolutionary War thing.

Phil @ Feb 14th 2007 2:21AM

Not surprised this is a fucked up world.

and in a fucked up world people love to go on Tirades.

Grunge @ Feb 14th 2007 1:14AM

"The American gamer is always talking about beating games, what's that about? Do you go to a movie and say 'I beat that game in two hours!'"

What an ass.

Ritz @ Feb 14th 2007 1:14AM

Taggert @ Feb 14th 2007 2:24AM

I was going to write a clever and witty rebuttal to this jackass's shitty attempt at a debate, but fuck it. Lets just take him out back and beat the stupid out of him. Or his brains. Whichever comes out first.

bob @ Feb 14th 2007 1:20AM

"The American gamer is always talking about beating games, what's that about? Do you go to a movie and say 'I beat that game in two hours!'"

its english mother fucker do you speak it!!?!?

gareth @ Feb 14th 2007 1:27AM

WOW, I don't say this very often- but what a nut job. You could call it 'passionate' but after listening to his soliloquy on 'beating' things I really think this guy just doesn't like America (or American consumers rather).
No big deal, you aren't required to love the US, but what i see here is less than dislike and more a loud contempt with a dash of crazy.

jon @ Feb 14th 2007 1:39AM

He's absolutely correct-they are stupid. Now with all the patronizing/condescending diarrhea aside; how about a BLACK #2, Alex,??- that was an incredible shooter! heh.

Mike @ Feb 14th 2007 1:25AM

I recognize that guy, he's on page eight of the Big Book Of British Smiles.

muppetmeth @ Feb 14th 2007 8:40PM

$20 bucks to whoever syncs the video with Michael Jackson's "Beat It."

And there is more to a story that just an unconventional villain, and I like to watch cutscenes.

Nino @ Feb 14th 2007 1:29AM

First they come to our country and call us stupid, condemn people who have ANY sort of religion, and criticize our schooling institutions and government. I for one don't take pompous British snobs seriously anymore.

And saying something like "beating" a game is a misuse of language can be likened to those feminazis trying to change the spelling of "women" to "womyn." Ridiculous.

uh_oh @ Feb 14th 2007 1:31AM

LOL I never picked up on the story because it was so DAMN BADDDD, lame acting, lame cutscenes. People wouldn't skip it if you put some effort into it! The game was fun other than that, it pushed the ps2 to the limit visually. I really despise developers making me sit through cutscenes/fmvs.

Takkun24 @ Feb 14th 2007 1:47AM

I BEAT WORLD OF WARCRAFT IN 6 months and 24 days...I BEAT ART IN 6 YEARS...I a can of redbull in 3 mins...im so hardcore.

nottooshabby @ Feb 15th 2007 11:32AM

I understand what he's trying to say...software with a narrative is designed to be completed by the user. It would be very easy to make a game that was impossible to beat. "Beating" software makes it sound like some sort of achievemnt, when in reality you've just followed a path thats been laid out for you. So it is kind of silly to say you "beat" a game.

Anyway, I don't think he hates america or is an idiot or a nut. Perhaps just unfortunately nit-picky in the wrong setting.

JP @ Feb 14th 2007 1:47AM

What a pretentious asswipe. Games can also be FUN and ORIGINAL without a hint of story. Black was derivative and uninspiring. It's no wonder no one cared about the story.

fawazr @ Feb 14th 2007 1:46AM

I'm apparently an ass for agreeing with him. And I've been bothered by how many people say they "beat" a game. What the fuck does that even mean? You beat a petulant child, you beat members of a marginalized ethnic/racial group, so how do you "beat" a game? At what point in your game play experience do you equate a single play-through with violent dominance?

Kudos to Joystiq for dismissing anyone who calls for games to have more substance and social context. I for one hope that games continue to placate trailer trash and yuppie scum with hard ons for indiscriminate "beating."

ShrimpyMcDougal @ Feb 14th 2007 1:48AM

Someone needs to find this guys E-Mail and explain that "beat" has many meanings in the English Language.

A quick search on Dictionary.com gave me this

12. to overcome in a contest; defeat.
25. to achieve victory in a contest; win: Which team do you think will beat?

Ok... Does Black have AI in their game, I'm asking cause I never bothered to play it since EA published it and almost always make crap.

If there is AI then you do "beat" the game because you have overcome the AI opponent. Or you achieve victory over it.

So in conclusion, this guy is just an ass.

BIGGEN @ Feb 14th 2007 1:52AM

i wouldn't say the jackass flipped out, but yeah, he's a douche. i personally never played the game. i saw someone play it at gamestop and it looked boring. very very boring.

anyway, the whole "beat it" thing was just standard british snobbery at its finest. i must pick something that americans say or do and apply it to other things that aren't related in anyway because that is my witty snobbery british humor.

when you play a game with enemies, and beat or defeat them, what are you supposed to say? i completed them? oh so you had a meaningful relationship with them? NO you fucking beat or defeated them!

reppy @ Feb 14th 2007 1:51AM

From Dictionary.com

beat /bit/ verb, beat, beat·en or beat, to overcome in a contest; defeat.

Mike @ Feb 14th 2007 1:53AM

How dumb can you be to not understand the term "beating" a game refers to conquering a challenge. No, you don't "beat" an album or a movie...because there is no opposition trying to prevent you from listening or watching. He's got a lot of nerve implying anybody is stupid.

joel @ Feb 14th 2007 1:53AM

Am I alone when saying I don't give a fuck if there's a sequel to Black? Honestly, the gameplay was fun, but there was absolutely NO compelling reason to replay the game at all. Once it's beat... no, no I'm sorry... once it's completed, then what left? Nothing. Not a damn thing. No multiplayer of any sorts, no time attack or any other mode for that matter. Oh, and story? Gee whiz, I've never seen the whole, "There's a bad guy working within our own society, and he wants to kill America," in any form of media. Someone tell this tea-drinking limey bastard to kick fucking rocks.

ShrimpyMcDougal @ Feb 14th 2007 1:54AM

What if the movie sucks? I can beat Gigli, not that I would want to, because my brain is opposing the watching of it.

Pete @ Feb 14th 2007 1:57AM

Just as a side note about American appreciation for story in a video game.... Consult Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamato about story-telling in video games and how it brought them multiple venues of success for years. Zelda and Metal Gear mixes fun with storyline that keeps players coming back. Apparently if no one responded to your story, your story lacked the elements that make the above mentioned franchises successful.

Just a suggestion tho....

Elrando @ Feb 14th 2007 6:34AM

Black was a boring FPS with a pretense that it was something special.

This guy is your every day arrogant git, that's just pretentious enought to think his opinion is important.

dsub @ Feb 14th 2007 2:06AM

correct me if I'm wrong, but this guy might actually be the WORST person ever at making comparisons between two things. We are talking about Video Games right? What is the point of a game? More so, what is the definition of a "game"? Per Webster's it is as follows...

"a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators."

So, the object of a competitive activity is to win correct? Therefore winning would be defined as "beating" said challenger. Whether the challenger was a real human, or a computer controller character, the underlying object of the game is to "beat" it. You are not competing against anything or interacting directly in any way with movies or music. Therefore, this guys comparison are well...fucking retarded.

He makes no sense. At all. Even more so, he is babbling about creative story telling, and he made Black? Seriously? If he was trying to tell a story with Black, he failed at it MISERABLY. Guess what man...we didn't get it, and by "we" I mean every fucking person that played it. Let's face it, the main intent of Black was to shot numerous guns and blow things up. The story was irrelevant. If it's some bullshit sociocultural message that you are trying to deliver, just paint a picture or make a fucking movie. If you DO want to use a game, try addressing your story, as opposed to just assuming that everyone on earth will get your metaphors.

Oh, and don't even get me started on his Pac-Man comparisons. Seriously man, I'd say your over-analyzing just a tad-bit on that one. Get a life, and do the rest of us a favor and shut your mouth. Next time you want to tell a story through a Video Game perhaps you should give it a little more thought next time. I guess that's a nice way of me saying you suck at implementing storytelling into gaming.

Alex's proctologist @ Feb 14th 2007 2:21AM

Now wait just a goddamed minute here! Do you thankless dickwads, after all the time spent on this thing, with all the superb weaponry,hit detection,no multiplayer,awesome graphics-actually expect a STORY??? Thankless colonial wankers!!

Leggo @ Feb 14th 2007 2:31AM

Alex Ward is the only moron that can market a game as "Gun Porn" and then be surprised people would want to fast-forward through the plot.

(And for the record, Alex, when we're talking about completely viewing porn, we also refer to that as "beating it". Just a heads up.)

ben @ Feb 14th 2007 2:39AM

all i can say is.....fuck him. and i'm not even american.

Shadow @ Feb 14th 2007 2:52AM

This guy reminds me of film students who graduate film school, and then can't figure out why their movie sucks because they try and turn everything into a metaphor. "Why don't people understand, the clown is a metaphor for life! And the cube is a metaphor for the troubles in life!" For an example of this watch an Uwe Bowl movie and then see his interviews for said movie.

Seriously, this guy needs to get over himself. I don't like using the word "Pretentious", but it's the only word that comes to mind when I watch this video. First off, I think we all need to send him a dictionary for his birthday so he can learn English. After that we can teach him that there is no secret meaning behind pacman, and that you really don't have a choice to eat the dots or not. Finally we need to get him a house in the US and force him to live with the people he seems to hate so much.

Dmnkly @ Feb 14th 2007 3:09AM

Though there are those who fall into gray areas, generally speaking there are two kinds of artists:

1) Those who treat art as a collaboration with the audience and consider a disconnect between their work and the public to be a humble failure on the artist's
part.

2) Those who treat art as masturbatory self-affirmation and consider a disconnect between their work and the public to be a contemptible failure on the public's part. In my experience, the latter category is generally comprised of avant-garde filmmakers, talentless collegiate poets and -- apparently -- Alex Ward.

Kwipper @ Feb 14th 2007 3:27AM

Uhhh no dude. Pac-Man was about a yellow being who goes around eating little pellets and ghosts. It doesn't get more complex than that.

God. What a fucking moron.

g_sepp @ Feb 14th 2007 3:29AM

Two words for you people. Don't BUY... BAN Criterion's Games. I love my burn out but guess what this British man just made one less sell. And since EA is there producer i am going to avoid other EA games.

Craig Fergus @ Feb 14th 2007 3:41AM

Well while this guy is dillusional (how the hell is "gun porn" goinng to be a statment on anything)and over analytical in that wannabe avant-garde when you really are just a prick with no ideas of your own way (Pac-man? honestly?)there is a point in his little rant about "beating" games beyond semantics (he was just to much of a stupid englishman to realize his countrymen are just as bad).
I mean when you get to the end of Shadow of the C. are you supposed to feel like you overcame some obstacle and defeated it or that you experienced something. There is a difference. Its fine to be proud of beating Gran Turismo or Tekken in so many hours but there should be more to games to that and if that mean pushing into the arty-prententious then so be it. We make so many claims at sites like this that games should be viewed on as high a standard as films and rage at the Roger Eberts of the world when they disagree. Its about time somone started proving him wrong instead of just bitching him out. It wont be any games this self-loving idiot makes but still the point is there.

Dustin @ Feb 14th 2007 3:43AM

I beat Alex Ward

Craig Fergus @ Feb 14th 2007 3:45AM

oh yeah and props to comment number 27. People didn't loose the point of Black because they didn't get it, they lost it because Alex Ward is a bad artist.

gok @ Feb 14th 2007 4:09AM

World's suckiest countries:

1. USA
2. France
3. Great Britain

Or maybe France 1st, haven't decided yet.

Markusdragon @ Feb 14th 2007 4:20AM

Ah, I love the smell of Xenophobia in the morning.

J @ Feb 14th 2007 4:31AM

The saying most likely comes from a longer version as in "I beat the shit out of the game". I am willing to bet thats the origin. It then became "I Beat the game" and this is most likely because people are trying not to use the word shit.

Even if this is not how the term came around, who cares. Its like whining about the word soccer. Just get over it dude. OMGOMGOMG Americans use "slang" and are NOT ENGLISH...... god forbid if they adopt a totally different version of a language and/or make changes............

Kritz @ Feb 14th 2007 5:19AM

If it makes you guys feel any better, it's not just a lone Brit who hates America. Here in Australia, we're literally /taught/ not to like America. Television, Parents, Peers, etc.

Obviously if you have half a mind you leave some room for your own opinion, but there's still a lot of ignorance in the world.

Closer to the topic, I agreed with everything he said up until the similes of "beating". But I thought it was kind of obvious that he was only joking around. I find it odd that a lot of people making the comments here take it as a personal attack, and feel they have to deconstruct what is effectively a friendly josh.

Maybe it's true that Americans don't understand British humour. Ward seemed rather like Basil Fawlty in that interview. Sarcastic and cynical.

"You'd hate to sit next to him, but he's bloody great to watch."

Oh, right. I've got a different opinion. FLAME ON!

>> Kritz

The 13th Duke of Wybourne @ Feb 14th 2007 5:55AM

Any links to the video for us Brits? Apparently copyright issues will only let the video play in the US.

Chameleon @ Feb 14th 2007 6:28AM

"its english mother fucker do you speak it!!?!?"

heh, classic ...

GoonieGooGoo @ Feb 14th 2007 6:31AM

@36

Thats too bad your country is like that....I have plenty of friends who live in Sydney. And as I am in Washington DC....we welcome citizens from all countries.

Suffice to say......in my world travels....hatred for the US/Americans/Western Culture... is just a convenient replacement for what one would call envy/jealousy or a preconception or lack of understanding of what an "American" is.

Can the USA help that it's the only MEGAPOWER in the world?? Don't blame us....Blame the Former Soviet Union....

In finishing....BLACK was craptacular.....Alex Ward is probably a little bitter that Criterion got gobbled up by EA.

K-dog @ Feb 14th 2007 7:00AM

C'mon, guys - EVERYONE outside the United States hates American these days! And there's extremely good reason. Get with the times.

What always amuses me most about when people insult America is the typically ironic response. "WHOAH, dude, he's like saying that we, like, don't TALK right? Motherf*ckin' dickweed asswad!"

2kings @ Feb 14th 2007 7:11AM

black was a very lame fps

pretty but pretty lame and easy

Michael Comeau @ Feb 14th 2007 7:26AM

This guy is a clown. Black was a simply awful game. No, I didn't get the story. But that's because after 15 minutes I had enough of the piece of crap.

hoob @ Feb 14th 2007 7:27AM

The fact that he's English has nothing to do with this guys arrogance. He's a tit and would probably be a tit no matter which country he was born in. Don't blame England for the fact he thinks he knows it all. Jack Thompson is a fool, but i dont associate his behaviour with the entire population of america, lets all be friends! :)

Darcrequiem @ Feb 14th 2007 7:32AM

Considering the rate at which American's buy video game software, going on a insane rant belittling the American video game player is not wise. Especially when your parent company is American as well. In closing, I like to say "It looks like the gov had a bit much of the ale aye?" Sorry had a Dragon's Quest VIII moment.

Willy @ Feb 14th 2007 7:56AM

this guy's a moron...

To "beat" a videogame is to get to the end. Aside from MMORPG's the majority of games in existence revolve around a central storyline, which, when once gotten to the end of said storyline, then the game would be considered "beat." No more story left or everything achieved. Besides, games are pretty much, for all intents and purposes, meant to be beaten.

This guy is just upset that his game got overlooked and received no love whatsoever. The graphics looked amazing, but it drowned under much better games out at the time.

For some reason, I feel this game may have done better if released under another publisher other than EA.

Jack the Ripper @ Feb 14th 2007 7:57AM

@44 Good philosophy, bubs. I had a Russian room mate in college, and someone came up to him and criticized how he looked, how he spoke, the Russian government, etc. When he complained to me about it, I said, "What? This kind of behavior is new to you? There are no assholes in Smolensk?" Passed him a beer and we had a great year living four feet from eachother at all times.

As for Alex Ward... Holy crap, do I never want to touch anything this man is involved in ever again. I'm glad I rented Black. I think I beat it inside one weekend and never thought about it again. I don't remember even the slightest thing about the story, I just remember the occasional last gen explosion effect that would be pretty unremarkable compared to anything else offered on the 360.