Civvie 11 - Retro FPS Boomer

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Civvie's gotten quite a few mentions around the Farms so I figured it'd be cool to have a thread discussing him.

For those not in the know, Civvie 11 is a YouTube video game reviewer who primarily focuses on retro first-person shooters. He generally goes after notorious or otherwise shitty games, as you would with a YouTube channel focusing on video games, but he's got more wit and knowledge than your average gaming YouTuber. His reviewing style sees him go through the game level by level, scene by scene, but unlike the CA crowd (which he has poked fun at a couple times), his review feels like it's structured around this and isn't just a recap. He isn't just recapping the game, he's also analyzing the mechanics and how they fit into the game as it goes on. Plus some of the games he reviews are batshit insane to where going through the game only accentuates their oddity.

Some examples of such insanity include From Dusk til Dawn

And Kreed

He's also well-known for his Pro videos, which are basically pseudo Let's Plays that are also structured like his reviews. Here, he goes through the game step by step while giving his own opinions on individual levels and occasionally dispensing helpful hints to those that aren't quite pros like he is.

Pro Postal's probably his most famous, and it's probably his biggest Pro series since he goes through individual days.

Pro Blood's excellent, as it shines a spotlight on a criminally underrated classic of the FPS genre.

And of course, no boomer FPS enthusiast could call themselves as such without tackling Doom.

He also sometimes tackles non-FPS games, such as the Blade Runner point and click game from the 90s. He promises to do more non-FPS stuff in the future, which should be interesting because he is personable enough to branch out (he used to do movies, but he stopped because of YouTube's draconian copyright system).

And now for some of my personal favorite Civvie videos.

 

[0 0]

I stumbled across Civvie not too long ago thanks to his Postal III review. He's a really good commentator because he has exceedingly great insight since he's rather skilled at first person shooters. He also knows when to cut out filler, since in a few videos, he's mentioned trashing some sections or entire videos because he thought they weren't entertaining enough.

A neat tidbit, but he's well known enough in the Postal community that the devs put him and several of his personal in-jokes in Postal 4.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

A neat tidbit, but he's well known enough in the Postal community that the devs put him and several of his personal in-jokes in Postal 4.

He's been getting recognition by these somewhat smaller developers. So much so that Night Dive named an achievement in Blood: Fresh Supply after a joke he made in one of his Pro Blood videos.

 

[AlexaAutismo]

Great to see a thread on civvie! Loved his videos since I saw his pro BLOOD series. I wish he used Gordon clips more like his old videos though. Also, pro Killing Time when civvie?

 

[Recoil]

There's an old pseudo-build game I really want him to tackle - Eradicator.

I'm surprised he hasn't already.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Civvie is just plinkett but without arthritis and a laundry list of disappointing children.

 

[ExciteDyke]

Civvie is my favorite boomer.

 

[Coolio55]

He's good but he's got the Channel Awesome problem where he constantly interrupts his stuff with unfunny skits.

 

[Marissa Moira]

He's good but he's got the Channel Awesome problem where he constantly interrupts his stuff with unfunny skits.

That's entirely the fault of MST3k, because everything involving the robot wardens and radioactive rats stem from that.

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

recently disscovered his channel and have so far enjoyed his content.

 

[TFT-A9]

Kind of want to see Civvie do Return to Castle Wolfenstein, C&C Renegade and continue his Thief playthrough.

Part of me also wants him to give the older Mechwarrior titles a spin but not really sure if he'd enjoy them much.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Oh god, please don't let this thread devolve and Civvie is discovered to be a pedophile cannibal.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Me: Knowing your film making background, what of your education, or interest in film in general, has influenced your work with your channel? Do you find yourself using your film studies with regard to how you approach your videos or does it happen a bit more organically?

Civvie: I like to think, from the perspective of writing and editing and a video, that a background in film helped a lot. 9 times out of 10 I will be discussing a game and because a game will be far more nonlinear and drawn out than a movie, I have to provide some kind of structure and framework in order to make it more digestible to the audience. Sometimes it has none at all and ends up a confusing mess but only if I think that reflects what I'm talking about. In general, trying to represent how a game feels through a video requires some editing trickery and and careful pacing.

and

Me: With the hints of vague lore evident in your videos and some recurring characters, how important is narrative for what you do? If you weren't making gaming videos on YouTube do you think any of your characters would appear in other works?

Civvie: There's barely a narrative in the videos now. There was a lot more in the early videos to setup the background of the channel but it exists mostly to satirize the idea of having a story in a gaming or review channel. There are a lot of channels that will have the reviewer, who is a weird schmuck who rants in front of a camera about the minutiae of unimportant crap that very few people care about, and they'll end up being an important figure who saves the world. I always saw this as a kind of nerd power fantasy where the person would get very angry and shoot a toy gun at a thing they didn't like. I wanted to go in the exact opposite direction of that where the "protagonist" is generally not a good person who openly resists being part of a larger story going on around them. Having it set in a prison turned it into a show about someone with no power playing a lot of power fantasy games and that idea made me laugh so I stuck with it.

https://jedenart.com/blogramblings/in-conversation-interview-with-youtuber-civvie-11

 

[Harvey Danger]

Just discovered his channel recently, it's good stuff. He did a Daikatana review last week that was a proper review, ripping apart all the really bad stuff but giving it praise where it deserved it. Much better than the TGWTG crowd's exaggerated "I HATE EVERYTHING" kind of reviews that are so common now.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Civvie: There's barely a narrative in the videos now. There was a lot more in the early videos to setup the background of the channel but it exists mostly to satirize the idea of having a story in a gaming or review channel. There are a lot of channels that will have the reviewer, who is a weird schmuck who rants in front of a camera about the minutiae of unimportant crap that very few people care about, and they'll end up being an important figure who saves the world. I always saw this as a kind of nerd power fantasy where the person would get very angry and shoot a toy gun at a thing they didn't like. I wanted to go in the exact opposite direction of that where the "protagonist" is generally not a good person who openly resists being part of a larger story going on around them. Having it set in a prison turned it into a show about someone with no power playing a lot of power fantasy games and that idea made me laugh so I stuck with it.

At first I thought the skits were just mildly entertaining, but reading it in this light makes them funnier.

 

[CreamyHerman’s]

My favorite Civvie video is his video on the Doom movie, mainly because he points out they had their safety offs and pointed their guns at each other as a weapons check

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

My favorite Civvie video is his video on the Doom movie, mainly because he points out they had their safety offs and pointed their guns at each other as a weapons check

If you were cast in any DOOM movie wouldn't you want to die? Though you'd probably take your agent out first.

 

[BrunoMattei]

My favorite Civvie video is his video on the Doom movie, mainly because he points out they had their safety offs and pointed their guns at each other as a weapons check

I think I discovered him through his series on Blood. Subbed right then and there. I think he's the best reviewer of oldschool FPS games. GManLives used to be my favorite but then I noticed that he loves to whine about hit-scanners all the goddamn time, he's a broken record at this point. That and Gman's reviews are very formulaic unlike Civvie, Gman always feels the need to complain about something.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I think I discovered him through his series on Blood. Subbed right then and there. I think he's the best reviewer of oldschool FPS games. GManLives used to be my favorite but then I noticed that he loves to whine about hit-scanners all the goddamn time, he's a broken record at this point. That and Gman's reviews are very formulaic unlike Civvie, Gman always feels the need to complain about something.

GMan's at his best when he's looking at something really fucking weird, like obscure trash that no one's heard of. He's a lot more fun when he's trying to articulate just what the fuck is going on in the game, and it allows for him to tell somewhat funny jokes. Anything else and he's kinda generic in my opinion.

 

[TFT-A9]

I think I discovered him through his series on Blood. Subbed right then and there. I think he's the best reviewer of oldschool FPS games. GManLives used to be my favorite but then I noticed that he loves to whine about hit-scanners all the goddamn time, he's a broken record at this point. That and Gman's reviews are very formulaic unlike Civvie, Gman always feels the need to complain about something.

To be fair Civvie kind of bitches about hitscanners on occasion, but really only when the game/level designer pulls serious shenanigans with the placement of hitscan enemies. (Shadow Warrior has some really nasty/annoying spots with hitscanner traps, and one or two really nasty UV Doom 2 levels where the Chaingunners will just fuck you right up if you're not really careful)