The greatest Zero Punctuation yet.

[weemadando]

Fanboys

I think that this is probably going to be the pinnacle of his work as a critic. I just don't know how to top this.

[Stark]

How original.

Oh, wait. It's 2008, isn't it?

[weemadando]

How original.

Oh, wait. It's 2008, isn't it? :lol:

Yeah, it's not exactly something brand new, but bashing fanboys never really gets old.

[Praxis]

It was rather funny. However, he said he would also address some of the valid criticisms- he didn't in the slightest. All he did was pick on the idiots and fanboys emailing him, which admittedly were utterly HILARIOUS.

I figured Yahtzee would hate Brawl anyway, since he self-admittedly hates multiplayer games and obviously never learned how to play the game strategically beyond button mashing before writing the review due to some of the comments he made.

That last one had me laughing out loud.

[Bounty]

Bland but funny. I wish he'd gone a bit more in-depth about the criticism instead of just repeating "oh what a troll you are", but the spell check thing was great.

[LMSx]

It's worth remembering that all reviews are subjective personal opinions and if you personally enjoy the game then they really shouldn't get to you.

...Unless of course there's a despicable little niggling doubt in the back of your mind that maybe you're not having as much fun as you'd convinced yourself you're having; which doesn't go away no matter how many times you try to slap it down with the wet flannel of weak excuses.

That probably describes a lot of video game forum arguers.

[18-Till-I-Die]

You know i remember seeing Yhatzee's critique of The Darkness demo, so i decided i'd download it (free) and play it. Now, supposedly, he got stuck at some point and couldnt progress so he decided it was "bad" based on that.

I blew through the demo and never got stuck once. At first blush i presumed i'd gotten a different demo (his was for the PS3 after all, mine was 360) so i looked at his review again to see if it was similar to mine...it was.

You know where he got stuck. At a part of the demo where i never even paused to think for more than a second, because the path to progress was so obvious that i cant imagine it being telegraphed any clearer. To wit: there was a gate that could only be opened if the power was shut off...he was trying to slink his "Creeping Darkness" snake (sending out a snake like parasite to attack enemies and open doors quietly around corners) through the gate itself. However if he had looked at the wall AROUND the gate for five seconds he'd see, at the very BEGINNING of the level, a crack in the wall where you can send the Creeping Darkness over, find a generator near the wall, disable it, and continue without problem. I noticed this immediately and did it. I didnt even think about it, it was just so obvious and blatantly put there that, really, i almost kind of rolled my eyes like "Oh come on, this is like a glowing arrow pointing the way". So i then played through it two more times and discovered that, if you wanted to, you could position yourself near the gate and SHOOT THROUGH IT at an odd angle to take out the generator and open the gate...it draws unwanted attention, but it works fine. That's TWO ways to do it that he missed which i found, in a matter of minutes.

He also compained that the controls were "clunky", they werent; that the character moved too slowly, he did not he moved at the same speed as Master Chief and Gordon Freeman. The only think he really got right was the rather odd situation where you have to summon a demon to move a car and escape a gated graveyard. He called this trite and contrived. Fair enough, seemed a little odd to me, but the way he makes it sound you'd think that was the entire game.

And that's just his "critique" of The Darkness, lets not get started on his (LOL) review of Turok, which included little if all information about the game proper. And most it did contain was bullshit (the controls are not overly sensitive AT ALL, for one).

The real problem is that, for all his attempts to say he has "played games most of his life", he obviously still sucks at them. He's outsmarted by level design that would be considered overly easy if it were found in Super Mario World, and blames his own lack of controler...control on the game when other players (not just me, but other people i know) have literally no trouble at all or even notice it. In short, he's funny, but he sucks at gaming...ironic as it's his chosen profession.


Just wanted to put that out there.

I agree with him 101% about the increasingly retarded nature of Nintendo's "games" however.

[18-Till-I-Die]

By the way, i too have been playing games all my life. My mom tells me she got my first NES for my birthday when i was four, however i literally can not recall a time i didn't play video games.

Perhaps it's because i...you know...like video games, instead of going out of my way to find "criticisms, valid or not, in them.

But seeing as my girlfriend who hardly plays games at all was able to (slowly) figure out how to play The Darkness and Tuork...yeah.

[Ford Prefect]

Wait, Yahtzee didn't like The Darkness?

Seriously?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Wait, Yahtzee didn't like The Darkness?

Seriously?

It's actualy a very enjoyable game. It's more fun than HL2, i'll say that, but i've never been a fan of Half-Life purely because it was filled with innane, overly intrusive puzzles with no point besides breaking up the unimaginative level design...but i digress.

He didnt even actually play the game, he played the demo, which actually handicapped the enemies by giving you several of your main attack powers earlier than you would have it in the game.

I've noticed that Yhatzee HATES any form of FPS (he calls them "insipid boom-fests" whatever that means ) and seems to gush over adventure games even when he admits the game in question is not very good, indeed he goes out of his way to call adventure games, especially old ones, "clever and intelligent". But then if i'm right and lot of his "anger" comes from not being able to play more fast paced games easily, because he fails at it, then he probably likes adventure games and the like because they require little skill or coordination.

[VF5SS]

Man, he was channeling some Jerry Jackson there for a bit with the way he read some of those emails. Regarding SSBB, I think it's interesting that such reviewers like Yahtzee and even one of the local review-type papers in my area, the Phoenix, just weren't sucked in by the hype. Hell, the Phoenix even gave SSBB a 5.5 out of 10 citing poor single player, poor online play, and some other stuff.

[CaptHawkeye]

I've noticed that Yhatzee HATES any form of FPS (he calls them "insipid boom-fests" whatever that means ) and seems to gush over adventure games even when he admits the game in question is not very good, indeed he goes out of his way to call adventure games, especially old ones, "clever and intelligent". But then if i'm right and lot of his "anger" comes from not being able to play more fast paced games easily, because he fails at it, then he probably likes adventure games and the like because they require little skill or coordination.

Don't forget the Crysis review, a game which he actually recommended but flew right into the face of all his previously established standards. Consistency and Yahtzee cannot exist at the same time?

[18-Till-I-Die]

That's something else...

He went on in that review about "the controls suck!!!" and all that but, having played it on a friend's Quantum Computer, i found the controls to be really just like every other FPS...i.e, not a problem if you have any idea at all how to play one. The vehicle sections ARE insanely bad in design however.

I honestly think his problem is he just cant play these games well, he's bad at them, so he declares them "bad" based purely on his own inability to play them.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Hehe, that was good. I make it a point of mine to never join a gaming board, simply because most gamers seem to be adolescent retards. As Yahtzee points out, if you enjoyed the game, then bully for you. Personally, I only use reviews as a rough guide and I agree with the numerical point too, though scores out of five or ten are more useful than as a percentage.

The final bit about the current generation was true too. Normally we have a clear victor, but this time round it does seem that there's something for everyone. Plus the 360 does piss itself and die.

[Zixinus]

I really don't agree with his Witcher review. It's like he never played any PC RPG games before, some of which have a far more complex and unintuitive interface then the Witcher. Dungeon Seige and Diablo comes to mind.

The thing is, that Zero Punctuation is not a truly proper review: its a channel of personal rants about Yathzee's opinion of a certain game. Normally, this would be unintresting but Yathzee has turned it into a minor artform by making it funny. That's the only reason why its worth watching at all.

As for how he finds games more difficult the explenation is simple: he's getting old. That's it. He swiches on to the situation more slowly because he's getting old.

He's also a console man: most PC titles that takes more then the mouse to use he complains about the controls.

[Stark]

Wait, Yahtzee didn't like The Darkness?

Seriously?

It sucked.

That said, Yahtzee's review was hilarious. Like 18, I got past that area fine. The game's problem is that it's CRUSHINGLY HARD right at the start (at least on hard) and then once you get your demon powers it's laughably easy and boring. Once you go into magic WWI and stumble around in the mist for 15 minutes and get the magic Flash Gordon guns, it's all a bit meh.

But 18, super-consistent Yahtzee loved CoD4 and Crysis, for all the reasons he hated Halo3.

His Witcher review was hilarious, in that almost everything I remember him saying was wrong.

[Sarevok]

really don't agree with his Witcher review. It's like he never played any PC RPG games before, some of which have a far more complex and unintuitive interface then the Witcher. Dungeon Seige and Diablo comes to mind.

Diablo has complex interface ? Diablo is as simple as you can get. "Click click chop chop" is now sophistaced ? Holy shit ! Did the collective attention span of gamerkind halve in last 10 years ?

[weemadando]

really don't agree with his Witcher review. It's like he never played any PC RPG games before, some of which have a far more complex and unintuitive interface then the Witcher. Dungeon Seige and Diablo comes to mind.

Diablo has complex interface ? Diablo is as simple as you can get. "Click click chop chop" is now sophistaced ? Holy shit ! Did the collective attention span of gamerkind halve in last 10 years ?

Halve? HALVE?

Try putting a Diablo whore in front of a text parser and we'll talk.

[Zixinus]

Diablo has complex interface ? Diablo is as simple as you can get. "Click click chop chop" is now sophistaced ? Holy shit ! Did the collective attention span of gamerkind halve in last 10 years ?

You just described the fighting interface, not the complete interface. But regardless, yeah, Diablo-level interface is somehow complex for Yathzee.

[Peptuck]

But 18, super-consistent Yahtzee loved CoD4 and Crysis, for all the reasons he hated Halo3.

I thought Yatzhee hated Crysis with a passion, saying the only good thing about it was that it was so pretty it made his hate-valve turn off.

Of course, his main sticking point with Halo 3 appeared to be that he hadn't played the other Halo games so he was lost on the storyline, and everything else stemmed from that, which is kind of stupid.

Honestly, I've never used Yatzhee as a benchmark for how good a game is; I mean, his biggest beef with Assassin's Creed was that the swordfighting apparently sucked, which for me was probably one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game.

[General Zod]

I liked the summary of the consoles at the end. Especially the bit about the 360 pissing itself occasionally and dying.

[Stark]

Honestly, I've never used Yatzhee as a benchmark for how good a game is; I mean, his biggest beef with Assassin's Creed was that the swordfighting apparently sucked, which for me was probably one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game.

Nobody really cares what he thinks; he's a comedian, not a critic. However, he's pretty inconsistent (especially post Valve-love) which makes most of his 'fans' look like idiots.

[Zixinus]

I thought Yatzhee hated Crysis with a passion, saying the only good thing about it was that it was so pretty it made his hate-valve turn off.

Of course, his main sticking point with Halo 3 appeared to be that he hadn't played the other Halo games so he was lost on the storyline, and everything else stemmed from that, which is kind of stupid.

Actually, I recall that he didn't outright the guts of the game per say. He just considered them overhyped, especially Halo 3.