"Zero Punctuation" and "Dev Diary" by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - The only thing worth watching on The Escapist

[The tired cat]

You seem to be the only one doing that, buddy. Might be time to let go of your weird grudge.

Me? Motherfucker, go to his Reddit topic or even comments on his youtube videos. People practically jack off to his opinions.

 

[Articles and Nudes]

Me? Motherfucker, go to his Reddit topic or even comments on his youtube videos. People practically jack off to his opinions.

Don't autistically browse those sections, then. Exposing yourself to stuff that makes you shit the bed isn't the lethal contrarian strike you seem to think.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

The paragraph beforehand is the tired "AAA games this day are skinner box"

There are AAA games without skinnerbox elements that are designed both to waste your time and to keep you hooked through the semi-random disbursement of rewards. There's a lot more that aren't, which are the ones that draw the biggest numbers and crowds and have the most game studios sacrificed upon the altar to feed, like your Ravens or Viscerals.

The paragraph beforehand was also about Filcher, a middling indie title. In fact, all of the paragraphs beforehand related to indies except for the first sentence.

Cyberpunk, TLOU2, the last Battlefield and Back 4 Blood (which Crowbcat massacred a week ago)

It’s only a specific kind of bad that I want populating my bottom five list, games that are awful and misguided but which I still come out of feeling positive. They might be frustrating, annoying or incomprehensible in the moment but at least I know they’ll be interesting to write about later.
[...]
A more appropriate phrase might be “car crash fascinating.” The sort of thing where you really want to break it down and try to figure out the logic that went into it.

Cyberpunk is a mess because it was an overhyped skinnerbox looter-shooter with a middling plot. Sure, it's interesting how CDPR overhyped and lied through its teeth about it, but the game itself is just an undercooked version of plenty else out there. You look at the gameplay, it's really not much different from a Fallout 76.
TLOU2 is a rerun of TLOU1 with nothing terribly new added, barring a story that split the playerbase. Maybe that's interesting, but the game itself is... fine, it's the same old linear hallway exposition dump miseryporn move-the-ladder-sim.
Battlefield was an undercooked mess rushed to market replete with those signature AAA microtransactions. How's that remarkable? People will buy the next one anyways.
B4B is an undercooked, buggy mess rushed to market. It's just bland and uninteresting, except that it made people appreciate L4D more and did the same shady advertising Evolve did with that whole "from the guys who made a good game".

It's different from failures like Balan or YIIK or Hunt Down the Freeman, where there might be interesting tidbits surrounding their circumstances - but the games' designs themselves are also just so baffling as to defy explanation. Why does the fox become a cube? Why have long-ass minigames for literally every attack in the game? Why have unopenable doors that look identical to doors necessary to progress through the game?

The gist of the article is that while the indie space still gets lots of those fuckups, Balan was a bizarre and unexpected break in the current mode of AAA never taking chances. Though like I said, once the current bubble pops it wouldn't be surprising if AAA got back to that older model of working with smaller studios on less-expensive games, not unlike plenty of other mediums which have unwound from excessive homogenization.

This dude gets paid for this shit and acts like his opinion is some holy gospel that some numbnuts take as a proper opinion and then repeat it.

so ignore him or make your own show and cash in on dumb retards ala jeremy hamburger. It'd be like getting mad at whatever today's roger ebert is, who cares

It's funny watching people tard rage over his apparent hate for AAA titles, when the most negative threads on this forum are about AAA titles.

these mega-massive corporations need my help to defend their honor, and i can't sleep at night knowing someone who bares no bones about adoring pretentious shit like SUDA51 or SWERY doesn't like games that i like

 

[BrokenWokenBespoken]

Well technically TLOU2 and Detroit Become Human also share the same space as Balan as AAA games the broke the "Don't take risks" yet falling flat on it face. And the real reason why TLOU2 was bad instead of bland is because it took risks with releasing it during the rise of a pandemic and nothing good happening during the last 6 months

 

[The tired cat]

Cyberpunk is a mess because it was an overhyped skinnerbox looter-shooter with a middling plot. Sure, it's interesting how CDPR overhyped and lied through its teeth about it, but the game itself is just an undercooked version of plenty else out there. You look at the gameplay, it's really not much different from a Fallout 76.
TLOU2 is a rerun of TLOU1 with nothing terribly new added, barring a story that split the playerbase. Maybe that's interesting, but the game itself is... fine, it's the same old linear hallway exposition dump miseryporn move-the-ladder-sim.
Battlefield was an undercooked mess rushed to market replete with those signature AAA microtransactions. How's that remarkable? People will buy the next one anyways.
B4B is an undercooked, buggy mess rushed to market. It's just bland and uninteresting, except that it made people appreciate L4D more and did the same shady advertising Evolve did with that whole "from the guys who made a good game".

It's different from failures like Balan or YIIK or Hunt Down the Freeman, where there might be interesting tidbits surrounding their circumstances - but the games' designs themselves are also just so baffling as to defy explanation. Why does the fox become a cube? Why have long-ass minigames for literally every attack in the game? Why have unopenable doors that look identical to doors necessary to progress through the game?

The gist of the article is that while the indie space still gets lots of those fuckups, Balan was a bizarre and unexpected break in the current mode of AAA never taking chances. Though like I said, once the current bubble pops it wouldn't be surprising if AAA got back to that older model of working with smaller studios on less-expensive games, not unlike plenty of other mediums which have unwound from excessive homogenization.

I don't know what's more hilarious, you acting like Yahtzee's personal cockwarmer or that you both trying to make excuses for Balan when there's nothing special about that trainwreck no matter how many times you go "It's was an unexpected break" or whatever other hipster sounding bullshit you try to squeeze in. The same goes for YIIK or Hunt Down the Freeman, there are no interesting tidbits, it's just trash made by hacks.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Yahtzee's personal cockwarmer

pretty sure you've posted about twenty times more in this thread than anyone else, tsundere-kun

nothing special about that trainwreck

yeah, plenty of games whose whole design centers around nearly 100 different "power ups" which have niche, single-use applications. you could surely name scores of games with design just like balan, which is why i am telling you that you've got the chutzpah to get into this youtube video game reviewer business

YIIK

ignoring that no other game has you perform laboriously time-consuming minigames for just about every single action, i could ponder why the devs thought it was a good idea to have the battle 'stages' exist in completely different segments of memory from the overworld necessitating its abhorrent load times, why the 'mind dungeon' ever made it off the design room floor, and whose bright idea it was to have the game expressly tell you to grind in order to prepare yourself for two boss fights that are impossible to win anyways

Hunt Down the Freeman

you literally cannot finish multiple levels because they straight up didn't include a linedef to proceed, there are segments that spawn infinite enemies until you pass a certain linedef that it provides no direction to the player to go towards, the earlier-mentioned tidbit about identical legions of doors and environmental objects of which there's no indication as to which is relevant and which is irrelevant

let me bring you back to final doom's plutonia project. it had a problem where the blood or poison textures would hurt you on about half of the levels, but then the other half they didn't do anything. bigwig figures like the casalis learned from that experience that clear visual signaling is important, and you can trace that knowledge to the development of half-life 1. what's the lesson to be learned from the failure of a rushed, buggy AAA looter-shooter with microtransactions? "don't crunch?" oh wait lol, those games are all massive financial successes so crunch works great

 

[The tired cat]

pretty sure you've posted about twenty times more in this thread than anyone else, tsundere-kun

An yet you're the guy who tries to defend his shitty article.

ignoring that no other game has you perform laboriously time-consuming minigames for just about every single action, i could ponder why the devs thought it was a good idea to have the battle 'stages' exist in completely different segments of memory from the overworld necessitating its abhorrent load times, why the 'mind dungeon' ever made it off the design room floor, and whose bright idea it was to have the game expressly tell you to grind in order to prepare yourself for two boss fights that are impossible to win anyways

Or maybe because the devs are jack-offs who looked at shit like Earthbound and Persona and then thought they would be all "quirky" by having their own take on a level-up system. But nah "Oh, I can ponder about the mind of these developers", wanna try sounding less like a pretentious film student?

you literally cannot finish multiple levels because they straight up didn't include a linedef to proceed, there are segments that spawn infinite enemies until you pass a certain linedef that it provides no direction to the player to go towards, the earlier-mentioned tidbit about identical legions of doors and environmental objects of which there's no indication as to which is relevant and which is irrelevant

So, you're seriously trying to give credit to a game that was busted and sucked from the start of its initial planning, made by fucking amateurs, and headed by a Turkish delight of a retard. But it somehow makes it amazing because "OMG!! IT'S SO OUT OF NORMALITY!!"

let me bring you back to final doom's plutonia project. it had a problem where the blood or poison textures would hurt you on about half of the levels, but then the other half they didn't do anything. bigwig figures like the casalis learned from that experience that clear visual signaling is important, and you can trace that knowledge to the development of half-life 1. what's the lesson to be learned from the failure of a rushed, buggy AAA looter-shooter with microtransactions? "don't crunch?" oh wait lol, those games are all massive financial successes so crunch works great

Why would there need to be something learned from a rushed game? It was rushed, big fucking whoop, why are you acting like it's some new fucking thing? Also, who cares about crunch talk aside from jack offs?

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

An yet you're the guy who tries to defend his shitty article.

More that I'm clarifying the point he was making and then stating that I think he's being hyperbolic and yelling at clouds, but I know you didn't read either so it's cool

wanna try sounding less like a pretentious film student?

while you may be intimidated by the fact that you have no creative instincts, i assure you that you it won't hamper your youtube video game review show

Earthbound and Persona

Both of which have standard RPG leveling systems of flat or percent-based increases to stats that are automatic. YIIK tried a new take on the idea of choosing what stats to level, but did so in a way that is so clunky and baffling that yes, it is noteworthy.

But it somehow makes it amazing

sir, that scarecrow did not call the game amazing, as inanimate objects do not talk. please take your antipsychotics
why do you think people find the room noteworthy or interesting? does that also make you mad that they do?

Why would there need to be something learned from a rushed game?

Hey, look at that. So you do agree with that point of his!
Why are you getting so mad about things you didn't read, lol

 

[The tired cat]

while you may be intimidated by the fact that you have no creative instincts, i assure you that you it won't hamper your youtube video game review show

Right, I don't have creative instincts because I'm not a pretentious like you. Whatever makes you happy, also what in the fucking hell is with you and review shows?

Both of which have standard RPG leveling systems of flat or percent-based increases to stats that are automatic. YIIK tried a new take on the idea of choosing what stats to level, but did so in a way that is so clunky and baffling that yes, it is noteworthy.

No, not it's not noteworthy, also are you seriously saying choosing what stats to level up in an RPG is something new?. These numbnuts just made it because they needed to make their shitty indy RPG come off as "quirky" somehow, so what better way than to make a shitty level up system. But apparently to you, it's something noteworthy, instead of just laughing at how much these guys suck at making a game.

sir, that scarecrow did not call the game amazing, as inanimate objects do not talk. please take your antipsychotics
why do you think people find the room noteworthy or interesting? does that also make you mad that they do?

The only thing people found interesting about the room was how it got made and the guy who made it, the movie itself got mocked up and down for being a trash fire and laughed out of the room. The only ones who find it anything else than that are the same pretentious film student rejects.

 

[ARghEAT]

*sperging*

Holy shit dude we get it you're retarded
You don't need to keep telling us over and over again

 

[José Mourinho]

Spoiler: The script

2021 is over, another January wasteland stretches ahead of us like the romantic comedy our partner forces us to endure before the begrudging blowjob of the quarter one releases. It’s time for my second ever roundup of games I didn’t review. Last time I did this I did it before the awards episode in case I wanted to sneak a dark horse candidate up the drainpipe to clandestinely bugger expectations with its giant dark horse willy, but in practice anything I don’t review is most likely just fine and not worth harping on about, so that was like trying to add croutons to my salad by shaking my keyboard over it. So with expectations set nice and low, let’s begin.

Unpacking
Some indie games are like hamsters on Viagra – doing an awful lot with very little. Case in point, here’s everything you do in Unpacking – you click on a moving in box and drag and drop all the contents into shelves, cabinets and drawers. Then you go to the next room and do it some more. Pitch that in the elevator at Ubisoft and watch everyone’s noses wrinkle like you just blew a hole through the seat of your pants. But it’s actually rather enjoyable and zen and the crunchy pastel-coloured isometric pixel art is pleasantly nostalgic like a Game Boy Advance in the mouth of a friendly labrador. Plus it’s doing some interesting underhanded narrative stuff as you notice what toys and kitchen appliances our unseen protagonist keeps from move to move and what potential serial killers they’re moving in with. Okay, it’s no showstopper, there’s no heart-rending emotional storytelling going on, but it’s interesting. In a “ooh they do chocolate brownie M&Ms now?” sort of way.

Before Your Eyes
Oh you’re holding out for heart-rending emotional storytelling, are you? Well, here’s some: Before Your Eyes is a little snacky experience centred around the gimmick that you have to point a webcam at your face and control the game with blinking. The premise is, you’re going through the key memories of your protagonist’s life, jumping to the next one every time you blink. Because you’ve recently died and your life is literally flashing “before your eyes.” Title drop, y’see. I guess they couldn’t have added “flashing” because people might’ve expected something else. It is very overtly a gimmick game, but one that’s effectively using its gimmick to make a point about how life must move on, you’re gonna have to blink at some point no matter how badly you want to stay in this moment where you can see down your high school english teacher’s blouse. And the story really sneaks up on your feely hole and rams in the emotion cactus. It is awkward to play ‘cos you have to hold your head completely still the whole time, and the software occasionally mistook simple eye movements for blinks, although that might be because I needed to light a few more candles in the murky oubliette in which I dwell, but I’d recommend it to all you daywalkers out there.

Haven
I wish I’d noticed this game when it came out ‘cos it’s by the developers of Furi and I liked that game enough I’d let it snog one of my close relatives. One of the ugly ones, though, let’s not go nuts. Haven is a game about a young couple exploring an alien world together, and it’s honestly rather cute. You don’t see it much, do you, two protagonists who are just in a relationship all game with equal billing and neither being murdered to motivate the other. It’s just nice to watch them holding hands as they roller skate across an alien landscape. But then you have to stop roller skating for a JRPG-style random encounter battle that completely kills the flow, oh and it’s one of those awful hybrid turn based and real time systems, fuckup on fuckup, Haven, I let the survival crafting elements slide ‘cos I was sold on the adorable space anime kids but now you’ve killed my interest. I very nearly reviewed it as part of a triple bill indie review that I was planning to call “The Roller Skating In Space Trilogy.”

EXO ONE
The second game of which drops the combat, and the survival, and all forms of organic life, anime or otherwise, and one of the roller skates and most of the remaining one. In EXO ONE you play a fucking ball bearing rolling around a series of empty deserts, but it completely sucked me in. You hold down a button to become really heavy, then release it to become light again. Sort of an oblique metaphor for one’s emotional state while reading the news. And by this method alone you strategically employ slopes and ramps to launch yourself through breathtaking alien landscapes. Story’s a bit obtuse and not terribly present so conceptually it’s, like, one step up from a screen saver, but it made me nostalgic for retro games like Skyroads or Spindizzy that’re just about exploring one satisfying core movement mechanic. It’s that but elevated with the spectacular environments modern graphics can offer to make a somewhat hypnotic experience, if not without low points. I played through it twice to absorb the story better but only ended up confirming that I really didn’t want to play that fucking jungle planet level again.

Solar Ash
Solar Ash is a game by the creators of Hyper Light Drifter who have dropped their previous unique crunchy pixel art identity in favour of going full 3d third person open world like everyone else. That’s right, they’ve pulled the “Risk of Rain” gambit. Still, it maintains Hyper Light Drifter’s visual style in that everyone’s decked out in magenta and cyan like they’ve all sworn fealty to the Order of the Mostly Empty Colour Printer. Gameplay-wise Solar Ash is all over the place. It feels like a 3D Sonic game and Mario Galaxy and Shadow of the Colossus all spent an evening together that none of them are now willing to talk about. If you’ve only room in your roller skating in space budget for one game then of the trilogy it’s probably the one that’s most like a game-game if you see what I mean, but there’s something weirdly forgettable about it that’s hard to put my finger on. The story is kinda hard to follow, but more likely it’s that the core gameplay never really evolves beyond “press button to roller skate” and “press other button to roller skate a bit faster.”
Oh christ I’m running out of time and I wrote down more titles than I thought. Better hammer the rest out quickfire style.

Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth!
A Metroidvania with rather good pixel art, reminiscent of Symphony of the Night but harder and more visually confusing and with poorer environment design and not as good. Apparently it’s a spin-off from some long-running Japanese fantasy franchise so if you’re more familiar with that maybe the story would feel less like you’re viewing it through a sheet of frosted glass.

Eastward!
Cartoon post-apocalyptic kinda Zelda-y kinda Earthbound-y kinda Lisa the Painful but not quite as likely to induce suicidal depression-y, charming enough that it gripped me for a while but then the plot started to feel like it wasn’t going anywhere interesting fast enough and its grip loosened enough that I made my escape.

Moonglow Bay
Like a light farming sim that went all in on the fishing minigame. But where everyone’s made of Duplo and kinda look like they’re ready to die.

F.I.S.T Forged in Shadow Torch
Another Metroidvania! It was alright.

CHORVS
Also alright.

The Ascent
Yeeeeah.

Tales of Arise
Animeee.

Doctor Who: Edge of Reality
Oh (laughter) I did play that, didn’t I! (more laughter) Ahhhh. Fucking sucked.

 

[WULULULULU]

Can't really blame Yahtz when gaming has become either so stale that it is like watching white bread being produced or it is that part of the news were a murder case is shown. Then again, books, anime, music and movies have also gone down the shitter .

 

[Captain Syrup]

Can't really blame Yahtz when gaming has become so stale that it is like watching white bread being produced

Yahtz has half-given up. He has no venom and a lot of the humor seem dulled. He can't push people out of their comfort zones; the overall landscape is hyper casual.

Honestly, though, the video essays seem to be getting better.

 

[The tired cat]

Yahtz has half-given up. He has no venom and a lot of the humor seem dulled. He can't push people out of their comfort zones; the overall landscape is hyper casual.

Honestly, though, the video essays seem to be getting better.

I find it ironic, that a guy who claims he wants to push people out of their comfort zone, is himself sitting in a comfort zone that he never wishes to leave.

 

[Articles and Nudes]

I find it ironic, that a guy who claims he wants to push people out of their comfort zone, is himself sitting in a comfort zone that he never wishes to leave.

Except for all the times he, you know, has.

 

[The tired cat]

Except for all the times he, you know, has

Do you mean playing one game from a genre he never tried and clearly doesn't like, then he just bitches about it and never touches that genre again? Then he just goes back to his comfort zone to act smug?

 

[Captain Syrup]

I find it ironic, that a guy who claims he wants to push people out of their comfort zone, is himself sitting in a comfort zone that he never wishes to leave.

Dude, chill. This is bordering on spam.

 

[Articles and Nudes]

Do you mean playing one game from a genre he never tried and clearly doesn't like, then he just bitches about it and never touches that genre again? Then he just goes back to his comfort zone to act smug?

How ironic, the guy talking about Yahtzee never leaving a comfort zone is constantly banging on about the same nameless example. Regardless of the actual success behind it, he has a fairly wide career in terms of the genres he's tackled, and the topics he's commented on.

You need to back this stuff up already, or find another angle to complain from.

 

[The tired cat]

How ironic, the guy talking about Yahtzee never leaving a comfort zone is constantly banging on about the same nameless example. Regardless of the actual success behind it, he has a fairly wide career in terms of the genres he's tackled, and the topics he's commented on.

You need to back this stuff up already, or find another angle to complain from.

Man, you really like defending the dude dont ya?

 

[Articles and Nudes]

Man, you really like defending the dude dont ya?

Explain how Yahtzee has remained in his comfort zone.