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

[Oilspill Battery]

I cannot fathom why would he move to california. The man made insane money playing with paper puppets online for 5 minutes each week.

Instead of moving to the country to pay as little money as possible in a huge house while raking in crazy dough in a stress free enviroment for when he wants to retire, he decided to move in to the most unbelievably expensive polluted flammable urban shithole imaginable, while having a kid.

Literally, why? Not even californians want to live in california.

 

[The tired cat]

I cannot fathom why would he move to california. The man made insane money playing with paper puppets online for 5 minutes each week.

Instead of moving to the country to pay as little money as possible in a huge house while raking in crazy dough in a stress free enviroment for when he wants to retire, he decided to move in to the most unbelievably expensive polluted flammable urban shithole imaginable, while having a kid.

Literally, why? Not even californians want to live in california.

I mean, knowing the guys ego. I wouldnt be surprirsed if he saw Cali as a place where his "genius" would be understood.

 

[Mega Black]

I mean, knowing the guys ego. I wouldnt be surprirsed if he saw Cali as a place where his "genius" would be understood.

It's where you go if you're in the media, internet or otherwise, and need to be surrounded by other likeminded brainrot faggots. So yeah, probably this.

 

[Xarpho]

Yeah, that's a major reason why his random politisperging is so irritating - you can't just reply with an equally snarky response with a right-wing bent, or else you'll get the banhammer. Retort with something like "Doesn't the current Democratic president of the USA, a country you can't even legally vote in, have a documented history of sniffing little girls, and a son that's done everything from kids to crack?" and you'll be relegated to the abyss of Bitchute forevermore.

So, with no way to retort without getting slapped down, we've gotta tolerate his obnoxious angsty teenager-tier rage against whomever CNN's getting mad about today, and it's very obnoxious. It wouldn't be so irritating if his videos weren't at least reasonably good to this day, making it the big ball of cat fur with a little bit of feces mixed in that I have to carefully pick out of my peanut butter, when we don't need to have that fur and feces mixed in the first place.

Lefty politisperging is inherently creepy, anyway. It's astounding how unified their hive mind seems to be, even able to turn on a dime and start praising Biden, pretending like they weren't passing around the hair-sniffing photos just as much as the rest of us pre-election. They pass out a general message du jour, and it instantly becomes the mantra.

I always thought that in many ways Yahtzee kind of was a "2005 liberal" in the modern day, dismissing conservatives and being suspicious of "family values", but not diving into the deep end of LGBTQ+ mania and the other topics discussed today.

He can have his beliefs, but if you're incapable of writing a creative work without bringing up your political stance you are a hack.

 

[Fishious Rend]

I feel like california is just a eldritch horror at this point, its draws you in then makes you insane.

 

[Xarpho]

I watched the latest Extra Punctuation, with his idea that "cozy games" are the "next big thing". After his spiel on mobile games, I expect that his takes on the industry are going to be shitty. Most of the stuff he talks about is an offshoot of the casual games trend that really got going in the mid to late 2000s, and the games he brings up as examples--half of them I'd never heard of (Bear & Breakfast?)

Yet he can't bring up any examples or ideas how the AAA industry would capitalize on it, only thinking of "Disney Dreamlight Valley", which looks to be for mostly women anyway.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I watched the latest Extra Punctuation, with his idea that "cozy games" are the "next big thing". After his spiel on mobile games, I expect that his takes on the industry are going to be shitty. Most of the stuff he talks about is an offshoot of the casual games trend that really got going in the mid to late 2000s, and the games he brings up as examples--half of them I'd never heard of (Bear & Breakfast?)

Yet he can't bring up any examples or ideas how the AAA industry would capitalize on it, only thinking of "Disney Dreamlight Valley", which looks to be for mostly women anyway.

I've seen the title and it reminds me of Jim Sterling's proclamation that "every fps game should be PG rated" because Splatoon made bank. The problem with those proclamations is that those specific genre of games are usually filled with a single Nintendo IP that will get 99% of the user base, and that the amount of autists who'll play them is extremely small (like with cozy games I guess he means either Animal Crossing or Euro Truck Simulator).

 

[whatever I feel like]

I watched the latest Extra Punctuation, with his idea that "cozy games" are the "next big thing". After his spiel on mobile games, I expect that his takes on the industry are going to be shitty. Most of the stuff he talks about is an offshoot of the casual games trend that really got going in the mid to late 2000s, and the games he brings up as examples--half of them I'd never heard of (Bear & Breakfast?)

Yet he can't bring up any examples or ideas how the AAA industry would capitalize on it, only thinking of "Disney Dreamlight Valley", which looks to be for mostly women anyway.

Not knowing the games he is talking about doesn't mean his take is shitty, it means something else is...

Actually, if anything, his take is years out of date. He should have been talking about this back when Stardew Valley came out, or the 3DS Animal Crossing. As to the "cozy game" aka "farm sim" or "walking around town" genre, I think it has a bright future in indie games because they are easy to make and take a long time to play, thus people are less likely to bitch about lack of content. Its obvious that Yahzee takes indie games about as seriously as AAA games (and why not, with the caveat that you then have to give them low metacritic scores if they have shitty graphics, are unfinished or are overly short) and yeah, that type of game is only growing in popularity. And, as to how a "AAA company" could capitalize on it. Well, there's AC, the Disney game he mentioned, that Square Enix one, the turn into a cat at night game (also from S-E?), Town from GameFreak (massive bomb, only Nintendo-adjacent game so terrible that even GameXplain couldn't defend it), Harvest Moon and SoS (which are sort of from AAA companies), tons of Wii-era Ubisoft trash that they could bring back, the Sims series from EA, etc. Just because I wouldn't be too interested in those games doesn't mean they don't exist.

I've seen the title and it reminds me of Jim Sterling's proclamation that "every fps game should be PG rated" because Splatoon made bank. The problem with those proclamations is that those specific genre of games are usually filled with a single Nintendo IP that will get 99% of the user base, and that the amount of autists who'll play them is extremely small (like with cozy games I guess he means either Animal Crossing or Euro Truck Simulator).

And yet somehow the "most popular game available today" is Fortnite, which is aimed at 12 year olds and has cartoonish character designs. Its an interesting point to make and thankfully games are big enough that we can have more than one thing.

 

[Pissmaster]

I watched the latest Extra Punctuation, with his idea that "cozy games" are the "next big thing".

Well that's a dumb take. Today's cozy games are played by people who'd play MMORPGs, easy puzzles, and The Sims yesteryear: games with little challenge and a whole lot to grind towards. They're not the next big thing, they're a mainstay for people who don't want their blood pressure peaking. Then again, I'd expect that from modern Yahtzee. He treats Stardew Valley like it's something amazing despite being a shitty woke modern knockoff of specifically Harvest Moon SNES.

You know, I'll bet he thinks cozy games are the next big thing because he's in San Francisco now, so he's surrounded by maladroits who live on Twitter and rave over "heckin' wholesome" crap, and everyone else is wrong, because San Francisco is home to all of the people who are right about everything all of the time as they step over countless homeless people and used needles flooding their streets.

After his spiel on mobile games, I expect that his takes on the industry are going to be shitty. Most of the stuff he talks about is an offshoot of the casual games trend that really got going in the mid to late 2000s, and the games he brings up as examples--half of them I'd never heard of (Bear & Breakfast?)

At least a good half of Zero Punctuation now is garbage artsy games I never hear about elsewhere. I'm not even sure if it's just a symptom of the industry being in its dark ages, or Yahtzee just being a pretentious faggot. He's stuck in that era around 2010 when the term "indie game" was coined, and there was a boom of really good ones. That hasn't been the case for a loooooooooooong time now. The only positive thing gaming's got going on right now is the ongoing revival of Japanese games, which Yahtzee doesn't seem keen to acknowledge, despite reviewing and liking so many. Ranking Spiritfarer as his #1 of 2020 while sticking Yakuza: Like a Dragon at #3 was, uhh... well, let me put it this way: I haven't played Spiritfarer, but from what he said, and from what it looks like, it seems like a depressing arthouse film in the form of a game. Yakuza 7, on the other hand, I liked so much that I rank it right up there with Chrono Trigger. I would rather laugh at enemies that look like this:


than indulge in some pretentious melodramatic faggotry about setting souls free or whatever. I do not live a privileged enough existence to have the fortitude to find enjoyment in depressing situations. I would rather enjoy the hero's journey where you come across tons of wacky characters and scenarios, because I need the escapism into something enjoyable, because I don't make shitloads of money for making barebones simple cartoons and writing several paragraphs about whatever games I played. I already do that shit anyway, but never found a way to monetize it.

 

[Xarpho]

At least a good half of Zero Punctuation now is garbage artsy games I never hear about elsewhere. I'm not even sure if it's just a symptom of the industry being in its dark ages, or Yahtzee just being a pretentious faggot.

Probably both. His dick-sucking of Undertale and Night in the Woods indicates that he is cut from the same cloth of "games journalists". It's not even that you have to be a contrarian to dislike them (crying over Super Mario 64, Zelda Ocarina of Time, and all the SNES hits continues to be in vogue on /v/ for instance), it's that when you march lockstep with everyone else, there's an air of inauthenticity about you that throws other opinions into question.

The only positive thing gaming's got going on right now is the ongoing revival of Japanese games, which Yahtzee doesn't seem keen to acknowledge, despite reviewing and liking so many.

He kind of comes off like Null when it comes to Japanese games and anime, as an aloof asshole who pretends to be above it all but has a very narrow idea of what anime and Japanese stuff is while refusing to look into the media as a whole because of preconceived notions about what it is. Null's ignorance is more egregious but Yahtzee's ignorance is more of an issue. (Null does not review TV shows or video games).

 

[The tired cat]

Well that's a dumb take. Today's cozy games are played by people who'd play MMORPGs, easy puzzles, and The Sims yesteryear: games with little challenge and a whole lot to grind towards. They're not the next big thing, they're a mainstay for people who don't want their blood pressure peaking. Then again, I'd expect that from modern Yahtzee. He treats Stardew Valley like it's something amazing despite being a shitty woke modern knockoff of specifically Harvest Moon SNES.

You know, I'll bet he thinks cozy games are the next big thing because he's in San Francisco now, so he's surrounded by maladroits who live on Twitter and rave over "heckin' wholesome" crap, and everyone else is wrong, because San Francisco is home to all of the people who are right about everything all of the time as they step over countless homeless people and used needles flooding their streets.


At least a good half of Zero Punctuation now is garbage artsy games I never hear about elsewhere. I'm not even sure if it's just a symptom of the industry being in its dark ages, or Yahtzee just being a pretentious faggot. He's stuck in that era around 2010 when the term "indie game" was coined, and there was a boom of really good ones. That hasn't been the case for a loooooooooooong time now. The only positive thing gaming's got going on right now is the ongoing revival of Japanese games, which Yahtzee doesn't seem keen to acknowledge, despite reviewing and liking so many. Ranking Spiritfarer as his #1 of 2020 while sticking Yakuza: Like a Dragon at #3 was, uhh... well, let me put it this way: I haven't played Spiritfarer, but from what he said, and from what it looks like, it seems like a depressing arthouse film in the form of a game. Yakuza 7, on the other hand, I liked so much that I rank it right up there with Chrono Trigger. I would rather laugh at enemies that look like this:
View attachment 3657944

than indulge in some pretentious melodramatic faggotry about setting souls free or whatever. I do not live a privileged enough existence to have the fortitude to find enjoyment in depressing situations. I would rather enjoy the hero's journey where you come across tons of wacky characters and scenarios, because I need the escapism into something enjoyable, because I don't make shitloads of money for making barebones simple cartoons and writing several paragraphs about whatever games I played. I already do that shit anyway, but never found a way to monetize it.

I'll say this about Spiritfarer, it def doesnt have this depressing arthouse feel. Infact, for a game with a subject being the afterlife, it presents itself in a more positive/holesome way. Like, theres never a moment of it being depressing and more having this odd..hmm..how to put it, like remember that speech from Cowboy Bebop how you shouldnt be afraid of death, how it comes for us all and if we welcome it, it'll guide us gently to the other side. Thats what Spiritfarer feels like, between building your boat house and interracting with the souls to the other side, it gives this feeling how death is just a natural part of life.

 

[WULULULULU]

Yahtzee reviews Saints Row (2022).

I'll say this about Spiritfarer, it def doesnt have this depressing arthouse feel. Infact, for a game with a subject being the afterlife, it presents itself in a more positive/holesome way. Like, theres never a moment of it being depressing and more having this odd..hmm..how to put it, like remember that speech from Cowboy Bebop how you shouldnt be afraid of death, how it comes for us all and if we welcome it, it'll guide us gently to the other side. Thats what Spiritfarer feels like, between building your boat house and interracting with the souls to the other side, it gives this feeling how death is just a natural part of life.

I'll tell you this, compared to the state of gaming in 2020, there was a reason he chose Spiritfarer, because TLOU2 existed and he most definitely needed a palette clenser for something so utterly depressing.

 

[Herty]

Well that's a dumb take. Today's cozy games are played by people who'd play MMORPGs, easy puzzles, and The Sims yesteryear: games with little challenge and a whole lot to grind towards. They're not the next big thing, they're a mainstay for people who don't want their blood pressure peaking. Then again, I'd expect that from modern Yahtzee. He treats Stardew Valley like it's something amazing despite being a shitty woke modern knockoff of specifically Harvest Moon SNES.

You know, I'll bet he thinks cozy games are the next big thing because he's in San Francisco now, so he's surrounded by maladroits who live on Twitter and rave over "heckin' wholesome" crap, and everyone else is wrong, because San Francisco is home to all of the people who are right about everything all of the time as they step over countless homeless people and used needles flooding their streets.


At least a good half of Zero Punctuation now is garbage artsy games I never hear about elsewhere. I'm not even sure if it's just a symptom of the industry being in its dark ages, or Yahtzee just being a pretentious faggot. He's stuck in that era around 2010 when the term "indie game" was coined, and there was a boom of really good ones. That hasn't been the case for a loooooooooooong time now. The only positive thing gaming's got going on right now is the ongoing revival of Japanese games, which Yahtzee doesn't seem keen to acknowledge, despite reviewing and liking so many. Ranking Spiritfarer as his #1 of 2020 while sticking Yakuza: Like a Dragon at #3 was, uhh... well, let me put it this way: I haven't played Spiritfarer, but from what he said, and from what it looks like, it seems like a depressing arthouse film in the form of a game. Yakuza 7, on the other hand, I liked so much that I rank it right up there with Chrono Trigger. I would rather laugh at enemies that look like this:
View attachment 3657944

than indulge in some pretentious melodramatic faggotry about setting souls free or whatever. I do not live a privileged enough existence to have the fortitude to find enjoyment in depressing situations. I would rather enjoy the hero's journey where you come across tons of wacky characters and scenarios, because I need the escapism into something enjoyable, because I don't make shitloads of money for making barebones simple cartoons and writing several paragraphs about whatever games I played. I already do that shit anyway, but never found a way to monetize it.

Holy cow batman, that is some A grade sperging about a reviewer not putting your favorite game on the 1# place.

I don't like his political sperging on his videos but sincerely if it makes people here so butthurted, it makes it tolerable.

 

[Pissmaster]

Saints Row - Zero Punctuation

This week in Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews the 2022 Saints Row reboot from Deep Silver and Volition, a so-so new take on the franchise.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Yahtzee covered Saints Row (2022) this week. Oddly very soft review. He praised the gender slider, lightly mocked the total lack of character development, but didn't touch upon the notorious writing or glitches at all. His main point was that it's just a rehash of an old game from 16 years ago. The entire rest of the internet, even woke journos, have been trashing it.

 

[Xarpho]

Saints Row - Zero Punctuation

This week in Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews the 2022 Saints Row reboot from Deep Silver and Volition, a so-so new take on the franchise.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Yahtzee covered Saints Row (2022) this week. Oddly very soft review. He praised the gender slider, lightly mocked the total lack of character development, but didn't touch upon the notorious writing or glitches at all. His main point was that it's just a rehash of an old game from 16 years ago. The entire rest of the internet, even woke journos, have been trashing it.

That was a strange one, and definitely a sign that he's lost it. He couldn't seem to make up his mind whether he even liked it or not. When I play a game I generally know if I liked it or didn't like it, and if there's a big asterisk after "liked it" (or even "didn't like it"). I personally didn't care for Undertale, but there were some interesting ideas and memorable moments. I liked Hollow Knight, even if the game was weighted too heavily toward boss fights.

 

[Shiawase]

Saints Row - Zero Punctuation

This week in Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews the 2022 Saints Row reboot from Deep Silver and Volition, a so-so new take on the franchise.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Yahtzee covered Saints Row (2022) this week. Oddly very soft review. He praised the gender slider, lightly mocked the total lack of character development, but didn't touch upon the notorious writing or glitches at all. His main point was that it's just a rehash of an old game from 16 years ago. The entire rest of the internet, even woke journos, have been trashing it.

Perhaps somebody from Volition gave him a stack of Benjamins to secure a restrained review. He does seem to be holding something back, as it is obvious he didn't really enjoy the game.

 

[WULULULULU]

Saints Row - Zero Punctuation

This week in Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews the 2022 Saints Row reboot from Deep Silver and Volition, a so-so new take on the franchise.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Yahtzee covered Saints Row (2022) this week. Oddly very soft review. He praised the gender slider, lightly mocked the total lack of character development, but didn't touch upon the notorious writing or glitches at all. His main point was that it's just a rehash of an old game from 16 years ago. The entire rest of the internet, even woke journos, have been trashing it.

This is a notable part of Yahtz' reviews. Usually the first reviews paint the game on first glance. See No Man's Sky and Elden Ring's reviews. When No Man's Sky was reviewed to hell and called one of the worst, Yahtz simply did not give a shit about calling it shit and just said there was barely anything to do other than explore, sightsee and gather resources, Elden Ring was the same with massive praise from others but when he reviewed it, he most definitely just gave it a light pat on the back. But the most obvious should be in his Anthem review, as per his words:

"Do I need to go on? I mean, the Internet hivemind seems to have already declared Anthem to be "The Thing We All Hate of the Month", and for all my contrarian instincts, I can't disagree.

There we go, contrarianism. He's contrarian so that he doesn't follow the same internet talking points on repeat. That said, he most certainly hated it and I can tell he has a reservation for it in the Top 5 Blandest or Worst. $5 bet.

 

[Xarpho]

Where Saints Row Went Wrong | Extra Punctuation

This week on Extra Punctuation, Yahtzee takes a deeper dive into the Saints Row franchise and where it wrong along the way.Join YouTube Memberships and suppo...

www.youtube.com

He recently released a video on why the new Saint's Row is bad, but mostly goes through a history of the series and doesn't list off things until the six minute mark. But he goes into the whole "it's bad because SR4 couldn't be topped in terms of wackiness". But it's not called Saint's Row 5, it's a reboot, something that is supposed to, in theory, bring the series back to its roots by polishing off what people liked about the original with features from the sequels, with all the QoL and graphics improvements that the original one never had. The problem is (like many reboots), it's not a good one.



Yet he neither goes full turbo boomer and declare that all reboots are bad in principle because he liked Doom 2016 (and that did bring back a number of features that the original Doom had and actually was a good game), or if rebooting Saint's Row is truly a crime upon gaming, never goes into full attack mode on it.

 

[Ser Prize]

Where Saints Row Went Wrong | Extra Punctuation

This week on Extra Punctuation, Yahtzee takes a deeper dive into the Saints Row franchise and where it wrong along the way.Join YouTube Memberships and suppo...

www.youtube.com

He recently released a video on why the new Saint's Row is bad, but mostly goes through a history of the series and doesn't list off things until the six minute mark. But he goes into the whole "it's bad because SR4 couldn't be topped in terms of wackiness". But it's not called Saint's Row 5, it's a reboot, something that is supposed to, in theory, bring the series back to its roots by polishing off what people liked about the original with features from the sequels, with all the QoL and graphics improvements that the original one never had. The problem is (like many reboots), it's not a good one.



Yet he neither goes full turbo boomer and declare that all reboots are bad in principle because he liked Doom 2016 (and that did bring back a number of features that the original Doom had and actually was a good game), or if rebooting Saint's Row is truly a crime upon gaming, never goes into full attack mode on it.

He's generally really soft on pozzed games.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

He's generally really soft on pozzed games.

He didn't like Abby's golf simulator. Then again, he didn't liked ladder moving simulator