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

[Local Wordmason]

Was it ever explained why he hates his parents so much?

Not that I can remember. You could go back through Let's Drown Out and see if he mentions anything, but as far as I know he keeps pretty closed off about his personal life.

 

[ShitLurker]

A lot of what he says in this are wrong lol
"stock gesture animations that dont match up with the words" but a lot of the times, they do match up with the words! This is also such a weird nit pick.

"Stop spending money on graphics!"
"What?! The animations are shit!"
Pick one you stupid aussie faggot. Also, as a constant consumer of JRPGs, I'm not bothered by characters awkwardly standing still while dumping their spaghetti, this is probably one of the first things I¡m fine with developers saving on cash (and dropping fucking voice acting except for key scenes, most of it is shit anyway, specially on dubs).

Nope! Does Keep et classy and spends most of his time on twitter.


Was it ever explained why he hates his parents so much?

Probably daddy was mildly right wing and ol Ben could not live with that, no never, and much less now that the Cali brainrot has set in.

On Chrono Trigger, I get his "the characters aren't really involved on the plot" in the sense that they are not personally invested on the Queen or Schalla or know any of these people outside of a few moments (except for Magus), but call me crazy but I'd dare say all of timespace collapsing on itself because the alien hedehog is a primordial threat IS something they are very fucking interested in and they all have seen the effects of the aliend hedgehog in some shape or form, some more direct than others. The restis just heroes journey call the action, I know media has reduced everyone to jaded assholes, but the narrative concept of "doing something because it's right" and "doing something because we are the only ones able to act on it" is still something very compelling, people still like heroes, I don't need them to always have personal intertwined stakes, I don't need Robo to be the ex lover of the primordial hedgehog, I'm knowing that his dome is shit because of it and wanting to stop it is more than enough.

I also find it very annoying how he doesn't mention something like the music, thinking about it, he NEVER talks about sound design and then how it did something very ballsy by killing the main character and locking his revival in a pretty obtuse subquest. Also, just how well it plays with traveling through periods, I loved the sidequest where Robo stays working the fields for a few centuries and you find him a rusted mess surrounded by a beautiful forest where there was nothing prior and Lucca getting him back in action. Or how you waited for the super shell to get charged with sunlight to something like that for a few thousand years. Also, combat in chrono was definitely not brainless, I lost more than a few times vs bosses simply because I wasn't engaging with their gimmick.

 

[Fools Idol]

And where the fuck is a game like Uncharted supposed to go if it makes you piss and shid and fard your pants to see a brown person among the bad guys? Is Nathan Drake supposed to go exploring the Lost Grain Silo of Western Nebraska?

There's a sense of snobbery if you ask me. He knows he isn't allowed to like these games because they are popular but he doesn't really have anything to say about them so he basically made up a problem to complain about. I also think he likes the idea of sounding smart to he makes vague statement about something that sounds like a deep criticism of both the game and the industry that spawned it.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Surprised there isn't an explosion here due to him reviewing Chrono Trigger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5h5gP8xq4g

Full disclosure, most of the time I don't play the games Yahtzee reviews, so I don't know what he's getting wrong (though I suspect a lot, because every time I experience a game later it turns out he's wildly misrepresenting it).

Chrono Trigger though.... I mean, its Chrono Trigger. I played it as a kid, and revisited it again just a few years back. I know this game the way an autistic sperg knows a childhood favorite.

And.... well, Yahtz mentions "people who play the first few hours then stop" which is what I strongly suspect he did, because most of what he says is just wrong.

Not that this is surprising, but you'd think a video about Chrono Trigger would get a bigger reaction.

He outright says it was done by a vote (accessible for Patreon whales, no way would I give him $50 a month), and given that he already has a pre-conceived view of the game basically means you're getting a review that's phoned-in. It's already bought and paid for, no need to manufacture outrage.

As an example to it being phoned in, he basically introduces "after you break out of prison, you screw around until Lavos is introduced" which is not at all how the game runs, because after the prison break, the guards are after you, and you fall into another time portal, this time into a distant, dystopian future run by evil robots...and then comes the plot twist of what is set up as "dark wizard summons eldritch abomination" is actually "dark wizard's got his own goals and kind of a dick, but really not that bad of a guy".

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

One part that got me was how he said the characters were outsiders to the plot , even though there actions affect the world and in context with the black omen , they just arrive when the queen was ready to sacrifice Schala to Lavos. Even though you can arrive just when she about to. Also it funny how he filtered by the boss before the zeal.

If that's the one I was thinking of, he neglected to mention that you don't actually have to beat him and all you get is some decent items/money and a scene of one the villains going WTF and taking you away to prison anyway.

 

[Nikes_JustDoIt]

He outright says it was done by a vote (accessible for Patreon whales, no way would I give him $50 a month), and given that he already has a pre-conceived view of the game basically means you're getting a review that's phoned-in. It's already bought and paid for, no need to manufacture outrage.

As an example to it being phoned in, he basically introduces "after you break out of prison, you screw around until Lavos is introduced" which is not at all how the game runs, because after the prison break, the guards are after you, and you fall into another time portal, this time into a distant, dystopian future run by evil robots...and then comes the plot twist of what is set up as "dark wizard summons eldritch abomination" is actually "dark wizard's got his own goals and kind of a dick, but really not that bad of a guy".

Another point is people get bored after the first part of the game like Deus Ex or System shock 2 which is wrong considering Chrono trigger is not a long game and all those game you are invested into the plot and characters. And The gameplay got boring part , I mean its an 90 rpg it was focus on the story more.

 

[Evil Peter Griffin]

Another point is people get bored after the first part of the game like Deus Ex or System shock 2 which is wrong considering Chrono trigger is not a long game and all those game you are invested into the plot and characters. And The gameplay got boring part , I mean its an 90 rpg it was focus on the story more.

I wonder what part of Deus Ex and System Shock 2 he got bored with?

 

[Irrational Exuberance]

On Chrono Trigger, I get his "the characters aren't really involved on the plot" in the sense that they are not personally invested on the Queen or Schalla or know any of these people outside of a few moments (except for Magus), but call me crazy but I'd dare say all of timespace collapsing on itself because the alien hedehog is a primordial threat IS something they are very fucking interested in and they all have seen the effects of the aliend hedgehog in some shape or form, some more direct than others

I don't think it's that epic a story; the alien hedgehog seems perfectly content to just sleep inside the planet until an arbitrary date comes, at which point it emerges to create a Bad Future with hints of this sort of thing repeating on other planets (with no sort of indication of what the thing even is or how it moves through space). The magic kingdom just wants to use it as a power source to sustain their decadent society before it kills them all seemingly by accident, and there's nothing preventing you from just roaming around any other time period forever aside from the one that forces you to fight; in other words, the plot is good in smaller details, not so much in the larger overarching plot. In my opinion, of course.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

On Chrono Trigger, I get his "the characters aren't really involved on the plot" in the sense that they are not personally invested on the Queen or Schalla or know any of these people outside of a few moments (except for Magus), but call me crazy but I'd dare say all of timespace collapsing on itself because the alien hedehog is a primordial threat IS something they are very fucking interested in and they all have seen the effects of the aliend hedgehog in some shape or form, some more direct than others. The restis just heroes journey call the action, I know media has reduced everyone to jaded assholes, but the narrative concept of "doing something because it's right" and "doing something because we are the only ones able to act on it" is still something very compelling, people still like heroes, I don't need them to always have personal intertwined stakes, I don't need Robo to be the ex lover of the primordial hedgehog, I'm knowing that his dome is shit because of it and wanting to stop it is more than enough.

It's a ridiculous statement since most characters in the games are connected to the plot by the effects of changing the past. It's so bizarre because you can turn this argument over every "ancient mystery" plotline.

I also find it very annoying how he doesn't mention something like the music, thinking about it, he NEVER talks about sound design and then how it did something very ballsy by killing the main character and locking his revival in a pretty obtuse subquest. Also, just how well it plays with traveling through periods, I loved the sidequest where Robo stays working the fields for a few centuries and you find him a rusted mess surrounded by a beautiful forest where there was nothing prior and Lucca getting him back in action. Or how you waited for the super shell to get charged with sunlight to something like that for a few thousand years. Also, combat in chrono was definitely not brainless, I lost more than a few times vs bosses simply because I wasn't engaging with their gimmick.

There was never a deep critic of systems and issues in general in his reviews. While his reviews started fine as a barometer of whether a game is worth a try or not, now they are just a mirror of bland cali consoomer.

There's a sense of snobbery if you ask me. He knows he isn't allowed to like these games because they are popular but he doesn't really have anything to say about them so he basically made up a problem to complain about. I also think he likes the idea of sounding smart to he makes vague statement about something that sounds like a deep criticism of both the game and the industry that spawned it.

"Killing black people bad" is an easy social point statement that popped up with Resident Evil 5 and kept perpetually by faggots like Yahtzee whenever a game doesn't have diversity squad enemies, which looks ridiculous and is especially disgusting when women added to be killed gruesomely. Yahtzee in general is only says good things about games if they are either indie darlings or a glorified tv show.

 

[Scarthew]

I wonder what part of Deus Ex and System Shock 2 he got bored with?

Deus ex has a large chunk in the middle thats not very fun or interesting. But system shock really only gets bad at the end, deck 1 is a bit of a difficulty hump but the game progresses well.

 

[Evil Peter Griffin]

Deus ex has a large chunk in the middle thats not very fun or interesting. But system shock really only gets bad at the end, deck 1 is a bit of a difficulty hump but the game progresses well.

So you think he gave up around Hong Kong? As for System Shock 2 my guess he quit at Hydroponics Deck where you have to get one level in Research and he probably spent on something else.

​

 

[Scarthew]

So you think he gave up around Hong Kong? As for System Shock 2 my guess he quit at Hydroponics Deck where you have to get one level in Research and he probably spent on something else.

​

He's beaten both of those, I know that for sure, I think he's talking about other people's tendency to drop them. Also for SS2 you can use the implant to circumvent the research check unless you're on the highest difficulty.

 

[Mega Black]

Yahtzee is just shit at these sort of games

He has always hated them, his DMC reviews are just him whining about not being as cool in game as the cutscenes even though it's purely a skill issue. He is a fucking hack.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Yahtzee in general is only says good things about games if they are either indie darlings or a glorified tv show.

Sucking off pretentious indie games is something that's gone on before 2014, and I've gotten burned numerous times by this. ZP has definitely fallen hard into the "pretentious indie games = good" train, stuff like Limbo back in 2010 actually got a fair shake, pointing out that the "creepy woods" theme dies out about a third of the way in through and devolves into physics puzzles for the third act. By 2016, however, he was shilling for every big indie game (Night in the Woods, etc.) that came around without any sort of real pushback.

So you think he gave up around Hong Kong? As for System Shock 2 my guess he quit at Hydroponics Deck where you have to get one level in Research and he probably spent on something else.

​

I think he explicitly mentions the boss fight you can run away from. I think that was Walton Simons in Paris, which is after Hong Kong.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Sucking off pretentious indie games is something that's gone on before 2014, and I've gotten burned numerous times by this. ZP has definitely fallen hard into the "pretentious indie games = good" train, stuff like Limbo back in 2010 actually got a fair shake, pointing out that the "creepy woods" theme dies out about a third of the way in through and devolves into physics puzzles for the third act. By 2016, however, he was shilling for every big indie game (Night in the Woods, etc.) that came around without any sort of real pushback.

My big issue with sucking off indie games is that their "superior quality" is more of a mantra than reality. Ask people what are the best indie titles and you'd get a list composed entirely of 5-10 year old games, rather than anything recent. The ones that currently popular are either derivative of other indies/SNES/Souls with far lower quality, or just half baked ideas that don't survive the one hour mark. But, like other media indies, the imaginary idea that those are not beholden to financial bodies and thus are "pure" somehow sticks.

 

[Aaron Costello]

of course he likes night in the woods... that game was made for journalists. That game is complete shit. it has so much padding, all the characters are pretty much the same. They're all the worst, all go "ugh" all the time, all act like 13 year olds, despite being around 25 apparently. If he loves that game, I doubt he played for more than 15 minutes. TACOS!!! Ugh Ugh Like like.... erm waffless!!!!! iirc they even sing the doom song...

 

[Coolio55]

of course he likes night in the woods... that game was made for journalists. That game is complete shit. it has so much padding, all the characters are pretty much the same. They're all the worst, all go "ugh" all the time, all act like 13 year olds, despite being around 25 apparently. If he loves that game, I doubt he played for more than 15 minutes. TACOS!!! Ugh Ugh Like like.... erm waffless!!!!! iirc they even sing the doom song...

I'm glad they made one of the developers of that game kill himself.
If I was the developer of that game I'd kill myself.

 

[Administrator Flotsam]

I'm glad they made one of the developers of that game kill himself.

Unfortunately its the most innocent member of the team that killed himself, and it was because of a false rape allegation.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

They're all the worst, all go "ugh" all the time, all act like 13 year olds, despite being around 25 apparently

wait until you meet 25 year olds in person

 

[Xarpho's Return]

He has always hated them, his DMC reviews are just him whining about not being as cool in game as the cutscenes even though it's purely a skill issue. He is a fucking hack.

Remember, it's his actual job now and dancing for peanuts is part of the main gig.

It's the same way that James Rolfe acts now, most of his skill issue is covered up with "THIS GAME IS RANCID DOG SHIT" screaming, always has been, just now he's not having any fun with it.

With Yahtzee on a surprisingly consistent one video a week schedule (which let's face it, is amazing, as so many e-celebs get burned out and spiral into depression), most of the stuff is going to be phoned in.