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

Cishet Nerdscum said:
I really enjoyed the lets play series he did with aussie friend gabe where theyd play all of his own homebrew games and talk about how they suck
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Gabe's new series KeepetClassy is quite good too. Cause they don't depend on Youtube revenue they just say whatever they want.

Wendy_Carter said:
Oh yeah, something I wanted to mention but then completely forgot - he also used to write a column called "Extra Punctuation" where he gave a more in-depth opinion on various topics that are usually connected to the game he reviewed at the time. Thank you for reminding me!

I'm kind of guilty of this. Yahtzee has a pretty good way of putting things into words and using funny comparisons to complement them, so they're somewhat easy to remember. Our opinions on some things seem to be similiar, such as general dislike of Nintendo, but I'm not going to be repating everything he says. Alice: Madness Returns is one of my personal favourite games for various reasons, and he tore it apart quite a bit. It didn't change my opinion on the game, but his input as someone who has a bit more expertise is interesting to see. And staying consistently funny nowadays seems to be a hard feat for some reason, so that alone demands respect.
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Madness Returns is an awesome game. Still holding out hope for a 3rd game.
 
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I'm still a little salty about his Monster Hunter Tri review when I think about it. It was very clear he barely played it since his review only went up to the Great Jaggi, but he acted like the whole game was just fighting jaggis and collecting rocks for like 8 hours and then got defensive when he got called out on it. Like just admit you barely played the game because you weren't in to it or were short on time.
 
KingofNothing said:
I'm still a little salty about his Monster Hunter Tri review when I think about it. It was very clear he barely played it since his review only went up to the Great Jaggi, but he acted like the whole game was just fighting jaggis and collecting rocks for like 8 hours and then got defensive when he got called out on it. Like just admit you barely played the game because you weren't in to it or were short on time.
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Well ya know, the guy clearly wants to preserve his ego. Hell, same story when he did a review on Wildlands and pretty much ignored the co-op aspect and also ended up admitting that he played on the super easy difficulty. I could be wrong, but was even the same stuff with the Witcher games, along with him having a huge grudge on GoG for not wanting to feature his game.
 
ZP was relevant up until late 2016, IMO.
Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I'm starting to find his approach very grating. The 'game review' is really just a medium for dick & fart jokes and the occasional jab at American culture. He doesn't impart a sense of how the games play and feel far too often. It's like something you watch after you've beaten a game you like so you can get a whole buncha memes in the same place.
Sometimes I feel he's being disrespectful to the incredibly difficult process of making a game and the quality of his jokes isn't always high enough to offset a 'review' that sounds shockingly similar to a long-form boomerpost. Also, his whole schtick is stolen from some old fart on BBC back in the day and people think it's a gem of his own creation.
 
Recon said:
ZP was relevant up until late 2016, IMO.
Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I'm starting to find his approach very grating. The 'game review' is really just a medium for dick & fart jokes and the occasional jab at American culture. He doesn't impart a sense of how the games play and feel far too often. It's like something you watch after you've beaten a game you like so you can get a whole buncha memes in the same place.
Sometimes I feel he's being disrespectful to the incredibly difficult process of making a game and the quality of his jokes isn't always high enough to offset a 'review' that sounds shockingly similar to a long-form boomerpost. Also, his whole schtick is stolen from some old fart on BBC back in the day and people think it's a gem of his own creation.
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The most hilarious part is that on several cons he appeard at, he did say how his schtick was taken from said BBC fart, also appretly Spoony was also an inspiration for him in some capacity. As for his disrespect, he kinda plays the same tune as Jim does in sense of "All gaming companies are evul an greedy without creative souls! Unlike those indie devs who are full of energy an amazing ideas!"
 
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The tired cat said:
Well ya know, the guy clearly wants to preserve his ego. Hell, same story when he did a review on Wildlands and pretty much ignored the co-op aspect and also ended up admitting that he played on the super easy difficulty. I could be wrong, but was even the same stuff with the Witcher games, along with him having a huge grudge on GoG for not wanting to feature his game.
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I also remember something similar happened with Borderlands 2. He complained about the new characters beating Jack at some point while making the BL1 characters look dumb. The comments were immediately filled with talks that he didn't get that far in the game because that was a plot point. Haven't played the game myself, but people in the forums went after that point so hard and fast, that I'm gonna assume it was true.

And so I'm just not shitting on the guy, I liked this review. Aliens Isolation is good shit and deserves all the love it gets. His videos on the Chozo Mythos series is also pretty enjoyable, but I'm a sucker for behind the scenes commentary.
 
The tired cat said:
Pretty sure he still occassionally rees, since I saw him making Trump stabs in few vids from 2018 an some even in 2019.
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Oh yeah, but for about a year, his videos became landmines. He'd bend over backwards to wedge in his totally unique and not at all parroted from the news that week commentary on current events in such a manner that the game in question was practically in the way. In fact, here's a video where he says seven slurs in a row and immediately goes on to call Trump a racist, which is seven more slurs than Trump's ever said: https://youtu.be/AxxjH4aKbJo?t=97

But he's not so overt about it now, at least. He'll probably go right back to it come 2020.

And he never, ever listens to his audience. His best stuff is the "Occasional Guide to Retarded Moments in Gaming History" series, which everyone loves, but those don't come along very often because he has to cover some random disposable Steam game that'll be only remembered because he made a video.

His intro song is also pretty bad, but it's been the same, unchanged, for 11 years now. Even the flavor text in the background is from his 2007 reviews. You'd think he'd mix it up at some point, but, well, here we are.
 
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Id say his biggest blunder was the MGS4 review, where people quickly caught on that he played the game on a super easy difficulty where the tranq pistol has infinite ammo, but most of the review was him bitching about the cutscenes and the story itself. The hilarity happened when there was a huge war in the forums with his fans defending him and people calling his ass for being lazy an picking the super easy difficulty. Then there was the whole thing when he wanted to go to America an offered a sort of fundraiser, where if you donated specific amount of money he'd give you some singed stuff (plushies, posters) or if someone donated 100$ or something he'd do a review on a game the person picks.
 
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Jesus Jumping Christ, people. I have some interesting news for you - Yahtzee has very strict time constraints. He has ONE WEEK to play the game, weigh every single pro and con and write a concise review. And he might even have to do them 2 weeks in advance, too. I highly doubt you can make a review on a game within a day that's deeper than "game bad bro" or "real good me like". Script alone can take up an entire day, editing visual gags and audio can take up a few hours to a day as well. When you have a very strict time constraint of a single week, and 2 of those days you're making review part of the damn game - you know, the part you're actually paid to do - you have to take whatever shortcuts available. You can't finish every single game within a week of spare time when you have shit to do.

It's the most basic thing people, for some reason, do not understand about critics/reviewers. No matter how assholish he sounded during his tirade, Angry Joe said the same damn thing years ago - scripts don't just appear out of thin air on your computer, a video doesn't just magically appear on the Internet. You can't just will a review into existing. There is a long and boring recording and editing process involved that can take up days, even WEEKS. The simple fact that Yahtzee stayed consistent with his schedule for more than a decade and didn't become stale is a damned miracle by quite a few standards.

And no, my butt is not hurt, but thank you for your concern.
Recon said:
ZP was relevant up until late 2016, IMO.
Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I'm starting to find his approach very grating. The 'game review' is really just a medium for dick & fart jokes and the occasional jab at American culture. He doesn't impart a sense of how the games play and feel far too often. It's like something you watch after you've beaten a game you like so you can get a whole buncha memes in the same place.
Sometimes I feel he's being disrespectful to the incredibly difficult process of making a game and the quality of his jokes isn't always high enough to offset a 'review' that sounds shockingly similar to a long-form boomerpost. Also, his whole schtick is stolen from some old fart on BBC back in the day and people think it's a gem of his own creation.
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I might be misremembering it, but I think he himself said he's less of a 'game reviewer' and more of a 'game critic'. So he mostly points out flaws within a game. He does this with every single game, even his most favourite ones, like Bioshock, for instance. I think the only game he had absolutely nothing negative to say about was Portal. Even Portal 2 wasn't spared.
 
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Wendy_Carter said:
Jesus Jumping Christ, people. I have some interesting news for you - Yahtzee has very strict time constraints. He has ONE WEEK to play the game, weigh every single pro and con and write a concise review. And he might even have to do them 2 weeks in advance, too. I highly doubt you can make a review on a game within a day that's deeper than "game bad bro" or "real good me like". Script alone can take up an entire day, editing visual gags and audio can take up a few hours to a day as well. When you have a very strict time constraint of a single week, and 2 of those days you're making review part of the damn game - you know, the part you're actually paid to do - you have to take whatever shortcuts available. You can't finish every single game within a week of spare time when you have shit to do.

It's the most basic thing people, for some reason, do not understand about critics/reviewers. No matter how assholish he sounded during his tirade, Angry Joe said the same damn thing years ago - scripts don't just appear out of thin air on your computer, a video doesn't just magically appear on the Internet. You can't just will a review into existing. There is a long and boring recording and editing process involved that can take up days, even WEEKS. The simple fact that Yahtzee stayed consistent with his schedule for more than a decade and didn't become stale is a damned miracle by quite a few standards.

And no, my butt is not hurt, but thank you for your concern.

I might be misremembering it, but I think he himself said he's less of a 'game reviewer' and more of a 'game critic'. So he mostly points out flaws within a game. He does this with every single game, even his most favourite ones, like Bioshock, for instance. I think the only game he had absolutely nothing negative to say about was Portal. Even Portal 2 wasn't spared.
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You make some very good points, especially about review time. Consider my opinions on the matter changed.
 
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I love his review of Doki Doki Literature Club. His use of sprites and text in that one is a lot of fun.


That said, his shtick is hit-and-miss. I used to think he was about total honesty when it came to what was broken in your favorite new AAA game. Now it's clear he's taking an "I hate everything" approach to his 'reviews.' It's hard to tell the difference when most paid shills give the trending bestsellers sloppy blowjobs.

He's one of those guys who is better when he's being a real person as opposed to his Internet persona. Hence why I find his livestreams more interesting.
 
UnclePhil said:
I love his review of Doki Doki Literature Club. His use of sprites and text in that one is a lot of fun.


That said, his shtick is hit-and-miss. I used to think he was about total honesty when it came to what was broken in your favorite new AAA game. Now it's clear he's taking an "I hate everything" approach to his 'reviews.' It's hard to tell the difference when most paid shills give the trending bestsellers sloppy blowjobs.

He's one of those guys who is better when he's being a real person as opposed to his Internet persona. Hence why I find his livestreams more interesting.
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A good example of this is his RDR2 review where he basically just says “this game is too realistic” without really even mentioning how this makes it inferior to RDR1, a game he called one of the best of 2010, especially when most of his complaints about mission structure and side quests also apply to RDR1. Like it’s clear he only did that because the game (that I personally enjoy) was being stroked off by Kotaku, Polygon, etc. Many of my former fan friends have said that much of new content is now just consists of “AAA bad, indie good” .Makes me wonder if he still likes doing ZP or if he only does it because it’s his only consistent income stream
 
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purpleboy said:
A good example of this is his RDR2 review where he basically just says “this game is too realistic” without really even mentioning how this makes it inferior to RDR1, a game he called one of the best of 2010, especially when most of his complaints about mission structure and side quests also apply to RDR1. Like it’s clear he only did that because the game (that I personally enjoy) was being stroked off by Kotaku, Polygon, etc. Many of my former fan friends have said that much of new content is now just consists of “AAA bad, indie good” .Makes me wonder if he still likes doing ZP or if he only does it because it’s his only consistent income stream
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Money ofcourse, what else does this guy have to fall back on? His gaming bar business folded, he ain't exactly a stellar writer, game development wise it's "cute" but def won't sell on steam (or GoG since he harbors a grudge against 'em), he tried to roll a gig with making a gaming TV show and that shit didn't get pass the pilot with how bad it was. So, all he has is ZP unless he wants to become the next schlub like Jim Sterling and hang on them patreon bucks. Quite frankly, I'd say now the Escapist is his life line and if they fold, he'd be quite fucked.
 
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Doesnt he own a bar?

AsbestosFlaygon said:
Congratulations! he's better than anyone at a review site, and also Razorfist.


There's tonnes of people that have complained about the industry as a whole, especially the companies you mention, and honestly I think the doom and gloom view point's inaccurate and beaten to death. Capcom & Sega while they certainly do have issues aren't bomb factories. With Sega from what I understand the only franchise they really have massive issues with is Sonic, any other franchise they make regularly is handled fairly well. Capcom certainly has more trouble, the two big ones of late I'm aware of are Street Fighter V's a bit of a mess, and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite's so much of a mess may have killed the franchise. But they also have success stories like Resident Evil 7 & Devil May Cry 5 successfully cleaning up the mess the previous games in their series made, Mega Man's comeback, and Monster Hunter World. Sega & Capcom are a mixed bag, and should be treated as such, not as if they're logos are seals of disappointment and a example of everything that's wrong with the industry.

Moving on I'd agree Valve's disappointed fans greatly, but I disagree with the popular narrative that they do nothing but sit on their ass all day due to Steam money that someone like Yahtzee pushes. What's actually going on is chronic mismanage due to their flat management structure, money certainly helps keep it in dead lock, but it's not that the people at Valve are just being greedy and doing nothing because they don't want to. More importantly for my point it's very much a Valve problem, it's not a problem that's going to pop up at EA or Activision due to how differently Valve works. The only reason I see for people pushing this narrative is that they want a story that they can tie into their "The industry is fucked" narrative. But I have to question how fucked it really is when they have to bend and twist stories to fit it instead of just telling the story as accurately as possible.

In fact Konami kind of ties into this, everyone mocks them for firing Kojima when I think it was a understandable move that got clouded by all the horrible shit being done by Konami. Kojima's games are expensive as all hell assuming that they get completed on time and in budget, let alone if they need more of both, and honestly if he can't keep his work within the framework he's given it's not a surprise when they fire him. Now I'm not saying that Kojima's some talentless hack that deserves to be fired like certain people do, just that it can't be overstated how important it is to remain in the framework you're given. For example look at how quickly Square Enix get mocked for going so far over budget, if anyone there was fired tomorrow for mismanagement everyone would say that it's justified because you can't go about treating time and resources as if they're unlimited. To me it comes across as people simplifying a complex issue just to push narrative, when I think the reality is somewhere in the middle of where everyone is.


At least I make sure that what I'm commenting on isn't just some random broad.
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You know Konami barely makes video games anymore right? Valve doesnt make games due to thier VR investment. They better hope thats worth it. IF that thing will facilitate a new HL game Ill be all for it tho. Capcom wasnt doing so hot until recently but they are killing it now. SE barely has anyone good left. They just lost Tabata and all they have left is Kitase and the FF14 guy.
 
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