Is Ben Croshaw always serious?

[gigastar]

Would you say watching Jim Sterling is a more viable option for insight than Ben? Never really watched his content.

Assuming that you mean only the Jimquisition here, Jim definitely has bias and absolutely will tear down something over anything if its a repeat offender in his eyes.

If you mean the rest of his content, then thats mainly him doing first impressions of extremely under-the-radar things that gets published on Steam. Sometimes good for a laugh, but i consider it filler content unless something like the Slaughtering Grounds incident happens.

 

[Fox12]

If by "serious" you mean "honest" then yes. He hates JRPG's, he's fully admitted he's biased, and he doesn't really care. He hates all the games you mentioned. He also hates your Personas, your Tale games, your Fire Emblems, and he'd probably hate Kingdom Hearts if he actually ever played it.

However, the reason I tolerate Yahtzee's bias and not Moviebob's is because Yahtzee doesn't take himself too seriously, and because he acknowledges that there are people with differing tastes. He spends half the time mocking himself. Are some of his videos unprofessional? Sure they are, and he acknowledges it, and then mocks himself for it. He played 5 hours of FF13. He played 3 hours of Lightning Returns. Sometimes he's insightful, and sometimes he's comedic. But he's never serious.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Well, for starters, he hates JRPGs, so if your blood pressure will rise to dangerous levels because of someone bashing on JRPGs, then he's not someone you should watch. He's even recognized a few times that he's always negative towards JRPGs.

With that said: Are you really judging Yahtzee's intelligence on whether or not you think he's trying to appeal to a mainstream audience? That is seriously taking this whole "I hate mainstream!" thing way too far.

 

[Kyrian007]

I find a lot of people's opinions about Yahtzee a little odd. I do treat ZP vids as genuine reviews. It's NEVER wrong, for me anyway, Yahtzee and I must have really similar tastes in games. If Yahtzee LIKES a game, 100% of the time I LOVE that game. He's never gushed about a game that I played and only thought "ahh, meh."

"So what about the other 98% of games that he showers nothing but scorn upon."

Ahhhh.... well.

Actually it's not really a double standard for me to say "that's different." All of his criticisms are valid points, he just hits them harder for comedic effect. I do enjoy games he screams hatred for. But I like those games fully aware they have flaws, generally because Yahtzee has spent an excessive amount of time pointing them out. The reason it doesn't bother me is because those things AREN'T DEALBREAKERS for me. He rips on Zelda games for being "the same bloody kid with the same bloody boomerang." He's NOT wrong. Those games DON'T innovate much. That flaw is just not a dealbreaker for me. So I can really enjoy Skyward Sword, even though he hates it. Often times I know just while watching his review and laughing at a particularly good burn, that flaw he just made fun of isn't a dealbreaker for me.

I just don't understand the crybaby mentality, "I love Borderlands and Yahtzee just make fun of its GUI. I HATE him, Yahtzee SUCKS, Borderlands is AWESOME. Yahtzee isn't a 'real reviewer.' WHHAAAAAAHHH!"

That doesn't make sense to me. Borderlands GUI IS shit. I don't hate Borderlands because of its shit GUI. That's NOT a dealbreaker for me. Although I DO hate Borderlands for many of the other reasons Yahtzee brought up that actually WERE dealbreakers (repetitive, boring, brownshooter, and repetitive.) He even finds flaws in games he likes. He's actually said it's his JOB to find flaws even in games he likes. It still doesn't make the criticism wrong. Take his Arkham Asylum review. He ripped on the BOXART for being crappy. Is BAD BOXART something that ANYONE cares about? No, of course not. Did Arkham Asylum have bad boxart? Yes, yes it did. And making fun of it was funny. That was the point.

 

[SweetShark]

I never saw Yahtzee as a person capable to do a "serious" review. Heck, his show isn't about videogame reviews at all. I am only watch him for his ability to satire the sh*t of all games he played. Even the games he really like [Spec Ops for example].
However, I respect his opinion, because, well, he give always reasons to love/hate something.

So in other words, don't take him seriously, because there are others reviews for this job. Use Yahtzee's reviews only to check his personal taste for his game.

Btw, did actually Yahztee tell it is a review show?

 

[Hoplon]

it's a review show in the same way the daily show is about reporting the news.

 

[Sung-Hwan]

How it works is, people take him seriously until he disses something they happen to like. After that they go "Well, it's a comedy show".

this sort of made me chuckle

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's his job to exaggerate for comedic purposes. That's why I like him. I don't watch ZP to get information about the game. I watch ZP to be entertained. And it's incredibly entertaining. Even when he bashes games that I love or games that I'm never going to play because they might be exclusive to a system I don't own.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I think the question is really more of "Is Yahtzee Ever Serious?" Because that's what we're talking about: Yahtzee the character, not Ben Croshaw the person. And seeing how he's stated multiple times that he considers himself an entertainer first and foremost and that people should not take his ZP videos as the gospel, then the answer is no. He plays a few hours of a game to get a first impression, and in the videos he exaggerates his reactions for comedic effect. The base level opinions are genuine, but are obviously amped up for the sake of the joke and shouldn't be taken seriously.

 

[Cidward]

The one thing I look for in any kind of entertainment criticism - and ZP does this very well for me - is something that gives me a good general idea of what I can expect from a game/movie/book/whatever, filtered through a viewpoint that I have a clear understanding of. Yahtzee and I don't like the same sorts of games a lot of the time, but I understand what he does like and what his critical perspective is, and he does a decent job of describing the basic features of a game. Also, it's fun to watch him bash games, even ones I enjoy, because the jokes are usually pretty perceptive.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

No. I wouldn't at this point say he's usually serious.

He likes what he says he likes and he hates what he says he hates. Everything else is exaggerated for the sake of comedy.

 

[SweetShark]

So in other words, don't take him seriously, because there are others reviews for this job. Use Yahtzee's reviews only to check his personal taste for his game.

Have I missed something, or is there ever anonther thing reviews are for? The only thing a review is essentially is just the reviewers personal opinion about the thing they reviewed, and the reason one reads them is to find out about that opinion and why it is the way it is. Do they have any value outside of that?

Well, for me is to hear his hilarious personal opinion about a game.
I mean, you already know at some point the game Ride to Hell: Retribution is a BAD game. Don't you want to hear the sweet gently voice of Yatzee telling you so many good things about the game?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Lets not kid ourselves: ZP is entertainment, first and foremost.
Whether or not he states he's being "serious" or not is irrelevant because it's up to us whether or not we choose to take Mr. Crowshaw seriously based on his methods vs our needs/wants.

While there is an element of truth to found in (most) mockery, I'd never consider Zero Punctuation useful as a barometer for purchasing decisions (never trust hyperbole, good or bad). There's a lot of information he omits solely for the purpose of keeping the episode short, and manageable.

Whether you consider his word useful relative to your own opinions on games IN GENERAL is a different story, and he does offer some better discussion in his Extra Punctuation articles.