I have been a long time viewer of Zero Punctuation. I started viewing his videos since he was on youtube, and have continued to watch every single episode on the Escapist. That being said, I have found that as a reviewer, he has enough issues to the point where I consider Zero Punctuation as a great comedy series, rather than the serious reviewing show that many of his fans take it for. So here I will be trying to do something that I am not sure is commonly done or not, but I will be reviewing a reviewer.
To begin, I will address his comedy style. This is easily the best part of Zero punctuation, which is successful due to three main things. The first two are of course his art style, and his rapid fire talking. The simple drawings that he uses to portray the games he review are great and accurate, as well as the pure random nature of some of the images being hilarious. Things like using a fan to represent a, well um... fanboy, or a fish with a knife to represent the sacrificing of story for better gameplay is also very funny. Then there is also the recurring gag of him just placing text as he talks very fast, and often replacing words with the word's respective image (probably from quick google searches). The pop-culture jokes he uses are also never stupid, like Lindsay Lohan or Chris Crocker, instead witty ones like Oscar Schindler for Liam Neeson, and the Monolith from 2001 to represent what needs to run Crysis. As for the third major point, I for one truly admire how he can take the logic from a video game, smartass on it, and then make hilarious jokes out of it, like when he questions how a steam powered turret from Bioshock can possibly differentiate friend or foe with boiled water. With jokes like this being consistently funny and relevant in most episodes, it remains to be some of the best parts of Zero punctuation.
As for the actual reviews on the games, this is where Zero Punctuation has its problems. With this in mind, there are several things that I believe constrict the quality of a good review. Not only is he forced to play the game, review it, then draw, write, record, and edit an episode every single week, but he has to make it appeal to his A.D.D. riddled fanbase, who will simply laugh at his accent, and only consider the review as "great" if it is funny. That being said, im not saying that to all of his fans, but it is certainly true to an extent of many of his mindless fans, who will worship the words that come out of his mouth. But anyways, this brings out the issue of humor overshadowing his take on the game itself, especially with his reviews being at the short limit of only 4 minutes. Me having done video reviews before, 4 minutes is a very short time to produce a detailed, yet funny review, so this damages a lot of what he has to say. So seeing how the time he puts into making a review is short, how long can he really play the actual game? This leads to the first flaw in his reviews, where he often over generalizes games. While I know many of you will take offense to me saying this, but I can tell that Yahtzee has a sense of biased opinion whenever he plays games of certain genres, such as SSBB, or Soul Calibur, where fighting games just are not his thing. And yes, I know that some people just don't like certain games, but the reviewer should at least give it a fair chance, and not say things like throwing your controller down a bunch of stairs is the best way to win.
Another issue I have with ZP is how critical Yahtzee is. He has said it himself, that praising a game is not nearly as entertaining as him making fun of it, as the Psychonauts review shows. I often think that Yahtzee simply criticizes the game just so he can make it entertaining, while leaving out the areas that he thought were good. For example, the Bioshock review has him talking about how it is one of the best games of the year for the first 10 seconds or so, then proceeds to talk about its "shitiness" immediately after. Im guessing that he feels the same way of other games too, but he simply cannot say it in the review, due to the fact that it is harder to make a joke about. This is why I find that reviews such as that and Far Cry 2 are some of the better ones, where he talks about how the game has its strong points, then proceeds to criticize. As for what he criticizes, he does it very well even without humor. He can easily pinpoint the many problems of a game, and is able to ignore all of the major review outlets' opinions. Easily the game that I admire him the most for doing this in is Fable 2, which nailed almost all of the reasons why I also thought it was one of the most overrated games of the year.
When everything is all said and done, the key to watching Zero Punctuation is to fully understand it. As Yahtzee said before, just because he spends the majority of the review making jokes about the game, does not mean he does not like it. Many of the idiot fanboys want to know if it is good or not, and is hence why many people also get pissed off about his opinion. There are things I disagree about, like how reviewing online is part of the full game, or that the amount of dialogue in Mass Effect was great for character development, and was easily skippable if that was not what you liked. What was I saying again? Oh yeah, while I can disagree with him on several points, Yahtzee does what he does for the lulz. Or at least as far as I am concerned. A proper review should hit up a good balance of detail in the good and bad points, something Yahtzee does not have time to do, and neither what people like him for. He is funny because of the way he can humorously criticize a game no matter how much he likes it, and is famous because he is funny. This is why I consider some of his fanbase to be retarded because despite the fact that he criticizes a game that he likes, many of his mindless viewers interpret the game as bad, and then end up not trying it out. On a final and probably debatable note from the people that read this, I consider Zero Punctuation as a satirical gaming show, being a series that I have found to be more entertaining when I have actually played the games and can relate too. Not enough time is spent on properly detailing the game, where much more time is spent on hilarious criticism, which is why leaving your choice to get a game should be put on a more serious review, rather than one that spends more time on jokes. I really say that in no offense, because if imagined how Zero Punctuation would be like if it were to be more of a fair reviewing series, would you really still watch it? Watch his videos amd laugh, that's all there is too it. If you listen to his videos to the way he interprets them, you might be missing out on some games YOU MIGHT LIKE, so dont be a mindless idiot.
Keep doing your thing Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation is great the way it is.
To begin, I will address his comedy style. This is easily the best part of Zero punctuation, which is successful due to three main things. The first two are of course his art style, and his rapid fire talking. The simple drawings that he uses to portray the games he review are great and accurate, as well as the pure random nature of some of the images being hilarious. Things like using a fan to represent a, well um... fanboy, or a fish with a knife to represent the sacrificing of story for better gameplay is also very funny. Then there is also the recurring gag of him just placing text as he talks very fast, and often replacing words with the word's respective image (probably from quick google searches). The pop-culture jokes he uses are also never stupid, like Lindsay Lohan or Chris Crocker, instead witty ones like Oscar Schindler for Liam Neeson, and the Monolith from 2001 to represent what needs to run Crysis. As for the third major point, I for one truly admire how he can take the logic from a video game, smartass on it, and then make hilarious jokes out of it, like when he questions how a steam powered turret from Bioshock can possibly differentiate friend or foe with boiled water. With jokes like this being consistently funny and relevant in most episodes, it remains to be some of the best parts of Zero punctuation.
As for the actual reviews on the games, this is where Zero Punctuation has its problems. With this in mind, there are several things that I believe constrict the quality of a good review. Not only is he forced to play the game, review it, then draw, write, record, and edit an episode every single week, but he has to make it appeal to his A.D.D. riddled fanbase, who will simply laugh at his accent, and only consider the review as "great" if it is funny. That being said, im not saying that to all of his fans, but it is certainly true to an extent of many of his mindless fans, who will worship the words that come out of his mouth. But anyways, this brings out the issue of humor overshadowing his take on the game itself, especially with his reviews being at the short limit of only 4 minutes. Me having done video reviews before, 4 minutes is a very short time to produce a detailed, yet funny review, so this damages a lot of what he has to say. So seeing how the time he puts into making a review is short, how long can he really play the actual game? This leads to the first flaw in his reviews, where he often over generalizes games. While I know many of you will take offense to me saying this, but I can tell that Yahtzee has a sense of biased opinion whenever he plays games of certain genres, such as SSBB, or Soul Calibur, where fighting games just are not his thing. And yes, I know that some people just don't like certain games, but the reviewer should at least give it a fair chance, and not say things like throwing your controller down a bunch of stairs is the best way to win.
Another issue I have with ZP is how critical Yahtzee is. He has said it himself, that praising a game is not nearly as entertaining as him making fun of it, as the Psychonauts review shows. I often think that Yahtzee simply criticizes the game just so he can make it entertaining, while leaving out the areas that he thought were good. For example, the Bioshock review has him talking about how it is one of the best games of the year for the first 10 seconds or so, then proceeds to talk about its "shitiness" immediately after. Im guessing that he feels the same way of other games too, but he simply cannot say it in the review, due to the fact that it is harder to make a joke about. This is why I find that reviews such as that and Far Cry 2 are some of the better ones, where he talks about how the game has its strong points, then proceeds to criticize. As for what he criticizes, he does it very well even without humor. He can easily pinpoint the many problems of a game, and is able to ignore all of the major review outlets' opinions. Easily the game that I admire him the most for doing this in is Fable 2, which nailed almost all of the reasons why I also thought it was one of the most overrated games of the year.
When everything is all said and done, the key to watching Zero Punctuation is to fully understand it. As Yahtzee said before, just because he spends the majority of the review making jokes about the game, does not mean he does not like it. Many of the idiot fanboys want to know if it is good or not, and is hence why many people also get pissed off about his opinion. There are things I disagree about, like how reviewing online is part of the full game, or that the amount of dialogue in Mass Effect was great for character development, and was easily skippable if that was not what you liked. What was I saying again? Oh yeah, while I can disagree with him on several points, Yahtzee does what he does for the lulz. Or at least as far as I am concerned. A proper review should hit up a good balance of detail in the good and bad points, something Yahtzee does not have time to do, and neither what people like him for. He is funny because of the way he can humorously criticize a game no matter how much he likes it, and is famous because he is funny. This is why I consider some of his fanbase to be retarded because despite the fact that he criticizes a game that he likes, many of his mindless viewers interpret the game as bad, and then end up not trying it out. On a final and probably debatable note from the people that read this, I consider Zero Punctuation as a satirical gaming show, being a series that I have found to be more entertaining when I have actually played the games and can relate too. Not enough time is spent on properly detailing the game, where much more time is spent on hilarious criticism, which is why leaving your choice to get a game should be put on a more serious review, rather than one that spends more time on jokes. I really say that in no offense, because if imagined how Zero Punctuation would be like if it were to be more of a fair reviewing series, would you really still watch it? Watch his videos amd laugh, that's all there is too it. If you listen to his videos to the way he interprets them, you might be missing out on some games YOU MIGHT LIKE, so dont be a mindless idiot.
Keep doing your thing Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation is great the way it is.
