What does Yahtzee want?
- Thread starter mikespoff
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Yahtzee is a game review critic in a literal sense - he criticises every theng wrong with every game he revies. It doesn't necessarily means he doesn't like these games, just that he recognises that most of them have flaws. Plus, he also recognises that to just pour adoration on a game would be the purest form of, as he would put it, "fanwank".
He has a tendancy to favour innovation over franhcising, having a place in his heart for genuine indie classics like Braid. Alas, he's paid to review games that are beomcing increasingly repetative and cookie-cutter, so his caustic wit is become more and more scathing with each passing review. It's not games he hates, it's the current gaming industry trends that are a tad irritating, which quite a few others would also agree with.
He has a tendancy to favour innovation over franhcising, having a place in his heart for genuine indie classics like Braid. Alas, he's paid to review games that are beomcing increasingly repetative and cookie-cutter, so his caustic wit is become more and more scathing with each passing review. It's not games he hates, it's the current gaming industry trends that are a tad irritating, which quite a few others would also agree with.
He really isn't as bad as people make him out to be, and he's not that hard to understand. Most games have a lot of glaring problems regardless of their rating on a scale of one to ten, and it's his job to point these out. He says "I had fun with this, play it" a lot more than people give him credit for, and even the old titles he loves he's more than willing to criticise.
Games that are 9/10 or 10/10 are not nearly as common as most reviewers tell us they are. It's sycophantic gaming media devaluing terms that should be saved for the exceptional that are the problem.
Games that are 9/10 or 10/10 are not nearly as common as most reviewers tell us they are. It's sycophantic gaming media devaluing terms that should be saved for the exceptional that are the problem.
My first guess would be: world domination and a pony [that shoots lasers when it roars].
As for games are concerned, I think he's like the rest of us, something that has a balance between:
- story: depending on the genre, it may be optional, but you're more immersed with a good storyline
- gameplay: because we play for fun, but fun comes in many flavors
- graphics: we're gamers but we're not blind either
- innovation: because as much as we enjoy mashing on keys for a living and for fun, that little spark of "why this game and not another" makes a world of difference
- and the rest too like replayability, good controls (anyone who makes a PC game where you can't map arrow keys should be shot on sight for example...), lack of crazy DRM or deadly spiders, and so on
The problem is that while him being caustic is what makes him entertaining, he's taken it too far.
He's managed to flanderise himself. Before he didn't need a column to justify his thoughts, as he could put them all in his reviews. But he seems to have allotted all that time to slipping more low-grade bile in. He's taken away the clever and gone over board on the snark.
He's managed to flanderise himself. Before he didn't need a column to justify his thoughts, as he could put them all in his reviews. But he seems to have allotted all that time to slipping more low-grade bile in. He's taken away the clever and gone over board on the snark.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization in case nobody knows what I'm talking about
Boobs, vaginas, ball and penis jokes.
And Portals, lots and lots of portals.
That is a perfect game for him.
And Portals, lots and lots of portals.
That is a perfect game for him.
Agreed with Housebroken Lunatic.Housebroken Lunatic said:
Every time I point out that I don't give a crap about what the masses think and even if a game or movie rakes in massive profits it doesn't mean its actually good, I get accused of being an elitist.
A) reviews are seriously among the most unreliable benchmarks around. There's a bloody features article on this selfsame website that proves how true this is. Go read.
B) I don't care what other people think about games - unless I respect their opinion. For all I know, a quarter of them have the IQ of a rock, another quarter were paid to say that, and the rest think that the only games worth owning are FIFA, Madden and Halo.
Going by the reasoning that mass appeal and profits = good, McDonalds should be the best food one can eat.
I like Yahtzee. He doesn't bloody compromise, and I respect that. If a game, as shiny and sparkly as it may be, still fails to be engaging, interesting, or stimulating, and amounts to little more than repetitive and mind-numbing tripe, it has failed.
Does that make me an elitist?
I don't think Yahtzee's praise comes in the form we are all used to.
He's a critic. He criticizes games. Ripping on games is what he does.
Showering praise on something would probably be like a breach of contract, or something.
It'd also be weird and creepy.
Instead, you have to actually listen to what he says.
Sometimes, he struggles to find stuff to rip on, and occasionally even let a bit of praise slip.
This is probably his form of 'positive' feedback.
He's a critic. He criticizes games. Ripping on games is what he does.
Showering praise on something would probably be like a breach of contract, or something.
It'd also be weird and creepy.
Instead, you have to actually listen to what he says.
Sometimes, he struggles to find stuff to rip on, and occasionally even let a bit of praise slip.
This is probably his form of 'positive' feedback.
If you're watching Zero Punctuation expecting unbiased reviewing and critiquing you're watching the wrong fucking series.
Yahtzee is a comedian, pure and simple. I'd happen to agree with him on nearly everything he says about most games though, maybe I'm just a massive cynic.
But whether you agree or disagree with him, he is fundamentally A COMEDIAN. Oh no, he didn't like a game that you thought was the best thing since tits! And? Are you that much of a sheep that you feel too scared to be confident in your own opinion?
Yahtzee is a comedian, pure and simple. I'd happen to agree with him on nearly everything he says about most games though, maybe I'm just a massive cynic.
But whether you agree or disagree with him, he is fundamentally A COMEDIAN. Oh no, he didn't like a game that you thought was the best thing since tits! And? Are you that much of a sheep that you feel too scared to be confident in your own opinion?
Same thing everyone who's been playing videogames for longer than videogames have been mainstream. Forward progress. Find something that works, make it better. If you can't, try something new. If that doesn't work, for fuck's sake don't draw it out for five or seven years.
The people who haven't been playing video games since before even the xbox lack the perspective to see that everything hes ever said is the god's honest truth.
The people who haven't been playing video games since before even the xbox lack the perspective to see that everything hes ever said is the god's honest truth.
He likes portal, PoP SoT, Painkiller, silent hill 2, and fantasy world dizzy for the commodore 64. And he wishes the modern warefare bubble would blow over because realistic games are boring and not as fun and having 15 guns and having more health than a pigeon.
It might, but that hardly change the fact that just because a game is "popular" makes it universally "flawless" or even close to flawless.Shinigami214 said:
By that definition World of Warcraft must be the best game ever, but being a person who wasn't particularly impressed by World of Warcraft at all, then I must be a living example proving that there are no games whtate are universally or objectively "best" or "flawless" (and that goes for PORTAL as well, believe it or not).
Whether you or me are elitist or not doesn't change that fact. And if some people still maintain that that the elitist-label is unavoidable for people like me who ignore the facts then I'd happily be an independent elitist rather than a dependent populist/collectivist who is completely incapable of forming an opinion of their own...
Yahtzee himself has commented that people don't like it when he is positive about games. The style of ZP is to be over the top horrid about the game in question. I watch it to be entertained, if I want a review of a game to inform my opinion of it, I go elsewhere
In a world where everything could be used as advertisement it nice to see someone say, don't buy this.