Zero Punctuation: Lego City Undercover

[ToastiestZombie]

You may need to look at some of his older PC gaming videos from around the times PC games were on the decline Obviously nowadays he doesn't do it because, well, PC is basically the last great hope for gaming in the form of the indie scene, and even yahtzee himself (a self procliamed 'console man' in the past) has recently declared the love for what PC special in terms of the more open nature of it.

That isn't proof that Yahtzee doesn't have an Anti-Nintendo bias, it's pretty much just proof Yahtzee loves indie games.

So, you see, i don't think he or anyone here honestly has a bias against Nintendo, they just don't really care about what Nintendo are doing. Nintendo haven't pushed boundaries in core gaming in a long time. When they do something like bioshock: infinite or the walking dead with their own games, providing something genuinely trying to do something not seen before with the medium, then you can complain about 'bias'.

No sorry, TWD and Bioshock Infinite aren't genuinely trying to do something we've not seen before. I loved TWD and I liked Infinite, but they both have generic gameplay or barely any gameplay at all (. The only new thing they tried is making a good story, and even that isn't something that hasn't been seen before. And anyway, Nintendo HAVE done stuff we haven't seen before, but because they use Mario and aren't story-driven they're ignored. What other 3D platforming games have been set in space with gravity mechanics before SMG, what other Just look at their consoles, no matter what you think about them you can't deny that the ideas for DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U weren't ever really thought of before they came out. Also, saying Nintendo needs to make a game like Infinite or TWD is like telling Pixar to make a live-action film, Nintendo don't make adult, story-driven games, and when they do they're childish and funny. We've come to an age where people don't want new gameplay ideas or fun new things (those are gimmicks!), they want serious adult drama instead, even if the gameplay is mediocre.

And I do think people here have a Nintendo bias, and Yahtzee definitely does. If he didn't he wouldn't have spent half of this review bashing the Wii U instead of, you know, bashing the game. Even Super Mario Galaxy, one of Nintendo's actual newest ideas and best games last-gen was hated by him because it had Mario and he jumped about. Yahtzee, to me, just seems like the kind of gamer who just doesn't like Nintendo because he feels their games are too childish for him, with the only Nintendo games he liked being the ones with story and RPG elements. Not saying a bias is bad, but you can't deny that Yahtzee has a massive Nintendo hate bias.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Because people who are Nintendo fans need to tell themselves Yahtzee has a massive bias. Something he himself has brought up many a time.

The problem is, Nintendo fans, is that Nintendo's consoles have done very little for core gaming in many years. That's why he, and most 'core' gamers, don't give much of a rats ass about Nintendo consoles. Handheld? sure, the DS is definitely best overall handheld (woo, now i'm going to be attacked by Sony fanboys too!). Consoles? lol, nope.

You're saying Yahtzee doesn't have a bias, and that he only dislikes Nintendo consoles because they've done very little for core gaming, but that's actually the definition of a bias. It just means that he presents his own view at the expense of others.

A bias would be not liking a game because of the platform IF the platform is on par with the others. That's not been the case. The Wii U wouldn't have made LCU any better overall, but being able to play it without the tea tray running out of juice would have made it a bit less frustrating i'd wager. Can you use the 'normal' control pad with LCU without the tea tray?

"The tea tray"
Jesus christ it's not that big, and it's actually comfy to hold. Have you ever actually held one, or are you just assuming things because of things you've seen on the internet.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Other than the Last of Us there really isn't much coming out this year to get excited about it there?

Well, there's Splintercell: Arkham Asylum Blacklist, Shadowrun Returns, and a handful of other games whose names escape me now...

Okay, it's all downhill from now...

Watch Dogs?

Why do I feel as if everyone is forgetting about Watch Dogs except for me?

I remember it now. It is being released this year, right?

 

[subtlefuge]

You should be thanking Lego City for making you play Luigi's Mansion.

 

[Enlong]

I'm looking forward to The Wonderful 101 later this year(?)

 

[Eri]

... Yeah, I don't even care anymore. Yahtzee played Javert to the Wii for five years and I doubt Wii U will change his mind. I could do without him being even more mean-spirited than his usual self whenever Nintendo systems come up, but hey: they're not his thing. He doesn't like "gimmicks," he doesn't like kiddy stuff, and if he had his way he'd even forgo his controller for a good neural input device. Whatever, different strains. And I don't feel like having all the little Yahtzites swarm and flame me whenever I disagree with his tastes anymore (though at least the Luigi's Mansion reference in this review means he possibly couldn't find enough to complain about for a full review of its own, so that's nice.)

Just one thing, Croshaw, since you brought it up: video games are toys. Wii U is a toy, 360's a toy, PS3's a toy. PS4 is an upcoming toy. Wii was a toy. 3DS and Vita are toys. People spend hundreds on gaming PCs so the PCs can run the digital toys they download onto them through the toy-delivery service Steam. The sooner you finally accept that this is an industry of toys, the better off you'll be. The next great medium? Yes. But it's for your own benefit that you realize where underneath the artistry and emotion you champion, you're ultimately still playing with toys. And there's nothing wrong with playing with toys, so stop trying to fight it.

So then movies are toys and books are as well? And music.

 

[Niccolo]

Is he bitter? I think he's bitter.

It's refreshing to hear Yahtzee's snark-attack again!

 

[xdiesp]

All players want is ever more powerful graphics machines to shoot virtual terrorists with.

 

[duchaked]

it's weird to think about how old the Matrix really is...still holds up so well lol

speaking of which, I wonder how my old LEGOs are holding up...I seem to recall meaning to bring them out last summer but was too busy to haha

 

[xdiesp]

I might be some snotty elitist saying this, but vydeagems critics like Yahtzee \ Tycho \ AVGN cuss a little too much to be taken seriously. At least outside of our treehouse for cool kids.

 

[miquelfire]

You know, I don't know when they started as Lego Pirates of the Caribbean was the last one I bought but I played a recent demo before the Wii U came out, but Lego games had talking characters for a while now it seems.

Kinda makes me glad I haven't bought the licensed Lego games for a while.

 

[1rock]

Lego was more fun when you could build stuff with it in real life... Lego games was never that entertaining. That said when I saw the new Wii-U I thought.... ?Yes when there finally is a zombie apocalypse I can capture and enslave a few zombies to walk on treadmills to power it up... I will never have to live in a game deprived apocalyptic world again.?

But yes the Wii-U is like that nice to have but basically useless pieces of technology. The design itself is a disaster... However why I will own one and actually buy the new Lego title is not because it is good. No... No updates... No waiting for 40Gb of Game updates on a 25kb connection. You can actually play a game when you want to actually play it. No waiting for hours on end... I don't know if it is going to stay that way... Chances are slim.

BUT!!! This to me is important enough that I would go out and buy one... How sad is that :_(

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Art is something created for the primary purpose of inducing an emotional reaction.

That's one definition. There are many others.

For example, the goal of the Socialist Realist school of art is for further the causes of Socialism or Communism. Other schools of art would say that it is art's job to challenge and disrupt social and cultural conventions. Yet other schools would say that the purpose of art is to create beauty, while others would say it is to challenge the notion of beauty. Still others would say that art serves no purpose.

Shallow Hal, cheap romance novels, or Star Wars fanfiction may not succeed in having an emotional effect on you, but they're still art because there will always be someone out there who is legitimately affected by those works.

Again, under some definitions. Some would say a mere emotional response isn't sufficient to make something art. That definition, in its simplest interpretation would mean that punching someone in the face is art.

That's why Roger Ebert was wrong to claim that video games are not art.

I think it's equally incorrect to claim that all video games are art. Craft, yes, but not necessarily art.

 

[RadioactiveMicrobe]

My sister and I play all the Lego games together and get all the achievements.

I'm 18, she's 22. Are we cool yet?

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

That's one definition. There are many others.

For example, the goal of the Socialist Realist school of art is for further the causes of Socialism or Communism.

Which it can't do without getting people to care about it by evoking an emotional reaction.

Other schools of art would say that it is art's job to challenge and disrupt social and cultural conventions.

Which it can't do without getting people to care about it by evoking an emotional reaction.

Yet other schools would say that the purpose of art is to create beauty, while others would say it is to challenge the notion of beauty.

Which it can't do without - ...you get the idea. All art depends first and foremost upon creating a sense of emotional involvement in its audience. Without that, the pursuit of any further goal is hopeless from the very outset. Moreover, even if a piece of art doesn't choose to pursue any further goals, as long as it successfully manages to make the participants care in the way it wants them to, they won't demand more from it because they already received what it had to offer and were satisfied by it.

Some would say a mere emotional response isn't sufficient to make something art. That definition, in its simplest interpretation would mean that punching someone in the face is art.

A physical sensation (pain) is not even remotely the same thing as an emotional reaction. Yeah, you'll probably provoke an emotional response by doing it, but the primary purpose of a punch is to hurt someone.

Take another example: food. Food isn't art (even though there is art contained in the presentation of the food), because food serves the purpose of satisfying hunger and providing nutrition. A chef will seek to make the food taste good, and whoever eats the good-tasting food might have an emotional experience in response to doing so (or an averse one, if the food turns out to be bad), but at the end of the day the important thing about having eaten the meal is that you have a full stomach afterwards.

Again, you should take care to pay attention to my wording: "Art is something created for the primary purpose of inducing an emotional reaction" - "primary purpose" being the important part, in this case. A film, novel, or video game may well attempt to educate or preach to its audience, but that's not the point of them. Those things might provide an allegory for the Bolshevik Revolution or criticize the fast food industry or whatever, but above all else they seek to engage people, and people partake in them because, for whatever reason, they have an innate desire to be engaged. And that's why the fabrics that compose all of those mediums, even the most shallow and horrendous examples, are still art. No piece of art is "barely art," nor can it conversely be "more" a piece of art than another; it can only be good or bad, better or worse, because something either exists for the sake of engaging an audience or it does not.