Zero Punctuation: MindJack

[Kurt Horsting]

I can't imagine why MvC3 would be an exception.

Didn't Yahtzee say previously he's not going to bother reviewing fighting games? They're pretty one-dimensional, not really a lot there to pick at.

I can't imagine why MvC3 would be an exception.

2 reasons.

1. A majority of the cast come from previous games that he has done reviews on.

2. I don't understand what you mean by "one-dimensional". Is it because fighting games focus on gameplay, character balance, variety, and core mechanics over story or rpg mechanics? Is it because they are built to be exclusively multiplayer games? Or some other reason.

 

[Curtisthekiller]

anyone else find it odd that Mass effect 2 did something related to the premise except...they did it better?
e.g. the abilitys that let you:

Spoiler

Dominate the minds of humanoid targets with biotics and Hacking synthetic opponents with AI hacking.taken with a grain of salt however as they do not last for very long.

 

[matt87_50]

lol, that one was the most awesome one ever! its always best when you hate them!


don't bash unique ideas though... I think its fair to say in this day and age in the world of video games... movies... all media and in fact life in entirety...

a terrible original idea is better than an unoriginal one stamped out for the 100th time...

though I can see the frustration in a game where the one original idea in a sea of rehashed bile turns out to be shit...

maybe they were trying to justify the amount of rehashed bile:

"oh you want original do you? careful what you wish for, here, have a little taste of what our originality would look like!"

"oh god! oh god! for the love of all that is holy! go back to the quick time events! anything but that!!"

"thats why we don't do original"

 

[Hugga_Bear]

He's right that often unique ideas are unique and untested because people have thought of them, then laughed them off.

I kinda like the multiplayer idea, only because I'd find it funny to join in someone's game, maybe helping them out, maybe just killing them for lulz...that and the thought of maybe a half dozen players taking over random enemies with differing goals would be pretty funny from an outside POV.
For the guy doing the single player though, unless you're really stuck, it would be pretty irritating to have people join and help or hinder. (I presume it's optional of course, but point is still there...)


Overall, lulzy review Yahtzee, good work.

 

[Travito Christos]

Bulletstrom!

 

[Travito Christos]

Review Bulletstorm, Godamnit!

 

[Kermi]

I can't imagine why MvC3 would be an exception.

Didn't Yahtzee say previously he's not going to bother reviewing fighting games? They're pretty one-dimensional, not really a lot there to pick at.

I can't imagine why MvC3 would be an exception.

2 reasons.

1. A majority of the cast come from previous games that he has done reviews on.

2. I don't understand what you mean by "one-dimensional". Is it because fighting games focus on gameplay, character balance, variety, and core mechanics over story or rpg mechanics? Is it because they are built to be exclusively multiplayer games? Or some other reason.

Yes, to all of the above. It's a fighting game. People beat each other up. What is there to critique? Leave it to the real reviewers to say MvC3 is epileptic, unbalanced fan service.

Your first point makes no sense whatsoever. It has characters from other games so it deserves to be given the same consideration? Why don't I just paste Mona Lisas head onto Christ's face in the Last Supper and wait for a cheque to roll in from the Louvre.

 

[[.redacted]]

"...A bunch of very delicious astronauts"

Oh, god, that made me laugh =D

 

[Srdjan Tanaskovic]

Yet another video where is says something about how people dress in JRPG


and I'm yet to see what the problem is, can someone please tell me just whats the problem with how people dress in JRPG?

 

[Kurt Horsting]

Yes, to all of the above. It's a fighting game. People beat each other up. What is there to critique? Leave it to the real reviewers to say MvC3 is epileptic, unbalanced fan service.

Your first point makes no sense whatsoever. It has characters from other games so it deserves to be given the same consideration? Why don't I just paste Mona Lisas head onto Christ's face in the Last Supper and wait for a cheque to roll in from the Louvre.

First thing is that no one truly knows what the balance of Mvc3 is yet. From what I can tell there is a very vague top 5-10 characters that still lose to "low tier" characters, people bitching about Sentinel, and the worst characters are considered Ryu and Captain America because they arn't over the top and broken enough for the game that is based on everything being over the top and broken. Even though they are the worst, they still can hold their own vs the majority of the cast. So far, the game is actually very balanced because everyone is broken (look at the guilty gear series for broken = balance approach). Since broken is the norm, it's fair. And the only characters that suck; its cause they aren't broken enough for the game.

And yes, its a fighting game. You hit the other guy to knock them out before they do the same to you. Mindjack is a third person shooter, where you look in 3rd person to shoot people over chest high walls. It's just the nature of the beast. Its like complaining how people could care about chess after thousands of years if its just moving pieces around a board. What a player can do with the tools given to them from that game changes everything. In mvc3, there are so many options left to the player. Anything from style of play, team make-up, and one of the most open and unique combo systems helps the player form unique decisions and strategies to approach their opponents (as long as players are willing to learn and use them). Whereas Mindjack, the player gets to shoot people, and has a bunch of useless options that the player doesn't need to use because bullets work better then every other option the player has. They are false options do not help the player and make the game boring and feel very poorly designed.

But to discuss my first point was to see how being in a different genre can change a character's dynamics, and create a unique flow to them. I.e. Chris obviously plays a lot different in MvC3 then he did in RE5, but how he plays to make him feel like how Chris would fight and still be unique amonst the cast is a unique challenge for the game. His play style is even vastly different from others that are in his archetype. Kinda like how people where expecting Yatzhee to talk about Snake in SSBB but couldn't get the chance because he wasn't unlocked off the bat (not a problem that mvc3 has). Also, the four characters that you can unlock (Taskmaster, Akuma, Sentinel, and Hsien-ko/Lei-Lei) can be unlocked in less then 10 minutes.

Maybe this was missed in my original statement but I did mention that I know that Yatzhee would not like to review this title solely on the reason that it is a fighting game. But if there would be the one fighting game that he might acctually enjoy, it would probably be this one. Generally because it's very silly, has colors outside the dirt spectrum, it's very inclusive without sacrificing depth, and It's very fun. You remember what fun is right?

 

[Kermi]

blah blah blah

You used a lot of words, tried to insult me, and entirely missed my point. My point is that MvC3 does not have enough substance - good or bad - to make for an entertaining Zero Punctuation video. What's Yahtzee gonna make fun of? If he tried to make a ZP about this he'd probably go off on a tangent about something else for four minutes then say Magneto's helmet looks like a penis. Nobody wants that.

I mean shit, you spent all that time saying why MvC3 is a better game than Mindjack, a debate no one was having or will have, ever. And you still can't figure out why Yahtzee is more likely to review Mindjack over MvC3?

You new to the internet, son?

 

[Kurt Horsting]

Flame bait

I thought it would be a good idea since Yahtzee did a bunch of reviews for both Capcom and Marvel titles and just sum up what he thinks of both companies. It would be probably negative and he would go into the whole franchise wanking bit with a side of insulting the fans of both. So, basically I'd imagine it would be like the SSBB review with 2 companies instead of nintendo. Thats it.

 

[TactlessC]

Voice actors not recording on the same days or in the same rooms was normal I thought. Unless every cartoon VA interview I have ever heard is a complete bag of lies. But usually I think they at least have you know THEIR COWORKERS RECORDED LINES and CONTEXT OF SCENE to help, so yeah whatever, idk, still dumb I guess.

 

[Kermi]

Derp

Yeah, no. Nintendo is a company accused of contstantly milking and abusing it's franchises, and SSBB is the Mario Kart of fighters - it's nonsensical bullshit with little redeeming value. There was a fair amount to work with there. Plus, it's a viable home console title - it's jackoff bullshit you do with friends.

MvC3 is a straight up fighter, with a variety of complex gameplay considerations taken into account - people are discovering the imbalances, playing like douches online (which is the standard) and generally actually getting bored with it after 5 minutes just like they did with Street fighter 4. I don't even know why people buy arcade fighters for their consoles anymore, they're not really fun or interesting to play at home, even with friends.

Despite it's ridiculousness and fan servicing it's still just Fighting Game v3.11 for Workgroups.

I'm sure Yahtzee could potentially go on a rant about Marvel but Marvel are still more closely associated with comics than games and comics aren't generally Yahtzee's thing. Yahtzee could go on a rant about Capcom buthe does that every fucking time he reviews a Capcom game.

What you are proposing is almost entirely redundant, and the parts that aren't redundant are irrelevant.

 

[inquisiti0n]

this game is an embarrassment to everyone involved. even the title missed an opportunity to not suck

 

[Kurt Horsting]

*snip*

w/e, I merely thought it would be more interesting then... what did he review again? Doesn't matter, point is that apparently you are extremely offended by someone's subjective opinion about what a reviewer hypothetically will probably not review anyway. Thank you for wasting my time.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

I was quite fine with this game. The plot was nothing special, but honestly, the mindhacking mechanic was actually awesome to me. The enemy AI didn't fail as hard as Yahtzee said it did for me, and I actually had a lot of fun flanking the enemy. The friendly Jim AI never did get himself killed when I wasn't in his body.

I don't know what's he's going on about.

I expected better story from a Squeenix game, honestly, but that's my only real broken expectation.

 

[Kermi]

*snip*

w/e, I merely thought it would be more interesting then... what did he review again? Doesn't matter, point is that apparently you are extremely offended by someone's subjective opinion about what a reviewer hypothetically will probably not review anyway. Thank you for wasting my time.

Your assertion that you are capable of causing offense to me is almost as ill-conceived as your opinions were to begin with, but if you want to take the high road and make me out to be the antagonist, by all means do so.

 

[Taunta]

... Second, the voice acting thing. Aside from the "different planes of existence" thing, that IS how most voice acting is done. One person in a booth, recording their lines, then the next actor comes in the booth when the first actor is done. Repeat until lunch break, then repeat until you go home...

Actually that jumped out at me too. The reason voice acting in video games tends to be shit most of the time is more due to a lack of direction and input from the writers/developers, so the actors just have to take a rough stab at it without really comprehending the full context of the scene. In videogames and animation its easier and cheaper to deal with one actor at a time and that's how it usually works.

Yeah, I remember that jumping out at me as well. Usually, depending on how busy/famous the actors are, recording for shows/games/movies/etc takes place at different times for different roles. Given that every actor has their own hectic schedule (again, depending on how busy/famous they are) getting two of them in the booth at the same time is just short of a miracle.

 

[Infernai]

I have played it, square made a brown/gray bad looking game. Dear lord it's the end of the world, at least final fantasy 13 was pretty to look at.

Again and again.. SQUARE ENIX DID NOT MAKE MINDJACK. feelplus did. Square Enix PUBLISHED it.

Final Fantasy, however, Square Enix MADE.

I find it hilarious that everyone who ADORES games like Mass Effect, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption make jokes about Final Fantasy and other JRPGs for being all bright and rainbows, with characters who a far too zany and over-the-top.. But when the same company has anything to do with a third/first-person shooter, it STILL isn't good enough for them.

Not directed at you here, Brandon, but seriously.. YOU PEOPLE KEEP COMPLAINING TO JRPG COMPANIES THAT THEIR JRPGS SUCK. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR IT. Just.. Back off. Stick to the WRPGs you DO love and adore so fucking much and let JRPG gamers have THEIR games too. Final Fantasy is NOT a bad series. Just like Mass Effect is NOT a bad series. However, I will play a Final Fantasy game before ever touching Mass Effect. The dull, burly, blank-slate everyman that seems all too common in WRPGs is just as annoying as any JRPG stereotype..

Look, everyone has opinions on stuff, and i, like MOST (Key word being Most) will respect your opinion. But...i do say i disagree with it.

Unfortunately, as much as it may hurt you to hear this, Square Enix needs to get it's act together: Ever since Entry 9, they havn't made a Final Fantasy game with a Lead protagonist i didn't want to shoot in the fucking face (Lightnings sort of an exception, but even then i was sort of more indifferent to her..and you aren't meant to be 'indifferent' towards a lead character). They need to move away from having the more 'tidus' and 'vaan' archtype for the lead characters and maybe tone back a bit on the cutscenes once in a while. Like you said it isn't a bad series, but it certainly hasn't been on top form recently either.

That said, i still have enjoyed some of the stuff they have produced/made recently: The Kingdom hearts games(Yaoi Fanfic writers notwithstanding), Star Ocean: The last hope (Sure, it has it's faults, but it gets all the little things right and while the characters are far from original i found them all bearable and tolerable, even somewhat likeable), and Finally Drakengard (Ok ok, this was a game they only published...Cavia actually made it, but square still had a hand in helping it get to the public. Plus i respect this game for it's characters and the fact it turned every single character type and cliche of the JRPG Genre on it's head). My point is, Square needs to try and experiment a bit more: Not so much with it's gameplay (although there are a few tweaks that can be made in this aspect, but it isn't anything big), but in the realms of story and character types/characterization.