Zero Punctuation: Psychonauts

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

Psychonauts

This week, in honor of The Escapist's Game Circle game of the month [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.44954], Yahtzee throws down on Psychonauts and you, the consumer.

Watch Video

 

[John Funk]

Not quite as laugh-out-loud hilarious as the other three, but still really, really funny Can't wait to see what's coming next!

 

[iainfarrell [deprecated]]

I am becoming a really big fan and make a point of sending this on to friends! Jolly fine work.

 

[alexrpgguy]

You, sir, are just astoundingly excellent at what you do XD
Promise me you will never slack off and sell out. I would be devastated to see such talent become monotone. Just look at Penny Arcade.

 

[Tom Edwards]

I'm missing the scathing sarcasm already. This series is definitely better when it's taking the piss out of a game.

 

[J.theYellow]

That was excellent. It's good to know early on that Yahtzee can dish it out to gamers as well as games. Psychonauts was poorly marketed (symptom of being hard to classify) and the criticism about the difficulty curve is very accurate, but there's no good reason not to at least play it up until the part where it becomes so hard you want to throw things.

Games ought to be fun, too. Loved that bit. They're not going to get fun unless gamers recapture the spirit of what fun is, and there are too many games that bury fun in heaps of not-fun activities that have to be slogged through.

 

[luvyourreview [deprecated]]

very excellent! man, ur soooooo pro

 

[Jack.B.Nimble]

I tried the pen thing.

It didn't work.

I feel oddly disappointed.

 

[Andrew Armstrong]

Pen thing bloody hurt

And it was very good, I agree that scathing criticism isn't all the guy can do, and its the better for it (although the sarcasm was still heavy). I am glad it only took a few of these to get something that he liked up there

I can't wait for next weeks.

 

[Sasquatchua]

You've made me feel rather guilty that I acquired a promotional copy through a friend at Double Fine rather than helping the market behave the way it ought to have. I'm really enjoying these reviews - kudos to The Escapist for snatching Yahtzee up!

 

[Aquilon]

Sir,
that was effin brilliant. Somehow The Escapist have gotten even better. May I ask who exactly it was that discovered you and brought you to international stardom?

 

[Corridor]

That one wasn't as good. :colbert: Being angry and SWEARING and stuff doesn't automatically mean funny. I still watched it twice though. Bits of it were cool. Tell your bosses to let you review games that suck.

 

[J.theYellow]

Making people cause themselves pain is always funny.

I'm impressed that Yahtzee can churn these out on a schedule, at least twice in a row. This column would get really old really fast if all he did was play crappy games and make fun of them. Thus far, ZP has had a very consistent message about what games ought to be like.

 

[StolenName]

I tried the pen thing.

It didn't work.

I feel oddly disappointed.

Agreed. But I'm glad it didn't considering I bought the game - on PS2. Maybe it should have hurt - according to the game of the month circle it was broken.

Enjoying the series still! Actually started playing one of his adventure games yesterday (the DeFoe series) and I'm thoroughly enjoying that I can run them in a window and hide it from my boss when he sneaks up behind me to check what I'm doing.

Rock.

 

[StolenName]

Upon watching it again ... that scene regarding the Mysty-Eyed hippy and the narcoleptic ritalin popping douche is hillarious ... love the Halo 3 line as well. Does well to sum up the majority of active skim-readers and comment whores present on most gaming websites eg. Kotaku, ICGamers, Joystiq, GameSpot, NEOgaf etc.

 

[Geoffrey42]

I tried the pen thing.

It didn't work.

I feel oddly disappointed.

Agreed.

You can file this under "curiosity killed the cat" but I found at first that it did not work either. At first.

The trick to hurting oneself is making sure that when you squeeze, the two pairs of fingers remain in the same plane. If you allow two fingers to subduct under the other two, and the pen twists, there is no pain.

So, if you keep the fingers in a flat plane, and squeeze, it does indeed hurt. And surprisingly, while the initial pain is not very great, the dull ache produced lasts a little longer than you would think.

So, ummm... ow.

 

[StolenName]

You can file this under "curiosity killed the cat" but I found at first that it did not work either. At first.

The trick to hurting oneself is making sure that when you squeeze, the two pairs of fingers remain in the same plane. If you allow two fingers to subduct under the other two, and the pen twists, there is no pain.

So, if you keep the fingers in a flat plane, and squeeze, it does indeed hurt. And surprisingly, while the initial pain is not very great, the dull ache produced lasts a little longer than you would think.

So, ummm... ow.

Oh, dear. That's ... wow.

Dedication! I'll give it a shot after lunch

 

[J.theYellow]

Leave it to gamers to spend time analyzing an activity to minimize and maximize pain.