Zero Punctuation: Quantum Conundrum

[Realitycrash]

So, a few years after DICE tried to shamelessly cash in on Portal's success by creating their own first-person non-shooter with a female protagonist and an end-credits song called "Still Alive" (I swear I am not making that up), the creator of Portal decided to return the favor by inserting that game's worst mechanic into her own Portal ripoff? Yeah, that's really showing 'em, Kim.

And if Yahtzee thinks de Lancie was typecast in this game, he should see what the My Little Pony guys did with him.

"I would be honored to be called a ♥♥♥♥ by Yahtzee" - from Steam Forums.

This fucking disturbs me. Seriously, the man is trying to express disgust, but someone already claims that they would feel honored if someone of remote fame would recognize them in a video, even if it is clearly negative?
You know, even if this particular post was ironic, there's already several people flooding the topic and saying "Congratz, you were called a **** by Yahtzee", and the sad part is that this person probably WILL feel special and not at all insulted, simply because everyone gives him attention.

Have we forgotten about the internet rule of dealing with trolls?
Never.
Feed.
Them.


So gratz, all of you, you've given the moron exactly what he wanted.

Not his fault other people decided to track down exactly who he was referring to. (And incidentally I have reported those people; if the Escapist has any decency at all they'll permaban them for it. Not cool, guys.) Honestly he might as well have been addressing any one of hundreds of idiots I've had to deal with on the Internet, and it's about time someone with a big voice in gaming circles publicly called them out for it. Bonus points for it coming from the guy who gave the world the phrase "PC Gaming Master Race" in the first place.

Oh, I don't mind what Yahtzee did. He never mentioned any names. I was talking about all the Escapist-users that saw it fit to track the guy down and mock him (which is bad form) and congratulate him (which might be seen as mocking, but will just feed the trolls ego. He managed to troll so hard that he got mentioned in a game-review, afterall.)
Even if he did not aim to troll, he is probably going to see this as a "win".
And true, he might have stumbled upon the review anyway, but people looking him up is just spreading his undeserved fame even further and faster.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Ah, a nice return to form for Yahtzee, something I realized when I genuinely laughed out loud at the glory hole analogy and noted that it had been awhile (please don't read that incorrectly). Maybe he started trying to be more of a helpful reviewer as opposed to a skewer who put comedy first. Either way, bravo Croshaw.

 

[Ghonzor]

I remember watching the review and seeing whoever try to make a jump across some platforms and then utterly failing. My first thought was that I wouldn't like the game because of that gameplay. I'm still unsure whether or not I want to try. It does look fun...

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I've kind of liked what I've played of this. But my only gripe is, De Lancie's performance isn't really that good as a mad scientist. Sure his voice is one from the heavens, but his performances as both Discord and Q were much better. I felt he should of expressed himself more.

 

[Triforceformer]

When yahtzee said he didn't like it I nearly got lockjaw. I guess I'm avoiding this game, then. It looked like the exact thing he would like, too. Then again, yahtzee is the toughest critic in the world, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I was not expecting him to hate it though. I mean, wow. The gameplay videos looked so good too.

And this is what's wrong with Yahtzee's fanboys. All it takes is for him to express his disapproval towards a game and every facet of YOUR opinion goes out the window. You're doing the exact thing he blasted against in the Mailbox Showdown. You wait for a simple "Yay" or "Nay" and toss out every bit of free will you have if it conflicts with your ideas.

 

[praetor_alpha]

Finally! Somebody else on this planet who absolutely hates motion blur in video games. It's always the first thing I turn off in graphics.

Here here! Motion blur sucks!

Me three!

And don't you get me started on depth of field. I have a nice video card and I want to render things clearly. If I wanted to blur things up, I'd turn the resolution down or take off my glasses. It doesn't matter how many uber res textures a 2+ GB video card can hold if it all gets blurred to hell before it gets to my monitor.

 

[General Vagueness]

The only thing I disagree:

Platforming in First Person is not hard. At all. It is as easy as everything else. But maybe this is just my expirience of 12y PC gaming talking.

Yeah, I suspect Yahtzee's brain isn't geared for 3D platforming, or he doesn't care enough to get that good, since he's made the complaint before. There are various tricks you can do in the Portal games that involve it and it comes up sometimes in multiplayer in some FPSs, particularly at high levels of play, and a lot of them have similar tricks that can be done that require 3D platforming or are made easier by it. I pretty much agree about not showing your character's feet, but that shouldn't be the case regardless, and IDK about you guys but I don't look at my feet when I'm walking, and I don't do it in games either (except once in a while when I'm attempting aforementioned tricks).

On the game: I like it quite a lot and several things were already patched (settings and such).

I'd say someone reviewing PC games in this day and age should wait a week to 10 days for any early, important patches.

Finally! Someone not afraid to call out elitists. Seriously. I like hanging around P.C. forums and tech forums to nerd out over the latest hardware, but the things like wot Mr Croshaw describes in this video really pisses me off.

He already did at least two years ago when he mentioned "dirty console peasants and the glorious PC gaming master race".

 

[Roman Monaghan]

Boy it didn't take this thread long to devolve into a flame war over consoles vs PC's did it? In an effort to be satirical but will only end up succeeding in fanning the flames even more, I'm going to point out that the greatest PC game ever made (Recettear: an Item Shop's Tale) could probably be run on a ten year old machine. I'd also like to point the kind of people who agree with the person Yahtzee was insulting at the end of this video to one of the Jimquisition episodes over yonder. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4131-The-Beautiful-Irony-of-PC-Gaming]

 

[SimpleReally]

When I saw the title I knew the very first complaint was going to be the jumping sections

 

[Roman Monaghan]

Actually you know what, screw it, I'm throwing my two cents in.

How to best enjoy a "hardcore" PC game: Fuck around with the ini. files for an hour until it runs perfectly, alt tabbing occasionally to browse the forums to see if other people have been having the same problems as you and know how to fix it. This tactics as best supported by: the majority of PC gamers (going by what the consensus in this very topic seems to be, at least, that the guy Yahtzee talked about at the end was right and he was a douche for calling his douchebaggery out for what it was.)

How to best enjoy a "hardcore" console game: Put the disc into the console. Play it. As supported by: common fucking sense.



I like most of the games I have on my trusty laptop here, and I'm usually willing to jump through the hoops to get em working, but the very fact I'd need to do that to play a video game is kinda... I dunno, I'd say it speaks for itself, but apparently most "hardcore" PC gamers don't agree with me. Maybe one of them will be able to explain to me why, even though I paid ten bucks for a game (Magicka) it's still my fault for wasting money by expecting a product they were selling to work on my machine. And also the company isn't a bunch of assholes for focusing more on DLC then making sure their game can be played on the majority of possible PCs out there. Seriously, I'd love to see someone out there explain to me how that's not a downside to the whole PC vs Console thing, that the mere act of buying a game and expecting it to fucking work is only a garateed thing for one side of this debate.

 

[MB202]

lol, I like the transition between Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor to Quantum Conundrum! XD It's almost like he was going to give the first game a full review, then switched at the last minute to something else.

Wait, the scientist is voiced by John de Lancie? As in... DISCORD FROM MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC? I MUST GET THIS GA- Oh wait, first-person platforming? I'll pass.

The week after reviewing a game voiced primarily by Twilight Sparkle, incidentally.

Tara Strong's in everything, not just Friendship is Magic or Lollipop Chainsaw. Although I did leave a Facebook comment saying "Tara Strong, FTW!" Besides, I already knew she was in this game so I didn't feel like commenting on it in the forum.

I've never seen Star Trek: The Next Generation, so his role as Discord is how I know John de Lancie, so I decided to comment on THAT in the forum, since I thought people will instinctively think of Q and, well, I wanted to see if anyone else would think as I did.

 

[SFR]

I've never had problems with first person platforming. In fact, I sometimes find it a lot easier because there's really no distance issues you have to deal with. It's easier to tell how far away something is. In Yatzee's case, I can't imagine having a slow computer would help the platforming process. Low FPS makes almost doing anything precise impossible. Or at the very least it feels very sluggish. For this reason, I don't really think his "review" gives a clear picture of the actual game's quality. It sucks there are no graphic settings, but I'm guessing almost every complaint he had (null the samey looking environments) would have at least been minimized considerably if he played it on a better computer... or looked up how to edit those ini files. Not that that ****'s not a ****. He is a ****.

 

[ZeoAssassin]

When I saw the title I knew the very first complaint was going to be the jumping sections

yeah me too. I must be a weirdo or something cause i found the 1rst person platforming pretty enjoyable. I don't mind it at all so long as its done well like here.

Also...as much as a enjoy portal, i find that QC uses its handheld science device "better" than the portal gun...at least when portal 2 hit. Like...in portal2 the portals started to feel secondary to the shit you were having go through them like jelly, laser, etc. While in QC the IDS device feels like THE device that drives the puzzles which changes the nature of how anything else in a given room acts.

This IS NOT to say one is better then the other..just an observation about the limits of portals and the limits of different dimensions being a bit different.

 

[Pinkamena]

I fucking lol'd. This review was bloody amazing! Love it.

 

[Racecarlock]

When yahtzee said he didn't like it I nearly got lockjaw. I guess I'm avoiding this game, then. It looked like the exact thing he would like, too. Then again, yahtzee is the toughest critic in the world, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I was not expecting him to hate it though. I mean, wow. The gameplay videos looked so good too.

And this is what's wrong with Yahtzee's fanboys. All it takes is for him to express his disapproval towards a game and every facet of YOUR opinion goes out the window. You're doing the exact thing he blasted against in the Mailbox Showdown. You wait for a simple "Yay" or "Nay" and toss out every bit of free will you have if it conflicts with your ideas.

Christ guys I don't actually have the game and I haven't played it yet. And don't tell me how intelligent I am until you've had a debate with me.

 

[Ledan]

If you have ever suffered from vertigo, this game will probably bring that forth due to the first person perspective and the crazy shit you have to do. If I was actually that boy, I can honestly say that I would have said "Fuck this. Im going home". Cause I did several times...

 

[Ledan]

When yahtzee said he didn't like it I nearly got lockjaw. I guess I'm avoiding this game, then. It looked like the exact thing he would like, too. Then again, yahtzee is the toughest critic in the world, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I was not expecting him to hate it though. I mean, wow. The gameplay videos looked so good too.

And this is what's wrong with Yahtzee's fanboys. All it takes is for him to express his disapproval towards a game and every facet of YOUR opinion goes out the window. You're doing the exact thing he blasted against in the Mailbox Showdown. You wait for a simple "Yay" or "Nay" and toss out every bit of free will you have if it conflicts with your ideas.

Christ guys I don't actually have the game and I haven't played it yet. And don't tell me how intelligent I am until you've had a debate with me.

2 cents from someone who likes the game and is a Yahtzee fan: He gets everything that is wrong with the game. Like he always does.
Still a great game, especially at that price. It's a fun and colorful puzzle platformer, that has a few faults.
He doesn't do reviews, he critiques games. Don't take this as a review of a game, more as a warning of what could put you of it.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

awesome review love it.

 

[Di-Dorval]

Meh the dude post wasnt that bad.

It's true that if your pc can't run this game properly then it most be quite shitty for a primary gaming machine...

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

lol, I like the transition between Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor to Quantum Conundrum! XD It's almost like he was going to give the first game a full review, then switched at the last minute to something else.

Wait, the scientist is voiced by John de Lancie? As in... DISCORD FROM MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC? I MUST GET THIS GA- Oh wait, first-person platforming? I'll pass.

Ah nertz...ninja'd. I was going to comment that since we had a game where not normal things can happen and there's a character voiced by DeLancie...well, you get the idea.

Too bad that game has issues. It sounds like a sound concept and, best of all, a NEW idea!