Zero Punctuation: Tomb Raider: Underworld

[PhiMed]

I know others have mentioned this, but "The gameplay is shorter than a documentary on French War Heroes." Tee hee.

Also, kudos to Yahtzee for his restraint in only showing his horrified face instead of Lara's buttocks during the "Oh, look, I found a penny! .... SCHLORP" portion. God knows I would've been more graphic. Guess that's why he's ZP and I'm not.

 

[CrafterMan]

Snip

I actually agree with you Mr New Classic, very good points, probably should make your own thread though! But I can see your motive after this stale review. I hardly laughed once.

-Joe

 

[MikePhilbin]

what? you mean they haven't sorted out that awful Tomb Raider (death drop, not jump, death drop!) multi-fingered control system from the original painful outing. did nobody play the original Prince of Persia yet?

 

[estro_pajo]

lol
NewClassic prepared a post, waited until ZP vid is published (f5f5f5f5f5f5) and then we came, the readers.
I've read the first third of the post and then I've skipped to the last sentence, because... he's apologising for his own post in the post in question for the two thirds of the length of his post.

I think this invalidates most anything he wrote there...

 

[Baby Tea]

That's the whole point. It's "troll placement". It's like turning up in a thread about how wonderful PS3 graphics are and then having someone pop in with a mile-high post on how PS3 graphics are glitchy, or something similar.

No, it's not the same. Not even close. This thread isn't called 'How awesome is ZP?' It's a comment section about a show. Comments that can be negative or positive. Nuke is well within his rights to post on here as he sees fit, so long as it pertains to the topic. And it does! If it didn't, the MODs would have it removed. Simple as that.

In fact, SYSTEM-J put it in a much more moderate and diplomatic tone but is essentially speaking from my heart when he says:

With that said, all your lengthy (and obviously pre-prepared) showpiece rant boils down to is "I no longer find him funny". Welcome to humour: maybe the most subjective thing humanity knows of. Yahtzee has an original and inspired visual/audio delivery format with a distinct style. Like any comedian, once he's found his style it's all about writing good jokes. At the end of the day, I'm still laughing at him and if you aren't that's more likely to be your issue than anything Yahtzee is doing wrong in a sense of craft.

You know what the problem is with SYSTEM-J's post? It's that he tries to sum up Nuke's post with: 'I no longer find him funny'. Which is wrong.

Did anyone actually read his post, or just the first line and assumed they knew it all?

Nuke is saying that the show has changed. It's not the same as it once was, from the subtle things (like the intro music) to the big things (Like everything else), it's no longer about reviewing games.
It's about ranting on games, with very little in the way of actual reviewing. The show is still funny, and Nuke himself says the series isn't bad (If you actually READ his post), but it's not the SAME. Where is the actual review? It's either hidden or non-existent in a mass of jokes that may or may not relate to the game, or gaming as a whole. That's the problem with ZP that Nuke has! The humour is generally the same! It's the content that's changing.
It's like if a webcomic about video games suddenly changed into a serious comic that only generally involves gamers (Sorry CAD). It might not be bad, but it isn't the SAME. What Nuke is asking for is what Yahtzee is supposed to be delivering: Reviews with his distinct comedy style. Not ranting about a crappy game (Or a game he perceives as 'crappy') with little to no 'review' involved.

 

[Madshaw]

jason and Larah Vorhees, has a ring to it

 

[Kuth]

Usually a silent watcher but I have to comment on this, does it seem our dear Brit-Aussie seemed to tone down the speed of of his speech? I still liked it, but it seemed to go rather slow then the other ZP.

 

[Leefank137]

Love these videos. Hilarious.

 

[elpresidente]

Well, this time I do not agree with Yahtzee - probably because he didn't play "TR: Legend", which was also a very good game, and without playing it you can't really understand the story in "TR: Underworld". Also, I think his girlfriend was in the room while he was playing, so maybe he couldn't enjoy Lara's assets.
The review was funny anyway, although Yahtzee sounded a bit too cranky for me. Ok, he's right about Lara braking ancient artifacts and killing rare species, but I can't think of any point in the series where someone regarded her as archaeologist. She's a tomb raider. Tomb raider with big boobs and nice ass.
I really enjoyed "TR: Underworld" and it didn't feel like a second job. It had amazing visuals, great sound, and didn't lag at all. And this is something I can't say for "Fallout 3" - the biggest disappointment this year, yet Yahtzee was rather merciful towards it.

 

[dudeman0001]

lol
"MY TREASURE"
*shoots guy*
"I need to feed my children"
*shoots again*

 

[Ophiuchus]

Been a long time viewer of Zero Punctuation and have never signed up to the Escapist until he mentioned Bristols!

I am from Bristol (UK) and most women born here have big breasts so I couldn't stop laughing when he referred to Lara's breasts as Bristols.

Good work as always Yahtzee!

Welcome to Cockney rhyming slang. Bristols = short for Bristol City = titty.

Best episode in a long time, if y'ask me.

 

[RTR]

Hurray for cheap laughs!!!

 

[dudeman0001]

I would've preferred "LOL, My thinking cap!" instead of "I'm Mr.brainhat" but whatever his is funneh too

 

[jebussaves88]

You can't really blame NewClassic for posting when he did. If you really want to discuss something, why not post it where it'll garner the most attention. To be honest, I've been of the opinion that the series was going downhill. But then again, I never expected it to last this long. I hope Yahtzee finds a new endeavour to take his obvious talent to, but I think these videos are now nothing more than income as opposed to a work of passion, and therefore the quality will slip. Honestly, how long can you expect a guy to stay enthusiastic about his own internet video series, playing with Windows Movie Maker week-in week-out?

 

[Top Dollar]

I'd like to point out here that I'm not calling this video series bad.

Yes you are. Saying that doesn't cancel out the rest of your rant.

 

[mark_n_b]

ZP is fairly entertaining, but I don't understand why everything else on the escapist seems so unbearably unfunny.

EDIT: Are you kidding me up there with that copy-pasted text wall?

You have something you desperately want people to read, and yet you say nothing. You perched like a sniper waiting for the video to be released so you could soapbox in the first few posts on a site that is full of peple who enjoy the videos. The worst part is, you think it's worth reading, and that you're brillant! Thanks for your comments, but next time I want that kind of counter-opinion in my house I'll just invite a Jehova's witness in for coffee.

Compared to the strategy of doing a quick post to ensure a similarly high spot in the posts and then editing. The Escapist is not really a humour site (I say that because I see more and more pandering to dull witted comedy for traffic).

But for the point. This article is better left to the review section, Classic, especially when it is clear that you had it lying in wait. And because you do know better, the flame baiting is not cool. If this were anything but a ZP thread I'd suggest the mods should put you on probation for stirring up shit. BUt it is a ZP thread (*yuk yuk* he said tittie) so you earn much leeway. I will say that ZP is handled much more skillfully (and humorously) than Unskippable, and ending your review on a site required addition lost you some credibility.

Ahh at last, a truly moronic post deserving of a ban; something we can be truly and unamobiuosly satisfied with and not bod down the thread with discussions of why he was banned.

Your kidding me right? Firstly, It's a fair review article, let's be fair, Yahzee made his "girls with big boobies nerds don't have sex" thing for over half the review, which he has done before. Secondly, with almost 2000 Posts to his name, an escapist contributor, and not being a ZP tard post the chances of banning are nil. Don'tbe dumb, you don't get banned for expressing intelligent (if contrary) opinions on this site. Maybe if he posted something like "ZP is teh suxorz" 30 seconds after the movie was posted then your assesment would make sense.

 

[SYSTEM-J]

You know what the problem is with SYSTEM-J's post? It's that he tries to sum up Nuke's post with: 'I no longer find him funny'. Which is wrong.

Did anyone actually read his post, or just the first line and assumed they knew it all?

Nuke is saying that the show has changed. It's not the same as it once was, from the subtle things (like the intro music) to the big things (Like everything else), it's no longer about reviewing games.

What's amusing is you clearly haven't read my post properly, or at least you didn't take any time to consider what I had to say. I know perfectly well what New Classic was saying, and what I did with my post was underline (and undermine) the incorrect assumption his entire post is built on.

ZP has certainly changed to an extent, as does every episodic series in just about every format, ever. I've made this same point before and it seems I will have to make it again: critics will always make the easy snipe about change. If a series alters the formula in any way, it's "jumped the shark", lost the original magic and so on. If a series does the same thing forever, it's gone stale, ran out of ideas, is just repeating itself and so forth.

The point I'm making, and which you've neatly ignored, is that New Classic obviously got ZP wrong in the first instance by mistaking it for a review show with jokes. It's never been that. It's comedy put within the framework of a review. There's an important difference. Saying "it's changed!" is meaningless because of the ambivalent attitude towards change I outlined above, and New Classic got the meaningful part wrong.

 

[Nedned]

But I AM Mr Brain Hat

 

[whyarecarrots]

Ahh at last, a truly moronic post deserving of a ban; something we can be truly and unamobiuosly satisfied with and not bod down the thread with discussions of why he was banned.

Your kidding me right? Firstly, It's a fair review article, let's be fair, Yahzee made his "girls with big boobies nerds don't have sex" thing for over half the review, which he has done before. Secondly, with almost 2000 Posts to his name, an escapist contributor, and not being a ZP tard post the chances of banning are nil. Don'tbe dumb, you don't get banned for expressing intelligent (if contrary) opinions on this site. Maybe if he posted something like "ZP is teh suxorz" 30 seconds after the movie was posted then your assesment would make sense

I was talking about the post that someone did get banned for, which simply said 'first'. The rant/article didn't exist when I posted.

 

[ZeroRyoko1974]

If Yahtzee interests really do include professional troll, he probably likes it when people waste their lives writing a discertation on why his reviews are bad.