Zero Punctuation: Top 5 Games of 2015

[Jorpho]

I wasn't the only one waiting for Mad Max to come up in the "Bland" list, surely?

Could a game that is just blandly bland be the blandest bland of the bland?

 

[Arthain]

Doubt Yahtzee will read this, but I hope he drops blandest in the future. Not because I don't want to know, but because it detracted from the best/worst. He didn't really put a whole lot of time describing why the best and worst were truly the best and worst. It made the whole video seem kind of rushed and half-baked.

Still, I agree with the list for the most part ^_^.

 

[Saika Renegade]

I think that opener actually beat FIFA 13 for brevity.

That said, this one got more than a few good laughs out of me, so hey, won't hear me complaining.

 

[L377UC3]

Halo 5 was pretty mediocre, but even considering the series' age, it has so[i/] much potential 343 rather obstinately refuses to tap into - and it's been there since before there were Spartan Abilities or Warzone or REQ points or #Sustain or a Co-op campaign with no Local Multiplayer.

Damn it 343.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

No, you're stealing that because it's an answer you want to agree with, even though it's a bad explanation. The main selling point is the content.

You want an actual good explanation why the game is so popular? It's because the game is that good. From the likable characters, to the catchy music, to the gameplay-altering bosses, to the different way you can choose to deal with monsters, to the amount of detail that was put into the game to reflect almost every little thing you do; Undertale is a high quality experience. If you let a game's fanbase dictate your experience of said game, then it's your own fault that the experience is soured.

Thing is, my experience is not the same as yours. I found many of the characters annoying, the music makes my ears bleed, and just because the gameplay does something different (except for the random encounters, which is a game design decision that RPGs have largely left behind), that doesn't make it "good." That's because "good" is subjective.

But the funny thing is that I probably could've slogged through the game if someone had bothered to actually tell me why the game was so compelling, because none of the reviews I read and none of the people I asked would tell me. Or better yet, if no one had told me about the game at all (see my above post). I WANTED the game's fanbase to dictate my experience with this game, but the only thing I could get out of anyone was "Just try it, you'll like it!"

Seriously, you people are like hardcore anime fans. You don't understand that not everyone will enjoy your hobby/game/TV show, and you think that if you shove it down their throats enough, they'll come around and start to like it.

But when you shove something down someone's throat, they tend to choke on it.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

i would have had dragon age inquisition in the running of best games of the year given just how fun it is

How fun it was or wasn't is kind of pointless. It can't be the game of the year.
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=dragon+age+inquisition+release+date

At least, not for 2015. ;p

Unless we're playing on the house rules of "just a game you played for the first time this year".

OT: Like the new category. Really fits as some games are built well enough that they can't exactly be called bad, but are still boring for this or that reason.

Anyway, Good on the Witcher and Undertale. Two games that did a lot of good for the industry in my opinion. Hope next year can live up to the standards they both set.

=w= b

 

[Bunni]

What it did do, unfortunately, is waste my time. I don't get spare evenings often, and I feel like a bunch of obnoxious gaming hipsters robbed me of one because they wouldn't shut up about this plodding, childish, meme-riddled, unfunny, fart-sniffing exercise in tedium.

People literally forced you to keep playing a game you weren't enjoying huh.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

Undertale is basically the "Oscar-bait" of videogames. Like Gone Home, It's main selling point isn't the gameplay or content, it's the ability to look down your nose at anyone who didn't like it.

You easily spot these games by how insufferably smug their fans are.

The only insufferably smug people I see in this thread are all those cynical grumpy cats like you who just have a pathological need to bash and insult this game and it's fanbase. I'm in the grey with Undertale. Played it, I can apreciate all the things it did different and how it reminded me of Earthbound and Mother, but I am not in love with the game. It was good, but if I had to pick GOTY Witcher 3 takes that throne. What I don't get is the people like you, who, somehow must blame everyone and anyone else for not liking the game and must bash the game to hell and back ... I mean really? Insufferably smug? HOW? All the fanbase does is tell their friends "you have to give this game a shot blind, no spoilers, I felt it's that good " (and on a level it is). Then when people like you come back and not like the game, it's you insufferably smug pricks who go "feh, overrater, feh boring, feh oscar-bait trash, I wouldn't use it as toilet paper" and somehow feel this need to tell everyone how uterly WRONG they are for liking undertale and somehow need to blame the fanbase for not liking it. Why? Because they told you to try something new? How about you stop acting like smug little kids and just say "well, I didn't like it. It's not a game for me". Let me tell you a secret: not liking undertale doesn't make you a mutant! Just because you didn't like a game that got alot of praise doesn't mean somehow you became a lower class pleb who doesn't get it, heck by that logic I am an illiterate amoeba for disliking almost every single AAA game that came out this year (dragon age: red herring-quisition last year and crapout 4 going so far as to earn outright hatred, but let's stay on topic). How about you accept the fact the world does not revolve around your opinion, and that no matter how much you didn't like the game, the majority of critics and players did like it. The only vocal insufferably smug people here are those just can't get over the fact a game they didn't like got so much praise this year.

 

[Nazulu]

This is why I love your stuff Yahtzee, because rules are meant to be broken in funny ways.

I completely agree the simple look of Undertale really does add to the surprises and depth it unleashes. It has some big ass flaws but it's very good for a first game. Also love the new list.

 

[Erttheking]

No, you're stealing that because it's an answer you want to agree with, even though it's a bad explanation. The main selling point is the content.

You want an actual good explanation why the game is so popular? It's because the game is that good. From the likable characters, to the catchy music, to the gameplay-altering bosses, to the different way you can choose to deal with monsters, to the amount of detail that was put into the game to reflect almost every little thing you do; Undertale is a high quality experience. If you let a game's fanbase dictate your experience of said game, then it's your own fault that the experience is soured.

Thing is, my experience is not the same as yours. I found many of the characters annoying, the music makes my ears bleed, and just because the gameplay does something different (except for the random encounters, which is a game design decision that RPGs have largely left behind), that doesn't make it "good." That's because "good" is subjective.

But the funny thing is that I probably could've slogged through the game if someone had bothered to actually tell me why the game was so compelling, because none of the reviews I read and none of the people I asked would tell me. Or better yet, if no one had told me about the game at all (see my above post). I WANTED the game's fanbase to dictate my experience with this game, but the only thing I could get out of anyone was "Just try it, you'll like it!"

Seriously, you people are like hardcore anime fans. You don't understand that not everyone will enjoy your hobby/game/TV show, and you think that if you shove it down their throats enough, they'll come around and start to like it.

But when you shove something down someone's throat, they tend to choke on it.

"You don't understand not everyone will enjoy your game"

Uh. Call me crazy, but I don't think he gives a crap whether you like it or not. He was responding to you agreeing with someone for saying that people only played the game so they could look down on others. Which is bullshit. He was saying why he liked the game because you made that insulting assumption. The "Not everyone will enjoy your game" argument you pull, indicates a lack of understanding on your part of where this conversation was. Ironic, considering you're the one that put it there.

Don't like the game? Fine. Don't insult the fans and then act surprised when they don't care for being insulted. I don't think Portal and Half-Life were as great as everyone thinks they were and I honestly think my experiences with Half-Life 2 were hurt by people building it up too much, but I can say that without insulting the people who disagree with me.

 

[Nazulu]

It is impossible for me to adequately express how sick and fucking tired I am of the constant wankfest about Undertale.

Most overrated game ever, and it's not particularly close.

You know your favourite games? There are many people in this world who would believe they are complete rubbish, and if/were popular, they would be fucking sick of hearing about them too.

It's just Yahtzee's opinion, he should be allowed to pick his own. I don't care for TFA but I'm not going to try and shut everyone down, even when they keep telling me to watch it again -_-

I like the game but I don't believe it's anywhere near perfect.

Spoiler: My Undertale criticisms. Spoilers obviously

- I like shoot 'em ups so the simple game play elements I enjoy, but in some of the challenges they restrict your movement and I feel they simplify it too much to just pressing once to block/dodge. It's a lot more interesting when they have their own weird attack pattern.

- Really hate the constant messages you have to sit through when you get your new phone, and I didn't like how the technology just suddenly became unlimited either. It was just such an extreme jump from a simple modern concept to Futuristic Sci-Fi Bullshit!

- Breaking the 4th wall is a fun way to surprise people, but it over does it to the point I came to expect it, though there was one I still think is very clever.

- Some jokes just pissed me off instead because they were far too obvious late in the game. Fuck the instant noodles!

- The main character felt less human than the main monster cast. It would've been nice to see her face emote up close at least once.

- When trying a challenge again after losing, sometimes it skips over some of the challenge like it was originally too long. They shouldn't have made it so long then.

What don't you like?

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

"You don't understand not everyone will enjoy your game"

Uh. Call me crazy, but I don't think he gives a crap whether you like it or not. He was responding to you agreeing with someone for saying that people only played the game so they could look down on others. Which is bullshit. He was saying why he liked the game because you made that insulting assumption. The "Not everyone will enjoy your game" argument you pull, indicates a lack of understanding on your part of where this conversation was. Ironic, considering you're the one that put it there.

Don't like the game? Fine. Don't insult the fans and then act surprised when they don't care for being insulted. I don't think Portal and Half-Life were as great as everyone thinks they were and I honestly think my experiences with Half-Life 2 were hurt by people building it up too much, but I can say that without insulting the people who disagree with me.

Let's back up a little bit.

Undertale is the darling of the video game world right now. It's trendy to like it, and when you don't, people like you spontaneously appear in an effort to convince me I'm wrong (for an explanation why I don't like this game, I think Tycho over at Penny Arcade [https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/12/30/early-onset-coot-disease] does a great job at articulating why I don't like it). Every time, every freaking time I say this I get a bunch of fans crawling out of the woodwork and explaining why they think I'm wrong. They can't accept the simple fact that my taste is different than theirs, and they try their utmost to change it. It's like they're being attacked, and that over-enthusiasm will color their perceptions of the game's fans. It's frustrating, because Undertale isn't a bad game...I just don't like it, and I feel the need to defend my reasons for not liking it every time I say so.

It might have to do with the lack of compelling reasons to play Undertale that don't fall under the "If I tell them, I'll spoil it!" category.

The guy I replied to is right in his assumption that Undertale's fanbase has rapidly morphed into a large group of smug, holier-than-thou people who think that this game is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong and should be corrected. And now that it's popular, it has become a selling point for the game: Buy this and show the world that your taste in video games is better than anyone else's! Undertale might not have started off that way, but that's definitely where it is now.

The conversations going on in this thread is proof of that.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I'm guessing you missed/glossed over or otherwise ignored the part where I clearly stated "You don't like the game? Fine." "People like me," aren't saying you're wrong for not liking the game, people like me are calling you out on your attitude towards fans of the game. I have no idea what the hell you're on about when you rant about people not being able to accept your taste, it sounds like you didn't read my post at all.

When someone actually tries to say that your opinion is wrong then he'll have a point. You're misreading what people are saying, countering points that no one made. No one is responding to your opinion of the game, they're responding to you saying no one likes the game for the content and that they just buy it to show off. A claim that the only evidence you seem to have supporting it is "Because I said so."

I don't see anyone looking down on people for not liking Undertale. The closest is the guy who said that you're letting the fanbase sour your opinion of it, and if that's the fanbase looking down on someone, then I'm rather underwhelmed. Plus there was the fact that it was a response to your agreeing with that insult about the fans of Undertale, so, ya know. Don't complain about people not being civil in a conversation when you're the one who made the conversation less than civil in the first place. On the contrary, I see a lot of passive aggressive comments directed at the game and its fans. Undertale seems to be slowly becoming the new thing that's popular to hate.

This time please respond to what I actually said and not to arguments that I didn't make.

 

[EMWISE94]

Hot damn it didn't take long for this thread to become the Undertale bashing grounds. Personally I haven't played the game nor do I intend for two reasons:

1. It was hyped too much/pitched poorly, I remember back in his Dark Souls review Yahtzee mentioned how one of the annoying things about people pithing DS as a good game was them going "oh its good, but we wont tell you why." which is somewhat similar to how Undertale is usually pitched, that is go in blind and experience it and then be amazed. Thankfully I know WHY the game gets so much praise (its because of its writing, its way of subverting commmon gameplay traits in RPGs etc.) but this was at the expense of me just being exposed to spoilers, which i feel isn't the fault of the game, just the fault of people who don't know how to talk about a game without giving away crucial plot details.

2. I have this odd fear of playing RPGs, not that the concept of RPGs scares me but rather I'm always convinced that I'm playing them wrong somehow, either building my character wrong, or not levelling my party properly etc. A fear I've been slowly curbing but Undertale presents another issue I have and thats games with multiple endings and theres always the definitive 'right' ending and if you don't get that one then you basically got a bad end/game over (though I also know of the Genocide run which IS the bad end so I know its possible to avoid it completely) and I'm not down for that.

But personal reasons aside, I can understand why people enjoy it a lot, also I know that "it was overhyped." might not be a good enough reason to play I've watched shows and played games that people have praised as one of the best things since sliced bread and have come out thinking they were 'meh'.

 

[Weasker]

I tried the demo for undertale and can only assume i didn't "get it".

Undertale is basically the "Oscar-bait" of videogames. Like Gone Home, It's main selling point isn't the gameplay or content, it's the ability to look down your nose at anyone who didn't like it.

You easily spot these games by how insufferably smug their fans are.

I'm stealing this. I never could quite put my finger on why everyone and their brother seems to love this game, and this is the best explanation I've found.

I'm starting to suspect that the game caught on because it tries to do almost everything different. But "different" doesn't necessarily mean "good". While I will sit here and preach about how important a game's story is until I am blue in the face, the gameplay is still important. The thing is, the only thing that the gameplay itself does well is being different.

If it's not your kind of humour, and you don't even like the music, so be it. How can I argue ice-cream is tasty if it makes you puke?
But at least try to get that Undertale donesn't care. Maybe had you played it with another midset you'd see that it doesn't care about being "oscar bait", it just is what it is and resonates with a great deal of people.

 

[Eric the Orange]

snip

Seems to me your problem is not with the game it self but rather it's overzealous fans. Which is fine, but going a step beyond that and saying that anyone who likes the game is a smug holier than thou jerk is gonna rub people the wrong way. Which you then use as proof to say "see they are all jerks because they got mad when I called them jerks".

I also see a lot of "everyone likes this thing but I don't". This seems to happen when anything reaches a certain critical mass of popularity in a community. But why is it that people feel the need to defend why they don't like it? I don't care for Witcher 3, Fallout 4, or Bloodborne. And that fine, but I haven't felt the need to go into threads about them letting people know I don't like them. It's OK, you don't have to like what is popular, and their is no reason to feel attacked because a lot of people like something you don't.

Lets use a recent comparison of the last time I remember this happening. A few years ago MLP:FiM hit the internet in a big way. Some people liked it, then a lot of people liked it. Then it hit a critical mass that hype backlash started and people started to hate it because everyone else kept going on about it. Not helped by a small number of over zealous fans feeling like they had to counter attack anyone attacking the show.

Now do I like MLP:FiM, no, I haven't watched it. But I don't hate it's fans. Because I realize that it's really only 1% of it's fanbase that are the "crazys", and the rest are fine. But I could understand why the other 99% would get mad if some one made the blanket statement that all MLP:FiM fans are crazy.

 

[Silence]

snap

I'll put it differently, because maybe that's how he meant it:

Before playing, I (and maybe he too) were like "hmm ... I don't know ... music is kinda overrated ... game looks ugly ... but alright, I'll trust the fanbase who won't tell a single fucking thing about the actual content of the game that other things make up for that, that it is an actual good game.

Then I (and he?) played it. And it was ... utterly mediocre. The fanbase had massively overhyped the game. So this even factored in in the non-enjoyment of the game. The fanbase was utterly obnoxious before (and still is), not even really as a reaction to oneself, just by hyping and hyping it up.

I've met quite a fair bit of friendly fans who won't judge people who didn't like the game, but there are at least an equal amount of fans who just ... hype it even more. And it is utterly annoying, for someone who just "doesn't get it".

I tried the demo for undertale and can only assume i didn't "get it".

Undertale is basically the "Oscar-bait" of videogames. Like Gone Home, It's main selling point isn't the gameplay or content, it's the ability to look down your nose at anyone who didn't like it.

You easily spot these games by how insufferably smug their fans are.

I'm stealing this. I never could quite put my finger on why everyone and their brother seems to love this game, and this is the best explanation I've found.

No, you're stealing that because it's an answer you want to agree with, even though it's a bad explanation. The main selling point is the content.

You want an actual good explanation why the game is so popular? It's because the game is that good. From the likable characters, to the catchy music, to the gameplay-altering bosses, to the different way you can choose to deal with monsters, to the amount of detail that was put into the game to reflect almost every little thing you do; Undertale is a high quality experience. If you let a game's fanbase dictate your experience of said game, then it's your own fault that the experience is soured.

Here is the response why the game is not that good. From the likeable characters, only Temmies are really likeable. Toriel is kinda child-stealing and overprotective and what have you not, the skeletons are the height of annoyment (Papyrus is utterly annoying, Sans is just ... well, he would be alright, if he didn't have this obnoxious derp sound for his speech), some other "likeable" characters are just ... attacking you on sight? How likeable. Alphys is just ... get me more steretypes please! And the killbot ... yeah, he's likeable. It's like someone who abuses you and then expects you to change your attitude once they change their looks. Or ... something. Well, that's the "likable" of my experience.

The music is just not that good. It can't decide between synthesized and 16bit, some tunes are catchy, but a lot of them remind me of already existing music, and it isn't unique ...

Gameplay-altering monsters? Did you play with fighting once? It's utterly boring. And if you play pacifist (which, I found out after playing is the only valid way to play but Undertale fans didn't want to spoil, I guess it's better ... but the amount of random encounters still is utterly annoying.
If you don't play pacifist (especially in your first try) the game is only empty. There are several times where you just hold a direction button for several minutes. My playthrough felt like the game was broken. Seriously.

Different ways to deal with monsters is just the same again, unless pacifist has more options.

Some detail is impressive, some ... especially when you don't play pacifist ... it just has no detail. And let it be said here once again. The game's graphics are really ugly.

So what can you take out of it:
Undertale is massively overhyped, if you don't play the game the apparently only "correct" path, it is not a high quality experience, but a mediocre completely linear semi-RPG.
(oh fun fact, one guy told me, after I complained about the linearity, "the game opens up later". It did not. So ... that's for example something people don't like about the fanbase).

And what about the fanbase? Well, it is so much that you can't go into the game ignoring the fanbase especially if it only tells you "play it, I won't tell you nothing." It can be a waste of time. Literally.
And without the fanbase I would probably not even have tried the game, so ... thank the fanbase for massively disappointing me (and others).

 

[CrazyPaladin]

I disagree with the halo 5 being blandest. It was a refreshing throwback to arena shooters with balance and just tight tight gameplay.

I agree that the gameplay is tight and the game is mechanically sound, but so were pretty much every other halo games. I actually never played halo until 2015, when I bought MCC and played through every title (even reach after it got BCed very recently). My theory is that this franchise evolved so little over the years, that it actually preserved that 2000 some arena shooter feel, and made it quite special among the more modern games.

That being said, I probably had way more fun in halo 5 than any other game released this year, it's got a well designed multiplayer after all. The campaign though is quite blank, especially by halo's standard, but I probably won't put in on the top.

 

[John Malakies]

Really digging this new category. Worst games and disappointing/not trying hard enough games should be differentiated

 

[Silence]

Also need to add this:

If you consider playing Undertale after this list, play Pacifist first. Do not attempt otherwise. Otherwise you will have a bad utterly mediocre time.

Yahtzee is wrong in "go in without knowing anything".