Zero Punctuation: Top 5 of 2012

[Superior Mind]

For all my pretend sophistication I still laugh at raspberries as much as when I was two years old.

:/

 

[scorptatious]

Kind of disappointed you didn't list Rayman Origins.

Rayman Origins came in 2011.

OT: Glad to see XCOM: Enemy Unknown up there on the top 5 best list.

Although I can't help but wonder what you would have thought of Journey, assuming you even played it.

 

[StashAugustine]

Well Spec-Ops: The Line is mostly a left wing anti-war/anti-military wank dressed up as a game. It's really great if you happen to agree with it's message, then you can claim it's profound, needed commentary, on something people try and overlook. If you belong to the other 50% of the population then it's just a mediocre game with a misguided piece of political propaganda sewn in which it insists on constantly bludgeoning you over the head and shoulders with.

As a result, "Spec-Ops: The Line" is something a critic, like Yahtzee can praise on the merits of it's message, if they happen to agree (which you might guess Yahtzee does, given all of his anti-US military rants in various reviews), but something a person with more pretensions of being a reviewer can't in good conscience lionize because really aside from that "message" it has nothing going on, and really it's something not everyone is going to agree with.

Not trying to be confrontational, but did you play The Line? I was actually very surprised at how understated the explicit anti-war elements were. It's more focused on deconstructing the mindset of a shooter protagonist. There are a few bits where it brings up current events (surprise surprise the CIA is evil) but aside from that it's relatively apolitical. I liked it because it's a fairly convincing portrayal of a man's tragic fall mixed with a deconstruction of shooters.

 

[daxterx2005]

As much as I liked the Resident Evil series, I wish they'd just stop.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

I'm playing The Walking Dead, and don't get me wrong, the character developing and story are great, but I feel cheated: the game promises me that the game changes to fit my gameplay and that the my choices change the story, and both just don't happen.

My choice seems only to change the relations between the characters and the gameplay just don't seem to change at all.

What I expected was that my choices would change completely the story, but I'm bound to a linear path, at least on the big picture. Sure, the choices can change the characters relations, but it's not up to the promised features.

Bottom line: great game, unfulfilled promises.

they say the story adapts to your choices they never said your actions completely change the story

adapt [əˈdæpt]
vb
1. (often foll by to) to adjust (someone or something, esp oneself) to different conditions, a new environment, etc.
2. (tr) to fit, change, or modify to suit a new or different purpose: to adapt a play for use in schools
[from Latin adaptāre, from ad- to + aptāre to fit, from aptus apt]

....

Are you seriously arguing semantics?

Please don't.

Also, your comment doesn't really say anything about why you dislike The Walking Dead.

Probably because you copied the definition for "adapt" from some dictionary website and used it as a substitute for your own opinion.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

The only thing this list did was to remind me how few games I have acutally played this year. I still have a lot of catching up to do.

Also, spunkgargleweewee is still a really stupid term.

I believe that's the point of the newfangled terminology.

 

[TAdamson]

Well Spec-Ops: The Line is mostly a left wing anti-war/anti-military wank dressed up as a game. It's really great if you happen to agree with it's message, then you can claim it's profound, needed commentary, on something people try and overlook. If you belong to the other 50% of the population then it's just a mediocre game with a misguided piece of political propaganda sewn in which it insists on constantly bludgeoning you over the head and shoulders with.

"Propaganda"? At least it isn't totally historically revisionist like Black Ops. But all this really shows is that you missed Spec-Ops' real meaning.

It's is an indictment of unthinking jingoism but not an indictment of thoughtful muscular foreign policy. However it's more anti-military shooter and anti-violence porn than anti-war. A forth-wall breaking comment on how little the games we play as entertainment actually reflect on the massive amounts of violence that they allow us to perpetuate in their imaginary worlds.

Errant Signal probably analyzes this game best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlBrenhzMZI

But it's typical of you that you think that because a military shooter isn't unashamedly pro-war you think that it must be propaganda. Military shooters represent none of the real effects of war, rather they fetishize combat into something that is completely imaginary.

Spec-Ops fetishizes the combat in the same way and then asks you why you're doing it. It has nothing to say about any real war or current military conflict (Really, the situation depicted in Spec-Ops is absurd.) apart from perhaps the fact that violence brutalizes everyone around it including it's perpetrators.

If you wanted a real anti-war game you'd probably have to make the protagonist a woman fleeing with small children from their village as it was hit by a sectarian murder patrol or a US military airstrike.

 

[Erttheking]

Of course it was.. you saw how much advertising ME3 had here and how fervently most of The Escapist contributors were to defend EA and condemn the consumer outcry.

yes...obviously foul play is the only answer....

To be perfectly honest, anyone would've stood up for EA when Zeel was still running around.

 

[JoaoJatoba]

they say the story adapts to your choices they never said your actions completely change the story

adapt [əˈdæpt]
vb
1. (often foll by to) to adjust (someone or something, esp oneself) to different conditions, a new environment, etc.
2. (tr) to fit, change, or modify to suit a new or different purpose: to adapt a play for use in schools
[from Latin adaptāre, from ad- to + aptāre to fit, from aptus apt]

....

Are you seriously arguing semantics?

Please don't.

Also, your comment doesn't really say anything about why you dislike The Walking Dead.

Probably because you copied the definition for "adapt" from some dictionary website and used it as a substitute for your own opinion.

If someone says something adapts to other thing, I expect that something CHANGES. So, yeah, semantics... It matters when some one says that something adapts but doesn't change.

About my opinion, you seem lazy, cause it's right there on your quote, so I'll give the short answer: I don't dislike it, I LOVE IT. I just feel that they don't deliver what is promised on the warning before the title screen.

Long version, copied and pasted below.

I'm playing The Walking Dead, and don't get me wrong, the character developing and story are great, but I feel cheated: the game promises me that the game changes to fit my gameplay and that the my choices change the story, and both just don't happen.

My choice seems only to change the relations between the characters and the gameplay just don't seem to change at all.

What I expected was that my choices would change completely the story, but I'm bound to a linear path, at least on the big picture. Sure, the choices can change the characters relations, but it's not up to the promised features.

Bottom line: great game, unfulfilled promises.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Even Far Cry 3, as good as I might guess it is from the opinions of a banana and other fruity folk, makes me shudder at the thought of signing in to Ubisoft's DRM BS every time I want to play. And it's an open-world shooter (like Just Cause 2) with plenty of guns (fullfilled by Valve games and Killing Floor).

Actually, I'd say it's more of a stealth-em-up than a shooter. Sure, there are boomsticks aplenty, but I spent most of the game hiding in the brush waiting for an enemy to wander too close so I could jump out, stab him, pull the pin on the grenade in his belt, and throw his body into a group of his friends.

It feels even better for me who preps for night time and waits in the shadows before climbing up a steel container, stabbing one guy in the chest,hopping down to stab another and pull the pin and then stab another to throw a knife towards the second to last guy and finally pop the other in the head with a silenced SMG and all that while playing background MGS sneak music.

It's my first far Cry game but it's also a recent favourite of mine since we are rewarded just as well for using stealth tactics rather than most shooters these and sandboxes these days where it's best to go in guns blazing.

Plus I love watching my enemies freak out when they find one of their stabbed buddies only for the dead to serve as mere bait for another.

 

[Wolfram23]

I don't get the fuss about Spec Ops. I played for about 2 hours and was just bored and didn't find it in the least bit interesting enough to continue. Maybe I'll push through to figure out what all the hype is about but honestly, it screamed "samey boring shooter" to me. Doesn't help that on PC they decided to just 1:1 convert gamepad buttons instead of giving things their own buttons like they're supposed to. Basically, the controls felt like I was driving a very large school bus full of fat children instead of a coupe.

 

[otakon17]

But the bigger question is: Is Yahtzee still a banana?

 

[weirdee]

FINALLY. Some list agrees spec ops is the game of the year, I can die happy.

I'm here, friend. The unpopularity of the line just shows the state of the industry. The game is a mind fuckingly amazing, but people won't buy it, because the reviewers gave it an 8 and not a 9.

No, I think it's more about the poor mechanics, and that playing it is exactly like hitting yourself in the face with the history book as illustrated in the video. Some people don't want to buy a game that's really, really not fun, and I can respect that. In fact, it's sort of wise to avoid it because you can't really stop playing it once you get into it like in that movie Saw where you have to cut your leg off to escape.

I don't get the fuss about Spec Ops. I played for about 2 hours and was just bored and didn't find it in the least bit interesting enough to continue. Maybe I'll push through to figure out what all the hype is about but honestly, it screamed "samey boring shooter" to me. Doesn't help that on PC they decided to just 1:1 convert gamepad buttons instead of giving things their own buttons like they're supposed to. Basically, the controls felt like I was driving a very large school bus full of fat children instead of a coupe.

1. They made the beginning part of the game samey ON PURPOSE.
2. Keep playing. Heh heh heh.

 

[Your Gaffer]

Genuinely surprised Black Ops 2 didn't make his 'Worst' list for how much vitriol he spewed about it.

He actually wasn't THAT down on it.

 

[jmarquiso]

Genuinely surprised Black Ops 2 didn't make his 'Worst' list for how much vitriol he spewed about it.

What he didn't like was that not much has changed, not that it was utterly terrible.

Oh, and it was racist.

Didn't make it the "worst" as Warfighter is clearly worse.

 

[jmarquiso]

I'm playing The Walking Dead, and don't get me wrong, the character developing and story are great, but I feel cheated: the game promises me that the game changes to fit my gameplay and that the my choices change the story, and both just don't happen.

My choice seems only to change the relations between the characters and the gameplay just don't seem to change at all.

What I expected was that my choices would change completely the story, but I'm bound to a linear path, at least on the big picture. Sure, the choices can change the characters relations, but it's not up to the promised features.

Bottom line: great game, unfulfilled promises.

It says its "tailored" to the choices you make. While character relations change, the story is yours regardless. Won't get into the end, but some choices pay off, and you're given more. Do one full playthrough blind, then go back and change some choices around.

It's like what people expected about Mass Effect. I only played the first 2 games mind you, but both followed a linear plot structure, and only character relationships - and some deaths - changing. But the plot? No, that seems to always remain the same. I don't know why people expected so many endings for ME3. It felt more binary as there were clear paragon and renegade choices. In TWD there are no good choices.

Don't know how far you got, but...(as non-spoilery as possible)

Spoiler

the last episode depends very much on your actions up until that point. Who comes with Lee, what they do and where they end up (particularly Kenny), and where you find Clem all culminate into a great finale. Sure the ending doesn't change- they don't - but the real payoff ending is our deus ex machina guy at the end and how Lee and Clem handle him. Finally, how Clem handles herself with that guard is also a payoff. The after credits sequences feels like sort of a cheat, though.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Genuinely surprised Black Ops 2 didn't make his 'Worst' list for how much vitriol he spewed about it.

Black Ops 2 and the entire MMS genre (baring Spec Ops: The Line) was represented by Warfighter.

 

[Bindal]

I hate how he's constantly hating on shooters, it's so clear that he doesn't like shooters.

May I direct your attention to his Warfighter/Doom 3 Review? He loves shooters - he hates Spunkgargleweewee.

 

[jmarquiso]

I know that, but why can't we have both? There space for both kind of decisions: decisions that changes the path we take, and decisions about other characters that develop relations.

Honestly? Money. AND the episodic structure. Considering that, I think they do a good job. The game was a surprise hit, as their Jurassic Park game was a total flop.

Honestly, I think they did a better job than the Mass Effect series. All the decisions are clearly dilemmas. And characters clearly change around you as you make decisions. But the plot remains largely the same despite how many times they tell you otherwise.

Spoiler

How does the decision between Kaiden or Ashley really effect the rest of the plot? It's an emotional payoff adn that's that. It barely factors into Mass Effect 2 unless you had a relationship with Ashley during that time. And even then, it earns a sentence and a picture in your ready room. Even the ending of Mass Effect 1, in which you choose between Humanity and the other Citadel aliens - which should have a clear reflection on humanity and its place in the universe - barely gets more than a casual mention.

For example, early in the first episode you can choose to stay in one location or to leave. Whatever the choice we end up in the same place... Why cant we have different outcomes for a decision that is purely about "where to go now"?

You're teaching Clem. Do you have hints on? I played without hints on, and apparently I missed the whole "Clem will remember this..." dialog. Also, the hints really mess with you in later episodes. When I replay, I will with hints.

In this case, you end up at the same location, but you didn't choose it. This undermines you as a leader to the rest of the group. Also later, with the tractor, who you choose to save doesn't change who gets saved. However character reactions change toward you. I actually got annoyed about how many times Kenny tells me how he feels, but apparently others didn't understand that this actually had a lasting effect (and certainly effects his decisions later on in the game).

 

[jmarquiso]

I hate how he's constantly hating on shooters, it's so clear that he doesn't like shooters and I wish he would stop reviewing them if he only does so to complain about them.

Yes, that is sarcasm that comes out of my annoyance from all of those who complain on all his reviews of shooters.

As for the list I have been unable to play most of the games he mentioned (I'm staying away from bottom 5), but I have bought Spec Ops The Line because of his praise for it and I'm looking forward to the day I'll finally have time to play it. X-com was a game I wanted to buy on day 1, but my backlog was too big at the time (still is) so I am putting that on hold for a while.

Playing XCom at the moment (got it yesterday) and it's brilliant. It's definitely in my top 5 of the year - though I haven't played Spec Ops or Dishonoured yet.

My top 5:

Hotline: Miami
The Walking Dead
Mark of the Ninja
XCOM
FTL

I'm fairly certain that will shift around a bit, but this year was clearly the year for the small downloadable title.