Zero Punctuation: XBLA Double Bill

[BobisOnlyBob]

Wow, I knew that yahtzee alwasy had fanboys but I didn't knew he had this many. This guy proves it when he says "Yahtzee has never been wrong". Sure you could alwasy agree with the guy but you can't just say the he's right and he's the "truth". Even I'm not this upset with this issue.

Let me reword it then, because I'm not completely stupid and I don't take everything at face value:

I have never disagreed with him, even when he has said things contrary to my beliefs.

I play Super Smash Bros Brawl. Just because he hated on it (with a resounding 'Ehhh') doesn't mean I'm going to stop playing it. But every single point he made against it was valid, correct, and showed things about the game in a way a regular reviewer would be hard-pressed to do.

He's no god. He's just louder, has a unique reviewing style, and knows what the fuck he's on about. The result is, he's the best damn reviewer online and practically the only one I trust for an honest opinion unfettered by editors, money, or other bullshit, and equally not having the ability to hide behind anonymity. Everyone knows he's Ben Croshaw, British expat living in Australia, wears a trilby hat, etc. etc. He's a public figure, he's not afraid to speak his mind, and I've never found a reason to strongly disagree with him about much.

People who continue to bicker over which 3d Zelda and which 3d Mario are superior, feel free too, but you're missing the point of why he mentioned them.

 

[DtheHut]

for a second I thought he said wind waker was better then OoT, and thought he must have been on crack while playing that one

I... I'm at a loss for words on this one. I personally thought Wind Waker was the best of the Legend of Zelda series, or at least tying up with Link to the Past and Link's Awakening. Ocarina of Time, to me at least, was a large and very resounding "decent."

Why do people hate on Wind Waker so much, was it the cel-shading?

Totally freaking agree on that one. Windwaker took the series into an artistic realm that it hadn't been to in a long time. It sounded good, and it played flawlessly. I really liked ZOoT as well, perhaps more than ZTP. But I do agree with Yahtzee on Mario 64 versus Sunshine. People were put off by the water gun for some reason... As if it were a huge stretch for a plumber who was last seen jumping into paintings and was no stranger to dressing up like a raccoon so he could fly to suddenly don a super soaker and clean graffiti so magic star-children would return to a tropical island inhabited by pear-people.

P.S. Hitler? Really?

 

[Booze Zombie]

I didn't enjoy that particular video, I found it rather dull, though I agree strongly with his assessment of Castle Crashers and BC:Rearmed.

I think near the end, he just started calling things terrible to see if he could piss off some more people and it shows.
That was probably the point... but, I don't go for that sort of humor.

 

[KenzS]

Yahtzee has just cursed the name of Zelda, this blasphemist must be purged.....


Obviously Yahtzee was joking about the whole Hitler thing, but still... its not funny yahtzee!

 

[MattClassic]

Another entertaining and informative review, but I have to admit that I'm kinda bummed you didn't review TFU.

As for the games: Castle Crashers looks like a lot of fun and it's made by the same people that did Alien Hominid, so I'll probably be getting it at some point. Bionic Commando... meh, I thought the grappling hook mechanic was clunky and unintuitive the first time I played it back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and it doesn't appear anything in that regard has been changed for the remake.

 

[Archedgar]

Pfft, Ocarina of Time sucks, you should have played A Link to the Past.

...

Good review even though I had only ever heard of Bionic Commando a LONG time ago and even then it wasn't that popular.

Yahtzee should stick to popular games so I can at least have heard of them, I was sort of expecting him to have reviewed warhammer, what with the MASSIVE hype it has been receiving.

 

[EsotericLB]

Back to form after the mildly disappointing Spore review. Well done, sir.

 

[MrLefty]

Nicely done, Yahtzee. Again.

Meanwhile, time to have a go at Force Unleashed for all its horrible, horrible design decisions, don't you reckon? Before the title's undeserved success encourages other developers to copy them?

Watching those smarmy gits congratulate themselves on Star Wars fanboys' inability to resist a story about Darth Vader even if the gameplay is linear, the deaths are cheap, the controls are wonky, boss battles involve quick time events, and the star destroyer scene is a complete abomination against God... well, it brought a tear to my eye. And a sinking feeling to my stomach.

Hopefully it'll bring another first-class ZP on the subject next week.

 

[boholikeu]

Most people hate quick time events because more often than not they are either unnecessary or covering up a design flaw.

Good return to form after last week's review, though I do enjoy playing the occasional "nostalgic game" with my friends. Still, I realize that Yahtzee doesn't particularly care for this type of gameplay.

 

[Dectilon]

I can't be sure of this, but I think the reason Rearmed is 2D-in-3D is because the same company is making a new Bionic Commando game in 3D, and Rearmed is using the same engine. Gives them an opportunity to show it off etc : P

Yathzee's reviews are a little hard to understand at times. Frantic speed combined with not always crystal-clear sarcasm explains at least half of the angry posts here.

So basically what he says is that a lot of old games look better to us simply because they are classic to us and that the concepts of those games may or may not have been improved upon in newer games.

Yathzee has his own problem with nostalgia with Painkiller for example. Seldom have I played such an unsatifying game. I'd rather play Invasion in UT : P

 

[icnfde]

I don't know... it seems like you missed the mark with this one. You could have nailed Castle Crashers with it's HUGE multiplayer connection problems (being an Aussie yourself I figured that would have been the first thing you commented on, I haven't been able to connect to an online game since I bought it two weeks ago), but instead you went for the nostalgia angle.

After your Spore review (soooooooo many issues you could have brought up with that game...) it's making me wonder if you're even playing these games at all or just browsing through them without a care in the world in hopes you'll find something to make a joke about.

 

[Ixus Illwrath]

Any mention of Jhonen Vasquez deserves mention.

 

[yourkie1921]

What'd you rather? I prefer the health bars.......and possibly the hide behind cover system at the same time as long as you're not spending all of your time sucking your thumb waiting for your health to recover and enemies advance often enough where you won't heal a lot mid-fight. But the lives system can go to hell.

I still prefer the fusion bhetween the two that we got in Resistance and Condemend 2.

Yea, that's pretty good. But the lives system can go to hell

I must agree. Up until now I thought you were one of the most intelligent people on this planet. Then you make a shitty comment like "Hitler was right". What was that for? That was not funny. That was not cool. When did you become Mel Gibson. If you said it for any other reason other than you thought it was funny it makes you are horrible excuse for a human being, and yes, if anyone who heard it thought it was funny, you are an asshole too.
report

SILENCE! Not even worth responding to but still incredibly infuriating.

Yahtzee has just cursed the name of Zelda, this blasphemist must be purged.....

I say the Zelda games suck, period. All of them. And mario should stomp on link's head until he dies

Yathzee has his own problem with nostalgia with Painkiller for example. Seldom have I played such an unsatifying game. I'd rather play Invasion in UT : P

He admits he does. And he picked up Painkiller recently before he reviewed it, or atleast somewhat recently since he found it after it went to the bargain bin

I never understood why Yahtzee hates quick time events so much.

He doesn't necisarily hate them. See the uncharted drake's fortune review......well I think it was that one. He just hates them when they're done but aren't done often enough, have small indicators, and are neutrally colored

Obviously Yahtzee was joking about the whole Hitler thing, but still... its not funny yahtzee!

Yea, it's a failed joke. But I still like it because he successfully trolled extremely sensitive people.

 

[Wargamer]

On the Ocarina vs Twilight debate, the answer should be obvious.

Master Quest.

Ocarina rocked, but I have reached the point where I could probably beat the whole damn game wearing a blindfold. Twilight Princess rocked also, and probably rocked enough to snipe Ocarina for so many reasons. The first two that pop into my head are the fact you are at no point required to play as Child Link, and the second is the huge amount of Furry Wolf-Link-On-Imp-Midna porn that the game spawned to keep us entertained between gaming sessions.

The reason I'd pick Master Quest is that most of the dungeons are harder than Garry Glitter in the school playground. The insane difficulty ensures that fans of the original Ocarina have plenty to keep them occupied, especially as much of the enhanced difficulty comes from moving the whole damn dungeon around as opposed to just doubling the number of monsters as most games do.


I've not played the actual games reviewed, and I probably won't. However, I can't deny that nostalgia does play a big role in making old games seem great. That said, Jumping Flash remains bloody good fun to this day...


Oh yeah, like others have said - the "Hybrid" Health system used by Resistance is the best ever devised.

 

[Shadow-Knight]

Am I the only one who thinks that his video length should be doubled? He hardly talked about Castle Crashers at all. It was an average video, not great, but at least he destroyed BC.

 

[anti_strunt]

Having read the comments resulting from this video, I feel dumber.

Was everyone oblivious to his point about RELATIVITY? ROSE-TINTED glasses? He likes Twilight Princess and Mario Sunshine because they WERE THE FIRST 3D GAMES IN THOSE SERIES HE PLAYED.

He then goes on to declare "ALSO HITLER WAS RIGHT" because Hitler was the FIRST CONQUERING FACIST he knew presumably, therefore IT MUST BE RIGHT, are you understanding the hypocrisy of loving your past so tightly now? He's being deliberately hypocritical to make a point, and people are STILL jumping down his throat, even with his two-seconds-later disclaimer. The point is that YOU LOVE YOUR PAST and therefore like things you've liked before. So companies make games that cash in on this.

Hell, I still love FFVII, and I know deep down than graphically it's poor, the villian is bland, the main character's a mess and sorting him out is more effort than it's worth, and most of the support cast are one-shtick stereotypes tucked into their own nice backstory that's usually mutually exclusive to everyone else. Yet it's still MY FAVOURITE and if they remade it flawlessly, preserving everything I loved from the first with shiny new graphics and the same old materia system minus the glitches, I would pay full price for it, because my perspective is skewed and I know it and enjoy it.

Also there's a ton of things about 2D/3D playspaces and 2D/3D graphics. Castle Crashers has 2D graphics and a 3D playspace (up into background/down into foreground, left/right, and jumping up/down, 3 axis, 3D). This results in the 2-pixel miss-wiggle nonsense that should've stopped with Golden Axe. Bionic Commando has 3D graphics and 2D gameplay (left/right, grapple up/down). What's the point of the wasteful 3D on bland 2D gameplay that has barely been refined? Giving nostalgia a fresh coat of paint. That's it. There's no other benefit except maybe to appease people who detest anything that looks old, in which case they'll probably hate it once they start playing it anyway.

Yahtzee has never been wrong - you just have to be on the same level of insane, ultra-self-aware, reflexive mentality as him to see why. Everything is wonderful and shiny, everything is made of shit. But I see very little wonderful and shiny in the forum posts above me, and now look what you've made me done. I've written a horrible, bitter little rant and now I'm one of you gibbering idiots claiming to understand what's going through Yahtzee's head. Fuck it. I have no clue, I just think he's got a point and here's my understanding of it. In his own words, if you don't like it, fuck off.

Cocks.

I think this guy "got it".

By the way, what if what he actually said was "Hitler was WRIGHT" - coming of his Spore review, that would actually make a lot of sense. Or maybe it wouldn't, but still.

 

[Dectilon]

"He admits he does. And he picked up Painkiller recently before he reviewed it, or atleast somewhat recently since he found it after it went to the bargain bin"

Really? I thought he said he played it when it was new as well : /

Anyways, the point here is that retro games are just like games are in general. We all appreciate different things, many of which are completely idiotic, like games were trial-and-error is required to finally conquer, or shooters were all the weapons feel like cork pistols. : )

Sometimes we head back high on nostalgia unable to notice any flaws, and sometimes we crash and burn, shocked by how much time we spent playing crap.

And sometimes we do neither and just call each other cocks on forums.

 

[Korso]

Funny how most people say that sure Sunshine was better than 64 but no way Twilight was better than Ocarina of Time, I think Sunshine wasn't much better than 64, but Twilight beats Ocarina by a long shot. BobisOnlyBob wins the thread, nostalgia and such plays a big role in what you think is good. Without nostalgia I'm pretty sure I'd say: "Man Bionic Commando is bad and the jumping system is retarded" but no no, I think it's awesome and the hand is cool.

 

[Ken_Oh]

Registered just to post this. Usually I like ZP, but I just have to note some wrongness that hasn't been noted already.

First, spikes in ReArmed aren't "insta-death," unless you're playing the challenge rooms, but that just voids the lives complaint. And doesn't Art of Theft pretty much have a lives system too?

Someone mentioned how the grapple system isn't hard, since it's just over for and end of swing release or down to a release at any time before that. More to the point, Yahtzee suggested the grapple button should also release. That can't be done since it's only one button and there are 2 forms of releasing. He didn't think this one through.

Also, it's not that strange that a 2D platformer can't jump. Somehow jumping 5 times your height is standard; it's healthy to challenge that. And, barrels aren't waist-high.

ReArmed is very, very easy on the default difficulty all up until Albatross, but it's pretty obvious Yahtzee didn't get close to getting that far.

 

[inspirer]

Yahtzee's method boils down to this: anything that you may say in a British/Auzy accent will sound funny to a dumb enough audience.

And he is probably right, as is evident from the amount of applause that he gets.

He has some real talent that shows every once in a while but he mostly relies on his fanboys to keep the traffic high because they like to hear "fuck ... shit ... dick ... ****" in a British/Auzy accent, don't care about what's filling in the blanks and wouldn't know subtle humor if it bit them in the ass.

Here's a little test for all of you to know if you are one: if you can watch a clip three times without getting bored - you're a stupid fanboy. If you laughed in all three times then your brain is defective. extremely defective if you don't even care about the game being reviewed.

Maybe some of the reviews are insightful... I wouldn't know 'cause I never played any of those games, I don't even own a console but I enjoy it as a comedy, that is, until recently I found that it did all it can do for me and now it's just very nicely edited and narrated boring piece of text. If you don't agree you are either:
1. a stupid fanboy (stupid enough to still find funny the usage of the word FUCK in any sentence coming out of that asshole).

2. care about the game being reviewed (aka a liar and actually a fanboy).

or

3. just seen this for the first time and everything is new and exciting, in that case, it's interesting to see if you'll become a fanboy by the time you finnish watching all the other clips including all the ones that cover games that you don't care about.