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I prefer Yahtzee's wording :)

It quickly becomes obvious that the Witcher is a PC exclusive game which are typically designed to be as complex and unintuitive as possible so that those dirty console playing peasants don't ruin it for the glorious PC gaming master race.

Source

That said, I love consoles for platform and racing games, and despise them for FPSs and RTSs.

And Katamari Damacy being sold for the PS2, with those dual analog sticks? Perfect control mechanism.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Ohyeah, I almost forgot: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online =)

You might want to read this.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89342-Pride-and-Prejudice-and-Zombies

"Eve Online does the impossible by making deep space boring .." - Zero Punctuation

• Your character is sick. No, that's not "sick" as in "phat", "sick" as in "has a medical condition that will not allow him to jog for more than 20 meters without collapsing". In a game that spans several in-game square kilometers that makes walking on foot from one place to another a torturous exercise; but hey, there are vehicles, aren't there?
• The vehicles suck. They are usually about as bullet-resistant as wet kleenex and have about as much durability; on the other hand they explode into giant fireballs when their lifebar is depleted. Which is incredibly realistic. Because vehicles always do that in real life.
  But it wouldn't be so bad if at least not EVERY FUCKING PERSON ON THE WHOLE PLANET hated your guts and went into murderous overdrive each time they caught sight of a pixel of you; which brings me to the enemies.
• The enemies are incredibly annoying. And I know that a FPS needs enemies that harass the player, and I can accept that - but here it is getting ridiculous. Every time you pass through the dense, dimly-lit jungle and any of the faction catches sight of you they will catch your scent AND THEY WILL NOT LET UP UNTIL YOU HAVE GUNNED EVERY LAST FUCKING ONE OF THEM DOWN! I mean, seriously, let's talk realism, since that seems to be the great selling point: imagine you're a member of the Imaginistani Militia, posted in the deep forest, told to keep an eye out for your mortal enemy, the Imaginistani Rangers. You spy a single person creeping through the jungle, trying to bypass your guard post without being noticed. So now you sound a general alarm, alert every patrol in a two-mile-radius, call in reinforcements on the radio, tag that creeping guy with a giant "please shoot me" neon sign, grab your wapon and go with every other person in that outpost on a single-minded suicide mission trying to KILL THAT ONE GUY whatever the cost, leaving the guard post... unguarded? Does that sound realistic?
• But there is worse stuff. Much, much worse. For one thing, there is the map system. Instead of using an (unrealistic, game-y) map on some techno gizmo or overlaid on the screen in a corner, this game's hero has a... *drumroll* clipboard. Yep, a clipboard. With a magical printed map on it which scrolls as you move and has little symbols for the enemies! (Oh, and those little arrows sometimes wander over the fingers of your guy holding the map. Quality Programming!)
  And because the clipboard is opaque you have a situation not unlike the latest Doom game: you can either see what you're shooting at or where you're going, but not both. Not to mention that, as soon as you use the ineffectual "sprint" mode, the character moves his arms at his sides and takes the map out of the viewfield, making it impossible to see where exactly you are trying to sprint to! Man, I can't tell you how often I had looked at automaps or HUDs in other games and thought how they were much too convenient and useful!

This game sucks, and the designer should IMHO spend as least five of the six pages of an interview apologizing for that giant piece of crap that is Far Cry 2...

Pretty much any 2D game that uses some sort of trickery to emulate 3D gameplay is 2.5D.

I submit this review as evidence of the aforementioned NES/SNES games being considered 2.5D by the gaming industry:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/222-XBLA-Double-Bill

Doom was a "3D game" in that all of the brush work was actually drawn in 3D, even though all of the entities were sprites. Each point on the map had only one height value, but the point is that different points on the map could have different values.

From Yahtzee, on STALKER: Clear Sky

The mystical quicksave key is a dark and mysterious power that can change the very fabric of reality.

I was ambushed by a bunch of jerks on my way somewhere, killed one or two, hit behind a rock, and quicksaved. But then three of them all threw grenades and I ended up with a cloud of shrapnel instead of a face.

After I quickloaded though, they suddenly didn't seem to care. I was able to walk up and affably chat to them about how their day was going. One of them even offered to guide me through the forest, but halfway through he ran off, yelling "That's him! Take him down!"

I couldn't see anyone else around, but it seems he was talking to my processor because at that point the game crashed.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/271-S-T-A-L-K-E-R-Clear-Sky

Controversy and the games industry go hand-in hand like Ico and Yorda, if you'll forgive the incredibly nerdy analogy. And like Yorda, the controversy tends to stay focused for an average of about eight nanoseconds before getting bored and drifting off to do something else. But when it does get focused it can get very exasperating, such as when youthful paragons of self-control are called nasty names and decide that murder would be the wittiest comeback, and then is found to have stood next to a videogame sometime in the past. Then the media generally start drooling the usual uninformed questions as to whether wholesome, boyish pretend violence has any correlation with the real world. Short answer: No. Long answer: No, and go fuck yourselves, you ignorant, scaremongering cockbags. [Text in review: No, and I consider your argument misinformed.]

Source -- Transcription

The Slot-1 Secret -- this piece from early December '08 looks not only into rampant DS game piracy but how Nintendo rendered this piracy moot by shifting toward new audiences. The latter point is far more interesting, as the R4 topic is otherwise old hat.

They only thing that other sites don't have is Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. This guy's video reviews are hilarious. I love this guy when he bash RPG's and ohhh I really do. MGS4 review was pretty good too.

Controversy and the games industry go hand-in hand like Ico and Yorda, if you'll forgive the incredibly nerdy analogy. And like Yorda, the controversy tends to stay focused for an average of about eight nanoseconds before getting bored and drifting off to do something else. But when it does get focused it can get very exasperating, such as when youthful paragons of self-control are called nasty names and decide that murder would be the wittiest comeback, and then is found to have stood next to a videogame sometime in the past. Then the media generally start drooling the usual uninformed questions as to whether wholesome, boyish pretend violence has any correlation with the real world. Short answer: No. Long answer: No, and go fuck yourselves, you ignorant, scaremongering cockbags. [Text in review: No, and I consider your argument misinformed.]

Source -- Transcription

Do you ever wonder why your opinion is different to everyone else's? I mean, sure, some people think Fallout 3 sucked, but shit, even Yahtzee thinks it is awesome, and he's paid not to like anything. That's a piss funny video BTW. Feel free to go watch it and come back saying it wasn't funny.

How the hell is the parent flamebait? Hurt a poor Sony fanboi's feelings?

LittleBigPlanet is at best a tech demo. Strip out the whiz-bang 3D graphics and realize that the amazing physics engine really isn't amazing, and you've got a sidescroller that compares with Super Mario Bros. and is about as controllable.

Then you've got the level editor. Great. The most amazing levels have been, essentially, mechanical computers, and they're only amazing because of the shear amount of abuse required to make the level work. The rest of the community levels seem to be devoted to earning trophies with as little effort as possible.

The sales of Valkyria Chronicles speak for itself. There's a reason no one is buying it.

If you've played the Mirror's Edge demo, you're aware that it's crap. If you haven't, let Yahtzee educate you.

And if you like Rock Band, you're playing it on the Xbox 360, the platform it was designed for. Every other platform is a port. (Just ask Harmonix themselves - they write for the Xbox 360 first, and then port to other platforms.) If you bought a PS3 to play Rock Band, you're an idiot, pure and simple. The Xbox 360 is cheaper and Rock Band is designed for it. The PS3 version is an afterthought, and the PS2/Wii versions have issues with downloadable content - the Wii mainly with incredibly restrictive available storage space, and the PS2 with the lack of a harddrive on any current model.

I'm not really surprised - the PS2 has a huge software library, plus most owners have several peripherals that still prove useful. This weekend I played some Singstar and Guitar Hero III with friends, and I'd be more likely to buy more PS2 games that use the guitar and mikes, than to buy new peripherals (extra functionality and downloadable content notwithstanding).

In fact the Singstar game we played was a brand-new copy of the recently-released Singstar ABBA, and everyone loved it.

You can pick up used PS2 games for a pittance. I remember chatting to a store assistant in a games store, saying he was still always seeing parents come in and picking up PS2s with a bunch of games for the holidays. Console and a load of games well under 100 UK pounds, for which you can't really get another console (perhaps a DS or PSP with one game).

They're still releasing new games for the PS2, a pretty clear indication that it's still alive. No-one sane would advocate playing a cut-down and graphically poor PS2 Force Unleashed, but it's clearly still economically viable to release it. Though some would say the same for the Wii version. And, I don't want to arouse any fanboy ire, but I have a sneaking suspicion that similarities in graphical capabilities between the Wii and PS2 might help the economics of releasing a PS2 port... Anyway, there are a ton of PS2 games that are well worth playing - a brilliant last-generation game beats a mediocre current-gen one.

Everyone commenting on gaming stories should disclose their console preferences to discourage fanboy-ism. My TV is currently hooked up to a Wii, a PS2 and a Sega Master System.

...to not play the game? ;-)

The Zero Punctuation review of Psychonauts is pretty funny:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/2-Psychonauts

(I haven't finished it.. I have it for the PS2, and the controls are supposedly easier on the PC. I'm stuck on the last level, but haven't played it in a long time.)

You can't go by reviews either. Reviewers have already talked them selves in to how good the game will be, reviews are far too positively biased for Big Hits(tm).

Yeah, that's why I watch Zero Punctuation for game reviews. Yahtzee already hates everything, so he only actually likes very few games, and those few games are generally excellent. The problem is, he only does one per week. Also, he doesn't do anything stupid like rate something so large and complex as a game on a five or ten point scale, which I appreciate but some people don't.

Eventually some other game house will make your type of game, only better, and with better graphics and performance. And people will buy that instead.

I disagree with your standards, but there's already been a GTA killer out for months which is actually way more fun than GTA itself, and it's called Saints Row 2. The graphics are inferior, the storyline is juvenile and the deathmatch multiplayer isn't quite as deep as GTA's. On the other hand, the single player game itself is REALLY fun with tons of side missions to do, the character customization system is really really deep, and the game supports full co-op to the point where you can join and quit your friends' game seamlessly.

This review sums it up perfectly. Please note that I'm no ZP shill, and I figured out how awesome Saints Row 2 was long before this review came out. Also, there's a PC port coming which will hopefully be a lot nicer than GTA4's port.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/22-The-Witcher

Actually finding Zero Punctuation is about the only thing I will thank Digg for, but having read that Atari is going to bring that game to the consoles reminded me of the review that hooked me on Yahtzee's style. While it isn't for everyone he does make it fun.

In other words, there rarely are reviewers who say what we want to say let alone so publically

Here's a more appropriate lightsaber article to link to, which explores not the physical construction of the lightsaber, but rather it's mythical import.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_156/5005-Lazer-Swords-and-Thundersabers

Yes, I wrote it.

It's also not a 3-year-old article.

That's why I now make sure I've checked here to see if there's a review before I buy a game. Actual (sarcastic as hell) reviews, rather than paid-for fluff pieces.

There are several games I haven't bought because of this site, and had friends confirm their crappiness. Also, there have been a couple of games I have bought, that I otherwise wouldn't have looked twice at.

> [stuff about how DRM is slowing Spore sales]

Riiight. It's either that, or Spore just isn't nearly as fun as one would expect it to be from all the hype. You apparently bought into it, but not everyone did.

I don't see why this is modded flamebait. He has a legitimate point. Let's face it, processor-wise and capability-wise the Wii is little more than a slightly improved Gamecube. The whole console was built around the controller, as has every game for the system. This is a fun novelty, for sure (and great for parties). But it would still be more than fair to call it a "gimmick," especially as so many Wii owners are now admitting that their Wii's spend most of the time these days gathering dust (only broken out for friends and parties). While consoles like the 360 and PS3 move forward, many Wii owners are increasingly disappointed by scarce offerings and underpowered performance (look at Yahtzee's recent review of the Wii version of The Force Unleashed for a pretty good summary of this problem).

Yeah, I don't understand either why there has to be a news item on Slashdot every time they release a game.

Yeah, you're right, maybe we should stop posting articles every time Linus farts, or every time RMS speaks out against something. Because, you know, those articles don't interest me very much. Oh wait, we can actually ignore those articles we're not interested in, and simply not choose to nag about them.

Is there really a consensus about Penny Arcade being so great? I guess it's a matter of opinion

Yes, it's a matter of opinion. It's like how some people like Dilbert, and yet others don't. Or chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, and even garlic-pistachio-squid flavoured ice cream.

their famous web comic is so unfunny to me I'm trying hard to imagine someone laughing at it

It's like ctrl-alt-del (the webcomic, not the three-fingered salute). I don't know when it's supposed to be funny, and I dread the kind of people laughing at it. For crying out loud, he drew a comic about a miscarriage (haha, dead babies). Yet somehow there seem to be people that religiously follow that comic, and I'm sure if Buckley ever made a game (and I pray that he doesn't, see the dead babies remark) it would sell to those people.

As for your taste... Well, you just have to suffer ours, just like we have to suffer yours, and his.

As Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw said (paraphrasing):

The game designers CLAIM to give you choice, but that choice effectively boils down to to Mother Teresa or baby eating

I love his reviews. Said it all really. :)

Review of Tabula Rasa by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Don't worry, he's British, too. ;) You have to click the movie to start the review. He's a very humorous reviewer with a great style, and he's got a thing for Richard Garriott that makes this video closer to "on-topic" than off-.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/138-Age-of-Conan

You are not special.

1000 ships of boringness

Agreed, I played the Demo for 7 of the 14 days. I've had more fun with Nausea.

1000 ships of boringness

Remember that part where he talks about how nobody likes it when he's being nice to a game? The whole point of the ZP is to make fun of the bad stuff. If you use it for a serious evaluation of the game you're insane. 91 on Metacritic ( http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/crysis?q=crysis ) implies it was a pretty good game. If you didn't like it personally then you're welcome to say so, preferably with an explanation, but a pointless link to someone else's intentionally skewed review does not make for useful discussion.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/21-Crysis

Enough said.

Since you ask: Jack Thompson disbarred.

Shortly after Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was released, a modder released a "topless" mod for the female characters. The ESRB, fearful of another "Hot Coffee" incident, re-evaluated the game and changed the rating from "T" to "M", forcing 2K Games to republish the game with updated box art. I remember thinking to myself, "well, there goes the mod tools".

Sure enough, the next game that Bethesda released doesn't include a mod tool. The Oblivion rating fiasco may not be the only reason but I'll wager it was a factor. And if game creators are being held responsible for the actions of modders, can you blame them?

ZeroPunctuation?

Tried it out on Chrome on my Windows box, and no such problem.

That's because you got lucky. Go here and watch the video in Chrome. It slows your entire machine down to a crawl, and the only way out is to kill the entire browser.

So much for having flash in its own process.

For my November 2006 Escapist article "StarForce Must Die," I asked blogger Bill Harris to present a "DRM Bill of Rights" that resembles Brad Wardell's list. Really, in a sensible world that recognized our right to control the information stored on our own computers, this would all be common sense.

For my November 2006 Escapist article "StarForce Must Die," I asked blogger Bill Harris to present a "DRM Bill of Rights" that resembles Brad Wardell's list. Really, in a sensible world that recognized our right to control the information stored on our own computers, this would all be common sense.

Anyone ever played The Kingdom of Loathing? It's sort of a cross between a text adventure and an MMO, with some writing that I'd put up there with The Hitchhiker's Guide in terms of humor.

I found out about it two weeks ago from an article in The Escapist, and I can't stop playing it.

And it's free (donations welcome, as it pays the developers' salaries).

NMH wasn't a big hit because it wasn't very good.

It really was a big let down in terms of gameplay. However, I never had a problem with the dialog and actually though the cut-scenes were by far the best and made me feel a lot better spending money on it. I thought Zero Punctuation summed it up the best.

The fact of the matter is that very few independent programmers make it big.

I think that's exactly the mentality many developers are trying to escape by "going rogue". Many of them would be happy making a modest living, never "making it big", while creating the games they want to make.

There is another article in the same issue of Escapist that describes the history of Kingdom of Loathing. Nobody's getting rich there, but they jobs a ton of game developers would kill to have.

It'll happen when he ports his Art of Theft game to Facebook and makes money off of it!

I manually edited the save files because it was too hard for me. :(

... the the follow-up video where he replies to critics of the Super Smash Brothers review.

Escapist Magazine's parody of a Yahtzee fan :-)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/de-rez/152-Yahtzees-Biggest-Fan

You can find the rest of his reviews here.

I would specifically recommend Smash Bros. Brawl. Hilarious.

Zero Punctuation - Uncharted

And it'll probably come with a force-feedback codpiece for an enhanced gaming experience.

Objective: Free of personal bias and opinion, as in an objective evaluation.

Your website is broken (in several browsers), so all I can do is go on the comment responses...

You seem to be making values judgments on the fact that there is porn in the new game. You are comparing it to your subjective opinion of Second Life.

Watch from minute 3 on, he says it best.

People stopped listening to him a long time ago.

Ah no, there you're wrong. Never underestimate the entertainment value of a nutbar in vocal mode.

What they've done is stop taking him seriously. I'm a long way from being tired hearing about him.

In my opinion, one of the best treatments of his obviously deranged state is that done by de-rez http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/de-rez/55-Jack-Thompson-The-Movie

Serious coffee on keyboard time.

Check out the zeropuctuation reviews to experience the true joy a really agreesively bad review can bring...

Each new issue leaves me wondering why he even games, given he seems to hate all types of games and gamers so much ;)

WARNING: ZeroPunctuation is NSFW!!