Has Zero Punctuation Run its Course?

[JokerCrowe]

I'm somewhat of a Yahtzee fanboy...

Spoiler: so I've written a pretty long answer..

At least my friends tell me that I am a Yahtzee fanboy. Mostly because I like so many thing about him: he is British (plus for me), cynical, dark, jaded, VERY funny, and he likes videogames. But I also like his reviews because I find them to be very professionaly delivered and even though he may exadurate things he (almost) always makes a valid point. i don't think I will ever stop liking ZP, unless he does something really drastic, but I get why some people don't think is as funny or entertaining, (which makes me less of a fanboy... right?)
My resoning is this: since he was such a groundbreaking kind of reviewer on the internet, I think a lot of people were ( "awe-struck" is the wrong word...) impressed at how funny, controversive and downright mean his reviews were... so when the first Wow-factor was dropped, he didn't seem as good anymore. Even though his still is the gamereviewer I trust the most, him having such a great start made it seem even worse when he wasn't as funny. I mean if people are fed the best food they have ever had for about a month, nothing will taste as good, even if it's their second favorite food, (tortured analogy, but you get my point right?). and that is why I think people don't think he is as funny anymore, they still remeber how funny and exeptional he was at first... but now he's just like everybody else who review games (I don't think so, but someone else might...) so he's lost his egde...
Just my two cents.

tl;dr?
My short answer is "no", Yahtzee and ZP has not gone downhill in my oppinion...

EDIT: I just realized that I posted twice... I thought the server went down when I posted the first time, so I rewrote the post and posted again... Is there any way to remove a post?

 

[im jt]

i think it has some more potential

 

[CJ1145]

Zero Punctuation has not gotten old.

But all these damned threads asking the question have.

 

[bassdrum]

Even when Yahtzee isn't being funny, I still like ZP for how he rips into games. All too often, reviewers are nice to games because they care about the developers feelings, so it's nice to see someone willing to rip into these games. Plus, he plays with what he's saying and is (usually) rather amusing, which is more than can be said for the Angry Video Game Nerd, who was funny for about 1/2 of a second before falling back onto shit jokes and useless blasting of the games.

 

[Deadlock Radium]

Well, I think he's as funny as he's always been, sure, sometimes he's not as funny as always, but that's the way it is. I do not want ZP to end, not for a long, long time.

 

[Prometherion]

It's still going to be profusely popular. I still think it is the second most over-appreciated show on the Escapist.

What's the first?

Rebecca Mayes Muses.

Thank you. Put bluntly she gets away with it because shes attractive.

Hah, her looks doesn't make the videos worth watching with that "music" in the background...

Personally I think shes smart enough to realise that a good looking girl can get a lot of pay per view money on a gamer website where the vast majority of the audience are men. Cynical much?

Also any one who has watched one of Yahtzee's videos drunk knows how funny it is.

 

[Pants McCracky]

If ZP is getting less funny or inventive, I blame the games, not Yahtzee. When 99% of the games being released are either sequels or nearly identical copies of the same four or five basic game templates -- with the same story/gameplay/technical flaws every single time -- it must get harder and harder to find anything to say about these games that hasn't been said a dozen times. I thought his Darksiders review basically summed up his frustration with most of the games he covers.

I still think ZP is hilarious, but the funniest ones now, to me, are reviews of games that are on the extremes of good or bad -- like the Too Human episode, where he gets to just rip the hide off of a laughably incompetent game, or the Batman review, where he's struggling comically to find something critical to say about a game that he and most other critics obviously like.

 

[D088Y]

It's still going to be profusely popular. I still think it is the second most over-appreciated show on the Escapist.

Whats the first then? (obivously in your opinion but imm interested in what could be more overly-appreciated)

 

[Adanos]

I still find it awesome and I still receive the weekly amount of lulz.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

No but these threads sure have!

*ba-dum-tish!*

 

[Terramax]

Unlike TV shows, he doesn't take a rest. It's not done as a series i.e. 12 episodes, wait 6-12 months, do it again kinda jobbie.

Also, he does review the same kind of games.

I still find many of his points relevant though.

 

[ClockworkKnight]

I like Yahtzee's honesty, especially about crap like Borderlands. I thought it was weird he doesn't like anything at first. He even great stuff like ME2 a little, but I figure I need one reviewer who tells the absolute truth. I think it goes too far only in that his views will do little to create good change. They aren't very constructive, they are quite the opposite.

 

[Umberphoenix]

Well, I don't find it "funny", I find it like an actual game review with a little bit of meaning, not "we got paid by the game developer so we give it five stars" and not "we hate it because it was all hyped-up before it came out so instead of actually playing the game we just say IT SUCKS ARSE".

 

[gillebro]

I wouldn't say it's run its course JUST yet, but it definitely won't last forever.
There's a marked difference between his earlier stuff and his later stuff, definitely. I wouldn't say his earlier stuff was "better", because he was still finding his rhythm and in his later stuff he's definitely found his rhythm and is excelling with it (there's a sex joke in there somewhere), but jokes do get tired and maybe his are starting to as well. Having said that, the main thing I love about ZP are the little almost miss-able jokes he shoves in there, like in Call of Juarez where he talks about the three brothers losing their mama in their homestead, and the picture being a silhouette of their mother on top of a burning house saying "you little shits", and in the MW2 review when he says "the single campaign is as short as fuck and let me tell you when i'm around fucks are legendarily short" when the screen's all black except for the word "sorry" squashed to one side, and he still delivers those with great aplomb. Those sorts of things are good for becoming more well-known, because they make the vids enjoyable for non-gamers too.
I've always liked how he's British (as much as he may or may not be trying to deny it by fleeing to Australia - sorry Yahtzee. You'll never be one of us. That inherent British pessimism can never be shaken away, and I would really like to see you trying to do our accent) in the perpetual tidal wave of American reviewers that exist all over the place. It's good that he's made such a name for himself in the video game world in spite of and indeed possibly partly because of his not being American or Japanese. I consider his humour to be very British in nature, so it's nice that he's transferring that to a mainly America/Japan-based industry. Also his jokes on the BBC and British Rail amuse me in that they're fairly culture-specific, so whether or not watchers from other countries understand them I don't know.
Blimey this comment's getting long. OK, long story short, it will get old and tired, but I wouldn't necessarily say it has done yet.

 

[Zannah]

Or am I completely wrong?

Yes. This.

/thread

seconded

 

[Firefoxmccoy]

I have to say it is sorta...alike to all his other vids. Maby he should add some new...IDK things I will say besides imps... still I do not think that ZP has run aground yet.

 

[Lunic-]

What's with the offtopic bashing of Rebecca Mayes on this thread? Is there some mass of people that walk around the internet telling: "Rebecca Mayes Muses is teh bestest!!!11", or why are you saying it's overrated. I personally like her songs and music videos by the way, so I would like to hear some solid arguments other than "Durr it's overrated."

Ontopic:

I have watched Yahtzee since the beginning, and yes, I think he is still funny. If he would change his style, it wouldn't be ZP anymore, wouldn't it? I think ZP will die when it stops receiving any views. I'm sure that if it would stop now, people would be asking "When it's gonna continue?". I know I would. And stop calling stuff overrated, just because you don't like it. Some argumentation please.

 

[SultanP]

It's not controversial at all. But maybe you could meet with the many other people who have made the exact same thread before you.

I still enjoy ZP. I don't just watch it for entertainment, but also for information on the games he reviews. I find that more often than not, he spots the same problems in a game that I do, and sometimes he has saved me from making a bad purchase.

 

[Dragon Zero]

Its a fun little bit of entertainment to watch when you've got nothing else. The man has become so abrasively arrogant that its starting to annoy me. Its especially clear in his Extra Punctuation articles but then again I wouldn't say its a game breaker or surprising. I do agree with others that maybe he should take a break for a little while, not long but enough to clear his head. He'll probably tire of it long before everyone else does.