I think i know why ZP no longer amuses me.

[th3xile]

I agree, but I can't really complain. I never have a week SO busy that I don't have 5 minutes to watch the new ZP. It might not be hilarious but it's a good way to dump a couple minutes.

 

[tgrant200]

I'm a long time viewer of ZP and I too find myself laughing less at Yahtzee's latest reviews (probably the last month or two worth). I think that the effect of his humor is wearing off because it is not as surprising as it once was. I remember how hard I laughed the first time I saw ZP on YouTube. Humor, much like horror,has to be unexpected, it has to surprise us. The feelings that we are having towards ZP regarding effectiveness of the humor is similar to the feelings a drug addict feels towards the drugs that they are using, in essence our drug is losing it's potency (e.i. we are acclimating to Yahtzee).

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

at least you have a valid reason

one of my friends now hates yahtzee because apparently "he rants too much", i replied....."yes he has allways done that"

And my girlfriend hates him because he dosent like final fantasy :S

That's a strange reason to hate someone. I myself desperately tried to like Final Fantasy 13 but the game would have none of that and I was forced to resume my disinterest and slight bemusement with the series. Doesn't mean I hate people who like the game, I just can't identify with the point of view that allows a game like that to be fun.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I can find a LOT of taboo subject matters funny when done right, but unfortunately DEAD BABIES ARE NOT FUNNY. I don't give a damn what the context is, that is one thing you do not take lightly no matter how much you hate kids. Y'know what was another thing that did something like that? Oh, right, Ctl+Alt+Del.

 

[monster at a party]

I still like Yahtzee, and I watch ZP, but I haven't found it as wildly hilarious as I used to. I watch it mostly because I have (mostly) the same taste as him in games. I can't say I watch it for the humour anymore.

I'm hoping this is just a dry spell. I'll still watch his reviews as long as I can, but I do rather want the humour back.

 

[sanguis3k]

i still like the videos but i think the problem is he is getting games that are not as good as the ones he has reviewed in the past, DTR retribution another game with a musclebound main character who eats bullets but hey he has a dog, monster hunter tri just another grind fest red dead redemption or as he put it grand theft horse 4, alpha protocol which admittedly was not bad but just a bit bland. PoP the forgotten sands which is just beating the mushy chunks of what was once a dead horse and then you have Super mario galaxy 2 which was just nintendo trying the same thing once more. the only somewhat interesting game he has reviewed lately had to be no more heroes 2

and yes i played every single game on the list before making my decision about them and am not just going off what yahtzee said

 

[megapenguinx]

Eh, I believe that it's the same reason why you move on from some cartoon shows. You simply reached that point where you outgrew them and need to move on.

Personally, I still watch. I just like the visuals and his hat.

 

[Agent_Nahmen_Jayden]

Coming up with new material for 3(?) years almsot every single week is difficult, not to mention the guy has opened the video game bar (the name of which escapes me at the moment) and is no doubt consumed by that a hell of a lot. Personally, I enjoy watching his vids and it makes Wednesdays awesome for me.

 

[Flig]

I've noticed my own amusement when watching ZP has taken a bit of a downturn recently, but I haven't been sure as to why until now. OP has my thoughts nailed. Thank you for figuring out myself for me, one less thing I have to do. Though, we should probably cut him a little bit of slack. I mean, he has one week to play through a game, figure out what to make fun of, actually make the jokes good and witty and what-have-you, figure out the topic for EP, write EP, and have a regular life and do whatever else has to get done(the various freeware games he makes, he just recently wrote a book, and there was something about a Manabar or something? Still not sure what that was). Can you really blame him for reusing some jokes? I'm not sure exactly how long he's been doing ZP but it's been at least a couple years. I'm sure this can get tiring after a while. So Mr. Croshaw, if you see this post I gots a message for ya, if this is actually your problem go ahead and take a week or two off. I don't think people will mind that much if it saves the quality of your webshowreviewcritiquesegmentseriesthing(I honestly don't know what to call it). If I'm way off base then start being witty again ya damn panzy.

 

[Chamomiles Davis]

I, too, no longer laugh nearly as often as I used to. However...

I do appreciate the REVIEW now more than ever. I used to watch ZP and laugh my ass off, but it was always alongside a deliciously hilarious and ruthless beating of the games he was playing. It was so similar to the rage I felt when I played shitty games.

Risking sounding like an pretentious cock here: to me ZP is like Beatles music. No, its not on the same level of ground-breaking brilliance. But it's the same story. A man works his way into internet stardom by playing to an everyman crowd (its funny, witty, satirical and every week is an internet video that people can count on loving amongst the infinite sub-par youtube cache.)

Now, it has substance. It is his own to experiment with. It can, to use a tired metaphor, hold a magnifying glass up to the entire gaming industry. (Surely it will still be some ms paint dick-handled magnifying glass zooming in on an imp plowing a game programmer but you still have to please the fan boys / girls.) And yes, there will be an awkward transition, but I only see this getting better.

I still look forward to ZP every week and even more to Extra Punctuation on Tuesdays. And I'm glad that this voice is still here amongst the Gamespots and the IGNs.

Yahtzee, you have my vote

EDIT: And the America bashing is usually called for. Even being American I think games and movies alike take way too much of an anglo-centric perspective

 

[KarumaK]

I still like ZP but I'm a "lowbrow" kinda guy.

Also dead baby jokes are always, always, funny. Though occasionally they're just dead in the bathwater.

HAH

 

[marurder]

The Zero Punctuation series (from what I saw) started to go a little downhill hill with his Sims3 review (I suggest you go watch it now - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/800-The-Sims-3 ), during the 4.32 minutes of entertainment there was NO REVIEW whatsoever, just plain hate. That was a warning sign for me, but the next week was funny and so forth..
The Extra Punctuation is superior (of course) but unjustified bile is pathetic to me (opposed to justified and well-humored bile which is hilarious). In conclusion it is less witty and intellectually 'challenging' (he was told to tone the IQ down for younger crowds?) Then it was in the beginning.
There are several other game reviews since then where he has fallen a little short of the standard he set at the beginning. And again, there has been less 'review' as time goes on and more aimed hate/disgust at corporations.

 

[Kollega]

1) - the neverending bashing of America is "meh".
WRONG: On so many levels. When a single nation has alienated the whole world by being a dick, I applaude the man who appropiately and hilariously mocks them.

Ooooh sorry, i didn't know America has killed your beloved parents and ate your pet doggy! Calling USA and USSR "dicks of equal size" is an example of failing history forever - US may be bad, but it's not THAT bad. Did Americans ever, oh say, dry up an entire sea? It's also a sign of disrespect to 20 million people killed by Stalin - but on the other hand, Croshaw does not respect the Holocaust victims either.

2) - constant appearance of balls, dicks, various holes and such are "meh".
SORTA: Yeaaaaaaaaaaah... getting kinda weird, but still funny.

Now, it may sound weird, but it seems that he went over some kind of threshold. Dick picture every 45 seconds or so = funny. Dick picture every 15 seconds means that novelty wears thin much faster and at some point, you find yourself no longer amused by them.

3) - the sarcasm regarding "plotdeviceum" and "helicopter intro" seemed pretty blunt, like a hammer instead of rapier, and therefore "meh".
WRONG: Blunt yet effective.

That's because you don't read TvTropes, where that kind of sarcasm is dime-a-dosen. So sorry, but it's not that funny for me.

4) - the only genuinely funny bit of sarcasm, the one about "metaphor for adolescence" was swiftly undermined by a dead baby joke. Dead baby jokes ARE NOT TOO FUNNY - OR CLEVER, and i used to love ZP for cleverness.
WRONG: You remind me of a Roger Ebert saying what is art or not.

Art and humour are similar in that everyone has their own standards for them. If you laugh at dead baby jokes, then that's your problem.

Oh, and Croshaw is also a mysoginist, if that's gonna change anything. This is well-indicated by his "review" of Sims 3.

 

[Nomanslander]

I got tired of him because he never seems to change, after all this time and all the games he's reviewed he doesn't seem to have grown once as a gamer.

For instance since he's been reviewing I've come to appreciate a lot of games that I have played, and he still seems to have the same chip on his shoulder being discontent with most games as he always has.

But most unfortunately, he's become way too predictable, I don't even need to watch any of his videos because I already know exactly what he's going to say again and again.

He's a lot like how I feel about the overthinker (moviebob) now as well, eventually I just got tired of him too. In Moviebob's case I got tired of him bringing up Super Mario 3 a hundred times in every videos, I mean how much of a Nintendo fanboy can you get?
=/

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Yeah, he's not as funny as he used to be. I'll keep watching though, just cause (2) I guess I'm just doing loyal 'watching it', sort of thing

 

[starhaven]

I still watch the videos; probably will do as long as they're being pumped out. But, I have found that I'm laughing less. I remember the first video I watched had me in stitches, the Prototype vs inFamous and it was the quip about Mercer flying like an 'emo Peter Pan'; cracked me up big time.

Maybe he's just going through a bit of a humour dry spell?

the reason for this is you have seen them all its the same as alot of t.v shows watch to many of a show and u can more or less tell whats going on before it happens

just a fact of life