Poll: Yahtzee... don't forget the good stuff!

[squid5580]

I actually find it humorous that people presume to know what Yahtzee does and doesn't do - especially regarding this web site.

I've kinda met him in person (was an extra in a Game Damage skit), and have watched all the Zero Punctuation clips, and know him enough to say I don't know him at all - outside of his ZP character.

For all anyone knows, he does view these forums and posts under an alias.

Then again, maybe the thought of interacting with half the people in these forums makes him want to gnaw his own head off to prevent the possibility of that ever happening.

I don't know... and neither do you.

(Next people are going to start calling Rebecca Mayes a game reviewer, too.)

She seems to be trying to be. Which makes it less fun to listen to IMO. Yahtzee shouldn't be anymore positive. Infact he should be less. His "reviews" are alot funnier when he seems to hate the game.

 

[Chewster]

And they're not legitimate reviews, because Yahtzee is not a legitimate reviewer. He has to much personal bias in his reviews for them to be credible.

Too much personal bias? Really?

All journos have a personal bias (including whomever you consider to be a legit reviewer) as you cannot separate yourself from your experiences and review games or anything else in a bubble, I hate to inform you.

Some are just more critical then others, and the overwhelming majority of them are usually positive no matter what the case may be, at least as far as game journalism goes.

Notice how I said to much. I know everyone has personal bias, however a legitimate reviewer tries to put some of that aside when reviewing a game. Yahtzee does not. He won't even review the multiplayer components of games because of his own bias. And if a reviewer is just going to ignore a massive part of the game, I can hardly think of them as legitimate.

How is his bias any worse then the tons of other "legit" review sites and magazines that heap praise on whatever latest effort big developers have put out (mostly thanks to savvy marketing that hypes certain games way beyond any reasonable level)? How much is too much, in this case? Would you prefer that he spend exactly half the videos heaping praise upon the games and then the exact other half soundly ripping them in half? I don't see why he should bother, since the rest of the gaming journo community has him covered. It is not as though there is a lack of other options and any opinion you have on a game ought to be formed by taking in a number of opinions and reviews anyway, including Zero Punctuation. Like I said, they all have biases and the best you can do is take all reviewer's words with a grain of salt.

And so what if he doesn't review the multiplayer aspects of gaming? Games, if they are marketed as having both a single player or multiplayer experience should be able to stand on just one or the other if they are to be considered good, in my opinion. For example, the latest Modern Warfare has a campaign that I beat in maybe six hours (from a borrowed copy, once I heard how absurdly short it is I refused to buy it for sixty effing dollars). As far as I am concerned, despite the immense popularity of the game, they failed to deliver, even though I'm sure I'm in the minority on this one. As such, it is completely legitimate to examine just the single player half of gaming. Besides, there is no lack of other places to get a more "full" review.

After all, if a game cannot last the scrutiny of that, then, despite how amazing the multiplayer might be, you only have half a game. And if we don't demand better from the single player experience, we can all watch as they disappear and as multiplayer games and MMOs become the complete standard, since that is where a lot of the money is anyway. I mean, Blizzard sure seems to have learned that lesson well.

If you want to lower your standards and accept the rest of this cesspit of "journalism" as the standard to be matched, fine by me, but I'm not willing to since I like the medium too much. Call me lame, but gaming has a lot of wasted potential and unless we are critical, expect more mindless, ADD-inducing FPS multiplayer clones. Unless you're into that I guess. Sorry for the lengthy post in any case, but it is an issue I'm interested in.

 

[Vimbert]

His style of accentuating the negative makes for better comedy, although I think I'd like to hear more about what he enjoys, simply because if it's good enough to be mentioned by him, it's probably one of the game's strong points.

 

[LazerLuger]

He usually makes good points, but it is becoming predictable, as it can be guaranteed that the more popular a game is, the more he'll hate it. Sometimes I worry we're dealing with contrariety for the sake of contrariety.

 

[Vimbert]

He usually makes good points, but it is becoming predictable, as it can be guaranteed that the more popular a game is, the more he'll hate it. Sometimes I worry we're dealing with contrariety for the sake of contrariety.

Watch as Yahtzee runs out of games eventually and does a "retro" review of Earthbound or somesuch that consists solely of him raving about Branston Pickle in relation to its grandness.

 

[internetzealot1]

I don't watch Yahtzee to decide which games to buy. I watch him for entertainment. That guy's damn funny.

Yahtzee, keep bashing excellent games, it'll make the sequels better.

 

[TheMasterGL16]

are people still interesting in this thread?

 

[Angerwing]

Mate it's 6 pages long. All that can be said has been said.

 

[NuclearPenguin]

are people still interesting in this thread?

U-u-u-ultra bump-necro

Was that really needed?

 

[jtr477]

Ok, so here's my thought, I've been watching Yahtzee for a long time now (every episode to be exact.) Now am I the only one who has noticed he seems more interested in ripping a game apart now. I know, I know, he's always been harsh on games that?s what makes him funny. But he used to always have a good bit about what he LIKED about the game. It just seems like he's stopped doing that.

Take for example the Batman review. He SAID he liked the game and all that... but... after watching I found it to know WHY he thought the game. I use Yahtzee?s reviews to know what games I would like to play. It?s become less like a review to reveal how he felt about the game and if he feels it?s worth buying. And more like a series of inside jokes to the people who have played the game.

I guess what I'm saying is don't make an ok game sound terrible and a great game sound just ok. I mean you obviously REALLY liked batman, you said it was in the running for your game of the year. So why not spend MORE of the review talking about what you liked. Sure you can add some ***** slaps to it, that?s why we watch. But don?t forget to highlight the good stuff if there is good stuff to highlight.

Here's the formula you used to have that I'd like to see again.
Game = ok, spend half the time bashing, half the time congratulating.
Game = bad, spend more time bashing and less time congratulating.
Game = good, spend more time congratulating and less bashing.

I'd like to see a show of hands. Who agrees with me?

Let's get enough people talking here that Yahtzee HIMSELF posts!!!

As he said once himself, he's a critic. Not a compliment vendor.

A critic should point out the flaws in something. That's his job.

I agree that his style is harsh, and it may seem like he's bashing, but let's not forget he usually is quite right.

He once said himself that he didn't review so people knew what to buy, but he reviewed to point out the flaws in games everyone thinks are great.

So in short, i can see your point, but i don't really agree with it.

Also, you should really read the extra punctuations, because it clearly states what he expects from games of different genres.

His articles are usually more constructive and i think some game developers would do good in reading them.

 

[Zannah]

If you honestly want to know how good a game is, go find someone who WANTS to rip it apart, and will pick every slightest nit there is. If you can live with all those bad things such a person will point out, than the games for you. Ubiased opinions rarely help making a decision.

 

[Gincairn]

Here's the thing, saying nothing but positives gives nothing for people to giggle at, as a result of this the figures start to decline.

I'm pretty sure this happened before with the ritual cock-sucking that was the prince of persia retrospective or some other overly positive showing.

Since ZP is all about getting the hits, it would be counter-productive to come across as all positive as this runs the risk of pushing viewers away far quicker than anything else that ZP could go through.

Having said that, I still think ZP has a place in the gaming world, partly as entertainment and partly for people like myself to watch and think "No, we are not on the same page here at all."
Don't get me wrong, I think Yahtzee is a good game critic and is more than capable of pointing out the bad points of a game (often in a crude and funny manner), but he should never be used as a sole point of reference about any title, if he was then there's a good chance most of my personal game collection would never have been bought.

Although I wish i'd listened to him before I bought Wet.

 

[Srdjan]

Well everything he doesn't mention he think is good so why do you need more specifice stuff. And he is so good in finding flaws it would be shame for him to start prasing things