Yahtzee-Do you take him seriously?

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Budgy

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Jan 9, 2008
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hudsonzero said:
i take his suggestion into account after all I would not have heard about pysconauts with out him
Same. I wish I had waited that extra day to see his review on Alan Wake the day after I bought it... It would have swayed me to not buy it - for the better.

I take his criticism seriously when his points touch on things that are important to me in a game (i.e. when he says a game is too repetitive, he is too right. and nothing bothers me more than repetitiveness in a game).

He may not always touch on the good parts of the game - try as he may - yet, the parts he does touch on for the games I have played I almost always agree with.
 

AugustFall

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May 5, 2009
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No, but it's fun to watch him point out stuff you didn't notice in a game you liked. God I don't take any reviewer seriously.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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J-Dude said:
As MovieBob has said, video games are TOYS, and they're core audience must be the YOUNG. Microsoft and Sony are on the road to destroying this industry the same way comic books imploded in the early 90's, by only making stuff for all the 17-35 year olds and leaving the next generation in the dust. By catering only to an inevitably shrinking number of older fans WITHOUT seeking out NEW ones, the industry will quite literally suck it's own DICK, into an oblivion of the sort the comic book industry has YET to recover from. Sony and Microsoft, this one is on YOU.
Comics have gone out of style and relegated to the back-burner, and even when they were massively popular, they didn't stay that way for very long nor did they affect the majority of the populace. I was and still am an avid comic collector and I know that people who enjoy them as much as I do are few and far between past the age of 14, or some are closet cases.
As for video games? Most of the "target" audiences now are the ones who grew up with the inception of video games. It is not a trend that will go away, nor diminish over time. There is a reason the ESRB came about and that was due to games actually getting to teh point where they *need* ratings. To distinguish "kid" games from "adult" games. That said, there are more adults who play video games now more than ever. Do Sony and Microsoft ignore the kids? No, they're not the ones developing the games for the most part just licensing the consoles and creating those platforms. Also ever notice how kids care less about "kids" games than they do the more adult style games?
Nintendo won't go away, and a lot of people don't want them to. But I do believe they're a victim of the other side of your argument. They don't make many adult themed games and thus aren't mature enough for the people who grew up with the NES. A lot of Wii's success stems from nostalgia and fanboys who can't let go of games that used to be good but now are nothing more than hollow shells where juicy meat once sat. But thats my opinion.
And you want a true show of what makes your post on Sony/MS ruining the industry crap? Get a few kids together in a room with 2 tv's and one has a Wii, the other has a 360 or PS3 (your choice) and a slew of games for both systems. I'll bet that the kids will fight over the 360/PS3 and the Wii will be used by the kids who couldn't get in on the other action. I say this because my house is exactly that, 2 tvs with a 360 and a wii respectively and all the kids play is the 360. I actually have to fire up the Wii every now and again to check the batteries on the Wii-motes and make sure it still runs. And these aren't all my kids, only one. The rest is pretty much the neighborhood.
I don't say Wii sucks, but I don't think kids really care about the Wii as much as the more advanced games.

**Sorry for the post being off-topic, but I had to say something**
 

Chris Binkley

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Mar 22, 2010
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Yes. Even though he's ripped on some game I really liked he will ALWAYS point out all the stuff that isn't good or at least doesn't make sense. I've even waited to buy games in the hope he would review them. Is he my only source no, I'll listen to other people to hear the praises for the game but if I want a brutally honest opinion about a game I turn to him.
 

VGFreak1225

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Dec 21, 2008
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I don't take him any less seriously than I do any other reviewer. I listen to what he has to say, consider his opinions thouroughly, and then listen to other reviews as well. The man is still one of the best critics I've ever heard, even though we do disagree on several games (Nintendo games specifically). I do the same for every other reviewer. Heck, sometimes we even end up agreeing almost perfectly (Dead Space comes to mind).

I also like to keep in mind the way he looks at the different kinds of reviews. To him, a reviewer's job is to tell you whether or not to get a game. He considers himself a critic, meaning someone whose job is to get to the heart of game design. If I want to decide to get a game, I go to a reviewer. If I want to have a serious discussion about game design, I go to Yahtzee.
 

PeterDawson

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Ratings systems themselves are flawed since you're looking for an opinion on games, which cover a variety of genres. I prefer "If you like racing games that don't involve wacky weapons or tech you'll probably enjoy this" over "7/10" any day. Now, obvious short rant against rating numbers over...

I take Yahtzee's reviews somewhat to heart. Usually he makes at least a valid point, though some of his criticisms feel way too nit-picky or opinionated. I was annoyed as hell at his Uncharted reviews since, while the games had flaws, I absolutely loved the second game while he was still hung up over not liking the character. His Final Fantasy XIII review I also disliked since he pretty much phoned it in due to his bar opening, which I can understand but was still annoyed by. the result was the usual "FF hasn't been good since VII" rants I've been hearing all over and that the game takes too long to get good, IE when you get magic, nevermind how linear it is. I liked FFXIII, but I can understand that if you don't latch on to the plot right away you'll probably just quit.

So yeah, it really varies on the game. His bit on Monster Hunter Tri was a pretty valid point about games taking too long to get going and being grind-tastic, as was his bit about Crackdown 2 being pretty much less than the first game in spite of some improvements. Still, sometimes opinionated rage hurts the review, like it does with most people really. I think Yahtzee might indulge in it the most, mainly by avoiding reviewing game-genres he doesn't like or much care for.
 

Fritzn

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Mar 2, 2010
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J-Dude said:
Yahtzee has a lot of problems as a reviewer, the first and largest being the lengths he goes to to put everything bad about a game up-front and almost NEVER mentions what's good about a game, even if he thinks the game's good parts outweighs it's bad ones. I can't say how many times I've listened through a patently negative review only to hear him finally say, "but overall, I like <insert-game-here>, it's this, it's that, so count this as a recommendation", and think to myself, "Wait, WHY is it good? That has to be the worst endorsement I've ever heard!"

In fact, Yahtzee is the only guy I tend to get reviews of most games from, so I never even CONSIDERED playing the excellent Mass Effect games until realizing Bioware was only JUST beaten by Valve in that Developers competition. Let me tell you, while his criticisms were accurate, they were footnotes compared to the creative and narrative masterpiece I got to experience.

Oh, and of course Yahtzee's intense prejudice concerning the Wii.

I don't really play the Wii often aside from the first-party Mario stuff, but even so I know how necessary the Wii and Nintendo are to keeping the gaming scene anchored. Whether Yahtzee likes motion controls or not, he needs acknowledge that Nintendo is THE only console-making game company out there that's a GAME company, and not a gaming arm of a giant multinational mega-corporation like Sony or Microsoft are. Nintendo knows the stakes, they know how to keep the industry thriving, even if they've wasted a lot of shelf-space on shovelware despite being the #1 selling console in the console-slaughter that is the current gaming-scene.

Yahtzee puts a lot of value on new IP's and is probably disappointed that Nintendo does tend to crush other newer Wii games by continually releasing new Mario content along with all the other Nintendo classics. But at least Nintendo acts like they're making stuff intended for kids and have a major mascot. It's unrealistic to want to squeeze Mario out of things when he's basically gaming's Mickey Mouse.

As MovieBob has said, video games are TOYS, and they're core audience must be the YOUNG. Microsoft and Sony are on the road to destroying this industry the same way comic books imploded in the early 90's, by only making stuff for all the 17-35 year olds and leaving the next generation in the dust. By catering only to an inevitably shrinking number of older fans WITHOUT seeking out NEW ones, the industry will quite literally suck it's own DICK, into an oblivion of the sort the comic book industry has YET to recover from. Sony and Microsoft, this one is on YOU.
sorry, I don't usually do this, but he points out in his Arkham Asylum review that he's a "praiser by exception, in that everything I don't mention is perfectly fine..."

as far as not getting mass effect, in several reviews he points out that bioware has wonderful writing, and says that he doesn't give them points for it, as they do it so well, so often

and I suppose this is more my personal opinion, but just because a company doesn't focus their entirety on making video games doesn't make their games bad or any less enjoyable. and its probably worth noting that Sony started off working with Nintendo in the mid-late 80s. and Microsoft has been putting games out for a good long while, sure they didn't do console games in the 90s, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

this idea that games are for the young, I don't buy that. I work in a video game store, sure we see a few kids, a few parents buying for their kids, and during the christmas season, grandparents buying for grandkids. but in truth most of what we see is someone older, 20s, 30s, 40s buying games for themselves, they grew up with games and as they matured the games they played matured as well. its all well and good to develop games for a younger audience, if they don't, then their market will collapse, but to develop ONLY for a younger audience, or switch focus to a younger audience, they'll lose a huge market. If you walk through an xbox 360 section of a store selling used games, you'd see there are quite a few "children's" games (I just checked the xbox 360 section on Gamestop.com, clicked on ALL and set the cursor over the esrb sorting button, and it lists Everyone (237), E10+ (152), Teen (421), Mature (375). I'm sure they've taken some games down from their site, but all the same, I'd say that's pretty balanced. The Wii on the otherhand, lists 4 games rated EC, 749 games rated E, 289 games rated E10+, 302 rated T, and only 52 rated M. So where do you think the Wii gamers are going to go when they grow up?
 

YonderTunic

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Mar 4, 2010
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Does anyone take him seriously? He's pointed out several times he tries to only say negative things about a game because no one likes him when he's being nice. He's really funny and the videos are fun to watch, but I never consider what he says to determine if I want a game or not.
 

Socius

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Dec 26, 2008
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He is good for a laugh but I almost never agree with him when it comes to if a game is worth playing or not.
 

Necrofudge

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May 17, 2009
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Sort of. It might not be enough to stop me from buying some games, but for the most part, if he has absolutely nothing positive (or average) to say in any part of the review, I may not buy the game.
 

Crispee

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Nov 18, 2009
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Sometimes whenever I see threads like this, I'm inclined to think "He's just there to be funny, you shouldn't take him too seriously.", and yet sometimes the basic opinions were basically correct when I thought about it, if exaggerated.
 

Digikid

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Dec 29, 2007
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No. He is just good for a laugh.

I do not take ANY reviews seriously...because in the end all that matters is what YOU think of it. No one else can tell you otherwise.
 

Mercsenary

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Oct 19, 2008
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While its not much of record, he reviewed Spore. Said it wasnt very good. I thought eh... maybe its just Yahtzee being biased. I went and bought it.


And it was all true... Spore has been sitting on my shelf every since release.