Yahtzee's Little Inconsistencies

[Delightful]

Can you find any moments where Yahtzee directly contradicts himself, or shows some of his own biases? I can think of two off the top of my head:

1. Party Game Unlockables -- In the old Super Smash Bros. Brawl review, Yahtzee rightly hammered the game for keeping some characters locked away behind 10 hours of single player. Definitely a bad move for a "party game." But then, in the Beatles Rock Band/Guitar Hero 5 review, Yahtzee comes across another party game (Guitar Hero) that does exactly the opposite--it keeps all songs unlocked for quick play in what is appropriately called "Party Mode" and leaves the Career Mode to unlock venues and costumes and such. Oddly, Yahtzee gets confused by this and makes fun of it ("This part of Guitar Hero 5 really phones it in and returns the charges."), even though it's the perfect solution to his very fair complaint about SSBB and party game unlockables in general.

2. Lives -- Yahtzee complains about lives systems all the time, like in the XBLA review (Bionic Commando: Rearmed -- "Lengthen Gameplay, RAISE BLOOD PRESSURE!") and when talking about Mirror's Edge ("Now do it again, only angrier."). Now Yahtzee's come across two relatively recent games that circumvented the whole "die, go back in time 20 minutes, do it again" cycle: the 2008 Prince of Persia reboot and Fable 2. But he reacted to them in completely different ways.

For those of you who don't know, in the Prince of Persia remake, if you mess up a jump, your Magical Girl accomplice teleports underneath you and boots you in the butt so hard that you reappear back on the nearest platform. In Fable 2, if you die in combat, you writhe around on the ground for a bit before having an action hero comeback, whereupon you leap to you feet and continue the fight (with a small experience point penalty and a permanent scar). Both of them avoided flow-breaking "Game Over, Reload?" screens, and both of them had some kind of the negative reinforcement that all gamers crave (arguably, Fable 2 had MORE death penalties than Prince of Persia).

In the Prince of Persia review, he dismissed people who said the game was too easy, and called his bad-jump-boot-buttings "deaths" ("I died more times than the Nameless One in a smoothie maker. Sure, you recover instantly, but in this kind of game, it works."). But just a month before that, in the Fable 2 review, he said "Every time you die, you pop instantly back to life with a paltry random experience deduction that can be instantly recovered by swatting the nearest gnat. Oh, yeah, and you'll also get an unremovable scar somewhere on your body, but Peter Molyneux has yet to grasp that not everyone gives a shit."

You might point out that one's a platformer and one's an action RPG, but, honestly, I don't really see the difference--both of them are protecting you from having to reload a 20-minute-old save and both of them use negative reinforcement to "punish" you for "deaths" (scarred avatar and XP penalty in one, relying on NPC support in the other). It's especially ironic, because I seem to remember that Peter Molyneux was one of the first developers to really question how death is used in games... The only difference that I see is that Yahtzee generally likes platformers and generally dislikes RPGs.

Any others you can think of?

----------------------

Let me just beat a few replies to the punch and say that, no, this isn't supposed to be a list of "Yahtzee is unfair because he complained about this game I like." I'm really just looking for specific situations where he said one thing, but then went back on it or forgot about it later.

And the reason isn't to troll; it's actually 'cause I like Yahtzee a lot, but I like him most when he's fair, insightful, and funny. Blind antagonism isn't what makes our resident misanthrope so popular. It's focused antagonism! Constant criticism without a base of insight or legitimate observation is just complaining. And no one likes complainers... which is why this thread won't get any views...

The other potential reply that I'd like to run off the road as soon as possible is, "hurr durr wow u sure care 2 much, u mad?" I'm just discussing, boyos. And girl...os. It's in the name of the forum, after all.

 

[lacktheknack]

2. Lives -- Yahtzee complains about lives systems all the time, like in the XBLA review (Bionic Commando: Rearmed -- "Lengthen Gameplay, RAISE BLOOD PRESSURE!") and when talking about Mirror's Edge ("Now do it again, only angrier.").

Speaking of inconsistencies, Mirror's Edge doesn't have a lives system. I am confuse.

I've long since ceased to take him at all seriously, so i don't really notice or care about inconsistencies. I watch to laugh, not to get a real idea of whether or not the game is good.

 

[scnj]

I'm just discussing, boyos. And girl...os.

Are you Welsh? I've never heard of any other nationality that uses the word boyo.

And I've noticed a fair few inconsistencies within Yahtzee's reviews, but I usually don't worry about them. I find that his 'reviews' are more for entertainment purposes than to be actually taken as reviews.

 

[WorldCritic]

For Prince of Persia and platformers in general keeping flow from breaking is generally expected and actually useful. In RPGs, a certain amount of challenge is required and if you have the ability to come instantly back to life during a boss battle then all challenge has been thrown out the window. If you mess up in a platformer then you may come instantly back to life, but you still have to try the jump you messed up on again.

Also I think with the party game unlockables, for Brawl it was annoying because everyone was hyped up for all the different character only to find out you have to unlock them. I think he may think differently between Brawl and Guitar Hero I guess because with Brawl you want to play as your favorite characters from the start, but in the Guitar Hero game maybe there's no reason to play anything else if all of the songs are unlocked. I'm actually guessing on this one since I really don't play party games that much.

 

[Delightful]

Speaking of inconsistencies, Mirror's Edge doesn't have a lives system. I am confuse.

Ha! I am disappoint... in myself. No, you're right, it doesn't have a lives system exactly, but since it's still got that die-reload-die-reload kinda thing, it's essentially the same as having... one life... right?

I think I convinced myself there.

 

[Magnesium360]

What you mentioned wasn't exactly contradictions. A contradiction would be if he complemented and complained about the same speciffic trait in the same material. The explanation for what you call a contradiction is most likely certain traits that he feels work in some games but not in others, just because having something locked in one game sucks, doesn't mean having something in a DIFFERENT game unlocked from the beginning is a good thing. Problems with certain material are subjective to that material, and the polar opposite of the problem is not necessarily the best solution.

 

[Poofs]

i cant think of any, but you do make some good points

 

[lacktheknack]

Speaking of inconsistencies, Mirror's Edge doesn't have a lives system. I am confuse.

Ha! I am disappoint... in myself. No, you're right, it doesn't have a lives system exactly, but since it's still got that die-reload-die-reload kinda thing, it's essentially the same as having... one life... right?

I think I convinced myself there.

I didn't die much in Mirror's Edge (I think Yahtzee has some major depth-perception issues), so I wouldn't know.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Painkiller being a game that he liked seemed inconsistent.

Before that review, he had made a big deal about repetition in games. Then he chooses to play Painkiller which was one of the biggest examples of repetitive gameplay. This is not to say that it's a bad game. However, a game for which the winning strategy is "Get enemies to follow you, then take one step forward, fire, take two steps back while reloading. Wash, rinse, repeat until enemies are gone. Then do it again in the next room" would not have been my choice as a game for someone who hate repetition.

However, as has been said, it's more comedy than any form of actual review. If I took it at all seriously, I would have given up on Zero Punctuation when he did his long-running "Everything on the Wii is bad because I hate the Wii" schtick.

 

[Harrowdown]

A whole thread for fanboyish nitpicking. whoopee...

 

[Dragonforce525]

Yahtzee has to judge a game on it's own merits, using a previous game to lock him into a certain way of thinking would leave his reviews pointless.

 

[Delightful]

Are you Welsh? I've never heard of any other nationality that uses the word boyo.

I will use this knowledge to aid my espionage campaigns in Wales--oh, I mean, Cymru. They do use the word "girlos," too, right?

For Prince of Persia and platformers in general keeping flow from breaking is generally expected and actually useful. In RPGs, a certain amount of challenge is required and if you have the ability to come instantly back to life during a boss battle then all challenge has been thrown out the window.

I get what you're saying there, but isn't "flow" good in all games? Flow is very similar to immersion, I think, and both get scuffed up when the game takes the controller from your hands, chides you for being so terrible, and sends you back to the loading screen or the beginning of the stage to try again.

Besides, like you say, you still have to make the jump AND you still have to beat the boss. The boss gets easier as you chip away at its health, and the jump gets easier as you try it again and again. Still seems like the same thing to me.

 

[crudus]

You might point out that one's a platformer and one's an action RPG, but, honestly, I don't really see the difference

Which is exactly what I will do. The Prince of Persia game mechanic works because the game is meant to be fast paced. The flow isn't broken at all when she does her thing. It just seems like part of the action. Now, I haven't played Fable II so I don't know where the truth is in how long you are actually on the ground, but it doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense. If you are on the ground then someone should just come up and stab you. Prince of Persia was plenty of fun and challenge without a life system while Fable II you just needed to be sure to turn a profit every time you got into a fight.

 

[Jackpot524]

Critiquing the critic? That's never going to work...

I hope you know that.

 

[Delightful]

i cant think of any, but you do make some good points

Thanks, buddy! That makes me feel like 5% less of a moron for typing what I see now is an insurmountable wall of text. I'm gonna ride this high all the way to Happy Time Fun Station. Nothing's gonna bring me dow--

A whole thread for fanboyish nitpicking. whoopee...

--aw...

Before that review, he had made a big deal about repetition in games. Then he chooses to play Painkiller which was one of the biggest examples of repetitive gameplay. This is not to say that it's a bad game.

That's a really good one, actually. A game that's nothing but "murdering tons of dudes."

I get what everyone's saying about "it's just comedy," but I think that without, you know, something real underneath it, the comedy suffers. So this thread is really just about those one or two or ten times that the "something real underneath" got a little messed up.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

He's a comedian. Why would it matter if he's inconsistent?

 

[Delightful]

He's a harsh critic who focuses on humor. If there's an aspect of a game he can make fun of, he probably will. Not only that, but there are probably no more inconsistencies in his preferences than in yours or mine. We are all biased in some way, which can lead us to be more forgiving for aspects in some games than in others.

I hear ya. Of course, Yahtzee says in quite a few reviews that he considers himself a force for positive change. Something about how critics are necessary for things to improve. And I assume that those high-minded aspirations suffer a few hiccups if his critiques don't match up with one another. Most of the time, I think they do, but there are a few times where they don't.

I guess those aspirations could just be part of the joke, and maybe Yahtzee really doesn't care at all about games or critiquing or providing real insight... but I don't buy that.