Yahtzee's Little Inconsistencies

[WorldCritic]

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.

True, but platformers are fast paced games and the point is to keep flow from breaking while also being given a challenge. RPGs are slower paced games detailing in strategy, taking the time out to customize your character to their maximum potential and using the abilities and items you gain defeating more powerful enemies. Fable 2's system of letting you instantly come back to life breaks these ideas for RPGs. All strategy and customization are thrown away when you learn you can just run up to even the strongest enemies without any armor or magic and wack at them with a sword without any fear of death. It makes the entire game too easy and normally in an RPG if you die in a fight it may mean you didn't strategize properly, you didn't use an item that you should have, or you're just underleveled. While it sounds tedious and boring, taking the time to customize your character and strategies to overcome the next challenge is standard for RPGs.

 

[Delightful]

Dude who cares. People contradict themselves ALL The time.

Either he likes a game, or he doesn't. Same with everyone else.

Ehhhhhhh...... I try not to contradict myself. And I don't even get paid to express my opinions! I just attempt to make sure that the things I believe, I believe for a consistent, logical reason, and the things I say, I mean. Personal preference? I guess?

 

[Netrigan]

As for the Prince Of Persia and Fables thing.

Suddenly getting better in the middle of a fight does pretty much drain the challenge out of the fight. One thing if you're doing a kid friendly game like Lego , but the practice gets quite a bit of stick in Bioshock. I've actually taken dives in fights because I didn't feel like using a health kit. Or just made suicidal frontal attacks on Big Daddies, because I knew I would respawn and be able to continue the fight right where I left off.

Prince Of Persia is a platform game, so failing a jump and getting a redo doesn't make the jump any easier. I think one of the reasons I don't have a fondness for platformers is the whole repetition thing. You can do every thing absolutely perfectly, but don't nail that last jump, you die and get to do the whole thing over again. It's an insta-kill moment, so the do-over would make it less frustrating without forcing the game to take away the difficulty.

 

[Delightful]

True, but platformers are fast paced games and the point is to keep flow from breaking while also being given a challenge. RPGs are slower paced games detailing in strategy, taking the time out to customize your character to their maximum potential and using the abilities and items you gain defeating more powerful enemies. Fable 2's system of letting you instantly come back to life breaks these ideas for RPGs. All strategy and customization are thrown away when you learn you can just run up to even the strongest enemies without any armor or magic and wack at them with a sword without any fear of death.

Hmm. Solid points! You've mostly convinced me, though I don't think the distinction is exactly as clear-cut as you make it seem. For example, I'd be willing to wager that every single platformer ever has at least one section where players have to stop, look around, and take very calculated steps/jumps forward.

And since the Fable series is all action-RPGs, they're a bit less about strategy (I mean, there's fewer than 15 spells, no real "elemental damage" system, no real party members...) and more about fast-paced running, dodging, rolling, blocking, countering, etc. Basically a fighting game, only with statistics. AND if you tried to push through the game without any sort of upgrading or customization, relying only on the smallness of the death penalties, I think you'd be in for a ton of scars.

But aside from all that, I think you've got me--I have to admit that there are pretty significant differences between the two.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Your lives argument is bogus. He complained about ye olde arcade-like lives system, where losing one life takes you back to the last checkpoint, but losing all of them takes you half an hour of gameplay earlier. If he didn't like the Fable/Bioschock system, it's because it makes everything too easy. He says it works in Prince of Persia reboot (and he'd probably say the same for Super Meat Boy) because the challenge of the jump you missed is still the same.

 

[ExaltedK9]

Yea, I'm not too bothered by it though. One that I can name: In his GTA4 review he refered to Niko Bellic as an "angsty ****", but went on to say (in one of his extra punctuations, I believe) that he was one of his favorite characters.

Doesn't really matter, opinions are ever-changing.

 

[redisforever]

Sorry, posted this in the wrong forum. Damn firefox tabs.

 

[icame]

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.

But that game has a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning. That trumps repetition.

 

[Souplex]

3: Power Armored Non-Characters using generic guns and a shoehorned in gimmick weapon to murder evil aliens while assisted by minority sidekicks.
"Halo: Bad, Half Life: Good."

 

[Triforceformer]

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.

Well he DOES wear glasses.

 

[Gentleman_Reptile]

I dont watch ZP as religiously as I used to, because I have picked up the stink of whinging from his reviews more and more strongly and I dont want to watch a review if its just a ***** session, no matter how creative the metaphors and comparisons might be.

 

[mechanixis]

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

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

I've never heard of any other nationality that uses it besides Frank Fontaine.

 

[hawkeye52]

he rips games a new one for the most petty of things sometimes for our own amusement. i mean he complained about the box art on batman arkham asylum due to lack of anything to say but he knew that his review wouldn't be zero punctuation unless he at least tried to rip it a new one

 

[FalloutJack]

I thought Yahtzee had inconsistancies in his reviews on purpose.

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

There was the opening line in the Oblivion review where he said "You know me, I'm a twitchy, instant gratification kind of gamer; the sort who isn't happy unless there's a gun the size of a motorbike in his hands and a severed alien willy bouncing off the front of his space helmet."
But in his Halo: Reach review, he said he'd never really liked Halo - which is exactly the sort of game he claimed to like.
And in his Psychonauts review, he said "Psychonauts seems like a rather polarizing game in that some people seem to think it's the kind of think Jesus would make if he was alive and wasn't a pussy and some other people seem to think it's a chunky vomit milkshake severely overhyped by the people in Party A. Which group you'll fall into depends if you're the kind of misty-eyed, games-are-art hippie who can allow things like excellent storytelling and charming artistic direction excuse a few gameplay issues, or if you're the kind of twitching, Ritalin-popping X-Box owner who falls into a narcoleptic coma when they go without killing something for forty-five seconds."
There he is, claiming to be in Party A and making fun of Party B, while later claiming to belong to Party B.
Admittedly, these two quotes were made nine months apart, and opinions can change in nine months, but doing full one-eighties is a bit of a stretch.
But let's be perfectly honest here: He's not paid to point out all the good things and offer a counterpoint for every point he makes. He's paid to complain about a game's flaws in a funny way, or make fun of the game's good bits, even make fun of himself, and at the end, say whether or not he likes it when all the jokes have been made. So being inconsistent is pretty much unavoidable. And it's a necessary sacrifice for intelligent humor.

 

[jaketheripper]

-snip-

im sorry, if two completely different games have similar mechanics, are we supposed to feel exactly the same about they? Since i love heavy rain am i supposed to love a games quicktime events? no. but obviously your new here. See, theres this guy called yahtzee that exaggerates his opinion for the use of comedy. hese not looking at it from a professional standpoint. it all goes back to my quicktime event statement. welcome to the escapist.

edit: ok i guess that was kind of...dickish, idk, not in a good mood, sorry

 

[goldenheart323]

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.

I laid back mental exercise for the fun of it. It's nice to see a laid back thread like this. It'd be even nicer if every person replying would *exercise* their reading abilities before typing.

I can't think of any, but I don't take Yahtzee seriously enough to bother remembering much of what he says beyond some of his best jokes.

 

[pyrosaw]

Your contradictions are questionable. But he blamed Condemned 2 for "Indigo Prophecy Symdrome", when his own games, Chzo Mythos, kinda suffer from the same thing. Although they are survival horror game.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

What?! Yahtzee makes mistakes??!! It's almost like he's human or something!

More importantly, WHY THE HELL DOES ANYONE CARE? I know this isn't really contributing to the topic, but seriously! We do NOT have to analyze Zero Punctuation videos like this! Why SHOULD we, when he obviously doesn't put NEARLY as much effort to making them in the first place?

Good Christ, why you people obsess over the man so much I will never know.