Zero Punctuation: MindJack

[Firia]

I am curious (and don't mind if someone knows and wants to tell me) if Yahtzees' theory of Jim being controlled by a puppet master entity is true. That sounds like a unique idea. Prop points to the devs IF that is the case. Also being able to jack into someone elses game sounds neat. Two (or just one) prop points for THAT idea!

No more prop points past this line. :\

I remember seeing a trailer for this game. I raised a brow and thought, "this looks awful." I promptly forgot about it until this review.

 

[BIOSIN]

i wanna get this game cause he said multiplayer you can join other people's singleplayer campain
as the ai i wanna grief so many people.

 

[kinapuffar]

I enjoyed this review. Shit game is shit.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Actually, isn't that how voice acting is done much of the time? You know, in different rooms on different days and what not? It can be hard to sync schedules and when you're on a deadline, you take every opportunity you can get.

Yes, usually it's done one actor at a time in a sound-proof booth. One of the few times I remember where they had several actors recording at once was the Batman animated series. At best an actor might have video playing to sync something up, but that's it. A lot of bad voice-acting is due to bad voice directors and such

Anyway, good review, though I find Yahtzee's reviews for the moment haven't been as hilarious.

 

[Weasker]

This video doesn't get less funny no matter how many times I watch it.

 

[senataur]

I want to play this just to see how bad it actually is.

 

[Dangerious P. Cats]

It's not that I think that combining single and multi-player is inheriently unworkable but having other people burst into your single player game seems like the worst way to go about it. Did no one pick that it would be silly in the design phase?

 

[2xDouble]

I would like to play "devil's advocate" for a minute here, and raise a few good points about Mindjack (hear me out on this). I also need to clarify that I have never played the game, I'm going solely on the demo videos and brief summaries.

1) At least it's not brown. It's true, gray is not brown. It's still monotonous and boring though.

2) It has a unique premise. I agree that some ideas are inherently shit, but sometimes as an artist you have to do something original simply to be original... just don't expect people to pay money for originality alone.

3) The concept is beautifully sci-fi. Its like that awful movie "Gamer", a game about characters being controlled by an unseen force. And it's literally true: the player, the one with the controller, yes you! (Did I just spoil the big reveal? YOU are the "villain" the in-game characters have been fighting against all along?) Clever doesn't make it good though. Maybe the AI was intentionally bad to give the villainous "player" a sense of superiority over the "mindless drones" you are controlling. As Yahtzee said in a previous review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/33-No-More-Heroes],

"...any game designer who sacrifices fun to make an artistic statement is obviously stuck so far up his own ass that he's in danger of choking on his own head."

That being said: screw Mindjack. It is bad. Bad AI in a game that needed realistic character behavior, bad visuals in a game that needed to look lifelike but just a little off to make the player wonder wtf was going on, bad controls which undermine both the sci-fi novelty of all-powerful control and any entertainment value the shooting aspects might have had, crazy plot that could only have worked in a sci-fi novel (though that wouldn't have worked either because you're no longer literally controlling the characters) and was presented poorly anyway so what might have been clever and introspective no longer matters, etc., etc., we all watched the review...

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

So, just to be clear... Are you saying that you like the game or not? I'm having a hard time telling

 

[dragonburner]

Is it bad that I laughed at the short bus joke? I have no ill will to the mentally challenged.

 

[ark123]

Years of internet porn have ruined my ability to properly mindjack.

 

[MattAn24]

I have played it, square made a brown/gray bad looking game. Dear lord it's the end of the world, at least final fantasy 13 was pretty to look at.

Again and again.. SQUARE ENIX DID NOT MAKE MINDJACK. feelplus did. Square Enix PUBLISHED it.

Final Fantasy, however, Square Enix MADE.

I find it hilarious that everyone who ADORES games like Mass Effect, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption make jokes about Final Fantasy and other JRPGs for being all bright and rainbows, with characters who a far too zany and over-the-top.. But when the same company has anything to do with a third/first-person shooter, it STILL isn't good enough for them.

Not directed at you here, Brandon, but seriously.. YOU PEOPLE KEEP COMPLAINING TO JRPG COMPANIES THAT THEIR JRPGS SUCK. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR IT. Just.. Back off. Stick to the WRPGs you DO love and adore so fucking much and let JRPG gamers have THEIR games too. Final Fantasy is NOT a bad series. Just like Mass Effect is NOT a bad series. However, I will play a Final Fantasy game before ever touching Mass Effect. The dull, burly, blank-slate everyman that seems all too common in WRPGs is just as annoying as any JRPG stereotype..

 

[darmey]

I got to the end of the video and was amazed that there was no childish mention of the masturbatory sound to the name, and was starting to respect Yahtzee again when lo and behold...yeah.

 

[DoomBlackDragon]

You know the multiplayer in this game sound alot of left 4 dead vrs mode.

 

[SlugLady28]

I have only heard ONE good thing about this game: It has monkeys. That is all.

 

[Kurt Horsting]

I can't imagine why MvC3 would be an exception.

Didn't Yahtzee say previously he's not going to bother reviewing fighting games? They're pretty one-dimensional, not really a lot there to pick at.

I can't imagine why MvC3 would be an exception.

2 reasons.

1. A majority of the cast come from previous games that he has done reviews on.

2. I don't understand what you mean by "one-dimensional". Is it because fighting games focus on gameplay, character balance, variety, and core mechanics over story or rpg mechanics? Is it because they are built to be exclusively multiplayer games? Or some other reason.

 

[Curtisthekiller]

anyone else find it odd that Mass effect 2 did something related to the premise except...they did it better?
e.g. the abilitys that let you:

Spoiler

Dominate the minds of humanoid targets with biotics and Hacking synthetic opponents with AI hacking.taken with a grain of salt however as they do not last for very long.

 

[matt87_50]

lol, that one was the most awesome one ever! its always best when you hate them!


don't bash unique ideas though... I think its fair to say in this day and age in the world of video games... movies... all media and in fact life in entirety...

a terrible original idea is better than an unoriginal one stamped out for the 100th time...

though I can see the frustration in a game where the one original idea in a sea of rehashed bile turns out to be shit...

maybe they were trying to justify the amount of rehashed bile:

"oh you want original do you? careful what you wish for, here, have a little taste of what our originality would look like!"

"oh god! oh god! for the love of all that is holy! go back to the quick time events! anything but that!!"

"thats why we don't do original"

 

[Hugga_Bear]

He's right that often unique ideas are unique and untested because people have thought of them, then laughed them off.

I kinda like the multiplayer idea, only because I'd find it funny to join in someone's game, maybe helping them out, maybe just killing them for lulz...that and the thought of maybe a half dozen players taking over random enemies with differing goals would be pretty funny from an outside POV.
For the guy doing the single player though, unless you're really stuck, it would be pretty irritating to have people join and help or hinder. (I presume it's optional of course, but point is still there...)


Overall, lulzy review Yahtzee, good work.