Zero Punctuation

[Dasquian Belargic]

Just a thread to share / discuss the latest ZP reviews.

Borderlands

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[Timothy Nash]

Best reviews on the Net.
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[Crusader]

I love and fear his reviews since they can somtimes completly destroy the games you like but on the other hand it is sometimes rewarding to see that he can't destroy a game that you like like Assassins Creed.
My favorite reviews are the ones for Gears of War 2 and Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem is just hilarious!
In the case of the GOW2 I totaly feared his review since I had so much fun playing this game although in a nutshell, it is a game about guys on steroids that kick ass with chainsaws. So in the end he says the game is good despite all the hype and I was glad that we both agreed on this.

[Atreyu]

Yahtzee's reviews are hilarious but I don't take them too seriously - I believe there's a quote from him floating around somewhere online where he admitted that he always seeks out the worst elements of whatever game he's playing and focuses on those points in his reviews (even if he actually enjoyed the game).

[Alice Kelly]

Unless it's Portal. :lol


But yes... I adore his silly reviews. The one he did for Darksiders honestly had me cracking up to the point where I had to pause it.

[Lykaios]

His reviews are great

...for a laugh (a great laugh at that actually), but if I really want a good opinion on a game, Yahtzee is the last person I would ever actually listen to, simply because like Atreyu said, he always looks for the worst of games so he can rip them to pieces, piss on them and make us laugh in the process.

[Crusader]

well his recommendation of Saints Row 2 was well received. I picked this up because of his review.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I find his reviews to be pretty accurate, when it comes to the general quality of a game.

[Peter McCoy]

I actually really like Borderlands. It's a less-compelling version of Diablo 2 in terms of kill, kill, loot, loot, kill, level up, kill, loot. But I can see his point.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Mass Effect 2

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[Travis North]

Dead on review.

[Peter McCoy]

I should really play both Mass Effect games sometime.

[Rossos Atrapes]

He has a point: Bioware no longer gets points for good writing in their games; it's like a fact of life.

[Peter McCoy]

I have the same thing with Blizzard. They make extremely well-polished games. What I've heard of the Starcraft 2 beta is just how solid things are.

[Crusader]

Yeah Blizzard games always have a great degree of polish but I am on a kind of personal crusade against Blizzard not because their games sucked but because they stopped pushing the envelop any further.
Blizzard does not take any risks any more and the degree of Blizzards innovativ ideas went south after Warcraft 3. Right now they only make games based on formulas they have developed in the 90s or like WOW where they had basicly stolen every idea from other MMOs and just refined them.
WOW's only big achievement was that it was not bugged and unbalanced at launch and not becaue it reinvented the wheel.
I am still waiting for Blizzard to come up with a new IP like Diablo that defined an entire new genre.
The other problem with Blizzard that I see right now ist that a lot of IPs have lost their atmosphere. The Warcraft franchise started as a LOTR like world in "Orcs against Humans" that now feels like a kids saturday morning cartoon to me. Only the videos still have that epic feeling of true danger.
Diablo 3 does not look like a game of Blizzard North and it has lost a lot of its menacing and disturbing nature.
Starcraft 2 looks like a bad joke to me. It looks like Starcraft 2 with a Warcraft 3 comic engine that features flashy lights and a slightly higher polycount.
Polycount and rendering is an issue for me with Blizzard as well. One should think that a company that has made an obscene amount of money in the past few years should be able to develop a title with state of the art technolegy one day.
But they don't and the reason for this is simple: They are a PC developer and PCs are not defining visuals anymore because people stopped upgrading their racks for triple A titles like "Crysis".
This is why Starcraft 2 looks dull instead of looking like a DOOM 3 as an RTS game.
Blizzard is not making games for the hard cores any more and maybe that is why I lost my connection to this company that I loved so much back in the 90s.
I would always recommend people to buy Blizzard titles but I will stick to games from IO, Quantic Dream, Dice and Remedy as long as these companies try to redefine what gaming is about although they fail more often than succeed with their products.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Dante's Inferno

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[Peter McCoy]

LMAO! I was thinking of getting this but haven't heard a single good thing about it. The summary of that review cracked me up:

Nothing special, wait for God of War 3, hairy bum! :p

[Crusader]

ante's Inferno was a must buy when I first heard of it. On Xmas they released the demo and my interest in this game went all the way down to "I don't give a damn".

I will spent too much money on games anyway next month:
-I need a new Xbox Live subscription
-4000 new Microsoft points for the AC2 DLC
-Mass Effect 2
-Battlefield Bad Company 1 and 2 maybe

[Peter McCoy]

I have my eye on three games for the moment:

APB
Brink
Metro 2033

I plan to just get Brink as it's gonna be the most kick-ass of the three. My survival horror fix will last aaaaaages as I still have to finish Stalker before moving onto Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat, and then I have the first Condemned game which I picked up for just £5 on XBOX360. And I'll wait to see the reviews before I delve into APB - I've learned my lesson from Star Trek Online about diving into shit.

[Crusader]

^^So you have found worlds where no man has gone before...because they are boring!

I am starting to get intrested in Red Dead Redemption!

[Dasquian Belargic]

worlds where no man has gone before...because they are boring!

:lol!!

What a waste of a good game concept.

[Peter McCoy]

As disappointing as it was, I'd much rather play Spore than Star Trek Online - at least Spore is fun. It's shallow, but it's fun. I still haven't bothered with the Galactic Adventures expansion I bought, where you can customise an entire planet, eg pick the colour of the land and sky, the temperature levels, geography such as volcano/mountain placement, trees, cities, wildlife etc. Now if only the expanded on the actual depth of the gameplay to make it mid-core (it doesn't need to be hardcore but at the moment the only core to speak of it that of the planet you're on).

Are there any games out there that offer a similar experience to what STO fails to deliver? Namely space combat/exploration with ship customization with the ability to do stuff planetside as well? The only ones that come close are, to my mind, Eve Online and X3 (both of which are space-only). I vaguely remember a game that was basically that - you could have space and land combat, as well as trading and FPS stuff. No idea what it was called through, and I never actually played it. Should have just took it to the counter and bought the damn thing!

[Crusader]

ROFL well there is a game called Star Wars Galaxies that has got space and ground gameplay but I think you can stick to Star Trek Online instead for the same experience.
I am still waiting for a Firefly MMO where you have to run errant missions and reorganize the browncoats.

[Dasquian Belargic]

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[Droo]

Okay, I get it. He speaks fast and has similies for friends. He's a shit critic and, as something like this was mentioned before, no-one should take his verdicts on games seriously because he's sold credability for lulz.

[Morgan Evanar]

I don't think he's a shit critic just because his reviews happen to be funny. He always makes solid points about a game's weaknesses and whether or not it provides some sort of worthy experience. His reviews slant largely negative, but that's because, if you read some of is actual articles, he thinks most games are designed poorly and I'd be hard pressed to disagree. Nothing makes him happier than when a game a brings something fresh to the table and executes on it well (Portal).

Should his reviews be taken seriously? Not completely, but it's also foolhardy to dismiss Yahtzee. It's clear he does play the game, and when he's impressed he also will admit it. His Batman AA review was largely positive. He's one of the better critics out there, you simply have to understand the perspective and approach he takes with games..

[Droo]

I don't doubt his experience but from a reviewing technique, his style is largely biased towards comedy and he bangs on about a particular element to the point of excess without giving a balanced view. I say this because his review about Bioshock 2 is wrong, especially when bitching about the story, and I don't care about the entitlement of everyone on their opinion, he really is wrong. It's like complaining about The Two Towers being similar to The Fellowship of the Ring because it's set in Middle Earth. He's that biased towards the lulz in this case that his review is just out and out wrong, plus I do see sense in things he's saying but it's just a list of extremely petty gripes blown up to gargantuan proportions to accomodate his typical verbosity.

[Yog]

I think his rants are not only entertaining, but he brings up some valid criticism, and frequently, he hits the nail on the head summarizing a game's weaknesses. The problem is when he reviews games that are really really good. He'll bash the socks out of it anyway. And sometimes, he just completely misses the point, for example the time he reviewed EVE online, he would just be a hermit not interacting with anyone, and sit mining and do missions in 1.0 space, and not join a guild or do any PvP at all.

His reviews should not be taken as a guide for what games would be good to purchase, but they are source of entertainment value, and often get straight to the point of what possible reasons you might not like the game he reviews.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Aliens vs Predator

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[Dasquian Belargic]

Heavy Rain

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[Crusader]

Is this just my interpretation or did he just tell us that he liked the game...in the end?
Heavy Rain, Uncharted and MGS are the only reasons why I would buy a PS3 right now and I feel kind of tempted since I really liked Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. But in the end I will buy the Xbox Slim in November if it is bundled with Natal.

http://uk.xbox360.gamespy.com/articles/107/1078146p1.html

<----Hello my name is Crusader and I have a problem
I am a Microsoft Fanboy.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I also liked Indigo Prophecy (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13528&highlight=indigo+prophecy), though I did have problems with the way the story went near the end - but then I really like the whole 'interactive movie' aspect. It feels kind of like roleplaying ^_^;

I have played the demo of Heavy Rain and my main gripe was that my TV was not large enough for me to be able to see some of the little joystick wiggle patterns the game wanted you to do.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

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[Dasquian Belargic]

Final Fantasy XIII

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[Salvo Starborn]

God of War III

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[Dasquian Belargic]

Red Steel 2

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[Dasquian Belargic]

Just Cause 2

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[Daria Nytherciria]

Monster Hunter Tri

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[Crusader]

Splinter Cell: Conviction

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You might not believe this but next to Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption this has been the most enjoyable game in single player and coop this year.

OK the story is basicly a big XXX2 the next level ripp off.

[Crusader]

Alpha Protocol
After a few reviews I thought that this game is bad and that I won't miss something but he compares it to Deus Ex at several points. Intresting...
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[Dasquian Belargic]

Hahaha. You know, that review actually kinda makes me want to play the game!

[Crusader]

yeah I got the same impression but the consens on this game is: Nice idea, fancy dialog system but bad execution.

[Crusader]

Prince of Persia

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[Crusader]

E3 2010
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[Dasquian Belargic]

Super Mario Galaxy 2

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[Crusader]

This one was great :D

[Dasquian Belargic]

"..cake" :mischief

[Crusader]

cake, mushrooms and Rock'n'Roll

Mario is living the life of a true Rockstar in the Mushroom Kingdom!

[Atreyu]

Posted in the Minecraft thread, but figured I should post it here too:

Minecraft Review (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/2680-Minecraft)

[Atreyu]

Portal 2:

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[Tom Harriman]

Lacking the refinement of a snooker cue to the balls, you say?

:lol