Wow. I have finally found a decent description of Hardcore and Causal gamers. I have learned I am a hardcore gamer. Thank you, Yahtzee! Thank you for making me realize that actually giving a shit about games is a sign of strength and not a sign of just misplaced annoyances.

Well, you're pretty much describing Zelda Twilight Princess there, but otherwise, fuck you. 'Hardcore' doesn't mean 'Halo-playing twitchy fourteen-year-old douchebag.' 'Hardcore' gamers means the gamers who get into it. The gamers who have gamed since 256 colors were a distant wet dream. The gamers who follow all the hype and who want games with depth and innovation. The gamers who read websites like this one and ultimately the gamers who give a shit. Hardcore gamers are the ones who want the Mario and Zelda games Nintendo can't be bothered with anymore because they're too busy making popcorn nothings like Wii Sports Resort for their new 'casual gamer' friends.

Casual gamers are people who buy a Wii because the TV told them to and play it for about an hour before going off to mow the lawn or watch Days of our Lives or whatever else normal people do with their time. And pandering to these insipid fucks is only going to bite Nintendo in the arse when the Nissan iFurby or whatever the next tech trend will be lures them all away. Because after that they'll have nothing but a broken gimmick and all the long-term hardcore players they betrayed. Hope it was worth it, guys.

Many thanks Mr. Croshaw for depicting hardcore gamers. However, I fear that even Microsoft and Sony will soon jump the motion sensitive controls bandwagon therefore abandoning their own fanbase. Game publishers and developers will continue pursuing the casual dollar.

AmrasCalmacil:

headshotcatcher:

AmrasCalmacil:

headshotcatcher:
Anyway Yahtzee (eventhough youre probably not reading this) the Cowboys had a thing called honour, they'd rather kill through a totally fair showdown than my shooting someone in the face while he sleeps.

Christ, they're not Samurai. Besides Cowboys were men who would run the cattle from the Ranch to the Railroad, not Gunslingers who's enemies would drop dead in the street with an unexplained bullet wound.

Pistols at dawn, bring nobody

As for the cowboys stuff, you know what I meant with that..

Pistols? I choose the Banjo.

I love you dearly for that.

I never had a problem with the showdowns. The only times I lost were when my hand was too far away from my gun. When my hand was in the right position (and the game TELLS you when that is) I inevitably won the showdown.

As always, a semi-constructive criticism with its fair share of dick jokes. And as a special bonus, Trashing the Wii! What more could you ask for?

The Gamecube was aimed squarely at the core market and was largely ignored for the PS2. Nintendo could either find new customers or continue to be ignored by the current ones. In your House of the Dead: Overkill video, you say that you can't blame them for this, and now you're ranting about Nintendo's "betrayal" of "hardcore" players? Which is your actual position regarding the company?

AmrasCalmacil:
I liked the Article until the last two sentences when you flogged the Nintendo horse a bit more, besides, the Hardcore crowd are still with them to an extent, look at the reaction to a single bit of concept art involving Link and some weird looking blue girl.

I hope we can look forward to another crossdressing contest when Red Dead Redemption comes out though.
Not that I like that stuff or anything.

The more you make your audience want something, the harder they'll fall from your grace when they get what you DO end up making.

Look at SPORE. It basically obliterated the faith of thousands and thousands of gamers. Nintendo will create a craving for quality games that they won't be able to service and it will cause them to suffer dearly.

I doubt they'll die but it'll be another Virtua Boy gaff.

Anyway Yahtzee (eventhough youre probably not reading this) the Cowboys had a thing called honour, they'd rather kill through a totally fair showdown than my shooting someone in the face while he sleeps. Ofcourse it does break the flow of the game but if you take on a western theme you'd be silly not to include stuff like that...

I am kinda a wild west buff and that is complete and utter BS as far as I have heard there have been one showdown. was when someone tooks hickhocks prized pocket watch from a bet and was going to walk though the town square with it hickhock showed up the guy with the pocketwatch fired off a shot that buzzed by his head then hickhock drilled him though the heart. They had no honor it was either a gun battle where everyone hid behind a table or you walked up behind a guy while he was playing poker and drilled him in the back of the head then turn and ran like hell.

Woah, Yahtzee actually reads comments? Quick-I must post something amazing!

Or not.

You know they did the quickdraw minigame first in Red Dead Revolver, right? It was crap in that game, too. I think the best quickdraw game I ever saw was the one in Kirby's Adventure for the NES.

MaxTheReaper:
My god.

A description of a "hardcore" gamer that doesn't instantly insult anyone who doesn't play Halo/Gears of War/whatever other casual bullshit is masquerading as "hardcore" these days?

I'm in shock.

As am I. Probably the best description of the term I've heard in a while. Why do they people "hardcore" gamers with games that have only a moderate difficulty? Now somebody who beats every difficulty of Gradius V, THAT person is hardcore.

Edit: And what's all this garbage about cowboys having honor and ethics? Some people around here need to watch Unforgiven.

Stabby Joe:
However I will put some of the blame on the hardcore NINTENDO fan since the only reason Nintendo went with the casual market is they lost out in the last few generations, and I'd say that those who previously owned their consoles clearly didn't buy enough as opposed to hardcore games on other systems

And I would say that's because there weren't enough games for hardcore gamers. Aside from a sprinkling of first party titles there was practically nothing for the gamecube. The Wii has the same exact same problem and is only selling well because it's a cheap gimmicky toy.

zenoaugustus:
I remember playing Red Dead Revolver. Every major boss fight amounted to a showdown,

Well, not ALL of them. You've got that fat circus freak that tries to blow himself up; you along with him.

I really enjoy these Extra Punctuations, and I'm glad Yahtzee takes the time to do them.

Also, I about died laughing at the Gene Wilder/Blazing Saddles comment.

The whole showdown part, as you said is a more realistic quick time event but at least developers are trying new things but I see that some people might just not be able to complete the showdown events later on.

Oh and its a good idea to have a readers comment in itallic since I found it hard to see whos comment was whos.

CMon:

zenoaugustus:
I remember playing Red Dead Revolver. Every major boss fight amounted to a showdown,

Well, not ALL of them. You've got that fat circus freak that tries to blow himself up; you along with him.

Not every boss fight, but just about all of the main ones. The last one pissed me off, because it was an old governor who could somehow muster perfect reflexes and an excellent reaction time.

HUBILUB:
But we never hear anything from nintendo. We know that there is going to be a new mario and a new metroid for the wii... And that's it. How can you be so thick that you do not understand that. Nintendos marketing for the console is basically "Look, we have a console for the whole family with simple games you can enjoy for about an hour a day".

Funny thing? That's what Nintendo did way back with the NES too. Or we might want to call it the Family Computer.

Nintendo themselves put out more of their core franchise titles in the first two years of the Wii than they managed for the N64 or the Gamecube. This is a fact, and proves that people just enjoy whining about a problem that was largely fabricated by media.

Yay! That's all that I need to say.

zenoaugustus:

CMon:

zenoaugustus:
I remember playing Red Dead Revolver. Every major boss fight amounted to a showdown,

Well, not ALL of them. You've got that fat circus freak that tries to blow himself up; you along with him.

Not every boss fight, but just about all of the main ones. The last one pissed me off, because it was an old governor who could somehow muster perfect reflexes and an excellent reaction time.

Ohright.

Yeah, that game WAS pretty annoying.

Very happy to hear someone voice a similar opinion to my own on what Nintendo is doing to itself. It's a trend to casual gamers and practically a blight to the hardcore gamer. Not only that, but the "new" Mario and Zelda games can hardly be called that much different to the previous installments. Nintendo has been making the bare minimum changes to these franchises in order to keep the fans at bay for years. How seriously different is Ocarina of time from Twilight Princess or even Super Mario Brothers from the New Super Mario Brothers? Enough to get a different experience, but nothing truly new to the table in either instances. Where is the innovation, or have they very well given up on that?

A-Fucking-men to the last two paragraphs. Great show Yahtzee!

The paragraph about long time gamers being overrun by the new was well received. Thanks! While the two can co-exist, they can't when one is being given preferential treatment.

I like your opinion on "casual gamers".

Seriously.

Mezzamine:
I was wondering when this would come out. Good show Yahtzee. Also, I vote we start a petition to get more Westerns ending with Giant Robot Spider Fights(tm).

Timeshift actually ended with a giant robot spider boss fight.

I especially liked the comment about the nature of the hardcore gamers, being that a hardcore gamer is more of a mindset or a lifestyle than just the games one plays. It seems that a lot of people don't grasp that.

I loved the sly reference to Wild Wild West. Even though I'm only 14, that was one of my FAVORITE movies back in 'the day!
I still have the soundtrack CD!

I would rather have heard this in the video. Would have been summarised in under 30 seconds and a lot funnier.

My buddy has a Wii solely for Super Smash Bros. Brawl; otherwise it's a shit console that he uses for his Gamecube games because he already sold that.

AmrasCalmacil:

headshotcatcher:

AmrasCalmacil:

headshotcatcher:
Anyway Yahtzee (eventhough youre probably not reading this) the Cowboys had a thing called honour, they'd rather kill through a totally fair showdown than my shooting someone in the face while he sleeps.

Christ, they're not Samurai. Besides Cowboys were men who would run the cattle from the Ranch to the Railroad, not Gunslingers who's enemies would drop dead in the street with an unexplained bullet wound.

Pistols at dawn, bring nobody

As for the cowboys stuff, you know what I meant with that..

Pistols? I choose the Banjo.

good call, i were thinking the same very thing, and when you are about to play, my brother from the crowd: Look behind you, a three headed monkey!

love it. Keep stigging it to nintendo, dont ever give in!

My best friend is forcing me to play through Donkey Kong Country: 1-3. It's meant to be torture (she enjoys watching me suffer through old games), but I love it. Man, oh man, but they do not make platformers like they used to. The levels are cartoonish but well designed, they require reflexes that are even more fine-tuned than you see in CoD4 (or some other shooter), and sometimes.... well, the developer just feels like punishing you for making it that far.

Oh, and Enguarde is awesome.

So, yeah, there's my homage to REAL hardcore gaming.

Angrywyvern:
Yeah, the uncanny valley effect, a game needs to either be unrealistic or perfectly realistic (which is almost impossible) or people feel uncomfortable.

I think uncanny valley refers only to when a human is trying so hard to look realistic but ultimately fails to look realistic and comes across as unsettling.

In this case, it's about an unrealistic situation breaking immersion in a game, which it is. There was no honor among gunslingers. Standing in the street like that was a great way to allow a friend of the other guy to shoot you dead from a window or rooftop.

yay! more insight into the terrifying depths of Yahtzee's mind! Love the vids and am pleased to have supplement material to read up on the reviews now.

I have no intention of playing Call of Wharez(as you say) even before I watched the review, westerns don't interest me in the slightest as a game, the concept of a "showdown at the OK Corral" just does NOT appeal to me.

The thing that stuck out at most at me, as with the other posters here, was the hardcore vs casual gamer section. I don't like the term hardcore gamer...to me that's the fratboy douchebaggery that sits and has shitty Halo/Gears of War matches with his douchebag buddies....or the 14-16 year olds whose parents dont give a shit about them and let them hide in their room playing the same games till their eyes bleed and their diapers need changing...they're hardcore, cause all they do is live and breathe the same game, day and night, trying to get to the top of the leader boards, they care nothing for the industry, the time and skill required to make a GOOD game.

I consider the gamer you described as "hardcore" more a Serious Gamer. Someone who is serious about the art of video games. Im an old fart on these boards here (31) and i have been playing games since i was 3 or 4 on Entelevision...many moons ago. I consider myself a Serious Gamer, Ilove video games. The current generation of games makes me sad, some are real eye candy for sure, but the quality of story, involvement, caring for the characters, skill required has gone way down. I mean Christ, if these kids tried playing Contra on the old NES, right now...they'd give up...that game was PUNISHING on stupidity and impatience...

ah well....keep up the great work Yahtzee, i look forward to your reviews every week.

Yahtzee Croshaw:
Extra Punctuation: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Yahtzee accepts the challenge: How would he fix Call of Juarez?

Read Full Article

I recently started a thread on ultra hardcore gaming on this website and found there to be alot of problems. Mainly people seem not understand what hardcore gaming is even on this site so we forever had to explain to them what sort games we were on about. Once we explain they said those games suck because they sound to hard don't want to do something they have to learn to be good at (thats a summary feel). So I feel hardcore gaming is a dying breed as things will continually get dumb down for the masses. I apologizes for my some what terrible use of the English language I,m dyslexic tend make mess of these things.

I guess making such quick time event might make game unavailble for some players, and one or two final boss that ride on buffalo and are armored in fridge wouldn't hurt.
At least half of those battles could use diffrent interface to vary the whole final boss thing.

Good point, Yahtzee :)