Is this really an argument you want to get into, Clorf? With anyone else, maybe, but you're barking up one vitriolic tree.

[Edit: confused bush/tree thanks to this classic exchange:

Homer J. Simpson: "Guess you could say he's barking up the wrong bush."
Homer's Brain: "There it is, Homer: the cleverest thing you'll ever say and nobody heard it."]

Yep, great as usual!

Could we maybe get an RSS feed for just Zero Punctuation? Or, for that matter, separate RSS feeds for each section? because I really don't feel like signing up for an RSS feed for the entire site, because I'll end up missing most of the stuff I want anyway, so I'll just end up not getting any feed and forgetting everything in general...

yanamal:
The internet is hard :(

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/rss/articles/editorials/zeropunctuation

Or you could stop by every Wednesday. Your choice. Empowerment is our middle name here at The Escapist.

bender127:
Quit picking on my games eff pee ess games and pick on some other ones :(

I hear there'll be a riveting commentary on Candyland soon.

mobilesworking:
Is this really an argument you want to get into, Clorf? With anyone else, maybe, but you're barking up one vitriolic bush. ;)

I appreciate your concern, but I have no choice in the matter. For you see, the internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS. Therefore, any time somebody says something bad about a game I like, it really is the end of the world. I'm afraid that Yahtzee must be burnt at the stake, to serve as an example to anyone who thinks they can have an opinion that differs from my own. It's the only logical action available.

Redfeather:

bender127:
Quit picking on my games eff pee ess games and pick on some other ones :(

I hear there'll be a riveting commentary on Candyland soon.

Now this looks like a game to drive players babbling mad.

As for Yahtzee's review, what can I say...magnificent as usual.

Clorf, Thief 1 was the only thief game that had monsters that could completely break stealth. Even Dark Shadow's zombies didn't completely break stealth- though it was pretty much useless against them.

The zombies / demons could see you even stealthed. I think that's what Yahtzee is referring to. I'd imagine there is some convoluted way to get by them, but at that point you aren't even really stealthing, you're just using dumb luck and distance.

Great video Yahtzee. I admire that you take the middle ground on the subject. It's just hard to argue grey matters like levels of violence this with people who have the attention span of microwaved fruit.

Russ Pitts:

yanamal:
The internet is hard :(

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/rss/articles/editorials/zeropunctuation

Or you could stop by every Wednesday. Your choice. Empowerment is our middle name here at The Escapist.

Oh. Righto. Thanks. I feel silly now.
Out of curiosity, how is one supposed to find that through normal browsing? 'cause normally the internet doesn't seem that hard to me... It's not like I didn't look for it...
Anyway, my point was I *can't* stop by every Wednesday because my memory really sucks. not the internet. (sheesh...)

Sorry to pick on you, yanamal. It turns out we don't have that RSS feed up anywhere on the site. I had to really dig for it.

So I guess the internet really is hard. For us. :(

bender127:
Yahtzee, your reviews are more than phenomenal: they're inspirational. But, it's time show some range. While we all know you pretty much owe no allegiance except to the one who signs your paycheck, constantly reviewing nothing but first person games from the back end of whatever simulated pointy stick you're programmed to carry has to be getting dull for all, most of all you.

I'm not saying you should stop being a lazy cock and run out and shitstomp games like Animal Crossing or Final Fantasy XXXVII tonight (although if you did, it would probably be legendary). Just maybe there's more, different genres of games out there to write about than the issues associated with slaughtering whatever happens to wander into the reticule in the FPS's you've grown accustomed to reviewing.

Thats odd. I find he's only reviewed a single actual 'FPS' and that was Bioshock. Even that pretends to have other elements to it than FPS. Lets go over the list shall we?

Heavenly Sword Demo - God of War style action adventure hack and slash title
Res Evil 5 Demo - 3rd person action game
Psychonauts - Action adventure platformer (thank you invisible pigeon holing council)
Console wars - This isn't even based on a type of game
Bioshock - hey look, an actual FPS, even if it claims to be an FPS-RPG
Tomb Raider Anniversary - Action adventure platformer
Manhunt - 3rd person hack and slash and stealth and shoot a lot game that you can zoom the camera into a 1st person view...

Lets go back to the videos he made prior to the ones he's made for The Escapist.

The Darkness - Actually, this may be an FPS, I'm not sure, it sounded irritating.
Fable - An actual RPG.

Then there are plenty of written reviews on other games and movies that are entertaining to read, including Animal Crossing.

Do you even know what an FPS (first person shooter) is? You know having a gun in a game doesn't make it an FPS right?

Evilducks:
You know having a gun in a game doesn't make it an FPS right?

The Oregon Trail would be FPS if that was the requirement. And that thought makes me giggle.

Date: May 16, 1848
Weather: Hot
Health: Good
Food: 1172 pounds
Next Landmark: 28 miles
Miles Traveled: 72
Natives Fragged: 33
Ammo Remaining: 220

Press Space Bar To Continue

Evilducks:
Do you even know what an FPS (first person shooter) is? You know having a gun in a game doesn't make it an FPS right?

I'd say that what you do in a game is far more significant than from what angle you're viewing your actions.

You'd be wrong about that, Onsokumaru. And going against 17 years worth of gaming categorisation for no good reason.
Anyway

Scynix:
Clorf, Thief 1 was the only thief game that had monsters that could completely break stealth. Even Dark Shadow's zombies didn't completely break stealth- though it was pretty much useless against them.

The zombies / demons could see you even stealthed. I think that's what Yahtzee is referring to.

I had to jump in a point out that this isn't remotely true. All AIs in Thief are actually functionally identical when it comes to vision and hearing. There are tweaks that can be made on a per-AI basis but none of them posess any special senses or cheat (except the zombie, but that's only so they get up when you walk near them).
Action gamers often respond to Thief's monsters like you must fight them. I guess its understandable. I think developers were hoping they'd be so scary it'd be a true test of your mettle to stand in the shadows next to them as opposed to mere humans (worked for me!), but there's a gamer expectation to have-at ugly things in fantasy games which works against it. But Thief is about the purest steath game there is (or at least the earliest and most detailed purest stealth game); On hard difficulty I think its only necessary to harm one character in the game.

(yes I signed up to defend Thief. Pass the fanboy tar....there you go...you missed a spot. Regardless, I love the mag and this feature so cheers).

Onsokumaru:

Evilducks:
Do you even know what an FPS (first person shooter) is? You know having a gun in a game doesn't make it an FPS right?

I'd say that what you do in a game is far more significant than from what angle you're viewing your actions.

I can sort of see your point if you're talking about third person shooter games like Gears of War or Max Payne, but you're not. It'd be a real stretch to call Tomb Raider or Manhunt "shooters". Is that what you think you do in those games? Even if your only exposure to them was Yahtzee's reviews, you should still be able to see the difference.

Muzz:
You'd be wrong about that, Onsokumaru. And going against 17 years worth of gaming categorisation for no good reason.
Anyway

Scynix:
Clorf, Thief 1 was the only thief game that had monsters that could completely break stealth. Even Dark Shadow's zombies didn't completely break stealth- though it was pretty much useless against them.

The zombies / demons could see you even stealthed. I think that's what Yahtzee is referring to.

I had to jump in a point out that this isn't remotely true. All AIs in Thief are actually functionally identical when it comes to vision and hearing. There are tweaks that can be made on a per-AI basis but none of them posess any special senses or cheat (except the zombie, but that's only so they get up when you walk near them).
Action gamers often respond to Thief's monsters like you must fight them. I guess its understandable. I think developers were hoping they'd be so scary it'd be a true test of your mettle to stand in the shadows next to them as opposed to mere humans (worked for me!), but there's a gamer expectation to have-at ugly things in fantasy games which works against it. But Thief is about the purest steath game there is (or at least the earliest and most detailed purest stealth game); On hard difficulty I think its only necessary to harm one character in the game.

(yes I signed up to defend Thief. Pass the fanboy tar....there you go...you missed a spot. Regardless, I love the mag and this feature so cheers).

And then you play Thief 2 and go up against the robots, which actually do break stealth. They're prone to randomly turn around and start shooting at you at any moment, no matter how quiet or well hidden you've been. So you end up killing them all, only to find out that even that is completely unpredictable, since the Dark Engine can't do hit detection worth a damn.

Evilducks:
Anyone that says anything that even remotely sounds negative about Yahtzee needs to feel my wrath as I project from some anonymous location on the Internet. Oh, and somehow I'm smarter than you are, because I live and breathe FPS (a noble lifetime accomplishment) and have followed Yahtzee's career like some kind of stalker, yet I'll never be able to express my smartierness properly because you're too stupid to understand.

I forgot about Psychonauts - my apologies to Yahtzee.

Evilducks:
Do you even know what an FPS (first person shooter) is? You know having a gun in a game doesn't make it an FPS right?

Nope, I guess not. I didn't realize that my callous comment had somehow offended the Olympic Video Gaming Comission, their rules for categorizing video games, and its athletes. Yet strangely enough, I really don't care either.

But in any case, let me rephrase: Besides Psychonauts, is there any game worth reviewing that appeals to more than just the 12 to 19 year old fan boy demographic, where the objective is not to see how many times you can push the trigger/attack button in a session? If so, can Yahtzee please do those types just a little more often, in the Flash format with the visual cues that makes his reviews that much more funnier? Thanks

Clorf:
I can sort of see your point if you're talking about third person shooter games like Gears of War or Max Payne, but you're not. It'd be a real stretch to call Tomb Raider or Manhunt "shooters". Is that what you think you do in those games? Even if your only exposure to them was Yahtzee's reviews, you should still be able to see the difference.

I never said Tomb Raider Is a shooter. Or Manhunt. I never actually mentioned any particular games. What I mean is that if a game is primarily about running around shooting people/zombies/chicken/whatever it's a shooter. The viewing angle is about as irrelevant as anything can get.

http://www.manhunt.com.sg/

I have no clever comment to accompany this. I Googled 'Manhunt' and this was one of the hits. I thought it was hilarious.

Haha!
As always original as hell, keep 'em comming Yahtzee!

Btw,
have you played Overlord? If not, give it a try! Would love to see a review ^^

bender127:
Anyone that says anything that even remotely sounds negative about Yahtzee needs to feel my wrath as I project from some anonymous location on the Internet. Oh, and somehow I'm smarter than you are, because I live and breathe FPS (a noble lifetime accomplishment) and have followed Yahtzee's career like some kind of stalker, yet I'll never be able to express my smartierness properly because you're too stupid to understand.

I admit, I laughed. In the wide world of going off the deep end and actually thinking before I press 'post' I bothered to actually watch his reviews. I was correct in assuming that you somehow categorize everything with a gun to be an FPS however. It's good to know that FF7 can fit in that category, maybe Xenogears, World of Warcraft, etc. Dear god, and I thought the market was flooded with lame ass FPS games before your staggering insight led me to this realization.

I enjoy criticism, if you hadn't noticed. Its part of what makes Yahtzee's reviews fun to watch. I do tend to call people out when they're talking out of their ass though. I see you've still not bothered to actually click on his actual website (you know, the one they link with every single review he posts here) and watch the Fable or Darkness reviews that have those spiffy visual jokes that go with the witty voice over?

For somebody stuffing a person into the 12-19 mindless blaster category because he pointed out you don't know what the hell you're talking about you might want to consider actually reading something from time to time. I know pictures can be pretty and oh so spectacular, but lets face facts here, Yahtzee's artistic impressions aren't exactly Mona Lisa's and I'm fairly certain he can manage to convey a joke without a circle with a couple dots and some red color spattered on it.

Keep it up!

These reviews are "Pure Weapons Grade Hilarium"

Evilducks:
I was correct in assuming that you somehow categorize everything with a gun to be an FPS however. It's good to know that FF7 can fit in that category, maybe Xenogears, World of Warcraft, etc. Dear god, and I thought the market was flooded with lame ass FPS games before your staggering insight led me to this realization.

You've missed the whole point if you insist on dwelling on what is or is not a FPS. I mean, for chrissakes already, let it go geek.

Evilducks:
For somebody stuffing a person into the 12-19 mindless blaster category because he pointed out you don't know what the hell you're talking about you might want to consider actually reading something from time to time.

You connected that with that? Wow.

Evilducks:
I enjoy criticism, if you hadn't noticed.

Well then, you're tool and a sheep, with a 2 foot perspective on life. And you suck all kinds of ass.

Now now, girls.

SaraPh:

Break:

brin5tar:
Isn't it pronounced "ee-ko" not "EYE-ko"?

No. Well, probably not. No matter how I say it, I can't seem to make "ee-ko" not sound stupid. So I dub thee wrong. At least, I've never heard it pronounced that way before, and can't really see why you would.

Nice video, as usual, Yahtzee. The opening song combined with the subject matter made me laugh before you even started talking.

Well considering it was developed by Sony, and had a Japanese voice acting team, I'd assume you use the Japanese pronunciation in which i has an 'ee' sound. However since you don't live in Japan, I'd recommend saying it however you feel comfortable.

Fair enough, I suppose. I'd forgotten about the language differences. I'll probably stil call it "eye-coh", out of habit, if nothing else.

Bender. Might I draw your attention to the following quotes?

constantly reviewing nothing but first person games

from the back end of whatever simulated pointy stick you're programmed to carry

wander into the reticule in the FPS's you've grown accustomed to reviewing

Now, do these words seem familiar to you? That's because you said them. I know, I know, you can usually be relied on to know what you say and don't say. But I just noticed that you didn't seem to realise that you said these three things. I can only assume that this is why you are acting like an arrogant bastard, and calling people names for talking about issues you raised. I understand that you meant simple action games, but can you really expect too many people to accurately paraphrase your messages when you go so out of your way to confuse? Besides, the market's a little slow right now. There aren't that many complex, exciting, or particularly interesting games out just yet, and it's a lot more entertaining to tear games that have been overhyped by the media and gaming community to small, gooey chunks, than it is to review some niche game that's actually quite a lot of fun.

And critism is a useful way to find out where you're going wrong, so you can improve on things that need improving, and gauging the current attitude of general society. Since this is the generally agreed upon method for reacting to critism, your description of someone who likes constructive critism as a "tool and a sheep, with a 2 foot perspective on life" marks you out as either:
A)Revolutionary, and a great thinker, or:
B)An arrogant fucktard.
Now, while both are fair possibilities, I'm more inclined to take option B. Mainly because I find a "tool and a sheep, with a 2 foot perspective on life" that, as you say, "sucks all kinds of ass" is a better description of your own behaviour, as opposed to someone who can listen to people.

If that's too complicated, or long, or whatever, this might be simpler:
Shut the fuck up, you arrogant, self-righteous dickhole, who's idea of a decent argument is to spout off random shit that makes as much sense as your mother on a warm day.

Always nice to step into a forum just when people are beginning to urinate on one another.

Yahtzee, the otherwise superb review has been ruined for me by the fact that I've had "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows" stuck in my head for 48 hours. Traditionally, one can get rid of a song in the head by listening to or singing an even more annoying song. I've tried the flintstones theme, I've tried the "I feel like chicken tonight" song, and everything by Men Without Hats and it just won't work. What you have managed to force into my head cannot be replaced by a worse tune, because THERE ISNT ONE!

Tiny Tim - Having a Wonderful Time

or

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

or really, anything else by Tiny Tim. Though, while you may be pleased to have one song out of your head, I'm not sure it's worth trading for something stickier.

Sort of like opium to morphine to heroine... You just have to hope someone someday sings the methadone of the music world.

I for oen hate rethinking my control layouts just to play 1 simi half assed good game, as a south paw there have been a few FPSs that didn't have a southpaw options I then switched to the PC at least I can have button control options on it..well they are cocking that up lil by lil because the PC is what is gettign games ported to, I guess getting 3rd party adapters that give you some control options for consoles is what I need to start investing in the PC seems almost dead...then again I have not been happy with anythign from the 7th generation of gaming...its all shallow crap meant to blind 12 year olds >>

Beatles - Yellow Submarine

NOTHING trumps Yellow Submarine.

Olivia Newton John - Physical. Obliterates my brain for weeks at a time.

That one did it! Now of course, I need to wait and see if I have to hear "my body talk" for another 72 hours.

Just what the hell am I supposed to do until Wednesday? The wait is unbearable, no matter how drunk I am.

Wanna get rid of a song in your head? Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmVU08zVpA

That should fix you right up. Mmmm - not overly work safe.

Jonathan Coulton's Mr. Fancypants gets stuck in my head for untold hours... He claims he wrote the damn thing just to get it out of his head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeU1m55g4gc

To continue the detour off into tangent land, is there the video game equivalent to an earworm? A game that you simply can't get out of your head? There are a few obvious nominees, like World of WarCrack, Civilization, and Tetris. (Seriously, just typing the word 'Tetris' gets the music playing in my head.)

Anything else?

(Also, nice work, Yahtzee. I'll be back on Wednesday. And if you're stuck for games to attack, you really haven't pinned down WoW and beaten it yet, merely given it a backhand slap with that 'second job' comment.)

I had trouble putting Disgaea down. The constant need to level up items and figure out block patterns in item world was very engrossing. Not to mention trying to level to 9999

I'm glad Thief has been discussed. I also didn't understand Yahtzee's crack against it, although I thoroughly enjoyed the Manhunt review, as I do all of them.

Anyone thinking that you couldn't play stealthily in the Thief zombie levels was not paying attention. Or they simply didn't understand how Looking Glass Studios gave you the option to play anyway you wanted. I chose not to kill a single soul (or lost soul) through the entire game, except the very few that were required objectives. Zombies were a bit different than guards. Yes they could detect you in the dark better, but they were slow so really they were easy to avoid and sneak past. And these levels made for some of the most scary game moments I've ever played to date.