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Revision as of 16:24, 8 April 2009
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| This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (October 2008) |
Zero Punctuation is a video game review series created by comedy writer/gamer Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw and produced by online magazine The Escapist. Each week's review is previewed on The Escapist Show and G4's X-play the Tuesday before it is released on Wednesday in the Zero Punctuation section of the website.
Background
The series began after Croshaw created two video reviews, one for The Darkness demonstration version for the PS3 and the other for Fable: The Lost Chapters for the PC and uploaded them on YouTube to wide acclaim. Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, owner of comedy website Something Awful, offered Croshaw the opportunity to produce Zero Punctuation for his website, which Croshaw turned down because the amount of money offered was insufficient. After this, The Escapist contacted Croshaw, and offered him a contract.[1]
The reviews became popular, leading to a four hundred percent increase in The Escapist's traffic. The Escapist video producer Russ Pitts has compared Zero Punctuation to Penny Arcade in terms of influence and popularity.[2]
Format
In these videos, Croshaw usually reviews a recent game or games, using his rapid-fire speech delivery (which gave the name for the column, although he states the fast talking was “by accident”[1]). This is accompanied by a minimalistic cartoon mirroring what is being said, usually to a distinctive bright yellow background. The videos are typically around four minutes in length, and formerly featured two commercial songs at the start and at the end, which were usually related to the game context (although sometimes only tangentially, like Dave Matthew's Band's "Crash Into Me" for the Burnout review). These have since been replaced by a single, standard opening sequence consisting of clips from past reviews and guitar music. The end credits often feature humorous notes about how Croshaw's reviews may anger the viewer such as 'Systematically alienating every type of fanboy' in GTA IV, and also contain some of the characters from the review engaging in slapstick.
A recurring character in the videos is a small imp-like creature (who also appears in one of the Zero Punctuation logos), usually playing various supporting roles as either the antagonist or the sidekick, often taking the place of enemies in the game. The imp is in fact a stylized version of a “darkling” from the first game Yahtzee reviewed, called “The Darkness”, in which Yahtzee referred to it as an “Evil Imp”. It has been referred to as an imp in the closing credits of the review of Super Mario Galaxy.
Critical style
Croshaw, more often than not, provides highly critical reviews of games, usually focusing on a game's faults. His reviews are frequently hostile to high-profile releases - such as Halo 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mirror's Edge and Metal Gear Solid 4 - and he occasionally states that he expects provoked e-mails from the series' devoted fans, at one point devoting an entire episode to responding to hate mail stemming from a Super Smash Bros. Brawl review. He also tends to shun certain genres of games or overused and recurring "gimmicks" in gaming, such as JRPGs, fighting games, MMORPGs, Nintendo continually remaking its old franchises of Mario/Metroid/Zelda, and his "old arch-nemesis" Quick Time Events (which he at one point devoted a short live-action part of the review to directly addressing developers on the flaws of their use).
The reviews are not universally negative though, as he praised games such as Left 4 Dead, Earthbound, the Thief series ("The Thief series are the only games that have done stealth well",[3] he also praised Thief II: The Metal Age for its immersion[4]), Saints Row 2, Fallout 3, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Painkiller, No More Heroes, Assassin's Creed, House of the Dead: Overkill, Call of Duty 4, Psychonauts, Deus Ex, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (devoting an entire video to the series), and The Orange Box (at one point he said he "couldn't think of any criticism" for Portal saying, "This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force feedback codpiece", as well as using the game several times as an example of a "perfect" game.) [5] Even in negative reviews such as the one for Haze or Alone in the Dark, he noted a few positive aspects, stating the latter had "the potential for true greatness". In fact, Croshaw started his review of BioShock by acknowledging that "despite all the horrible things I'm about to say, it's still probably one of the best games of the year", but spent the rest of the review harshly criticizing it - he explained this by saying "no one likes it when I'm being nice to a game" (referring to his positive review of Psychonauts),[6] while noting that "I know it's not very funny to love a game" for Portal. Croshaw has expressed hope in upcoming games, provided developers "get it right".
As a hint towards what he thinks as the ultimate game, Croshaw at one point stated that "The console wars are all ultimately futile, as the best game ever, Fantasy World Dizzy for the Commodore 64, has already been made." Croshaw also did a special feature on the Dizzy series in Australian Hyper Magazine February 2006. Croshaw himself stated at an ACMI Game On panel on July 10, 2008 that he was half-serious but noted that nostalgia may have been a factor. However, he noted in his "Xbox Live Double Bill" video that "nostalgia is like stuffing your cheeks full of cocaine infused marbles, in that it makes you say stupid things. Of course Fantasy World Dizzy isn't the best game ever! Don't be so bloody idiotic! It had like five colours and main character was a blob on some kind of permanent caffeine buzz!" In the review for the Silent Hill Homecoming he officially lists Portal, Silent Hill 2, and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time as his all-time favorite games; he also often compares games to Branston Pickle, citing the product's uniqueness. During many occasions, Croshaw has asserted that he considers video game design as an art form, and often points out that he focuses on the gameplay and the storyline itself instead of the visual assets - a notable exception being Crysis, where he momentarily praised the graphics, noting that the game looked good enough to disregard the "uninituitive and confusing" level design, though he did later mention that it required an incredibly powerful computer to actually run the game, noting "Crysis is apparently designed for some kind of hypothetical future computer from space".
Croshaw cites the work of British television critic and PC Zone journalist Charlie Brooker as the "main inspiration" for his own reviewing style, as well as the writing tone of Douglas Adams.[7]
Special episodes
| This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (April 2009) |
There have been a few exceptions to the review centering around a video game:
- One episode featured a rundown on the seventh generation of gaming consoles.
- One episode was a selection of short toons created for the GDC. This episode was also the only episode to have profane audio censored, although not removed from the on-screen texts.
- One episode featured a "showdown" of various emails Croshaw received after the less-than-flattering review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
- One episode was a review of gaming webcomics, taking several stabs at unnamed web comics, although many believe it was aimed at Ctrl+Alt+Del (a webcomic he claims to have a personal hatred of, having previously called it "the Rubbish King, sitting proudly on a throne of rotting meat"[1] and stating outright "I fucking hate Ctrl+Alt+Del"[8], later noting that "I look at CAD and I see a lot of misdirected potential"[9]).
- One episode consisted of reviews of trailers of games shown at E3 2008, commenting that almost every upcoming game was a sequel.
- The second to last episode of 2008 was a clipshow of the most notable reviews intended to be used for a quiz that was hosted on The Escapist.
- The first episode of 2009 was a mock awards show in which Yahtzee presents various humorous awards to games of 2008 and their characters. Examples include: "Most Disappointing"; "Most Unsurprisingly Poor Quality" and "Stupidest Main Character"
Some episodes featured hidden shorts at the end:
- The episode about The Witcher had a short profanity-laden conversation made with Painkiller
- The episode about Sim City Societies had a short created with Garry's Mod using maps and character models from Team Fortress 2.
- The Lego Indy episode featured a "review" of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where a seemingly bored Yahtzee proceeds to mutely make face and hand gestures, to show his disgust for the latest Indiana Jones movie. At the conclusion of the following week's review, Alone in the Dark, Yahtzee provides satirical captions (jesting toward homosexuality).
- The episode about Silent Hill Homecoming had a short sketch, using clips from Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3. It resembles the short after The Witcher as it was done in the same way where clips from games are taken and the dialogues are voiced-overed.
- The episode about Guitar Hero: World Tour featured a short with the theme music of Deus Ex, with added lyrics performed by Croshaw. The song acts like a short review, commenting on the game, its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, and developer, Ion Storm.
- The episode about Sonic Unleashed ended with a teaser for a video series, Game Damage, which Yahtzee is undertaking with his companions Yug and Matt.
- The LittleBigPlanet episode featured live action footage of Yahtzee wearing boxer shorts, attached to which were two googly eyes. During the review, at a point where he was lost for what to say, he cut to a short scene of him wearing the shorts, while dancing to Soul Bossa Nova. The ending of the episode featured the shorts again, although they were used in a mock horror film clip, zooming into negative images of the googly eyes in parody of many Japanese horror movies.
- For the April 1st review, the video initially starts with Graham Stark of LoadingReadyRun and Unskippable fame (the latter also on The Escapist) reviewing X-Blades, but after a minute or so, Yahtzee intervenes, and reviews Halo Wars (Yahtzee mentioned on his website he would be doing a crossover with Unskippable[10]. The video ends with a brief segment where the cartoon imp appears to deliver its own (albeit short) review of Pedigree Chum in a series of grunts and squeaks. Someone then holds a pistol to the imp's head and a gunshot is heard as the screen turns black.
List of episodes
In addition, Croshaw also created two episodes before joining Escapist Magazine:
| Date | Reviewed subject | Platform | Genre | Intro Song | Closing Song |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-07-29 | Fable: the Lost Chapters | PC/Xbox | Action RPG | "Götterdämmerung" - Richard Wagner | "Heart Full of Black" - Burning Brides |
| 2007-07-24 | The Darkness demo | PlayStation 3 | FPS | "Superstition" - Stevie Wonder | "Section 12 (Hold Me Now)" - The Polyphonic Spree |
References
- ^ a b c PressSpotting: Ramblin' with Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw
- ^ "Zero Punctuation Equals Millions of Views". NewTeeVee. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
- ^ "Zero Punctuation Fallout 3 review". Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ^ "Zero Punctuation Oblivion review". Retrieved 2008-06-04.
- ^ "Zero Punctuation Orange Box review". Retrieved 2007-12-25.
- ^ "Zero Punctuation Psychonauts review". Retrieved 2008-04-01.
- ^ Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee Interview: Ben Croshaw & The Escapist
- ^ Fully Ramblomatic.com - the website for REAL MEN
- ^ Fully Ramblomatic.com - the website for REAL MEN
- ^ Fully Ramblomatic.com - the website for REAL MEN.
External links
