Zero Punctuation
Zero Punctuation is a weekly video-review column by Ben Croshaw produced for The Escapist. The series initially started after Croshaw produced two reviews for Fable: The Lost Chapters and The Darkness and uploaded them on YouTube, after which The Escapist contacted him and offered him a contract.[1] Reviews are released every Wednesday, and every week's review is previewed on G4's X-Play the Tuesday before.
The reviews became vastly popular, leading to a four hundred percent increase in the Escapist's traffic. Some have even compared it to Penny Arcade in terms of influence and popularity. [2]
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]), analogously followed by a minimalistic cartoon mirroring what has been said. The videos are typically around 4 minutes of length, and formerly featured two commercial songs at the start and at the end, usually lyrically relating to the game context (although sometimes only tangentially), which have since been replaced by a single, standard opening sequence consisting of clips from past Zero Punctuations and guitar music. The end credits often feature humorous notes about how Croshaw's reviews can anger the viewer. A recurring character in the videos is a small imp-like character (who also appears in one of the Zero Punctuation logos), usually playing various supporting roles as either the antagonist or the sidekick. The imp is in fact a stylized version of a "darkling" from the first game Yahtzee reviewed, called "The Darkness", in which Yahtzee refered to it as an "Evil Imp".
Critical style
Croshaw, more often than not, provides highly critical reviews of games, usually focusing on a game's obvious faults. His reviews are frequently hostile to high-profile releases such as Halo 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Soul Calibur IV and Metal Gear Solid 4, and he occasionally states that he expects provoked e-mails from the series' more devoted fans (at one point devoting an entire episode to responding to the irate "fanboy" mail from SSBB). He also tends to shun certain genres of games or overused and recurring "gimmicks" in gaming, such as JRPGs, fighting games, MMORPGs (pronouncing it "Mumorpuger"), Nintendo continually remaking its old franchises, and his "old arch-nemesis", Quick Time Events. (The latter which he calls "God of War-style Simon Says button-mashing sequences", at one point devoting a short live action video bit in the middle of a review to address the developers directly.)
The reviews are not universally negative though, as he praised games such as Painkiller, No More Heroes and Psychonauts and said at one point he "couldn't think of any criticism" for Portal, as well as using the game several times as an example of a "perfect" game. [3] 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 bad 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)[4], while previously noting that "I know it's not very funny to love a game" for Portal.
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 10th, 2008 that he was half-serious but noted that nostalgia may have been a factor. In the retrospective of the Prince of Persia series, he lists his Top 5 favorite games as Portal, Silent Hill 2, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Spider-Man 2 and Fantasy World Dizzy respectively (however in the next review, he said "don't tell me any of you took last week's top 5 seriously"). 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, but also noted that the game engine is unexploited and the vehicle sections are unplayable.)
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.[5]
Special episodes
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.
- 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 webcomics, taking several stabs 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"[6], later noting that "I look at CAD and I see a lot of misdirected potential"[7]).
- One episode consisted of reviews of trailers of games shown at E3 2008, commenting that almost every upcoming game was a sequel.
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, ending the review with flipping the viewer off. At the conclusion of the following week's review, Alone in the Dark, Yahtzee provides captions for the gestures.
List of episodes
In addition, Croshaw also created two episodes before joining Escapist Magazine:
| Date | Game Reviewed | Platform | Genre | Intro Song | Closing Song |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29/07/07 | Fable: the Lost Chapters | PC | Action RPG | "Götterdämmerung" - Richard Wagner | "Heart Full of Black" - Burning Brides |
| 24/07/07 | The Darkness demo | PS3 | 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 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