61 Frames Per Second : zero punctuation

Yahtzee's New Web Show is Pretty "Meh"

Cole Stryker — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Everyone's favorite gaming curmudgeon from down 'udgeon, Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame, has a new TV pilot. Yahtzee, who is notably less charismatic in person, does his usual deadpan scatology, Yug bobbles his head and waits for Yahtzee to demean him, and Matt just sort of, sits there.

Video after the jump:

The web show, which seems as though it has dreams of becoming something more, seems to be marketed to a broader audience than Zero Punctuation, with the hosts making less than insightful comments like, "I liked Sonic Adventure because it was fun and runny." There's a typically "extreme" soundtrack and some zany interstitial skits. They spend a lot of time apologizing for how uninteresting their show is, making us wonder why these aussies think they're going to find funding with this pilot. All in all, a hatfull of meh, as Yahtzee might say.

Semi-related: Don't let the fact that our fearless leader was featured on the show color your opinion of what I'm about to say, but College Humor's Bleep Bloop is about a million times funnier than this. And they aren't even trying to get on TV.

Yahtzee on Dead Space: Competent But Bland

Bob Mackey — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Everyone's favorite fedora-wearing snark king is back again this week with another review, this time dealing with EA's new action/horror title Dead Space. On a certain podcast I can't quite remember, I heard Dead Space referred to as Now That's What I Call Survival Horror Vol. 1; meaning, of course, that the game combines several popular features of existing survival horror games into a single compilation. From what Yahtzee says, it looks like this description is pretty accurate:

I really do think Dead Space's familiar-to-a-fault game play is a result of the publisher; really, anything with the EA brand these days is designed to be friendly and inoffensive. In this era of gigantic publishers, it feels like a certain dumbing-down is happening. Take a look at Activision's Call of Duty 4; the game refuses to tell you what Middle Eastern country you're in--although it should be pretty obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of current events.

It's strange how a title so committed to the depiction of semi-realistic (and at times, horrifying) warfare is unwilling to extend its narrative to the real world, where it could possibly offend. As I've bitched about man-a-time, the view of games as "safe," inoffensive products is really holding back the gaming industry's creativity. This is obviously a symptom of increasing development costs, which may explain why some of the most innovative and interesting games this gen have been on the DS, PSP, and on digital download services like XBox Live. Wouldn't it be nice if the big-budget blockbusters weren't afraid to step out of their comfort zone?

Related Links:

Yahtzee Wannabe Warns You About the GameStop Devil
The World Ends With Yahtzee
Yahtzee's Homecoming

Yahtzee Kicks Star Wars in the Balls

Bob Mackey — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

The best thing about being born in the early 80s--aside from all the street cred--is that I completely missed out on the Star Wars phenomenon, which has kep both my childhood and my nostalgia glands safe from a franchise that's been circling the drain for over 20 years. If I had been born a decade earlier, I'd probably go nuts over anything George Lucas farted out of his diseased mind; but, growing up in the decade that I did, I was aware of Spaceballs before I was aware of Star Wars--and to this day, Mel Brooks' parody remains the superior product. Let's not talk about the cartoon.

It appears that The Escapist's Yahtzee may be of the same persuasion, what with this week's Zero Punctuation being a total evisceration of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. While I'm not quite sure how he feels about Spaceballs, there's one thing we definitely agree on: the new trilogy was crap, and should be regarded as such. TFU may do a fine job of connecting the old trilogy to the new one, but is this what we really want? Shouldn't Episodes 1-3 be forgotten by the world until they become nostalgia for the Star Wars fans who were youngins during the late 90s/early 00s?

Don't laugh; in 10 years, countless 30 year-old men will be paying big bucks for double-sided lightsabers on eBay.

I'll admit that I didn't play the version of the game that Yahtzee did (Wii), but he makes a claim in his review that the PS3/360 version seems superior. From the sound of things, it is superior; but in the same way that Episode 2 was better than Episode 1. I downloaded the 360 TFU demo and played it for about 10 minutes before I experienced the ennui that accompanies any Star Wars product; it was competent, but really nothing more than a swimmy physics engine with a Star Wars skin wrapped around it. Half Life 2 ostensibly built an entire game based around a physics engine four years ago, and managed to make it not rely entirely on falling crates and gravity gun hijinks.

What, exactly, do we need to save Star Wars as a gaming franchise?

Related Links:

Screen Test: Star Wars – The Force Unleashed
Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.
Why Wasn’t The Clone Wars A Video Game?

Continuing the Old-School Conversation

Bob Mackey — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Boy, we here at 61FPS sure are thinking with a hive mind today--and it's all due to a lovable, fast-talking British fellow who's already popped up a few times on our blog in the past 24 hours. Needless to say, the reactions of our own bloggers have been intriguing, so I thought I'd continue the old-school conversation with my own post.

First of all, retro is undoubtedly back in style--if that isn't contradictory enough for you. I was going to begin this post by going through a list of the most recent retro remakes/revivals, but there's just too damn many. Right now, I'm completely stuck in the past with Mega Man 9 and the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV, and I couldn't be happier. As much as I try to resist the crippling powers of nostalgia, it does get to me; and, in some ways, I realize the tragedy of buying my childhood back, one game at a time.

It's safe to say that I'm on the same page as John and Nadia when it comes to Bionic Commando: Rearmed--but there are certain retro quirks that irk me when they appear in a modern-day game. Take the concept of "lives," for instance; it's something that I've wanted to write an in-depth article about for a long time (and I just may do that!). I'm completely against punishing a player with tedium (i.e., replaying long stretches of a game) for screwing up; but if Mega Man 9 didn't have a lives system, it would feel very, very wrong. Despite it kicking my ass up and down the block for a week, there are certain old-school ideas that work best in certain contexts.

On the other hand, a game like the Wii's Zack and Wiki absolutely did not need a lives system--especially when the developers seemed so keen on murdering you for experimentation and exploring; not a good idea when finicky Wiimote controls can screw you at every turn. And look at Super Mario Galaxy--what exactly were the point of lives in that game? I've never had a game over in Galaxy, but I'm sure losing all of my lives would provide me with nothing but a brief period of inconvenience as I loaded up my old save. Is that supposed to encourage me to play better?

I guess what I'm saying is we should keep the old mechanics where they belong, and revamp the ones that would be inexcusable today. Bionic Commando: Rearmed did a great job at this; what do you guys think?

Related Links

Bionic Commando is Love: Bionic Commando Rearmed is Out. It Matters.
One Crazy Summer of Arcade
Yahtzee Rolls With the Big Dogs, Takes the Piss Out of GTA4

Nobody Puts Bionic Commando in A Corner

John Constantine — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Late last night, I was sitting in my library, enjoying a nice cup of earl grey tea, a pipe, and the day's copy of The Times. It was the first night of autumn cool enough for a fire and I’d brought one to a crackling burn in my home’s blackened hearth. The evening was a picture of utter tranquility, the sort of convalescence one scoffs at in youth and longs for later in life when a day’s labors start to take their toll. But it was around 10pm when this harmony was shattered! My lover, Bionic Commando, burst into the room wailing, tears streaming from its eyes, its heavenly façade twisted and mangled by anguish!

“My love, what ever is the matter?” I asked, alarmed.

“It’s that awful man from the Sunburnt Country! He called me such terrible things!”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, dearest. Who is this rogue who dared question your honor?”

“You know. Benjamin Croshaw. Yahtzee. The videogame critic from the island of convicts who walks about in a Justin Timberlake hat. He makes his trade nattering on about obese fellows being silly for liking terrible entertainments. Like me! Oh!” Bionic Commando swooned, its clawed hand against its forehead.

“And what did the uncouth bastard say about you?” I asked. I could feel a heat prickling about my neck and cheeks that did not come from the fire.

“He said I’m console-stompingly frustrating! An archaic nothing made only for nostalgia’s sake who arbitrarily extends play through broken platforming mechanics. He said my controls were installed by someone reading the instructions upside down. Darling, he said I was old, fat, and wrinkly!”

Bionic Commando ran from the room, sobbing. My tea had grown cold. How dare he. Bionic Commando is a vision, a treasured paragon of tight rules and lusciously precise gameplay that has endured for two decades. Nostalgia may reign for trollops like Battletoads, but my Bionic Commando is as pure a game as Pac-man, an ageless bit of programming as entertaining today as it was in years passed thanks to fundamental quality, not its association with some fool’s salad days.

I write this from aboard a sturdy ship, The Radd Spenceria, sailing west across the pacific. I carry only this journal, a pistol, and my love on this journey. I do not know what I will do when I encounter this Croshaw, but I fear that I will no longer be able to be called a gentleman in polite society.

…

Yeah. Right. Anyway, my personal life aside, Zero Punctuation is particularly amusing this week. I’d never actually try to pick apart Yahtzee’s criticisms of a given game. The man’s a humorist first and a critic second, and he’s damn good at his job. You don’t tell the clown he looks stupid and expect him to take you seriously. But I will say that this is the second recent episode of Zero Punctuation (the other being his Soul Calibur IV video) that makes peculiar claims as to what does and does not make a game good. Just because something is old, this doesn’t mean it’s broken. Saying Bionic Command is inferior to modern games because its controls work differently than the Mario- platforming-standard is like saying chess is worse than checkers because it’s older and the pieces have more complicated moves. Bionic Commando, as a set of rules you must follow by performing actions to achieve a goal, works. It’s a stark contrast compared to other beloved old games like, say, Star Tropics, a game whose controls occasionally just don’t respond to your actions. But I digress. Check out the episode below and head over to The Escapist for more.

Related links:

Bionic Commando is Love: Bionic Commando Rearmed is Out. It Matters.
Yahtzee On E3: Are We Gaming in an Age of Uncreativity?
Yahtzee Says, Support Your Local Independent Developer (He's Right).
Yahtzee Wannabe Warns You About the GameStop Devil

EVE Online Is an Elaborate Screen Saver

Bob Mackey — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:00:00 GMT

I don't play MMORPGs, mainly because living in the same house as an MMORPG victim was one hell of an eye-opening experience. My stepdad has been playing Everquest since 1999, and my greatest memory of his nearly decade-long addiction is the day I walked down into our basement and saw him watching TV on the couch while Everquest played silently on a nearby computer. Wondering why he wasn't glued to the keyboard, I asked why he abandoned his game. The answer: "I'm traveling." His character was sitting on a ship.

That was not the life for me.

For some inexplicable reason, I was tricked into signing up for the free trial of EVE Online a few summers ago, due to all of the absolutely crazy stories of mass warfare coming out of the guild affiliated with the Something Awful Forums. It only took me a few days to learn that EVE Online is more fun to hear about than to play; it's basically "I'm Traveling:" The Game. But perhaps I should let Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee explain my point in a much more entertaining way:

Now, imagine a pretty starfield and let me sum up my EVE Online experience:

*set destination*
WHOOSH
WHOOSH
WHOOSH
*play with numbers*
*set destination*
WHOOSH
WHOOSH
WHOOSH
*play with numbers*
*set destination*
WHOOSH
WHOOSH
WHOOSH
*play with numbers*

Repeat until you get the point.

Related Links:

Yahtzee Rolls With the Big Dogs, Takes the Piss Out of GTA4
Yahtzee On E3: Are We Gaming in an Age of Uncreativity?
Yahtzee Says, Support Your Local Independent Developer (He's Right).

Yahtzee Says, Support Your Local Independent Developer (He's Right).

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:42:00 GMT

If you're 1) a gamer and 2) not insane, then one of your favourite all-time games is Cave Story. Cave Story was planned, designed and developed by one demigod, the radiant Pixel. One of the greatest games of all time came from two arms, two eyes and one brain.

Cave Story works so well because the graphics, sound, story and gameplay all compliment each other beautifully. But what if Pixel had proposed the title to, say, EA and had a hive mind work on the game? For starters, it would look and sound radically different because players today are all about the big noises and shiny things according to the Big Men In Charge (which is why Mega Man 9 has everyone leaping like dogs at a lambchop). The aesthetic shift alone would have sent Cave Story's delicate feng shui swirling down the toilet.

Yahtzee talks about the importance of indie games this week, specifically Braid on XBLA. His argument for indie titles against corporate titles is that too many cooks spoil the broth—or rather, too many faceless men in suits destroy the original intent. Sometimes we all need to step back and clear our heads with games that don't stray far from the man or woman who originally thought up the idea.

I don't feel guilty for playing the likes of Mario or Metroid or God help me, Mega Man.. I also very clearly remember a time when developers had a lot of creative control over their games and still managed to mass-produce a lot of cock-ups that clogged the industry's arteries and eventually felled it. I'm a person of balance; things like crooked picture frames drive me insane. Thus, I understand that corporate regulations are sometimes an evil necessity...but I wholly support the independent scene with my enthusiasm, love and moolah (since that's ultimately what it needs instead of the former).

I r dumb. I didn't really “get” Braid when I played the demo, but I will buy the game in full and try harder. Nothing thrives on homogenisation, the game industry least of all. It needs all the creative infusions it can manage.

Related Links:

Indie Dev Moment: A Game a Month from Kloonigames
Yahtzee on E3: Are We Gaming in an Age of Uncreativity?
Yahtzee and the Webcomics Plague

Yahtzee On E3: Are We Gaming in an Age of Uncreativity?

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:54:00 GMT

Like clockwork, the latest Zero Punctuation showed up on Wednesday afternoon. I think the gaming world shall go mad if Yahtzee misses a week. How are we ever to know that it's Wednesday?

Australia's grumpiest gamer weighed in on this year's E3 with a pretty hilarious ejaculation(!) of mild outrage: seeing as E3 2008 was as exciting as discount hamburger, Yahtzee had the right to punch the event in the solar plexus. He did bring up one point I've been thinking about: with the surge of sequels we've been seeing for established franchises, it almost seems as if no one's had an original game idea for a long time. Yahtzee makes mention of crazy old NES games that starred French chefs "riding on stickbugs and armed with guns that shot velociraptors."

It's a common complaint and it seems as if we're hearing it more than ever these days. It's not like there's reason to dismiss it as hyperbole, either. When the most unusual title at a big name trade show is a Mega Man title, it's time to descend into Hell and thaw out poor Satan.

I haven't decided if I'm totally in agreement with Yahtzee. I remember the NES very well, especially my family's weekend trips to rent games. My two brothers and I took turns with the weekly rentals. Pity the fool who picked up a second-rate platformer game because s/he wasn't renting anything else for three weeks. I quickly learned how not to become a victim. It was a painful journey full of disappointment, floaty controls and terrible tinny music because boy howdy, there was a lot of crap on the shelves of those Mom n Pop video stores.

I will admit that developers were more eager to try new ideas in gaming's infancy. Imagine if Miyamoto announced that he was turning the Zelda series into a sidescroller in this fertile age of fandom and Internet rage. The fandom popped a collective hernia when Link returned to his cartoon roots on the Gamecube--even though the gameplay for Wind Waker was not changed dramatically from Ocarina of Time.

We have comfortable formulas now and developers aren't eager to fix what ain't broke. Still, I don't believe gaming will stagnate. Yahtzee himself admits that Mirror's Edge looks fantastic and Fat Princess looks like a riot, overblown controversy aside.

If I can play a Mario Galaxy in between a batch of solid titles, I'm happy. Yeah, don't call on me to lead a rebellion against a corrupt Government or anything. I'll disappoint you like crazy.

Related Links:

Yahtzee and the Webcomics Plague
Yahtzee Rolls With the Big Dogs, Takes the Piss Out of GTA4
Sweaty, Oily Barbarian Men Are Waiting For Your Purchase

Sweaty, Oily Barbarian-Men Are Waiting For Your Purchase

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:40:00 GMT

Have you played World of Warcraft so ferociously that your hard drive is now naught but a glittering pile of toxic dust? Maybe you've been thinking about shifting gears a little by taking up the new Age of Conan MMORPG, Hyborian Adventures. Who'd want to strut around as a dinky elf when they could take up the sword of ancient barbarian heroes?

Don't bother, says Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is apparently the same sword-swinging song we've heard so many times before: big burly warriors controlled by puppetmasters like Marvin of the Gold Claws, a fat boy in a basement with Doritos stains all over his fingers.

I'm especially amused by Yahtzee's observation about the personalities of the players around him: everyone wants to "cut your tits off" or act like you're going to do the same to them. Sometimes I think MMORPG players were picked on a lot at school and are pretending to project their revenge into the past with their well-armed (both above and below the belt) avatar.

Or...maybe they're not pretending at all.

On the topic of Yahtzee, does anyone else sorely miss the specially-chosen music that used to open and close his reviews? The new intro is so generic in that tiresome extreeeeme gamer way--I'd expect to see it on G4. Something tells me he had no choice in the changeover.

Related Links:

Yahtzee and the Webcomics Plague
Yahtzee Rolls With the Big Dogs, Takes the Piss out of GTA4
The World Ends With Yahtzee

Yahtzee and the Webcomics Plague

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:35:00 GMT

Yahtzee, possibly the only game reviewer capable of out-talking a five-year-old with a new Poekmon game, recently made clear his feelings about gaming webcomics. To give you the five-cent summary, Yahtzee believes that video game webcomics are the putrid nesting grounds of wannabes and hacks.

What do you think, class?

Personally, while I have no love for the webcomic that served as the primary target for Mr Yahtzee's rant (Ctrl+Alt+Del), I bear little ill will to webcomics in general. There's a popular opinion going around this here Internets stating that only kings and God should be allowed to produce creative work because humanity is generally not very good at anything. I don't think that's the case.

I don't begrudge anyone their right to produce a Mario x Luigi slashfic. I've put up some pretty horrific creations on the Internet (and since locked them in chains and thrown them in the basement), but with practise I started to produce stuff that's only mildly horrifying. I think that's part of the problem, though: the Internet genie can grant instant popularity. Popularity is the natural enemy of criticism. When you start hearing about how great you are, anyone who offers suggestions for improvement can go suck a lemon.

If someone tells you that there is in fact room for improvement in your work, it's easy to feel, as the kids say, butthurt. It's natural to sulk a little when you recieve criticism, but then comes the vital junction. Are you going to throw it off and get back on the horse, or are you going to shoot the messenger in the kneecaps (as illustrated by Yahtzee)?

The trouble arises when Internet arteests act out the latter. It's no sin to start off with some dull piece of work that you plan to polish and refine. For that reason, I don't discourage anyone who wants to start up yet another webcomic about two jerkwads gibbering on a couch with controllers between their paws. If the author is serious, the comic will become something worth reading. If s/he's not, it'll die within a month or two. We all know the cycle: "No update today. Studying for exams. No update today. Too tired. No update ever again, sorry."

The freak random mutations of mediocre content into runaway successes (Btrl+Balt+Belete) is so rare, I'm willing to put up with these full-moon faerie dances if it means someone else makes a genuine heart-felt climb from Boring to Fantastic.

The World Ends With Yahtzee

John Constantine — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

It was starting to seem strange that all of our posts directing to The Escapist’s Zero Punctuation had volatile titles. Then I remembered that Yahtzee’s a volatile guy. His special brand of bile is pointed at The World Ends With You this week and, even though I have a serious fondness for the game, he makes some good points about its failures as a role-playing game. You’d think that role-playing would imply that you, y’know, play a role of some kind but, as Mr. Croshaw kindly points out, Japanese RPGs are pretty restrictive in that regard. This is why the silent, nameless protagonist of older RPGs is a sorely missed staple; it allowed you to inhabit that character despite your lack of influence over the story. That said, TWEWY’s story, not to mention its expertly translated dialogue, is pretty swell, so I don’t know what he’s bitching about.

Head over to The Escapist for more.

Yahtzee Kills the Entire World

John Constantine — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

You thought we were going to stop bringing up topics of rampant, unapologetic, dumb, and brutish violence after this morning’s post, didn’t you? Nope. Brutish violence is, like it or not, a deep fount of inspiration for media of all types. Just look at the Greek epics, the work of Francois Rabelais, all five acts of Titus Andronicus, all ten billion variations on CSI/Law & Order, and 30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray. Videogames are obviously no exception. While I haven’t worked out the math perfectly yet – 61 Frames Per Second will have the exclusive once I’ve completed the equation – my calculations seem to indicate that some 99.9% of videogames involve destroying stuff. Shooting, stomping, cutting, nudging repeatedly. Even the most seemingly innocuous interactive pursuit finds catharsis in decimation. How does one beat Tetris? You make the blocks disappear. Unadulterated violence is good fun in games, as illustrated by this week’s Zero Punctuation over at The Escapist. Yahtzee’s subject is the four-year-old first-person shooter Painkiller and man does the guy like that game. But he’s right, how do you argue with a gun that shoots both lightning and shuriken?

The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto 4 Part 2

John Constantine — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Into the valley of death rode the six-hundred-plus minutes I’ve spent in Liberty City since I last wrote. I would like to tell you that the rabbit hole has gone deeper but the truth is that it has merely gone on, level and consistent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per se. As I said before, Grand Theft Auto 4 is an engaging piece of software beyond the basic freedom the open-world gametype offers up. The story has continued to entertain and while reaching Alderney hasn’t revealed some kind of treasure trove of new experiences, the missions that progress that story have continued to impress. One in particular, a full-on bank robbery, stands out. At first, the job seems like another cut-and-paste shoot out; go to marker on your map of LC, watch a scene of dialogue, proceed to shoot everything in site. What actually happens is quite different. You, as protagonist Niko Bellic, retrieve the money from the bank’s vault before everything goes wrong. One of your partners is shot to death and you must lead your surviving associates out into the city against the full force of the LCPD while sticking to a loosely defined path through alleyways and the city’s subway system. Eventually, the escape opens up entirely, leaving you to decide how to evade patrolling helicopters and squad cars. The bank job is exemplary of how much GTA 4 has grown as game with specific goals over its predecessors and how artfully implemented linearity gives your personal experience of the game that much more impact.

While the game has stopped surprising, I have found myself gaining even more appreciation for the physical presentation of the city itself. Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation lamented the turn from the caricatured presentation of older GTAs in favor of a more realistic approach but I take issue with the criticism. GTA4’s world may behave more like our own but its look is still unreal and beautifully so. Like many other great works of art, it’s at its strongest when implying something instead of directly mimicking it; a rainy night driving along the river, the city skyline cruising by, doesn’t directly recall the New York I call home. The light is over-saturated, the blur of speed too unreal. But it captures the romance of being there.

I’ll be back with final thoughts on the game in just a few days and be sure to check out part 1 right here. Who out there’s been playing?

Yahtzee Rolls With the Big Dogs, Takes the Piss Out of GTA4

John Constantine — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:06:00 GMT

It’s Wednesday and that can only mean one thing: Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw is going to talk very fast and be very funny while doing it. The latest Zero Punctuation up over at The Escapist tackles the hottest gaming subject around this fine spring, Grand Theft Auto 4. Yahtzee does indeed enjoy the game quite a bit but takes issue with the one aspect of the game that I’ve taken the most joy out of so far. He calls the friendship/dating sim mechanics in the game “an irritating, mindless chore” but, as I’ve said a number of times, I’ve found it to be the most immersive and engaging aspect of Rockstar’s magnum opus. Than again, I’M VERY LONELY! Nah, not really. He also finds the game’s realistic presentation irksome, an issue I’ll be tackling in the upcoming second part of my review. Regardless, the man’s criticisms are well-thought out and entertaining as hell so hit the jump for the goods and then head on over to the Escapist to indulge in the ever expanding Zero Punctuation archive as well as that pub’s other great content.