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20/12/07: Mass Defect

This week: Mass Effect. In summary: too much text.

I did my usual cursory glance over notable forum threads to get my feedback and it seems some people on one forum that shall remain nameless have been calling me a hypocrite for apparently liking Planescape Torment despite it, too, being a monstrously wordy game. My response: where the hell did you get the impression that I liked Planescape Torment? That, too, I found boring and couldn't get further than the first world. I'm not angry, I'm just confused as to how you made this leap of logic. Admittedly I did show the box art for, like, one second to illustrate a point but I don't remember drawing a big sign over it saying THIS GAME IS AWESOME MMM I WANT IT TO SPUNK IN MY FACE

- Yahtzee

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13/12/07: Guitar Nero

Zero Punctuation murders Guitar Hero 3 this week. I think that was all I had to say. Wasn't it? Yes, probably. Or not? No. Yes. Well, I finally added Art of Theft to the games page, there's that too I guess.

- Yahtzee

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6/12/07: Assassin's Crud

This week's Zero Punctuation: Assassin's Creed, as the title above should give away. In summary: not good, not bad. Sorry if that's a bland opinion.

By the way, some of you may have seen this review someone did of Art of Theft parodying my style. I mentioned it in the FEAR review referencing a desire to possibly commit arson murder. Well, that guy also sent me the following email the other day:

If I were to be so bold as to assume that my YouTube tribute review of your new game "Trilby: The Art of Theft" deceptively titled "Some Punctuation" was the impetus for your threatening request at the end of last week's Zero Punctuation weekly review, I would humbly like to request that you do not set fire to my abode. Intercontinental arson aside, was it really so upsetting to you as to incite such rage? I meant no harm by it. It was created solely to entertain my friends on the Penny-Arcade.com forums. That was the only place I posted a link to it; I never fully intended for it to spread far enough for it to enter your ken. Besides its shoddy diction, mealy enunciation, weak humor, and wishy-washy fanboyism at the end, was there anything outstandingly upsetting about it? I do realize the horror of watching your creation quickly falling prey to imitators lacking a proper grasp of the stylistic intent of your originals, but at least it was not a step-by-step tutorial on producing cheap versions of the entertainment you are now paid to produce. I must admit, though, I have received a number of requests for such instructions (along with requests that I die for some reason). I do hope to hear from you soon!

Your obedient servant,

GSM

For the record, I never had a problem with the review. I thought it was pretty well done, although he obviously hadn't played the game past the first couple of heists, which undermined a lot of his points. What I do have a problem with is people (for this happens surprisingly often) who think the best way to impress me is to talk at me like we're at a fucking renaissance faire. I mean, christ, "enter your ken"? What am I, a visitor from the magical kingdom of Faggotry?

- Yahtzee

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29/11/07: Fatuous Mandate

ZP this week is the new FEAR expansion. Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, why aren't I reviewing all the important new stuff like Call of Doody 4 and Piss Effect. Fuck you. I wanted the opportunity to talk about the FEAR series. You'll take what I give and like it you slut. Plus sometimes it takes a while for the very newest stuff to trickle down to me from the source so give me a god damn break.

Response to Art of Theft has been a-pretty pretty good. As always, we take on board what people like and didn't like and keep it in mind for future games. A slightly newer version has been uploaded to the same URL as before that (hopefully) fixes a crash some people were having in heist 4. It also makes the button mashing minigame in the same heist a little bit easier, you crybabies. Download it again if you feel personally affected by either of those issues.

- Yahtzee

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22/11/07: Back In Black

Yeah, so those of you who've already been to the Escapist looking for new content to make your life worthwhile you grasping fucks should already know that my jet-setting lifestyle precluded the creation of a new ZP this week. Instead, I rub salt in the wound by telling everyone about my awesome trip to Valve.


Click this picture of me rubbing shoulders with Gabe Newell to read my travel journal at The Escapist

Well, back to work, I guess. If I miss next week as well I fear people will come around my house and have wolves tear out my throat.

- Yahtzee

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12/11/07: Release Time

I'm going to be out of the country for the next week or so, so if you send donations or any other mail that needs answering it may not be until next Tuesday that I can get back to you. Or maybe I'll find myself somewhere that isn't so backward I can't check my Hotmail. Either way I'm not going to be updating the site for this time and I gather the Escapist, like the BBC, have a repeat lined up for my vacant slot on Wednesday.

And since I like to fire and forget, I've decided to release my new game, so that there's a good week before I have to worry about any crippling bugs people might have found.

The game's called Art Of Theft. The long version is Trilby: The Art Of Theft, because it features everyone's favourite dapper renegade from the Chzo Mythos (I stress that it's set in 1991, two years before 5DAS, so don't think it's a continuation or anything).

AoT isn't an adventure game, though. It's a mission-based stealth platformer using a severely modified 1213 engine, with the emphasis on gameplay rather than story. As a younger, more arrogant, more complacent Trilby your goal is to infiltrate a variety of buildings in the fictional Chapow City, steal loot, achieve objectives and get out again with the subtlety of a flickering shadow in a ninja outfit.

Here's a link to the game, generously hosted by my new friends at the Escapist. It's got a readme included and the game has a tutorial at the start so you should do alright without much further elaboration.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/games/yahtzee/artoftheft

I like to think that my game design ability continues to improve steadily. This one is fairly complex and littered with secrets, so a couple of my loyal testers have taken it upon themselves to set up a dedicated forum for discussing the game, techniques, secrets and speedruns. Do check it out and sign up once you've gotten to grips with my dodgy jury-rigged AGS-engine platform gameplay:

http://z3.invisionfree.com/unofficialaot/index.php

I guess that's all I had to say. Hope you like the game and I'll see you next Tuesday. Or rather I'll see my computer screen next Tuesday and you'll all be wherever you are.

- Yahtzee

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9/11/07: Fandom Hourglass

What pisses me off is when people say I'm not a 'real' reviewer because I try to be funny. They usually say this when I've slagged off a game they like. What the hell do you define as a 'real' review, anyway? I give my honest opinion on the games I play and give reasons why I like or don't like them. What more do you want? Is it because I don't put percentages or stars out of five at the end? Because I think that opinions on video games can't be represented numerically?

The response to my review of Phantom Hourglass is what brought this on, incidentally, because apparently a bad Zelda game is like a cow lying down in the road in India and you're not allowed to complain.

Still waiting on some music from Mods before I can think about releasing the new game. Go nag him.

- Yahtzee

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1/11/07: World Bore Two

Isn't patriotism a strange thing? I agree with the point Richard Dawkins made once that patriotism is the kissing cousin to religious fundamentalism. Both demand that the practitioner blindly trumpet the superiority of one mode of thinking above all others for no rational reason. And both also discourage questioning the truth of the facts offered because such a thing is somehow morally wrong. I bring this up because I reviewed Medal of Honor: Airborne and some people seem to have taken it all as a personal disservice to the randomly-chosen land mass upon which they first gained consciousness in this lifetime.

- Yahtzee

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25/10/07: Mambo Italiano

Super Paper Mario this week. Go.

Let me add that I know FULL WELL that you can steal money in the second chapter to pay off the debt but you still have to make 10,000 whatevers to achieve this end and even if it doesn't take 15 minutes to do that then it still feels like that long. So stop going on about how I suck and can't play games.

Also, here's a screenshot from a game I hope to release soon. Once again the power to name a release date lies in the hands of musicians.

- Yahtzee

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18/10/07: Boite A L'Orange

Predictably enough, Orange Box gets reviewed this week.

There's a bit in this review where I mix the titles of games with numbers on the end with football results for comic effect, eg "Team Fortress 2; Liverpool 3". This seems to have given many correspondents the unintended impression that I am in any way into football. Well, sorry to disappoint, but I find football utterly tedious and people who like it doubly so. Just wanted to clear that up.

- Yahtzee

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11/10/07: Orange Orange Grass Of Home

Hm? Oh yeah, Zero Punctuation. It's the Tabula Rasa beta. And I finally added XKCD to the list of good webcomics to make everyone shut up. Go away. I'm playing the Orange Box.

- Yahtzee

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4/10/07: Halo, Is It Me You're Looking For

So I opened my email inbox this morning with some trepidation, only to find no hate mail but ten million fan mails saying it's a shame I'd probably get hate mail. I think people might be scared of me. Why should there be hate mails, you ask? Only because I reviewed Halo 3 this week.

Let me clarify something to a certain kind of person who sends certain kinds of mail. The games I review are usually chosen for me by my editor or worked out between him and me beforehand because I want to cover them. The schedule can often be worked out some weeks in advance. My point is, if you suggest or even demand that I review a certain game, the odds are heavily against me complying. Even if you suggest a game that I later review it was probably just a coincidence. So stop your nagging, you cunts.

- Yahtzee

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27/9/07: Five Alive

Wednesday, Zero Punctuation, Peggle. You know the drill by now.

In other news, remember those chaps who are making a full 3D remake of 5 Days A Stranger in the Source engine? Well, the project is still muddling along and has reached the point where we have our own teaser site for it. Yes, that's right, we haven't all given up and gone home yet. I suppose you'll be wanting the URL, then. Here you are, jerk. Do check out the recruitment page if you want to contribute to the VERY REBIRTH OF MAINSTREAM ADVENTURE GAMES.

- Yahtzee

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21/9/07: C*nt Hunt

Y'know, linking to my list of webcomics last week was probably a mistake, considering my new widespread popularity, because I've been inundated by suggestions for it since then. Now I have to think aboutwhether I can be arsed to (a) read the suggestions and (b) actually update the page with new entries. Things don't look good for either, it seems. Oh, you want this week's Zero Punctuation? Fine, here it is. It covers Manhunt.

Actually since it seems anything that I plug in these front page updates suddenly gets a traffic boost, maybe I could use these powers for evil. I say, reader, have you played Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment? It's one of my AGS games and probably the one I put the most work into but it persists in being the least played one.

- Yahtzee

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13/9/07: Rant A Whole Bunch

This week's review is Tomb Raider: Anniversary, one of many unnecessary remakes in the world today. Last week's was Bioshock but I forgot to link to it. So now I'm linking to it.

In other news, I've got a link for you: Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad. I still try to keep up with the webcomic scene as my list of good webcomics should imply, and this blogger says a lot of necessarily true things about the big ol' circle jerk that is the webcomic community. While I don't always agree with some things he says he did rip on Ctrl-Alt-Del, which earns him several billion points. He also writes wittily if caustically, and sometimes I catch myself reading him aloud in my Zero Punctuation voice. Check it out.

- Yahtzee

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31/8/07: Wargasm

It's that time of the week again. Zero Punctuation this week covers the console wars in a thin attempt to buy time while I play Bioshock. Next week: Bioshock!

By the way, you know that update I wrote a while back about character damage in games and how it should be fixed? Please, please, please stop telling me about Call of Cthulhu, because something like the entire population of Luxembourg have beaten you to it.

- Yahtzee

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23/8/07: Continuing The Bullshit

My second Zero Punctuation is now up. This one was requested of me by my new masters because it was their game of the month. Awkwardly it turned out to be a good game but I managed to get my hate in by hating other things.

Obviously my new gruelling schedule of staying at home playing games all day is going to affect the frequency and content of updates on this site. I think things are going to lean more towards 'news section' around here from now on to deliver links and information pertaining to anything interesting concerning me. But I'm sure I could work some witty commentary in somewhere. Like something along the lines of how Americans are fat and stupid.

- Yahtzee

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14/8/07: A New Day Dawns

UPDATE: My first review for The Escapist is now up here.

Got a new video and a bit of an announcement to make. So here is the announcement in the form of a video. I think it says it all.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOBTN67K0Zw

PS. Check out
this weird thing I found on youtube

- Yahtzee

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