open/close all folders

2021 Episodes

2021, Quarter 1

The Best, Worst, and Blandest Games of 2020

On Deadly Premonition 2 being fifth worst:
Yahtzee: You're an odd little duck, and I like you, SWERY, but your amusing quacks can't keep you out of the hoisin sauce forever.
On Battletoads (2020) being third worst:
Yahtzee: God, is there anything worse than a bad game that thinks it's funny?
Viewer: Pustular psoriasis?
Yahtzee: Oh, maybe.
Viewer: The remaining two games on your list?
Yahtzee: ALL RIGHT, RHETORICAL!
Yahtzee unable to pick between Hades and BPM: Bullets Per Minute for his second-best game:
Yahtzee: I just couldn't decide which of two games stood out the most in the ever-overcrowded field of indie roguelikes. On the one hand, Hades, beautifully artistically crafted and all that; but on the other, BPM: Bullets Per Minute, just plain more fun, with a primary gameplay loop that makes me unconsciously dry-hump my box ottoman. So, fuck it; I'm squeezing them both into the 2 slots, because "indie" can also be short for "indie-cisive"!
Yahtzee bracing himself for the inevitable backlash surrounding his pick for Worst Game of 2020, The Last of Us Part II:
Yahtzee: And here we fucking go.
Strawman Fan: Ooh, look at Mr. Controversial Opinions! You think The Game Awards' Game of the Year was actually the worst game ever, do you? And you think all the people who think it's good are wrong, do you? And you think The Game Awards have their noses shoved so far up AAA buttholes that they wouldn't notice a good game if it was speed bagging their testicles, do you? And you're going to put all these views into the mouth of a notional third party in a weak attempt at creating deniability, are you? You going to interrupt at some point?
Yahtzee: I wasn't, no.
Some of the honorable mentions he gives are pretty hilarious too:
- Boneworks:
  + The pioneering VR game before Alyx took over
  - General "held together by twigs and string" vibe
- Cyberpunk 2077:
  + Nice writing as far as immersive sims go
  - See previous frame
- Watch Dogs: Legion:
  + Impressive & innovative concepts
  - Pity they were all completely useless in gameplay
  + Mind you that one character's dialogue was really well punched up wasn't it^note

Bugsnax and Super Meat Boy Forever

Yahtzee starts the video acting a little nostalgic for the terrible year that was 2020.
Yahtzee: Ah, 2020: the Jimmy Savile of years; only after its passing can we take stock and truly appreciate the flood of hushed-up sexual assault accusations.
Yahtzee re-evaluates Persona 4 Golden:
Yahtzee: I wanted to mention that I went back to Persona 4 Golden after I reviewed it and ended up liking it a lot more, if still not more than Persona 5, and now I'm slightly embarrassed that I was ever intimidated by the combat, because if you do any amount of grinding in that game, combat's about as hard as a wandering dick in a badly organized sausage-slicing facility.
He then struggles on how to describe Bugsnax:
Yahtzee: You know, every time I take a stab at summarizing Bugsnax, I feel like something important has been left out; it's like writing a real estate profile for a nuclear bunker on Mars where eleven people died of asbestos poisoning. If I were to say "It's a first-person adventure sort of thing where you come to a hidden island full of mysterious creatures that are all a hybrid of an insect and an item of snack food like a fucking bag of chips with wings and shit, and there's influence from Pokémon 'cos they all have a cutesy hybrid name that is the only thing they can say and catching them is the main gameplay activity, but unlike Pokémon, you don't battle them; you just watch them get mercilessly devoured as they scream their own names in distress," even that summary fails to mention the significant fact that all the sentient characters in the game are furry puppet monsters that look like novelty butt plugs based on Sesame Street characters.
Viewer: Oh, so it's a kids' game, Yahtz?
Yahtzee: (despairing) I DON'T KNOW! It's bright and colorful, and none of the characters would look out of place flogging nutritionally bankrupt breakfast cereals, but at the same time, all the characters have these fairly complex, adult relationship issues, with several overtly established to be banging their featureless furry midsections together. And besides that, I get a faintly sinister vibe as I watch the adorable Bugsnax disappear into the cheerful gullets of big-toothed furry monsters with an upsetting crunching sound, and then one of the monster's limbs turns into a Snickers or whatever, which adds a little sprinkling of body horror to the mix; it's like Fraggle Rock as directed by David Cronenberg.
On Super Meat Boy Forever mixing two Scrappy Mechanics:
Yahtzee: Don't tell me you've turned Super Meat Boy into an infinite runner.
Super Meat Boy Forever: No, of course not! The levels are finite; they're just procedurally generated.
Yahtzee: Oh, even better! The most tired trend of indie games (Chasm) and the most tired trend of mobile games (Flappy Bird), together at last to squirt out a little narcoleptic baby.
Baby Super Meat Boy Forever: Please come back, mummy!
Credits: What will crudely drawn porn merchants do now that Flash isn't a thing? Why does no one think of the crudely drawn porn?

Medal of Honor: Above & Beyond

Yahtzee's description of the new Medal of Honor game:
Yahtzee: The latest addition to AAA dabblings in the VR space is Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, a fantastical alternate history game about how Germany somehow gets taken over by a fascist government, and a coalition of Western powers form an ideological alliance to stop their aggressive expansion across Europe. Cuh, what imagination those fellas at Respawn Entertainment have! Imagine a first-world power actually engaging in war for ideological reasons, and not because they can use it to divert money to some of their cunt friends.
United States: We strongly disapprove.
(Sneaks money to an scarred man wielding an assault rifle behind it.)
Scarred Man: Thank yew.
Yahtzee's ultimate verdict on the game:
Yahtzee: In summary, Medal of Honor: Tea and Biscuits, get the fuck out of my glorious world of tomorrow with this PS3-era bullshit! VR isn't the place for your hacked-out middle-of-the-road war shooters; it's about exciting new concepts, and immersive spectacles, and staggeringly uncomfortable porn!
Yahtzee calling the game Medal of Honor: Abbott and Costello, Medal of Honor: Apples and Pears, Medal of Honor: And Another Thing..., and Medal of Honor: Tea and Biscuits.
Credits:
After all this we've still got sodding Nazis around in the modern age and they're not even well dressed anymore
VE HAFF VAYS OF MAKING VEE ARR

Demon's Souls (2020)

Yahtzee notes the oddly primitive design of the game world — having a Hub Level instead of an open world.
Yahtzee: It’s like Mario 64 if Princess Peach had had her eyes waxed shut.
He then noted that Sequel Escalation since Demon's Souls has made the original experience comparatively easy.
Yahtzee: In fact, the final boss of almost every area is a complete cop-out, generally too easy and often a gimmick boss, like the Dragon God, who looks terrifying, and is the size of your mum's buffet plate, but is actually a proto-Bed of Chaos, and he's only harder than fighting a kitten in a blender 'cos you have to press two buttons instead of one.
Yahtzee also complains about the Anti-Climax Boss:
Yahtzee: Oh, and I won't spoil it, but as for the final final boss of the game, I've had bigger struggles working caramels out of my teeth.
Viewer: That was the point, Yahtz; it’s an illustration of the rot that's set into this dying world that even the final boss could barely peel himself off the couch long enough to put up a fight.
Giant Crowned Imp: (yawn) If I must.
Yahtzee: Yeah, I know! Dark Souls does the same thing, but it manages to not be completely anticlimactic about it. I left Demon's Souls feeling it had engaged me a lot less than other FromSoftware self-abuse simulators, especially in the story area; maybe the less cohesive world made me feel a little more detached from it, if it wasn't all the underwhelming boss fights that felt more like getting coughed on by a stoat.
He then takes aim at the largest Scrappy Mechanic of the remaster: the small inventory space.
Yahtzee: I mean, the biggest and greasiest wart that I'd have thought the game would want to hack off given the chance to rethink things is the limited inventory space, which is the little dog turd seed from which grows a many-branched dog turd tree: having to constantly manually replenish items; the having to press an extra button that sends found items to the stockpile when you might have three fetid buggerbears closing in of a mind to administer suppositories of their own; leaving behind your useless pile of tendonitis cure potions and then getting fucked 'cos you ran into the one enemy in the game that bestows tendonitis three miles from the checkpoint. And by the tiny stroke of removing inventory limits, all that embuggerance would disappear; we could stop having to deal with that Stockpile Thomas weirdo in the hub castle, who keeps talking like he's in actual physical love with me 'cos I let him hold the four Dregling Shields I am never going to bloody use.
Stockpile Thomas: I'll polish them with my own delighted cum!
Yahtzee concludes that, despite his mixed feelings about the remake, he still valued his time with it:
Yahtzee: Don't get me wrong, I appreciate getting the chance to replay it, but I'm a Dark Souls fan; it was interesting to me, the way dads are interested in model railway museums that bore the earlobes off everyone else. Look, kids! This dragon guarding Castle Boletaria must be the progenitor of the Hellkite Wyvern from Undead Burg! Isn't that fascinating?
Yahtzee's Kids: DAAAD, we're really BOOORED! And my iPad melted!

Hitman 3

Yahtzee's introduction:
Yahtzee: And so comes yet another final installment of the series that has Soft Rebooted more often than a melted ZX81: Hitman 3. I seem to remember Hitman 2 came out during a slow period in winter, as well; must be something about this time of year when we're stuck indoors with the family that makes people want to methodically plan brutal executions.
He then snarks that there aren't many more options for IO Interactive afterward:
Yahtzee: So let's be blunt: Hitman 3 may be wrapping up the story of the last two games, this definitely won't be the last for the Hitman series; obviously it's going to be strung out with DLC for a while, like a diabetic rationing out his jellybeans. But that aside, what the fuck else has IO Interactive got to fall back on? Freedom Fighters?
Freedom Fighters: Oh God, I'm so lonely.
Yahtzee: The fucking Kane & Lynch sequel that I, for one, would welcome like a snow shovel to the bridge of the nose?
Viewer: (pointing at IO Interactive's Wikipedia page) They're making a James Bond game, Yahtz.
Yahtzee: (deadpan) Oh, a game about an unflappable dude in a suit pursuing secret objectives in a series of high-class environments?
47: (to Daniel Craig) I'm going to steal your trousers.
Yahtzee: That'll be a fucking stretch; it'll just be like Hitman, won't it, except with forcible undressing of women as well as men?
Yahtzee remarks how the game's story is basically the same one that's been told since Hitman: Codename 47:
Yahtzee: Agent 47 was engineered by some evil dudes who secretly rule the world; he goes rogue or turns against them in some way when loyalty to his friends grows more important, and punishes his creators for treating him like a soulless assassin by soullessly assassinating a bunch of them. We've been around this merry-go-round, like, five times, by my count, and this neo-Hitman trilogy does nothing new with it; there's always another secret world government to turn against, and they're all equally bad at screening their party guests.
Yahtzee complains about the game being mostly a copy-paste of the last one:
Yahtzee: Much like Hitman 2, Hitman 3 is really just a new mission pack for the established Hitman formula, to the point of using the same interface that's formatted like a furniture catalog, and also lists all the missions from the last two games. Which I guess is fair enough, 'cos the formula is, as I say, pretty down at this point, but the handful of new missions still doesn't feel like enough new game to call a full installment; all the missions from all three games probably only adds up to, like, two Hitman: Blood Money's, at most.
- Yahtzee then describes one of the few times the game breaks from said formula:
  Yahtzee: invoked The highlight is a mission set in a stately British home... (47 garottes Hercule Poirot.) ...where 47 can solve an unrelated tea-time murder mystery (47 is now wearing Poirot's bowler and mustache), and it's like an Agatha Christie story that for some reason ends with Poirot hanging after the parlor scene so he can fling someone off a balcony.
Yahtzee finally goes off on a long rant about how the victims are Too Dumb to Live, even though they're portrayed as devious masterminds, when in reality they can't see past 47's Paper Thin Disguises of people they know intimately, as 47 keeps making Implied Death Threats:
Yahtzee: But these so-called "mission stories" are, frankly, the worst parts of the game; I think that's the revelation I finally came to after speeding through all the missions, getting hand-held through a linear sequence of objectives where I follow my intended victim around for a while until the moment they say, "All security guards, leave the room so I can have some alone time with my new best pal. Would you like to admire my new pit full of rotating knives? I thought it would make a nice centerpiece." It feels like Mum and Dad doing our homework for us, and it makes the bottom drop out of all the tension and immersion, especially since they very often hinge on Agent 47 disguising himself as someone famous or who the victim has already met, rather than a random background employee, and them somehow not noticing that this person they know is suddenly built like a gravedigger's shovel leaning on a tombstone and keeps responding to direct questions with veiled references to being an assassin.
Target: Can I tell you a secret?
47: (disguised as a bobby) Oh, I guarantee it won't leave this room.
Target: Do you recommend the soup?
47: (disguised as a chef) I'd have to say it's... to die for.
Target: Blimey, my verrucas are playing up!
47: (wearing a leprechaun hat) Perhaps you'd like to lie down... after I murder you. Completely to death.
Yahtzee: Yeah, it was funny the first couple of times, but when it's pretty much the same routine for every mission story, things get a bit silly, and at odds with the story's tone when the cutscenes are full of slick behind-the-scenes manipulators controlling the world through growly phone conversations in huge, twilit offices, and then you meet them in gameplay, and they're standing over the shark tank at SeaWorld demonstrating their new line of tuna-flavored aftershave.
He then rants about the Cockup Cascade returning:
Yahtzee: There's often no way of knowing if strangling a dude to the ground and ripping his trousers off is going to be out of view of his mates until you try, and they all spin around and act like they caught you shitting on the carpet; it's a lot like shitting on the carpet because even if you get caught, you've got no choice but to finish doing it while furiously maintaining eye contact. So, you've still got to hit "Save" more often than the "Crouch" button. Also, because the enemy are rather unrealistically good at figuring out where bullets are coming from if you decide to go sniping; I headshot someone from the roof of a henhouse 90 miles away, and a dude still runs up, sees right through my fox costume, and opens fire.
Yahtzee concludes the review with his thoughts on the game's custom assassination missions:
Yahtzee: But generally, I was having a lot more fun seeking opportunities rather than being handed them by the mission stories; shame you kind of have to do a mission story on your first attempt, 'cos these environments are really dense and sprawly, and with no direction, it's like looking for the one un-horrifying toilet cubicle at a BART station. You have to play a mission a few times and get a lay of the land before you can start having fun with planning custom assassinations, and that means immersion takes another fatal hit. I mean, you don’t get second tries in real life; Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t run up and go, "Sorry, I was going for no alerts; could we scoop your brains back up and have another crack?"

The Medium

Yahtzee begins the review with a rant aimed at Konami:
Yahtzee: You know what, Konami? I don't even care about Silent Hill anymore; you make all the pachinko machines and arcade shooters and Pyramid Head-shaped suppository kits you like. I loved Silent Hill once, but you know what? Getting us attached to name franchises is how they get you; that's why Disney can sell haunted Zyklon B canisters just by sticking C-3PO on the front. I don't want a new Silent Hill; I want interesting, new horror games that benefit from Silent Hill's influence. I like bands influenced by Nirvana, but I wouldn’t like it if they nailed Kurt Cobain's body to the front of the drum kit.
He then goes on to say just having the composer from Silent Hill on board isn't automatically a sign of a good game:
Viewer: Well, you're in luck, Yahtzee, me driveling old game-reviewing giant sea turtle, 'cos here's The Medium, a new original survival horror game not only inspired by Silent Hill, but featuring music from Akira Yamaoka himself!
Yahtzee: Yeah, all the shitty Silent Hills had music from Akira Yamaoka. So did the Dead by Daylight expansion, and Shadows of the Damned, and... (startled) World of Tanks?! Akira Yamaoka apparently has trouble saying no to people.
When Yahtzee learns who the game's developers are:
Yahtzee: Why are you trying to cover the developer logo?
Viewer: Um, 'cos it's by Bloober Team.
Yahtzee: Ugh, fucking walking simulator merchants; wish they'd simulate walking over to a fucking whiteboard and coming up with some new ideas, for once.
Viewer: Oh, but this isn't another first-person walking simulator; it uses a fixed third-person camera in direct reference to classic survival horrors.
Yahtzee: Hmm, consider me on board for now, Bloober Team, but the moment you make me backtrack through a door that inexplicably leads to somewhere different, I'm making you play my new "Get Kicked Up the Arse" simulator.
Yahtzee admits that he didn't see the game's Silent Hill influence at first:
Yahtzee: This might sound weird, but it took me a while to figure out that this fixed-camera survival horror game with a gloomy atmosphere about exploring both a decrepit real world and an identically laid-out scary netherworld that looks like it's made primarily out of ham was supposed to be Silent Hill-inspired; talk about missing the otherworld for the crucified bodies on spikes. I guess I just wasn't picking up the same vibe; it reminded me more of Dark Seed, that old point-and-click adventure game about exploring an H. R. Giger-designed parallel dark world as the protagonist struggles to overcome the horror of their mustache. Silent Hill feels organic and visceral and wet; The Medium felt more dead and dusty and as dry as a newlywed Baptist who doesn't believe in foreplay.
Yahtzee then expresses disappointment that Marianne is given power but not the ability to use it offensively:
Yahtzee: Some kind of combat element might've helped. I don't say that because Silent Hill had combat; Silent Hill combat was like the stick in the ice lolly, serving a purpose but not the part you want to chew on. It really seemed like The Medium was going to have a combat element, but then it didn't; all the pieces were in place. We establish that ghosts can hurt us, and that we're going to a place with more ghosts than the bargain bin at the Call of Duty shop, and that the main character can load up her arm with spirit juice to fuel a blast attack and a shield, so I was like, "Great! Ghost laser tag? Let's Luigi's Mansion this bitch!" But then, we don't get that. Your blast attack is used mainly for clearing clutter out of the way like it's a fucking astral leaf blower, and the closest thing to combat is the odd forced stealth/evasion sequence against a recurring monster who kills you in one hit, which is about as engaging as such things ever are; that is, as much as holding in a fart at a distant cousin's wedding. And then at the end of each act, the main character - who I seem to remember having a name, but is one of many things about The Medium I struggle to hold in my memory - confronts a big, elaborate monster spirit form of whoever's been stirring up the trouble most recently, and it really seems like a setup for a boss fight, and then whatshername just defeats them in the same cutscene with no bother. Look, I'm not asking for an exchange of ectoplasm bullets as our flaky protagonist dodge-rolls about like Sonic the Hedgehog, but the artists seem to have put a lot of work into the monster designs, and I'm sure it'd feel a lot more worth it if we had a chance to explore all their jiggly flaps looking for the weak spots. (On the monsters, I mean, not the artists.)
Yahtzee also expresses annoyance at the seeming Ass Pulls the game performs:invoked
Yahtzee: There's a bit where the recurring monster is stomping about and we have to evade it until we find a way to restart a generator, at which point, Main Character Lady says, "Aha! Now I can turn the tables on the monster!", and I was like, "You can? It's really not clear how. You going to plug in a karaoke machine and challenge it to a something stupid-off?"
Yahtzee then expresses disappointment about the ending where Marianne may or may not have killed herself to resolve the plot:
Yahtzee: Basically, the main character - Marianne! I think it was Marianne. - finds the person who caused everything, and said person asks her to shoot them to stop the monster, and Marianne decides she's gotten really attached to this person in the nine seconds they've had to talk and proposes instead to shoot herself, which would also stop the monster by some awkward logic I wasn't quite convinced by. The argument escalates for a bit, then cut to black, gunshot, roll credits. So she either shot herself or she didn't; guess it'll depend on sequel viability. The Medium has good visual design and atmosphere, but I wasn't thinking about those during my suddenly much freer afternoon; I was wondering why "violent ballistic death" leapt that quickly to the top of Marianne's proposed solutions list. Just felt really out of nowhere; failure of characterization, I suppose. The suicide ending made sense in Spec Ops: The Line, and Silent Hill 2, and my last school reunion.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood

Yahtzee starts off by attacking Tabletop RPG players:
Yahtzee: Hey, people who like pen-and-paper role-playing, stop dazzling the world of fashion with your presence for a moment and listen. Have you ever thought that the campaign you're part of might work really well if adapted into a book or video game plot? Well, apply this simple test: go to literally anyone in the world and tell them about the most interesting thing that's ever happened in your game. Shortly, you will notice that their eyes appear to be focused on a point six feet behind your head, and they keep saying things like "Uh-huh." and "Right." and "If you don't stop talking, I'm going to scrape out my own eardrums with a teaspoon handle, you tedious, tedious fuck." For you see, nobody gives a shit about your imaginary heroics outside of the players directly involved, and the cloud of in-jokes, body odor, and Cheeto dust in which you meet, and anyone who says otherwise is either trying to seduce you or sell you a car.
Yahtzee doing a double dry heave while reading the title for the first (and last) time.^note
Yahtzee: Werewolf (HRUUH) The Apocalypse (HRUUH) Earthblood - fucking hell, that is the last time I read the full title out...
He then compares the main character, Cahal, to Captain Planet:
Yahtzee: He is a werewolf in a setting that's basically the premise of Captain Planet except with werewolves instead of diverse, go-getting teenagers, and where all issues are resolved by turning into a monster and tearing the enemy to coleslaw instead of summoning a demigod far too smug for someone wearing tiny red pants.
Yahtzee remarks how the game's limited budget is on full display:
Yahtzee: If it hasn't become obvious yet, Werewolf: The Pocky Arse Blurp isn't a very good game; it's a game of midrange budget from a European studio and is very much what one should expect of midrange Euro-jank that wants to eat at the AAA table but only got as far as the stealth and the action and couldn't manage the open world, the crafting, or the collectibles. But even for midrange Euro-jank, I struggle to think of any game whose core gameplay is more completely at odds with the themes of its plot and abilities of its main character; I mean, here's this dude who can turn into either a rampaging wolf monster or a lithe normal wolf that can dash through the wilderness faster than an enchilada through an elderly relative's digestive system, and then he spends most of his time crouching behind cubicle dividers in cramped metal rooms, like a scoliosis sufferer queueing to go on Space Mountain.
He then goes on to complain about the simplistic combat:
Yahtzee: Every cocking part of this game takes place in some kind of industrial environment consisting of a string of sectioned-off metal rooms containing an arrangement of cubicle dividers and patrolling guards; it's like playing Pac-Man, except when you get caught, you can't continue until you've smashed up the arcade cabinet with gardening equipment. It's a classic case of using open combat as punishment for fucking up the stealth, and Crikey O'Dogballs, does it feel like a punishment, because combat is very woof— I mean, rough. The physics of it all feels completely off; everything starts moving around like a fast-forwarded video of balloon animals in a centrifuge, and all you mostly do is mash "Light Attack" and hold on for dear life as you combo around the room like a runaway lawnmower in a doggy daycare. And you can barely tell what the fuck's going on 'cos of the particle effects and bits of pancreas flying everywhere, and a camera that frequently daydreams and points at the wrong thing because someone was describing their D&D campaign to it earlier. And yet, combat's still really easy, because that what happens when you take a high-energy, high-impact fighting style that'd probably serve you well if you were a Dynasty Warriors character and have us do it in a small, enclosed room full of meat piñatas.
The multiple occasions when the game tries really hard at being an Immersive Sim do not escape Yahtzee's notice:
Yahtzee: There's a small handful of bits in the game where you can complete optional scavenger hunts and dialogue puzzles to get past certain areas without fighting, and I'm like, "Aww, look at the little puppy that thinks it's Deus Ex. And look at that adorable upgrade menu with, like, nine things on it. Yes, you're an RPG, aren't you?" Only if "RPG" now stands for "Rip, Pulverize, Gouge". I guess it's pretty liberating to listen to some NPC fuck telling me he can get me the key to the next area if I find his cat's deworming medicine, knowing that at any moment, I can smash the "oh, fuck it" button and turn his and his cat's bowels into fucking party streamers.
Yahtzee concludes the review lamenting that the gameplay doesn't mesh well with the story's themes:
Yahtzee: I wonder if the story and the gameplay designers were working in the same building, because from a gameplay perspective, giving into the frenzy is the tops, and the solution for basically everything; I mean, in the prologue, going Frenzy Mode is what ruins Cahal's life and alienates him from his tribe, and seems to be the incitement for a character arc, but then in gameplay, you can go Frenzy Mode as much as you like. "Hey, your 'Alienation From Humanity' Meter is full; remember to use it on as many humans as you can! Why not buy an upgrade to get double damage from your alienation from humanity?" All janky design and dull, repetitive levels aside, it just feels like a game really at odds with itself.
Viewer: Well, how would you fix it, Yahtz?
Yahtzee: Well, I'd have added some kind of consequence for using Frenzy Mode too much, like reduced XP or a bad ending. Or, focused on cathartic combat and chucked the humanity-questioning stuff in the recycle bin. Oh, wait! Even quicker solution: chuck the whole fucking game in the recycle bin and play something else!
Viewer: Be serious, Yahtz.
Yahtzee: Sorry; I meant to say "compost bin".

Little Nightmares II

Yahtzee starts by talking about the "small child, scary world" trope and tries to deconstruct it:
Yahtzee: Longtime viewers will know we've had a lot of fun here at the Zero Punctuation Combination Waterslide Park/Sewage Treatment Facility with the running gag that virtually every arty indie game is basically about a small child being lost in a scary world, probably because they're frequently made by tech nerds new to the industry, having to face the fact that it might finally be time to get a real job and figure out how to do their own laundry. Which also explains why the games are usually highly unsubtle metaphors for something from the standard list of tech nerd mental health issues: anxiety, depression, isolation, the fact that nice girls don’t want to touch them. In the past, I've occasionally stretched the criteria for "small child, scary world" to include indie games like Bastion, Braid, and Ori and the Blind Forest in order to continue claiming to be right, in my adorably small-minded way, but absolutely no stretching is necessary for this week's subject; oh, dear me, no! Little Nightmares wears "small child, scary world" like a set of custom-fit pajamas, throws a big, comfortable duvet of oppressive atmosphere over itself, and goes to sleep. It uses all the tropes, even the really on-the-nose ones like "main character wears a hooded coat" and "soundtrack featuring sad children singing like the evil landlord just sold all their gruel vouchers". I might go as far to say that it officially takes Limbo's crown as the ur-example of "small child, scary world", since Limbo's pseudo-sequel INSIDE (2016) kind of gave it up when it transitioned from "small child, scary world" to "GIBBER, GIBBER, NONSENSE, NONSENSE, WEETABIX WITH LEGS!"
He then admits the Excuse Plot is justified in that it is, after all, a nightmare:
Yahtzee: This isn't a game whose appeal hinges on the plot; there isn’t much of one besides "small child wants something that, for whatever reason, is really far off to the right somewhere". There are little nuggets of background storytelling establishing some things about the setting but raise further questions - "Why are the funny noises coming out of the TV?"; "Why are all the adults hostile and look like characters from an Eastern European stop motion animated film apparently specifically designed to traumatize poorly supervised children?" - but the thing is, the point of playing the game is not to resolve the plot, but to exist within that world for a while and drink in its atmosphere, which is, rather effectively and convincingly, like that of a nightmare. There you go; that's the plot. It's a nightmare; even gave it away in the title. It's all a nightmare and it doesn't have to make sense, so don't worry so much about that wiki after all.
- He later notes:
  Yahtzee: In fact, one might call Little Nightmares a game that's 100% atmosphere, because the moment you try to engage with it on a story or gameplay level, then it sort of stares blankly at you for a moment before a sweaty fat man chases you into a mousehole again.
Yahtzee admits he had trouble writing the review:
Yahtzee: So on the whole, the setting and atmosphere hit the mark like a boxer who hates people named Mark. (Beat) ...Fuck you; I had writer’s block.
(Later...)
Yahtzee: For me, Little Nightmares shows a stark contrast; much of its imagery and setpieces will come back to you, especially if you eat petrol station sausage rolls just before going to bed, but they're the only things that will, because the gameplay's as deep as a very disappointing pie. (Beat) ...I, I had writer's block again; fuck you.

Breathedge

Yahtzee begins by lamenting how Survival Sandbox games don't have any Real Life applications:
Yahtzee: It's not that I dislike survival crafting as a genre; I just don't feel like it's taught me any practical survival skills. I head out to the wilderness, gather some wood and some stone, pack them together and tuck them under my scrotum for five seconds, and the result is not a makeshift axe, but an awkward conversation with my prostate specialist.
Yahtzee introduces the game proper:
Yahtzee: This week, I've been playing an indie survival craft 'em up called "Breathedge", which is Subnautica, but in space.
Breathedge: Why yes, I am that very thing, Yahtz; in fact, I contain multiple direct references to Subnautica to acknowledge its influence.
Yahtzee: You know, you're really sucking the fun out of dismissive know-it-all assholery, Breathedge! But yes, take Subnautica and remove all the water so that nothing remains but cold, forbidding vacuum, and that's Breathedge. And while you're at it, remove the interesting story and any particular reason to engage with its base-building mechanics— Wait, I liked those! You removed too much, Breathedge!
Breathedge: Ooh, sorry; guess I'll fill in the gap with fourth wall-breaking humor that, over the course of the game, gradually, almost imperceptibly, moves over the line from amusing to insufferable.
He then takes note of the game's sense of grandeur:
Yahtzee: If there's one thing Breathedge absolutely nails, it's Subnautica's majestic quality, as applied to space. The lonely spectacle of the distant stars and planets is a symphony for the eyeballs, and you really get a sense of the massiveness of everything and the sheer, unforgiving distance between it all; you can basically see everywhere you're going to go right off the bat, but you can’t get to most of it at first because you're using some bubble gum on a straw instead of an air tank and you’ll suffocate before you can so much as get close enough for your farts to register on an extremely sensitive Richter scale.
Yahtzee does yet another Call-Back to his "qualified statements" Running Gag of the past year:
Yahtzee: So those are the parts that Breathedge gets right. Ooh, there was some subtext in that last sentence, wasn't there, children? Did you spot it?
He gets into his main problems with the game, mainly the Victory Fakeout and Level Grind:
Yahtzee: The protagonist apparently refused to splash out on one of the better-quality magic scrotum replicators, because every tool he makes breaks down quicker than a germaphobe at a bum-licking contest. And the majestic distances of space are all very well until you wear out your flip-flops traveling to one of the rare non-stingy asteroids to draw some resources, only to find once you get there that your drill only has two uses left because, apparently, it's just an electric whisk with a Cheesy Wotsit on the end. There are also way too many instances of having to craft a highly-specific tool to get past one obstacle that never comes up again, especially in the second half of the game when Breathedge goes off its attention deficit disorder meds and forgets what kind of game it's trying to be. You spend the majority of the game in the big survival sandbox, gradually expanding your capabilities until you acquire a working spaceship, and my assumption was that this was the next stage of expansion; I was going to be able to cruise around the sandbox in my new penis extension, go back to all those mean asteroids that once bullied me, and drive through a nearby puddle to humiliate them in front of their asteroid girlfriends. But no; all you can do with your new ship is fast-travel to another, entirely separate sandbox where there's space combat mechanics all of a sudden, and introducing combat at this stage is like giving us a Snickers where all the peanuts are crammed into the last two bites. Although, you don't even have to fight them, so it's more like all the peanuts are put in a little Ziploc bag and taped to the outside. Because all progress from this point forward is made by docking with one space station after another and going down some linear corridors until you find something that advances the story, except the game is still clinging by its fingernails to its identity as a crafting Survival Sandbox, so you'll occasionally stop dead because some tool or component is required to proceed, and you need to walk all the way back to your ship to craft it. And since we can't go back to the first sandbox to hunt resources, the game just has to awkwardly sprinkle some around the floor, like a previous player ran through here with an overloaded shopping trolley taking the corners too quick. It's rather baffling; it's like the game realized it forgot to spread the plot around the whole game and had to load it all into the last two hours of it.
Yahtzee concludes with his thoughts on the game's Breaking the Fourth Wall humor:
Yahtzee: This might be related to Breathedge's deliberate attempt at fourth wall-breaking subversive comedy, which, early on, I thought worked well and gave it a humorous edge that made it stand out in the garbage trawler that is indie survival craft 'em ups. But while a fourth wall break is surprising and funny, all subsequent fourth wall breaks is just waving your comedy hammer at empty air, and the omnipresent fast-talking A.I. narrator who flips back and forth between doing a comedy motormouth bit and just talking too fast 'cos they're not a very good voice actor really starts to grate when they constantly point out all the gags. "Oh no! You can't get past here without crafting another piece of arbitrary bullshit! The developers, who are me, who are writing these words that I'm saying, must be trying to pad the gameplay out; what a bunch of scamps. Oh, look! It looks like something is about to happen! Oh, my goodness! The thing we were all expecting didn't happen the way we were expecting it! What a clever subversion on the part of the developers who are writing these words." See, there's poking fun at yourself, and then there's poking a finger so far up yourself, you can pull undigested Cheerios out of this morning's breakfast.

Persona 5 Strikers

During his introduction, Yahtzee comes to a realization:
Yahtzee: I like the Persona series; I guess I'm just owning that now. I like the concept of a magic world formed from the subconscious minds of humanity so you can go into the head of someone you don't like and kick the furniture around until miniature chairs fly out of their ears. Come to think of it, I also liked Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and Ni no Kuni II somewhat, and EarthBound and Chrono Trigger back in the day— Dammit, do I actually like JRPGs, and I just hate reviewing them because I only have a week to play, and they've usually got runtimes inversely proportional to the length of all the female characters' booty shorts? Hang on, let me stare at this anime character [Tifa Lockhart] for a bit. Hmmm... Nope, still looks like the grotesque offspring of an inflatable sex doll and a three-point electrical socket.
Yahtzee warns against trying to play the game before 5:
Yahtzee: Don't expect to keep up if you haven't played through Persona 5, 'cos the gang's all here from the outset: Sporty Spice, Scary Spice, Posh Spice, Arty Spice, Model Spice, Hacker Spice, er... Cat Spice, and lest we forget, Protagonist Spice. Is it me, or is there a lot of dead weight in the Phantom Thieves? I suppose once you've watched someone awaken their Persona while dramatically screaming and ripping their face off and bursting into flames, probably a bit awkward at that point to say, "Sorry, party's full, but we'll keep your résumé on file."
The Running Gag of imps with cheeses for heads.
Yahtzee concludes by remarking on a peculiar observation:
Yahtzee: In closing, I'd like to repeat something I once said about the Yakuza games: Isn't it odd how contemporary Japanese games always feel like they have to sell Japan as well? The way the Phantom Thieves stop at every tourist hotspot and have many prolonged scenes of them scarfing down the local cuisine, it's like the game's designed for foreign tourists! Maybe it's just the difference in culture standing out more to me as an outsider, but it feels like if every game set in America had characters going, "Oh boy! I can't wait to go to McDonald's for one of our famous Big Macs, and then go down to the Walmart and watch the traditional running of the shitheads!"
During the credits:
When you think about it the whole Persona 5 premise is basically Inception if Christopher Nolan was really really weirdly into Pokémon

Harvest Moon: One World

Yahtzee starts off the review figuring out the twisted history of the Harvest Moon series:
Yahtzee: Jeez, I thought the world of light farming simulators was a gentle, uncomplicated place where turnips always come up in three days and baby cows spontaneously materialize inside barns when the other cows are happy enough, with none of the grim realities of getting plowed up and down the feeding trough by a randy bull. But apparently, there's a lot of copyright fuckery going on in the world of almost-spherical livestock. Okay, I looked this up, and I think I've got the details square: The popular and influential Japanese cutesy farming sim franchise Farm Story was published by Natsume in the West under the name "Harvest Moon"; in 2014, the developer switched publishers, and its games have since been released in the West under the name "Story of Seasons" because Natsume reserved the rights to the name "Harvest Moon" so that they could make their own rival cutesy farming games and call them "Harvest Moon", because they assume those fat, ignorant Westerners have reservoirs of cream gravy instead of brains and won’t know the difference. Well, just dip a biscuit in my skull, because I tried out the new Harvest Moon on Switch. I enjoyed Harvest Moon back on the SNES and have clocked in enough hours in Stardew Valley to raise an actual child or moderately-sized dog, so I was curious to see in precisely what manner Natsume was buggering the franchise's reputation over a feeding trough; quite heartily, it turns out.
He then notes the game is edging towards Actionized Sequel:
Yahtzee: Harvest Moon: One World is the game, and while it seems to have had some noble intention to sprinkle a little more adventure into the concept so you're not just waking up and urinating on potatoes day in, day out, in doing so, it loses sight of the core appeal of these games, and there's a general air of wrongness about the whole thing, which first started sinking in when it told me to go to the cave and mine some bronze ore. There's no such thing as "bronze ore", you shitwits! It's an alloy; it doesn't occur naturally! It's like telling me to go harvest a cupcake bush.
- Which leads to Yahtzee noting that the idea of going out into the world sort of defeats the entire concept of a farming simulator:
  Yahtzee: Anyway, as the one weirdo who still thinks crops grow from seeds, you are tasked by the Goddess of Spring (or someone like that) to travel the world and reintroduce the concept of growing things; and yes, every character in this game does come across as about as stupid as this premise. I mean, for fuck's sake, there are fruit-bearing trees everywhere! What did everyone think those were? Unusually taciturn people with very delicious haircuts?
  The reasonable question to ask at this point would be "How does one combine a farming sim with a game about journeying around the world?"; the one certainty about farms is that they kind of can't go anywhere. Well, shows how much you know, because this society that failed to develop agriculture has mastered miniaturization technology; you know, it's like when you play Civilization against someone who researches nuclear fission before they've discovered the wheel. Because of this, you can pack up all your farm buildings into a convenient package and go establish yourself at one of several predetermined spots throughout the world because this society has also failed to develop the concept of land ownership, apparently.
  But isn't the point of these types of farming simulators to build something and watch it grow from a humble turnip patch in the backwoods to the primary agribusiness concern of Anime Thirst Ladies-ville? You don't get that when you're having to uproot yourself every few hours so you can move to a new area with a different-color repeated ground texture, another two or three inflatable NPCs to load you down with more fucking fetch quests, and another couple of thirsty love interest characters about as romantically intriguing as a plank with a bad haircut. I say "uprooting". You can't actually bring anything you're growing with you; just the buildings and your animals pressed together into one squawking, very confused box. Every new spot has its own unchangeable grid of farming plots lovingly laid out by Mother Nature with a fucking set square, apparently.
Yahtzee then suggests players just go with ports of the older games:
Yahtzee: I'd heard that Natsume was driving the Harvest Moon ice cream van smack into the animal shelter, and I suppose I was just curious to see the wreckage for myself and pick through it for salvageable orange Frooties. In the meantime, if, like me, you enjoy fantasizing about what it would be like to have actual manual skills, there's a new Story of Seasons coming this month that's probably the one worth holding out for. Or try the remake of the GBA one that's out on Steam; keyboard controls are a bit wonky, and it's hard to get a good sexual tension going when all the love interests are proportioned like Dora the Explorer, but that's just the companionable whiff of cow manure that drifts into the farmhouse kitchen, compared to One World's hundred-yard swim down the factory farm runoff pipe.
The Stinger:
- The first part is the lyrics to "I've Got A Brand New Combine Harvester" by The Wurzels, but phonetically transcribed in an outrageous Yorkshire accent.
  OI'VE GOT A BRARND NEW COMBOINE ARRVESTUR
- Followed quickly by:
  OLD MCANIME HAD A FARM
  E I E WAIFU

Loop Hero and Everhood

Yahtzee's introduction:
Yahtzee: Well, it's March, so let's "march" on down to Indie Game Square, crowded as ever with the permanent farmer's market of Steam, where the barks of stallholders mingle with the squeals of poorly-drawn anime girls getting violated, and no one has glimpsed the Sun since 2014. And what an appropriate month this is for our first game, Loop Hero, a game about march-ing: marching around and around in a circle, or rather, watching someone else march around and around in a circle while we occasionally fling them a new pair of trousers and dream silly, silly dreams about what it would be like to be the one playing the video game.
Yahtzee gives the premise for Loop Hero:
Yahtzee: The premise is, you are a lone hero in a world that has been destroyed; like, really, really thoroughly. Everything has been reduced to a void; it's like watching network television at ten in the morning. All that remains is a single looping path, and all you can do is follow it and, bit by bit, remember the world as it used to be. Although, I guess your memory isn't the best, because you can only remember it in a rather muddy 16-bit art style with slightly hard-to-read text, reminiscent of one of those depressing Amiga games from the 90's, designed by sad British people who live in places like Hull.
- However, Yahtzee warns that it isn't exactly an idle game:
  Yahtzee: But lest the phrase "idle game" rise unbidden into your thoughts like the image of a stern primary school teacher during sex, there is some challenge here, and the challenge is simply deciding when to stop; again, like we're thinking about primary school teachers during sex.
Yahtzee describes how the gameplay informs the story in Everhood:
Yahtzee: So in Everhood combat, you're basically trying to survive on a giant Guitar Hero fretboard, dodging button prompts like someone trying to edit a David Cage design document. The story takes a turn when you get your wanking hand back, spoiler alert, and acquire the ability to fight back as well as dodge, and that's when the existential stuff creeps in, because now, we have the option to go back through the game and murder everything in it. I say "option", but the game flat-out tells you to do it, and if this is trying to ape the Undertale genocide playthrough - It is! It totally is! I figured it out, Mum! - then it misses the whole point that the player actively choosing to commit genocide was what gave it its impact. I felt genuinely bad about killing characters in Undertale because they were funny and well-written, and you had some real context for their lives, but I mowed through Everhood's cast with the same emotion as when I'm closing all my browser tabs after a successful wank. I guess it just doesn't have that emotional heart Undertale had under all its beefy arms; feels more like a showcase of admittedly quite good music, so maybe you'll find it emotionally engaging if you're the kind of person who really identified with the struggle of the pencil-drawing dude from the "Take On Me" video.
The Stinger has Yahtzee and an Imp exhausted on the Loop Hero road. Yahtzee resorts to cannibalism on the Imp to survive, getting enough energy to start walking down the road. A few steps further, he sees a McDonald's sign just off-screen, meaning he ate the Imp for nothing.

Evil Genius 2: World Domination

Yahtzee brags about how much smarter he is than everyone else — and has no evil intentions:
Yahtzee: Just because I'm smarter than everyone else doesn't mean I look down on people. Someone has to make my sandwiches. Just because I can envision a vastly more efficient society with myself as absolute dictator doesn't mean I want to go to that amount of trouble. Just because I ordered the installation of an oubliette in my basement doesn't mean I have sinister intentions for it, so stop asking questions and get your jackhammer out, Frank.
Yahtzee notes that even though the game is a Recycled In Space remake of Dungeon Keeper, the real world is uncomfortably close to having cartoonish James Bond villains:
Yahtzee: It's totally just a remake, fuck you. One that's let a long enough time elapse since the last decent Dungeon Keeper game that it can finally credibly argue that it's not just a ripoff of that with a campy retro futuristic pulp spy fiction coat of paint. No, obviously it was inspired by just looking at the way the world is currently being run and realizing that a cartoon global dictator couldn't possibly make things any worse. Nor indeed could a world government headed by half a breakfast grapefruit.
He continues being a Bond villain regarding minions.
Yahtzee: You're supposed to designate areas as specific rooms, but I’m unclear on why my minions need a barracks and a dining hall and a breakroom and an entirely separate kind of breakroom for replenishing mental health or something. That’s what happens when you let the fuckers unionize, I suppose.
Yahtzee Croshaw and his Right-Hand Cat.
The closing animation is particularly good in this episode: an investigator sets off a spring-loaded-boxing-glove trap, which misses him by a mile. Cut to Yahtzee chewing out the minion who installed the trap, then pulling a lever to drop a giant weight on him. Rather than landing on the "X" that the minion is standing on, the weight crushes Yahtzee.

2021, Quarter 2

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

Yahtzee realizing he shilled Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town sight unseen.
Yahtzee: So after I reviewed Harvest Moon: One Star a few weeks back and said it was the imperfect Pod Person replica of the original franchise that got rejected for forgetting to glue its nose on properly, and that you should probably hold out for the new Story of Seasons, I immediately realised, "Oh crunchy nut bugger-flakes, I've tied my hands on this one, haven't I?" I've basically endorsed Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, sight unseen, so now I have to review it to make sure it doesn't leave skidmarks on the guest towels. After all, it's not like the original Harvest Moon developers are hoarding the secret formula for light farming sims like it's the recipe for Coke; you just need a twenty-minute day cycle, a brace of anime hotties and an at best truncated idea of childbirth. Some of the original Harvest Moons were stinkers, like that one on the GameCube from the "make everything look like we’re viewing it through a coffee filter" era of graphics that had all the visual charm of the top layer of scum on the pond behind the abattoir. If you want to know if Pioneers of Olive Drab is better than Harvest Moon: One Wank, then yes, it is, but that's not much of a bar to clear.
The constant Running Gag about "waifus".
Yahtzee notes that Stardew Valley has raised the bar for farm life sims.
Yahtzee: The question is if it lives up to the current standard for light farming sims, which, to my mind, is Stardew Valley, which I hear just got another free content update, because the developer's doing it out of love and is apparently allergic to money or something.
- Later:
  Yahtzee: Let me just say this now: if you've never played a light farming sim, and don't want to try Stardew Valley because Eric Barone murdered your family or something (Eric Barone: "And I'd do it again"), then you'll get the full light farming experience with Pioneers of Bollock City.
Yahtzee's short musings on what rubs him wrong about the game's general pacing:
Yahtzee: My gut tells me this game is simultaneously a bit too slow and a bit too fast...
(beat)
Viewer: Does your gut wanna clarify that, Yahtz?
Yahtzee: Well, I don't want to push it; we had Mexican last night.
The game ends with the longtime Running Gag about Yahtzee's sexual arousal with sea mammals as he talks about masturbating after building a dolphin sanctuary.

Outriders

Yahtzee states its time to review a violent game for a change.
Yahtzee: Blimey, I thought video games were supposed to be violent. I've been doing so little killing lately I'm becoming dangerously well-adjusted. Just look at my last few reviews: idle games, management games, farming sims, last night a stray cat came into my front garden and I didn't stomp it to death. High time for some good old fashioned mindless violence. And who better to provide it than People Can Fly, the developers behind Painkiller, old-school boomer shooter from before old-school boomer shooters were wallpapering the fucking rumpus room, and more recently of Bulletstorm, quirky tongue in cheek spectacle shooter that's like Gears of War trying desperately to loosen up at the office Christmas party. I can certainly trust them to provide a murder simulator that’s at least interesting to talk about and not another bloody multiplayer-focussed looter shooter with endless copy pasted bullet sponge baddies and a cover art depicting some smug people walking slowly towards the camera. Isn't that right, People Can Fly? Yeah, I know Outriders is all of the things I just said, I was doing a little funny, wipe that puppy dog look off your face.
Yahtzee applying the Duck Test^note to the game and its Suspiciously Specific Denial about being a looter-shooter.
Yahtzee: Another interesting thing admitted in the Outriders review guide is that, quote, "it may look like a looter shooter on the surface, and many players may compare Outriders to a looter shooter." "Many players", People Can Fly? Implying that some of them don't? Have those people gotten their eyes checked lately, because that's a cause for concern. I haven't seen pussy-footing like this since the last time I refereed a women's kickboxing tournament. It is a fucking looter-shooter, just accept it. You basically play an ultraviolent homeless person who has to push their shopping cart around at the end of every battle seeing if this plus three filthy overcoat provides better protection than their currently equipped plus two burlap sacks held on with string.
Yahtzee admitting he kind of likes the Crapsack World presented, contrasting it to other more gung-ho games:
Yahtzee: The plot is, the planet Earth goes back once again to its abusive spouse the human race and once again pays the price, forcing the human race to move out and find another planet to mooch off. After decades travelling through space, we find one that seems gullible enough and we're part of the scouting party that tentatively reports that it's not a horror planet of monsters and everyone can come down and start burning down the forests and building a load of TGI Fridays. Moments later, PSYCH, turns out it was a horror planet of monsters, you get wounded and cryofrozen and wake up thirty years later to find a hell world where humanity are locked into the usual fascists versus nutters Forever War. Great job, guys! Smashed that previous planet-fucking speed record; let's find another one and see if we can get it sub-two decades. The "forever-war on hell-world" setting is rather disappointingly standard, but I do kinda like how the story's told, focusing on our main dude's perspective as he wakes up in an unfamiliar future and careens from crisis to crisis bewilderedly asking where all the toilets got moved to. Also, the whole story has this air of dispassionate nihilism that I found rather entertaining. It keeps introducing new characters with distinct appearances and fleshed out backstories...
Cowboy Mitch: I once sucked dick for real estate.
Yahtzee: ...and then killing them off minutes later.
(Cowboy Mitch gets shot by a sniper in the head.)
Yahtzee: Ho yes, this ain't Gears Of War — keeping your helmet off won't save you now! I don't like the way the camera constantly jiggles during cutscenes like it’s being directed by Paul Greengrass while he's trying to balance a book on his head. It doesn't add gritty realism, it gives me a headache and makes me think every character's busting for a piss.
Yahtzee's No Ending at the conclusion of the review:
Yahtzee: Normally I'd summarise my feelings about Outriders at this point, but unfortunately my opinion is currently down due to server issues.

Oddworld: Soulstorm

Yahtzee noting Oddworld turned out to be a Stillborn Franchise.
Yahtzee: Back in the wild romantic days of the PlayStation 1, when pixels were large and masculine and memory cards were to their modern equivalents what a pedal-powered double decker bus is to a motor scooter, there began the Oddworld series, wherein some visionary genius sat bolt-upright in bed and said, "What if there was a world that's like primitive Earth, but — get this — everyone looks weird, and has eyes the size of Jammie Wagon Wheels? For some reason I feel like this is a creative well that will never run dry." Very much the James Cameron's Avatar of its time, in several respects, because it initially announced it was going to be a five-game epic but never quite successfully fired the outboard motor on that one, merely sputtering along for a few games before disappearing over the horizon of indifference. And back then, we didn't have the experience we have now with the many failed attempts at cinematic universes, from which we learned that pledging a multi-sequel epic before the first instalment is even out is like getting a positive pregnancy test and proceeding to book a church for your child’s future wedding; you're just tempting fate to ensure your child is born with no genitals...
Yahtzee's son: I have disappointed you, Father.
Yahtzee: ...or really weirdly into Sonic the Hedgehog.
Yahtzee's son: (wearing Sonic hat) Please drive me to the weirdo convention.
He then states he hates the Flanderization:
Yahtzee: Oddworld started out with this rather original mystical and darkly comedic vibe, but, in later games, made the tactical error of leaning more towards the comedy when the comedy was based mainly around farts and doing embarrassingly bad Star Wars prequel level gags in the Monty Python old lady voice, and was generally about as funny as the children's bone cancer ward’s production of Othello, the Moor of Venice.
Yahtzee then talks about the attempts to revive the series:
Yahtzee: So while I wouldn’t say the Oddworld franchise never got off the ground, it certainly never really cleared the treetops, and is presently weaving around the painfully solid giant redwoods of irrelevance by remaking the first couple of games, sort of an attempt to recapture that original freshness the way one does with Febreze and a pair of old underpants. First there was New And Tasty!, the remake of Abe’s Oddysee and now Soulstorm, not a remake of Abe’s Exoddus but more of a retake or reimagining or recidivist or some other word beginning with "r-e", possibly even the one you're thinking of, you terribly un-politically correct viewer^notethe R-word, naturally. Let’s not waste time and skip straight to the TL;DR part of the fractious Reddit relationship story that is this game: I kinda hate Soulstorm.
He talks about Abe being turned into a Pinball Protagonist:
Yahtzee: The plot involves Abe, bumbling messiah of the Mudokon people who all look like Teenage Mutant Ninja Tadpoles, fresh from having rescued his people from the factory in the first game, now getting roped into rescuing another batch as he's hunted across the plains by his enemies, thankfully without so many fart jokes, but having taken those out, the game doesn't have anything to replace them with and the general tone of the story is bland, with Abe stumbling from one gameplay encounter to the next without much apparent decision making on his part; it's like watching Mr. Bean recast as Lawrence of Arabia.
Yahtzee launches into a long rant about the Escort Mission parts of the game:
Yahtzee: The gameplay is also based around escorting NPCs, and a game based around escorting is so often akin to, say, a family dining experience based around sitting on spikes, but not so much in a puzzle game in the Lemmings sort of area like this; figuring out how best to navigate your dudes past a few screens of hazards when your dudes have all the facility for self-preservation as a blind hedgehog on a turnpike. Bearing that in mind, when I fuck up in a puzzle game I want to feel like it was because I wasn't smart enough, not because some element of the game decided not to work the way it had worked before! (increasingly angry as he goes along) Sometimes your followers' neurons will fire fast enough to run past the ceiling crusher when you tell them to, sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll all hide in a locker when you tell them to, sometimes they won't, and when the enemy patrol turns around they all get shot dead before they even have time to show their hall pass! Sometimes the enemy patrol turns around and shoots you dead, sometimes they don't because their AI fucked up and they've stopped moving altogether, which gets particularly farcical if you've dropped a mine on their patrol path.
Abe: Boy, that was some really impressive patrolling up to now, can’t wait to see it again. Oh my goodness, is that a reunion performance of The Three Tenors going on behind you? Boy, missing out on that would haunt me to my dying days!
Yahtzee: (increasingly angry) When the elements of a puzzle game don't act consistently the result is frustration. It's like playing chess against a six year old who's just decided his bishop can now move sideways and shoot lasers out of his hat! These are the frustrations that I classify under "recreating the retro vibe genital warts and all"! There’s also an array of wonderful fresh new diseases that Soulstorm has acquired from not maintaining social distancing with modern video game trends. For one thing, it is nice that games can now instantly save your progress when you touch a save point without all that fucking around with double decker bus memory cards but when you’ve just lost five dudes because the helicopter enemies have randomly decided they can see through smoke clouds now and want to kill yourself and retry the area, suddenly those insta-save points become fucking landmines.
Wrapping up:
Yahtzee: So in brief, Soulstorm either does too much or not enough of being too old fashioned or too new. ...Yes, I've confused myself as well; let's just leave things at "don’t buy it".

It Takes Two

Yahtzee opens with this winner:
Yahtzee: People often say to me "Yahtzee, why is it that you avoid multiplayer games, and when will you let me off this red hot grating?" Well, you know, it's just that I prefer playing games to relax and unwind at my own pace and not be disappointed once again by other people and their unwillingness to learn how to tap dance properly.
- Not long after a few minutes, the camera shows Yahtzee chained up next to his partner while playing in two-player:
  Partner: Can I go back on the grating now?
He then takes another shot at A Way Out:
Yahtzee: So when my editor asked me to check out It Takes Two, a two and strictly only two player game, I was like "I'm down for that", as long as it's not like that last strictly two player game I played, the laughably awful A Way Out, by Hazelight Studios, which played like if David Cage tried to adapt The Shawshank Redemption, realized it wasn't long enough and filled in the rest of the time with three random DVDs he found in a bargain bin.
- And another one:
  Yahtzee: A Way Out was shooting for gritty crime drama and fell flat because its rampant cliches, terrible writing, and secondary protagonist with a nose so big he can't swim the back stroke without setting off shark alerts, made it impossible to take seriously.
Yahtzee spelling out the premise:
Yahtzee: The premise is a married couple, whose relationship is bottoming out so hard it's getting carpet burns, inform their friendless, presumably homeschooled and probably on the spectrum daughter that they're getting divorced. Said daughter proceeds to cry on some dolls she made of her parents for Christ knows what reason and the parents' souls get magically transferred into the dolls. Blimey, lucky she didn't cry into some bog roll or the sandwich she was eating; that'd've been a bit Kafkaesque.
Yahtzee admits he has no idea who the game is for:
Yahtzee: It's designed for couch co-op and there's outwardly a family friendly vibe but I couldn't picture myself playing through it with a child of my own. Tonally, it's all over the place, and it might lead to some awkward questions if your own family has seen some drama.
Yahtzee's avatar: (to child) No, of course mummy and daddy didn’t split up because of you. We just never quite figured out how to get past the boss fight with the vacuum cleaner.
"BITE THE FUCKING CURB!"
Yahtzee's son: Why are they making him bite the curb?
The Stinger: Can you still bite curbs on the paleo diet?
Yahtzee using Nuns on the Run as an example of "throwing an awful lot of shit at the wall, a lot of which doesn’t stick but enough of it does" to be enjoyable.
At the end, Yahtzee uses the fact that he used the words "bottom, shit, and ass" in a single compliment as proof that he's a professional. Cue an imp telling him his landlord's on the phone.

Balan Wonderworld

Yahtzee once again commenting on viewer Bile Fascination, much like his review of Aliens: Colonial Marines:
Yahtzee: Look at you all asking me to play Balan Wonderworld and getting your phone cameras ready, like you've just put a smash cake in front of a tiny baby. That title's a gift, isn't it? "Banal Wonderworld"; "Whirly Blunderbland"; "Anal Wanky Piss".
Balan Wonderworld: [gets impatient] Could you start reviewing me please?
Yahtzee: But you know, bloody-minded contrarian that I am, I feel inclined to be charitable towards something everyone already says is a great big bag of salt n' vinegar shit crisps, and I can honestly say, badly designed and incomprehensible though it is, I don't feel much hate or anger towards Balan Thunderpants. Just a mixture of confusion and embarrassment, like what I felt when my dad announced he'd gotten a job as a Playboy bunny. I suspect the negativity towards the game has a lot to do with it being directed by Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, and everyone was expecting more. To which I might ask, have you fucking played any Sonic the Hedgehog games in the last twenty years?! Expecting more at this point is like going bobbing for apples in a veterinary surgeon's sink trap.
Yahtzee watches a Let's Play of NiGHTS into Dreams… to prepare for Balan Wonderworld:
Yahtzee: So I sat through a long play of the game on YouTube, and when it was finished, I said, "I have now seen Nights into Dreams; I wonder what the fuck it's about?" And that rather sets the tone for this review.
Yahtzee's description of Balan: "[He] looks like what you'd get if Willy Wonka turned into a Pokémon."
Yahtzee: Who's the dude who looks like if Robert Smith from The Cure turned into a Pokémon? Is he supposed to be the Satan-like villain who's causing everyone's problems in an attempt to sow discord in the world of men? 'Cos the problems are so mundane I kinda feel bad for the guy. He's clearly gotten way overdressed for the occasion and every time he shows up in gameplay he gets his dark and brooding bum cheeks handed to him in two minutes flat.
Yahtzee finds the one Scrappy Mechanic that really angers him (even more than the Box Fox costume that randomly moves on its own, sometimes flinging the player off a cliff):
Yahtzee: There's clearly a vision behind it, just not a vision that operates on any light spectrum from our universe; that’s why it’s mostly more confusing than rage-inducing...except one thing. At some point someone pointed out to the six-year-old that we only ever see the player character and the germaphobic porn studio fluffer or whoever else currently needs their bullshit problem fixed, and the game's title character doesn't seem to be involved much — and the six-year-old panicked and threw his juice box 'cos everyone needs to see how cool their character is, so every level features several unrelated asides where we have to watch Balan fly around space punching rocks and the Robert Smith dude while we press quick time events. These sequences are all basically the same and go on way longer than they need to, in that they don't need to exist at all so that's like infinite percent too long, mathematically speaking. And if you don't hit all the quick time events perfectly you don’t get the gold trophy what you need to progress. So as far as the game’s concerned, three Perfects and a Very Good is no different than spending the whole sequence rubbing the controller on your buttocks. So on this one, specific point, Balan Wonderworld can eat shit. It was weirdly interesting up to now watching it struggle to stand up like a baby deer on the ice but then it stumbled into my drinks cabinet and knocked over the amaretto.
Yahtzee's Malicious Misnaming — Banal Wonderworld, Anal Wanky Piss, Whirly Blunderbland, Balan Thunderpants, Balan Chunderlungs, Barren Thunderthighs — inspired additional names from viewers like Balanitis Wonderworld, Ballantine's Waluigi, Bellend Widdlewee, Bunion's Wallyworld and Ballerina's Wanksock.

Resident Evil Village

Yahtzee constantly calling the game Resident Evil Vi-li-li-li-li-li-lage.
Yahtzee comments on Ethan being a Weirdness Magnet and being an Iron Butt Monkey:
Yahtzee: Weird question: how often would you say foreign objects get traumatically inserted into your body during an average week? Maybe once at most, and usually with your consent?
Viewer: (doggie-style on a bed as an imp holds a giant spoon) Call me your naughty breakfast.
Yahtzee: Well, tell that to Ethan Winters, or as I've come to call him, "The Amazing Human Desk Tidy". It's seriously tarnishing his "average everyman in a crisis" image, the sheer amount of random sharp objects he gets stuck in him in the course of Resident Evil 7 and 8; by the end it's just gotten silly! I know he doesn't ask for any of it, but you know what they say: If everyone you meet is an impalement weirdo, maybe the impalement weirdo is you. At the start of Resident Evil Vi-li-li-li-li-li-li-lage, Ethan "Unluckiest Chump In The Western Hemisphere" Winters is lounging around the house with his wife and baby, thinking his getting impaled on things days are behind him, when, of all people, Chris Redfield bursts in, shoots Mrs. Winters dead, and kidnaps the baby. This, boys and girls, is what we call a "hook", but don't worry; it's like what they used to do with superhero comics where the cover shows Superman about to dropkick a baby into a volcano or something to force you to buy the comic and discover, oh! Turns out, all along, it was a volcano-shaped sweet shop and it's the baby’s birthday.
The "monster leader" that Ethan has to rescue his baby from is David Bowie as Jareth, surrounded by imps.
Yahtzee addresses the memes and pornography regarding Alcina Dimitriescu in two sentences:
Yahtzee: Yeah, sorry if you got into that whole meme that arose around Lady Dimitriescu, because whoops, she's only the boss of the first area, she dies like two hours in. And then it's back to fantasizing about your high school French teacher in a milkmaid outfit.
- Yahtzee then later calls Lady Dimitrescu "Mommy Milkies".
Yahtzee notes that the game's attempt to mix the campiness of Resident Evil 4 with the Survival Horror of Resident Evil 7 was going to create tone problems.
Yahtzee: 4 was amusingly camp and action-focused and grand in scope, but 7 was survival-focused and benefited from a narrowing of scope that made it effectively unnerving; 8, as a result, is a severely mixed bag. How mixed? Put it like this: there was a moment in Vi-li-li-li-lage that was the most genuinely terrifying horror experience I've had in a video game for a very long time; there is another moment, some time later, where you're in a dreary, repetitive industrial environment fighting cyborgs, and it's about as scary and exciting as trying to squeeze past a Borg cosplayer on a narrow staircase, and when I say "moment", I mean about an hour. This is part of the decline the game suffers after Mommy Milkies has spooged herself out of the game, and after the really effective horror part— it's the bit in the dollhouse, alright?! I presume it's okay for a reviewer to identify the bit it's praising. I dunno; you people cry "Spoilers!" if I so much as tell you Ethan Winters' inside leg measurement.
He then goes on a long rant about having to somehow shoehorn Chris Redfield and the Umbrella Corporation into the game, and how it just wrecks the mood.
Yahtzee: Anyway, the point is, that's the peak, and there's only one way to go from a peak. The game's all over the place by the end; all the global conspiracy shit leaks in from the other games like brown urine from an overloaded nappy. There's a bit where we have to play as Chris Redfield and it turns into a military shooter. I didn't even mention that the industrial area ends with Ethan Winters having to pilot a fucking mech suit with a chainsaw arm and an infinite gatling gun, and before you say that sounds cool, you predictable, mouthbreathing, Marvel movie-enjoying fucks, think of the start of RE7 where you’re in a shed fighting off a crazy wife in her workout pumps, and how infinitely more effective it was than any of this nonsense. The sinking feeling I got from Chris Redfield's appearance at the end of 7 has proved entirely justified: the way Vi-li-li-li-lage shifts the story's focus to the stodgy old git towards the end feels like a misstep after the breath of fresh air that Ethan Winters has been to Resident Evil protagonists. "Oh boy, someone new, and human, and relatable, who we've not yet witnessed do something really embarrassing like 'be in Resident Evil 5'."
Chris Redfield: I needed protein powder money.
Yahtzee: As a series, Resident Evil just can't seem to kick the habit; every now and again, it pulls its head out of its bum for one game, but just can't resist that wonderful butt-hole smell, and is six inches deep again by the sequel. So, of course, we discover how the events of the last two games tie into the fucking Umbrella corporation, and there's a new bonkers global conspiracy to create monsters and sell them as weapons, because it's nice how guns straightforwardly murder whatever we point them at, but maybe if there was a chance your weapon could turn around and suck your eyeballs out, then that'd add enough je ne sais quoi to stand out in a competitive marketplace. It's like Resident Evil is a restaurant that's been trying to sell octopus burgers, and no one fucking likes the octopus burgers 'cos they're slimy and weird and the eyeballs look like they're judging me, so then they bring out a nice burger with no octopus and it sells really well, and the managers all go, "Great! Now, how do we work the octopus back into this?" FORGET ABOUT THE FUCKING OCTOPUS!
Octopus: How wude.
Yahtzee: THE OCTOPUS DOESN'T WORK; WHY DO YOU ALWAYS INSIST ON PUSHING THE OCTOPUS?! ARE YOU TRYING TO LAUNDER A MARINE LIFE-SMUGGLING ENTERPRISE?!
Smuggler: Boss, got six more need moving.
The Stinger: Did anyone wonder why Ethan Winters was lounging around the house eating dinner in his outdoor hiking gear?

Returnal

Yahtzee opens with mentioning once again one of his Trademark Favorite Foods:
Yahtzee: When you think about it, aren't we all trapped in cycles of one kind or another? Cycles of work and sleep, hopefully not at the same time. Cycles of eating Creme Eggs and shitting them out to make room for more Creme Eggs.
He then talks about how derivative the game is:
Yahtzee: Returnal is a nice chunk of good old hard sci fi that plays like a Rogue-lite version of Metroid Prime by way of the movie Prometheus, and I for one am always in the mood for a good hard sci fi-ing. The kind of thing where it takes a single alien concept that turns everything on its head and see what happens to an ordinary person having to deal with it. Like when you sneak psilocybin into someone's breakfast cereal and then watch them go out to collect the mail. In this case, our protagonist Selene crash lands on a monster planet covered in mysterious alien ruins and, well, and monsters obviously, and soon finds that every time she gets killed she wakes up back at her ship with a starting gun and all her bits re-established. Also, she keeps finding corpses of other versions of herself and audio logs from a possible future self who sounds like she's gone two imposing erect penises short of an H. R. Giger artbook.
Yahtzee notes the game relies on too much Real Is Brown:
Yahtzee: It doesn’t hurt that the core controls are nice and fast and responsive and arcadey, exactly what you need when you're flinging yourself around trying to avoid a million and one glowing Bullet Hell projectiles, made nice and distinctive against the muted, murky environments. Perhaps a touch too murky when in the heat of a moment I mistake a murky smoke cloud for a section of murky floor and proceed to pay my respects to Mr. Newton at full screaming volume.

Biomutant

Yahtzee feels Biomutant needs more cute little dogs◊.
Yahtzee: Hey, now that the post apocalypse is starting to feel less like an overused setting in fiction and more like a fucking dress rehearsal, wanna play a game about small furry animals retaking the Earth after the human race dies out? Well then play Tokyo Jungle, genius, it's got cute Pomeranians ripping the throats out of bunny rabbits, and what kind of monster can't find joy in that? I guess there's Biomutant now too but you don’t get to be a Pomeranian in that so I don't know how it had the balls to show its face.
When Yahtzee describes the story as lacking, saying not even the Royal Shakespeare Company could save it, replacing a possum's head with Patrick Stewart's, as he intones "Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale / Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man."

Subnautica: Below Zero

Yahtzee harkens back to his original Subnautica review about how he actually liked it.
Yahtzee: I'd definitely have been among those who held aloft their cleaned Subnautica plate and cried "More, please!", to the exasperation of our parents and prison wardens, and that's exactly what we've got here, Subnautica: More, Please. Or, Below Zero, which is rubbing up against the title of "standalone expansion" so closely that Standalone Expansion should probably complain to human resources. It's generally smaller and shorter than the original Subnautica and much of the gameplay is the same; the little exploding bastards that hoard the cave sulphur are still a massive pain in the oxygen tank.
He then critiques the Apocalyptic Logs in the game.
Yahtzee: There are some new features. Most notably, the main character has a miraculous and innovative new piece of equipment called "a personality." Robin, for ’tis her name, comes to an alien ice planet to uncover the truth behind the death of her sister. The evil corporation that runs the Subnautica universe keeps saying it was an accident but every time they say it they sort of very unsubtly wink to someone standing off to the side so obviously we're going to trust them about as far as the distance between a Catholic schoolteacher’s knees. But the inciting dead sister plot element kinda fades away from the game unless you’re the kind of sucker who actually pays attention to audio logs, and after Robin gets an alien AI stuck in her head like it's the theme song from a 90's Disney cartoon...
Robin: (singing) Life is like a hurricane...
Yahtzee: ...her priorities shift to mainly doing whatever the fuck it wants to do until you can build a new alien body for it to annoy the shit out of instead of you.
HAL 9000: Let's watch Melissa McCarthy films.
Yahtzee then has fun with the ridiculous physics in the game:
Yahtzee: What’s different on the gameplay front is that now we have to worry about freezing to death on top of air, food, water and paying the electricity bill — although it's only a factor when we're on land. For some reason, all the seawater on this ice planet is pleasant jacuzzi temperature! Another wonderful survival tip from the world of survival games: if you’re in below zero temperatures, immediately make yourself as wet as possible. That’ll certainly help.
Yahtzee portraying an "unruly Godzilla"^*He's talking about the Iceworm as a tardigrade.
Yahtzee reacting to the buggy PlayStation 5 version not having any autosaves.
Yahtzee: I should mention I was playing the PS5 version because it was the code I was given and might as well get some fucking use out of that glorified factory warped panini press. And this version seems to be a bit buggy. It occasionally crashes to I hesitate to use the word "desktop". So when was my last autosave, Subnautica: Below Zero?
Subnautica: Below Zero: Autosave? What’s that? Is that like runner's high, but for goalkeepers?
Yahtzee: Sudden change of expression, sound of distant breaking glass. You don’t have autosave? But I've been playing for like four hours. I built half my base. I found some really hard to find things. I made friends with a shark and named it Porthos.
Porthos the Shark: (wearing top hat, holding paint cans) They only had ecru.
Yahtzee: What do I do now?
Subnautica: Below Zero: (walking away) I dunno. Eat shit, by the sounds of it.
Yahtzee trying to forget Sub Zero by playing Lost Ruins:
Yahtzee: I tried out a Castlevania clone on Steam called Lost Ruins that people seemed to like, and that was enjoyable and intriguing as I set off to uncover the mystery behind every single character wearing a Japanese school uniform, and why the giant anime girl boss fights attack me by trying to crush me with their giant titties^note — oh, I just figured the mystery out actually. Inclusivity’s great and all but there are people who I feel would still benefit from being shamed now and then.
Occidental Otaku: (holding a love pillow) We're common-law married.
The Stinger has an imp wearing a Sailor Fuku, drifting by until it encounters some Naughty Tentacles.

Miitopia

Yahtzee proclaims victory in his prediction that motion control was just a fad.
Yahtzee: Remember the Nintendo Wii? After the Nintendo GameCube was the console equivalent of a Chinese gymnast, well crafted and colourfully dressed but painfully undernourished. Remember how Nintendo followed it up with something that resembled a UFO cult's purity testing device and it sold better than mouthwash outside a blowjob factory and everyone was all like "Ooh, motion controls are the future of gaming!" and I was all like "No, they’ve only attracted a short-term crowd of gimmick-loving trend followers and ultimately the long-term core audience of gaming plays to relax and unwind and not Morris dance around the fucking living room!", and then the consoles were all like "Don't listen to grumpy trousers! Motion controls all round!" Ten years on, and the Xbox has had to sheepishly remove its Kinect like a hat at a funeral, the PlayStation Move is relegated to backup Christmas-themed sex toys, and the Wii itself is consigned forever to the leaky trough of consumer history with all its brown gunk encrusted controllers and cheaply made third-party hidden object games about Toy Story cast after it — and I'm still exactly where I was but with a slightly nicer chair so looks like I won, hunter duckers. Still, the legacy of the Wii remains with us with every twinge of waggle induced tendonitis and of course the concept of the Mii.
Given the nature of Miitopia, Yahtzee ends up with Moby, Betty Boop, and Sinéad O'Connor in his party, all uniting against the Evil Dark Lord Brian De Palma.
- This culminates with the ending joke:
  Yahtzee: So on the whole, won't recommend unless you really want to dress up Sinéad O'Connor as a cat and watch her go to town on a goblin like it's a picture of the Pope.
The Grievous Harm with a Body that occurs during The Stinger, where Yahtzee's Mii picks up Moby and uses him to bludgeon an imp. The last shot is of his Mii (depicted as a balloon with glasses on) celebrating victory, while all the other parties involved lay about concussed.

Necromunda: Hired Gun

Yahtzee mocks the Testosterone Poisoning of the Warhammer 40,000:
Yahtzee: Necromunda: Hired Gun is a first person shooter set in the 40K universe, specifically on the planet of Necromunda, and I wonder why it's taken so long for someone to set a first person shooter there. You know how planets in sci-fi always have a single theme, the desert planet, the ice planet, etc? Well, Necromunda appears to be the First-Person Shooter Planet. Since it consists entirely of brown industrial environments and there are only two jobs available: gunfighter, or whoever it is that carves skulls on everything. Seriously, get a skull carving apprenticeship in the 40K universe and you're set for life. You'll get contracts for everything from plumbing to the Emperor's new personalised stationery.
He then criticises the strategic element of the game:
Yahtzee: There's a strategic element akin to DOOM's "chainsaw the baddies, win a prize" thing where you get health back if you shoot enemies after you've been hit. But this isn't like Bloodborne where getting hit once is the first bite of a three bite shit sandwich –- it's a high octane shooter. We're constantly being hit because at any given moment there's more hot lead in the atmosphere than breathable air so we basically just get health back from shooting things and the distinction was pointless. There's also something akin to the Glory Kill mechanic but instead of having to wear an enemy down first, you just run up and press the use key at any time, whereupon your character does... something... and the enemy dies from it. That's as much as I can say with confidence. Maybe if the graphics weren't so murky and every character weren't so heavily accessorised these slightly overlong kill animations wouldn't look like poorly lit footage from David Attenborough's The Life of Refrigerator Parts, which I had plenty of chances to enjoy, because you can't be harmed while the animations play out and you get health back from doing them, so there were entire platoons I cleared out just by running up to each enemy one by one and pressing E like an eager waiter with a tray of murder canapes and I can't imagine that was the intended experience.
- When Yahtzee mentions Glory KIlls, an Imp begins drilling a hole in the wall, prompting him to chastise the Imp.
  "I said glory kill."

Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2

Yahtzee opens with another attack on Colon Cancer titles and Testosterone Poisoning:
Yahtzee: There's still something about the title Sniper (hurk!) Ghost Warrior (hurk!) Contracts that irks me, all dry heaves aside. I always find it laughable when anyone refers to themselves as a "warrior" if they've never even had one battle axe lesson -– or indeed if they collapse like an ineptly folded cootie catcher the moment they get into a direct fight with someone less than two hundred yards away. Without the "Sniper" part clarifying things, what would you assume Ghost Warrior was? I'm leaning towards either poorly translated martial arts film or an air freshener marketed towards men aged 18 to 35. I reviewed Sniper (hurk!) Ghost Warrior 3 and it was godawful. Like watching a Jason Bourne film where the costume department accidentally ordered everything two sizes too small and Jason Bourne spends every action scene in a dustbin growling with generic intensity about how his jockstrap pinches.
He then attacks the generic plot that he was hoping would turn out the player was working for a sinister authority.
Yahtzee: The plot, right, is that you’re a lone sniper in a nondescript Middle Eastern oil nation with a new government that I guess didn't import enough Simpsons DVDs and therefore the Western powers want ousted. You proceed to oust it by tracking down a bunch of key power brokers and turning all their heads into very short lived and highly pressurised ornamental fountains, concluding with the big leader herself. You do all of that, then the very no nonsense voice in your head says well done, then you go home. I guess I was expecting a twist, like the big leader gets in a giant robot suit or some kind of fortified bunker at least and isn't just standing around in a courtyard looking like she's waiting to complain to the gardener about some neglected leylandiis. Or maybe the very no nonsense voice in your head could be lying about your targets — you only have his word that they're evil and the worst you ever see them do is neglect to close the Venetian blinds before you make everyone else in the room forever paranoid of distant shrubbery.
The Cockup Cascade returns:
Yahtzee: So you have to snipe crazy long distances calculating wind drift and bullet dropoff so it's actually rewarding when you score a headshot and it's like watching slow motion footage of a dog overturning their food bowl. But this is a modern stealth game and so as always the spectre of Cockup Cascade hangs overhead like a socially inept zeppelin. If you miss your target and set off an alert then just fucking reload because if you couldn't cottage cheese their noggin while they were standing around daydreaming about pies then you definitely won't do it while they're sprinting to the car. And when alerted, all the enemy bodyguards instantly know your position 'cos I guess they’re all experts in trigonometry or maybe my mum made my carve my name and address into all my bullets, and they start firing back. (annoyed) And, mystifyingly, can hit you. From a thousand metres! Makes me wonder why I blew all my money on the sniper rifle equivalent of a Porsche 911 if a bunch of rusty AKs that a rogue nation picked up at the CIA’s last rummage sale can achieve the same result!
Yahtzee calling the game Windscreen Wiper Wet Warbler Wank Biscuit 2.
He then makes fun of the suddenly emotional handler at the end of the game.
Yahtzee: The only real highlight dramatically speaking is right at the end, spoiler alert, when no-nonsense voice is giving his final congratulatory monologue and starts getting emotionally needy.
Handler: Good work agent. You have made this area safe for democracy. This ends our contract, but I'd just like to say you’ve been a pleasure to work with. And I'd like to buy you a pint someday. I'm sending you my home phone number in case you want to get in touch. No pressure. Anytime's fine. It's just... I've been very lonely since the divorce, agent. Are you still there, agent? Oh! My cat's come into the room, agent. Do you want to say hello to my cat?
- Continued in the stinger:
Agent, have you ever kissed another man

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

First, let's address Yahtzee's portrayal of the title characters, which he's upgraded somewhat from last time; Ratchet is a figure with a picture of a cat's face for a head and two slices of pepperoni pizza for ears, while Clank is an unlabeled tin can sitting on top of a rice cooker with a pair of swimming goggles attached to it. Rivet and Kit are exactly the same, only tinted purple and yellow respectively.
Yahtzee wondering where the Demographically Inappropriate Humour title joke is in the newest game in the series:invoked
Yahtzee: You may recall my first and only experience with Ratchet & Clank was playing that one on the PS4 that was tying in with the movie, and which made me go "Hm, is that the smell of distended rectum, or has this franchise gone completely up itself?" Always an occupational hazard when a series goes on too long, runs out of new territory to explore and instead decides to settle down and curl up inside its own bum. But what an excellent setting of tone for the latest one, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Incidentally, speaking of bums, whatever happened to the tradition of Ratchet and Clank games having slightly risque subtitles like Going Commando or Up Your Arsenal in the grand Dreamworks movies Grabbed by the Ghoulies stealth joke for the mums and dads tradition? Suppose we're above that kind of cheeky fun these days, aren't we, Sony? Probably got nixed by someone in marketing whose only experience with comedy is having had it patiently explained to them at a mandatory seminar. I'm trying to think of ways the title Rift Apart could apply to bums but all the possibilities make me feel uncomfortable.
(Cut to black screen saying * CORRECTION)
Yahtzee: (Creepy Monotone) Ahem... While rewatching this video prior to final upload, it occurred to me that "rift apart" might be intended as a sort of pseudo-spoonerism for "ripped a fart", which would be a bum joke, and if that was intentional, I hereby retract the preceding complaint about the subtitle not being a bum joke. I repeat, Ratchet and Clank's issues may not presently be for want of bum jokes. We now resume your snarky internet video.
He then talks about the series' use of Planet of Hats:
Yahtzee: On the one hand it's got this grand space opera interplanetary scope but it also seems so weirdly underpopulated. It's like each planet only has one actual character on it and ten million copy pasted generic locals whose job is to run around screaming every time something explodes. And a lot of the plot feels like one contrived excuse to go to a new planet after another.
Rivet: We need to get a magic crystal.
Clank: Let’s go to the Magic Crystal Planet where they're mined from.
Rivet: Oh no, our magic crystal shattered! Well, we're on the Magic Crystal Planet, couldn’t we just get another one?
Clank: NO! Now we must go to The Fixing Things planet, and enlist The Legendary Fixer of Things.
Imp: (holding saw) I found my niche!
Yahtzee: (quietly) This is literally what happens at one point... (annoyed) It's like someone casually brings up this fixer dude and suddenly that’s the only imaginable solution to a problem that only calls for half an hour's work and a pritt stick. Then we go to the fixer planet and have to fight a fucking giant robot out of nowhere until I guess the sequence runs out of set pieces and we abruptly stop fighting the giant robot.
Giant Terminator Robot: Oh, sorry; thought you were someone else. Here’s your fixed crystal. Plot tangent over.
Yahtzee talks about a missed opportunity with a Distaff Counterpart of Ratchet.
Yahtzee: You switch between playing Ratchet Classic and Girl Ratchet, whose actual name is Rivet, and I tell you that now before I give into my sudden extremely shameful impulse to refer to her as "Snatchet", and the opportunity to mix the gameplay up with a new playable character was missed like Catwoman's unfulfilled G-spot because they both play exactly the same. In fact, when one of them gets a new gadget or weapon the other one automatically has it as well without them even having to meet, possibly thanks to Space Dropbox.
He then gets some measure of revenge for Sony refusing to send him a review code because of his negative tone.
Yahtzee: So that's Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, generally inoffensive but hardly pushing the envelope, more prodding the post-it note, really. I apologise for the abject blandness of this take and also for the lateness of this review. It would have come out sooner if we'd gotten a review code before the release date but Sony wouldn't give us one when they found out what it was for. They said that, quote, "Given the tone of that coverage, we'd prefer you secure your own code." (Sony businessman says, "Given the focus and tone of that coverage, thinking we'd prefer you secure your own code for that particualr show.") From where, Sony?! The fucking dumpster outside your office?! I don't normally give you these cheeky little glances behind the beef curtains but I mean, really? I guess we all knew publishers want to dictate the content of reviews, hence those review guides they keep sending us that read like a timid schoolchild asking to please not be kicked in these specific sensitive areas, but I didn't expect them to just come out and admit it! What's your problem with my "tone", Sony? You didn’t know I’d make the "Snatchet" joke!

2021, Quarter 3

Scarlet Nexus

Yahtzee surprised by the genre of Scarlet Nexus:
Yahtzee: I relish a chance to go into a game knowing nothing about it. It’s like how I prefer to be paddled by someone wearing a mask so we don’t have to make awkward conversation about it later while waiting for the bus. I didn’t know anything about Scarlet Nexus but the title, which told me jack shit, although it does sound like a bad erotic fiction author's euphemism for lady bits. "Her scarlet nexus quivered in anticipation as he unveiled his magenta ambassador." There was also the one image on the Steam page which seemed to depict some Jawas from Star Wars with orange tubes coming off them like they’d rigged up a Lucozade delivery system. Which was intriguing enough, so I immediately started it up in preparation for something wholesome and sports drink related, only for everyone to pull their hoods down and go:
Scarlet Nexus: (wearing Tareme Eyes) Psych! It’s an anime game!
Yahtzee: D'oh, you got me again, anime.
Scarlet Nexus: We sure did, fuckface! Now choose your protagonist. Do you want to be tedious generic anime schoolgirl who thinks the best way to convey seriousness of character is to have the emotional range of a bathroom sink, or tedious generic anime schoolboy who remains inexplicably oblivious to every female character in the game openly vying to knob him?
Speaking of female characters trying to knob the male lead, Yahtzee's portrayals of romance in "anime games" feature imp waifus demanding the protagonist "Split me like your horny Kit-Kat" and "Do me up the piss pipes".
"The core combat is based around you being a psychokinetic who can fling bits of scenery at enemies, and also has a big sword, but that goes without saying. First day of anime protagonist high school you get the big sword with your campus map and your homework diary."
Imp: And here's your assigned tsundere.
He concludes by claiming the game is simultaneously anime as dicks and anime as balls.
Yahtzee: When anime waifu #3 appeared and my anime schoolboy protagonist introduced her as his childhood friend, (Yahtzee's avatar Face Palms) I remember literally saying aloud: "Of course she fucking is." And oh, look, she’s secretly in love with someone. Can I guess who? Is it 90's era David Duchovny?
Scarlet Nexus: Ooh, good guess, but think slightly blander.

Mario Golf: Super Rush & Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

Yahtzee explaining the Mario franchise:
Yahtzee: Mario Town is split into three districts. First, Mainline Mario, where the core platformers live on increasingly tall tentpoles. Secondly, Nostalgia Mario, where dwelleth games banking on emulating older mainline titles; this is where we find New Super Mario, 3D World and Mario Maker. And lastly, skirting around all of those, we have Whore Mario, the shady downmarket region where they just make any fucking tat and stick Mario's face on it like a fishnet stocking on a blobfish. And yes, there are a few quaint gentrified areas in this region where the RPGs live, but then there's the alleyway where Super Mario Run plies her trade. Dear God. You can catch something nasty just being within earshot of the public toilets.
He then expresses frustration that you don't play as Mario in the Campaign, but as a Mii — and we all know how Yahtzee feels about Miis.
Yahtzee: That was the first troubling sign — when I started the main single player campaign and you don’t get to play as Mario. The named characters are only for the multiplayer and challenge modes, I'm afraid: the peasants have to play the campaign as a custom Mii. Because of course when I play something called "Mario Golf" I want to spend the whole time playing as Richard Dean Anderson or Jeffrey Dahmer. Mario, if you can slam your name over the top of this title like an artifically enlarged penis across an unsuspecting forehead, you can damn well stop scoffing mushroom tortellini in the clubhouse and put some bloody work in.
Yahtzee explaining how he ended up playing ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights after playing Mario Golf: Super Rush:
Yahtzee: So I kicked it in the head fairly swiftly and went looking for indie games instead, and since I was put in a bad mood by Mario Golf's happy brightly coloured commercialism, let's look at something gloomy, violent and nihilistic to cheer myself up. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights has absolutely no connection to Mario Golf: Super Rush unless we want to call this the "Games Whose Full Titles I Struggle To Commit To Memory" double bill, and is yet another attempt at 2D platformer Dark Soulsing. So you know what that means: any moment spent not dodge rolling through an enemy is a moment closer to fucking up. Oh, and we're a small child in a scary world as well, all we need now is some anime tits and this game could officially represent indie games at the Olympics.
He then appreciates the game's Genre Mashup:
Yahtzee: The guiding principle at work in Ender Sillies is that if you can't be original at least do everything right. So while yes, it's a bit Dark Soulsy and no small bit Hollow Knighty and quite a large bit Salt and Sanctuary-y, and the borrowing a wide variety of attacks from defeated enemies is significantly more than a bit Castlevania: Aria of Sorrowy, it all fits together rather well. It's as colon blastingly difficult as you might expect of a game where the enemy has ten million swords, halberds and buggering sticks of every size and shape and you only have a positive attitude and the dress your mum made you wear to church, but its generosity with it checkpoints is proportional to its stinginess with consequences for death. The boss fights pull off the right balance in that they seem insurmountable the first time you skip into the arena and get your petticoats nailed to the wall, but as you learn their patterns and find the best combination of powers to counter them, they gradually come apart like a headboard in a honeymoon suite.
TAG: "I hate speed golf — how I am supposed to find the time to play the game AND belittle the employees?"

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

Ys thwarts Yahtzee's most common recurring joke.
Yahtzee: So since it finally came out on PC last week, I had a chance to play Monstrum Nox, the ninth game in the Ys series. (Beat) Yus series? Is? Yes? Yys? Well, that's one way to foil my usual "gradually corrupt the title" gag.
- Until about half a second later, when we get Ys: Molesting Nonce.
Yahtzee can't help but be amused by the game treating the civilian identities of the Monstrums as plot twists.
Yahtzee: It never ceases to be hilarious that the game keeps presenting it like we're meant to be surprised, because the Monstrum disguise basically consists of a change of hairdo. Which might make some sense in Anime World, where there are ninety thousand hairdos and three faces for everyone to share, but come the fuck on. Oh, the sassy matronly party member with big tits is secretly the only other sassy matronly character with big tits? Next you'll be telling me that Prince Adam knows more than he's saying about this "He-Man" fella.
Prince Adam: I hear he's pretty great!
The combat lacks nuance.
DIRECTIONS:
1. Hold blunt part
2. Reposition sharp part inside foe
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2
4. If encountering difficulties please call our 24-hour tech support
Yahtzee does appreciate one fresh convenience.
Yahtzee: There’s this one NPC in your home base who aggregates all the stores you've found so you can just send them to get the items and equipment you need instead of trying to remember what shops were where. Fucking hell, lady; where were you the last time I played World of Warcraft?

Cruelty Squad

Yahtzee's reaction to people bugging him to play Cruelty Squad, despite looking very janky.
Yahtzee: Everyone and their toupees were nagging me to try Cruelty Squad, whose screenshots on the Steam page immediately made me think "Are they taking the piss?" It’s all clashing colours and PS1-era 3D models with worse animation than the little dudes on a foosball table, and environments that look like someone opened the level editor and then threw their laptop out the window of a speeding bus, and texture work that looks like the brooms from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice got set loose in a water damaged gift wrap shop, and an interface that looks like it got molested inside a crowded novelty photo booth at a Juggalo convention, complete with a health meter that takes up an entire quarter of the active screen and looks like an untreated hernia, etc, etc. But there had to be something more to Cruelty Squad. An Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam after 2000 reviews goes a bit beyond taking the piss. That would require a complex organized piss-taking effort and I think the troll brigade used up all their piss-taking energy with the GameStop thing.
The Running Gags of crosshairs on people's/imps' heads, the LOLs, the eyes exploding in blood, and shotguns pointed at people and imps, especially in the end credits.
"[Cruelty Squad is] a mission-based assassination game where you get to your targets, skillfully use the contents of their skulls to reduce local property prices, then return to the exit, all while keeping an eye out for guards, 'cos you die faster than a dumb blonde joke at a lesbian wedding reception and there are no mid-mission saves, so you have to start all over again. But then again, the enemies die faster than Adolf Hitler doing a set at a lesbian wedding reception, and they don't even get to restart the mission, so maybe you should check your fucking privilege!"

Death’s Door and The Forgotten City

Yahtzee begins by referencing the famous "Spam" sketch, substituting spam with Souls Like RPGs:
Yahtzee: Man, looking for indie games worth reviewing is like that one Monty Python sketch sometimes. "We’ve got Souls-like, egg and Souls-like, bacon and Souls-like, Souls-like, egg, sausage and Souls-like, and isometric hack and slash exploration games with RPG elements and Souls-like", Death's Door being an example of that last one.
He notices a conflict of interest in your job in Death's Door:
Yahtzee: In Death’s Door, you play a little crow who is one of many crows employed by some kind of Celestial Bureaucracy, and your job is to venture into the world and capture the souls of the newly dead, who are generally newly dead because you just killed the absolute motherfuck out of them, but that’s quotas for you.
Yahtzee attempts to visually explain Min-Maxing by showing a fellow at a tabletop gaming session wearing a preposterously huge wizard hat that crowds out his seatmate, with only the token explanation:
"I dumped everything into hat."
Playing The Forgotten City, Yahtzee notices a trend in games to feature a Time Loop mechanic:
Yahtzee: You’re stuck in a time loop! Jolly original idea — if it weren’t for Outer Wilds, and The Sexy Brutale, and Elsinore, and Minit, and all the other ones; bit of a trend in adventure games right now, actually. Why only recently, I don't know, seeing as Majora's Mask did it twenty years ago, but it’s a good idea...
Majora's Mask: Amateurs.
Yahtzee: ...it means you can have a sense of ticking-clock urgency while also not punishing the player for taking their time to experiment and maybe occasionally blow off the main quest to flick playing cards at Andie McDowell, film reference.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Yahtzee once again goes off on anime fans:
Yahtzee: I worry I’ve been doing too much weeb shit lately; tends to draw a certain crowd. Hey, if you like sputtering one out to greasy cartoon tits that jiggle like semi-sentient party balloons, then more power to you; just seems weird to get so evangelical about it. Anime fans are like vegans without the moral superiority, or the — No, actually; about the same body odor.
Weeabo: Ooh, Yahtzee, if you liked Ys IX so much, you should try Wonderful Party Balloon Romance Panic 4 as well!
- A side note from Yahtzee on Steins;Gate: "I googled the cover of this game and the first result was a pillowcase."
Yahtzee snarking about the franchise's history of Thinly-Veiled Dub Country Change:
Yahtzee: Now why would Phoenix Wright have a Japanese ancestor? Cough. Surely the Phoenix Wright games all take place in America? Cough cough, droll look to camera.
He is not a fan of the Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness of the series.
Yahtzee: Which brings me to the main reason why I hate Ace Attorney games; it’s the same reason I hate most visual novels: that they never use ten words when ninety thousand billion will do.
Yahtzee's Avatar: There's a duck on the table.
Wall of Text from TV Screen: [knocks Yahtzee over] WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE NARUHODO-SAN OH IT LOOKS LIKE A TABLE THE BRITISH SURE DO LIKE HAVING TABLES AROUND (WAS THAT REALLY WHAT SHE WANTED ME TO NOTICE?) TAKE ANOTHER LOOK NARUHODO-SAN THERE'S SOMETHING ON THE TABLE AS WELL (!!) SHE'S RIGHT IT APPEARS TO BE SOME KIND OF WATERFOWL INDIGENOUS TO THE...
"This hurts the all-important 'making me feel clever' factor, because I did feel clever nine hundred text boxes ago, but now the game's dropped so many obvious hints a fucking sea lion with dropsy could've figured it out. Games like this need more than just a 'fast text' option (which, incidentally, doesn't even make the text go by that much faster, but that's a different niggle entirely); it needs a fucking 'fast brain' option that replaces half the dialogue with meaningful eyebrow wiggles."
The end title card is quite blunt about how he knows that people will suggest more visual novels for him to try and already tells them he's not interested.
Yahtzee: Please don't bring up that fucking Danganronpa game again.

Dreamscaper and Jupiter Hell

Jupiter Hell asking, "Wanna play Space Hulk over and over again forever?", with Yahtzee's avatar slumped over his desk in despair◊.
Yahtzee then noting Dreamscaper does a better job of being a Roguelike.
Yahtzee: Our second Roguelike is Dreamscaper, and this one does remember to have variety in its primary loop. It's got more weapons than a Palestinian car boot sale –- sword, knife, hammer, pool cues, boxing gloves. Well, the game says that's what they are.
Dreamscaper: You got the legendary sword of Khakum Bigtits.
Yahtzee: Your character's so tiny-winy on screen she could be swinging around a pair of hairy goat testicles on the end of a serving spoon for all I know. And it doesn’t help that the environmental lighting’s so spotty and we’re doing the Ori and the Blind Forest thing where all the pickups (a Bullet Bill), projectiles (a Half-Life medkit) and half the random meaningless background details (a puppy saying, "Hello, my name is Scrambles") all speak the universal language of nondescript glowing blob (all three turn into glowing orbs, as the puppy screams "Aaah, it burns!"). Including your bombs, which explode with all the cathartic impact and destruction of a playful mouse jumping into a bowl of glitter.
Mouse: I'm so sowwy.
Yahtzee still being bored by Dreamscaper and being disappointed by its execution of the premise:
Yahztee: See, I was drawn to it from the description saying how the main character has to work on her relationships in the real world to improve her abilities in fantasy battle dreamland, which made me think "Ooh, sounds like Persona! That shit's my jam, as in jam my dick inside it and make several terrifying babies."

Twelve Minutes

Yahtzee finds the voice acting mundane, despite the star power:
Yahtzee: 12 Minutes certainly seems to have a not insignificant amount of money to swan about with. Daisy Ridley money, no less. Yes, that hot young starlet best known for her showstopping turns as "the posh girl from the new Star Wars" and... well, anyway. James McAvoy and Willem Da Foe are here too to crank the star power up even higher and guess what? If the game hadn't told me that big celebrities did the voices, I wouldn't have been able to fucking tell.
Yahtzee notes that the game, like Groundhog Day, repeats its loop after you think you've solved it.
Yahtzee: There's a moment where you think you've got it all figured out; you de-escalate the home invasion, the burglar says he's very sorry, everyone agrees to part amicably with a party bag and a slice of birthday cake, you and your wife embrace lovingly and then BAM! It's ten minutes ago again and you're standing nonplussed at the front door, with your big, relieved stiffy hanging unfulfilled like an unpulled fire alarm at a remedial school. This is the bit where the game effectively channels the middle act of Groundhog Day, when we and the protagonist start trying everything to figure out what this fucking time loop even wants from us. Get the happy ending again but with slight changes in details? Nope! Fix it so the invader never shows up at all, and have a perfectly nice evening in with the oblivious wife? Nope! Murder the home invader, then murder my wife, then murder myself in the face with a gun? Nope! Wasn’t actually expecting that to work, but I was bloody disappointed there wasn't an achievement for it.
Yahtzee tries to avoid spoiling the Twist Ending, with an odd euphemism.
Yahtzee: I won't spoil the last twist, but for the sake of discussion I'll replace it with something roughly equivalent. After you connect the last dot, it turns out that all along, the main character was a dog molester, and the only way to escape the time loop is to get the game to go, "You know what? Let's just wash our hands of this whole affair and pretend it never happened."
"But I don't know if I'd call Twelve Minutes good or bad; it's just weird. It's not Bland Five material, either, 'cos it at least sparks conversation, even if that conversation is 'Get the fuck away from my labradoodle!'"

No More Heroes 3

Yahtzee admits he loves Cloudcuckoolander developers like Suda51.
Yahtzee: I'm confused, Suda51. I was under the impression there were no more heroes three games ago. Then you had a desperate struggle trying to find a few to carry the sequel the way one roots around in a stubborn nostril for the last scraps of tasty bogey before anyone notices, then the series went quiet for so long and I feel like I'd finally come to terms with there being no more heroes, only for you to find a few more lying around for another sequel. Were there ever no more heroes, Suda51? Final Fantasy never fucking ends, Mega Man is blatantly not old enough to shave — I don’t know who to trust anymore. Yeah, I know Psychonauts 2 is out; I'm doing No More Heroes 3 first because while both games are my jam, Psychonauts is my jam spread conventionally on a piece of tasty bread, and No More Heroes is my jam running down the inner thighs of a high school music teacher who was almost in a successful band and never shuts up about it. Yes, the first kind of jam might be tastier and a generally more hygienic experience, but the second captures my interest more. As you might have guessed from the Cruelty Squad review, I love surreal post-punk games stitched together from the singular vision of one, very easily bored person. I love stream of consciousness shit. That's why I’ve been inventing swear words for the last fifteen years and making stupid pictures of obscene acts being committed by jars of Branston pickle on legs.
- Which leads to the ending Brick Joke:
  Yahtzee: In closing summary, No More Heroes 3 is exactly the big juicy new instalment us Suda51 fans were hoping for after Travis Strikes Again, and is like taking a bath in Suda51's head: it's self-indulgent, generally interesting to see what rubber ducks are going to float up for us next, but every now and again something inappropriate touches my leg.
Yahtzee complains about the Switch's infamous stick drift issue:
Yahtzee: I just wish it wasn't exclusive to the fucking Switch. All my Switch pro controllers have the galloping stick drift so I had to use the standard Joycon housing where the positioning of the right stick makes it feel like trying to get to second base with someone who keeps one of their tits in their handbag.
Yahtzee manages to sneak in a Chris-Chan reference.
Travis: Sonic does not have blue arms!

Psychonauts 2

Yahtzee making a Call-Back to his Psychonauts review when he made viewers commit self-harm for not buying the game on launch.
Yahtzee: Ah, Psychonauts, what a great game that was. I hope your fingers are still smarting from the last time I had to bring that across.
"Speaking as someone with a brain that's a fixer-upper on a good day, I care more about having a laugh than you paying sufficient respect to people with anxiety disorders and their flag and national anthem ("I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones, if you're interested).

Tormented Souls and The Artful Escape

Tormented Souls gets on Yahtzee's nerves with its Retraux gameplay:
Yahtzee: Fermented Balls is deliberately aping old PS1 era Resident Evil/Alone in the Dark fixed camera games and if you've only played modern horror games where you walk through a funhouse hall of mirrors for two hours then get a participation award, then you're going to fucking hate it.
Yahtzee's avatar: Why can’t I angle the camera to look at the thing that's about to twat me across the room?
Tormented Souls: Because it's a deliberate homage to retro fixed camera horror games!
Yahtzee's avatar: Why does the camera angle keep suddenly reversing and making me spin on my heel and sprint right back into the monster I'm trying to flee like a nervous deer at a busy junction?
Tormented Souls: Deliberate homage retro horror!
Yahtzee's avatar: Why can't I save whenever I want? What if my pet chinchilla suddenly goes into labour?
Tormented Souls: Don't blame me, blame deliberate homage!
Yahtzee: I Rage Quit after my first attempt because I used the first save game token I found way too early and kept getting killed because combat’s like trying to disentangle two dog leashes with both your hands trapped in Pringles tubes —...
Tormented Souls: DELIBERATE HOMAGE!
Yahtzee: Oh, piss off!
He notes that the game is very formulaic.
Yahztee: Between the gratuituous nudity, numerous plot holes, and crazy quilt of stolen ideas, it’s like there's no higher thinking behind anything in it beyond "other horror games have done it" and "titties are nice".
- Speaking of, there's a Running Gag of women exposing their breasts and shouting "Spring Break!"

Deathloop

Yahtzee on the two games named Prey:
Yahtzee: Deathloop comes to us from the creators of Dishonored and Prey — or to give it its full title, Not That Prey, The Other Prey.
He then finds the premise suspicious:
Yahtzee: The premise is: you are Colt Vahn, grizzled mercenary type ('cos you can’t exactly get a job at the DMV with a name like that) who wakes up with no memories on an island full of good-time Charlies who have deliberately locked themselves in a one day Time Loop so they can party forever and never have to deal with the ever-downsliding outside world, and Colt wants to escape from this situation, which is the first glaring plot hole for me. Fucking hell, airdrop in two crates of hard cider and a Real doll and show me where to sign, guys!
Yahtzee notes a major Idiot Ball in the premise:
Yahtzee: Why would these party nerds want to set up a time loop that resets their own memories every loop?! Surely from their perspective it would just be a normal day? One that ends with a grizzled mercenary type decanting their brain matter across the fucking Twister mat?
Credits:
Deathloop's just not a very good title if you ask me, sounds like the name of a rejected Rob Liefeld character

Lost In Random

Yahtzee takes potshots at Wide-Open Sandbox games:
Yahtzee: A lot of games these days start with the story or theme and pick the gameplay elements off the peg, as it were. A nice coat of open world. A sweater of stealth action. Large, unflattering underpants of crafting bearing the skidmarks of like fifteen previous wearers. Personally the games I find more interesting are the ones that started by coming up with some unique gameplay element and then tailored a story and setting around that. Pokémon would be a good example. The game is set in a society that almost completely revolves around cockfighting, to the point that even the nurses have trained fighting roosters as personal assistants. Which would be like if in the UK footballers were employed at every level of society, like they hire a few to hang around hospital corridors kicking donated organs into operating rooms. And then there's this week's subject, Lost in Random, a game that clearly started with a combat system based around combining random dice rolls with deckbuilding and realtime combat along some Hand of Fate-y sorts of lines and then had to contrive a setting and story entirely based around that. For a start, it takes place in the land of Random. As in, that’s literally what it’s called. Fucking hell, even Pokémon isn't flat out set in Wounded Poultry Topia.
He then notes the Excuse Plot history to justify the gameplay:
Yahtzee: In the distant past of Random, everyone had a dice and all conflict was resolved in dice battles where warriors threw dice to score points and spent the points to use the cards in their hand to make weapons manifest. We aren't told how this whole arrangement came about, seems like a lot of middlemen could've been cut out of this process. What's wrong with just twatting each other with sticks? Or how about this – twat each other with the dice? Line the corner up right, you could probably gouge an eye out.
Yahtzee depicts the game's "terribly quirky artisanal map screen that's absolutely bloody useless" as Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden Of Earthly Delights.
Of the ability to make Dicey suicide bomb the enemy after a 9 second timer, we get this gem:
Bitch, I don't know where the fuck I'm going to be in nine seconds, I've lost control of my life!
- Then he follows up on it by noting that the laser to guide Dicey would help if the enemies would stand in the path of it, but also notes of the whole debacle:
Or maybe you won't because you didn't put that card in your deck because you're not a fucking dunce.

2021, Quarter 4

Kena: Bridge Of Spirits

Yahtzee notes that the setting is a pretty standard mashup of traditional cultures:
Yahtzee: The protagonist — presumably named Kena, but the Zelda games have confused this issue for decades — is one part Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, one part Jade from Beyond Good & Evil and one part whatshername from The Legend of Korra, living in a classic example of "video game generic, primitive, spiritual society that’s a little bit Viking and a little bit ancient Japan and just enough Native American that it keeps insufferably bringing it up in social settings".
He's unimpressed by the color schemes of the two factions.
Yahtzee: We know her magic is nice because it's teal and white, while the monsters and the blobby things they hang around are red and black, and therefore corrupt.
"The lack of upgrades or equipment does present the problem of having little with which to reward the player for exploring and doing side stuff. The solution the designers hit upon for that was hats. Possibly after being bitten by a radioactive Team Fortress 2."
He finds the character design a bit horrifying.
Yahtzee: They’ve gone for a Disney/Pixar inspired look, so everyone's got that Elsa from Frozen face, with the manipulative doe-eyes so gigantic that if you intend to get lost in them you should probably pack at least twelve days' worth of provisions, and the chubby cheeks and tiny noses and slightly unsettlingly realistic hair and constant lopsided condescending expression like they're expecting the photo for the movie poster to be taken at any moment, and the general look like they’ve just been through Jeff Goldblum's wonky teleporter with a gerbil, who in turn had just gone through Jeff Goldblum's wonky teleporter with a balloon animal. This is an art style that suits goofy family musicals about friendship, not the humorless, po-faced psychopop shit going on here. You look at their feet and slowly track upwards, and your brain goes, "Normal proportions, normal proportions, normal proportions, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! The gerbil got into the helium cupboard!"

Far Cry 6

Yahtzee once again is frustrated by the Strictly Formula nature of Ubisoft games and the Far Cry series in particular.
Yahtzee: Well, hijack my helicopters, I can’t believe there’s been six Far Cry games already. Surely the concept of liberating an open world sandbox from a charismatic fuckface by clearing out base after base with a silenced sniper rifle and occasionally having to shake a mountain lion off your todger is still as fresh and exciting as a dissipating fart in a locked sauna. So what original new setting is the premise being airdropped into now, Ubisoft? Liberating a chain of remote Scottish islands from charismatic football hooligans? Liberating an antarctic research station from a charismatic penguin?
Ubisoft: No! This time you’re liberating a tropical island!
Yahtzee: Erm. You mean like in Far Cry 3? And Far Cry 1?
Ubisoft: No of course not. You're in the Caribbean for a start. That's slightly more equatorial than the last two tropical islands. Probably. And anyway, this time you’re liberating the tropical island from a charismatic totalitarian dictator.
Yahtzee: Like the one in Far Cry 4?
Ubisoft: (pissed off) Look, if you like freshness so much, why don’t you piss off to your local Whole Foods and stick your head under the intermittent broccoli misting device?
Yahtzee is also amused by the Latino protagonist's motivation to flee to Miami.
Yahtzee: You're planning to get on a refugee boat and escape to America, where you will happily live out your days getting blamed for all the nation's problems by chronically obese people in motorized wheelchairs. But moot point, because you're going to escape about as surely as the annoying fly in my kitchen when I'm holding the back door wide fucking open.
"One thing that has mixed up the formula is that enemies have specific weaknesses, so you can’t instakill headshot dudes unless you're using the right bullets; armor-piercing rounds on soft regular heads just ghost right through their skull apparently, pausing only to do a little tidying up and leave a business card in the hypothalamus. So what that meant in the long run was that I had to bring TWO silenced sniper rifles to every base assault.

Metroid Dread

Yahtzee is disappointed by the plot of Metroid Dread.
Yahtzee: Metroid Dread is sadly not a game about space bounty hunter Samus Aran ill-advisedly putting out a vanity reggae album.
He then notes that the game is a sequel to the GBA game Metroid Fusion.
Young Imp: GBA, what’s that stand for? "Granddad’s Babbling Again?"
Yahtzee notes that it's the basic formula for Metroid.
Yahtzee: Since it is building on the plot developments in Metroid Fusion you might be confused by a few things if you aren't up to speed, most significantly the fact that you don't fight any Metroids in Metroid Dread. The main threat is the X, the shapeshifting parasites that Metroid Fusion introduced and which are slightly hard to take seriously because they're little coloured blobs that look like they'd be cast as the baddies in an animated toothpaste advert. Anyway, Samus Aran goes off to explore a mysterious labyrinthine planet partly because of something to do with the X and partly because that's all she ever fucking does, and predictably enough something kicks the shit out of her and nicks all her powerups so she has to start the long journey of gathering them all back up stripped down to her underpants like she forgot to bring her PE kit to school. But you know how it is with tentpole Nintendo franchises, they're a slave to routine: Mario fights Bowser <Mario kicks Bowser, shouting "PISS OFF">, Link fights Ganondorf <Link kicks Ganondorf, shouting "PISS OFF">, Samus Aran fights her own urge to self-harm every time she finds another secret pickup she needs the fucking power bomb to get <a wall of blocks appears between a missile upgrade and a frustrated Samus with "PISS OFF" printed on the bricks>. So obviously it's a 2D Metroidvani — well, just Metroid I guess! — with lava land, ocean land, jungle land, boring land etc., gradually opened up by acquiring the same powerups as always: Varia suit, grapple beam, space jump. Samus gets to call her thing a "space jump" because she's from the space region of space. For everyone else it's just a sparkling double jump.

Back 4 Blood

Yahtzee depicting Left 4 Dead as The Ghost of Christmas Past and Back 4 Blood as The Ghost of Christmas Future.
Yahtzee: Oh boy, another entry for the hall of "thinly disguised remakes of games made by creators who don't have the rights to the originals anymore." (Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Phoenix Point are on marble pedestals.) And yes, it was a lot of work fitting all that on the plaque by the door. This time it's Turtle Rock, the original creators of zombie shooter Left 4 Dead, bringing out their new zombie shooter, Back 4 Blood. Boy, that disguise is thin even by the usual standards, isn't it? That's like a uniformed policeman trying to go undercover by putting his hat on backwards.
He then chuckles at the game trying to avoid copyright infringement with 28 Days Later.
Yahtzee: Oh wait, not zombies, Infected. No wait, not Infected, Ridden. (Beat) Ridden?! That's a word that just reeks of "we had to come up with a legally distinct alternative", isn't it? No one in reality would call them "The Ridden". What, are we up against a resistance group founded by disgruntled domestic horses? I keep misreading it as "The Riddler", and wondering if civilization has finally been brought down by Batman's most confounding foe.
The rundown of the eight characters only mentions six of them and only at the most basic level, except noting that one of them "was probably very grateful that the zombie apocalypse meant he didn't have to go to his court hearing for joining the January 6 riots."
Imp: Man, he put a lot more effort into this for Octopath Traveler.
The review ends once again with the viewer asking Yahtzee about a gameplay element he can't care less about.
Viewer: (in an increasingly monotone voice) But Yahtzee, you haven't even mentioned the deckbuilding element. Surely, there could be nothing more interesting than a deckbuilding element. Obliging you to sort and select your cards before you start playing akin to James Bond not being able to go to his next globetrotting action scene until we spend five minutes watching him decide what underpants to pack. Surely, Yahtzee. Yahtzee... Yahtzee...? Surely... Say something, Yahtzee...
Yahtzee: (looking up) Erm. Breasts?

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

Yahtzee revealing his critic's Achilles' Heel:
Yahtzee: Oh, you want opinions on Guardians of the Galaxy, do you? Oh boy, do I have opinions on Guardians of the Galaxy. On the one hand it's a snot-squirtingly mediocre game that like so many AAA games of its ilk has the air of something that was stitched together from preexisting templates by about nine different teams who haven’t been talking to each other since a harrowing experience at the company picnic, but it also has a licensed soundtrack that includes "Kickstart My Heart", so on the other hand it's my game of the year, no more questions, please. I can only assume someone at Square must've stolen my high school crush diary... (an Emo Teen Yahtzee is gazing lovingly at a poster of Peter Falk as Columbo) ...'cos how else would they know that "Kickstart My Heart" is my one weakness. See, there’s absolutely no action a living being can take that doesn't become slightly cooler when it's done to "Kickstart My Heart". Even fingerpainting with Grandma takes on a sort of air of euphoric defiance.
He then notes that the game, like Marvel's Avengers, uses Suspiciously Similar Substitutes again.
Yahtzee: They'll use the same aesthetics and the same characters with the same traits if some slight changes to the backstories but recast them all with their fucking stunt doubles. Oh, I'm sure there's some cunty bureaucratic reason. I'm sure the fact that it's technically a new adaptation means some twat in a suit banked two paychecks this week, but try explaining that to the heartbroken kiddywinks wanting to know why Star Lord is no longer loveable huggable Chris Pratt but instead some thuggish fratboy cunt with a steam iron for a face and a haircut that makes him look like the result of the unplanned anal pregnancy of both Beavis And Butthead.
Yahtzee describing the team as "Star-Choad", Drax "Pro Wrestler Named After A Bathroom Disinfectant" The Destroyer, Rocket "My Motion Capture Animation Makes Me Look Like A Tiny Person In A Mascot Costume” Raccoon, Gam— "I Don't Really Have Anything To Do In This Plot" —ora, and Rocket Raccoon's pot plant "flying through space doing their best Cowboy Bebop impression."
The Stinger, wherein Star-Lord is Distracted by the Sexy (in this case, by nothing more than an imp holding a pair of melons) while another imp nicks a literal galaxy he was guarding. Upon noticing the imps have made off with the galaxy, Star-Lord attempts to hide his mistake by guarding a Galaxy... that is, the chocolate bar of the same name. Gamora Face Palms in visibile disappointment upon realizing what's happened.

The Good Life

"My quick estimation of SWERY: if, say, Hideo Kojima is a bag of cheesy Wotsits, SWERY is a knockoff corner shop-owned brand corn snack that sells for about 10p a bag, tastes like packing material, and clings to your teeth with the resilience of Jean Valjean. But he is an auteur and worth celebrating for that even if he’s never let himself be held back by little things like lack of game design competence or original ideas."
"We're still wondering where the hell it's even going when we unlock the gameplay ability to transform into a cat and a dog, which is never adequately explained or considered worth worrying about by most of the characters. Then, because it wouldn’t be a SWERY game without the tone lurchingly shifting about like a circus seal driving a school bus, a major character shows up bloodily murdered, and again most of the characters don't consider this worth worrying much about. Indeed, the murder mystery is acknowledged only tokenly as the circus seal oversteers back and forth between government conspiracies, aliens, Arthurian legend, and a large man who shows up after every chapter to scream at you about lobsters.
After Agent York's primary mode of transportation in Deadly Premonition 2 was a skateboard, Yahtzee is amused by the equivalent in this game being a sheep.
Yahtzee: Fuel prices in modern Britain have long eclipsed the cost of thwacking some fluffy testicles with a stick.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

Yahtzee opens by noting on how Public Domain characters are used in strange ways.
Yahtzee: Isn't the public domain a wonderful thing? A certain amount of time after the original creator carks it, all IP becomes everybody’s P. Do you wish Tarzan was a West highland terrier? He can be, now! Do you want Captain Nemo to go into business selling children's frozen dinners? Why not? He's as much yours as Jules Verne's — Take That!, you bearded paid-by-the-word French git. You may also know that fucking Disney have been lobbying for years to extend the public domain cutoff so they can keep a death grip on their copyrights, but lately it seems like they've been trying to create their own version of public domain, where instead of every motherfucker on Earth being allowed to mess with IP as much as they want, they're instead going to hire every motherfucker on Earth to direct at least one Star Wars movie, but I digress. Sherlock Holmes is a character who's been buggered inside and out by public domain, and as many of the works imply, that's exactly how he likes it. But no game developer has buggered him with greater enthusiasm than Frogwares, churning out Holmes adventure games for decades. Not without ambition, it seems, but when they did finally leave the paddling pool of the adventure game niche to dive into the shark-infested sewage treatment plant of open worlds, how strange that they chose to do The Sinking City first, a Lovecraft adaptation.
He notes that Frogwares has gone back to their comfort zone.
Yahtzee: Fortunately, the universe now rights itself with The Sinking City formula being reused for a Sherlock Holmes game, namely Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. (Beat) What, is Sherlock Holmes an Xbox, now? Hey, he's public domain, he might as well be.
He then goes off on the Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Dr. Watson.
Yahtzee: But wait, this is pre-Doctor Watson Sherlock Holmes, and how can Holmes work without Watson? The audience needs the everyman perspective to balance out Holmes acting like an intergalactic space computer running "socially inept cunt ME". Well, it turns out the reason why Holmes eventually shacks up with Watson is that in his youth Holmes had an Imaginary Friend who looked a lot like Watson and was also named John. That's right, motherfuckers, it’s the new improved intentional Creepy Watson!
Then there's the Adaptational Attractiveness, turning younger Sherlock into a Moe.
Yahtzee: Just look at how bloody pretty they made him in this game. The only reason he’s not smoking a pipe yet is that nothing can brush against those kissable lips without needing some serious Victorian-era hysteria treatment. (Beat) Look it up, kids.

Call of Duty: Vanguard

Yahtzee makes a not-so-subtle dig at far right extremists.
Viewer: Well go on then, Yahtz, tell us World War II shooters are overdone. And while you're at it, be sure to inform us that water is wet and modern political discourse is fucked.
Extremist: (pointing gun at own head) This should score me some points with the base.
Yahtzee's avatar: Ironically, pointing out World War II shooters are overdone is, itself, overdone. We're stuck in the fucking ouroboros of tedium, the snake eating its own tail while complaining that the seasoning is bland. Actually, I wasn't going to rag on Call of Duty for going Nazi-fartsy on us again because I’ve come to accept that while shooters can’t seem to get away from World War II, it definitely hasn’t been for want of trying.
Kevin Spacey: That smells nice.
Yahtzee's avatar: The Modern Warfare trend was about as valiant an attempt as one could expect and we all know where that ended so, fuck it, let shooters have their fucking comfort zone. It's the only uncomplicatedly good setting for a quote "realistic" shooter. Get too close to the present and war's mainly decided not by the ground-level machine gun exchanges that FPSes bank on but by whose tech can make the biggest explosion happen the furthest away.
General: (holding a gamepad) Jeeves, go see if that hit anyone.
Yahtzee: Also it’s still the war with the best narrative.
(Yahtzee's avatar cries Manly Tears as a TV proclaims "And all the white people lived happily ever after")
Yahtzee: Where the writers weren’t trying to frame the side with aircraft carriers and predator drones as the plucky underdogs struggling valiantly against an opponent armed mainly with harsh language and angry livestock.
Jet with puppy face: Why are woo so mean?
Terrorist: Bollocks.
Cow: Oh, snap!
Yahtzee: Besides, the lesson "don’t be like the Nazis, you stupid fucks" is one that certain audiences still haven't properly internalised in this modern age apparently, so fuck it, all is forgiven, World War II shooters.
Imp: OK, but what if an immigrant *really* weirds me out?
Yahtzee tempts fate with a Rhetorical Question Blunder.
Yahtzee: I mean, there were so many different people and places and levels of technology involved it's basically just as versatile as setting a shooter in space. Not that I think you should set them in space. Hey! Call of Duty! I said don't do that! No, stop! Oh fuck, they set one in space. Fetch the mop.
- The tone of frustrated resignation in his call for a mop is even funnier when you recall that at the time of airing, he owned a small dog and was a father to an extremely young child; he's probably needed that mop more thn once in real life.
Yahtzee succinctly and unfavorably compares the characters to those of Wolfenstein: The New Order, saying that they have no real personality traits outside of being generic patriotic gung-ho soldier dudes, while Wolfenstein, on the other hand, features characters who fuck.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — Definitive Edition

Yahtzee immediately goes off on the shoddy job Grove Street Games did on the remaster, and blaming Rockstar for poor QA.
Yahtzee: "Remaster" is becoming rather a foreboding word in my glossary. Not a "rerelease" — same game with stability tweaks and maybe a nice resolution upgrade to pad out the shelflife. Nor a "remake", a complete ground-up reinterpretation through the lens of modern sensibilities, polishing up the mechanics and filtering out the gay jokes. Remastering^noteHalf-Life Source is a cold and unpleasant No Man's Land between the two, wanting the nostalgia cash-in of the latter while only putting in the level of effort required for the former. Except for the QA department, which in this case was putting in the level of effort required for a permanent vegetative state.
Rockstar: (pointing at QA desk) He hasn't blinked in like 2 hours.
Yahtzee: All they've really done is put the textures through an HD filter and updated the lighting engine. And when you do that with boxy turn of the millennium era 3D environments you end up with a look that I like to call "Little Timmy got loose on the custom level editor."
Imp Kid: (pointing at "BOOBS" sign) Mum says I'm very talented.
Yahtzee: The retro textures were a match for the janky retro 3D physics and unrefined gameplay design. The characters' faces were indistinct enough your brain was willing to give their intended expression the benefit of the doubt.
Yahtzee's brain: Seems legit.
Yahtzee: Now you’ve got the uncanny valley effect that comes from everyone emoting like Thomas the Tank Engine characters.
Yahtzee's brain: (putting a gun to its head) And that's enough for me.
Yahtzee: It's like, I can't appreciate the effort you put into applying lipstick to this pig, Rockstar, because now I’m going to feel weird about eating it. And also the lipstick has somehow given the pig dysentery because even this easy mode remastering has made it explode with crash bugs and graphical glitches like those masks from Halloween III. I was playing the PS5 version — 'cos you may remember the PC release got yanked back off stores on day one like a disobedient dog off an unguarded picnic — and even that was crashing to home more often than a thirty year old liberal arts major. And after all this they still didn't fix some of the things about the old GTAs that could have used a remaster. Like the way half the voice lines in San Andreas were compressed right the fuck down to fit on a CD and now they all sound like you're listening to them while pouring Captain Crunch down your earholes.
Yahtzee admitting he wasn't a fan of San Andreas back in the day.
Yahtzee: Started a couple of times, did nineteen missions centered around driving through two blocks of a poverty stricken neighbourhood being miserable, before finally getting into a shootout and dying in three seconds because the early GTAs pioneered gun combat that depends on using a cover system without actually having a cover system, somehow. Everyone just stands in the open popping at each other like LARPers yelling "Lightning Bolt!" and with about as much physical reaction.
Later:
Yahtzee: People thought GTA4 was full of unnecessary bollocks. At least taking your fat cousin bowling was always optional. At least it never locked you out of a mission on the critical path because your swimming stat wasn’t high enough.

Resident Evil 4 VR and Oculus Quest 2

"I finally got hold of an Oculus Quest 2 this week, which I've been particularly intrigued by since I heard it boasted a wireless headset. I'm still a great believer in VR. It gives you headaches and makes weird things happen before your eyes; it's all the fun of severe dehydration without the chapped lips! But one thing I've always thought holds it back is how you need nineteen cables and the morning off to get it all set up. And then you've always got cables stuck in your head running down your shoulder killing your immersion, and if your wife walks in while you’re nailing VR anime broads and you spin around too quick you run the risk of hanging yourself, and that’s a niche sexual thrill at best."
One downside of Oculus Quest 2 is the mandatory Facebook account requirement.
Yahtzee: It forces you to pay obeisance to Big Tech, and the mere act of buying it pencils you in for a spot against the wall when the revolution comes. Even more than VR usually does, I mean.
He also enjoys the Power Perversion Potential:
Yahtzee: I also like the feature where you can at any time switch to a view of the room around you, because if people come into the room while you’re playing you can touch all of their bottoms and pretend it was an accident.
Yahtzee having to describe Resident Evil 4 yet again, this time employing Buffy Speak:
Yahtzee: I feel like, in the course of ZP, I've reviewed Resident Evil 4, like, nine times with varying degrees of directness so just to give you the quick summary: "third-person, shooty-shooty, angry Europeans, bad dialogue, campy campy, 'Ooh, scary scary!', monster fights, village, castle, island, big tits, jug ears, 'HELP! LEON!', smuggity smug, deadity dead."

Shin Megami Tensei V

Yahtzee again complains about anime fans bugging him to review JRPGs.
Anime fan: Shin Megami Tensei, Yahtzee!
Yahtzee's avatar: Er. Sorry, I haven’t got any tissues.
Anime fan: No, you big racist! You should play the new Shin Megami Tensei V since you like Persona games so much.
Yahtzee: ...went the anime fans every bloody week for the last month. For fuck's sake, you anime fans are like drug dealers, you are. You hang around outside middle schools looking for any kid showing the slightest interest in Pokémon cards and then refuse to leave them alone until they're gluing fridge magnets to their hair and insisting on being called Sasuke.
Anime fan: Shin Megami Tensei is the mainline series of RPGs that Persona spun off from, Yahtzee, as you bloody well know, you constantly Evangelion-referencing obvious closet anime liking person!

Halo Infinite

Yahtzee does not even bother trying to internalize the franchise's overarching (and confusing) plot, and sticks to his own summary.
"Bastards hate humans, kill all the bastards."
Yahtzee predictably finds the Grappling Hook the most fun part of the game.
"But with an open world comes a need for traversal mechanics. Most Halo vehicles flip over if they drive over anything larger than a chocolate raisin, and the terrain is usually about as even as a section of your grandmother's upper thigh served with crinkle cut chips, So to counterbalance all that, Master Chief gets a fucking hookshot. And I fucking love it. It's not as fast or as versatile as, say, the Just Cause hookshot, probably because it has to haul around the dump truck Master Chief is constantly wearing and all the Mars bars secreted in the glove compartment, but there are very few games that wouldn't be improved by a grappling hook.
"For some reason the game seems to have mistaken this core traversal mechanic for a gimmicky gadget. You have to unequip the grappling hook to use deployable cover, dodge thrusters or see enemies through walls-o-vision. So guess what three things I never fucking used?"

Funny / Zero Punctuation 6

2021 Episodes

2021, Quarter 1

2021, Quarter 2

2021, Quarter 3

2021, Quarter 4

Previous

Index

Next

Funny / Zero Punctuation 6

Edit Locked

2021 Episodes

2021, Quarter 1

2021, Quarter 2

2021, Quarter 3

2021, Quarter 4

Previous

Index

Next