History ZeroPunctuation / TropesMToP

* NoPronunciationGuide: Despite being a huge ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' fan, not even he knows how to pronounce "Smough":
-->'''Yahtzee:''' What were you expecting, [[DualBoss Ornstein and Smough]]? ...Smoug? ...Smouph? ...What were you expecting, Ornstein and [[YourMom your mum?]]

* OutOfTheFryingPan: In his [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/739-Velvet-Assassin review]] of ''Videogame/VelvetAssassin'', he notes that the CaffeineBulletTime mechanic in the stealth sections is--unless used under precise circumstances--liable to backfire and leave the player worse off than before.

** His review of ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'' has him come this with WhOWritesThisCrap, following his complaint about the Switch's Joy-Cons giving him difficulty with certain button combinations:
..>"But isn’t that largely my fault, for not having gotten around to paying kindly Uncle Nintendo another seventy bucks for a pro controller that doesn’t stick drift like a glue tanker on a wet road-- Jesus Christ, when did I write that?!"

* TheMeanBrit: Though currently living in America.

** His ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' review has "Still I th-'''ink''' there'll be an '''ink'''-rease in the number of Wii U sales with this '''ink'''-redible new title! God know why it keeps making ink puns, though, when everyone's very clearly throwing paint around, but that's hardly a complaint. Com-'''paint.'''"

* NiceHat: "Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder." The hat originally appeared in [[MythologyGag his own games]], ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'', worn by the character of Trilby. The hat itself is known as a Trilby hat, and it tends to get him [[CreatorWorship more attention]] [[http://twitter.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/11013246821 than he really wants]]. In his ads for his audiobook ''Existentially Challenged'', he even throws in a non-sequitur about how he doesn't wear it in real life anymore.

* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Regarding Darius of ''VideoGame/RedFaction''; "Not to dampen your sense of victory, Darius, mate, but why didn't you [fix the terraforming machine] three years ago right after it broke? You DUMB [dopeslap] BALD [dopeslap] TWAT."

** From his review of ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'', when commenting on the way the game makes several {{Take That}}s towards other, better shooters.

* NiceHat: "Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder." The hat originally appeared in [[MythologyGag his own games]], ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'', worn by the character of Trilby. The hat itself is known as a Trilby hat, and it tends to get him [[CreatorWorship more attention]] [[http://twitter.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/11013246821 than he really wants]].

* PetPeeveTrope: [[invoked]]
** ActionAdventure: Or as he called it, "the people moving around doing things genre." Not specifically the games in the genre, more just the fact that it exists ''as'' a genre, [[Administrivia/PeopleSitOnChairs because pretty much any game could be considered "action-adventure"]], so self-identifying as it seems like the creators have no idea what their game is supposed to be about.
** ArtificialStupidity: See FishEyes; the fact that they're used whenever the topic of a game's AI is discussed should tell you something.
** ColonCancer: Considers the trope pretentious and despises standalone titles that use this as though they plan to launch a larger franchise. He finally lost patience with this in his review of ''Videogame/LichdomBattlemage'' and thus began the RunningGag of pronouncing unnecessary colons as dry heaves.
** ContinuityReboot: Reboots tend to earn his ire easily, as he considers the concept anathema to the preservation of gaming history and the lessons it teaches.
*** NamesTheSame: By extension, giving a reboot the same name as the first game in the series annoys him because of the confusion can arise. Illustrated in his ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' review, where he spends the first paragraph talking about the original ''Mortal Kombat'' and being confused by people insisting it's a new game, before realizing his "mistake".
---->"''DO YOU SEE HOW CONFUSING THIS GETS?!''"
** {{Doorstopper}}: He tends to rag on games that are heavy on dialogue and cutscenes, like ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series and especially ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', which he describes as suffering from "verbal diarrhea."
** EarthShatteringKaboom: Specifically, stories that put [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the fate of the planet]] on the line, especially late in the story. He describes it as a way to artificially raise the stakes, because "If they haven't come up with a single character whose goals and struggles we can actually feel invested in, they can always play the exploding planet card, because holy shit, I live on a planet!"
** ItsEasySoItSucks: [[invoked]] Initially {{averted|trope}} when he calls out fans of the NintendoHard ''Videogame/BionicCommandoRearmed'' for taking this stance, then plays it straight the rest of his career...
*** FakeDifficulty: ...except when [[SomeDexterityRequired the controls suck]], [[ArtificialStupidity the AI sucks]] and TheComputerIsACheatingBastard.
** KarmaMeter: He argues that usually "you need to be all the way good or all the way evil to unlock the best toys" which eliminates choice and forces an evil player to do some really ridiculous things to maintain their evilness. He also argues that such meters are "just forcing us to play the game twice to see all the content."
** NinetiesAntiHero: A core gripe of his when reviewing games like ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{WET}}''.
** NoFourthWall: If his reviews of ''VideoGame/SunsetOverdrive'', ''VideoGame/{{Superhot}}'' and ''VideoGame/YookaLaylee'' are any indication; he's claimed it makes it hard to care about the story, it's often overused, and it's usually played as being really clever when it isn't. He notably defended ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'''s fourth-wall break, saying that it happened "'cause it had earned it. Without that, it's just annoying."
** OpeningACanOfClones:
*** His main criticism of ''Franchise/MortalKombat''.
---->'''Yahtzee:''' The official message of [[VideoGame/MortalKombat11 Mortal Kombat 11]]'s story mode is, "Fuck continuity and fuck anyone who is invested in it!" You probably should've known not to get invested after [[VideoGame/MortalKombat9 MK9]]; I mean, any franchise that so openly and deliberately flushes its entire canon down the toilet is almost certainly going to keep doing it, and indeed, the endpoint of the MK11 story mode all but states that not only is everything reset yet again, but no future continuity is going to have any permanence either!
*** The last-minute use of [[BackFromTheDead resurrection]] also ruined his enjoyment of ''VideoGame/OriAndTheBlindForest''.
*** Also, from his review of ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUS'':
----> Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, it's a [[AlternateUniverse parallel universe]] because '''of course it is'''. Who wants to be ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' and have characters undergoing any significant growth that carries actual weight and interest because it can't immediately and conveniently be reversed at a moment's notice? [[SarcasmMode No, nice boring and comfortable]] [[StatusQuoIsGod status quo, please!]]
** OscarBait: Has coined the term 'Indie Game-itis' for games that focus heavily on art direction, music and themes of sorrow or loss. Not only does he feel these themes are overused, but that it seems an easy and cynical way to obtain critical success without actually having anything meaningful to say, and often at the expense of gameplay.
** PinballProtagonist: One of his recurring complaints is when a game tries to have a dramatic story but the main character ends up being this. Indeed, this was a lot of why he didn't like the rebooted Lara Croft, as he felt so much of her story was just being forced to do stuff rather than taking any initiative herself.
** PressXToNotDie: Trope namer, as noted above. He has clarified that he doesn't mind QuicktimeEvents when they're part of the core gameplay (as in ''VideoGame/HeavyRain''), but objects when they are unexpectedly thrown into the middle of a cutscene, as in this trope.
** RealIsBrown.
** RegeneratingHealth: He prefers health meters and medkits (this goes hand in hand with his hating cover-based combat; see below).
** RummageSaleReject: He often criticizes [[EasternRPG JRPGs]] for their eccentric costume designs, and his biggest complaint of ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}'' is the comic book-esque overdesigning of the characters.
** {{Sequelitis}}: [[invoked]] His biggest issue with the current games industry.
** StealthBasedMission: He likes the stealth genre, but a "forced stealth section" in the middle of a non-stealth game is one of his pet peeves.
** TakeCover: One of his main beefs with current-generation shooters. In his [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1976-Kane-Lynch-2-Dog-Days review]] of ''VideoGame/KaneAndLynch 2: Dog Days'', he observed that he doesn't mind this trope as long as it's not the ''only'' thing the player is expected to care about. In his words, "you can still have it, in all its pop-up shooting gallery tedium, but you've got to have something else!" Such as stealth gameplay for ''Deus Ex: Human Revolution'', BulletTime for ''Max Payne 3'', jetpack flight in ''Dark Void'' or an amazing story for ''Spec Ops: the Line''.
*** In his review of ''VideoGame/{{Inversion}}'', he compares cover-based shooting to the glue holding a model airplane together, i.e. the bits connecting the interesting parts of a game. The fact that ''Inversion'''s gravity gimmick only serves the cover-based shooting is therefore, to him, akin to [[InsaneTrollLogic grinding up the model airplane to bulk up the glue.]]
** UpdatedRerelease: He's iffy on the concept of the remake. On the one hand, he feels it's important for people to play older games to understand the context and history, but a remake that either doesn't do enough to fix the original's problems or changes things unnecessarily can get his goat.
*** One of his repeat criticisms of Creator/{{Nintendo}} is that they repeatedly engage in a form of this, especially whenever their games don't evolve past any of their older titles in terms of story and mechanics and thus render themselves redundant in his eyes. ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' got [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech torn apart for this]]:
---->"Even bad games have a place in gaming history, even if it's just to feature in some "how not to do it" guide. ''New Nuper Nario Nothers Nii'' is a rare example of a game that has absolutely ''no'' right to exist. ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' was better, ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'' was better. This is supposed to be the future, ''damn it''! If everyone has to buy digital televisions before 2010, then that means you aren't allowed to suddenly ignore twenty years of gameplay innovation!"
** VideoGameLives: Believes the trope to be long obsolete.
** {{Waggle}}: [[invoked]] Has always considered motion controls a dead end for video games, as without any kind of feedback they actively impede immersion. It's one of his key issues with Nintendo consoles, primarily the Wii, for how poorly they are often implemented.
** WorldOfSnark: One of the reasons he strongly dislikes Creator/JossWhedon's works, believing that it gives all characters the same "voice."
** WorldOfSymbolism: Dislikes games that use this poorly, as he explains in his ''Videogame/SeaOfSolitude'' review:
--->"What I dislike about games like ''[Sea of Solitude]'' and ''[[VideoGame/{{Gris}} GRRRRIS]]'' is that they're trying to affect the appearance of meaningfulness without actually having any depth. If you look at, say, ''Literature/MobyDick'', it can be interpreted as a metaphor for a lot of things - man vs. nature, order vs. chaos, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick the struggle to clean semen out]] [[TheLastofTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers of the bathroom rug before your mum gets home]] - but on the surface level, it's an adventure story about a white whale and a dude with a narc-on, and if you prefer it that way, then that's all it need be. ''[[RunningGag GRRRRIS]]'' and Sea of Solitude have no surface level; it's all symbolism all the time."

*** His main criticism of ''Franchise/MortalKombat'', and also the reason why he generally dislikes it when characters are brought BackFromTheDead:

* NostalgiaFilter: Yahtzee often cautions his viewers against this, as nostalgia is often used by triple-A developers to trick the buying public into accepting formula over innovation. He also tends to deride fans who wear nostalgia goggles for particular games, especially those that have aged poorly.
** That said, he’s not afraid to admit when he himself is falling into to the same trap. He caught himself really trying to like ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'' despite hit”s many horrendous flaws based on his childhood memories of Duke Nukem 3D, as he desperately wanted the game to be good after thirteen hears of DevelopmentHell.
** Admits to be have suffered from it himself in his review of ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' when he not only admits to have ignored flaws in the game, though he still enjoyed it, but also that it represents aspects of retro-shooters he hate like platforming sections, which he states whenever a game has it, that he feels that platforming from a first person perspective is a terrible concept. Conversely when he did a retro review of ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' he found that it didn't hold up quite as well as he'd remembered.

* NotHimself: Wait, what's this? ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}} 3'' has no regenerating health? A sum of weapons greater than 2? No chest-high walls? "...erm... Creator/{{Sony}}?... Are you feeling all right?"

* NostalgiaFilter: Yahtzee often derides fans who wear nostalgia goggles, although he caught himself falling into the same trap when he was reviewing ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever''.

--->"What I dislike about games like ''[Sea of Solitude]'' and ''[[VideoGame/Gris GRRRRIS]]'' is that they're trying to affect the appearance of meaningfulness without actually having any depth. If you look at, say, ''Literature/MobyDick'', it can be interpreted as a metaphor for a lot of things - man vs. nature, order vs. chaos, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick the struggle to clean semen out]] [[TheLastofTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers of the bathroom rug before your mum gets home]] - but on the surface level, it's an adventure story about a white whale and a dude with a narc-on, and if you prefer it that way, then that's all it need be. ''[[RunningGag GRRRRIS]]'' and Sea of Solitude have no surface level; it's all symbolism all the time."

--->"What I dislike about games like ''[Sea of Solitude]'' and ''GRRRRIS'' is that they're trying to affect the appearance of meaningfulness without actually having any depth. If you look at, say, ''Literature/MobyDick'', it can be interpreted as a metaphor for a lot of things - man vs. nature, order vs. chaos, [[TheLastofTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers the struggle to clean semen out of the bathroom rug before your mum gets home]] - but on the surface level, it's an adventure story about a white whale and a dude with a narc-on, and if you prefer it that way, then that's all it need be. ''[[RunningGag GRRRRIS]]'' and Sea of Solitude have no surface level; it's all symbolism all the time."

** In his review of [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/8789-The-Legend-of-Zelda-A-Link-Between-Worlds The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds,]] he reveals that despite all the vitriol he's given Nintendo over the years, he's actually on their side in the next generation if only because they're the only ones who "released a game console, not an inferior gaming PC for people who dream of being the sub in an unhealthy techno-masochistic fantasy."
** By the same token, in his ''The 2010's Most Significant Games'', he admits to having come around to the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch and using it frequently on his own time, due to the ease of setting it up and the curated library of indie titles on it.

*** NamesTheSame: By extension, giving a reboot the same name as the first game in the series annoys him because of the confusion can arise. Illustrated in his ''Videogame/MortalKombat9'' review, where he spends the first paragraph talking about the original ''Mortal Kombat'' and being confused by people insisting it's a new game, before realizing his "mistake".

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Happens a fair deal with his ridiculous Irish accent in the ''Tales of VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' episode.

** NamesTheSame: By extension, giving a reboot the same name as the first game in the series annoys him because of the confusion can arise. Illustrated in his ''Videogame/MortalKombat9'' review, where he spends the first paragraph talking about the original ''Mortal Kombat'' and being confused by people insisting it's a new game, before realizing his "mistake".

** FakeDifficulty: ...except when [[SomeDexterityRequired the controls suck]], [[ArtificialStupidity the AI sucks]] and TheComputerIsACheatingBastard.

--->"What I dislike about games like ''[Sea of Solitude]'' and ''GRRRRIS'' is that they're trying to affect the appearance of meaningfulness without actually having any depth. If you look at, say, Moby-Dick, it can be interpreted as a metaphor for a lot of things - man vs. nature, order vs. chaos, [[TheLastofTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers the struggle to clean semen out of the bathroom rug before your mum gets home]] - but on the surface level, it's an adventure story about a white whale and a dude with a narc-on, and if you prefer it that way, then that's all it need be. ''[[RunningGag GRRRRIS]]'' and Sea of Solitude have no surface level; it's all symbolism all the time."

** WorldOfSymbolism: Dislikes games that use this poorly, as he explains in his '@Videogame/SeaOfSolitude'' review:

---->"Even bad games have a place in gaming history, even if it's just to feature in some "how not to do it" guide. ''New Nuper Nario Nothers Nii'' is a rare example of a game that has absolutely ''no'' right to exist. ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld was better, ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'' was better. This is supposed to be the future, ''damn it''! If everyone has to buy digital televisions before 2010, then that means you aren't allowed to suddenly ignore 20 years of gameplay innovation!"

*** One of his repeat criticisms of Creator/Nintendo is that they repeatedly engage in a form of this, especially whenever their games don't evolve past any of their older titles in terms of story and mechanics and thus render themselves redundant in his eyes. ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' got [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech torn apart for this]]: