Yahtzee Croshaw (Zero Punctuation, Fully Ramblomatic)

As far as Jump Scare related stuff goes I do kinda enjoy Phasmophobia.

There's plenty of those in the classic adventure genre. The most danger you'd be in was getting a puzzle wrong and getting a bad ending.

no disco elysium spoilers please I've just started it

Might want to hold off. There's an extended version scheduled to come out this month: voices, quests, a whole lot of new stuff. People that already own the game will get it free.

'Course, that also creates a perfect excuse to play it twice...

Interesting. Is it gonna be a fresh file only sort of thing?

I'm not sure if the devs said one way or the other, but it wouldn't really make sense to try to import an old save that's already partway through the game. You'd miss out on a lot of content. It's not really a spoiler to tell you that there are several points of no return.

And now, a couple of predictions for the year-end list:

The Medium and Outriders (if Yahtzee even reviews that one) will make the Bland List, and Werewolf: The- fuck it, I’ll just call it Steve - Steve will make the Worst List.

I know we're in the middle of drought season, but what do you think might make it into the 'best' list?

Considering none of the games so far were particularly impressive, this is basically my stealthy way of asking if there are any upcoming releases you look forwards to.

Well, there’s always Psychonauts 2 if nothing else.

Oh yeah, I also have a gut feeling Yahtzee will review Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and it, too, will land on the Bland List.

I would also think it isn't fun for the devs to get ragged on by pretty much "Jay Sherman if he was British and reviewed video games." I can't even imagine how the developers of The Last of Us Part II would react to Yahtzee's review of said game. "Oh you thought our game wasn't fun to play? That it's too depressing? Try actually making the game, mac! It might as well have been the Apocalypse Now of western video game development!"

But there are some who take it in stride, like Aj Grand-Scrutton, director on the recent Battletoads game, which Yahtzee dissected harder than an actual amphibian would get in a science class:

Despite that, I do respect Yahtzee's opinion on games. I loved how he calls Konami, Activision, Ubisoft, and EA out on their grubby shenanigans. Plus, thanks to him, I got Disco Elysium on my Steam Wishlist and if it wasn't for his review on SOMA, I probably wouldn't have discovered Markiplier or learn about Papers, Please! and Return of the Obra Dinn. If I was ever working on a video game, I'd vouch to have him beta-test it and give us pointers to (at the very least) make the writing engaging.

As a wise one once said: "The greatest teacher, failure is."

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Mar 5th 2021 at 7:46:38 AM

The TLOU 2 devs probably wouldn't give a shit what with having dealt with much worse abuse than some snide comments as well as having blockbuster sales, raving critical acclaim and hordes of fanboys willing to jump in front of a moving train for them.

"If you don't like it, why not make a better product yourself," is generally considered to be a non-argument not worthy of consideration.

Imagine pointing out a problem with your food and the waiter tells you to just cook it yourself.

I mean. Does Yahtzee not have a point?

Because I think 2020 turned out to be the worst time for something as depressing as TLOU2. Plus, that crunching is the worst of nightmares. No one should have to have that...

(And for the record, I also agree with the sentiment that we should've at the very least have the choice to finish off Abby at the very end, if only for the sake of catharsis. Yeah, given how these stories go, one would expect that finishing her off would've given us a bad ending that says "oh look you're worser than the bad guy, boooo", but having a say matters, doesn't it?)

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Mar 5th 2021 at 9:36:49 AM

Haven't played it and I'd rather not judge out of hearsay, not that I plan to. But yeah, from what I have seen Yahtzee's take seemed pretty on point.

For all its faults, the first Watch_Dogs at least gives players the choice to spare or execute the murderer of the protagonist's niece at the end. Of course, it has no meaningful effect on the outcome other than the implication that Aiden Pearce might be on the way to becoming a slightly less horrible person, but at least it's a choice.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 5th 2021 at 12:46:38 PM

So does Infamous: Second Son, though that's one of the instances in which the writing really suffers from trying to shoehorn the same character beats for well-meaning rascal Delsin and mass murdering sociopath Delsin.

Actual choices in games are nothing new. I suppose you could argue that you shouldn't have to have meaningful choices in your game... But you kinda have to if you want your game to be True Storytelling Art, unless you have some other way to utilize the medium. Otherwise, no matter how well crafted, you just have a TV show or a movie that can have all the tension and emotion sucked out of it at any moment by the player walking repeatedly into walls or some shit.

One of my favorite moments in any game, and a strong component in it being in my top 3 of all time, is near the ending of bastion. It's a choice that doesn't hinge on a morality meter of any sort, is just about the only one in the story, but it stuck by me forever. You come across Zulf, your former friend who betrayed you, as he's being beaten to death. You can either leave him to his (arguably deserved) fate and keep the OP weapon you're lugging around with you, and go on to a climactic final confrontation for the last mcguffin. Or you can drop the weapon, take him on your shoulders and slowly walk towards the end of the level as you're peppered with attacks from Zulf's countrymen, just trying to get home. Eventually, as you trip and stumble through the onslaught, even they realize that there's no point in continuing and let you leave and go back to the Bastion. It's simple and there's a pretty obvious morally right choice, but the impact of the following setpiece is incredible.

That's not true at all. Games can tell linear stories and have done so for as long as games have existed. Was there an optional ending to Donkey Kong where you marry the monkey? No. Narrative choice is not remotely required for a game to be enjoyable.

Of course, there are as many ways to tell a story as there are stories to tell. Adventure games were doing branching narratives long before Telltale came around and made The Walking Dead. Video games offer a unique canvas to create interactive stories but they are under no obligation to employ them all at the same time.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 5th 2021 at 2:20:52 PM

I it's more that they respect the incredible guts and courage it took for you to risk your life to save someone who is one of their own. One soldier event tries keep firing and is cut down by his superior.

Edited by HailMuffins on Mar 5th 2021 at 4:21:12 PM

Yeah, the post was getting too long so I cut down some context

I'm not saying that games can't be good or even have a good story without player choice. But if a game aspires to 'push the medium forwards with its storytelling' have 'revolutionary' storytelling, it must make a good argument for why it's better as a game rather than a book or a movie. Otherwise you get stuff like TLOU or Bioshock Infinite. Bells and whistles and the praises of the industry and nothing meaningful.

Spiritfarer, for instance, doesn't seem to have meaningful player choice, but the fact that its a game is justified by how it can cause the player to feel grief through routine. You take care of the characters around you and get used to seeing them around, and then suddenly, they aren't anymore, and you have to carry on without them, and no one even calls attention to that. That would be much harder to work into a non-interactive experience, and will probably be less effective.

I have no doubt Donkey Kong is a good game. But that's because it's fun. It has good gameplay. It doesn't purports to tell a unique story. And even if there are stories in the series that have likeable characters or fun twists, it never purports to be True Art.

Huh? Bioshock Infinite has an amazing narrative. I don't mind sitting through someone else's story as long as I get to play the game every now and then.

Not really, I took a second look at it recently and it really doesn't hold up well. In hindsight, its handling of racial politics was really... not the best. The characters were pretty shallow. And it didn't really say anything meaningful. Here is an indepth analysis.

None of that matters though, because even if bioinf's narrative didn't have those issues, it wouldn't reach the same level as the plot twist in the original Bioshock unless it used the medium in some way.

You mean the plot twist where the main character is also the villain? Look, we can disagree about the quality of the story — someone's YouTube video is not objective evidence — but both Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite have exactly the same amount of player agency: zero. Just because there's a fourth-wall twist doesn't mean you aren't following a linear story down predefined rails.