Zero Punctuation
From Encyclopedia Dramatica
Zero Punctuation is a weekly feature on the Escapist Magazine, where videogame reviewer and fan-proclaimed professional troll Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw tears into the parade of shitty games currently comprising today's market for the amusement of the masses and the enragement of fanboys around the world. Actually, it's more like a drunk discussion with a friend about that new game he just got, rather than the format most review sites use; focus on the same positives every time, and give a score based on a scale between 9 and 10, or the reviewer gets fired. He does sometimes give games, like Portal, the praise and love they rightfully deserve. Though much more often, he's forced to review a shitty game, and then the segment is more comparable to what the Japanese did to Nanking during WWII. He is also a goon.
[edit] Backstory
| —Typical quote from yahtzee |
According to the escapist website, Yahtzee was born on a small, unimportant, tea-obsessed island off the coast of Europe, but currently lives on a slightly larger, unimportant, Vegemite-obsessed island with a bunch of kangaroos and stingrays. Eventually, living in such a nationalistic site made him a critic and inevitably one of the most stuck-up people who would even criticize a hooker if her pussy wasn't to his every little standard.
Yahtzee got his start at professional reviewing by posting his abusive, fast-paced, rambling reviews to YouTube, just like hundreds of other nerds on the Internets. However, unlike the other losers, Yahtzee's reviews were actually funny. The first games that Yahtzee reviewed in his trademark video format were the PS3 demo of The Darkness and the PC version of Fable. After tearing each of the games several new assholes, Yahtzee became noticed by others on the tubes. Soon after, some troll from The Escapist signed him on to his website so that Yahtzee could continue verbally raping games full-time.
As a freeware game designer, Yahtzee maintains an overly critical, slightly pretentious approach to reviewing, yet still includes enough harsh insults and dick/boob/gay jokes to satisfy the average internet goer. Yahtzee has a personal website called fullyramblomatic.com, where he posts review updates, downloads for his own games (mostly text/story based adventure games), random essays/rants, and other amusing articles on various nerdy topics. Among his nerdy topics include a rant about how proud he is to be a snob, he has expressed his dislike for the "Important" apple-pie obsessed landmass and has denied stereotypes about his people while saying every stereotype about those he hates are 100% true.
His site contains everything one would expect from a lifelong computer dork.
[edit] Advancements in the Field of Trolling
Yahtzee is particularly famous for giving spectacularly hateful reviews to popular, overrated games, thus earning him both tremendous amounts of praise and scorn. Some of his notable achievements in stirring up drama include calling Halo 3 mediocre and forcing it to live up to its single-player campaign, playing only a few hours of The Witcher before getting bored and verbally trashing it, and generally throwing heaping amounts of criticism on any game that crosses his path.
However, his most epic win came when he reviewed Super Smash Bros. Brawl in April '08. Naturally, he hated it and gave a hilariously negative review; and seeing as SSBB was probably the most hyped game this side of Duke Nukem Forever, Nintendo fanboys were sent into psychotic rages, unable to accept the fact that anyone could speak badly of their beloved title. The butthurt Brawl fans quickly filled the comment section of the video with over 1,000 comments, roughly 5 times the average amount of comments for a ZP review.
So, two weeks later, Yahtzee responded to his fans. Being the misanthropic asshole that he is, Yahtzee chose to publicly humiliate some of the dipshits that sent him hate mail. Again, the retarded masses went into an uproar, some cursing Yahtzee, but most congratulating him on his successful trolling and deconstruction of Smash Bros Brawl and its fans.
[edit] MGS4
Also caused a shitload of nerd rage, nearly on the same level as the Brawl review. Link.
[edit] Call of Duty 4
Thought of as a prank because he gave it a positive review for being a fresh and innovative take on the First Person Shooter Genre, but that's impossible because the game is mediocre and overrated and filled with 13 year old boys. He was serious though.
[edit] Webcomics
Then, one week later, he went on to turn the condescension and rage towards the gaming webcomic community, known more commonly as the internet's nerdy, unwanted, failed abortion. The main point of the review wasn't so much to review anything as it was to point out to all the world his eerie obsession with Tim Buckley and his shit comic, CTRL+ALT+Delete, which by the ways sucks dog shit. Not that this is going to affect CAD's ratings at all, as pretty much everyone else on the internet has been proclaiming this shit to anyone who would listen for ages. Anyway, after the webcomics review, he is now loved by all once again and all is right with the world. The review in question.
So what is our egotistic maniac, Tim Buckley saying about this? Nothing for now. He has however, been watching his Wikipedia article like a hawk (see user Thrindel), and will be more than willing to flash Wikipedia's rule book in your face if you edit it. No doubt that Tim is very butthurt about this, and a lulz-filled reply is due sooner or later.
- NO U: Comic Genesis has an archive of Yahtzee's very own comic "Yahtzee Takes Over the World." 642 updates at last count. Turns out it's almost as wordy and unfunny as CAD itself, making his review nothing more than a jealous rant (He even apologizes for offending people in this strip)... not that it makes it less true or anything, though, because CTRL+ALT+Delete is still gayer than a bag of dicks. Yahtzee would later admit that his web comics were shit. He also mentioned that most of his games were shit. So at least he repents his sins.
[edit] GameDamage
Last Thursday, Yahtzee decided that the internets were simply too small a media to contain his awesome "god like" talents and so Mr. Crowshaw's next venture is a car crash of a TV pilot by the name of GameDamage.
A show that couldn't be more tragic than if it consisted of the Taliban flying Princess Diana's funeral procession escorted by a bus full of blind orphans into the World Trade Center on 9/11.
[edit] Croshaw's Body of Work
- 5 Days a Stranger- Mansion Murder Mystery. Welding-mask chainsaw killers.
- 7 Days a Skeptic- Welding-mask chainsaw killers IN SPACE!!1! With a surprise twist at the end that has been done At least 100 times.
- Trilby's Notes- Faceless mannequin kills chicks in Bahamas. Druids save the day.
- 6 Days a Sacrifice- WTF series finale starring a person who can walk perfectly with a broken neck. Chainsaws triumphant.
- 1213- 2D Platformer. Standard "I'm not insane?" storyline, above-average graphics.
- Trilby: The Art Of Theft- 2D Platformer. Takes the Chzo Mythos main character and turns him into a 1213 clone.
[edit] See Also
[edit] External Links
- Zero Punctuation at The Escapist
- Escapist Magazine Main Page
- Yahtzee's personal site
- Yahtzee speaks at the Game Developers Choice Awards
- Yahtzee joins some other wallaby-fuckers for a podcast
- The second podcast
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Zero Punctuation is part of a series on Gaming. |
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