Brutal Review Reviews: First Blood with Yahtzee and Sphinx’s Sanitarium
In the last decade video games have gone from being something nerds did instead of meeting the opposite sex to that thing almost all people do instead of meeting the opposite sex. While video games have become possibly the largest entertainment industry in history, they have also gained some of the most sickly parasites of all. I speak, of course, about hack critics. While you are playing a game to enjoy it’s deep mechanics, gorgeous art, or complete lack of either, your critic counterpart is busy picking big words from a thesaurus so he can shit on your favorite new title. The OBRR is the line in the sand, and I stand on one side armed with poor grammar and crude language. Watch where you step.
Let’s start this off with the most obvious fart-sniffer on the whole goddamn Internet
Yahtzee reviews Dead Space, proves expertise in interior design.
Review Link: Zero Punctuation Review of Dead Space
Where it went right:
As usual, Yahtzee is right in most of his observations. Yes, it borrows heavily from other games, and, in particular, some movies *cough*The Thing and Event Horizon*cough*. Yes “you could replace the entire cast” and I wouldn’t notice or care. The physics gun, or tractor beam, or whatever the hell it is is really annoying, breaks immersion, seems pointless, and is second only to the horribly stupid bullet-time gadget. I hear you Sir Yahtzee. Developers, please, for fuck’s sake, get rid of bullet time unless it somehow makes sense.
Where it went wrong:
Nothing scares Yahtzee like a clean organized room.
For the love of Christ, the first complaint in this review is how the environment looks. You see, for Yahtzee, it is too detailed and, more importantly, it isn’t “a nice place to live.” Lets forget the fact that dark, complicated, claustrophobic interiors are the staple of sci-fi monster flicks. The Ishumura is a massive mining vehicle large enough to saw the top off a fucking planet and then process it into pure money. Somehow this automated nightmare converts to the star ship Enterprise for Yahtzee, as he apparently expects it to be full of frolicking school children and pristine synthetic sunlight. The Ishumura is a utilitarian space hulk that has been fucked to hell and back. It is dark, smelly and broken, and if you can’t suspend your belief enough for this to work for you, then that is hardly the game’s fault.
Silent chars and inside jokes tear at Yahtzee’s soul.
Next up is the fact that Isaac never speaks. I’d like to just take a second to explain one thing to all of you miserable game critics. Pointing out that you noticed the character is named after Isaac Asimov and a guy that wrote at least 300 less books then Isaac Asimov isn’t clever, and it doesn’t prove you aren’t a douche. Quite the opposite. Just about every other review of Dead Space takes the time to point this fact out. Guess what? Just about anyone older then 14 already got that little inside joke. So shut the fuck up about it.
Anyway, Isaac doesn’t talk, and this is apparently a bad thing, because if there is one thing we need it is for the character to be defined with poor voice acting. Yeah, that’s it. For real? Does Yahtzee’s ass have vocal cords? Christ. Do you know why I don’t need to hear Isaac talk or express emotions? Because I don’t want the goddamn game ruined. You see, it’s enough that he doesn’t talk. It could be me in the suit, and I don’t want to be eaten by fucking space monsters. If anything, the fact that I cant see what Isaac looks or sounds like helps me see myself in his role. In the suit praying the monsters don’t get my poor balls in their teeth.
Look, I know that if you are a critic, you are supposed to critique things. But if Yahtzee would focus on complaining about stuff that makes sense, maybe the rest of us wouldn’t think he’s high on spider venom or whatever the fuck they smoke “down under.”
Attacking Yahtzee is fun - and easy - but he’s a comedian as far as I am concerned, and attacking a comedian about the ridiculous crap they say is pretty easy. After all, Yahtzee has to bitch about something. He is an entertainer. This brings us to the real problem: the every day asshole game critic who, like me, downloaded some free CMS and began to smack-talk anything that will generate hits. This fucker probably doesn’t have a real job, has never seen a set of the opposing gender’s genitals, and watches hours of anime every day. What do you do when your life is complete ass and you live in your parent’s basement? Bitch about other’s accomplishments, of course. What better way to prove to your rejecting peers that you are smarter then they are! That’ll teach those fuckers that you are not to be trifled with.
It’s easy to find this brand of asshole. Simply open up any game news site like Blue’s News and skim to the reviews area, pick the first site you can find using WordPress, and chances are you will find the ranting of a sexually-repressed 20-something asshole. I just did this, and in less then 40 seconds I have found the following gem.
Sphinx Hates Fallout 3 And Anything Else You’re Dumb Enough To Like
This person is the quintessential hack critic: he hates a game for one reason, and it’s to prove he is not like you. Because, you see, you’re an idiot that is easily entertained by something that just insults their intelligence. If you weren’t dumb, you wouldn’t like the game either. Get it? You’re dumb, he’s smart.
Review Link: Fallout 3 Review
Where it went right
Well, SPHINX probably used spell check, and he posted some pictures of the game he shits all over, so at least he tried. He’s right when he complains about the sudden no-warning way the game drops you in the “end game.” It could’ve been less *poof* you are now about to beat the game and you have no choice.
Where it went wrong
Not to call attention to myself, but I hate what you love.
Oh boy, where to start… fuck, it’s just so godamn brutal. First off, he wants us to make sure we know he isn’t just bitching for attention’s sake by saying “I do not say this to be contrarian or to be edgy like some emo chick at a party.” Oh har har. Yeah, you’re not like an emo chick at a party, whatever the fuck that means. SPHINX isn’t female with tight jeans and poor taste in music, but turns out he’s just an asshole who likes to contradict popular opinions. He would like to save you dumb fuckers from making your own decision about what entertains you, and save you from the loss of $50 USD. Maybe I am alone here, but I have a job, and unlike the hack critic, I don’t have to wrestle with a crippling moral debate of where my money is better spent: on a game or a pinched bag of weed that was supposedly grown by the government in a secret cave somewhere. I can’t say for certain, but considering the industry we are talking about, I would say there is a high probability this asshat didn’t buy the game he is telling you not to play in the first place.
Durrrrrr! VATS is for stupid people!
His first critique is of the VATS system. I know, what an asshole, right? I mean, what kind of fucktard do you need to be in order to bitch about something that you don’t even have to use? Here’s a tip Professor Internet: don’t press the “V” key. Shit, better yet, unbind the fucking key so its completely void of your experience. A good critic would point out that Fallout 3 can be played relying on the VATS for classic turn-based Fallout game play, completely FPS, or even over-the-shoulder 3rd-person. But not SPHINX! Hell no, Fallout 3 should have come configured to not present the offensive option of using VATS, and he is better at games than you for not using it, and he thinks the game couldn’t be played without it. I guess my friend’s 10 year old should be told what he has already done twice is impossible. If only you could see how SPHINX “pwns joo beeches” in COD4. Fuck! Why couldn’t he work a video of that into the review? Maybe next time. Apparently the system he doesn’t like using gets repetitive after he has killed somewhere around 1.3 million enemies. What you can say here is that he bitches about the things any normal person enjoys. VATS provides to much strategy. It breaks the “game flow” of his twisted vision of what Fallout is supposed to be, and it’s too cinematic for his refined taste. Note to world-class game developers and designers: you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing! Next time make Fallout more like Dragonball Z or X or whatever the fuck it is.
He oddly states that he would have preferred “keeping all this chance to hit and critical hit dice rolling RPG garbage in the background, like Knights of the Old Republic.” What? I just can’t even fathom how stupid this statement is. Aside from the fact that KOTOR had what amounted to infinite VATS, where the fuck does this mystical dice roll even occur that isn’t in the background? And who the hell puts “RPG garbage” in a goddamn RPG anyways? Let’s move on, as examining this complaint too deep will just make you chew your own fucking tongue off.
The world of Fallout is too interesting and fun.
I shit you not. Go ahead, hit the link above, read this abortion of journalism, and witness for yourself this attention whore opining that the optional quests are as or more fun to play then the “Vault Quest”. Oh, excuse me Bethesda, I know you meant to craft a huge detailed world where I can decide what to do and where to go, but tools like SPHINX would rather just beat the fucking game and have fun doing so. That other garbage is just like VATS. It’s for people that aren’t fucking hard-to-the-core. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess this stump of humanity never played the original games. You know, the ones that were all about exploration and making your own decisions, including if you even give a rat’s ass about the people of the Vault.
Oblivion took the time to explain to your mangy, unwashed character that you could pursue the quest of the king or go about your own way from the mouth of the sewer you escaped. Fallout, however, doesn’t ram this idea down your throat, so people like SPHINX don’t know what to do with themselves. Here is an idea: play the game without the intent of finding shit that you can whine about online to your 4 friends. Apparently, the idea that a simple quest to find your wandering father could expand into a entire world of options and possible decisions just pisses some people off. Next time, try starting them completely engrossed in the most intense story possible that always overshadows everything else that goes on anywhere else in the world. You know, like real life.
Like all hacks, Sphinx knows more about design than designers
Yep, you guessed it, another asshole online bitching about the color of a game that, unfortunately, is forced to conform to reality rather then a swingin’ 70s drug trip. What’s that, SPHINX? You told the people that made AVP2 (which fucking rocks, by the way) that you can get color wheels and they should use them? I will admit that, being a professional graphic designer, I am a little sensitive about this, but what the fuck do you know about color wheels?
Unfortunately, reality doesn’t conform to the rules of complementary color theory. It turns out a bombed-out rusting wasteland doesn’t lend itself well to being framed in the beautiful juxtaposition of orange and blue. Not only does SPHINX bitch about realistic colors in a game about a realistic physical setting, but he apparently pulled this shit years ago with another game that had the insane concept of creating immersion with realistic looking levels: Aliens Vs Predator 2. I understand the argument of, “hey, this is a fantasy game on a top end system, how about a little godamn beauty up in this bitch!?” but both of these titles are about fucking destroyed, wasted versions of reality, and his argument about color is fucking idiotic.
Excuse me while I squeeze out the last few turds
The review ends with SPHINX highlighting what he hated about Fallout 3 as well as the one thing he liked. Kind-of. He takes the time to pontificate as to why professional writers didn’t tailor the story-arc just for him, creates a scenario in his mind that nobody with any technical knowledge of software could fathom, and then compares the ending to having his dick snapped off by some kind of dick-snapping super-whore. Which apparently isn’t climactic. After everything is said and done, this 3rd to last sentence explains so much. If you don’t find a mutant whore tearing your genitals off in the midst of a dirty sex act climactic, perhaps you don’t understand what the word means.
Tags: 3ps, action rpg, company-bethesda, company-ea, dystopian future, fps, game journalism, karma, octagon, PC, pcrpg, ps3, rpg, sci-fi, shooter, single player, survival horror, western rpg, windows, xbox360