Zero Punctuation

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

Zero Punctuation is a series of video game reviews by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, accompanied by simple Photoshop stills rebus-animated in Windows Movie Maker playing over the author's "punctuation-less" fast narration. His style is notably critical, cynical and rude, which he often self-referentially acknowledges. A lot of thinner-skinned people get offended when he tears up their favorite games, but the man usually has a point - to fat, greasy Americans who believe that a fast talking man with a British accent is the pinnacle of wit, at any rate.

In other words, he's like every other overly opinionated vidya gaem playing cunt on the internet, though he's arguably wittier than some - at the least, he's certainly among the more quotable.

Some would argue that he is a troll king amongst the rabble, but then if we called him that he would probably revel in the title; he is fully aware of how much RAGE he can generate and takes immense pleasure from it. Of course, anyone dumb enough to get so attached to their franchises and games that they take what he says as personal attacks is leaving themselves open and most likely deserves it (cough, implicating cough). On the other hand, you can find quotes of his scattered around 1d4chan, so either we have a /vg/ spy running around defacing our wiki, or we just don't hate him as much as we like to think we do.

Jokes aside, highly critical as he is of modern gaming in general, he discourages players from letting reviews decide everything for them, even his own, and encourages them to come up with their own opinions regarding games. Plus he's a fan of old-school FPSes like Doom and has recommended games such as Star Control: Origins, so his tastes can't be complete shite, eh?

Yahtzee and Warhammer

Warhammer and Warhammer 40k are among the many series he's referenced in his videos, which is at least fitting considering its British cultural origins, though it doesn't seem he has any interest in it himself. At one point in 2011, he wrote an article in his more at-length 'Extra Punctuation' editoral, bashing the setting of 40k based on his impression of the Space Marine game; his calling the setting "juvenile" and overly grimdark has earned him quite a bit of "well deserved" flak, with the resulting nerd rage festering all across the 40k community and seeping even into this very wiki, if the page's history is any indication.

Of note is that he didn't actually review the game after playing it, which only fanned the flames further. Even ignoring that it would've been a waste of time anyway, as indicated by many other episodes - particularly where he "debated" between reviewing Space Marine and another game called Hard Reset - this was very likely a conscious decision. ("...given options, I'll go for the one that infuriates tosspots.") It may be that he doesn't particularly care about the series - though Zelda fans have ALSO leveled that same accusation, in spite of him actually enjoying some of the games like Majora's Mask and Breath of the Wild - and at the least, he had clearly determined it to not be for him anyway, as he would with Total War II. So yay for consistency!

In retrospect, this sort of thing is tacitly hilarious, considering the amount of fans overall that will and do give 40k shit for being overwrought and pointlessly dark, especially in the hands of its less skilled writers; many oft-criticized plot elements and contrivances can also be summarized as reading like so much by-the-book capeshit, especially given the comics industry's own history with regards to laying on the grimdark too thickly.

That's not to say those fans are wrong, but something something, pots and kettles. Plus it's not like /tg/ doesn't actively run with the idea of being nerd rage personified, lulzy as it can be when it becomes genuine.

Also, one of his more recent references described the setting of a game he panned as "like Warhammer 40K but without the irony" so... y'know, you tell us.

As an Author

He has also written a few books. The one of most interest to /tg/ is Mogworld, a hilarious send up of World of Warcraft, which follows the misadventures of an undead minion who just wants to die and stay dead. Other works include:

• Jam, a tale about a tide of man-eating jam that covers the earth in its sticky, reddish mess, likely a parody of the post-apocalypse genre.
• Will Save The World For Food
• Differently Morphous

While likely worth looking into, one wouldn't go wrong just sticking with Mogworld if that's your inclination.

He also used to make some one-hour videos called "Let's Drown Out", in which Yahtzee and his cynical but kinda bro-tier friend Gabe are talking mindlessly about stuff going on in the gaming world, while trying as much as possible to ignore the boring-ass game they're playing (see: drown out). The only relevance it has for /tg/ is that they are extremely good to listen to while painting, simply for how mindbogglingly mindless it is.

Trivia

• Anybody referring to the "Glorious PC Master Race" or "Dirty Console Peasants" is referencing a joke Yahtzee did AT LEAST ten years ago. The fact that the joke has lived this long probably says something. Just don't ask us what.
  • Yahtz himself has taken a bit of a distaste to this term as of late as well, as PC gaming has begun outpacing consoles to the point that people were unironically using this term.

External Links

• The Zero Punctuation video gallery up to 9/19/2018.
• The REST of of the video gallery on the new Escapist site, starting at 8/15/2018 because merging archives was too hard.