Zero Punctuation: Tomb Raider: Underworld
escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctua...Posted Jan 14, 2009, 5:01 PM UTC
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escapistmagazine.com
I think Yahtzee is getting a bit lazy with regards to finding games to hate. Reviewing Tomb Raider: Underworld is like shooting fish in a barrel.
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Agreed, but I did get a few laughs out of this one, in comparison to his last few episodes.
Let's face it, Yahtzee isn't very entertaining reviewing games that he kind of likes but also finds faults in. In fact, he's rather boring when not curbstomping a game with endless analogies while mentioning the word "bum".
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I mentally voiced your comment with Yahtzee's voice and it sounded JUST like him.
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Oh my God... they're the same person!
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Wow, so did I. Creepy. o_O
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Holy shit, I just did that with YOUR comment and you sounded just like him too!
Are... are we all Yahtzee inside?
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I do not have Yahtzee inside of me.
Queer.
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I can't think of a game review more succinct than: "I thought about slitting my own throat with the game box just because pressing the off button would have taken slightly longer"
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The 'ooh, shitty console plantformer is shit!' routine is getting a bit old.
Can't he review something interesting?
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Well that would require that something interesting is actually made.
Am I right?
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Hardly. There are plenty of good games out there, but he just sticks to the mainstream console releases. Oh, and the Valve games, caus if he praises them enough he might get another free trip to the US...
The Ben I knew was a cynical bastard, but a creative one. His early reviews were interesting because he mixed the hate with some fairly insightful points. Now its just bashing games for the sake of mindless entertainment.
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It's kind of hard to give constructive criticism to shit. SMELL BETTER! BE A DIFFERENT COLOR! TO MANY BUGS!
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Am I right?
At -5 to 25 at the time of this posting, it looks like you were right.
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I love Tomb Raider and I hate Tomb Raider. One of my problems with it is that it takes itself too seriously. This game needs to be a farce, because it's ridiculous how many times she jumps and dies.
The game needs to be more of an adult nature. As it is now, it's for 13-year-olds. She needs to cuss like a sailor every time she falls into a chasm, instead of just going, "Ayyyyyyyeeee!" When she gets burned, she needs to go, "Oh, Jesus! It hurts! Oh, I can't believe how unbearable this pain is!"
And her headset chums need to get animated, too. "Ok, Laura, after this next jump, go right and... Oh my God! Laura fell into the chasm! She's dead! And I just bought a new house! How am I going to make the payments? I knew this would end badly..."
Because if a game is going to be absurd, it shouldn't try to be serious. Jumping around, grabbing ledges is fun, reloading after the seventh failed leap would be more fun if every time she died she screamed something different, like, "Damn these cheap Korean climbing boooooooooots!" or "Why don't you learn how to operate the controls properly, you baboooooooonnnnn!"
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I see what you're going for but...naaaaaah.
How about some good writers instead? Or maybe people who understand mood? I don't think we need to go all out here.
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You can have all the good writers you want, but you're still going to come to that ledge and wonder if you can make the jump and try and die 6 or 7 times until you realize you're barking up the wrong tree, so to speak.
I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, to jump and die over and over. It's part of the exploration process. It makes it hard to take the game seriously, however, all the more so when it apparently takes itself seriously.
New writing could take care of that. I'd kind of like to see a Tomb Raider spoof. Maybe call it "Grave Robber" or "Gold Digger".
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New writing, new serious writing, could bring the mood down to a more realistic level, so when Lara dies, it'll be much more dramatic. It's negative reinforcement, but not in a "you'll have to load the game again" way, but "you'll have to experience the heartbreaking death of Lara Croft again". And thus you'd want to take your time, with Lara's fragile life in your hands, to make the correct leap.
But that's a tall order for fucking Tomb Raider, isn't it?
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You know, that was the original appeal for guys, I think, that you were responsible for her and her life was in your hands. Maybe if they got rid of the cheesy cut scenes and laughable melodrama and stuck mainly to the action, it would be better. That and add some jiggle.
Seriously, jiggle is long overdue. Of course that takes it back towards farce...
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Or just put the fucking series to bed. Tomb Raider is one of those things that was never good, or fun, or original. And still has like 10 games in the series.
They don't need a reinvention, or a reboot, because that implies that there is something good to go back to. It was stupid when it was a blocky mess on the PS1 and it just gets worse and worse as time goes on.
While on the subject, has anyone played a PS1 game like Gran Turismo on something other than a PSP recently? Did you get the same "wow what the fuck is this crap" feeling? I mean, its not that bad, but I remember the original GT as one of the slickest games on the Playstation and a great racing game with tons of well rendered licensed cars.
When I played it again, I had a hard time telling objects apart. Its different than the N64 & all older systems, because while they had lower graphics quality, they still had clear graphics for the most part. Playstation games that were full 3D just do not stand the test of time.
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I feel that a lot. I'm not the kind of person that can keep going back to old games because my standards just get higher with each gen. It's not just graphics, but gameplay and depth that improve.
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Seriously, when are they going to stop making Tomb Raider games? The games are no good anymore and it's incredibly simple to get pictures of chick's tits, you don't need a virtual one who will never get undressed.
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They'll stop when people stop giving them money for the same thing over and over.
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That's why you download them if you wanna see boobs in a wetsuit.
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SAME: Pirated it, but have yet to play it. or even install it for that matter.
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meh... don't waste your HDD space, I've played it on vista and unsurprisingly this is one of the games that will be left behind with my transition to Windows 7, of course COD4 will stay along, COD5 is the pressing issue, but TRU isn't.
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I bought Legend for like 2 euro's.
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What about the nude raider patch?
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I'm tempted to try it out just for the sheer hilarity/curiosity.
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Admit it, you just want to fap to it.
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hmmm.. peut-etre..
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The games are no good anymore
Bullshit. Legend was good. Anniversary was great. I haven't played much of the new one but it seemed on par with Legend. Your post would have made some sense before the recent relaunch of the games, it does not now.
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underworld is good.
if you like the TR style of gameplay you will enjoy it.
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Your check is in the mail.
Thank you,
The Team at Eidos
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Tomb Raider
great
No comprende, senor
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Actually, although I loved Legend and was eager to try the new one (just the demo), I thought they had terribly broken it. Annoying new spider enemies, inconsistent ledge graphics (as Yahtzee remarked), and I'm sure the camera wasn't that bad before...
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I agree, I enjoyed Legend. Parts of it were weak (same fucking enemies, over and over - also the motorbike bit), and the story was gripping enough to make me want to continue playing to the end.
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I played the demo and it seemed enjoyable enough to me. Worth $60? No. But worth $25, which is how much used copies of the PC version are going for? Probably.
Don't go to Yahtzee for game buying advice. His whole schtick is being hyper-critical. It really isn't a bad game.
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Meh, I've had friends who swear by Tomb Raider and I've had friends who can't stand it. Gaming is a personal experience, I didn't find L4D to change the world and WoW gives me a fucking headache.
Keep some distance from reviews in general, accept that it is the opinions of people who may not like what you do.
I don't agree with a lot of Yahtzee's reviews, but they're often entertaining.
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same here. my friend tried to get me into WOW, but I just couldn't do it. levelling up and grinding isn't really my thing, and I'm not much on fantasy settings.
Left 4 Dead was good, but $60 good?? not quite. maybe 40. it's really only fun if you're playing with at least 1 other person, preferably 2 others.. but not 3 others, cause you need that computer buddy.
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You don't need that computer buddy if you've got good players. In fact, it's worse because of the fucking magic delay before they decide "hey I'm going to kill the hunter that's pounced on my friend" so you always take that extra 20 damage.
It's even worse on Versus mode where you don't get an AI zombie to help you out when you're on the zombie side.
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When do you fucking think?
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Hmmm... I got Tomb Raider: Anniversary for free with my 4870. Is it even worth installing?
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I'd recommend it. It's 14 or so hours of wandering around huge, desolate, lonely tombs, getting lost, solving huge environmental puzzles and often challenging platforming.
The combat is awful, however.
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you know, in that regard- aside from the combat and the wonky camera- the Tomb Raider series is usually not all that bad. mediocre at best, but not horrible.
but man it is an awful, awful camera...
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Hell yes. It's the greatness of the original with new bells and whistles added that don't detract from the core gameplay.
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It's almost hard to recall, at this point, that the original Tomb Raider was, in its time, well, quite good given the trail of refuse one is compelled to follow back through this series' history to reach its own original release.
It even supported hardware 3D rendering (?!?!?!) on my Matrox Mystique, howbeit soon to be upgraded via an Orchid Righteous 3D (the first 3DFX Voodoo to be released).
The environments were rather awe-inspiring at the time. Perhaps it's worth a trip back.
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Seriously, I was blown away by Anniversary. It had everything I loved about TR, but with spiffy new graphics and some new mechanics that added to the challenge (and, thankfully, more save points).
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For years and years I kept playing the TR series, and kept saying that the gameplay on the first one was always the best, and hoped that someday they might remake it with better graphics. This they eventually did with Anniversary, but sadly they screwed up the levels and put in new mechanics that ruined the challenges.
It ended up like remaking scrabble with 8 new letters and no vowels.
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OMFG YOU HAD AN ORCHID!?
I suspected those things didn't even exist, that they were just ads, taunting, tantilising, teasing me for never EVER having enough money for one as long as I live.
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NO, get an nvidia instead.
Oh, you meant the game? shrug
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meh to your fanboyisms! The 4870 was the sweet spot price and performance-wise.
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Brian: What are you playing?
Tim: Tomb Raider 3.
Brian: She's drowning.
Tim: Yeah.
Brian: Is that the point of the game?
Tim: Depends what mood you're in really.
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Yahtzee seems really tired and not as enthused as he usually is.
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well how enthusiastic could he be? It's the... whatever the x of Tombraider game (I've lost count somehow...) and honestly the only reason I played it for was tits and that only lasted 2/3 rds of the way through the second level, then I simply gave up - one of the few games I've never finished, this one out of boredom.
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Well usually, even for games he hates, he loves to hate them and you can hear it in his voice. This review just seemed slower and lacked the usual punch he has.
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Uh oh.
OUR YAHTZEE IS GETTING OLD!
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"Innovation is to Tomb Raider what a cheeseburger is to a lactose intolerant Hindu" - Zero Punctuation, how I love thee.
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Michael Atkinson is a fossil who deserves your disrespect.
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Am I the only one, who can not get the Zero Punctuation movies to play since the site switched to the larger movie window?
All I get is this, clicking it does not start the video. Tried both Firefox and Opera on WinXP SP3, Flash Player v10.0.12.36
Edit: Works now. had to "Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer" in the Global Storage Settings panel
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Lol these comments are full of "DID ZP JUMP THE SHARK LOL" comments.
reddit fail
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Aw, you beat me to posting this by 11 minutes.
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It really doesn't matter.. Even if you got to it before he did everyone will downvote yours and upvote his. I wouldn't even try.
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That's the attitude.
That we downvote.
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You forgot to put on sunglasses
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Yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!
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Well, that isn't actually true - last time I was able to post before him he graciously entered his usual comment in my posting rather than post the story again.
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Psh, that's nothing. Once I was within a minute.
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One time somebody beat him and he resubmitted it with a question mark at the end of the url. He justified it by saying someone else did it to him with the MGS4 review.
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Another interesting one that happened to me was for the GTA IV review. MaximumBob and I must have submitted at exactly the same time, because both submissions got through with the same link. No question marks at all. I lost that battle too.
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It's zero punctuation, but there's punctuation in the title. hahaha, im so original.
Downmoddded out of tradition.
Upmodded for effort.
Oh, come on. It's a script.
So? It still took effort.
I modded the upmodder down and the downmodder up just to keep some kind of equilibrium.
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Upmodded to cancel your downmod.
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and an obligatory "what are you going to do when you run out of letters?"
Gain sexual superpowers, obviously.
Possible encounters:
"Hey baby, want to hear about what I did once? I used to post the same comment every week for over a year, adding a new link to each letter every time. How cool is that? Wait, where are you going? I haven't told you about how I totally whupped people at posting the new link first almost every week!"
it works better than you think
I think I've been playing Scrabble wrong...
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Murder Yahtzee.
Open one of his/her six mouths and sing the song that ends the world?
My personal favourite, that one.
Add extra punctuation one would assume.
He'll figure out how to put a hyperlink into empty space.
Start using the punctuation. That'll give him 6 more to work with.
and an obligatory "Oh, is it wednesday already?!"
Actually it's Thursday...
Maybe in your neck of the woods buddy, but round these parts it's posted at round 18:00, on a Wednesday, like God intended.
Stop living in the past man...
I like how he reminds us of his previous catchphrase with links to them in every comment he posts in regards to this whole Zero Punctuation thing, whenever a new episode is posted.
And yes I'm replying to jdfongs' comment without actually addressing him because I feel he is not human, but rather a crappy Yahoo Bot AI some 12 year old boy from Germany made one day, to get back at the Internet for making fun of Doom 3 back in 2004.
well, thanks for at least referring to me as a he instead of an it. Bots like to feel like humans too.
Arghhhh it's sentinent!
Stop trying to rip off Yahtzee's style.
lol i was wondering when someone would catch on.
I love you jdfong.
You've got low standards. I like that in a woman.
On Wednesday, July 1, jdfong will run out of letters.
What then?
I shit you not. I loaded this comment page and didn't see yours among the first few comment and quickly scrolled down because...well, I don't know, but it just didn't feel right not seeing you up there.
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