What we Were Missing: Zero Punctuation

One thing I love about the gaming industry is that it seems to have an almost infinite amount of space to take this piss out of itself. Gamers are happy to laugh at each other, dress up as characters and mess around or generally have fun singing and playing air guitar with our mates. Unless of course you are a “serious” gamer or a “fanboy” in which case you’re still really funny because we’re [real gamers] laughing at you.

Anyway one of my Twitter Fellows, good web chap called Rhys Wynne, put me onto a little gem of a “professional” gaming reviewer who goes by the handle of Yahtzee and writes in a column he calls Zero Punctuation.

Now it has to be said in advanced this is probably best enjoyed on headphones if near anyone who is a wimp (or at work) but if you enjoy the  Penny Arcade trashing gamers humour I promise you will enjoy these. Basically Zero Punctuation reviews (well at least talks about) game release that are accompanied by simple, but almost infinitely funny little 2D cartoons. His over the top critical style is awesome and reminds of that old Kingdom Hearts vs Resident Evil 4 youtube vid that did the rounds a while ago.

The reviews are generally funny because they are (at least partially) grounded in truth and Yahtzee’s blend of  pop culture references, fast talking dialogue and British style complaining humour (think of a cross between Douglas Adams, Frankie Boyle and an issue of GamesMaster) really strikes a chord with me.

In my opinion it’s all made twice as funny because of English humour references (pick up on football results readings, UK postcodes and more) and the fact he now lives in Austgrailia and therefore has to play watered down versions of a lot of the games or wait ages for PAL conversions.

Generally reviews are around 5 minutes long (which is perfect we all hate over blown bullshit reviews) and if you’re really picky about language or spoilers then maybe don’t go watching them all. I have literally yet to find one of them not funny and I have pretty much caught up with them all. My hat off to this guy and I will paying close attention to him in the future.

I feel gutted that I have not come across this before so sorry if we look a little behind the times on this one. A few picks of my favourites below;