I'm just enthused out of my face...

December 19, 2008 1:15 PM

Perennial MeFi favourite Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, the behatted ex-pat brit best known for the bitingly sarcastic game reviews in Zero Punctuation (previously on MeFi) has a new project...

...and some friends, apparently. Teaming up with Guy "Yug" Blomberg and Matt "Matt" Burgess of the AustralianGamer podcast (upon which Yahtzee has previously been a guest), the three Australian-based game lovers have produced GameDamage, a pilot episode of a game review- preview- and humour- show.

More ambitious than the usual 5-minute video podcast, the pilot runs as a half-hour TV magazine show format ranging from on-the-sofa interaction between the three hosts, cutaway pre-recorded monologues, skits (of varying quality, to be honest) and a grand prize* competition...

The makers have made it clear that this is not "Zero Punctuation TV", nor do they have any desire to make it so, but are instead going for a wider web-based or even true TV audience, if the pilot drums up enough interest.


*For certain values of "Grand Prize", that is...

posted by Nice Guy Mike (30 comments total)

(Jesus Christ, you almost gave me a heart attack. For whatever reason, when I read the beginning of this post I thought this was gonna be obitfilter.)
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:25 PM on December 19, 2008

I would just like to say that Zero Punctuation makes me want to have Yahtzee's children. Even though I am already a gaming widow. (Hi liquidindian!)
posted by mippy at 1:27 PM on December 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I like Yahtzee a lot, mainly for saying things that need to be said (and very quickly at that), so I really don't want him to have too much success.

You see, right now he swaggers with exactly the right amount of full-of-himself, so if he gets too much head inflation, I fear the entertainment will be overshadowed by pontification.

And tits.
posted by rokusan at 1:35 PM on December 19, 2008

It kinda reminds me of The Totally Rad Show (which I LOVE) but not as good (sorry Yahtzee..i still love zero punc though)
posted by ShawnString at 1:35 PM on December 19, 2008

Ah, but will it best Videogaiden? That contains both videogames and Scottishness. (Hi, liquidindian!)
posted by mippy at 1:38 PM on December 19, 2008

Zero Punctuation is an excellent set of 3 minute game reviews.

This... this isn't very good, I'm afraid.
posted by JDHarper at 1:46 PM on December 19, 2008

This is garbage and on his best day Yahtzee couldn't hope to carry Seanbaby's toiletries bag when it comes to being funny about video games.
posted by Damn That Television at 1:50 PM on December 19, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I really enjoy Zero Punctuation but I tolerated about two and a half minutes of this. Everything - the set, production, the copy and delivery by the, uh, panelists, just seemed a little too much on the shoddy side. What makes Zero Punctuation work is the tightly edited, rapid-fire pace of the dialog combined with the torrent of blink-and-miss-them visual puns of the animations. Does it pick up later in? Any time-stamped highlights?
posted by nanojath at 1:50 PM on December 19, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Though i am a big fan of the single-serving Zero Punctuation reviews, this pilot started grinding on my nerves after about 10 minutes.

It's one thing to be contrarian on solid, factual grounding, but another thing altogether if you're just whining all the time and wrong -- In this case Yahtzee was both. Outside the indie game bit, he had scant one positive remark in the entire show, and reported multiple inaccuracies regarding Fable 2. He claimed that he didn't like it because there wasn't the old 'go slay dragons' thing he expected (from where did this expectation come from, anyway?) and that that you needed to have a job in the game... which if true would have been a seriously negative thing... but it's not true and well i'm just not that thrilled. Yes, i did love Fable 2 but i don't think he had much of anything worthwhile to add to any segment of this episode.

Let the other guys talk more, and reign in Yahtzee's negativity shtick about 15% and this show might get a deal.
posted by phylum sinter at 1:56 PM on December 19, 2008

fail
posted by b1tr0t at 2:08 PM on December 19, 2008

None of those guys know how to handle themselves in front of a camera. All excessive emoting, or dead stares. It drove me nuts. I couldn't get more than a quarter through it before I got tired of the couch dudes tittering incessantly as Yahtzee talked.
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:14 PM on December 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I wanted to enjoy this, but it wasn't good. They need more practice in front of the camera.
posted by voltairemodern at 2:27 PM on December 19, 2008

I can't imagine watching the whole thing, the first 10 minutes felt like an hour.
posted by cell divide at 2:30 PM on December 19, 2008

exactly one minute to a python reference.
posted by boo_radley at 3:00 PM on December 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

my god, "Yahtzee" has a face made for radio and his sidekicks have slightly less charisma than dick cheney. nobody would spring for a production deal? not even the cable tv station somewhere near channel eight-hundred? might there be a reason?

this feels like a show that would love to be charlie brooker's screenwipe but just isn't anything more than a local-access tv show on the proper catbreeding hosted by three elderly dogs.
posted by krautland at 3:05 PM on December 19, 2008

and yet, it could reboot G4, I think.
posted by boo_radley at 3:05 PM on December 19, 2008

I watched it, I like zero punctuation because its insightful and funny, I don't like this. It isn't funny. It isn't much of anything. The part about the evolution of adventure games was worthwhile, but that was it. In order to see that you had to watch Master Chief clowning around like goofy from Disneyland. The fact that their ideas for repeated segments are so piss poor doesn't bode well either.

It needs to be scripted yahtzee is a funny comic writer and a good critic. I could see a review show where the show a trailer for a game, talk about what they thought of the game, had some other stuff, talked about the industry, and had an american idol like back and forth with yahtzee playing the simon cowell to another cast members sober paula abdul..
posted by I Foody at 3:08 PM on December 19, 2008

I love Zero Puntuation and I don't even play computer games at the moment...

However this is just hideous... it's sooo amaturish. Either learn your script, get an autocue or just wing it... don't glance down at your notes every five seconds. A decent microphone might help too. And the camera with the red light? That's the one you are supposed to speak to.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:17 PM on December 19, 2008

No videogames reviewing was ever as good as Digitiser. As someone who hasn't bothered to play games since her parents stuck the SNES in the loft, it was required readng.
posted by mippy at 3:27 PM on December 19, 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitiser#Regular_characters

Oh. man./
posted by mippy at 3:30 PM on December 19, 2008

I miss Bits
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:44 PM on December 19, 2008

Not very good. Much too long. If it's not actually been commissioned, it's really a "pilot presentation," which is a shorter version of the show used to sell the concept, which would then land them a "pilot," which is commissioned by a network.

The general rule on pilot presentations is shorter is better - longer than a trailer, but much shorter than a real episode - more like 6 minutes than 30. This was actually LONGER than a 1/2 hour TV show actually is (28 minutes vs. American TV at 22 minutes), and horribly amateurish.

None of them should be in front of the camera. There's a reason they hire stupid beautiful people to read the text written by uncharismatic smart people. It makes better TV.
posted by MythMaker at 4:19 PM on December 19, 2008

I love yahtzee, but that sucked.
posted by empath at 4:58 PM on December 19, 2008

Mmm ... I enjoy Zero Punctuation, but as full-out entertainment, rather than any kind of actual review. (A reviewer isn't very helpful if he doesn't like any of the stuff he's reviewing, at all, ever.) This? This, not so much.
posted by Amanojaku at 8:49 PM on December 19, 2008

A reviewer isn't very helpful if he doesn't like any of the stuff he's reviewing, at all, ever.

He liked Fallout 3. And, uh...hm.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:33 PM on December 19, 2008

voltairemodern: Also all the games from the Orange Box, especially Portal. And some polish FPS that no one has ever heard of.
posted by absalom at 9:16 AM on December 20, 2008

And Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:17 AM on December 20, 2008

He loves Painkiller.
posted by graventy at 6:41 AM on December 21, 2008

He liked Braid
posted by cj_ at 7:30 AM on December 22, 2008

(And has more than once sang the praises of Psychonauts)
posted by cj_ at 7:31 AM on December 22, 2008