Zero Punctuation

The current logo for Zero Punctuation, featuring Yahtzee's cartoon avatar

Zero Punctuation is a video game review series created by comedy writer, video game journalist and gamer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw and produced by online magazine The Escapist. Each week's review is previewed on the Escapist Show the Tuesday before it is released on Wednesday in the Zero Punctuation section of the website. On August 5, 2009, the series reached its 100th review.

Background

The series began after Croshaw created two video reviews, one for The Darkness demo for the PlayStation 3 and the other for Fable: The Lost Chapters for the PC and uploaded them on YouTube. The Escapist contacted Croshaw and offered him a contract shortly thereafter.

Format

In his videos he usually reviews a recent game or games using rapid-fire speech delivery (which was the inspiration for the name "Zero Punctuation", although he states that his fast talking was "by accident"). This is accompanied by minimalistic cartoon imagery on a distinctive yellow background, illustrating what is being said or providing ironic counterpoint to it. The videos are typically around five minutes in length and formerly featured commercial songs at the beginning and end, which were usually related to the game context (although sometimes only tangentially, such as Croshaw using Dave Matthews Band's Crash Into Me for the Burnout review), while some other reviews have the opening song's tempo totally opposite of the actual game (such as Leslie Gore's Sunshine, Lolipops and Rainbows for the overtly dark and violent game Manhunt). These have since been replaced by a single, standard opening sequence consisting of clips from past reviews and guitar music. The end credits often feature humorous notes about Croshaw's reviews such as "systematically alienating every type of fanboy" in GTA IV, and often also contain characters from the review engaging in slapstick.

Croshaw, who uses his "Yahtzee" nickname while reviewing, appears in the videos wearing a trilby (much like the main character of his Chzo Mythos games). A recurring character in the videos is a small imp-like creature (who also appears in one of the Zero Punctuation logos) who usually plays various supporting roles in the video as either the antagonist or the sidekick, often taking the place of enemies in the game being reviewed. The imp is in fact a stylized version of a "darkling" from the first game Yahtzee reviewed, The Darkness, that he referred to as an "Evil Imp".

Critical style

Croshaw, more often than not, provides highly critical reviews of games, usually pointing out the faults he implies reviewers ignore in high-profile releases. His reviews are frequently hostile to critically and commercially successful releases—such as Halo 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Metal Gear Solid 4—and he occasionally states that he expects provoked e-mails from the series' devoted fans, at one point devoting an entire episode to responding to hate mail stemming from a negative Super Smash Bros. Brawl review. He also provides negative reviews of less popular games, such as Sonic Unleashed and Haze, and also tends to shun certain genres of games or certain overused conventions in gaming, such as JRPGs, fighting games, MMORPGs, Nintendo continually remaking its old franchises of Mario/Metroid/Zelda, as well as recently claiming that the Wii's control scheme will just be a short-lived gimmick, and his "old arch-nemesis" Quick Time Events (which at one point in his Uncharted: Drake's Fortune review he devoted a short live-action part of the review to directly addressing developers on the flaws of their use).

The reviews are not universally negative, as he has praised games such as Silent Hill 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Portal. Croshaw started his review of BioShock by acknowledging that "despite all the horrible things I'm about to say, it's still probably one of the best games of the year", but spent the rest of the review harshly criticizing it, saying "no one likes it when I'm being nice to a game" (referring to his positive review of Psychonauts).

He also often raises popular topics related to video games, such as criticism of Attorney-General Michael Atkinson for his opposition to mature-rated games in Australia, where he currently resides, and topics not related to video games, often for humorous purposes, such as Branston Pickle and the United States government.

Croshaw cites the work of British television critic and PC Zone journalist Charlie Brooker as the "main inspiration" for his own reviewing style, as well as the writings of Douglas Adams, Sean "Seanbaby" Riley, and Old Man Murray's Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw.

See also

• List of Zero Punctuation episodes

External links

• Zero Punctuation at The Escapist
• Fully Ramblomatic, Ben Croshaw's personal website