The failure of Shadow of Mordor and the industry not expanding on its good ideas is 100% down to Warner Bother squatting on the patent for the nemesis system. It's a good case study for why we shouldn't allow companies to patent game mechanics.
@@TheRedGauntlet To add to what you said. We can even say that this will lead to really bad situation when more companies do it and it will be seen as patent trolling by videogame companies (and many defend Nintendo).
@@TheRedGauntlet I agree in general, but at least in the Palworld case those devs knew exactly what they were doing. Colorful anime creatures that you capture by throwing a ball at them, and then it waggles a few times before it succeeds? They were piggybacking off the branding of Pokemon, that’s what Nintendo really cared about.
@@jcace13 Warframe's Lich system was directly inspired by it, though it's fundamentally different on a mechanical level (partly due to not wanting to tread on the WB patent crap, partly to fit with Warframe's mission structure). It's a bit too involved to lay out in a comment, but it's basically an escalating series of high level encounters that end in either killing the lich for a rare weapon and extra goodies, or recruiting the lich to your spaceship crew and having them available as emergency backup in missions.
I also recall him having a major change of opinion about Persona/SMT, once he actually sat down and played one. Even changed his mind about P4 and realized it was good after all.
Bioshock infinite came after a long streak of escort quest games that the person you escort was nothing but a hinderance. Having a useful companion was revolutionary in my memory.
There's plenty of old games that had an AI-controlled companion that weren't total morons. Half-Life 2: Episode One came out at least six years before Infinite. Alyx is extremely powerful on her own.
I remember everyone gushing about Infinite when it came out, including Yahtzee. When I finally sat down to play it, I found it to be incredibly average. Very disappointing.
"I am a helpless child, please protect me instead of sucking out my mutation juice." Okay whatever kid, I guess. "I found a nickel. Heads up!" I will throw myself onto bullets for you.
6:50 Oh Yahtzee, please tell me you didn't actually wear a fedora at your wedding. Also, the Zero Punctuation design being how you represent your past self is very cute.
I get it. Hell if I got famous wearing the Chuck-E-Cheese head I would probably have gotten married in that. It probably paid for the wedding after all, may as well have fun with it!
@@scott4398 How great would it have been though if he got John St. John to officiate the ceremony? Not sure how his wife feels about Duke Nukem though.
no, i think there's a valid point being expressed. story to those people is like icing on a cake. bad icing can be scraped off and ignored while you just focus on enjoying the cake. good icing can be enjoyed alongside the cake. but the cake is what they're actually here for at the end of the day.
@@thef1rmament that’s a really good way of summing it up. I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite because it was entertaining and fun to play (good cake), despite the bizarre, disjointed story (bad icing). If a game has a bad story, but is fun to play, then it’s a good game in my book. If it has a great story, but is no fun to play, then I’m probably not finishing it. Or in other words, good story is a bonus, but not essential for my enjoyment. But each to their own.
@@puresport9 the defining aspect of games as a medium is that they're interactive. story isn't inherent to them; pong didn't have a narrative. multiplayer shooters often don't have a narrative. the point being expressed is that you don't need a strong story for a good game.
I remember in the Skyrim review he said these big open world games were what the AAA studio's should focus on, since it's all they were good at. Cue the Ubisoft Monkey's Paw: "You want fries with that?"
@@junebunchanumbers AAA has kinda always done that, they latch on to one big "selling point" and keep making the most watered down, souless varieties of it over and over and over until some other dev makes something actually interesting then they all latch onto what they think is the defining feature(while not understanding why it worked) and make us sick of it as well.
@@1Raptor85 Part of the problem is that AAA-level games are now so ungodly expensive to make that studios can't afford to be daring. Not when they're spending more money than the GDP of a small country just to make a single game. In hindsight, I think one of the reasons the 6th Gen was so great - and still has so many classics - is that it was at a nearly perfect sweet spot of having graphics that were good enough to accomplish most directors' visions, but development was still generally cheap enough that it didn't deter creativity.
This video is somewhat related to a point I've had rattling around in my head. That being, i wonder how Yahtzee, a man who is known for his dislike of nostalgia and more precisely the eternal wallowing in it, feels about the fact that a significant portion of his audience have nostalgia for him. This video for many viewers will be an exercise in nostalgia, looking back at some of the things Yahtzee said over a decade ago.
I don't think there's anything wrong with a yearly "Best Game of the Year" list aging strangely, because context does matter. Sometimes something novel can be good simply because of the novelty, and as other games iterate on it (or drive it into the ground), it can make the original look quaint (or nauseating) in hindsight. It's only when something does something novel AND is great in its own right that it doesn't age poorly... or if nobody actually bothers iterating on the formula because it was so good in the first place that trying to do so is suicide (e.g. Portal 2)
I'm always skeptical when someone says "This game/movie/TV show that just came out is one of my favourite things of all time!" because... is it? Or are you just still caught up in the hype?
@@Irisverse It probably is their favorite thing, until the next favorite thing of all time comes out. I would be skeptical if they called it "the best", but "my favorite"? Like, why am I questioning if they sincerely enjoyed it? Maybe they just have crappy tastes. At the end is better to give it a try (or a closer look) and form your opinion by yourself
This is exactly how I feel about Far Cry 3. I absolutely adored it at the time and still generally think of it fondly, but it set the standard for some of the most tired, played-out open world mechanics that it's hard not to kind of resent it now. At the time it felt new and fresh, but looking at it 12 years later (Jesus) it definitely feels like patient zero for open world bloat.
@@ducky36F I still don't quite understand WHY it's been so polarized as of late. It was an objectively well-made game, it's plot twists aren't any more confusing now than they were in 2013, the characters are still endearing, and its broad criticisms of American exceptionalism is still painfully relevant. I think it may just be a victim of the "culture war" of certain gamers insisting games are somehow "woke" for having Black or non-cis/straight people in them. I imagine those people get quite a shock when the shooty shooty game they bought off of good reviews turns out to have an entire subplot about racism.
I was very confused as to why I hadn´t played much of Wolfenstein: TNO until you reminded me that FTL was also released in 2014 - Now it makes perfect sense
Ten years down the line, I'm pretty sure it's still my most played game this year. Granted, I've been playing the multiverse mod which is basically an unofficial sequel in scope, but that still says a lot for its status as a classic
I find it so hard to comprehend FTL came out in 2014. I feel like it's always been part of my life. Wait, what's that? It came out in 2012? There you go - it's always been part of my life! Joking aside, it actually unironically has always been a part of my children's lives. Many were the evenings when my pregnant wife was passed out on the couch and I was sitting beside her playing FTL, thinking of how my firstborn will probably learn this entire soundtrack even before she's born. And I still listen to it even when I'm not playing the game.
"Better than it has any right to be" is so true of New Order's writing on both the basic "this is a video game about shooting Nazis" level and on the "this story unironically and in complete seriousness involves a Nazi moonbase" level. Also, I'm solidly in the camp that Arkham Asylum is the best of the series. Moving to open world design involved changes that significantly undermined the pacing and sense of progression the first game had.
Hugo Strange is pretty wasted as a villain though :/ that's like the one real big flaw, strange being built up as the big bad only to spend msot of the game not doing anything and then dying in a cutscene without even a boss fight, and instead make it about the JOKER AGAIN
Wolfenstein New Order (and New Colossus by extension) are a master class in having what, on its surface, is an absolutely wild plot (those wacky nazis and their secret moon/venus/whatever bases and lasers!) but has excellent writing and acting and still *SOMEHOW* manages to remain... actually kind of grounded? You *should* be getting whiplash from the insane shifts from tight, small character moments into... idk... "protagonist literally gets beheaded and then slapped onto a supersoldier body like he's changing a tire" and yet it never really hits. It makes Youngblood even more depressing, since its failure probably killed the likelihood of a third entry. I think New Order is better, in general, than New Colossus but I think both are excellent and well worth playing.
Arkham Asylum had the best gameplay and the best story. It was a tightly designed game where Batman beating the hell out of every goon made sense - he was one man against an army of criminals, and fighting his way out of Arkham. Not only do the sequels lose that element, they also drift further and further away from the more comic-accurate roots of the original game.
In Yahtzee’s defense, he did have trouble deciding between his top two games in 2013 and 2014, (which I imagine is why he started making bland lists in 2015) and he did specifically say that Skyrim was on his 2011 list because of peer pressure. On another note, is Yahtzee planning to do retrospective rankings of his bland picks from 2015 to 2024?
@@E1craZ4lifeYahtzee picks the top 5 blandest games by going over his list of games he’s reviewed this year and pruning it down to just the ones he doesn’t remember reviewing.
I've wanted a bland list ranking too I've made list but 2024's hasn't been decided yet (though I have a good guess) And I'm a little unsure of how No Man's Sky should be in that ranking
I kinda like the idea of Yahtzee revisiting his top 5’s from years prior. Showing how long he’s been a voice in the industry and how his thoughts have changed
There's a great quote that, rather unfortunately, comes from MovieBob. I can't remember exactly where so I'm paraphrasing. "The worst part about the information age is that it doesn't let information age" It used to be that as a particular piece of media, say an article in a newspaper, got older, it would be harder and harder to find. There was a difference between new and old media. But now, a video made ten years ago is just as accessible as one made yesterday. Make no mistake, this is absolutely a good thing. But it leads to the impression that all these videos are just as current and relevant, and they're not.
@@blahthebiste7924 We're supposed to dislike MovieBob either because he used to tweet about how much conservatives suck, or because he doesn't like Halo. I think.
Thing is, it does. Information does age. Data dies on the internet all the time. Just not at the same rate. Some things from 30 years ago are still possible to find. Some disappear after 4 years, never to be found again.
@@TheRedGauntletthe hopes and possibilities of what that game could’ve been, four different fighting styles with Arkham combat and INTERESTING BOSS FIGHTS, vs the painful reality hurt so god damn bad.
Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were both excellent, in their own individual but connected ways. Then they took the series from Rocksteady, thinking that they could do better for cheaper and shat out Arkham Origins, which was a buggy mess. Rocksteady came back for Arkham Knight, but stupidily farmed out the PC version to be converted by a team of total incompetents, which saw the PC version removed from sale! Apparently, Arkham Origins has been all but disowned from the series now, with it being called a trilogy comprising of Asylum, City and Knight. I my opinion, Asylum was superb, with a great story and path through the game. City was fun in that you could explore Arkham City at your whim, but it lost the tight storyline due to that. The other two are best left forgotten
@@dahn57 Despite the online pass, I really tried to like Arkham city. But I found the character specific trophies depressing because I rented the game from my library. The reason I really stopped playing was when I got sick of the repetitive multiple hit combat system. You could FEEL each hit in Asylum's combat and turning Batman into a DBZ-esque machinegun attacker felt like watching Bruce Lee sparing for points.
How can Bioshock: Infinite have been a polarizing game? Elizabeth has cameoed in approximately five million "independent animation projects" since its release. Seems to me everyone must really love that character!
I wasn't a fan of the third act and ending. Elizabeth was a great character though, and the first half of the game was phenominal. Yes, the Rule 34 community loves Elizabeth >_>
It had a massive identity crisis, nonsensical literal plothole-ridden story, and awful characters, especially Elizabeth, it's frankly insulting to even label her as a character with little she actually did or mattered to anything.
Honestly even that kinda feels so quaint compared to the likes of D.va claiming the champion belt 8 years running, putting up numbers like Micheal Jordan of SFM.
apparently those "indie animation projects" also basically reshaped the face of indie 3d animation. Like Elizabeth is the reason there had been so much innovation in the field in the 2010s
I really loved the idea for this video, it's nice for someone to critically approach their past and come to sometimes uncomfortable but always self-improvement centered conclusions. Would love to see more of those in the future Yahtzee!
Yeah. I have seen plenty of game reviewers just go "ew my old videos were cringe" but they never actually confront why they feel that way. It's refreshing to hear someone actually explain how their opinions have changed rather than just brushing it off as being inexperienced.
@@Guymanbot97 Yhatzee is the type to maybe just avoid looking backwards, but when he does he does take a view of what has really changed in the time between then and now and what the differences add up to.
It's something he's always struggled with so video like this doing it quite nice to see. His old Ego Reviews on his channel are a prime example of how much he dislikes looking back on his past opinions and works. For example, I imagine if someone pointed out his old views on having kids he'd be dissapointed in himself. Though I imagine Gabe is happy to see he was right about Bioshock Infinite and kids changing Yahtzee.
@0parko9 I think he has admitted in the past his opinions on kids basically boiling down to "Yeah turns out your thoughts on that change when you get older".
I think it's fair to say that a given game was your favorite of the year as of the year it came out, but not any more. Like "This was my favorite game of 2015, as of 2015," versus "This is my favorite game of 2015, as of 2024." Tastes change, games age differently, there are culture shifts, etc... It doesn't mean you were wrong at the time, it just means your preferences changed for whatever reasons. You have to judge a choice based on the information you had at the time, not on the information you have now.
As a man who care about good writing id suggest giving Fallout : New Vegas another go. I remember your old video on it was all about how it was basically fallout 3 with roleplaying but didnt delve into the story , or writing or dialog at all. Its not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but really is a well written, well thought out game.
Its also a breath of fresh air after Dragon Age Veilguard where you're not allowed to be evil. In New Vegas, every human NPC is killable. You can be post-apocalyptic Jason Voorhees if you want.
If you want a (completely justified and thoroughly explained) Glaze Fest of New Vegas, I highly recommend HBomberGuy’s video on it. I promise it’s excellent.
@@IzunaSlap but what I love about it is that all factions have justifiable motivations. Like you think ceaser is the worst , and he is , but when you talk to him he gives valid criticisms of the ncr and house and why he feels his ideology is the best at the moment and and brings up Hegelian dialectics in the conversation. It’s fantastic
@@dermboss402 I wouldn't say that makes him justifiable, just the fact that there are many factions in the fallout universe that exist and thrive without having to resort to pure barbarism like Caesar's Legion kind of makes him irredeemable (not to mention him being willing to put his own philosophy aside the second it comes to saving his own life). But he is a villain with an actual philosophy, and that makes him leagues more interesting than 90% of Bethesda's characters.
Outer Wilds has become one of the most polarizing games of the past few years. If you are not its target audience, then all the praise it gets from people who ARE its target audience and all the "YOU SHOULD PLAY THIS!" gets _really_ annoying to the point where it entrenches the mentality of "I will never play this game because even if it IS good, I'll probably be disappointed that it didn't bring about world peace and cure cancer" overhype.
Nahhh I think it wasn't for him but his Outer Wilds take was fair. The process of resetting, determining what you need to know, determining how to learn it and then actually _doing_ it is a cycle of gameplay that takes some adjustment and is very easy to fuck up. If someone doesn't vibe with it they might as well ignore the game entirely. It completely makes sense to me that he gave it a "good idea but doesn't work for me" rating.
@@SimuLordAh yes, the Undertale special lol (I actually love that game so I really should get around to playing Outer Wilds as a fan of Space in general)
Outer Wilds is a genius game, but it really requires a lot of very specific skills that not everybody has. Like I watched it on TH-cam--and still had to look away regularly to avoid getting violently ill. Lots of areas depend on you having reasonably good direction sense, often in three dimensions. So even if you're the right *sort* of person for it, it's entirely possible for it to be either a slog or just flat out unplayable. But I don't think it can or should change anything to fix that--it's just not going to be on everybody's top list.
@@jimmyjohnson501 Oh, don't get me started on Undertale. If you don't click with the game's core conceit (that it's going to aggressively deconstruct every trope in the genre and quite a few from outside it as well), you're not going to enjoy the experience. It is the most postmodern video game ever made, and on an artistic level it's a masterpiece, but played straight as a video game it's...wellllllll...kinda mid. This is also why anyone who says that Undertale should be the game you use to get someone into gaming who isn't already an avid gamer needs to take their meds and lie down for awhile. That's like showing Pulp Fiction to someone who's never seen a movie.
As someone who recently played Fallout 3 and NV for the first time, I wonder if Yahtzee still thinks NV is just a DLC sequel. Because playing both games back to back really showed me how many improvements Obsidian made to the world, RPG choices and general gameplay. Its the far better game imo
Especially when you take into account the absolute raw deal Obsidian got. When you consider that they were given 18 months to make the game using an engine they had zero familiarity with, that fact there was even a game released at all is a shock - the fact that it's better than FO3 is almost every single aspect makes it all the sweeter, and all the sadder that they didn't get the metacritic scores Bethesda required of them.
I said at the time that "New Vegas made Fallout 3 look like it had been made by apes." (a line I stole from P.J. O'Rourke; I forget his original context.)
Considering how he says in this video that it's the Bethesda jank that keeps him from enjoying them as much as other people, and that jank was absolutely inherited by that project, I'm gonna guess he wouldn't have revisited the game on his own. If his opinion on New Vegas has done any shifting, it would be because a friend or colleague sat down with him and made him give it another go.
The mark of a good journalist/opinion giver is the ability to look back at what they once did, admit they might have been wrong, and "update", change, or analyze their opinion. So cheers for that Yahtz.
This is a refreshingly healthy view from a professional game critic. No that's not a backhanded compliment. I think it's...interesting? to take stock of all the games in a given year, and I absolutely like your "best/worst/meh" framing model because it adds a lot of context about where the bar actually lies as to whether or not something is good or worthwhile to play. So I'm not saying that those are unworthy or not enjoyable (it's nice to take a romp with someone who is comfortable pointing out the elephant uncomfortably crammed into the room, and review why the feng shui is all jacked up) But I think it's just as valuable, possibly moreso, to periodically go back and review how well you think things have aged. I loathe Facebook, but I sometimes like to re-read my own longform pontifications on things because it's evidence of how I've grown and changed and have challenged my own ideas about stuff. So with that having been said, I can see the value in someone who does criticism professionally to go back and see how well their selections have aged. Figure...we remember the bad things adequately enough; they offended, irrritated, or disappointed us enough that they make us angry. And the "meh" versions get forgotten altogether. But were the things we thought were good, or said were good, as good as we remember them years later? Has our love of them shifted? Become tarnished? Become more deep and abiding? What does it say about them? Us? Where we all are now? I like this, Yahtzee. I hope you do, if not annual retrospectives, then at least this sort of thing more often.
So if I remember correctly, the reason no one has really iterated on Shadow of Mordor's nemesis system is that as soon as it dropped, Warner Brothers immediately patented the thing. Then when they screwed it up in Shadow of War and they stopped doing it no one was allowed to do it ever again. Edit: changed copyrighted to the more accurate patented
*patent and Monolith hasn't "stopped" using the Nemesis system. it's the only vaguely concrete thing we know about Wonder Woman. the problem (at least in their individual case) is that their next game has been in development hell for so long.
which to be fair Yahtzee did reference in the video. Right now the best you'll probably get with takes on the nemesis system is The Nemesis mod for skyrim.
@@MelMelodyWernereven if the WW game has been in development hell for a bit, it’s still frustrating that WB isn’t trying to cram the nemesis system into more of their games. I remember sometime around 2020 or so there were rumors it was going to be in some of their at the time upcoming games (like Gotham Knights) but that didn’t end up being a thing. The funny thing is, I remember hearing an argument that the Nemesis System could have been used to liven up the post game live service daily grind by potentially capturing more narrative focused players, but WB missed that opportunity.
Man I really have to say, this is genuinely one of my favorite videos of yours. It just felt very humble and insightful in a way most of your (extremely entertaining and funny) content doesn't really accomplish. I liked this side of you, I'd love to see more :)
I know most people couldn't care less about this aspect of Bioshock Infinite, but I despise it not for what it is but for what it isn't. It ISN'T the game we were advertised. The openness and freedom of those initial gameplay trailers and the knowledge that they were cut in part because the idiots they hire to playtest games couldn't handle such open combat arenas. They literally admitted they cut enough content to make a whole other game. That is fucked.
I'm always just a little bit shocked when people ask 'what was Bioshock Infinite about?' because (and granted I might be biased here because I do still love the game) it harps on it *constantly* throughout the story. Regardless of whether you're talking about Booker or Comstock, whether he's the man Slate lauds over when he talks about the glorious past, or the prophet of Columbia, he's _superficially_ characterised like a 'great man of history'. On the outside, Booker/Comstock is someone the history books would lionize and sugarcoat and talk about how much he changed things. On the personal level, though, Booker is a mess who has destroyed every person in his life who could've possibly cared about him, including himself. He still did all the things people say he did, but none of it made him happy and all it ever did was lead him to ruin. In every timeline, to the point where it doesn't even matter which one he's in, Booker poisons everyone and everything he could care about, and no amount of gilding can fix what is rotten underneath. I thought it was pretty clear that is was a critique on the myth of the American Man, that all the stories of the past of glory and good men are really stories of broken men doing evil things.
I think the issue is even in that explanation, you needed a paragraph to summarize it. Was the game about "the myth of the American" man? Is that a concept people are familiar with? "American Exceptionalism" is a definite thing, but there's a question of whether Infinite is about that considering Comstock makes such a big thing about seceding from the nation. BioShock was a very focused game, with a defined goal, easy to understand mechanics, and tight writing. What it was "about" (the question should probably be what was its "theme") is a critique of Objectivism. Love it or hate it, BioShock 2 is a pretty worthy sequel with another focused theme: a critique of Collectivism. Both games are about the evils of extremes and it makes sense both logically and narratively that after the laissez-faire capitalism of Andrew Ryan, the utopian socialism of Sofia Lamb would pop up in Rapture. In both games, the antagonist makes a compelling case for their personal outlook, but that's countered as the player sees the reality of the ruin of Rapture laid out before them. The problem with Infinite is that Comstock himself never makes an appealing case for American Exceptionalism. From the rampant racism and class inequality to the religious zealotry to the obsessive idolization of Comstock, Columbia never seems like an enticing place to live. And if the game is about the "Great Man Theory" (I think that's the concept you're referring to), that only really comes up in the Soldier's Field level. On top of that, there's a mystery at the heart of the gameplay that obfuscates the narrative. We aren't supposed to know that Booker is Comstock until VERY late into the narrative, and we aren't supposed to know much about Booker himself or his actions either. As it stands, while the previous games made an argument against the belief structure they were critiquing with each passing level, Infinite doesn't have the chance to do that. It hits you over the head with how awful a person Comstock is from the start all while you're trying to rationalize the wibbly-wobbly/timey-whiney quantum mechanics game mechanics, and then whoops! Turns out *you* and the 60-ish-year-old Comstock are the same person this whole time. Oh, and the plucky protagonist in the corset you've been developing an emotional attachment and maybe crush on, she's your daughter, you freak. Is it any wonder why people's heads start spinning when talking about the plot of Infinite? You're trying to keep up with all the narrative revelations and you don't care about the theme because you're not invested in Columbia's belief structure (because, no duh, enslaving people is bad, who's gonna defend that?) that by the end you're left wondering what was the point of what you experienced... especially when you compare the game to its predecessors. To clarify, your assessment of Booker's toxic qualities is correct and so is your indictment of the "Great Man Theory." The problem, I argue, is that Infinite doesn't make its case as gracefully as Bio1 and Bio2 do. It can't because it's hampered from the start: it needs to keep its secret about Booker and Comstock and the point of view of its antagonist is simply indefensible to most players.
My Top 5 favorite games of all time are as follows: 1) MGS3: Snake Eater 2) Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (GBC version, I haven't touched the remake) 3) Shadow of The Colossus (this has nothing to do with you. I first played it near release) 4) Far Cry 3 (This has a lot to do with you, but also to do with me getting my first decent gaming PC near it's release) 5) Thief 2 (This has everything to do with you. I never heard of it before your retrospective video on it) So thanks for introducing me to 2 of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Your opinions may change in time, but I appreciate you championing the good art you've found along the way.
Personally I've never been able to deal with the fact Yahtzee put PREY 2017 in his boring category for that year. That's my 'past Yahtzee is a loony'-moment right there. Glorious game, with admittedly a few less glorious flaws, but nothing that gets in the way of me appreciating just how dedicated they were to bringing the environment around you to life. I am a proud devotee of any game where I can sneak around people's offices reading their emails and catching up on gossip while five feet away a monster chews on their corpse. There are news things I have discovered in that game I had never seen even after half a dozen playthroughs.
I wanna make a video called “15 ways to open a door in PREY” that’s mostly about showing off all the wacky cool stuff in that game, from the foam dart gun working on touch screens to just “BLACK HOLE RECYCLING GRENADE.” I named my cat Morgan after the protag, that game is THE SHIT.
Honestly, if you're keen on it, go for it. I remember watching a video where the door was opened with a foam dart & it blew my mind. There I was thinking it was a cute, if useless toy, that video changed my understanding & made me replay the whole thing
The narrative is also so damn metatextual. I really expected Yahtzee to eat it up more. But yeah most of the game has a multi-layeredness that is hard to really appreciate during a rushed playthrough for a review.
I think based on how he's brought it up multiple times during more recent videos that he may have come around on it. Prey is a game that demands patience, that you stop and smell the roses, but when it's Go Time Go Go Beat The Game So You Can Review It that can make it hard to appreciate that, I'd imagine.
See the problem with Bioshock infinite for me is the opening dropped me into the middle of a clan meeting with a machine gun and told me to go nuts and then that part ended. That seriously could have been the whole game, it just never topped that for me.
@@letsBrn YES! And then they set up Daisy Fitzroy perfectly for the first half of the game then they do a character assassination so bad they had to retcon it away in ancillary media.
1:57, the whole "good writing can elevate whatever it's in" thing is also quite applicable to Bungie's Marathon trilogy. And yes, that is referencing recent Dev Heads guest MandaloreGaming, because most of the time the man really hits the nail on the head, when he's not escaping into the waves only to get trapped into his cycles of guilt.
@@virvum_cypher If you want to check out a game that takes the best parts of Marathon and marries it with Doom, I would recommend checking out Supplice. It's technically still being made, but the three episode currently released are pretty damn good, and they're working on a fourth episode as we speak.
@@GmodPlusWoW I've been playing Supplice as it comes out for almost a year now. Absolutely brilliant homage to Marathon 2. Glad more folks are discovering it!
@@virvum_cypher With any luck, even more will discover it when Episode 4 comes out. Partly since I assume that Episode 4 is going to be the grand finale.
One sign of wisdom is how self-aware and willing one is to admit their faults. Yahtzee shitting on himself is commendable and a decent argument to people who cry about him shitting on everyone else.
Thats why i like yahtzee, like with dark souls, he gave it one final try and eventually liked it and didnt just say 'this game bad because that was my initial impression was negative'.
I for one loved the way you talked about Dark Souls originally. The whole "getting blatted in the face with a rake" bit played on repeat in my head in my obligatory first playthrough slog through Undead Burg
Earlier this year you mused on whether "best game that made me feel sad," "...powerful," "...clever," etc. might be more interesting than a straight good/bad/bland ranking. I'm really hoping you give that some serious thought as the end of the year gets closer.
I still never quite thought you original review of New Vegas was fully in good faith. Although I also have to acknowledge that I can't overly blame you because they kept in some serious jank in a few places, like the screen-color-overlay-thing, going from green to orange and that's about it. Not even a proper sepia for a western feel. But you've also somewhat shifted your position on that in less official ways over time, without unnecessarily tooting a game with at least some DNA from a design style you don't like.
It's worth recalling that New Vegas didn't drop as an instant classic; it's launch was chaotic and it took ages for the post-launch patches to stabilize the game, so people didn't realize immediately how much they'd come to love the plot.
I might be a bit biased, but him calling New Vegas a DLC sequel seriously struck a nerve for me. I've played both NV and 3 and I'm not sorry for saying this, New Vegas blows 3 out of the water in terms of writing, role-playing, and story-telling. It's not close, like at all. There's a reason many consider it the pinnacle of Fallout.
@@AmericanBrit9834 Some of us just don't gel with the setting. I personally just don't 'get' the atmosphere, if that makes sense, while FO3 absorbs me.
@@LegendaryPlank I’ve heard the atmosphere argument and I’ll be honest, I’ve never understood it. I guess a way to put it is this. In 3 the story serves the map. The story is relatively bare-bones and only exists to get you out there. In NV, it’s the opposite, the map serves the story. The map tries to make sure you go to the locations you need to understand the scope and details you need to know about the land and conflict. I find story and writing to be of the utmost importance for an RPG, which Fallout is, and in that department NV easily wins although to me it is no longer the king, that would be Disco Elysium
I remember how skeptical people were of The New Order before it came out. They thought it was going to be more bland Call of Duty crap with the Wolfenstein name slapped on it. Then it came out and a LOT of people were pleasantly surprised by it. Its success helped pave the way for Doom 2016. Several of the developers were Starbreeze veterans who worked on Butcher Bay and The Darkness 1, and The New Order inherits much of that old Starbreeze magic.
Interesting story about Skyrim, that was the game that taught me to be mindful of how I feel about games instead of just mindlessly playing through them. I bought it ages ago, played through, and honestly had vaguely positive feelings about it... until I happened to glance at its steam page, saw over 100 hours, thought about it for a minute, and realized that I had been having actual fun for maybe five of those hours, and the rest had just been a mindless autopilot search for and consumption of content. I have been careful since then never to devote anything like that much time to another game unless I am actually engaging with it deeply.
Playing Dark Souls before Skyrim made me realize how much of a circlejerk games media is, generally speaking. The latter was getting so much praise that when I tried it for myself, it made me wonder if I was even playing the right game. It was easily the most disappointed I’ve ever been in a game, and I’m a Halo fan so that says something.
@@HypeWrecks Yeah, I don't really get the hype, honestly. Even before I really thought about it, my attitude was vaguely positive but nothing like the level of excitement that the game's reputation seems to indicate someone feels.
I would love to see videos like this for more recent picks. The years post-COVID especially, stuff changed a LOT in the industry even in such a short time.
Me too, even just in general. Yahtzee has been at it for a long time, so retrospectives and commentary on what ended up influencing trends or falling by the wayside would be great.
4:00 This is one of the most relatable things Yahtzee has ever put in a video - I wish more people were interested in what I have to say about Marvel's Midnight Suns, X-Men '97, and Andor.
Anytime someone talks to me about Disney+ shows, I look for a chance to bring up Andor as soon as possible. I was curious about X-Men '97, but hadn't actually looked into it much. I still want to check it out at some point.
Dude, Midnight Suns feels like a game that was made specifically for me and like 10 other people, and I will ramble about that shit for HOURS. 99.9% of gamers: Who the hell asked for this? .1%: GIVE ME THIS CRAZY SHIT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!
@ I looked up some guides to the game and saw you could go *deep* on customizing your decks, and I was astonished at how much thought some people put into the game. I found a difficulty level that felt just right for me and my level of commitment to min/maxing my characters, and I put in about 120 hours into the game. Then I said “you know, I should probably go play some other games”, so I went to the last level and beat the game. It was just so refreshing to play a game entirely on my owns terms. It was exactly how difficult, deep, and long as I wanted it to be.
I was just wondering how to word this when 5:39 came along. For all Young Yahtzee's irreverent aspirations, I think this explains much of what was going on '13 and '14 too.
You absolutely nailed how I feel about the Batman Arkham games. Asylum is probably just barely my favorite due to the tighter pacing and better atmosphere, but not by much. City is better to play and its story does far more interesting things with the characters. The whole series is really good (yes, even origins and knight) but city and asylum were probably the peak.
Yeah no folks can poop on Knight as much as they like, but the combat is as good & smooth as Arkham combat could fucking get, and I ADORE all the enemy types you have to deal with. The trilogy all have their strengths and weaknesses, and Origins just has weaker versions of all three’s best, it’s not BAD. (Also I get too much of a kick outta Chris Redfield Batman and Troy Baker Joker) And now I’m sad about Kill the Justice League again, THANKS FOR THAT!!!
The problem with Origins is that WB had another studio make it instead of Rocksteady, because they thought it was too long between City and Knight, and that studio screwed it up. And then they compounded that by farming out the PC port of Arkham Knight to a bunch of incompetent chimps who ruined that!
Asylum's biggest problem IMO is that the big set pieces are pretty weak: Not one good big boss fight. Scarecrow is not a fight, but counts as reasonable. Bit vompared to the Mr Freeze fight in City. it's all sadness
@@jorgemontero6384 I feel like bane and croc provide decent fights at least the first time through, though on replays they don't stand up. Plus Scarecrow brings the spectacle even if it's not a fight (the game crash fear gas section is super memorable) and the Ivy fight is one of the best in the series, maybe even top 5. Imo the thing that really undercuts asylum besides the systems not being as deep as city is the ending fights and the repeat titan fights.
@@thechevyferrari9559 Knight's combat systems i have a few complaints against (brutes have way too far attack ranges, and some flexibility is lost due to the added moves) but I really like the city and the sense of flow doing sidequests. I'm one of the few people who likes the batmobile tank fights, but I do see how most people find them irritating. Origins has some problems under the hood, but the story and boss fights are some of the best in the series. WB Montreal did a killer job with what they had.
Refreshing your opinions on things you like is always a good thing, I'd also recommend going back to a game from a different angle, like playing a different class, learning the weird weapon, or not using mimic tear it can give you a deeper understanding of the mechanics, or make you realize you don't really like the game, just that one cool ass character, who may or may not still exist if it's a game that gets frequent patches.
I'm more shocked that some of those best games can't even be bought anymore. Spec Ops, The Walking Dead (for a while), Driver San Fancisco, inFamous 2 (on modern hardware).
Not just gone and scrubbed from stores - if you have Driver SF in your steam library but never went through with Uplay activation, those servers are gone (ask me how I know...).
Specs Ops: The Line and Driver San Francisco are both backwards compatible on the Xbox Series X and Xbox One if you own their physical discs. Walking Dead returned and as for InFamous 2... It IS technically on PS5 and PS4, you just need a PS+ Premium subscription and have good enough internet connectivity to play it via streaming only. I actually did play it earlier this year in that manner and it actually worked pretty well. It's either a testament to my internet quality or Sony has actually been updating that "PS3 Game Streaming" functionality to improve connectivity to people. Either way, all still good games.
@@CepheidMadEngineer DSF has a community patch for the PC edition that allows you to play online with friends, there is even the same levelling and social systems ported to a public server you can connect to with a simple mod :)
Surprised more people don’t talk about how Wolfenstein: The New Order was the return of the “fast shooter” laying the groundwork for Doom 2016 and everything that followed.
For the Bioshock Infinite revisionism, I’d add that there was a contemporary narrative of Ken Levine as a challenging, polarizing auteur in the game development and narrative space that carried a lot of weight. I distinctly remember breathless coverage of the internal strife of the development team regarding the game’s critiques of organized religion, which had to have been pretty omnipresent if my dumb college self was hearing about it. Given that Ken Levine seems a lot less prominent in the space now (even if he is banging the same drums, as I think his newest game is literally called Judas), the game wobbles a little bit more without the developer’s persona to hold it up.
Good writing is not *necessary* in an otherwise good videogame, but it is always appreciated when we don't have to mash through dialogue and cutscenes to get to the 'good part', and all of it can be 'the good part'.
I personally would argue that good writing IS necessary for video games. Good writing can prove that video games can stand toe to toe with cinema and literature as a legitimate medium for storytelling.
@@thegwynbleidd4202 I couldn't care less about what movies and books are doing. Making a story good isn't about having a dick measuring contest with pretty, rich people. KOTOR and KOTOR 2 alone prove that games, narratively, have the chops to slaughter their movie equivalents. We proved it a long time ago, we can kick back and enjoy ourselves now.
Wolfenstein TNO contains both a level in a concentration camp and a level on the moon. By all rights it should be a tonal catastrophe. And yet, somehow, it works perfectly. Even the romance subplot feels just right! How often does that happen?
@@duffeknol Yeah, The Old Blood was good but it wasn't trying to strike such a delicate balance. The New Colossus tried and failed. It's not even bad- without such an excellent prior game it would probably be remembered fondly- but compared to The New Order it made things too juvenile.
It's trivial by comparison but one of the things I dislike about Bioshock infinite the most is only being able to carry 2 weapons. Feels like they felt the need to be a bit more 'realistic' in the wake of the 'realistic shootocalypse' we were going through in that era. When any game with firearms required 2 weapons only, iron sights and asthmatic sprint stamina.
Infinites gunplay was a straight downgrade from the prior titles. Two-weapon limit that both nerfs tactics and the usefulness of upgrading the wider arsenal, the stupid Halo regenerating shield combined with medkits being ditched, a largely uninspired lineup of Vigors, all on top of most of the enemies just not being that fun to fight.
Part of me wonders if that two weapon system came directly from 2k as part of pulling it out from development hell. "Oh there's a coding issue with the weapon selection? fuck you, you get two now." Ken Levine makes great games but from what i understand he has a bit of a mission creep issue and has said publicly that shipping the game is the worst part of game development. Levine would be remembered as one of the best game devs ever if he had an editor. Still going to be pre-ordering Judas tho. The man does interesting narrative design okay? Which sort of leads to the main criticism of Bioshock Infinite is that you can 100% see the stitch marks from where it was sown together from its constituent parts compared to what was teased prior to release. What was released was a great game stitched together from an amazing game that needed an editor and another year or two to cook properly. I mean there was obviously going to be more set in pre-downturn colombia with the city largely intact and the mechanical horses were wasted as set dressing. Also, who would've thought over a decade later of the three released bioshocks, two has aged the best?
@@richardhunter9779 I think the entirety of GTA IV is like a fine wine. I've gone back to play through it a few times now since it first released and it seems to get better every time.
Took you ten years but ftl faster then light FINALLY gets the praise it deserves. It's more then an (pix-and-mix) fruit machine. It's a atmospheric space survival adventure through a universe of possibilities. Better late than never.
Not necessarily. They could have been completely replaced with a nougat egg and that was indirectly responsible for the some of the greatest innovations that leads us into a new golden age.
Watching this reminds me of how few of my gaming opinions over the past 10 years are actually mine: aside from TUNIC, my opinion on that is that it is my game of the millennium and that nothing will ever be able to top that
If it makes you feel better Yahtz, I only watch your old videos because they’re freaking hysterical. I’ve honestly never really gone to your videos for opinions on games, usually because I like to get my own ideas. And at risk of sounding like a brownnoser, I applaud your introspection on your past game lists. Now I’m wondering, would you change any of your worst games lists? And I do like Bioshock Infinite, largely because it was the first narrative driven game I actually completed. I won’t argue with any problems that people point out, but I do still love it. Wolfenstein New Order is the bomb. I like Old Blood too, whatever its problems.
Honestly even after all these years I still love Bioshock: Infinite, even though I agree with many criticisms that have been made over the years. The absolutely stunning visuals and environments, ambitious Christopher Nolan-esque story, and an amazing ending that really sticks with you
I think part of the issue some games don’t hold up as well for us today is because they lose their shock and awe on the second go through. Skyrim is a great example of that, the first time is exciting and amazing (especially at the time) but that wears off after the first go so it’s not going to seem as good coming back to it. Similarly with Shadow of Mordor, we’ve gotten oversaturated with the genre and the tech has got better, it’s still a brilliant game in its time or in a vacuum but the market is absolutely flooded with subsequent clones, many of which have improved tech, which is definitely going to make SoM look poor on returning to it. The nemesis system is still unmatched thanks to the patent abuse, it’s terrible that what should have been a fantastic bit of design going forward has been shackled to the past. Just imagine how many games could have benefited from it?
Yeah, I think the perspective of the time is valuable in itself, no need to say it was "wrong" now. Games that hold up best now is a different list, you know? And tbh it almost feels like retroactively applying bias to the picks now that we know what everyone else thought since.
To be pedantic, The Secret of Monkey Island could be said to be a game about becoming a pirate, so you could still argue Black Flag being the best game about being a Pirate.
Also want details over this. Heard great reviews early on, and then it's years later that I hear that loads of people think it's terrible but since everyone agrees no one explains why.
i do still dive back in to 'skyrim' every once in a while, i just like how much content is in the game, how turning a corner unveils a new plot, even after 50 or 100 hours. that aside i did remember enjoying 'deus ex: human revolution' a lot more though as for 2013, i'd probably vote 'metro: last light', and 'divinity: original sin' for 2014
@Guymanbot97 what does the game do that you find unique or noteworthy for the game? All I can really think of is the little sister segment but that lasts like 2 minutes.
@@jamesross2279 I'm a simple man. If a sequel to an already good game is just more of that with some QoL changes and expansion, then I'm satisfied. Plus I'm just going to say it: the multiplayer was really good and the Minerva's Den DLC had the best writing in the franchise.
@@Guymanbot97These days is my favorite of the 3. I was already kinda sour on infinite in 2013, and that only got worse with time. 2 shot up with replays to the first place. It's a more concise game, and plays better than 1. Plus, if you wanna talk dlc, Minerva's Den is better than any Infinite dlc, which imo, retroactively made the game worse.
Bioshock Infinite is still great in my mind because 1) combat on Skyrails was awesome, 2) the Charge vigor was awesome for flinging yourself at enemies like Thor, and 3) decapitating cops with the Skyhook never gets old.
Interesting you should talk about this, because right now I started playing Shadow of Morder again, on the Steam Deck, and honestly the game is just so bloody satisfying! The late Total Biscuit said it best when he reviewed the game "the best Orc murdering simulator", or something along those lines. Sucks that WB patented the whole idea of the nemesis systems, but apparently game companies are just allowed to stifle innovation like that. Just look at Nintendo suing PocketPare about throwing your balls at the local wildlife.
I agree! Shadow of Mordor is just so fun, even now! Yes, it copied AC open world stuff and Arkham combat, but it did it better than they did! I think it's unfair to retroactively hate on an all-time-classic because the parent company made a crappy business decision. The developers of the nemesis system didn't patent it, and patenting the system doesn't make SOM any less of an amazing game.
I would genuinely love a video from your perspective of second screen games, I enjoy from: faster than light immensely and have dipped heavily into the modding scene of multiverse so I would love to know of more second screen titles you enjoy
I dunno. Maybe our impressions become more clouded the longer it has been since we played a game. They definitely get more clouded by the discourse and other context around it. "Oh you shouldn't like this, it became very commonplace. Oh you should like that, we didn't realize how rare it would be." That said...I do kind of like the idea of revisiting the old reviews and seeing how tastes may have changed. So I guess I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. I do still love Bioshock Infinite even if the message seems to be "If your time travelling daughter from the future wants to kill you, you should let her because in the future you'll be a bad person."
This is why I think award shows should have a Cultural Impact award. Works only become eligible after 10 years from their original release, and given to works that have had a huge impact that obviously cannot be known within just a year of release.
I played Bioshock Infinite for the first time last year. I thought it was quite stellar and I was ok with it having a bit of time travel and alternate reality mess cause I enjoy figuring that stuff out. I also really liked piecing all of it together. I think what the game was trying to say is you can always find a means to redemption but I'm honestly not sure. I got a lot more out of the game emotionally, as it made me think more about what it must be like to be a father and it caused me to empathize with my own dad more. I don't play too many linear story driven games, but I found Elizabeth and her character arch truly special. I LOVE MY DAUGHTER!!
I really hope this becomes a yearly series. I really wanna see you next december looking at your 2015 Top 5 and overall reviews and try to come to some sort of conclusion about what actually made a lasting impact and what was more a flash in the pan.
It's not necessarily a disqualification of his opinion. Whether a game is a slog to play intentionally or by mistakes, the end result still remains a slog to play.
@@Lucarioguild7 this is a nakedly bad faith reply, as OP did not say bad. just that it's slow and miserable. this is like when people act as though saying that Spec Ops: The Line isn't fun is an insult against it. the core appeal of Pathologic is in its tension, not in being twitchy power fantasy funtimes.
@@YouWinAFREEiPOD one could argue that a good critic is one who can recognize the difference between a game they think isn't good and a game that isn't to their tastes. and I don't think, say, someone who hates strategy games should be reviewing a strategy game (unless it's the rare exception to that rule, because those can be worthwhile insights), or that someone who hates games which aren't supposed to be fun should be reviewing such games. perspectives like that are valid of course-but if I put out a review that boiled down to, "I don't like real-time horror games, and this game is a real-time horror game"-nobody really gains anything from that. the same goes for "I don't like games with ponderous pacing, and this game's pacing is ponderous." (fwiw, I haven't watched the Pathologic 2 video in question-I'm just making a general statement.)
Bioshock is the most interesting to me because it couldn’t be a clearer demonstration of games being a product of their era. At the time, a colourful, vibrant FPS that had a solid-ish story and didn’t take itself *too* seriously was an insane revelation, but now with sunset overdrive and suicide squad and a million other like minded games it’s a nice change of pace to *not* have Whedon-esque dialogue every moment
hey yahtz! been a long time since i’ve watched your content but since you asked, a game that i’m surprised wasn’t brought up here is Metal Gear Rising, the hack and slash spinoff staring Raiden. your video on it in 2013 ended up on “it’s dumb as hell” but that’s also why a lot of people fell in love with it and why it keeps popping up now and again in the internet’s psyche. especially now, a whole decade later with the game industry in a completely different place, with sony blowing their load with every franchise having to be about sad hairy dads and shit like that, it may be worth going back and checking it out again
It's interesting to hear Yhatzee says nobody complains about a story when it's good. His borderlands 1 review said it had "unnecessarily good writing". 1:54
And then Borderlands 2 comes out he mostly brushed it off. Now granted most of the humor in that game has aged as well as mil from the Victorian era, but it probably had the best story out of all of the games so far.
I never cared about the original release of Skyrim, but fully modded SkyrimVR (and Enderal on the side) is probably the most advanced videogame experience currently available to home users. And the closest we have come so far to the old "live your life in a virtual fantasy world" thing that we've been promised for so long in stories and anime etc.
Its because looking back you an view a lot of this without the context of time. Skyrim for example was much like Papers Please a breath of fresh air and color in an industry dominated by boring brown and first person shooters. It set the trend for first person exploration rpgs much like papers please set up the dad games. But while Dad games have remained a fairly Niche genre, everybody and their mother has been trying to copy Skyrim success for the last decade and a half. You acknowledged when you reviewed it that it wasn't perfect but as long as it wasn't a boring Brown shooter I think you said something along the lines of you would clap for it like a seal until your hands bled.
But isn't Skyrim the less colorful (but snowy instead of brown), more generic version of Oblivion ? Not exactly a breath of fresh air... unless you knew only greenish-grey Fallout 3 :D
it sounds rather bold saying skyrim was a breath of fresh air when instead of a bleak brown FPS it's a bleak gray first person game. It had it's moments but most of the game was pretty drab in color. And more so i'm not sure i'd agree with everyone copying skyrim, because it's such a specific type of game, and such an ambitious one at that, that it's kind of impossible to try and directly copy it. Without a doubt many used it as inspiration and such but to this day there's only like, two games i would describe as "Skyrim clones" for a lack of a better phrase. Fall of avalon (which genuinely does look like a skyrim copycat), and The Bloodlines, which strikes a lot of makes skyrim - skyrim. Without outright feeling like it was copied. Back when Avowed was announced first it seemed like the first realistic competitor to skyrim that could be considered, again, for a lack of a better word, "skyrim clone" but as more showcases were dropped, the lesser my expectations of it are from me.
@@armelior4610 And I would say Morrowind was even less generic and more colorful. Its world is strange and interesting compared to "Vikings and Romans and dragons" Skyrim
@@robbert-janmerk6783 Morrowind is literally the most brown game ever. I feel like no one actually remembers Morrowind properly. It's 99.9% brown with some goofy enemy design and some mushrooms every once in a while.
When arkham city 1st came out it caught a lot of crap for not being more like Arkham asylum. I'm glad it gets the credit it deserves in more recent years
Yeah, Yahtzee is like a rare voice there and still is. City was universally acclaimed at launch, definitely more than Asylum and it still is. Its still the highest aggregate rated superhero game of all time still lol
@@t850terminator And let's not forget that its true sequel is Spiderman for the PS4. I have never seen so much homage to an older game by a different studio without actually mentioning it. You could DLC Batman in and we'd not have batted an eye
I always wondered why FTL faster than light wasn't in your top 5 that year. You certainly liked it in your review at the time. Nice to hear your current thoughts.
Some games are better in hindsight because they were either the end of an era or did something new and innovative that hasn't been replicated or hasn't been replicated well since. Meanwhile others are worse in hindsight because they were the start of an era, and the games that have come out since have either improved in every way to the point that it's difficult to enjoy the earlier one, or have run the mechanics into the ground so much that you just can't enjoy it because you've seen it done to the point you're sick of it. It's a big part of why a lot of games that seemed innovative and great at the time that are lauded as "classics" tend to feel just kind of "alright" to the people who don't have nostalgia. It's also a big part of why some games did poorly sales wise when they released, but gain cult followings much later. It's why games like Okami and Psychonauts are considered cult classics and have strong followings to this day, with Okami being touted as one of the prime examples of "games are art" and Psychonauts easily crowdfunding a sequel, yet sales wise weren't even close to being in the top 100 PS2 games.
i love how Shadow of Mordor is such a perfect Microcosm of how much WB has fumbled every single revolutionary new idea that have had in over 2 decades and are only afloat thanks to monetary inertia
Personally I treat video games (and music) like a aging whiskey or fine wine. You know a good game when you’re able to go back to it, no matter the years.
The failure of Shadow of Mordor and the industry not expanding on its good ideas is 100% down to Warner Bother squatting on the patent for the nemesis system. It's a good case study for why we shouldn't allow companies to patent game mechanics.
Thats why Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld sucks
Someone needs to sit down and figure out the closest thing to the nemesis system we can have that doesn’t break the patent and let everybody know.
@@TheRedGauntlet To add to what you said. We can even say that this will lead to really bad situation when more companies do it and it will be seen as patent trolling by videogame companies (and many defend Nintendo).
@@TheRedGauntlet I agree in general, but at least in the Palworld case those devs knew exactly what they were doing. Colorful anime creatures that you capture by throwing a ball at them, and then it waggles a few times before it succeeds? They were piggybacking off the branding of Pokemon, that’s what Nintendo really cared about.
@@jcace13 Warframe's Lich system was directly inspired by it, though it's fundamentally different on a mechanical level (partly due to not wanting to tread on the WB patent crap, partly to fit with Warframe's mission structure). It's a bit too involved to lay out in a comment, but it's basically an escalating series of high level encounters that end in either killing the lich for a rare weapon and extra goodies, or recruiting the lich to your spaceship crew and having them available as emergency backup in missions.
"Let me know if I got anything else wrong"
*holds up hand*
"But not Dark Souls"
*puts hand down*
Ha tbf hes acknowledged more than once that he got it wrong with Dark Souls.
Demon's Souls :p
I also recall him having a major change of opinion about Persona/SMT, once he actually sat down and played one. Even changed his mind about P4 and realized it was good after all.
Yeah he used to talk mad crap about the smt series, then he actually tried it and was like "Wait, are these good?"
I mean, once HBomberguy pointed him out on his changing views, I think he was pretty much done being put on the spot over it.
You literally acknowledged in your top 5 video that you only put Skyrim in it because of peer pressure.
I mean, *we* know that, but i think it’s clear Yahtzee doesn’f,
It's as if Yahtzee didn't take the time to watch his videos and instead looked at a list.
@@macrobov Ironic for a person whose career is founded on making quick easy to consume videos
idk, sounds like a throwaway line for humour purpose to me.
You can say that again
Bioshock infinite came after a long streak of escort quest games that the person you escort was nothing but a hinderance. Having a useful companion was revolutionary in my memory.
It's still not a particularly common thing to see in games.
Probably the closest example i have in mind is the last couple GoW games
There's plenty of old games that had an AI-controlled companion that weren't total morons. Half-Life 2: Episode One came out at least six years before Infinite. Alyx is extremely powerful on her own.
Yeah, but it somewhat cheats by not having to protect the companion at all. That's why I respect both Resident Evil 4 versions more
I remember everyone gushing about Infinite when it came out, including Yahtzee. When I finally sat down to play it, I found it to be incredibly average. Very disappointing.
"I am a helpless child, please protect me instead of sucking out my mutation juice." Okay whatever kid, I guess.
"I found a nickel. Heads up!" I will throw myself onto bullets for you.
6:50 Oh Yahtzee, please tell me you didn't actually wear a fedora at your wedding. Also, the Zero Punctuation design being how you represent your past self is very cute.
He said on Let's Drown out that he doesn't wear one and hasn't for a while because of the assumptions people make. That was ten or so years ago
To quote the Murdered: Soul Suspect review, "...well I didn't say I wasn't a hypocrite."
I get it. Hell if I got famous wearing the Chuck-E-Cheese head I would probably have gotten married in that. It probably paid for the wedding after all, may as well have fun with it!
He got married in character, so if it goes bad he can just slip back into his real identity and make a clean break.
@@scott4398 How great would it have been though if he got John St. John to officiate the ceremony? Not sure how his wife feels about Duke Nukem though.
"Nobody ever says the story doesn't matter if the story is actually good."
Wow. Perfect takedown and defense. I'm taking that for later~!
Similarly, nobody ever uses, "Well that's just your opinion" on opinions they *agree* with.
no, i think there's a valid point being expressed. story to those people is like icing on a cake.
bad icing can be scraped off and ignored while you just focus on enjoying the cake. good icing can be enjoyed alongside the cake. but the cake is what they're actually here for at the end of the day.
@@thef1rmament It really isn't a cake then if you remove all the icing from it.
@@thef1rmament that’s a really good way of summing it up. I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite because it was entertaining and fun to play (good cake), despite the bizarre, disjointed story (bad icing). If a game has a bad story, but is fun to play, then it’s a good game in my book. If it has a great story, but is no fun to play, then I’m probably not finishing it.
Or in other words, good story is a bonus, but not essential for my enjoyment. But each to their own.
@@puresport9 the defining aspect of games as a medium is that they're interactive. story isn't inherent to them; pong didn't have a narrative. multiplayer shooters often don't have a narrative. the point being expressed is that you don't need a strong story for a good game.
The main takeaway is that Yahtzee wore a fedora to his own wedding
I remember in the Skyrim review he said these big open world games were what the AAA studio's should focus on, since it's all they were good at.
Cue the Ubisoft Monkey's Paw: "You want fries with that?"
Wasnt that the Just Cause 2 review?
@rockstargamer97 Hmm, now you're making me doubt. You could be right, I'll check later.
Frankly, there's not much you could have said about the AAA videogame industry ten years ago that wouldn't feel bitterly ironic in hindsight.
@@junebunchanumbers AAA has kinda always done that, they latch on to one big "selling point" and keep making the most watered down, souless varieties of it over and over and over until some other dev makes something actually interesting then they all latch onto what they think is the defining feature(while not understanding why it worked) and make us sick of it as well.
@@1Raptor85 Part of the problem is that AAA-level games are now so ungodly expensive to make that studios can't afford to be daring. Not when they're spending more money than the GDP of a small country just to make a single game.
In hindsight, I think one of the reasons the 6th Gen was so great - and still has so many classics - is that it was at a nearly perfect sweet spot of having graphics that were good enough to accomplish most directors' visions, but development was still generally cheap enough that it didn't deter creativity.
This video is somewhat related to a point I've had rattling around in my head. That being, i wonder how Yahtzee, a man who is known for his dislike of nostalgia and more precisely the eternal wallowing in it, feels about the fact that a significant portion of his audience have nostalgia for him.
This video for many viewers will be an exercise in nostalgia, looking back at some of the things Yahtzee said over a decade ago.
Considering that's what pays a portion of the bills I think he's willing to make an exception here lol
Five nostalgic words: "It shoots shuriken and lightning!"
I’m sure it’s nostalgia if he’s still in the game- it’s not like we should find him more or less credible for his past work as opposed to now.
He is obviously nostalgic. Considering his love for Dark Souls, System Shock 2 and others that have been mentioned.
No joke. I remember him being hired by the Escapist.
I don't think there's anything wrong with a yearly "Best Game of the Year" list aging strangely, because context does matter. Sometimes something novel can be good simply because of the novelty, and as other games iterate on it (or drive it into the ground), it can make the original look quaint (or nauseating) in hindsight.
It's only when something does something novel AND is great in its own right that it doesn't age poorly... or if nobody actually bothers iterating on the formula because it was so good in the first place that trying to do so is suicide (e.g. Portal 2)
I'm always skeptical when someone says "This game/movie/TV show that just came out is one of my favourite things of all time!" because... is it? Or are you just still caught up in the hype?
@Irisverse broadly agree with you but RCT2 still hits the high notes
@@Irisverse It probably is their favorite thing, until the next favorite thing of all time comes out. I would be skeptical if they called it "the best", but "my favorite"? Like, why am I questioning if they sincerely enjoyed it? Maybe they just have crappy tastes. At the end is better to give it a try (or a closer look) and form your opinion by yourself
This is exactly how I feel about Far Cry 3. I absolutely adored it at the time and still generally think of it fondly, but it set the standard for some of the most tired, played-out open world mechanics that it's hard not to kind of resent it now. At the time it felt new and fresh, but looking at it 12 years later (Jesus) it definitely feels like patient zero for open world bloat.
@@ganpondorodf you're like a father resenting his child because his wife died in childbirth lmao
I thought the Valuable Life Lesson of _Bioshock: Infinite_ was, "Sometimes, you have to admit that *you* are the problem."
@@TheDwarvenDefender
Good take.
"Please, Booker, just stop"
@@TheDwarvenDefender Just like the movie Citizen Kane.
… I love this sort of narratives, so maybe that’s why I love Bioshock Infinite so much.
Yeah I don’t think “the general opinion has been polarized” is much of a reason for him to change his opinion of it.
@@ducky36F I mean it seems like he still considers it a good game he'd put in his top 5, he'd just retroactively put it lower.
@@ducky36F I still don't quite understand WHY it's been so polarized as of late. It was an objectively well-made game, it's plot twists aren't any more confusing now than they were in 2013, the characters are still endearing, and its broad criticisms of American exceptionalism is still painfully relevant. I think it may just be a victim of the "culture war" of certain gamers insisting games are somehow "woke" for having Black or non-cis/straight people in them. I imagine those people get quite a shock when the shooty shooty game they bought off of good reviews turns out to have an entire subplot about racism.
Can we all agree that gameplay feature patenting can suck our balls ?
Yeh it’s creative doom
Trying to patent a game mechanic should get you barred from the industry for 5 years.
Yes and they can gargle the ensuing mess too.
I was very confused as to why I hadn´t played much of Wolfenstein: TNO until you reminded me that FTL was also released in 2014 - Now it makes perfect sense
Just, one, more, run...
Ten years down the line, I'm pretty sure it's still my most played game this year. Granted, I've been playing the multiverse mod which is basically an unofficial sequel in scope, but that still says a lot for its status as a classic
Welp, too bad FTL actually released in 2012. Now nothing makes sense again!
I find it so hard to comprehend FTL came out in 2014. I feel like it's always been part of my life.
Wait, what's that? It came out in 2012? There you go - it's always been part of my life!
Joking aside, it actually unironically has always been a part of my children's lives. Many were the evenings when my pregnant wife was passed out on the couch and I was sitting beside her playing FTL, thinking of how my firstborn will probably learn this entire soundtrack even before she's born. And I still listen to it even when I'm not playing the game.
"Better than it has any right to be" is so true of New Order's writing on both the basic "this is a video game about shooting Nazis" level and on the "this story unironically and in complete seriousness involves a Nazi moonbase" level. Also, I'm solidly in the camp that Arkham Asylum is the best of the series. Moving to open world design involved changes that significantly undermined the pacing and sense of progression the first game had.
Hugo Strange is pretty wasted as a villain though :/ that's like the one real big flaw, strange being built up as the big bad only to spend msot of the game not doing anything and then dying in a cutscene without even a boss fight, and instead make it about the JOKER AGAIN
Wolfenstein New Order (and New Colossus by extension) are a master class in having what, on its surface, is an absolutely wild plot (those wacky nazis and their secret moon/venus/whatever bases and lasers!) but has excellent writing and acting and still *SOMEHOW* manages to remain... actually kind of grounded? You *should* be getting whiplash from the insane shifts from tight, small character moments into... idk... "protagonist literally gets beheaded and then slapped onto a supersoldier body like he's changing a tire" and yet it never really hits.
It makes Youngblood even more depressing, since its failure probably killed the likelihood of a third entry. I think New Order is better, in general, than New Colossus but I think both are excellent and well worth playing.
Arkham City's smoke bomb and ice grenade are so overpowered they throw off the balance of the gadgets
@@sarafontanini7051 you're thinking of Arkham City, not Asylum. I actually prefer City to Asylum.
Arkham Asylum had the best gameplay and the best story. It was a tightly designed game where Batman beating the hell out of every goon made sense - he was one man against an army of criminals, and fighting his way out of Arkham. Not only do the sequels lose that element, they also drift further and further away from the more comic-accurate roots of the original game.
In Yahtzee’s defense, he did have trouble deciding between his top two games in 2013 and 2014, (which I imagine is why he started making bland lists in 2015) and he did specifically say that Skyrim was on his 2011 list because of peer pressure.
On another note, is Yahtzee planning to do retrospective rankings of his bland picks from 2015 to 2024?
he barely remembers the games of this year that need to make that list, are you really expecting him to remember the blandest games of a decade ago?
@ There are videos detailing his bland picks going back to 2015.
@@E1craZ4lifeYahtzee picks the top 5 blandest games by going over his list of games he’s reviewed this year and pruning it down to just the ones he doesn’t remember reviewing.
I've wanted a bland list ranking too
I've made list but 2024's hasn't been decided yet (though I have a good guess)
And I'm a little unsure of how No Man's Sky should be in that ranking
I kinda like the idea of Yahtzee revisiting his top 5’s from years prior. Showing how long he’s been a voice in the industry and how his thoughts have changed
There's a great quote that, rather unfortunately, comes from MovieBob. I can't remember exactly where so I'm paraphrasing.
"The worst part about the information age is that it doesn't let information age"
It used to be that as a particular piece of media, say an article in a newspaper, got older, it would be harder and harder to find. There was a difference between new and old media. But now, a video made ten years ago is just as accessible as one made yesterday. Make no mistake, this is absolutely a good thing. But it leads to the impression that all these videos are just as current and relevant, and they're not.
Maybe old videos on the internet should look weathered like old newspapers.
"Unfortunately"?
@@blahthebiste7924 We're supposed to dislike MovieBob either because he used to tweet about how much conservatives suck, or because he doesn't like Halo. I think.
Thing is, it does. Information does age. Data dies on the internet all the time. Just not at the same rate. Some things from 30 years ago are still possible to find. Some disappear after 4 years, never to be found again.
@@JimJava007 You should check out the Moviebob quiz.
"Painfully good" is a perfect description of the Arkham games.
Suicide Squad game just made it more painful...
I agree except that I remember the online pass for Arkham City was an insidious shadow of things to come.
@@TheRedGauntletthe hopes and possibilities of what that game could’ve been, four different fighting styles with Arkham combat and INTERESTING BOSS FIGHTS, vs the painful reality hurt so god damn bad.
Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were both excellent, in their own individual but connected ways.
Then they took the series from Rocksteady, thinking that they could do better for cheaper and shat out Arkham Origins, which was a buggy mess.
Rocksteady came back for Arkham Knight, but stupidily farmed out the PC version to be converted by a team of total incompetents, which saw the PC version removed from sale!
Apparently, Arkham Origins has been all but disowned from the series now, with it being called a trilogy comprising of Asylum, City and Knight.
I my opinion, Asylum was superb, with a great story and path through the game.
City was fun in that you could explore Arkham City at your whim, but it lost the tight storyline due to that.
The other two are best left forgotten
@@dahn57 Despite the online pass, I really tried to like Arkham city. But I found the character specific trophies depressing because I rented the game from my library.
The reason I really stopped playing was when I got sick of the repetitive multiple hit combat system. You could FEEL each hit in Asylum's combat and turning Batman into a DBZ-esque machinegun attacker felt like watching Bruce Lee sparing for points.
I would LOVE for the "ten year look-back" to become an annual thing.
How can Bioshock: Infinite have been a polarizing game?
Elizabeth has cameoed in approximately five million "independent animation projects" since its release. Seems to me everyone must really love that character!
I wasn't a fan of the third act and ending. Elizabeth was a great character though, and the first half of the game was phenominal. Yes, the Rule 34 community loves Elizabeth >_>
Those quotes are doing some heavy lifting lol
It had a massive identity crisis, nonsensical literal plothole-ridden story, and awful characters, especially Elizabeth, it's frankly insulting to even label her as a character with little she actually did or mattered to anything.
Honestly even that kinda feels so quaint compared to the likes of D.va claiming the champion belt 8 years running, putting up numbers like Micheal Jordan of SFM.
apparently those "indie animation projects" also basically reshaped the face of indie 3d animation. Like Elizabeth is the reason there had been so much innovation in the field in the 2010s
I think I'm starting to grow fond of "Older Introspective Yahtzee"
Yahtzee has, literally and metaphorically, become the post-dad
@@TheGrimSmile
Is that newspeak for grandfather?
@@TheGrimSmile Is he post-hairy-dad, though?
Everyone should become older and introspective.
introspective isnt the same as pissing on the past with your current lens
I really loved the idea for this video, it's nice for someone to critically approach their past and come to sometimes uncomfortable but always self-improvement centered conclusions. Would love to see more of those in the future Yahtzee!
Just going for the games that might not have got the light it should have in the same period of time?
Yeah. I have seen plenty of game reviewers just go "ew my old videos were cringe" but they never actually confront why they feel that way. It's refreshing to hear someone actually explain how their opinions have changed rather than just brushing it off as being inexperienced.
@@Guymanbot97 Yhatzee is the type to maybe just avoid looking backwards, but when he does he does take a view of what has really changed in the time between then and now and what the differences add up to.
It's something he's always struggled with so video like this doing it quite nice to see.
His old Ego Reviews on his channel are a prime example of how much he dislikes looking back on his past opinions and works. For example, I imagine if someone pointed out his old views on having kids he'd be dissapointed in himself.
Though I imagine Gabe is happy to see he was right about Bioshock Infinite and kids changing Yahtzee.
@0parko9 I think he has admitted in the past his opinions on kids basically boiling down to "Yeah turns out your thoughts on that change when you get older".
I think it's fair to say that a given game was your favorite of the year as of the year it came out, but not any more. Like "This was my favorite game of 2015, as of 2015," versus "This is my favorite game of 2015, as of 2024." Tastes change, games age differently, there are culture shifts, etc... It doesn't mean you were wrong at the time, it just means your preferences changed for whatever reasons. You have to judge a choice based on the information you had at the time, not on the information you have now.
this is how I fall on it. still, retrospective "best ofs" are a lot of fun to think about.
Nah Disco Elysium is still GOTY 2019, speak for yourself?
As a man who care about good writing id suggest giving Fallout : New Vegas another go. I remember your old video on it was all about how it was basically fallout 3 with roleplaying but didnt delve into the story , or writing or dialog at all. Its not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but really is a well written, well thought out game.
Its also a breath of fresh air after Dragon Age Veilguard where you're not allowed to be evil. In New Vegas, every human NPC is killable. You can be post-apocalyptic Jason Voorhees if you want.
If you want a (completely justified and thoroughly explained) Glaze Fest of New Vegas, I highly recommend HBomberGuy’s video on it. I promise it’s excellent.
@@origrammar I’ve watched it many a time. Big fan
@@IzunaSlap but what I love about it is that all factions have justifiable motivations. Like you think ceaser is the worst , and he is , but when you talk to him he gives valid criticisms of the ncr and house and why he feels his ideology is the best at the moment and and brings up Hegelian dialectics in the conversation. It’s fantastic
@@dermboss402 I wouldn't say that makes him justifiable, just the fact that there are many factions in the fallout universe that exist and thrive without having to resort to pure barbarism like Caesar's Legion kind of makes him irredeemable (not to mention him being willing to put his own philosophy aside the second it comes to saving his own life). But he is a villain with an actual philosophy, and that makes him leagues more interesting than 90% of Bethesda's characters.
"Let me know if I got anything else wrong"
Outer Wilds.
Outer Wilds has become one of the most polarizing games of the past few years. If you are not its target audience, then all the praise it gets from people who ARE its target audience and all the "YOU SHOULD PLAY THIS!" gets _really_ annoying to the point where it entrenches the mentality of "I will never play this game because even if it IS good, I'll probably be disappointed that it didn't bring about world peace and cure cancer" overhype.
Nahhh I think it wasn't for him but his Outer Wilds take was fair. The process of resetting, determining what you need to know, determining how to learn it and then actually _doing_ it is a cycle of gameplay that takes some adjustment and is very easy to fuck up. If someone doesn't vibe with it they might as well ignore the game entirely. It completely makes sense to me that he gave it a "good idea but doesn't work for me" rating.
@@SimuLordAh yes, the Undertale special lol (I actually love that game so I really should get around to playing Outer Wilds as a fan of Space in general)
Outer Wilds is a genius game, but it really requires a lot of very specific skills that not everybody has. Like I watched it on TH-cam--and still had to look away regularly to avoid getting violently ill. Lots of areas depend on you having reasonably good direction sense, often in three dimensions. So even if you're the right *sort* of person for it, it's entirely possible for it to be either a slog or just flat out unplayable. But I don't think it can or should change anything to fix that--it's just not going to be on everybody's top list.
@@jimmyjohnson501 Oh, don't get me started on Undertale. If you don't click with the game's core conceit (that it's going to aggressively deconstruct every trope in the genre and quite a few from outside it as well), you're not going to enjoy the experience. It is the most postmodern video game ever made, and on an artistic level it's a masterpiece, but played straight as a video game it's...wellllllll...kinda mid. This is also why anyone who says that Undertale should be the game you use to get someone into gaming who isn't already an avid gamer needs to take their meds and lie down for awhile. That's like showing Pulp Fiction to someone who's never seen a movie.
As someone who only recently played both shadow of mordor and war earlier this year, i believe they're more than worthy of the praise.
As someone who recently played Fallout 3 and NV for the first time, I wonder if Yahtzee still thinks NV is just a DLC sequel.
Because playing both games back to back really showed me how many improvements Obsidian made to the world, RPG choices and general gameplay. Its the far better game imo
*Stares in Hbomb*
expandalone
Especially when you take into account the absolute raw deal Obsidian got. When you consider that they were given 18 months to make the game using an engine they had zero familiarity with, that fact there was even a game released at all is a shock - the fact that it's better than FO3 is almost every single aspect makes it all the sweeter, and all the sadder that they didn't get the metacritic scores Bethesda required of them.
I said at the time that "New Vegas made Fallout 3 look like it had been made by apes." (a line I stole from P.J. O'Rourke; I forget his original context.)
Considering how he says in this video that it's the Bethesda jank that keeps him from enjoying them as much as other people, and that jank was absolutely inherited by that project, I'm gonna guess he wouldn't have revisited the game on his own. If his opinion on New Vegas has done any shifting, it would be because a friend or colleague sat down with him and made him give it another go.
The mark of a good journalist/opinion giver is the ability to look back at what they once did, admit they might have been wrong, and "update", change, or analyze their opinion. So cheers for that Yahtz.
This is a refreshingly healthy view from a professional game critic. No that's not a backhanded compliment.
I think it's...interesting? to take stock of all the games in a given year, and I absolutely like your "best/worst/meh" framing model because it adds a lot of context about where the bar actually lies as to whether or not something is good or worthwhile to play. So I'm not saying that those are unworthy or not enjoyable (it's nice to take a romp with someone who is comfortable pointing out the elephant uncomfortably crammed into the room, and review why the feng shui is all jacked up)
But I think it's just as valuable, possibly moreso, to periodically go back and review how well you think things have aged. I loathe Facebook, but I sometimes like to re-read my own longform pontifications on things because it's evidence of how I've grown and changed and have challenged my own ideas about stuff. So with that having been said, I can see the value in someone who does criticism professionally to go back and see how well their selections have aged.
Figure...we remember the bad things adequately enough; they offended, irrritated, or disappointed us enough that they make us angry. And the "meh" versions get forgotten altogether. But were the things we thought were good, or said were good, as good as we remember them years later? Has our love of them shifted? Become tarnished? Become more deep and abiding? What does it say about them? Us? Where we all are now?
I like this, Yahtzee. I hope you do, if not annual retrospectives, then at least this sort of thing more often.
So if I remember correctly, the reason no one has really iterated on Shadow of Mordor's nemesis system is that as soon as it dropped, Warner Brothers immediately patented the thing. Then when they screwed it up in Shadow of War and they stopped doing it no one was allowed to do it ever again.
Edit: changed copyrighted to the more accurate patented
At the least, not until the patent expires. 15 to 20 years, depending on the type of patent.
*patent
and Monolith hasn't "stopped" using the Nemesis system. it's the only vaguely concrete thing we know about Wonder Woman. the problem (at least in their individual case) is that their next game has been in development hell for so long.
which to be fair Yahtzee did reference in the video.
Right now the best you'll probably get with takes on the nemesis system is
The Nemesis mod for skyrim.
@@MelMelodyWernereven if the WW game has been in development hell for a bit, it’s still frustrating that WB isn’t trying to cram the nemesis system into more of their games. I remember sometime around 2020 or so there were rumors it was going to be in some of their at the time upcoming games (like Gotham Knights) but that didn’t end up being a thing.
The funny thing is, I remember hearing an argument that the Nemesis System could have been used to liven up the post game live service daily grind by potentially capturing more narrative focused players, but WB missed that opportunity.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey comes the closest with the Mercenary system.
Man I really have to say, this is genuinely one of my favorite videos of yours. It just felt very humble and insightful in a way most of your (extremely entertaining and funny) content doesn't really accomplish. I liked this side of you, I'd love to see more :)
I had no idea all of these games were so old. I wasn’t ready to have an existential crisis today.
I know most people couldn't care less about this aspect of Bioshock Infinite, but I despise it not for what it is but for what it isn't. It ISN'T the game we were advertised. The openness and freedom of those initial gameplay trailers and the knowledge that they were cut in part because the idiots they hire to playtest games couldn't handle such open combat arenas. They literally admitted they cut enough content to make a whole other game. That is fucked.
I'm still salty about that as well. I remember being super hyped for those old gameplay trailers and then absolutely hating the game that released.
Agreed.
Everything everywhere can and will be ruined by mouth breathing pond life.
I'm always just a little bit shocked when people ask 'what was Bioshock Infinite about?' because (and granted I might be biased here because I do still love the game) it harps on it *constantly* throughout the story.
Regardless of whether you're talking about Booker or Comstock, whether he's the man Slate lauds over when he talks about the glorious past, or the prophet of Columbia, he's _superficially_ characterised like a 'great man of history'. On the outside, Booker/Comstock is someone the history books would lionize and sugarcoat and talk about how much he changed things.
On the personal level, though, Booker is a mess who has destroyed every person in his life who could've possibly cared about him, including himself. He still did all the things people say he did, but none of it made him happy and all it ever did was lead him to ruin.
In every timeline, to the point where it doesn't even matter which one he's in, Booker poisons everyone and everything he could care about, and no amount of gilding can fix what is rotten underneath.
I thought it was pretty clear that is was a critique on the myth of the American Man, that all the stories of the past of glory and good men are really stories of broken men doing evil things.
I think the issue is even in that explanation, you needed a paragraph to summarize it. Was the game about "the myth of the American" man? Is that a concept people are familiar with? "American Exceptionalism" is a definite thing, but there's a question of whether Infinite is about that considering Comstock makes such a big thing about seceding from the nation.
BioShock was a very focused game, with a defined goal, easy to understand mechanics, and tight writing. What it was "about" (the question should probably be what was its "theme") is a critique of Objectivism. Love it or hate it, BioShock 2 is a pretty worthy sequel with another focused theme: a critique of Collectivism. Both games are about the evils of extremes and it makes sense both logically and narratively that after the laissez-faire capitalism of Andrew Ryan, the utopian socialism of Sofia Lamb would pop up in Rapture.
In both games, the antagonist makes a compelling case for their personal outlook, but that's countered as the player sees the reality of the ruin of Rapture laid out before them. The problem with Infinite is that Comstock himself never makes an appealing case for American Exceptionalism. From the rampant racism and class inequality to the religious zealotry to the obsessive idolization of Comstock, Columbia never seems like an enticing place to live. And if the game is about the "Great Man Theory" (I think that's the concept you're referring to), that only really comes up in the Soldier's Field level.
On top of that, there's a mystery at the heart of the gameplay that obfuscates the narrative. We aren't supposed to know that Booker is Comstock until VERY late into the narrative, and we aren't supposed to know much about Booker himself or his actions either. As it stands, while the previous games made an argument against the belief structure they were critiquing with each passing level, Infinite doesn't have the chance to do that.
It hits you over the head with how awful a person Comstock is from the start all while you're trying to rationalize the wibbly-wobbly/timey-whiney quantum mechanics game mechanics, and then whoops! Turns out *you* and the 60-ish-year-old Comstock are the same person this whole time. Oh, and the plucky protagonist in the corset you've been developing an emotional attachment and maybe crush on, she's your daughter, you freak. Is it any wonder why people's heads start spinning when talking about the plot of Infinite? You're trying to keep up with all the narrative revelations and you don't care about the theme because you're not invested in Columbia's belief structure (because, no duh, enslaving people is bad, who's gonna defend that?) that by the end you're left wondering what was the point of what you experienced... especially when you compare the game to its predecessors.
To clarify, your assessment of Booker's toxic qualities is correct and so is your indictment of the "Great Man Theory." The problem, I argue, is that Infinite doesn't make its case as gracefully as Bio1 and Bio2 do. It can't because it's hampered from the start: it needs to keep its secret about Booker and Comstock and the point of view of its antagonist is simply indefensible to most players.
@@Unownshipper Wow Bioshock is against Collectivism? God thats crazy, Americans cant reflect on reality at all it seems
My Top 5 favorite games of all time are as follows:
1) MGS3: Snake Eater
2) Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (GBC version, I haven't touched the remake)
3) Shadow of The Colossus (this has nothing to do with you. I first played it near release)
4) Far Cry 3 (This has a lot to do with you, but also to do with me getting my first decent gaming PC near it's release)
5) Thief 2 (This has everything to do with you. I never heard of it before your retrospective video on it)
So thanks for introducing me to 2 of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Your opinions may change in time, but I appreciate you championing the good art you've found along the way.
Great list! It's awesome that Yahtzee helped you to discover 2 of your favs :D
Personally I've never been able to deal with the fact Yahtzee put PREY 2017 in his boring category for that year. That's my 'past Yahtzee is a loony'-moment right there. Glorious game, with admittedly a few less glorious flaws, but nothing that gets in the way of me appreciating just how dedicated they were to bringing the environment around you to life. I am a proud devotee of any game where I can sneak around people's offices reading their emails and catching up on gossip while five feet away a monster chews on their corpse. There are news things I have discovered in that game I had never seen even after half a dozen playthroughs.
Has the best movement mechanics of any im-sim out there too imo. A relatively minor, yet surprisingly impactful quality of life improvement
I wanna make a video called “15 ways to open a door in PREY” that’s mostly about showing off all the wacky cool stuff in that game, from the foam dart gun working on touch screens to just “BLACK HOLE RECYCLING GRENADE.”
I named my cat Morgan after the protag, that game is THE SHIT.
Honestly, if you're keen on it, go for it. I remember watching a video where the door was opened with a foam dart & it blew my mind. There I was thinking it was a cute, if useless toy, that video changed my understanding & made me replay the whole thing
The narrative is also so damn metatextual. I really expected Yahtzee to eat it up more. But yeah most of the game has a multi-layeredness that is hard to really appreciate during a rushed playthrough for a review.
I think based on how he's brought it up multiple times during more recent videos that he may have come around on it. Prey is a game that demands patience, that you stop and smell the roses, but when it's Go Time Go Go Beat The Game So You Can Review It that can make it hard to appreciate that, I'd imagine.
See the problem with Bioshock infinite for me is the opening dropped me into the middle of a clan meeting with a machine gun and told me to go nuts and then that part ended. That seriously could have been the whole game, it just never topped that for me.
I hope you've played Wolfenstein: The New Order, I really think you'd like it.
It was genuinely so fucking frustrating that you have to start shooting revolutionaries later in the game instead of teaming up with them
@@letsBrn YES! And then they set up Daisy Fitzroy perfectly for the first half of the game then they do a character assassination so bad they had to retcon it away in ancillary media.
let's not forget what should have been the game's final boss is turned into a power up for a tower defence minigame and then he dies in a cutscene
@@sarafontanini7051 I did like the visual of it though, but yeah that whole thing was very disappointing
1:57, the whole "good writing can elevate whatever it's in" thing is also quite applicable to Bungie's Marathon trilogy. And yes, that is referencing recent Dev Heads guest MandaloreGaming, because most of the time the man really hits the nail on the head, when he's not escaping into the waves only to get trapped into his cycles of guilt.
Marathon never gets the love it deserves. I'm really, really worried about the new game ruining that legacy and poisoning the brand name, too.
@@virvum_cypher If you want to check out a game that takes the best parts of Marathon and marries it with Doom, I would recommend checking out Supplice. It's technically still being made, but the three episode currently released are pretty damn good, and they're working on a fourth episode as we speak.
@@GmodPlusWoW I've been playing Supplice as it comes out for almost a year now. Absolutely brilliant homage to Marathon 2. Glad more folks are discovering it!
@@virvum_cypher With any luck, even more will discover it when Episode 4 comes out. Partly since I assume that Episode 4 is going to be the grand finale.
One sign of wisdom is how self-aware and willing one is to admit their faults. Yahtzee shitting on himself is commendable and a decent argument to people who cry about him shitting on everyone else.
Thats why i like yahtzee, like with dark souls, he gave it one final try and eventually liked it and didnt just say 'this game bad because that was my initial impression was negative'.
I for one loved the way you talked about Dark Souls originally. The whole "getting blatted in the face with a rake" bit played on repeat in my head in my obligatory first playthrough slog through Undead Burg
Earlier this year you mused on whether "best game that made me feel sad," "...powerful," "...clever," etc. might be more interesting than a straight good/bad/bland ranking. I'm really hoping you give that some serious thought as the end of the year gets closer.
I still never quite thought you original review of New Vegas was fully in good faith. Although I also have to acknowledge that I can't overly blame you because they kept in some serious jank in a few places, like the screen-color-overlay-thing, going from green to orange and that's about it. Not even a proper sepia for a western feel.
But you've also somewhat shifted your position on that in less official ways over time, without unnecessarily tooting a game with at least some DNA from a design style you don't like.
It's worth recalling that New Vegas didn't drop as an instant classic; it's launch was chaotic and it took ages for the post-launch patches to stabilize the game, so people didn't realize immediately how much they'd come to love the plot.
I might be a bit biased, but him calling New Vegas a DLC sequel seriously struck a nerve for me. I've played both NV and 3 and I'm not sorry for saying this, New Vegas blows 3 out of the water in terms of writing, role-playing, and story-telling. It's not close, like at all. There's a reason many consider it the pinnacle of Fallout.
@@AmericanBrit9834 Some of us just don't gel with the setting. I personally just don't 'get' the atmosphere, if that makes sense, while FO3 absorbs me.
@@LegendaryPlank I’ve heard the atmosphere argument and I’ll be honest, I’ve never understood it. I guess a way to put it is this. In 3 the story serves the map. The story is relatively bare-bones and only exists to get you out there. In NV, it’s the opposite, the map serves the story. The map tries to make sure you go to the locations you need to understand the scope and details you need to know about the land and conflict. I find story and writing to be of the utmost importance for an RPG, which Fallout is, and in that department NV easily wins although to me it is no longer the king, that would be Disco Elysium
Alot of ppl didn't like NV at launch.
I remember how skeptical people were of The New Order before it came out. They thought it was going to be more bland Call of Duty crap with the Wolfenstein name slapped on it. Then it came out and a LOT of people were pleasantly surprised by it. Its success helped pave the way for Doom 2016. Several of the developers were Starbreeze veterans who worked on Butcher Bay and The Darkness 1, and The New Order inherits much of that old Starbreeze magic.
Interesting story about Skyrim, that was the game that taught me to be mindful of how I feel about games instead of just mindlessly playing through them. I bought it ages ago, played through, and honestly had vaguely positive feelings about it... until I happened to glance at its steam page, saw over 100 hours, thought about it for a minute, and realized that I had been having actual fun for maybe five of those hours, and the rest had just been a mindless autopilot search for and consumption of content. I have been careful since then never to devote anything like that much time to another game unless I am actually engaging with it deeply.
Playing Dark Souls before Skyrim made me realize how much of a circlejerk games media is, generally speaking. The latter was getting so much praise that when I tried it for myself, it made me wonder if I was even playing the right game. It was easily the most disappointed I’ve ever been in a game, and I’m a Halo fan so that says something.
@@HypeWrecks Yeah, I don't really get the hype, honestly. Even before I really thought about it, my attitude was vaguely positive but nothing like the level of excitement that the game's reputation seems to indicate someone feels.
I would love to see videos like this for more recent picks. The years post-COVID especially, stuff changed a LOT in the industry even in such a short time.
Me too, even just in general. Yahtzee has been at it for a long time, so retrospectives and commentary on what ended up influencing trends or falling by the wayside would be great.
4:00 This is one of the most relatable things Yahtzee has ever put in a video - I wish more people were interested in what I have to say about Marvel's Midnight Suns, X-Men '97, and Andor.
Anytime someone talks to me about Disney+ shows, I look for a chance to bring up Andor as soon as possible.
I was curious about X-Men '97, but hadn't actually looked into it much. I still want to check it out at some point.
Dude, Midnight Suns feels like a game that was made specifically for me and like 10 other people, and I will ramble about that shit for HOURS. 99.9% of gamers: Who the hell asked for this?
.1%: GIVE ME THIS CRAZY SHIT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!
@@madspet9106 X-men 97 is perfect for anyone who was a fan of the show growing up, and now wants something with actual good writing
@ I looked up some guides to the game and saw you could go *deep* on customizing your decks, and I was astonished at how much thought some people put into the game. I found a difficulty level that felt just right for me and my level of commitment to min/maxing my characters, and I put in about 120 hours into the game. Then I said “you know, I should probably go play some other games”, so I went to the last level and beat the game. It was just so refreshing to play a game entirely on my owns terms. It was exactly how difficult, deep, and long as I wanted it to be.
I was just wondering how to word this when 5:39 came along. For all Young Yahtzee's irreverent aspirations, I think this explains much of what was going on '13 and '14 too.
You absolutely nailed how I feel about the Batman Arkham games. Asylum is probably just barely my favorite due to the tighter pacing and better atmosphere, but not by much. City is better to play and its story does far more interesting things with the characters. The whole series is really good (yes, even origins and knight) but city and asylum were probably the peak.
Yeah no folks can poop on Knight as much as they like, but the combat is as good & smooth as Arkham combat could fucking get, and I ADORE all the enemy types you have to deal with. The trilogy all have their strengths and weaknesses, and Origins just has weaker versions of all three’s best, it’s not BAD. (Also I get too much of a kick outta Chris Redfield Batman and Troy Baker Joker)
And now I’m sad about Kill the Justice League again, THANKS FOR THAT!!!
The problem with Origins is that WB had another studio make it instead of Rocksteady, because they thought it was too long between City and Knight, and that studio screwed it up.
And then they compounded that by farming out the PC port of Arkham Knight to a bunch of incompetent chimps who ruined that!
Asylum's biggest problem IMO is that the big set pieces are pretty weak: Not one good big boss fight. Scarecrow is not a fight, but counts as reasonable. Bit vompared to the Mr Freeze fight in City. it's all sadness
@@jorgemontero6384 I feel like bane and croc provide decent fights at least the first time through, though on replays they don't stand up. Plus Scarecrow brings the spectacle even if it's not a fight (the game crash fear gas section is super memorable) and the Ivy fight is one of the best in the series, maybe even top 5. Imo the thing that really undercuts asylum besides the systems not being as deep as city is the ending fights and the repeat titan fights.
@@thechevyferrari9559 Knight's combat systems i have a few complaints against (brutes have way too far attack ranges, and some flexibility is lost due to the added moves) but I really like the city and the sense of flow doing sidequests. I'm one of the few people who likes the batmobile tank fights, but I do see how most people find them irritating. Origins has some problems under the hood, but the story and boss fights are some of the best in the series. WB Montreal did a killer job with what they had.
While I respect you going to bat for it, I am still surprised at how positive you were for Amnesia: a Machine for Pigs in your review.
Refreshing your opinions on things you like is always a good thing, I'd also recommend going back to a game from a different angle, like playing a different class, learning the weird weapon, or not using mimic tear it can give you a deeper understanding of the mechanics, or make you realize you don't really like the game, just that one cool ass character, who may or may not still exist if it's a game that gets frequent patches.
I'm more shocked that some of those best games can't even be bought anymore. Spec Ops, The Walking Dead (for a while), Driver San Fancisco, inFamous 2 (on modern hardware).
Not just gone and scrubbed from stores - if you have Driver SF in your steam library but never went through with Uplay activation, those servers are gone (ask me how I know...).
"Legally" is all i'll say. very glad I picked up Driver SF for the ps3 when that console generation was on its way out
I have my 360 copy of Driver San Fransisco. I have more love for my 360 game disks every year that games get delisted.
Specs Ops: The Line and Driver San Francisco are both backwards compatible on the Xbox Series X and Xbox One if you own their physical discs. Walking Dead returned and as for InFamous 2... It IS technically on PS5 and PS4, you just need a PS+ Premium subscription and have good enough internet connectivity to play it via streaming only.
I actually did play it earlier this year in that manner and it actually worked pretty well. It's either a testament to my internet quality or Sony has actually been updating that "PS3 Game Streaming" functionality to improve connectivity to people. Either way, all still good games.
@@CepheidMadEngineer DSF has a community patch for the PC edition that allows you to play online with friends, there is even the same levelling and social systems ported to a public server you can connect to with a simple mod :)
Surprised more people don’t talk about how Wolfenstein: The New Order was the return of the “fast shooter” laying the groundwork for Doom 2016 and everything that followed.
For the Bioshock Infinite revisionism, I’d add that there was a contemporary narrative of Ken Levine as a challenging, polarizing auteur in the game development and narrative space that carried a lot of weight. I distinctly remember breathless coverage of the internal strife of the development team regarding the game’s critiques of organized religion, which had to have been pretty omnipresent if my dumb college self was hearing about it. Given that Ken Levine seems a lot less prominent in the space now (even if he is banging the same drums, as I think his newest game is literally called Judas), the game wobbles a little bit more without the developer’s persona to hold it up.
Oh my, on your wedding yahtzee?
he rendered it in white, so I wonder whether it was a specially-bought wedding fedora even
@slothfulcobra I think it was a reference to zp, probably a specific fedora he wore at the time
Good writing is not *necessary* in an otherwise good videogame, but it is always appreciated when we don't have to mash through dialogue and cutscenes to get to the 'good part', and all of it can be 'the good part'.
Very good way to put it.
I personally would argue that good writing IS necessary for video games. Good writing can prove that video games can stand toe to toe with cinema and literature as a legitimate medium for storytelling.
@@thegwynbleidd4202 I couldn't care less about what movies and books are doing. Making a story good isn't about having a dick measuring contest with pretty, rich people.
KOTOR and KOTOR 2 alone prove that games, narratively, have the chops to slaughter their movie equivalents. We proved it a long time ago, we can kick back and enjoy ourselves now.
@@thegwynbleidd4202 Good writing is necessary for certain games but not all of them. Different videogames can have very different goals.
Wolfenstein TNO contains both a level in a concentration camp and a level on the moon. By all rights it should be a tonal catastrophe. And yet, somehow, it works perfectly. Even the romance subplot feels just right! How often does that happen?
Lightning in a bottle. They kept trying and failing after that.
@@duffeknol Yeah, The Old Blood was good but it wasn't trying to strike such a delicate balance. The New Colossus tried and failed. It's not even bad- without such an excellent prior game it would probably be remembered fondly- but compared to The New Order it made things too juvenile.
I think the line, "Nazi fuckin' space man" will always be one of my absolute favorites.
The glorious _Let's Drown Out_ master race will remember the Bioshock: Infinite discussion with Gabe.
I KNOW WHAT YOU MEEEEEEAN
What episode was that
@@clanofclams2720 the Smash TV episode if I remember correctly
@@kazy8029first Final Fight, then Smash TV
It was never particularly important.
It's trivial by comparison but one of the things I dislike about Bioshock infinite the most is only being able to carry 2 weapons. Feels like they felt the need to be a bit more 'realistic' in the wake of the 'realistic shootocalypse' we were going through in that era. When any game with firearms required 2 weapons only, iron sights and asthmatic sprint stamina.
That's definitely an issue along with limited ammunition. I spent half the game waiting for an NPC to toss me supplies hiding under cover
*cuts to Wolfenstein next year, dual wielding automatic shotguns while also having the LASERKRAFTVERK up your butt while wearing 20 helmets*
Infinites gunplay was a straight downgrade from the prior titles. Two-weapon limit that both nerfs tactics and the usefulness of upgrading the wider arsenal, the stupid Halo regenerating shield combined with medkits being ditched, a largely uninspired lineup of Vigors, all on top of most of the enemies just not being that fun to fight.
@@BlueKunai I agree with you entirely
Part of me wonders if that two weapon system came directly from 2k as part of pulling it out from development hell. "Oh there's a coding issue with the weapon selection? fuck you, you get two now." Ken Levine makes great games but from what i understand he has a bit of a mission creep issue and has said publicly that shipping the game is the worst part of game development. Levine would be remembered as one of the best game devs ever if he had an editor. Still going to be pre-ordering Judas tho. The man does interesting narrative design okay?
Which sort of leads to the main criticism of Bioshock Infinite is that you can 100% see the stitch marks from where it was sown together from its constituent parts compared to what was teased prior to release. What was released was a great game stitched together from an amazing game that needed an editor and another year or two to cook properly. I mean there was obviously going to be more set in pre-downturn colombia with the city largely intact and the mechanical horses were wasted as set dressing.
Also, who would've thought over a decade later of the three released bioshocks, two has aged the best?
I recall you being hard on GTA4 but you’ve also said that Nico Belic is one of your favorite characters in video games.
Nico has aged like wine, but all the criticisms of the game's pacing are still valid.
I should know, I played it two months ago.
@@richardhunter9779 I think the entirety of GTA IV is like a fine wine. I've gone back to play through it a few times now since it first released and it seems to get better every time.
Took you ten years but ftl faster then light FINALLY gets the praise it deserves.
It's more then an (pix-and-mix) fruit machine. It's a atmospheric space survival adventure through a universe of possibilities.
Better late than never.
I remember him mentioning FTL on occasions when reviewing games that involved lots of try and error.
Are you high? Everyone was playing it on TH-cam in 2012-2020??
Honestly, you going back and reviewing each years Top 5 would just be an entertaining video in itself
3:09 The "creme eggs do not exist" timeline is indeed the darkest timeline.
Not necessarily. They could have been completely replaced with a nougat egg and that was indirectly responsible for the some of the greatest innovations that leads us into a new golden age.
that's the universe where Comstock is a giant mecha dragon who shoots lasers at you when he screams, incidentally
I'll argue we're in that timeline, as they have changed enough that they exist now in name only
Watching this reminds me of how few of my gaming opinions over the past 10 years are actually mine: aside from TUNIC, my opinion on that is that it is my game of the millennium and that nothing will ever be able to top that
If it makes you feel better Yahtz, I only watch your old videos because they’re freaking hysterical. I’ve honestly never really gone to your videos for opinions on games, usually because I like to get my own ideas. And at risk of sounding like a brownnoser, I applaud your introspection on your past game lists. Now I’m wondering, would you change any of your worst games lists?
And I do like Bioshock Infinite, largely because it was the first narrative driven game I actually completed. I won’t argue with any problems that people point out, but I do still love it.
Wolfenstein New Order is the bomb. I like Old Blood too, whatever its problems.
2:01 The way Yahtzee says "Hot air in a balloon", 😄it would make a great text notification. Edit: Typo
Honestly even after all these years I still love Bioshock: Infinite, even though I agree with many criticisms that have been made over the years. The absolutely stunning visuals and environments, ambitious Christopher Nolan-esque story, and an amazing ending that really sticks with you
I think part of the issue some games don’t hold up as well for us today is because they lose their shock and awe on the second go through. Skyrim is a great example of that, the first time is exciting and amazing (especially at the time) but that wears off after the first go so it’s not going to seem as good coming back to it. Similarly with Shadow of Mordor, we’ve gotten oversaturated with the genre and the tech has got better, it’s still a brilliant game in its time or in a vacuum but the market is absolutely flooded with subsequent clones, many of which have improved tech, which is definitely going to make SoM look poor on returning to it. The nemesis system is still unmatched thanks to the patent abuse, it’s terrible that what should have been a fantastic bit of design going forward has been shackled to the past. Just imagine how many games could have benefited from it?
That's why Skyrim has loads of mods; people search for that sense of novelty that Skyrim had in the first run.
Yeah, I think the perspective of the time is valuable in itself, no need to say it was "wrong" now. Games that hold up best now is a different list, you know? And tbh it almost feels like retroactively applying bias to the picks now that we know what everyone else thought since.
To be pedantic, The Secret of Monkey Island could be said to be a game about becoming a pirate, so you could still argue Black Flag being the best game about being a Pirate.
Not even Yahtzee could escape Bioshock Infinite’s growing backlash over the last decade
I will not be moved by peer pressure. Infinite is the 2nd best Bioshock after the first one.
@@formorian5Hi Ken, how's obscurity treating you?
Please explain the backlash over infinite
Also want details over this. Heard great reviews early on, and then it's years later that I hear that loads of people think it's terrible but since everyone agrees no one explains why.
Why is bioshock infinite getting backlash, it is because of the muti-verse stuff and people getting annoyed by concept.
I think the Bioshock Infinite moral was 'The ends don't justify the means.' Which they sometimes subverted, at times.
i do still dive back in to 'skyrim' every once in a while, i just like how much content is in the game, how turning a corner unveils a new plot, even after 50 or 100 hours. that aside i did remember enjoying 'deus ex: human revolution' a lot more though
as for 2013, i'd probably vote 'metro: last light', and 'divinity: original sin' for 2014
"the players yearn for more map markers"
_cackling_
Wouldnt mind seeing a "I May Have Been Wrong About Some of My Most Hated Games" - Bioshock 2 is still sore from that review Yahtz
Granted I still see BioShock 2 being mixed in terms of reception, I still think it deserves its flowers after Infinite.
@Guymanbot97 what does the game do that you find unique or noteworthy for the game? All I can really think of is the little sister segment but that lasts like 2 minutes.
He'd never like Bioshock 2.
Not the base game, anyway. Minerva's Den, on the other hand...
@@jamesross2279 I'm a simple man. If a sequel to an already good game is just more of that with some QoL changes and expansion, then I'm satisfied. Plus I'm just going to say it: the multiplayer was really good and the Minerva's Den DLC had the best writing in the franchise.
@@Guymanbot97These days is my favorite of the 3. I was already kinda sour on infinite in 2013, and that only got worse with time. 2 shot up with replays to the first place. It's a more concise game, and plays better than 1. Plus, if you wanna talk dlc, Minerva's Den is better than any Infinite dlc, which imo, retroactively made the game worse.
Bioshock Infinite is still great in my mind because 1) combat on Skyrails was awesome, 2) the Charge vigor was awesome for flinging yourself at enemies like Thor, and 3) decapitating cops with the Skyhook never gets old.
Gabriel Morton's opinions on Bioshock Infinite finally wormed their way into Yahtzee's mind.
I miss when Gabe and Yahtzee did videos together, such a great double act.
Since the end of the year is drawing close feel free to tweet at Gabe and ask him what his game of 2024 is.
I'm sure he'll appreciate it.
@@Roronoa2zoro HIS game of the year or THE game of the year?
It was never particularly relevant.
"The distance between you and your past self only ever widens" -Yahtzee Proverb
Interesting you should talk about this, because right now I started playing Shadow of Morder again, on the Steam Deck, and honestly the game is just so bloody satisfying!
The late Total Biscuit said it best when he reviewed the game "the best Orc murdering simulator", or something along those lines.
Sucks that WB patented the whole idea of the nemesis systems, but apparently game companies are just allowed to stifle innovation like that. Just look at Nintendo suing PocketPare about throwing your balls at the local wildlife.
I agree! Shadow of Mordor is just so fun, even now! Yes, it copied AC open world stuff and Arkham combat, but it did it better than they did! I think it's unfair to retroactively hate on an all-time-classic because the parent company made a crappy business decision. The developers of the nemesis system didn't patent it, and patenting the system doesn't make SOM any less of an amazing game.
I would genuinely love a video from your perspective of second screen games, I enjoy from: faster than light immensely and have dipped heavily into the modding scene of multiverse so I would love to know of more second screen titles you enjoy
I dunno. Maybe our impressions become more clouded the longer it has been since we played a game. They definitely get more clouded by the discourse and other context around it. "Oh you shouldn't like this, it became very commonplace. Oh you should like that, we didn't realize how rare it would be." That said...I do kind of like the idea of revisiting the old reviews and seeing how tastes may have changed. So I guess I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. I do still love Bioshock Infinite even if the message seems to be "If your time travelling daughter from the future wants to kill you, you should let her because in the future you'll be a bad person."
This is why I think award shows should have a Cultural Impact award. Works only become eligible after 10 years from their original release, and given to works that have had a huge impact that obviously cannot be known within just a year of release.
I played Bioshock Infinite for the first time last year. I thought it was quite stellar and I was ok with it having a bit of time travel and alternate reality mess cause I enjoy figuring that stuff out. I also really liked piecing all of it together. I think what the game was trying to say is you can always find a means to redemption but I'm honestly not sure. I got a lot more out of the game emotionally, as it made me think more about what it must be like to be a father and it caused me to empathize with my own dad more. I don't play too many linear story driven games, but I found Elizabeth and her character arch truly special. I LOVE MY DAUGHTER!!
I really hope this becomes a yearly series. I really wanna see you next december looking at your 2015 Top 5 and overall reviews and try to come to some sort of conclusion about what actually made a lasting impact and what was more a flash in the pan.
Been meaning to replay Wolfenstein New Order, such an engaging campaign
excellent retrospective banter and discussion, kudos to your thought process and points
I'll always remember him brushing off Pathologic 2 for feeling "slow and miserable" when that was the intended experience for that game.
I'm pretty sure Yatz said he did know that that was what the game was going for, but that didn't mean he liked it.
(Edit for spelling)
It's not necessarily a disqualification of his opinion. Whether a game is a slog to play intentionally or by mistakes, the end result still remains a slog to play.
I think the people need to stop being sensitive over the fact that a game can be good while you are not the intended audience for it.
@@Lucarioguild7 this is a nakedly bad faith reply, as OP did not say bad. just that it's slow and miserable. this is like when people act as though saying that Spec Ops: The Line isn't fun is an insult against it. the core appeal of Pathologic is in its tension, not in being twitchy power fantasy funtimes.
@@YouWinAFREEiPOD one could argue that a good critic is one who can recognize the difference between a game they think isn't good and a game that isn't to their tastes. and I don't think, say, someone who hates strategy games should be reviewing a strategy game (unless it's the rare exception to that rule, because those can be worthwhile insights), or that someone who hates games which aren't supposed to be fun should be reviewing such games. perspectives like that are valid of course-but if I put out a review that boiled down to, "I don't like real-time horror games, and this game is a real-time horror game"-nobody really gains anything from that. the same goes for "I don't like games with ponderous pacing, and this game's pacing is ponderous."
(fwiw, I haven't watched the Pathologic 2 video in question-I'm just making a general statement.)
Bioshock is the most interesting to me because it couldn’t be a clearer demonstration of games being a product of their era.
At the time, a colourful, vibrant FPS that had a solid-ish story and didn’t take itself *too* seriously was an insane revelation, but now with sunset overdrive and suicide squad and a million other like minded games it’s a nice change of pace to *not* have Whedon-esque dialogue every moment
"Didn't have to dig deep..."
Ah yes, Metal Gear Rising
* Mentions every game other than Metal Gear Rising *
Curse you Yahtzee!!
I still think yahtzee being confused and displeased that a game with a serious tone had jokes in it is one of his worst takes ever.
hey yahtz! been a long time since i’ve watched your content but since you asked, a game that i’m surprised wasn’t brought up here is Metal Gear Rising, the hack and slash spinoff staring Raiden. your video on it in 2013 ended up on “it’s dumb as hell” but that’s also why a lot of people fell in love with it and why it keeps popping up now and again in the internet’s psyche. especially now, a whole decade later with the game industry in a completely different place, with sony blowing their load with every franchise having to be about sad hairy dads and shit like that, it may be worth going back and checking it out again
there's like only one sony series about Sad Hairy Dads and Kratos was *always* a sad dad lmao
It's interesting to hear Yhatzee says nobody complains about a story when it's good. His borderlands 1 review said it had "unnecessarily good writing". 1:54
@@blackmagicPhD That’s because it was meant as backhanded praise, not a complaint
Probably because he didnt like Borderlands 1 and was pissed off that a story this good was in a game he hated
@@DoctorTheo
Borderlands 1 had a good story? I've only ever played the second one and hadn't heard anything positive about the first one's story. 😊
And then Borderlands 2 comes out he mostly brushed it off. Now granted most of the humor in that game has aged as well as mil from the Victorian era, but it probably had the best story out of all of the games so far.
Good writing doesn't mean good story. Also, didn't he write some of the dialogue?
I never cared about the original release of Skyrim, but fully modded SkyrimVR (and Enderal on the side) is probably the most advanced videogame experience currently available to home users. And the closest we have come so far to the old "live your life in a virtual fantasy world" thing that we've been promised for so long in stories and anime etc.
Its because looking back you an view a lot of this without the context of time. Skyrim for example was much like Papers Please a breath of fresh air and color in an industry dominated by boring brown and first person shooters. It set the trend for first person exploration rpgs much like papers please set up the dad games. But while Dad games have remained a fairly Niche genre, everybody and their mother has been trying to copy Skyrim success for the last decade and a half. You acknowledged when you reviewed it that it wasn't perfect but as long as it wasn't a boring Brown shooter I think you said something along the lines of you would clap for it like a seal until your hands bled.
But isn't Skyrim the less colorful (but snowy instead of brown), more generic version of Oblivion ? Not exactly a breath of fresh air... unless you knew only greenish-grey Fallout 3 :D
it sounds rather bold saying skyrim was a breath of fresh air when instead of a bleak brown FPS it's a bleak gray first person game. It had it's moments but most of the game was pretty drab in color.
And more so i'm not sure i'd agree with everyone copying skyrim, because it's such a specific type of game, and such an ambitious one at that, that it's kind of impossible to try and directly copy it.
Without a doubt many used it as inspiration and such but to this day there's only like, two games i would describe as "Skyrim clones" for a lack of a better phrase. Fall of avalon (which genuinely does look like a skyrim copycat), and The Bloodlines, which strikes a lot of makes skyrim - skyrim. Without outright feeling like it was copied.
Back when Avowed was announced first it seemed like the first realistic competitor to skyrim that could be considered, again, for a lack of a better word, "skyrim clone"
but as more showcases were dropped, the lesser my expectations of it are from me.
@@armelior4610 And I would say Morrowind was even less generic and more colorful. Its world is strange and interesting compared to "Vikings and Romans and dragons" Skyrim
@@robbert-janmerk6783 Morrowind is literally the most brown game ever.
I feel like no one actually remembers Morrowind properly. It's 99.9% brown with some goofy enemy design and some mushrooms every once in a while.
“The distance between you and your past self only ever widens” is simultaneously surprisingly deep and eye-rolling-ly banal.
Out of everything admitting and self criticizing yourself for wearing a fedora to your wedding is the most brave thing I think I've ever seen a man do
Fascinating to see Yahtz look back at how his past reviews compare to his modern preferences.
When arkham city 1st came out it caught a lot of crap for not being more like Arkham asylum. I'm glad it gets the credit it deserves in more recent years
Did it? I recall it being universally praised for its more open world, and review scores reflected that
Yeah, Yahtzee is like a rare voice there and still is.
City was universally acclaimed at launch, definitely more than Asylum and it still is.
Its still the highest aggregate rated superhero game of all time still lol
I remember people saying that it was boring compared to arkham asylum and lacked character, that it felt big and empty.
It’s probably still my fav of the trilogy, balances the story and gameplay best. Asylum has weaker gameplay, Knight has weaker story.
@@t850terminator And let's not forget that its true sequel is Spiderman for the PS4. I have never seen so much homage to an older game by a different studio without actually mentioning it. You could DLC Batman in and we'd not have batted an eye
I always wondered why FTL faster than light wasn't in your top 5 that year. You certainly liked it in your review at the time.
Nice to hear your current thoughts.
Some games are better in hindsight because they were either the end of an era or did something new and innovative that hasn't been replicated or hasn't been replicated well since. Meanwhile others are worse in hindsight because they were the start of an era, and the games that have come out since have either improved in every way to the point that it's difficult to enjoy the earlier one, or have run the mechanics into the ground so much that you just can't enjoy it because you've seen it done to the point you're sick of it.
It's a big part of why a lot of games that seemed innovative and great at the time that are lauded as "classics" tend to feel just kind of "alright" to the people who don't have nostalgia. It's also a big part of why some games did poorly sales wise when they released, but gain cult followings much later. It's why games like Okami and Psychonauts are considered cult classics and have strong followings to this day, with Okami being touted as one of the prime examples of "games are art" and Psychonauts easily crowdfunding a sequel, yet sales wise weren't even close to being in the top 100 PS2 games.
I really like that you're going through your past choices like this and analyzing how the context of the time affected your decisions. Fantastic!
i love how Shadow of Mordor is such a perfect Microcosm of how much WB has fumbled every single revolutionary new idea that have had in over 2 decades and are only afloat thanks to monetary inertia
Personally I treat video games (and music) like a aging whiskey or fine wine. You know a good game when you’re able to go back to it, no matter the years.
Its also why I look at the artistic visuals and not realistic graphics (because it usually never age well).