Watch this week's Zero Punctuation episode on Neon White - www.escapistmagazine.com/neon-white-zero-punctuation/ - Watch it early on TH-cam and support our content via Memberships for just $2/month. th-cam.com/channels/qg5FCR7NrpvlBWMXdt-5Vg.htmljoin
neon white's probably gonna be my favourite game of the year if nothing else better comes out. and i'm not just saying that because machine girl did the soundtrack shut up edit: i have never played elden ring due to my pc not meeting system requirements, so i dont care. and xenoblade 3 is a nintendo game so i dont care either
There's a ton of horror movies where the protagonist/s act rationally and intelligently. Alien/Aliens, Nightmare on Elm Street, It Follows, The Thing, Jaws, Silence Of the Lambs etc.
or best of both "sensible" and "why would anyone be this obnoxious" in the film version of Kings "The Mist" - except dammit i'm saving a bullet for ME in the end, grandpa can get splattered by the Silent Hill x Tentai monster
yeah, that's true. But also, I don't want to complain too much about something not being as good at that as tucker and Dale, because that movie did it pretty amazingly.
Yes... however, it was never set up for Tucker and Dale to be the bad guys. The movie was written as an entire parody and reversal of the traditional trope. The Quarry is written in a manner that presents the Hacketts as the villains, and aside from the eventual reveal (and the signs prior... which on a second playthrough they are far more obvious), are intended to be presented that way. Plus you can't really compare Tucker and Dale vs Evil to anything... or vice versa. That movie is the prime example of lightening in a bottle.
It's City propaganda at this point how much they underestimate and dog pile on rual areas acting like we are unkind backwater hillbillies who don't highschool education and a fucking 3000$ PC and smartphones to see their bullshit.
The major question when writing unlikable characters is if one of the unsympathetic characters was meant to be sympathized with. If that’s the case, then the writing fucked up somewhere.
@@powerbeard5653 I don't actually get Yahtzee's perspective here, though, some of the characters were definitely likeable. Dylan, especially, was a bit annoying, but overall quite sweet.
Characters don't necessarily need to be likeable, but they do need to be fun to watch. Everyone in "it's always sunny" is scum but they're very entertaining in all the ways they go about being scum and failing miserably.
Character writing in the slasher genre died when Scream was released. Ever since then, there's been a tacit agreement in slasher-land that every character has to be a hot, insufferable prick that we enjoy seeing killed. It's a horrible convention that I hate with a passion. But - at this point - "hot people everyone hates" has lasted 20 years longer than "regular people who shouldn't die". Even if the latter has more dramatic appeal. Slashers have become the pinnacle 4th wall breaking cynicism: "You know what this is, I know you know, You know that I know that you know, so here's some hot people with shit personalities. Hope you enjoy watching them die." I wish writers wouldn't be so afraid to convey genuine emotions in a silly genre piece. It's what made the first group of slashers worth watching.
Sometimes you get a break from it like Cabin in the woods which was...kind of pointing out how the genre had devolved into said "hot people everyone hates"...
@@kleinerprinz99 All of them except X. And, yes, they did enter that territory a bit, but it was WAY understated compared to something like Valentine. Also, Friday is a weird franchise which is in no way internally consistent. Who Jason is, what he looks like, what he does, why he does it, and who he does it to changes a lot between the first 6 movies. Fans have decided that Friday is this specific thing (usually just Jason Lives), but it's all over the place in terms of tone. Also, if your first thought with 80s slashers is "Jason" and not some random nonsense like House on Sorority Row, go back and watch some. There's a whole giant universe of these movies, and Jason may have ended up as the most marketable dude with a knife, but he's far from the most interesting.
@@semanticsman5192 when I clicked read more, for a brief moment I thought you had copy posted an entire books worth of cliff notes of war and peace in. or the entire book. then I remembered that wouldn't have fit.
I think they got the wrong idea from Until Dawn, because the reason everyone kind of disliked one another was due to a combination of factors that made sense. "Hey, we kind of sorta fucked up years ago and someone died on accident, now we're brought back together and we REALLY don't want to be." The Quarry makes you think that all of these people just despise one another for literally zero reason, which adds to this sense of uncanny strangeness to everything occurring.
Definitely agree, the game starts with characters fighting over nothing and there's this constant feeling that you're missing something about why they interact with each other the way they do. Until dawn gave a very clear reason by comparison
Worst part is, if you're making decisions where they can be helpful or nice to others, that only works until you lose control, and in cinematics they're acting bitchy again. Granted, there are some decisions that are impacted by your interactions with others, but the whole game is such a mess that it didn't really matter in the end. After this game I went back to House of Ashes, and enjoyed that one much more. It's actually a finished product.
I've thought Until Dawn was good and their next games were downhill from there. (House of Ashes was good though) I think it was because there seemed to be genuine thought to the story of Until Dawn. There is lore that explains the setting and the game does a good job subverting and embracing aspects clichés of slasher flicks. Meanwhile The Quarry is a run of the mill slasher story.
It totally fits unfortunately. Having only learned that this game existed literally yesterday, the only thing more odd than some of the faces was how odd Justice Smith sounded, like his throat was damaged or something.
That was my first thought when he mentioned the whole "Rednecks obviously aren't actually here to kill you but help you". I do love that movie, it's not the greatest movie ever but it has a lot of charm.
Did anyone else get stumped and confused for a couple seconds because of how Supergiant Games and Supermassive games sound so similar but are 2 grossly dissimilar game studios? Cause I was starting to get an aneurism thinking the same people who made games like Hades among other amazing games, was behind something like the Quarry
You know what, Yahtzee’s got a real talent for sneaking in trivia bits between knob gags, it’s no ordinary TH-cam video that fleetingly mentions the main character from War and Peace
I think Until Dawn's twists worked because it was the first time. You can't use questionable weirdos that aren't actually bad frequently or it loses value as a plot device. Gotta throw in more actual killer weirdo. I guess that's what the prologue tried, but... didn't really do it.
The weird thing that I'm surprised Yahtz missed here is that the weirdos actually ARE the bad guys. They will flat up murder your characters and have killed numerous teens/journalists over the years. 3/4 of the original werewolves are hillbillies!
A good easy to solve this would be to subvert expectations - the questionable weirdos really are trying to capture charcters with a view to torturing and killing them and it is the monsters who are trying to help by scaring them away and only kill when charcters attack them first.
Honestly watching people play this game its gold. Soilers here. The one guy just... dying in a freezer after the curse was cleared was logical but also like, why was he left in there? xD
I haven't actually gone in there, but I did go in for my second playthrough at the very start of the game and the Jacob struggles to open the freezer and says "I'd hate to be stuck in there." Supposedly it's broken or something
I find his choice of the "three recognizable celebrities" really funny because mine were Brenda Song, Skyler Gisondo, and Lin Shaye, and Brenda Song was the only one whose name I knew.
I totally thought she sounded familiar! No wonder I liked her character the most (plus she's basically the only rational one who knows how to handle most of the situations they get put in)
I think the rewind system just pops in after the first playtrough OR if you bought the deluxe version - because of course. Also it bugged out for poor Cohh, so the only character i liked still died in his playtrough.
My expectation was extremely low for this game. And it delivered as expected. Still think that last game with those army twats was the best. Basically, a 5.1 / 10 kind of "best". The highest praise I ever gave a Supermassive game...
I always love the supermassive games. I don’t.. think they are amazing and it’s never really hard to know how to get the “best”. But I always like it. I like choose your own adventure and sometimes it feels movie like.
It would rule to have a game like this let you make at least a few choices that would just give a "good end, game over" because for once in a horror movie you yelled at the screen and the characters actually listened. Just throw in a "would you like to see what happens anyway?" prompt after showing a good end cutscene and let us carry on.
Sort of like how Nier lets you just desert the military and end the game very early if you want to. It's funny for a second and then you probably load back to before you did that because you want to keep playing Nier. If you just got to leave the quarry early though I wonder if you'd suddenly realize, "oh right, I can just stop playing The Quarry." And then you know, do that.
He's shat on some games that I personally enjoy, but rightfully so and in an entertaining way that I 100% agree with. Only games journalist where I can fully trust that what he says is what he actually experienced with a game. I haven't played the vast majority of things I've seen ZPs for, but when I do I find that he always perfectly captures he impression the game leaves
I'm glad he mentioned Emma in particular being unsettling in terms of uncanny valley. I couldn't stop staring at her mouth, hoping she wouldn't move it, only to always get upset when she inevitably did.
My friends and I just finished playing this together on Discord and the only reason I felt it was so enjoyable was because several of us were "The Cast" while the rest were "The Directors" and paired us with the characters in the game that best matched our own personalities. We then made the decisions for our characters, switching out like one would expect depending on which characters was in control at the time. Buch of joking, several discussions on the choices handed to us, and of course lots and lots of alcohol involved.
This is the best way to play supermassive games. My introduction to Until Dawn was GameTrailers/EasyAllies doing exactly that. Was hilarious to watch, and must’ve been glorious to do.
Yeh you can play these games solo, but thats really not the way they are ment to be played. I'm 100% sure i got way more enjoyment out of all of these game's by watching a group of people play then then i would get from playing them solo.
the opening really nails the shame of the whole thing. videogames are actually a great medium for choose your own adventure books. like the choice of games are often excellent. because they realise the limitations of the structure and thus focus on writing and meaningful decisions. and not on motion capture.
Here's a fun fact regarding the idea of intentionally failing a quick-time effect: In Indigo Prophecy -- brought to you by none other than David Cayge -- there's a scene where 2 of the protagonists cross paths and one of them is a cop investigating the other for clues. During their conversation, the cop will ask you questions and your goal is to avoid implicating yourself. But as that's going on, your character will suffer hallucinations which will trigger QTE's and doing them right will actually cause him to act fidgety and suspicious. The correct decision is to fail them on purpose in order for your character to keep his cool, but because you've been doing them so often in the game, you'd naturally assume that you HAVE to do them, especially since you have no reason to think the game would throw these at you as a red herring and make you give yourself away. It was quite a near trick and a good way to test the player's situational awareness. But as is the rule with David Cayge, these glimpses of brilliance end up drowning in a sea of mediocrity and terrible writing.
So wait... the way to keep your cool is to just sit there involuntarily tripping balls? Like what are these QTEs that you normally have to do but if you fail don't do anything?
@@wyrmh0le Well, it makes a kind of sense. Throughout the game you have to Press X to Do Thing. So if you want to NOT do a thing, you have to... not press X. You, the player, are ignoring the hallucinations along with the character.
@@jaxelt1 But that's exactly what I don't get -- what Thing does it Do when you Press X, and why do you normally want to do it? I would think that not reacting to the things only you can see would be generally a) good if you're around other people not at Burning Man and b) the thing that takes effort. But that's apparently not the case, so what are these QTEs?
@@wyrmh0le I have to assume it's something like "*Character hallucinates there's a bat coming towards his face* Press X to block If you press X to block a non-existent bat, the cop will be suspicious
Changing the rules in the middle of a game isn't brilliance, it's just cheating. Games are supposed to have established rules. Imagine a sports game, where "Team A" is leading the score by 10 points; when the game is about to end, Team B stops playing, just stand still waiting for the clock to run out and suddenly gets awarded 20 points for doing nothing and wins the game.
The last part about the "but then the game would be over in 2 minutes" reminds me of the Far Cry 4 "secret" ending, where (spoilers, though to be fair it is a fairly old game....) . . . . . . you just wait for the "bad guy" for a couple of minutes, he comes back, explains he's loved the character's mother, takes you to where the ashes are supposed to be spread, tells you he is the character's actual father and that you had a sister that the man you thought was the father had killed whose ashes are already on that mountain, and then offers you a grand old time shooting guns, the end, roll credits. Where that ending is, in my opinion, the best ending by FAR, no contest.
4:06 And here I thought the reason it was so obvious was because I had watched Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Never would've thought they'd have made two games with the same premise.
Considering the name "Supermassive Games" is eerily similar to Supergiant Games, it makes sense that their approach to storytelling is an evil twin of innovation and embedding present in all Supergiant products.
I remember in one of the discord servers I'm in, this game got brought up, and one person in the chat googled how many "endings" there are to this game (to which there's like over 150 or something ridiculous) and they said something to the effect of "that's what I like to see." I didn't point out to them how over the top stupid that number was and how most of those "endings" are probably just the same endings over and over again with different characters alive. I'm not criticising them for liking what they like, but I am seriously questioning what the average video game player looks for in a game, because I can't even begin to guess anymore.
For me, it is consistency. Controls that work consistently, a consistent artstyle for both the environment and characters, and consistent sound design and mixing. Bonus points for an intriguing plot and likeable characters. Major penalty if the plot is "it was all a dream" (with the exception of Link's Awakening).
@@mrlaz9011 the way I understood Link's Awakening is that the game is set inside the dream of the Windfish not inside Link's head. So the entire adventure actually happens to Link, it's just contained in a small pocket dimension created by the Windfish. An example of the dream trope I don't like would be Super Mario Bros 2. That game occurs inside Mario's dream, but none of the characters (Luigi, Peach, or Toad) actually went on an adventure or even knew about it.
I was totally expecting the nostril stat to have some weird number, or maybe be not a number at all, but Yahtzee played it completely straight, and that was actually the funniest thing he could have done imo.
For a game supposedly all about choices, it sure felt like mine didn't matter. At one point I heard a creepy sound in the woods and was prompted to call out or wait it out. Not being a complete moron I decided not to holler into the darkness while sleep paralysis demons are patrolling the woods, then like two seconds later my guy cries out "Hey! Who's there?!" Lovely, always good to see I don't actually have control of my character. I also loved the part where I used up one of my lives in an attempt to save one of the few characters I actually liked, only for the other choice to get them killed anyway. Well, thanks for that the Quarry, I'm so glad I spent 60 bucks on a game that hates me for trying to play it...
@@xelthos2051 Tbh I didnt watch Modern Family after the first seasons so I didnt recognize her grown up. But yea it was a good cast. I agree with most of Yahtzee's complaints about the game tho lol
I’m reminded of a video I watched on this very channel that was discussing the anatomy of horror movies. The host ended the video saying “Why don’t they call the police? They don’t call the police because that would be boring.” He said it like it was some kind of bombshell. If people have to make dumb decisions for the plot to happen, then it’s probably not a good plot
Agreed. I believe it's known as an Idiot Plot? Nowadays, the answer to the whole "why don't they call the police" isn't 'they cut the lines' but 'we have no signal somehow' (or the whole evil police thing)
Yknow what, make them call the police. Make the police arrive and get ambushed and eaten by the horror monster. "Why dont they call the police" "oh yeah because A) we are being chased by a deer with 3 shark heads who is chanting baby shark is believable and B) the cops will survive their first encounter with the currently hunting lulladeer sharkberus." And then you can say the further calls are being disregarded because "sir we already dispatched a team your way, please stop calling again."
Why don't they call the police? Because the police will stand outside the haunted quarry for an hour or two doing nothing besides listening to children get devoured by monsters, because giving a damn about human life is literally not what police are paid to do.
Hollywood has long forgotten "Angry armed rural" is a scary character cause they're justifiably trigger-happy being constantly accosted by wild animals and criminals. Not because they're rural. Having to diffuse a situation with an otherwise benign person who has sensible reasons to distrust you is an interesting moral dilemma.
I've actually written several articles on how pop culture and most writers seem to think rural communities have been stuck in the TV version of 1981, and I feel like it all just feeds into the rural vs urban narrative people seem to think has to exist. I live in the country, my grandpa's a farmer, but he also has a smart tv and Wifi. The wind farms giving everyone migraines are also mostly ignored by writers, but that's not a globally present element of country life.
@@librarianseth5572 Its more that Hollywood thinks that rural communities and the denizens therein are stuck in 1972, considering that Deliverance was released in theaters that year.
I don't know which one is better "The Dark Pricktease Endoscopy" or "the stock sexy girl character in particular looks like she's trying to talk through a bagel that's been hot-glued to her face".
This whole series reminds me of The Asylum movie studio: They found one gimmick that made them a Titanic-load of money and they kept going back to the well over and over to squeeze a few more pennies from it. And each iteration only results in increasingly diminishing returns.
1:28 WAS THAT A GODDAMN WAR AND PEACE REFERENCE? Yahtzee, I've always been fond of you - and Jam was a very pleasant read - but this takes my respect of you to a whole new level.
“Do what would be sensible” is interesting in the context of video game characters so I went over all of my favorite game series and this is what I think the sensible thing would’ve been: God of War: around the second game, Kratos kills the Greek sisters of fate and gains the power to control and travel through time. Instead of using this power to go back and rescue his family from himself, he opts to attempt to murder Zeus and gathers Titans from the past to aid in that. This was hastily retconned by the developers and story writers, basically saying Kratos was too damned mad to care or notice. Dark Souls: the Curse of the Undead literally makes you immortal. Over the games history we’ve learned that provided an Undead has something to focus on, such as the blacksmith from Dark Souls 2, they can avoid going hollow indefinitely. Estus can heal any injury including life threatening ones, and even death itself carries no penalty for an undead provided there is a bonfire nearby.
I remember back in the 90s when RL Stine had “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” for his Goosebump series. It was quite nice but being an adult now the only “Choose your own adventure books” games I’ve enjoyed has been “Tales From Borderlands” game, which I quite liked the soundtracks they went with.
I usually play these games only when a friend wants me to and my goal is to kill all of them as fast as possible. Turns out Quick Time Events do fuck all for that
l think the facial motion capture was pretty on-point actually, the dialogue was pretty horrendous/generic/marvel most of the time, but for the most part l thought their faces looked pretty good/natural
Honestly, I love these games. They're right up there with david cage's schlocky garbage. It's kind of like how some people like cheesy rom-coms, or soap operas. Is is all objectively bad entertainment? Sure. But it's fun.
Hah, same! Especially w David Cage. I, also, enjoyed seeing his writing, editing & directing get better. "Aww, he's growing!" I love Classic Resident Evil & embrace the campiness. Those motion controls "whoops, that plate you smashed despite using controller in same way" have to go/be optional, though.
I watched a friend playing this today. In the Prologue, literally the FIRST time the male character opens his mouth and speaks, I was like, "Ugh. That's off." It didn't get better.
Would have been nice to see that if the annoying teens agreed to stay in the cabin as they were told instead of having an outdoor party against all sense, that you'd experience a different chain of attacks and experiences. Then it would have some proper replay value as you have the classic stupid teen slasher in the woods story and the other classic trapped in the cabin in the woods type story.
Perhaps Supermassive's next game should be a Lord of the flies-style story, only all the chubby stupid 20-somethings are nazis and so you've got the perfect set-up for an "all the characters die horribly and my god was it satisfying" style horror experience
0:33 Actually, 6. People know Ariel Winter from Modern Family, Brenda Song from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, & Justice Smith from Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom & Detective Pikachu.
@@charlottecorday8494 It’s still one of the most popular shows from Disney Channel & still remembered fondly, especially when the main leads are still in the spotlight.
So King Bowserman did the Mario movie because he had bills to pay. His children, upon seeing the movie, said "we didn't need shoes that bad, Dad." Or so the apocrypha goes.
Yahtzee wasn’t joking about the facial animations especially for the character Emma. Her mouth was so distractingly huge it reminded me of a door on the back of a garbage truck which was appropriate b/c every time she opened her massive maw verbal garbage would spill out. It was like listening to the combined inane ramblings of 3-4 self-proclaimed, self-absorbed “influencer”-types that pollute social media.
LOLed at the celebs' running gag of "I was in [name of movie]". Also the female imp with a bagel for a mouth. And that Ukraine/Russia war gag. "Press X to avoid verbal trap." LOL! XD
"Do you think Lance Henriksen regrets doing the Super Mario Bros movie" Being that his role in that movie was minor (and being that he's been in a lot of crap), probably not. At least, not to the same extent as Dennis Hopper. Also, Yahtzee's description of the plot sounds similar to Tucker & Dale vs Evil
"Why can't we be allowed to do the sensible thing?? Because the game would be over in 2 minutes." And your sketches would be longer than the games themselves. Mind you: this is still not a bad thing..
I do agree with him, but there is something magical about playing a game like this with Family, friends or significant other and having them make the choices and seeing their reaction. It’s makes the game even more enjoyable because everyone participates and gets suprised by the result. Not to mention getting yelled at for missing a button
When I saw the box art I immediately thought it was going to be like the Friday the 13th game. Good to know I’m wrong even if choose your own adventure books are only fun the first time around
I'm a little surprised that you didn't mention the game barely has an ending. There is practically no falling action or anything, it almost jumps straight from climax to credits. I kinda liked most of the game but the ending was really unsatisfying.
I don't know about games, but there are two films that I think people remember, in which the first one gave us a despicable cast that you WANTED to die, and made you hate them for what they did and said, and it's sequel, in which all the characters were actually really decent and likable and you felt sad to see them be tortured and killed in the manner in which they were. I'm of course talking about Unfriended, and Unfriended 2. The first one had you cheer for their deaths, the 2nd had you actually sympathize.
writes unlikeable characters that everyone hates asks player to save said characters player says, "but I want to watch them die" writers "fine, we'll do it our self"
Exactly what I think. Until Dawn was legitimately quite good imo, the Quarry definitely is campier and stupider and the horror aspect of it is almost nonexistent but it's still way better than what they've been releasing for some time.
I can definetly agree that the main characters could be annoying (except Dylan, hes a sweetheart). As the game went on though, i gradually started warming up to most of them, realising that they were dumb teens who hadn't entered college yet and hadn't fully matured into adults yet. The only character i truly hated was Emily. The way she treated Josh was just awful.
Now wouldn't THAT be a plot twist. You fail a quicktime event and the monster helps you out and goes "̵T̷h̷e̸ ̶s̸o̵r̶c̴e̷r̸o̷r̸ ̴k̷e̶e̴p̸s̸ ̵u̷s̵ ̵i̷n̵ ̷t̸h̵r̴a̷l̷l̶.̵ ̴K̷i̵l̶l̷ ̶h̸i̵m̴ ̸t̴o̶ ̸s̶e̴t̴ ̷u̷s̶ ̴f̸r̶e̶e̶"̷ and leaves.
SPOILER for the ending of the game. I really liked the plots of act 1 and 2, but act 3 feels too quick and underdeveloped. The Quarry needed 1 or 2 more chapters added at the end. We have 2 surviving werewolves (caleb and silas) and 2 surviving parties: (The homestead group: the Hacketts+Ryan+Laura+Jacob and The Lodge group: Emma+Abigail+Kaitlyn +Dylan+Max+Nick) There should be 2 final boss fights. Anyone bitten by Caleb or Silas is still infected, and can use their enhanced strength in the fight to defend their friends. Caleb can be saved if Silas is killed first. Silas' backstory and character can be fleshed out as he's barely talked about despite driving the story. Explanations should be given for why Caleb and Kaylee were not in the cells with their father, maybe Silas did that, maybe Laura and Max delayed Travis and he wasn't there to help. Without this change, the Lodge group becomes redundant in the final act, as Emma and Abigail do nothing after act 2 and Max's survival comes down to whether or not the player metagames.
While I don't hate The Quarry, I do kinda wish that Supermassive branched out into proper survival horror, whether it be in the Silent Hill style or the Resident Evil style. Hell, with their focus on character rosters, they could probably make it party-based a'la Sweet Home.
I played this game and was put in a dumb situation that is peak random. Theres a scene where you steal a gun from someone to escape them. Do the quick time events perfectly and you get away without trouble. I failed them on purpose to see if I'd be beaten senselessly and escape another way, but i tried that and instead shot the guy. Another character asked what I wanted to do and I was forces to leave him there to bleed in a cage insread of helping him, which led to another situation where I could make choices that meant buggar all anyway.
You can tell Yahtzee still hasn't played House Of Ashes, Salim is definitely the most likable character to come out of a SM game in a while. WE STAN SALIM!
I feel like House of Ashes was the best Supermassive game since Until Dawn. It more than made up for the horrendous disappointment that Little Hope was.
@@jakobkopeszki1741 Thing is, I enjoyed what it was trying to do up until the end, when it pulled the rug out from under us by abusing the "all in his head" trope, violently souring the whole experience. I say it abused the trope, since even though there were vague hints of that being what could be happening, the overall execution of the twist went against what the game had been setting up with its intriguing witch trial plot. Sometimes you don't need a disappointing Scooby-Doo reveal. Sometimes it's ok to let the fantastical goings-on be fantastical goings-on, which House of Ashes understood (and why it fucking ruled). Little Hope threw all of its cool fantastical stuff out of the window, and didn't properly get into the whole "working through your shit" angle it tossed in at the end. But let me clear things up: I'm not entirely opposed to stories all being in someone's head/all being a dream. After all, I loved Psychonauts and Inception, along with Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. It's when you don't properly capitalize on the nuances, or reveal it right at the end, when it feels like a shitty hack-writing cop-out. Even if you don't set it up right from the start, I reckon you could still introduce the concept before the half-way point. Though the earlier you introduce it, the more game-time you have to truly explore it and do cool stuff with it. If anything, Little Hope squandering that missed potential makes the "all in his head" twist even more of an unpleasant titty-twister. Which is why Little Hope is the worst Supermassive adventure, and why House of Ashes blew it out of the fucking water. Because House of Ashes turned into a fun sci-fi horror romp, and didn't toss out all the fun stuff with a shitty twist reveal.
If it's anything like Until Dawn, your choices will mean jack shit as well. I did enjoy Until Dawn quite a bit, but a lot of that love simmered down on a second playthrough when I realized how little my choices actually affected the game.
That was what made me give up on Telltale games. There's only an illusion of choice. But I guess to be fair, meaningful choices are hard to pull off and take up a lot of dev time.
Spoiler. It boils down to a few simple choices: Don't fail the running QTE's, pick up the flair, don't piss off the elk, get the locket, don't answer the knock from the trap door, don't piss off the girl who ends up opening the door for you.
I'm not sure if we'll ever get past the uncanny valley for mo-cap faces. Best we can do is go back in a more cartoony direction for now. Like the way Pixar does it or those Overwatch animated shorts.
Friends streamed these games and we got drunk which made them ridiculously enjoyable, but aside from the Iraq Invasion one (where an Iraqi Republican Guard is the best character, Salim) I can only imagine how miserable they are to play straight-faced. Every choice and line of dialogue are so laughable that you'd think they'd just lay into the humor aspect, but no, verrrry serious are Dark Pictures games... to the developers.
I feel like if you're up against scary supernatural monsters you're going to be much more inclined to siding with other humans, it would kind of put things in perspective
If there's one thing low budget cheesy movies have taught me, it's that if even Lance Henriksen can't be bothered to be in your production for very long, you've got a serious problem.
Completely unrelated to the video, but I listened to both of your DEDA books on audilble and loved the shit out of them. you've really grown as a writer from mogworld and Jam (which weren't by any means bad).
I think _nearly everyone_ regrets the Super Mario Brothers movie; the actors, the director, the studios that financed it, the fans of the franchise, the non-fans who watched it... Everyone except youtubers who get to point out weird and/or terrible media for a living.
Soo... they went from campy horror movie choose your own adventure, with some grim out of your hand surprises. To arcade moon logic, the lives we gave you means nothing adventure. Great...
It's worse because they're not really improving their process in any way that makes the games better, nor are they changing the story beats enough to make them unpredictable.
Hey Yahtzee, I just finished "Will Save The Galaxy For Food". It was one of very few books that made me laugh out loud. Gonna try "Differently Morphous" now
I don't know if Lance Henriksen regrets being in the Mario Bros movie... but I'm pretty sure he regrets saying 'no' to playing Frank in the OG Hellraiser. Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to commiserate the vole.
I was hoping last year we would get a house of ashes review cause I thought it was the only one since that got nearly as good as until dawn with a fresh premise. I thought the writing was okay but the setting and some characters really were cool Quarry seems a lot similar to until dawn but still fun
Tremors is a 'horror' movie franchise with characters that are, for the most part, perfectly reasonable. It would be more accurate to call it an action/comedy monster movie franchise because of it.
![ปฏิเสธไม่ไหว (Crush on you) - LIPTA feat. No One Else [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NBw1jF342vw/mqdefault.jpg)
Watch this week's Zero Punctuation episode on Neon White - www.escapistmagazine.com/neon-white-zero-punctuation/ - Watch it early on TH-cam and support our content via Memberships for just $2/month. th-cam.com/channels/qg5FCR7NrpvlBWMXdt-5Vg.htmljoin
neon white's probably gonna be my favourite game of the year if nothing else better comes out. and i'm not just saying that because machine girl did the soundtrack shut up
edit: i have never played elden ring due to my pc not meeting system requirements, so i dont care. and xenoblade 3 is a nintendo game so i dont care either
Xenoblade chronicles 3 is out soon
"Do what would be sensible." Exactly the kinda thing every person in any horror movie or video game does not do.
Cabin in the Woods, as always, the best in the medium
and thats why theyre all trash
What a novel idea you've expressed
There's a ton of horror movies where the protagonist/s act rationally and intelligently. Alien/Aliens, Nightmare on Elm Street, It Follows, The Thing, Jaws, Silence Of the Lambs etc.
or best of both "sensible" and "why would anyone be this obnoxious" in the film version of Kings "The Mist" - except dammit i'm saving a bullet for ME in the end, grandpa can get splattered by the Silent Hill x Tentai monster
Y'know, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil did the "weirdo rednecks turn out to be nice guys" twist like a decade ago, and it was much better executed.
I was scrolling down hoping someone would mention this movie, as I forgot the title 👍
yeah, that's true. But also, I don't want to complain too much about something not being as good at that as tucker and Dale, because that movie did it pretty amazingly.
Yeah, they were just having a doozy of a day...
Yes... however, it was never set up for Tucker and Dale to be the bad guys. The movie was written as an entire parody and reversal of the traditional trope. The Quarry is written in a manner that presents the Hacketts as the villains, and aside from the eventual reveal (and the signs prior... which on a second playthrough they are far more obvious), are intended to be presented that way.
Plus you can't really compare Tucker and Dale vs Evil to anything... or vice versa. That movie is the prime example of lightening in a bottle.
It's City propaganda at this point how much they underestimate and dog pile on rual areas acting like we are unkind backwater hillbillies who don't highschool education and a fucking 3000$ PC and smartphones to see their bullshit.
The major question when writing unlikable characters is if one of the unsympathetic characters was meant to be sympathized with. If that’s the case, then the writing fucked up somewhere.
most stories need at least one likable character for people to be attached to, so they must have fucked up somewhere
I find that's a common trope of the horror genre, all the main characters are unlikable assholes yet we're still supposed to sympathize with them
@@powerbeard5653 I don't actually get Yahtzee's perspective here, though, some of the characters were definitely likeable. Dylan, especially, was a bit annoying, but overall quite sweet.
Characters don't necessarily need to be likeable, but they do need to be fun to watch. Everyone in "it's always sunny" is scum but they're very entertaining in all the ways they go about being scum and failing miserably.
@@MysteriumArcanum I always thought it was common of slashers specifically so you don't feel bad when the awful people die.
I like at 4:35 where, despite Yahtzee not having arms, I can tell that they're crossed.
That's why he earns the big bucks.
I saw that the first time, though now that I'm looking at it again, it looks like he has boobs.
Honestly I thought for a moment he was just a really busty amputee for some reason in that scene
Yahtziddies
I thought he was doing like dog paws or something idk
Character writing in the slasher genre died when Scream was released. Ever since then, there's been a tacit agreement in slasher-land that every character has to be a hot, insufferable prick that we enjoy seeing killed. It's a horrible convention that I hate with a passion. But - at this point - "hot people everyone hates" has lasted 20 years longer than "regular people who shouldn't die". Even if the latter has more dramatic appeal.
Slashers have become the pinnacle 4th wall breaking cynicism: "You know what this is, I know you know, You know that I know that you know, so here's some hot people with shit personalities. Hope you enjoy watching them die." I wish writers wouldn't be so afraid to convey genuine emotions in a silly genre piece. It's what made the first group of slashers worth watching.
Sometimes you get a break from it like Cabin in the woods which was...kind of pointing out how the genre had devolved into said "hot people everyone hates"...
It says a lot when the best slasher movies in the past 25 years were the ones making fun of the genre.
guess you never have seen friday the 13th movies
@@kleinerprinz99 All of them except X. And, yes, they did enter that territory a bit, but it was WAY understated compared to something like Valentine. Also, Friday is a weird franchise which is in no way internally consistent. Who Jason is, what he looks like, what he does, why he does it, and who he does it to changes a lot between the first 6 movies. Fans have decided that Friday is this specific thing (usually just Jason Lives), but it's all over the place in terms of tone.
Also, if your first thought with 80s slashers is "Jason" and not some random nonsense like House on Sorority Row, go back and watch some. There's a whole giant universe of these movies, and Jason may have ended up as the most marketable dude with a knife, but he's far from the most interesting.
Do you blame scream for this or do you more blame the cultural impact of scream
For anyone else confused:
Pierre kirillovich Bezukov, mentioned at 1:28, is the main character from Leo Tolstoy's famous book, War and peace
I’ve been meaning to read that. I already have the audiobook downloaded. Thank you for the explanation.
NEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRD!!!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
@@semanticsman5192 when I clicked read more, for a brief moment I thought you had copy posted an entire books worth of cliff notes of war and peace in. or the entire book.
then I remembered that wouldn't have fit.
I think they got the wrong idea from Until Dawn, because the reason everyone kind of disliked one another was due to a combination of factors that made sense. "Hey, we kind of sorta fucked up years ago and someone died on accident, now we're brought back together and we REALLY don't want to be."
The Quarry makes you think that all of these people just despise one another for literally zero reason, which adds to this sense of uncanny strangeness to everything occurring.
Definitely agree, the game starts with characters fighting over nothing and there's this constant feeling that you're missing something about why they interact with each other the way they do. Until dawn gave a very clear reason by comparison
Worst part is, if you're making decisions where they can be helpful or nice to others, that only works until you lose control, and in cinematics they're acting bitchy again. Granted, there are some decisions that are impacted by your interactions with others, but the whole game is such a mess that it didn't really matter in the end. After this game I went back to House of Ashes, and enjoyed that one much more. It's actually a finished product.
It's "by accident", not "on accident" :)
By accident and on purpose
I've thought Until Dawn was good and their next games were downhill from there. (House of Ashes was good though) I think it was because there seemed to be genuine thought to the story of Until Dawn. There is lore that explains the setting and the game does a good job subverting and embracing aspects clichés of slasher flicks. Meanwhile The Quarry is a run of the mill slasher story.
It's strangely realistic of those "hang out" groups who never liked each other but are always together because of peer pressure tho.
“Haunted quarry is a synonym for uncanny valley” wow
Like your mums 'mysterious gash'
Yeah that hit me too
One of the best lines he’s ever thought up, second only to Jiminey Cockthroat
This guy comes up with some amazing analogies and synonyms and even brief descriptions of things.
It totally fits unfortunately. Having only learned that this game existed literally yesterday, the only thing more odd than some of the faces was how odd Justice Smith sounded, like his throat was damaged or something.
If only Supermassive had had the balls to pull a Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.
Now that I would be interested in.
I'D PLAY THE SHIT OUT OF THIS
That was my first thought when he mentioned the whole "Rednecks obviously aren't actually here to kill you but help you". I do love that movie, it's not the greatest movie ever but it has a lot of charm.
or hell, Wild Zero
Personally I'd love to see how Supermassive would proceed to fuck up the attempt at making a game with a Tucker & Dale style of story.
Did anyone else get stumped and confused for a couple seconds because of how Supergiant Games and Supermassive games sound so similar but are 2 grossly dissimilar game studios? Cause I was starting to get an aneurism thinking the same people who made games like Hades among other amazing games, was behind something like the Quarry
Yep, I got the two names confused with each other, too.
Like trying to remember if it was Jessica Alba or Biel that was in that thing... from a while ago... and she was a furry.
He talked about that in the Little Hope review, actually.
Yeah was looking for this comment lol
Maybe supermassive survived entirely on sales from confused people
You know what, Yahtzee’s got a real talent for sneaking in trivia bits between knob gags, it’s no ordinary TH-cam video that fleetingly mentions the main character from War and Peace
I was wondering whether I needed to google that name or not. Thanks ;)
I think Until Dawn's twists worked because it was the first time. You can't use questionable weirdos that aren't actually bad frequently or it loses value as a plot device. Gotta throw in more actual killer weirdo. I guess that's what the prologue tried, but... didn't really do it.
The weird thing that I'm surprised Yahtz missed here is that the weirdos actually ARE the bad guys. They will flat up murder your characters and have killed numerous teens/journalists over the years. 3/4 of the original werewolves are hillbillies!
exactly, I knew that twist immediately and did exactly what yahtzee did, refused to do anything against them since they were the good guys
A good easy to solve this would be to subvert expectations - the questionable weirdos really are trying to capture charcters with a view to torturing and killing them and it is the monsters who are trying to help by scaring them away and only kill when charcters attack them first.
Honestly watching people play this game its gold. Soilers here. The one guy just... dying in a freezer after the curse was cleared was logical but also like, why was he left in there? xD
To..... chill......
@@xxXXRAPXXxx He needed to cool off.
@@luketfer I guess they forgot about him in the -Heat- off the situation.
I haven't actually gone in there, but I did go in for my second playthrough at the very start of the game and the Jacob struggles to open the freezer and says "I'd hate to be stuck in there." Supposedly it's broken or something
@@ImBatman-dk8eh Haha well i guess it was a bad place to get stuck
I find his choice of the "three recognizable celebrities" really funny because mine were Brenda Song, Skyler Gisondo, and Lin Shaye, and Brenda Song was the only one whose name I knew.
I totally thought she sounded familiar! No wonder I liked her character the most (plus she's basically the only rational one who knows how to handle most of the situations they get put in)
I spent half the game waiting for emma's mouth to suddenly unhinge, revealing rows of sharks teeth and her to then proceed to devour the entire cast
🎶 If its jaws open wide
And there's more jaws inside
That's a moraay~
"What dat mouth do?"
If you get her bitten by a werewolf that sort of happens lol
I think the rewind system just pops in after the first playtrough OR if you bought the deluxe version - because of course. Also it bugged out for poor Cohh, so the only character i liked still died in his playtrough.
My expectation was extremely low for this game. And it delivered as expected. Still think that last game with those army twats was the best. Basically, a 5.1 / 10 kind of "best". The highest praise I ever gave a Supermassive game...
You should watch EFAP's playthrough of that game.
I always love the supermassive games. I don’t.. think they are amazing and it’s never really hard to know how to get the “best”. But I always like it. I like choose your own adventure and sometimes it feels movie like.
Same, for me it was the fact you could turn Salim into the Iraqi version of the Doomguy made that game for me.
Should watch slimecicle play that one
There was something about how he said "Press 'X' to avoid verbal trap" that I liked.
"This better not awaken anything in me..."
I feel you there. It's as if he searched his soul for the smarmiest corner and channeled his inner Garrett.
It would rule to have a game like this let you make at least a few choices that would just give a "good end, game over" because for once in a horror movie you yelled at the screen and the characters actually listened. Just throw in a "would you like to see what happens anyway?" prompt after showing a good end cutscene and let us carry on.
Sort of like how Nier lets you just desert the military and end the game very early if you want to. It's funny for a second and then you probably load back to before you did that because you want to keep playing Nier.
If you just got to leave the quarry early though I wonder if you'd suddenly realize, "oh right, I can just stop playing The Quarry." And then you know, do that.
Zero Time Dilemma does that.
Yahtzee has a weird way of making you understand games, and I absolutely love it
He's shat on some games that I personally enjoy, but rightfully so and in an entertaining way that I 100% agree with. Only games journalist where I can fully trust that what he says is what he actually experienced with a game. I haven't played the vast majority of things I've seen ZPs for, but when I do I find that he always perfectly captures he impression the game leaves
how did you get that ZP emoji?
@@Kytetiger be a member on yt even if ya stop being a member ya keep the emojis.
I'm glad he mentioned Emma in particular being unsettling in terms of uncanny valley. I couldn't stop staring at her mouth, hoping she wouldn't move it, only to always get upset when she inevitably did.
My friends and I just finished playing this together on Discord and the only reason I felt it was so enjoyable was because several of us were "The Cast" while the rest were "The Directors" and paired us with the characters in the game that best matched our own personalities. We then made the decisions for our characters, switching out like one would expect depending on which characters was in control at the time. Buch of joking, several discussions on the choices handed to us, and of course lots and lots of alcohol involved.
Damn, that sounds like legitimate fun. Thanks for the idea!
I like it! Would totally watch
This is the best way to play supermassive games. My introduction to Until Dawn was GameTrailers/EasyAllies doing exactly that. Was hilarious to watch, and must’ve been glorious to do.
Yeh you can play these games solo, but thats really not the way they are ment to be played. I'm 100% sure i got way more enjoyment out of all of these game's by watching a group of people play then then i would get from playing them solo.
the opening really nails the shame of the whole thing. videogames are actually a great medium for choose your own adventure books. like the choice of games are often excellent. because they realise the limitations of the structure and thus focus on writing and meaningful decisions.
and not on motion capture.
Definitely. Choose Your Own Adventure is effectively the entire core of the Sierra point and click adventure game genre.
4:36 I love how there really is nothing to tell you the arms are crossed but we know they are
Here's a fun fact regarding the idea of intentionally failing a quick-time effect:
In Indigo Prophecy -- brought to you by none other than David Cayge -- there's a scene where 2 of the protagonists cross paths and one of them is a cop investigating the other for clues. During their conversation, the cop will ask you questions and your goal is to avoid implicating yourself. But as that's going on, your character will suffer hallucinations which will trigger QTE's and doing them right will actually cause him to act fidgety and suspicious. The correct decision is to fail them on purpose in order for your character to keep his cool, but because you've been doing them so often in the game, you'd naturally assume that you HAVE to do them, especially since you have no reason to think the game would throw these at you as a red herring and make you give yourself away.
It was quite a near trick and a good way to test the player's situational awareness. But as is the rule with David Cayge, these glimpses of brilliance end up drowning in a sea of mediocrity and terrible writing.
So wait... the way to keep your cool is to just sit there involuntarily tripping balls? Like what are these QTEs that you normally have to do but if you fail don't do anything?
@@wyrmh0le Well, it makes a kind of sense. Throughout the game you have to Press X to Do Thing. So if you want to NOT do a thing, you have to... not press X. You, the player, are ignoring the hallucinations along with the character.
@@jaxelt1 But that's exactly what I don't get -- what Thing does it Do when you Press X, and why do you normally want to do it? I would think that not reacting to the things only you can see would be generally a) good if you're around other people not at Burning Man and b) the thing that takes effort. But that's apparently not the case, so what are these QTEs?
@@wyrmh0le I have to assume it's something like
"*Character hallucinates there's a bat coming towards his face* Press X to block
If you press X to block a non-existent bat, the cop will be suspicious
Changing the rules in the middle of a game isn't brilliance, it's just cheating. Games are supposed to have established rules. Imagine a sports game, where "Team A" is leading the score by 10 points; when the game is about to end, Team B stops playing, just stand still waiting for the clock to run out and suddenly gets awarded 20 points for doing nothing and wins the game.
The last part about the "but then the game would be over in 2 minutes" reminds me of the Far Cry 4 "secret" ending, where (spoilers, though to be fair it is a fairly old game....)
.
.
.
.
.
.
you just wait for the "bad guy" for a couple of minutes, he comes back, explains he's loved the character's mother, takes you to where the ashes are supposed to be spread, tells you he is the character's actual father and that you had a sister that the man you thought was the father had killed whose ashes are already on that mountain, and then offers you a grand old time shooting guns, the end, roll credits. Where that ending is, in my opinion, the best ending by FAR, no contest.
4:06 And here I thought the reason it was so obvious was because I had watched Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Never would've thought they'd have made two games with the same premise.
"When the fuck did Lance Henriksen get here?" had me rolling.
Considering the name "Supermassive Games" is eerily similar to Supergiant Games, it makes sense that their approach to storytelling is an evil twin of innovation and embedding present in all Supergiant products.
"Press X to avoid verbal trap"
Sounds like the wet dream of many, many people
however its quick time event you also have to wiggle the analog stick weirdly and wildy
I find that rapidly waggling my joystick shuts down most conversations.
I remember in one of the discord servers I'm in, this game got brought up, and one person in the chat googled how many "endings" there are to this game (to which there's like over 150 or something ridiculous) and they said something to the effect of "that's what I like to see." I didn't point out to them how over the top stupid that number was and how most of those "endings" are probably just the same endings over and over again with different characters alive.
I'm not criticising them for liking what they like, but I am seriously questioning what the average video game player looks for in a game, because I can't even begin to guess anymore.
For me, it is consistency. Controls that work consistently, a consistent artstyle for both the environment and characters, and consistent sound design and mixing. Bonus points for an intriguing plot and likeable characters. Major penalty if the plot is "it was all a dream" (with the exception of Link's Awakening).
@@chadschmaltz9790 actually, what makes link's awakening different from the rest in your opinion?
@@mrlaz9011 the way I understood Link's Awakening is that the game is set inside the dream of the Windfish not inside Link's head. So the entire adventure actually happens to Link, it's just contained in a small pocket dimension created by the Windfish. An example of the dream trope I don't like would be Super Mario Bros 2. That game occurs inside Mario's dream, but none of the characters (Luigi, Peach, or Toad) actually went on an adventure or even knew about it.
There's 1 ending with different characters dead or alive
@@AdamSmasherReal are there seriously that many characters that it ends up having that many options? Geez
I was totally expecting the nostril stat to have some weird number, or maybe be not a number at all, but Yahtzee played it completely straight, and that was actually the funniest thing he could have done imo.
For a game supposedly all about choices, it sure felt like mine didn't matter. At one point I heard a creepy sound in the woods and was prompted to call out or wait it out. Not being a complete moron I decided not to holler into the darkness while sleep paralysis demons are patrolling the woods, then like two seconds later my guy cries out "Hey! Who's there?!" Lovely, always good to see I don't actually have control of my character. I also loved the part where I used up one of my lives in an attempt to save one of the few characters I actually liked, only for the other choice to get them killed anyway. Well, thanks for that the Quarry, I'm so glad I spent 60 bucks on a game that hates me for trying to play it...
This one had much more than 3 recognizable faces but I guess Yahtzee isn't the type to recognize someone like Brenda Song
Lady from Orville was too tall and it confused me.
@@xelthos2051 Tbh I didnt watch Modern Family after the first seasons so I didnt recognize her grown up. But yea it was a good cast. I agree with most of Yahtzee's complaints about the game tho lol
@@xelthos2051 After watching the ending to The Quarry, I went back and re-watched her Collegehumor Dora three parter. Hilarious.
well that's because his getting old af.
I only recognised Raimi and the guy that played Dewy in Scream, the rest of the cast were just a bunch of annoying uncanny valley dolls to me.
I’m reminded of a video I watched on this very channel that was discussing the anatomy of horror movies. The host ended the video saying “Why don’t they call the police? They don’t call the police because that would be boring.” He said it like it was some kind of bombshell. If people have to make dumb decisions for the plot to happen, then it’s probably not a good plot
Agreed. I believe it's known as an Idiot Plot?
Nowadays, the answer to the whole "why don't they call the police" isn't 'they cut the lines' but 'we have no signal somehow' (or the whole evil police thing)
Yknow what, make them call the police.
Make the police arrive and get ambushed and eaten by the horror monster.
"Why dont they call the police" "oh yeah because A) we are being chased by a deer with 3 shark heads who is chanting baby shark is believable and B) the cops will survive their first encounter with the currently hunting lulladeer sharkberus."
And then you can say the further calls are being disregarded because "sir we already dispatched a team your way, please stop calling again."
Why don't they call the police?
Because the police will stand outside the haunted quarry for an hour or two doing nothing besides listening to children get devoured by monsters, because giving a damn about human life is literally not what police are paid to do.
Hollywood has long forgotten "Angry armed rural" is a scary character cause they're justifiably trigger-happy being constantly accosted by wild animals and criminals. Not because they're rural.
Having to diffuse a situation with an otherwise benign person who has sensible reasons to distrust you is an interesting moral dilemma.
I've actually written several articles on how pop culture and most writers seem to think rural communities have been stuck in the TV version of 1981, and I feel like it all just feeds into the rural vs urban narrative people seem to think has to exist. I live in the country, my grandpa's a farmer, but he also has a smart tv and Wifi. The wind farms giving everyone migraines are also mostly ignored by writers, but that's not a globally present element of country life.
Hollywood is woefully disconnected from reality anyways.
@@librarianseth5572 Its more that Hollywood thinks that rural communities and the denizens therein are stuck in 1972, considering that Deliverance was released in theaters that year.
I don't know which one is better "The Dark Pricktease Endoscopy" or "the stock sexy girl character in particular looks like she's trying to talk through a bagel that's been hot-glued to her face".
This whole series reminds me of The Asylum movie studio:
They found one gimmick that made them a Titanic-load of money and they kept going back to the well over and over to squeeze a few more pennies from it. And each iteration only results in increasingly diminishing returns.
1:28 WAS THAT A GODDAMN WAR AND PEACE REFERENCE?
Yahtzee, I've always been fond of you - and Jam was a very pleasant read - but this takes my respect of you to a whole new level.
“Do what would be sensible” is interesting in the context of video game characters so I went over all of my favorite game series and this is what I think the sensible thing would’ve been:
God of War: around the second game, Kratos kills the Greek sisters of fate and gains the power to control and travel through time. Instead of using this power to go back and rescue his family from himself, he opts to attempt to murder Zeus and gathers Titans from the past to aid in that. This was hastily retconned by the developers and story writers, basically saying Kratos was too damned mad to care or notice.
Dark Souls: the Curse of the Undead literally makes you immortal. Over the games history we’ve learned that provided an Undead has something to focus on, such as the blacksmith from Dark Souls 2, they can avoid going hollow indefinitely. Estus can heal any injury including life threatening ones, and even death itself carries no penalty for an undead provided there is a bonfire nearby.
The 3 celebs he said were recognizable, I didn't recognize 😂😂. I only noticed London Tipton in it
I remember back in the 90s when RL Stine had “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” for his Goosebump series. It was quite nice but being an adult now the only “Choose your own adventure books” games I’ve enjoyed has been “Tales From Borderlands” game, which I quite liked the soundtracks they went with.
I usually play these games only when a friend wants me to and my goal is to kill all of them as fast as possible.
Turns out Quick Time Events do fuck all for that
I imagine the ability to rewind some decisions isn't very useful when you set things on the wrong course from the very first chapter.
l think the facial motion capture was pretty on-point actually, the dialogue was pretty horrendous/generic/marvel most of the time, but for the most part l thought their faces looked pretty good/natural
Didn’t think Pierre’s full name would ever be used as a gag in a ZP video and yet here we are. Incredible
I'm on Chapter 9 so I'm saving the post-spoiler bit for when I finish.
Honestly, I love these games. They're right up there with david cage's schlocky garbage.
It's kind of like how some people like cheesy rom-coms, or soap operas.
Is is all objectively bad entertainment? Sure. But it's fun.
Hah, same!
Especially w David Cage. I, also, enjoyed seeing his writing, editing & directing get better. "Aww, he's growing!" I love Classic Resident Evil & embrace the campiness.
Those motion controls "whoops, that plate you smashed despite using controller in same way" have to go/be optional, though.
You must be a bear in disguise!
Writing in all Supermassive games are still a hell of a lot better than anything David Cage has ever written lol.
In fairness, Disco Elysium was basically a Choose for own adventure book and I consider it the greatest game of all time.
I watched a friend playing this today. In the Prologue, literally the FIRST time the male character opens his mouth and speaks, I was like, "Ugh. That's off." It didn't get better.
Would have been nice to see that if the annoying teens agreed to stay in the cabin as they were told instead of having an outdoor party against all sense, that you'd experience a different chain of attacks and experiences. Then it would have some proper replay value as you have the classic stupid teen slasher in the woods story and the other classic trapped in the cabin in the woods type story.
Perhaps Supermassive's next game should be a Lord of the flies-style story, only all the chubby stupid 20-somethings are nazis and so you've got the perfect set-up for an "all the characters die horribly and my god was it satisfying" style horror experience
Yeah, I want the reward for keeping them alive until the end to be watching them have the horrific, poetic deaths they're all supposed to have
@@MolecularMachine honestly I would probably actually play that game.
Yup, make it an inverse, where you try to pick the options that result in them dying, and failing results in an ending where some or all of them live.
@@Nyghtking "Ha! I lived! Suck one, Karma! I'm gonna go deep-fry a kitten for lunch!"
@@wesleythomas7125 "Come on gang, lets go set a homeless person on fire to celebrate!"
0:33 Actually, 6. People know Ariel Winter from Modern Family, Brenda Song from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, & Justice Smith from Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom & Detective Pikachu.
The Suite Life of Zack & Cody was like 20 years ago, how OLD are you?!?
@@charlottecorday8494 It’s still one of the most popular shows from Disney Channel & still remembered fondly, especially when the main leads are still in the spotlight.
So King Bowserman did the Mario movie because he had bills to pay. His children, upon seeing the movie, said "we didn't need shoes that bad, Dad." Or so the apocrypha goes.
Yahtzee wasn’t joking about the facial animations especially for the character Emma. Her mouth was so distractingly huge it reminded me of a door on the back of a garbage truck which was appropriate b/c every time she opened her massive maw verbal garbage would spill out. It was like listening to the combined inane ramblings of 3-4 self-proclaimed, self-absorbed “influencer”-types that pollute social media.
TRUE
LOLed at the celebs' running gag of "I was in [name of movie]". Also the female imp with a bagel for a mouth. And that Ukraine/Russia war gag. "Press X to avoid verbal trap." LOL! XD
"When your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground."
Or something like that. From Serenity, the Firefly movie
"Do you think Lance Henriksen regrets doing the Super Mario Bros movie"
Being that his role in that movie was minor (and being that he's been in a lot of crap), probably not. At least, not to the same extent as Dennis Hopper.
Also, Yahtzee's description of the plot sounds similar to Tucker & Dale vs Evil
Kinda dissapointed Yahtzee doesnt mention the monsters explosive transformation. Litterally just an explosion of blood its hilarious
Yahtzee shows his age by only knowning 3 actors and them being the older ones
"Why can't we be allowed to do the sensible thing??
Because the game would be over in 2 minutes."
And your sketches would be longer than the games themselves. Mind you: this is still not a bad thing..
I do agree with him, but there is something magical about playing a game like this with Family, friends or significant other and having them make the choices and seeing their reaction. It’s makes the game even more enjoyable because everyone participates and gets suprised by the result. Not to mention getting yelled at for missing a button
When I saw the box art I immediately thought it was going to be like the Friday the 13th game. Good to know I’m wrong even if choose your own adventure books are only fun the first time around
I'm a little surprised that you didn't mention the game barely has an ending. There is practically no falling action or anything, it almost jumps straight from climax to credits. I kinda liked most of the game but the ending was really unsatisfying.
Im listening to mogworld. I play this video and hear that voice and I think “is that Yahtzee?” Then I looked it up and I was like “neat”
I don't know about games, but there are two films that I think people remember, in which the first one gave us a despicable cast that you WANTED to die, and made you hate them for what they did and said, and it's sequel, in which all the characters were actually really decent and likable and you felt sad to see them be tortured and killed in the manner in which they were. I'm of course talking about Unfriended, and Unfriended 2. The first one had you cheer for their deaths, the 2nd had you actually sympathize.
writes unlikeable characters that everyone hates
asks player to save said characters
player says, "but I want to watch them die"
writers "fine, we'll do it our self"
Lance Henriksen met his second wife on the set of Super Mario Bros. so depending on your perspective...maybe?
"Press X to avoid verbal trap." So many times in life I could have used that kind of prompt.
Now I'm really intrigued by Yahtzees take on Tolstoi?!
When I played my only goal was keeping Ted Raimi’s character alive he’s the only one I cared about
I enjoyed the Quarry a lot more than any of the Dark Pictures, but don't think it was as good as Until Dawn. Still a fun time though.
Exactly what I think. Until Dawn was legitimately quite good imo, the Quarry definitely is campier and stupider and the horror aspect of it is almost nonexistent but it's still way better than what they've been releasing for some time.
I can definetly agree that the main characters could be annoying (except Dylan, hes a sweetheart).
As the game went on though, i gradually started warming up to most of them, realising that they were dumb teens who hadn't entered college yet and hadn't fully matured into adults yet.
The only character i truly hated was Emily. The way she treated Josh was just awful.
Emma and Josh really were the two who just… ugh. Loved the others
Except they were way to calm for dumb teens who didn’t even go to college yet
why does everyone love dylan so much?
Now wouldn't THAT be a plot twist.
You fail a quicktime event and the monster helps you out and goes "̵T̷h̷e̸ ̶s̸o̵r̶c̴e̷r̸o̷r̸ ̴k̷e̶e̴p̸s̸ ̵u̷s̵ ̵i̷n̵ ̷t̸h̵r̴a̷l̷l̶.̵ ̴K̷i̵l̶l̷ ̶h̸i̵m̴ ̸t̴o̶ ̸s̶e̴t̴ ̷u̷s̶ ̴f̸r̶e̶e̶"̷ and leaves.
Ooh, I like it!
Have 1 of the main characters be on the friendly side of the monsters and could have a segment where we play as the monsters
2:09 holy shit it's Kanye
SPOILER for the ending of the game.
I really liked the plots of act 1 and 2, but act 3 feels too quick and underdeveloped. The Quarry needed 1 or 2 more chapters added at the end. We have 2 surviving werewolves (caleb and silas) and 2 surviving parties: (The homestead group: the Hacketts+Ryan+Laura+Jacob and The Lodge group: Emma+Abigail+Kaitlyn +Dylan+Max+Nick)
There should be 2 final boss fights. Anyone bitten by Caleb or Silas is still infected, and can use their enhanced strength in the fight to defend their friends. Caleb can be saved if Silas is killed first. Silas' backstory and character can be fleshed out as he's barely talked about despite driving the story. Explanations should be given for why Caleb and Kaylee were not in the cells with their father, maybe Silas did that, maybe Laura and Max delayed Travis and he wasn't there to help.
Without this change, the Lodge group becomes redundant in the final act, as Emma and Abigail do nothing after act 2 and Max's survival comes down to whether or not the player metagames.
While I don't hate The Quarry, I do kinda wish that Supermassive branched out into proper survival horror, whether it be in the Silent Hill style or the Resident Evil style. Hell, with their focus on character rosters, they could probably make it party-based a'la Sweet Home.
I played this game and was put in a dumb situation that is peak random. Theres a scene where you steal a gun from someone to escape them. Do the quick time events perfectly and you get away without trouble. I failed them on purpose to see if I'd be beaten senselessly and escape another way, but i tried that and instead shot the guy. Another character asked what I wanted to do and I was forces to leave him there to bleed in a cage insread of helping him, which led to another situation where I could make choices that meant buggar all anyway.
Only thing I found mildly neat about the quarry was that narrator was abit more involved in the plot than until dawns at least
That last bit was Dad joke gold.👍
You can tell Yahtzee still hasn't played House Of Ashes, Salim is definitely the most likable character to come out of a SM game in a while. WE STAN SALIM!
I feel like House of Ashes was the best Supermassive game since Until Dawn. It more than made up for the horrendous disappointment that Little Hope was.
@@GmodPlusWoW I enjoyed little hope
@@jakobkopeszki1741 Thing is, I enjoyed what it was trying to do up until the end, when it pulled the rug out from under us by abusing the "all in his head" trope, violently souring the whole experience. I say it abused the trope, since even though there were vague hints of that being what could be happening, the overall execution of the twist went against what the game had been setting up with its intriguing witch trial plot.
Sometimes you don't need a disappointing Scooby-Doo reveal. Sometimes it's ok to let the fantastical goings-on be fantastical goings-on, which House of Ashes understood (and why it fucking ruled). Little Hope threw all of its cool fantastical stuff out of the window, and didn't properly get into the whole "working through your shit" angle it tossed in at the end.
But let me clear things up: I'm not entirely opposed to stories all being in someone's head/all being a dream. After all, I loved Psychonauts and Inception, along with Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. It's when you don't properly capitalize on the nuances, or reveal it right at the end, when it feels like a shitty hack-writing cop-out. Even if you don't set it up right from the start, I reckon you could still introduce the concept before the half-way point. Though the earlier you introduce it, the more game-time you have to truly explore it and do cool stuff with it.
If anything, Little Hope squandering that missed potential makes the "all in his head" twist even more of an unpleasant titty-twister. Which is why Little Hope is the worst Supermassive adventure, and why House of Ashes blew it out of the fucking water. Because House of Ashes turned into a fun sci-fi horror romp, and didn't toss out all the fun stuff with a shitty twist reveal.
I wonder why that is the only one he didn't review, maybe because it was just fine enough to not be interested for a review
If it's anything like Until Dawn, your choices will mean jack shit as well. I did enjoy Until Dawn quite a bit, but a lot of that love simmered down on a second playthrough when I realized how little my choices actually affected the game.
That was what made me give up on Telltale games. There's only an illusion of choice.
But I guess to be fair, meaningful choices are hard to pull off and take up a lot of dev time.
Spoiler. It boils down to a few simple choices: Don't fail the running QTE's, pick up the flair, don't piss off the elk, get the locket, don't answer the knock from the trap door, don't piss off the girl who ends up opening the door for you.
@@Sheriff_Bruce_Lee And whatever you do, don't chastise the vole.
You have to undermine the vole to get the secret chutzpah ending
Zero Punctuation prog rock track of the week:
*Spend A Life To Take Back A Choice* by *Supermassive: The Eternal Counterpoint*
Pop Pop Peanut Butter Butter Pooooops
Chastise the wombat is my new favourite euphemism. What does it mean? Whatever the situation calls for.
I'm not sure if we'll ever get past the uncanny valley for mo-cap faces. Best we can do is go back in a more cartoony direction for now. Like the way Pixar does it or those Overwatch animated shorts.
Friends streamed these games and we got drunk which made them ridiculously enjoyable, but aside from the Iraq Invasion one (where an Iraqi Republican Guard is the best character, Salim) I can only imagine how miserable they are to play straight-faced. Every choice and line of dialogue are so laughable that you'd think they'd just lay into the humor aspect, but no, verrrry serious are Dark Pictures games... to the developers.
4:18 I watched like one person play this game and he also immediately saw through that too.
I feel like if you're up against scary supernatural monsters you're going to be much more inclined to siding with other humans, it would kind of put things in perspective
If there's one thing low budget cheesy movies have taught me, it's that if even Lance Henriksen can't be bothered to be in your production for very long, you've got a serious problem.
Was that a War and peace reference at 1.29 ?
No
Completely unrelated to the video, but I listened to both of your DEDA books on audilble and loved the shit out of them. you've really grown as a writer from mogworld and Jam (which weren't by any means bad).
I think _nearly everyone_ regrets the Super Mario Brothers movie; the actors, the director, the studios that financed it, the fans of the franchise, the non-fans who watched it...
Everyone except youtubers who get to point out weird and/or terrible media for a living.
0:30 Hey now I recognized Justice Smith from Detective Pickachu :P
Soo... they went from campy horror movie choose your own adventure, with some grim out of your hand surprises. To arcade moon logic, the lives we gave you means nothing adventure. Great...
It's worse because they're not really improving their process in any way that makes the games better, nor are they changing the story beats enough to make them unpredictable.
Hey Yahtzee, I just finished "Will Save The Galaxy For Food". It was one of very few books that made me laugh out loud. Gonna try "Differently Morphous" now
Thanks Nate, glad you enjoyed it! I think you'll really like my next book!
I don't know if Lance Henriksen regrets being in the Mario Bros movie... but I'm pretty sure he regrets saying 'no' to playing Frank in the OG Hellraiser.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to commiserate the vole.
I was hoping last year we would get a house of ashes review cause I thought it was the only one since that got nearly as good as until dawn with a fresh premise. I thought the writing was okay but the setting and some characters really were cool
Quarry seems a lot similar to until dawn but still fun
Tremors is a 'horror' movie franchise with characters that are, for the most part, perfectly reasonable.
It would be more accurate to call it an action/comedy monster movie franchise because of it.