Yahtzee pilots “GameDamage” TV show

I was planning on watching this until I read the EG thread where every single person who has watched it decrees it to be a jumbo bag of crap.

Put this on last night. Managed to get 3 mins in before turning it off and re-evaluating my life.

It was no worse than most attempts at a show about “Games”. I did like the report on Point’n'Click adventures – I miss them too. The other two presenters bug the fuck out of me though.

He has a face made for radio.

I agree – the report on point&clicks was awesome – I even liked the way it was shot. I could see the MMO segment having legs as well. Would’ve liked to have seen them got drunk, played Rock Band and tried to pick up girls though, That’s a sketch just begging to done and far funnier than some tool dressed up as Master Chief AGAIN.

Well all know bits was better as it had chicks that you would love but never introduce to your mother.

Yeah, it wasn’t great. It seemed that Yahtzee and that Matt fella hated each other and the guy in the middle was almost like a mediator at a couple of points. No real chemistry between the three, and if you’re doing unscripted stuff you need that. Yahtzee was still pretty funny, though his voice sounded weird because he was talking a lot more slowly than he does in his Zero Punctuation vids. That said, there were a couple of neat ideas, and the point and click bit worked pretty well.

Though its main use was to remind me how brilliant Consolevania is, really.

Pretty lame really, the base idea is good; an actualy, long show about games where the presenters say what they want (a type of video game version of Top Gear), but this just falls short. A joke from time to time is good, but constant wise-cracking is over the top, the sketches were over all not funny and all stuff that had been done before, and the presenters constantly staring at the camera, even when they talk to each other was really awkward.

The three blokes sat next to each other, facing the same way, just doesn’t work that well. Understandable with a single camera setup but they had at least two cameras, maybe a third.

The minimum of a 3 camera setup is a staple of sitcoms and live shows, one to shoot the group and the others for close-ups and reactions. You can then quickly cut between the cameras to get a shot of the most interesting or best framed thing at that time.

Also, if you’re not live, then the presenter can just address any of the cameras directly, no awkward turning and because of the cuts to different cameras, no need to do stuff in one take.

I didn’t mind it apart from the sketches which were lame. I’m sure they’ll get better at the presenting bits.

It doesn’t come close to Consolevania though.

Just get them their own armchairs so they can talk to each other without leaning forward or craning their necks or even worse, trying to lean into shot as Matt was doing.

Get the presenters comfortable with talking to each other and the camera, and the conversation will flow better. The scripted stuff was fine but the setup fails when the banter kicks in.

If people are saying it’s shit compared to Consolevania, that’s some pretty damning criticism.

Consolevania was shit 90% of the time, I never got the love for it. Still: it was better than Bits! \o/

Retroid, you just shut your dirty whore mouth.

YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT THE WOMEN I LOVE.

That jaunty hat is almost enough to make me watch, but no… zeropunctuation lost its punch when it suddenly became deliberately and obtusely negative even about the best games.

Man, Zeropunctuation is pretentious flotsam and this show is wak.

Now that I’ve actually taken the time to watch it I have to say it was rather good. I had it running in the background whilst cooking and it provided a nice backdrop.

I love how they are averaging the powah of the internet to gain stardom and riches.

Best of luck to you chaps.

P.S. Drop the funny accents

@ Axle: ZP Reviews is quite literally the best thing to have happened to videogames outside of actual development in years! It’s hardly flotsam and it’s not pretentious. If anything, it might be a *little* derivative of Charlie Brooker’s work, but even so i’s till a class effort, especially considering he’s been pumping out _one every week_ since it started.

I don’t see anybody doing anything even slightly the same and still maintaining such a high quality of output every single time.

Oh I’m sorry, was this rant too pretentious for you?

Rab’s rants in the second series of Video Gaiden were better aimed, more cohesive and more relevant than anything Yahtzee has ever done.

“@ Axle: ZP Reviews is quite literally the best thing to have happened to videogames outside of actual development in years!”

If a gimmicky attitude to reviewing games revolving around a cynical and jaded view of game and cheap sensationalism is “quite literally the best thing to have happened to videogames outside of actual development in years”, I’ll be more than glad to see the industry go back to the “shit” times.

Please don’t even mention Consolevania/Video Gaiden as it’s leagues ahead of anything yahtzee-related.