In Case You're Not Aware

Sometimes you find something online, or someone tells you about some wonderful site they've found, and you laugh and enjoy it, and return for updates and hilarity on a regular basis, but you forget to spread the joy! No, I'm not trying to get you to promote my personal effort among friends! I'm here to tell you about one such site I visit regularly, and think you might like.

Zero Punctuation is a work of genius by a madman. Now part of The Escapist, it started life as simply another random computer games video review piece on YouTube. Admittedly, they were designed and put up there in hopes of being offered a paying job to continue them, but honestly, given how often that has ever happened, our madman's dreams were...well... mad!

But seemingly dreams do come true, and living in a world populated with three-minute attention spans meant that Yahtzee's reviews were akin to opium for the sound-bite generation of "brighter, shorter, faster" internet addicts who consider Bebo contacts on different continents their "bff". The people behind The Escapist were quick to see the new big-thing was talking to them at 100mph, and snapped him up after only two reviews. Since then, to date, thirteen new reviews have put, among others, Half Life 2, Super Paper Mario, Bioshock, Halo 3, and the consoles themselves into the firing range and mowed through them with the speed and power of a gattling gun, but far funnier.

So what makes these worth watching? The sheer speed at which Yahtzee talks is certainly a factor! Ireland's own motormouth Dave Fanning sounds like a moped next to Yahtzee's Formula One racer! The humour is top notch as well, coming across like a stand-up comedian who is blurring our razor sharp witticisms to an unforgiving audience! The metaphors, analogies and tangential tales keep you shifting back and forth between gut laughing out loud and gasping shock at "I can't believe he just said that" moments.

But possibly the most enjoyable element of the Zero Punctuation reviews are the videos themselves. All done in Flash, the videos have a simple cartoony style that often reflects the audio in an odd, strangely literal fashion! One of my favourite examples of this is when Yahtzee is describing one feature as "sublime", and a little cartoon submarine and a photo of a lime flash up onscreen! Simple, effective and hilarious!

Trying to write a review about a video-review site seems a bit pointless. In the length of time it can take some people to read these few paragraphs, Yahtzee would already be cutting whatever game he has been playing this week to shreds! In light of this, I'm going to wrap up and leave you with my own personal favourite review embedded below. Remember, there are lots more available on the official site, and he updates every Wednesday, so mark your calenders! Enjoy.