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The Escapist’s “Unskippable” series takes a look at game cutscenes and adds a Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary track. Their latest in this series skewers the opening cutscene of Sonic Unleashed. Is it funny? Eh… it’s hit and miss. I did think that the “super realism for a cartoon blue hedgehog” line was pretty funny.
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18 Comments
Guys, don’t waste your time watching this. It’s really stupid.
The Escapist has NEVER been worth paying attention to. That Zero Punctuation guy is somewhat amusing, but he hates everything, and it’s boring listening to him hammer every game ever with subpar scores. Then there was that Sonic Unleashed review that some other loser on the site did which showed footage from ONLY Apotos levels, and didn’t actually explain why the game was so bad. His arguments were something along the lines of “The game is bad.” A supposedly ‘professional’ critic couldn’t be bothered to elaborate on anything. Was it the music? Was it the graphics? Was it the frame rate? The story? The fighting levels? The running levels? Was it the fact that it was Sonic the Hedgehog in 3D, and therefore it must automatically be bad?
Anyone who wants to get a good understanding of any video game before playing it for themselves should avoid, er, ESCAPE “The Escapist.” Kick and claw your way from the inept bafoons! Don’t look back!
I will agree on not going to The Escapist for actual game advice, although I find their entertainment factor much higher.
I actually enjoy Zero Punctuation. Yahtzee may be a bit of a cynical reviewer and very hard to please but he’s a highly legitimate journalist with a great sense of humour. Most of his reviews though harsh are actually spot on in the factors they highlight; making it hard for me to discredit his Sonic Unleashed review because pretty much all of it was true (though it wasn’t that shit).
Unskippable is a bit different in that it comments on game cutscenes while they are playing. It can be amusing but it is often hard to hear the comments the creators make, thus diluting the experience heavlily. It would of been better to cut the games sound and dub over it in humourous fashion.
Have to say that it was a pretty good Unskippable ep. Seems like the team are getting used to the sound control for their voice overs, so we can actually hear them. Wasn’t utterly brialliant but how it pokes holes in the games characters and stroyline is entertaining.
That was probably the least funny thing I’ve seen. I’m all for spoofing or making fun of things in the spirit of good humor, but this was just a couple of geeks trying way too hard to actually insult Sonic, and in the long-run there was nothing funny there. Its Sonic. Its fiction. Get over it.
@ProjectZuel
Don’t get me wrong, Zero Punctuation isn’t all bad. My comments regarding review quality were not aimed toward Yahtzee. Zero Puncatuation actually DOES do a good job explaining why he feels the way he does about the games he reviews, and I pretty much agreed with everything he said in his review for Sonic Unleashed. The problem is that he ONLY gives bad reviews. I can’t take anything he says too seriously, as doing so would lead me to believe that virtually every big game of the past few years was rendered unplayable by their flaws, which I’m sure most Sonic fans would say is absolutely not the case with Sonic Unleashed.
There are not a lot of commentators that can offer the same quality of humor and trash talk as Mystery Science Theater 3000, if you ask me. And you can add these guys to that pile of slag. Yes, some of the comments were fairly “punny”, but they weren’t funny in the least bit.
Sound quality isn’t the problem, though. It’s their tone. Too quiet, too tired, too “I don’t even know why I’m doing this in the first place.” They need to be more lively.
You guys sound so butthurt. There was never a single insult in there to this game. Sure, they took a few subtle cracks at things, but no harsh criticisms or anything that put it down. I’ve seen they’re reviews of it and those weren’t kind, I’ll tell you that, so I was expecting this to be nothing but banter on the direction of the series. But Unskippable gives every game the exact same treatment and they took a respectable approach here, so quit fussing about how they’re trying to insult Sonic.
That said, it was pretty hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing over the Hotpocket comment.
I wouldn’t exactly say they ‘riffed’ on it, more like patronised it, which is what they do to EVERY intro on Unskippable. I’m a die-hard Sonic fan, but I still found it funny, mainly because it’s what we all (well, most of us) do with friends when we’re playing video games at home. We talk over, mock and laugh at the cut scenes.
I find this a lot funnier than Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Mainly because if I want to hear someone talk over an entire film, I can just go to the Cinema!
I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax. This… eh not so much. Fun find though.
I like Escapist and all, enjoy checking out Zero Punctuation, ENN, & Un-Skippable, but I usually steer clear when they do something involving Sonic.
Why?
Because they just rip on him as much as they rip on other games, so…
I’ll just take a pass on this one…
Blah blah blah Zero Punctuation inflames (Sonic) fans once again, as usual. Blahdy.
You’ll all get over it. This is the (temporary) price of being a fan: not seeing the humor in the truth or vice versa.
Watched it this morning, pretty damn funny ^_^
I also laugh at the butthurt sounding comments here; DOUBLE THE FUNNY! XD
I actually thought it was funny…
Geezus, some of you guys make it sound ten times worse than it really fucking is.
Sometimes it really blows to me a fan if you have to act like that.
Get over it ya babies, I LOVED this. I love shows that riff on things. It’s funny when it’s something you like or know about.
“Deploy the giant tampon applicator!”
Um…
For me anyway, I honestly did not find this funny in the slightest. It had nothing to do with “butthurt”, it just sucked. And I’m a really easy person to make laugh!
Guys, don’t waste your time watching this. It’s really stupid.
The Escapist has NEVER been worth paying attention to. That Zero Punctuation guy is somewhat amusing, but he hates everything, and it’s boring listening to him hammer every game ever with subpar scores. Then there was that Sonic Unleashed review that some other loser on the site did which showed footage from ONLY Apotos levels, and didn’t actually explain why the game was so bad. His arguments were something along the lines of “The game is bad.” A supposedly ‘professional’ critic couldn’t be bothered to elaborate on anything. Was it the music? Was it the graphics? Was it the frame rate? The story? The fighting levels? The running levels? Was it the fact that it was Sonic the Hedgehog in 3D, and therefore it must automatically be bad?
Anyone who wants to get a good understanding of any video game before playing it for themselves should avoid, er, ESCAPE “The Escapist.” Kick and claw your way from the inept bafoons! Don’t look back!
I will agree on not going to The Escapist for actual game advice, although I find their entertainment factor much higher.
I actually enjoy Zero Punctuation. Yahtzee may be a bit of a cynical reviewer and very hard to please but he’s a highly legitimate journalist with a great sense of humour. Most of his reviews though harsh are actually spot on in the factors they highlight; making it hard for me to discredit his Sonic Unleashed review because pretty much all of it was true (though it wasn’t that shit).
Unskippable is a bit different in that it comments on game cutscenes while they are playing. It can be amusing but it is often hard to hear the comments the creators make, thus diluting the experience heavlily. It would of been better to cut the games sound and dub over it in humourous fashion.
Have to say that it was a pretty good Unskippable ep. Seems like the team are getting used to the sound control for their voice overs, so we can actually hear them. Wasn’t utterly brialliant but how it pokes holes in the games characters and stroyline is entertaining.
That was probably the least funny thing I’ve seen. I’m all for spoofing or making fun of things in the spirit of good humor, but this was just a couple of geeks trying way too hard to actually insult Sonic, and in the long-run there was nothing funny there. Its Sonic. Its fiction. Get over it.
@ProjectZuel
Don’t get me wrong, Zero Punctuation isn’t all bad. My comments regarding review quality were not aimed toward Yahtzee. Zero Puncatuation actually DOES do a good job explaining why he feels the way he does about the games he reviews, and I pretty much agreed with everything he said in his review for Sonic Unleashed. The problem is that he ONLY gives bad reviews. I can’t take anything he says too seriously, as doing so would lead me to believe that virtually every big game of the past few years was rendered unplayable by their flaws, which I’m sure most Sonic fans would say is absolutely not the case with Sonic Unleashed.
There are not a lot of commentators that can offer the same quality of humor and trash talk as Mystery Science Theater 3000, if you ask me. And you can add these guys to that pile of slag. Yes, some of the comments were fairly “punny”, but they weren’t funny in the least bit.
Sound quality isn’t the problem, though. It’s their tone. Too quiet, too tired, too “I don’t even know why I’m doing this in the first place.” They need to be more lively.
You guys sound so butthurt. There was never a single insult in there to this game. Sure, they took a few subtle cracks at things, but no harsh criticisms or anything that put it down. I’ve seen they’re reviews of it and those weren’t kind, I’ll tell you that, so I was expecting this to be nothing but banter on the direction of the series. But Unskippable gives every game the exact same treatment and they took a respectable approach here, so quit fussing about how they’re trying to insult Sonic.
That said, it was pretty hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing over the Hotpocket comment.
I wouldn’t exactly say they ‘riffed’ on it, more like patronised it, which is what they do to EVERY intro on Unskippable. I’m a die-hard Sonic fan, but I still found it funny, mainly because it’s what we all (well, most of us) do with friends when we’re playing video games at home. We talk over, mock and laugh at the cut scenes.
I find this a lot funnier than Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Mainly because if I want to hear someone talk over an entire film, I can just go to the Cinema!
I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax. This… eh not so much. Fun find though.
I like Escapist and all, enjoy checking out Zero Punctuation, ENN, & Un-Skippable, but I usually steer clear when they do something involving Sonic.
Why?
Because they just rip on him as much as they rip on other games, so…
I’ll just take a pass on this one…
Blah blah blah Zero Punctuation inflames (Sonic) fans once again, as usual. Blahdy.
You’ll all get over it. This is the (temporary) price of being a fan: not seeing the humor in the truth or vice versa.
Watched it this morning, pretty damn funny ^_^
I also laugh at the butthurt sounding comments here; DOUBLE THE FUNNY! XD
I actually thought it was funny…
Geezus, some of you guys make it sound ten times worse than it really fucking is.
Sometimes it really blows to me a fan if you have to act like that.
Get over it ya babies, I LOVED this. I love shows that riff on things. It’s funny when it’s something you like or know about.
“Deploy the giant tampon applicator!”
Um…
For me anyway, I honestly did not find this funny in the slightest. It had nothing to do with “butthurt”, it just sucked. And I’m a really easy person to make laugh!