Top 10 Greatest Zero Punctuation Episodes of All Time

Script written by Alex Crilly-Mckean.

Top 10 Greatest Zero Punctuation Episodes of All Time

He’s the articulate, alliterative analyst whose mouth moves a mile a minute. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 Zero Punctuation episodes.

For this list, we’re looking at the funniest and most memorable episodes of this popular and unique game review web-series hosted by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, published by Escapist.

#10: “Ride to Hell: Retribution” (2013)

As if a game of such deplorability could escape Yahtzee’s gaze. Sharing a distaste for the title with many of his fellow critics, Yahtzee hilariously peels back the layers about what makes this title so damn bad to begin with; ripping apart everything from the music to the combat to the cringe-inducing sex scenes. As you might expect, it’s filled with his signature metaphors and dark humor; for example, he states that the QA team likely only let the game through because they wanted to kill themselves via shotgun and compares the in-game sex to fish people fondling each other via naval ring entanglement. And yet he still wants everyone to buy it just to witness the travesty for themselves.

#9: “Fallout: New Vegas” (2010)

This one’s a little different since we actually get insight into how Yahtzee’s personal gaming experience went. In a game like Fallout, where player choice is everything, we half-expected to be treated to a grand tale of survival. Instead, we got a hilarious recollection of Yahtzee’s personal courier suffering all manner of horrendous encounters. This includes constantly losing limbs, drinking out of toilets and murdering his way to New Vegas, only to have the game crash on him moments after. It’s fair to say he didn’t exactly have the best time on the strip.

#8: “Final Fantasy XIII” (2010)

As Yahtzee quickly explains, newcomers to this expansive franchise may not want to pick thirteen as their first entry to dive in. Due to his commitment with opening his own venue, he admits that he only had a chance to play five hours of it in total. Oh, but what a magical five hours they were. He comes down hard on the character archetypes – even comparing them to the Final Fantasy equivalent of the Spice Girls – he has no idea what the plot is hours in and also has huge issues with disconnected gameplay. If there’s a game that can turn Yahtzee’s opinion on JRPGs around…it isn’t this one.

#7: “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” (2013)

While many find the serenity of this hit 3DS title innocent and charming in nature, you can always count on Yahtzee to take a seemingly inoffensive concept and refer to it as an exercise in existential horror. But we’ll be damned if he doesn’t back it up with some rather morbid yet hilarious evidence. Despite finding some aspects rather obnoxious, Yahtzee does eventually concede that even he can fall victim to its addictive features. Well one thing’s for sure, you won’t be able to play the game again without hearing the words ‘pawn shop’ ringing in your ears.

#6: “The Witcher” (2008)

Behold: the episode that gave birth to the now infamous meme known as “PC Master Race” as well as the term “this is a mumorpuger.” Thanks for that, Yahtz. Regardless, the game that would one day give us the excellent Witcher 3: Wild Hunt left quite the impression on our host, and not a good one. He actually found it so boring, complicated and padded that he couldn’t stomach more than a couple of hours. Not sure the same can be said for the abundance of sex scenes he had within those few hours though.

#5: “Resident Evil 5” (2009)

Sorry Sheva, Yahtzee is not a fan; or rather he’s not a fan of your less than stellar A.I. Prior to this review, Yahtzee had constantly made fun of Capcom's unintentional racism in videos, and yet the racism issue only scratches the surface of this game's problems. Throw in Sheva’s mismanaged A.I capabilities, an inventory system he more than loathed, and what he feels to be a lack of creativity, and there was little chance this one was going to get a glowing review. However, now it’s kind of impossible to un-see Chris Redfield as part fridge…

#4: “Mailbag Showdown” (2008)

For every piece of criticism, there will always be those who rebuke it. Given that Yahtzee Croshaw has verbally eviscerated popular games with huge fanbases, it’s not hard to imagine that some overly devoted fans would throw negative messages his way. Well, this is the episode where he bites back. Oh those poor souls. As the hate comments flood in, largely due to a previous Super Smash Bros. Brawl review, Yahtzee does what he does best; he breaks them down and deflects the messages with some good old visceral wit. We’re not sure who got burned worse by the end of it - the commenters or the seventh generation consoles.

#3: “The Orange Box” (2007)

This was the review that made Zero Punctuation the breakout success it is today. Yahtzee, whom at the time was considered a critic that hated everything, actually praised the games in this package, causing the episode to go viral: it ended up attracting millions of views and even earned Yahtzee a plane ticket from Valve to visit their headquarters in Bellevue, Washington – which is pretty extravagant considering he was living in Australia at the time. It’s not hard to see why this video became so popular, as he uses his signature dry wit in unique and creative ways to compliment the collection - especially Portal, which he claims has no faults. Geez, how’s that for praise?

#2: “Wolfenstein” (2009)

While the game in and of itself is a pretty poor entry in the franchise as a whole, what really makes this a jewel of an episode is Yahtzee’s bizarre yet oh so welcome decision to review it in the form of a limerick. Not only does Yahtzee show off a little of his inner poet; he also manages to dissect what amounts to a frustrating and generic title in such a hilariously creative way that listening to him spit out a couple of rhymes is better than actually playing the game. It’s almost a shame that Wolfenstein: The New Order was so good, otherwise we might have gotten a second edition!

Before we reveal our number one pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
- “Fable III” (2011)
- “Halo Wars” (2011)
- “Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor” (2014)

#1: “Duke Nukem Forever” (2009)

And no, we aren’t referring to his real review of the actual game. During the days when it seemed like Duke Nukem Forever was never going to be released, Yahtzee took it upon himself to craft a mock review that poked fun at all the hype surrounding the elusive title. Aside from ad-libbing levels that in all fairness sound way more fun than what we actually got in the 2011 release, he manages to poke fun at the studio, the fandom and even Duke as a character with satirical praise. Honestly, it’s kind of a shame that they didn’t give Yahtzee creative control of the game. Couldn’t have turned out worse than what we eventually got.