Yahtzee’s fast-talking reviews have been running for seven years. Yeah, I feel old too.
Seven years ago, on July 24, 2007, the very first Fullyramblomatic video review was uploaded to YouTube. In this proof of concept video, Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw aimed his critical sights at the demo for The Darkness and splattered its brains all across a nearby wall. On August 15, the series debuted as Zero Punctuation on The Escapist, where it has lived ever since. For seven years, Yahtzee’s hilarious, often biting, and occasionally crass commentary has struck fear into the hearts of game developers every Wednesday. Out of 347 episodes, the most watched episode remains Fallout 3. From everyone at The Escapist, we wish Zero Punctuation a very happy birthday!
Over the last seven years, Yahtzee has also published two novels, a jam-based apocalypse aptly titled Jam, and Mogworld, the story of an NPC skeleton looking for a way to permanently die in the MMORPG he inhabits. He has also released several of his own games. His latest freeware game is Poacher, a retro platformer starring a shotgun and a Yorkshireman. Yahtzee also writes a weekly column on the game industry, Extra Punctuation. With Jim Sterling, he dropped hot rhymes on the now-concluded Rhymedown Spectacular. Jim and Yahtzee launched a new series last week, Uncivil War, where the duo go head-to-head in video game battlegrounds, beginning with Watch Dogs.
Just to cement that feeling of timing whizzing by at an impossible speed, here’s a few other things that are seven years old this month. The Simpsons Movie hit theaters seven years ago on July 27, 2007, and Matt Damon’s last film as Jason Bourne, The Bourne Ultimatum, came out a week later on August 3. Mad Men premiered and revived the mid-afternoon cocktail on July 19, 2007, and cult hit Flight of the Conchords hit the airwaves on June 17. The same year saw the releases of Portal and Crysis, and the first entries of what would become huge franchises, including Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, Mass Effect, The Witcher, and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. What were you doing seven years ago?
