This week's Zero Punctuation episode is on No More Heroes 3 -

Gotta love it when a game ends with "Yeah, none of this happened." as if we're supposed to be thrilled that our time has been wasted for literally no payoff

I also like the detail on how u can easily explain the time loop to someone else. Most people in time loops seem to ignore that tactic.

So out of interest (and the fact that I was unlikely to buy the game anyway), I looked up the plot synopsis. When I heard myself utter the words "That's fucking stupid", I decided my decision to not buy this game wasn't going to change.

Between Konami unceremoniously dumping David Hayter in favor of Keither Sutherland solely because of his star power from 24 and Peter Dinklage phoning in his performance in Destiny so hard they were forced to dub over him with Nolan North, I always cringe whenever I hear that a video game has hired a celebrity Hollywood actor to voice a role. Instead of just hiring an actual voice actor. Who would give them ten times the performance for 1/10 the pay...

Read the plot summary on Wikipedia and can only say it's M. Night Shyamalan and J. J. Abrams level of twist, ie entirely dissatisfying, unnecessary, and pretentious.

12 minutes really does feel like a student film that you have to grind through, which might be the most unappealing description a game could posses

This sounds like a game that’s much more interesting to talk about and watch other people play than it is to actually play itself. I personally don’t see that as a good thing

This has been the most hilariously confusing episode of ZP I've seen

The game felt too eager to toss out twists without reason. You can't just surprise players with "you're a dog molester! Isn't this a fun game?!" There's very little else to the twist and it doesn't handle a sensitive topic in any way. Not to mention the gameplay loop leaves you frustrated most of the time.

So it's an "escape the room" game from newgrounds circa 15 years ago with a time limit and a professional budget

I was driving around while listening, missed the part where he said he was going to insert something instead of saying the twist, then watch an hour and a half of this game waiting to see how they weaved dog fucking into the plot gracefully.

Yatzhee "the MC was a dog molester"

i too would be disappointed that off'ing everyone in the game wouldn't have an achievement...

So many dog molesters are going to be disappointed with the finale when they realise you’ve slightly, albeit deliberately, mischaracterised the protagonist.

Honestly, after looking up the ending all I can say is, "I blame the dog molestation on the dog walker's incompetence and lack of moral character. Should have been more responsible with your pets."

What makes the ending section worse is the amount of waiting you have to do to try one little thing differently each time

The Stanley Parable for those who watch art house films in IMAX.

The main issue with this game is the tedium. When you have to repeat loops near the end it gets incredibly boring going through the exact same dialogue sequences and when you're not entirely sure what to do next it isn't compelling, it's irritating. The game has some great ideas but making the player go through an entire identical ten minute loop in order to do one thing mildly differently in order to hear one different dialogue line is just no good.

I saw the end of the stream of this game, and I think Jack Packard's point about the main problem with this game hit the nail on the head: that the ending has absolutely nothing to do with what appears to be the main conflict in the story, and completely invalidates the rest of the game. What's the point of the home invasion, or even of being able to de-escalate the home invasion, if it literally has nothing to do with getting the ending of the game? I do like Yahtzee's interpretation that the time loop is symbolic of what's going through the main character's head when he's talking to [the pound owner] about his desire to [molest dogs], that's probably the most satisfying interpretation one could have about the whole thing, but just from a nuts-and-bolts gameplay perspective, invalidating the player's entire effort by saying the whole struggle literally doesn't matter just isn't good game design.