When Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw isn't reviewing video games like Age of Conan or Alone in the Dark, he's meeting his contractual obligations with The Escapist, weighing in on things like trailers shown at E3. In four minutes and forty seconds, Yahtzee picks apart non-playable previews for games like Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy XIII, Resident Evil 5 and Fallout 3 with sexy results. Actually, that should've been hilarious results. We were still thinking about the pus covered roulette wheel and anal shielding imagery from this episode. Two of our choicest fetishes!

Zero Punctuation: The E3 Trailer Park [The Escapist]

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Apparently Yahtzee's review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl received so much negative response that he decided to dedicate this week's Zero Punctuation to you, his viewing public. More specifically, the members of his viewing public that saw fit to bombard him with letters about how wrong he was about his review. This sort of thing always amuses the hell out of me as you cannot tell someone that their opinion is wrong. You can try to change their opinion, but an opinion cannot technically be incorrect. You can disagree til the cows come home, but then why the hell are you living with cows? Exactly. I especially like the letter that asks how he can call them game reviews without a numerical score. How indeed.

This week, Yahtzee officially reviews Condemned 2. And that's great. But then, in the heat of passion, he breaks into a mini-review of Indigo Prophecy. Plus, if you really think about it, there's actually a good amount of rhetoric on the original Condemned, too. So you are actually getting like 2 to 2 1/2 Zero Punctuations this week. And it's all coming at you for a low, low price of just $US 100 an episode. Oh, didn't you know? Then you're fucked, man. But at least you get some steak knives (for only $US 8.95 S/H).

Zero Punctuation: Condemned 2: Bloodshot [The Escpaist]

Australian Gamer's latest podcast features the comedic English tones of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, the man behind the ever-hilarious Zero Punctuation game reviews.

If you feel like listening to Ben engage in regular conversation with - gasp - other people, hit the link below for a 16MB MP3 containing just this.

Australian Gamer Podcast 117 [Australian Gamer, thanks Liam]

While I had previously thought that Yahtzee might be slowly losing his touch, this week's Zero Punctuation on Army of Two actually made me laugh out loud in several spaces, though that could be whatever illness is currently ravaging my body (I suspect scurvy). It actually plays out a lot like Crecente's review of the game, with the exception that Crecente loved the weapons customisation, which in Yahtzee's eyes makes him a...you know, I'm pretty sure completing that sentence isn't conducive to being employed, so I shall just leave it at that.

Zero Punctuation on Army of Two [the escapist]

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This week Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of X-Play fame takes a look at SimCity Societies and doesn't quite like it, coming to the conclusion that drawing your own city in MS Paint would be a more fulfilling experience - but that's not important. What is important is the touching story of love and loss that follows the review, featuring characters from Valve's Team Fortress 2 and a musak version of "Up Where We Belong" from 1983's An Officer and a Gentlemen. It'll bring a tear to your eye. Share it with someone you love this Valentine's Day.

Zero Punctuation [the escapist]

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Wow Yahtzee, you've done the impossible. You have a television program running previews of a freaking 3-minute review. Yeah, did you hear? X-Play will be running a snippet of your upcoming Zero Punctuations every Tuesday night. And including the clip's introduction, run time, and accompanying in-show bumpers, we wouldn't be surprised if this Tuesday teaser took just as long as your actual Wednesday review.

It's ludicrous media piggybacking, but we don't blame you...pending that you sleep on a big pile of greenbacks after a hard day's work.

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Electronic Arts today announced nine Hasbro games that will be hitting a variety of platforms over the next year.

Littlest Pet Shop and NERF "N-Strike" are both set to come to the Wii and DS this fall, with Littlest Pet Shop also making its way to the PC. Scrabble, Monopoly Here and Now and Yahtzee Adventures are all being developed for mobile phones. Electronic Arts is also developing Yahtzee, Monopoly Here and Now: World Edition, Trivial Pursuit and Operation for their online casual gaming service, Pogo.com.

"EA and Hasbro want to give families new ways to enjoy games; we want give them a new way to come together, connect, spend time and have fun around the TV or online," said Chip Lange, Vice President and General Manager of EA's Hasbro Studio. "Bringing the spirit of these games to life as video games has allowed us to create really unique and creative experiences for families and friends of all ages to enjoy together at home or online."

"We are thrilled that together we are bringing our great toys and games to life in the digital world and providing consumers with new and dynamic ways to enjoy our amazing brands," said Mark Blecher, Hasbro's Senior Vice President of Digital Media and Gaming.

EA will be showing off a number of the games at the upcoming Toy Fair in New York later this month. Hit the jump for the full release with game descriptions.

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We're all big fans of Zero Punctuation around here, so we were pretty eager to read Boing Boing Gadgets' interview with auteur Ben "Yahtzee" Crenshaw (why we didn't do one ourselves...hindsight). In addition to talking about his favorite games (Silent Hill 2, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Portal), Crenshaw finally laid to rest the debates we've had over how long these spots take to produce.

I usually take a few days to play through the game and I'll usually finish it, or get as far as I can before I feel I can formulate an opinion. After that I'll devote a day to writing the script...Then comes making the images, which usually takes me 2 or 3 days. I used to record the speech first, but I found that I'd sometimes want to make changes to the script while making the images, especially if I wanted to reword a phrase that I found too hard to visualise. Once the images are done, recording the narration and stringing it all together in Windows Movie Maker is the easy part.

We'd always known it: when the project's said and done the time approaches a full work week. For those interested in the rest of the interview, hit up BBG.

A Nice Little Q&A with Zero Punctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw [boingboinggadgets]