Giant Bombcast 08-16-2011

[0] Hey everyone, it's Tuesday, August the 16th, 2011, and you are listening to The Giant Bombcast.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] I said, do I sound weird?

[3] I feel like I sound a little weird.

[4] You went a little high.

[5] Well, not even my delivery.

[6] I just feel like I sound a little weird.

[7] Do I sound weird?

[8] Do I sound weird to you guys?

[9] Jeff Gerstmann!

[10] Do I sound weird?

[11] I don't know.

[12] I don't know what you're supposed to sound like anymore.

[13] I think the Jeff Gerstmann distortion feel is throwing off your pitch.

[14] Is that what it is?

[15] Yes.

[16] Okay.

[17] Maybe it was because I shaved.

[18] Oh.

[19] It's more bounce off your face.

[20] I did.

[21] I totally did because I was eating macaroni and cheese this weekend and I found that I was eating more beard than macaroni and cheese with each bite.

[22] Good.

[23] Because my beard had gotten so long in the – like around the mustache and kind of the chin area.

[24] So every bite I could feel it like pulling in my lips.

[25] I'm like, OK, this is fucking not going to – like I've been having fun with my big beard but this is not going to stand anymore.

[26] I got to – I've got to trim it way down.

[27] Is that always your bar?

[28] I haven't had it.

[29] The moment that you're getting food?

[30] Well, I've never gotten it that long before.

[31] I've never gotten this area that robust before.

[32] So I shaved it down way further than I have in a really long time.

[33] So now my face feels weird, even though I didn't.

[34] Even though I haven't technically shaved.

[35] Patrick Klebing is here.

[36] Yep.

[37] How's it going?

[38] I was in Chicago with a lot of mosquito bites.

[39] I've been itching all day.

[40] Yeah, summer's hell in Chicago, right?

[41] Yeah, it was like 90s when I went back, so it wasn't that bad.

[42] But yeah, usually it's in...

[43] It's like the Midwest has like two weeks of great weather, like a week of spring and a week of fall, and then just complete shit the rest of the year.

[44] Yeah.

[45] Do you itch your itches or scratch your itches?

[46] I mean, I know what I shouldn't be doing.

[47] Yeah.

[48] I will itch them.

[49] Okay, so you itch.

[50] I itch.

[51] You don't scratch.

[52] Well, I isn't.

[53] You can't.

[54] You can't itch.

[55] You scratch.

[56] You scratch.

[57] That's what I'm getting.

[58] Yeah, I think it's a regional thing.

[59] You don't itch anything.

[60] You scratch or itch.

[61] Well.

[62] Yeah, I was going to say, I think you do both.

[63] You can also have an itchy scratch.

[64] Depending on where you're from, itch and scratch mean the same thing.

[65] No. That's what I'm saying.

[66] You guys are clearly not from there.

[67] Fuck you and your pop coke bullshit.

[68] I'm not saying that I think that way.

[69] We don't call it pop.

[70] Pop is a northern thing.

[71] Yeah, it is, but you also don't call it coke.

[72] All soda is coke.

[73] I definitely know people who have called all soda is coke.

[74] We call it soda pop.

[75] Soda.

[76] We're not choosing a side.

[77] Soft drink.

[78] I grew up just calling them Cokes, and then eventually evolved.

[79] Every soda was a Coke.

[80] Let's go get some Cokes.

[81] And you just get a Sprite?

[82] Yeah.

[83] I mean, that's Coke brand.

[84] Let's go get some road Cokes.

[85] But that's probably...

[86] I was also aware of Coke branding when you were 10.

[87] It's a level of sophistication that probably wasn't present at the time.

[88] Twitter accounts didn't exist back then to remind you.

[89] Yeah.

[90] Get that branding right.

[91] So you went out swimming in lakes.

[92] Swimming in lakes.

[93] Scratching itches.

[94] Scratching itches and bonfires.

[95] What was the occasion?

[96] What brought you out to the homeland?

[97] Getting married next August.

[98] As the plan said, I find a venue, lock everything down.

[99] So I found a venue on the lake.

[100] It's ridiculously cheap because it's a government -owned building that just happens to do weddings and stuff, so they don't try to make a ton of money off of it.

[101] They could charge like $10 ,000 more, but I'm glad they haven't figured that out.

[102] By next August, though, they probably will.

[103] I already sent in my paperwork.

[104] Okay, all right.

[105] Wait a minute.

[106] We would reduce this debt or charge way more for these weddings.

[107] I put that at the end of the contract.

[108] I was like, hey, guys, most people would pay another zero, but thanks.

[109] Thanks for not bending us over here.

[110] Thanks for doing that.

[111] Well, excellent.

[112] That sounds like fun.

[113] Yeah, didn't play a lot of the games while I was there.

[114] So just kind of swim in a lake.

[115] Lake's cool.

[116] Swimming's cool.

[117] Jeff Gerstman.

[118] Hi.

[119] Also hot tubbing apparently is cool.

[120] Oh, hot tubbing's great.

[121] Especially if you go in a lake and then go to the hot tub.

[122] Hot tubbing when it's hot?

[123] At night.

[124] Is that good?

[125] Yeah, you definitely do the hot tubbing at night.

[126] Yeah.

[127] Had a couple drinks.

[128] I saw on television the swim tub.

[129] Is it like the little propeller in it?

[130] Oh, yeah.

[131] That's where you swim in place?

[132] Yeah.

[133] You swim in place in the swim tub.

[134] But also, it's like a hot tub.

[135] Oh, it's like an exercise thing.

[136] It's like a big rectangular hot tub that you can swim in place in if you want.

[137] The current is such that you can just keep paddling.

[138] Is this something that I might have seen demonstrated at the Grace Pavilion at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds?

[139] Yes, absolutely.

[140] Because this thing was not selling them directly.

[141] It was selling you on, come to San Mateo.

[142] And we've got this big room full of swim tubs.

[143] We're having a fucking expo.

[144] Everything must go.

[145] Come to the swim tub expo.

[146] Do you get to go in and try them out?

[147] Yeah, I imagine if you really wanted to try them out, you probably could.

[148] I'm not sure I'd want to go into a swim tub expo.

[149] Yeah.

[150] Yeah.

[151] Maybe hire someone to go with you and just make them go in.

[152] Right, okay, you get in there.

[153] Well, you know, check the crowd at least.

[154] You expose yourself to that bacteria.

[155] I mean, you don't walk up in just, you know, trunks and flippy floppies.

[156] Like, you say, let's do this.

[157] Yeah, you give yourself out.

[158] I'm saying, like, if you walk up like that and they're like, you want to try the swim tub?

[159] And you're like, no, I'm cool.

[160] I was just, I'm here.

[161] I'm waiting for my friend.

[162] I'm going to raging waters.

[163] He sells pool chemicals.

[164] Jeff Grossman, you've been gone for a while now.

[165] Yeah.

[166] You were abducted.

[167] I haven't gone, man. How does it feel to be returning to the – The living world.

[168] I'm not used to wearing, like, all this, like, shirt wearing is really crappy.

[169] Lighting and clothes.

[170] Yeah, yeah.

[171] And regular sleep cycles.

[172] I didn't get too sideways on the sleep over the past couple weeks.

[173] I managed to stay pretty reasonable.

[174] I was out doing a fair amount while the sun was up.

[175] So yeah, I didn't get too crazy on that.

[176] But yeah, stuff like wearing a shirt and in some cases hearing people speak.

[177] You went down that hole, huh?

[178] Yeah, it's like two weeks gives you plenty of time to just hang out with some friends and be like, all right, I hung out with them.

[179] Now I'm just going to hang out with myself.

[180] And you have those two days when you don't talk to anyone.

[181] Yeah, what's your record?

[182] You don't even speak aloud.

[183] Have you ever?

[184] Yeah.

[185] I'm always excited when I can make it like an entire day.

[186] Yeah.

[187] Did you set a record on this?

[188] I think I went like two days.

[189] Wow.

[190] Without saying anything out loud.

[191] Yeah.

[192] Like at all.

[193] I kind of start freaking out.

[194] Like once I become aware of like I haven't said anything out loud for like most of this day.

[195] I haven't interacted with anyone in a meaningful way.

[196] I'm not self -aware about any of that sort of stuff.

[197] Like you don't find yourself just like verbalizing your thoughts because you haven't spoken all day.

[198] It's like I'm going to forget how to talk if I don't say something.

[199] No. I talk to myself like pretty regularly.

[200] in a lot of cases but but yeah it's it did end up i think being a couple of days where i didn't even do that and it was after i went and got groceries because for a while there was like okay i gotta leave the house to like eat so i was like all right let's i'll come pick you up we'll go to dinner and we'll go do this we'll go do that but then once all that was out of the way it's just some good old -fashioned sitting around not talking yeah not talking Not doing nothing.

[201] No talk express.

[202] Yeah, exactly.

[203] The straightest of straight talk.

[204] Did you play any games during that time?

[205] I kind of not.

[206] Yeah.

[207] Like, yeah, I did.

[208] Yeah.

[209] Like, I kind of played the Summer of Arcade stuff as it was coming out.

[210] Right.

[211] And I don't think it was a great year for Summer of Arcade.

[212] Strongly disagree.

[213] Like, I really like Bastion.

[214] Yeah.

[215] And I think that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is pretty awesome, but maybe a little short.

[216] Yes.

[217] But then I don't think I like any of those other games.

[218] Really?

[219] Like, from Dust...

[220] Super frustrating.

[221] I really like the way it looks and the concept, and I really want to play it on the PC.

[222] But I got three levels in.

[223] I got to the first level with Lava, I think, and was like, okay, this is fun.

[224] If that's where you burned out, don't play any more of that game.

[225] Oh, my God.

[226] But I want to play it with a mouse.

[227] It just felt like everything was taking longer than it should for the...

[228] The way you're interacting with that world.

[229] It's a valid criticism.

[230] So I just, yeah, I'm holding out for the better version of that game.

[231] Which is, I think, this week?

[232] Yeah.

[233] Originally it was scheduled for this week.

[234] I think it was 17.

[235] Yeah, unless they pushed it again.

[236] Right.

[237] That's kind of quick.

[238] Then Fruit Ninja Connect I think is a total scam.

[239] I think that game is fun.

[240] Total Scam is everything else that's been released for Kinect between launch and now.

[241] That game, as far as...

[242] Let's talk about the expectations for the platform, in this case, for Kinect, specifically.

[243] Having something that interacts well, it's super simple, and yes, it is ten times more expensive than the iPhone game is.

[244] Which I didn't think that was a very good game.

[245] I think that the full body motion just improves on...

[246] Like, that's so much more satisfying and so much more fun to do.

[247] Like, it is super simple, but I think we've kind of learned that that's what Kinect can do.

[248] Like, if you try and get too complicated and too nuanced with the motions, like, it doesn't keep up.

[249] I guess.

[250] It just, you know, it's about as deep as, like, some iToy minigame.

[251] It seemed weird.

[252] I feel like I played that on the PS2 or something.

[253] No, you're right, as far as depth goes, but it's the fact that it actually works.

[254] Like, yeah, you'd play that game on the iToy, and it was just, oh, I'm just going to throw my hands in all directions, and then that's it, and now I don't want to play anymore.

[255] I didn't feel like Fruit Ninja Connect worked.

[256] It probably worked better than that, but I didn't feel like it was perfect.

[257] There were definitely cases where it was like, oh, I was still slashing, but maybe I wasn't moving quite as fast at the end of this slash, so it stopped detecting a slash.

[258] I think that's fine for everything it does, with the exception of Classic Mode, which I think is an abomination.

[259] What don't you like about a classic mode?

[260] It's the fact that hitting one bomb is a game over in that mode.

[261] Because there are plenty of cases where...

[262] Yeah, classic mode is...

[263] That's where you can't miss either, right?

[264] Or you can miss three times.

[265] You can miss up to three fruits.

[266] You can miss up to three, and then if you hit one of the pomegranates, which is like the super fast slash...

[267] What it actually is is just every time you go over 100 points, you get one of those off.

[268] But usually that pomegranate is what pushes you over the order.

[269] Yeah, to hit the bomb game over, that mode's bad.

[270] Because that's where you need the precision of your fingers.

[271] The margin of error when you're using Kinect is kind of fine when you're just kind of flailing about.

[272] If you don't care about achievements, don't play it, and you're totally fine.

[273] But there are a couple locked up in that mode if you do want that stuff.

[274] For this to be the first downloadable Kinect game, and it's also Summer Arcade, which is usually something that is, you know, these are like big, substantial, like top -tier releases.

[275] Yeah.

[276] Given that we're almost a year out from the launch of that hardware platform, like, I think you're right, fine for what it is, but it would have been really nice to have something a little more...

[277] Yeah, it's kind of depressing that we're this far out from the launch of this thing and looking at it and going, yeah, it works.

[278] Cool.

[279] That that's acceptable.

[280] If you want to extrapolate that, we are five years out from the launch of the Wii and we're still struggling to make good motion control games.

[281] Yeah, but I had to buy a new receiver because mine broke and the first thing I did when reconnecting everything is not hook the Wii up to it.

[282] Yeah, you're right about that also.

[283] I'm just talking if we're going to talk larger trends.

[284] Anyway, yeah, I didn't like Fruit Ninja on phones, and I don't like it any more or less with my arms.

[285] In the context of Summer of Arcade, a $15 Gunstringer would have been way more attractive in that slot.

[286] And as a pack -in with Gunstringer, Fruit Ninja becomes way cooler.

[287] But for what it is, I think it's...

[288] I think it's pretty sad.

[289] I had $10 of fun with it, easily.

[290] It's fun.

[291] And I don't know that I don't like toy soldiers also.

[292] I like Toy Soldiers.

[293] I don't know anything.

[294] I never played the original other than this one is all G .I. Joe -ish.

[295] It's not, though.

[296] That's where they get you.

[297] No. That's the part.

[298] The logo looks like the G .I. Joe logo.

[299] That's all, though.

[300] And that's it.

[301] Yeah, exactly.

[302] The rest of the game, nothing to do with G .I. Joe.

[303] It's just the logo.

[304] Which is part of the reason why I don't like Toy Soldiers.

[305] I know.

[306] Well, at least you're being honest about it.

[307] Because they're lying to you.

[308] But I think you're the only person that I've talked to that has really leaned into the G .I. Joe element of that game.

[309] It needs to not be...

[310] machine guns and mortars.

[311] That needs to be lasers.

[312] There is totally a laser tank in the second to last.

[313] There is a wave of tanks that shoot red lasers.

[314] Why am I not shooting blue lasers?

[315] You conjured that expectation for yourself.

[316] That's their fault though.

[317] And if that's what's keeping you from enjoying that game, then you were not going to like it anyway.

[318] The other thing is I don't necessarily love the way it plays either.

[319] Don't make the aesthetics the fault.

[320] It's the first game with some new mechanics and stuff.

[321] But, I mean, what it is is just a clearinghouse of, like, 80s action movie and toy cliches.

[322] Right.

[323] I like that the commando is basically just Rambo.

[324] Yeah, and on the Soviet side, he's Ivan Drago.

[325] Okay.

[326] Straight up blonde flat top and a bunch of I break you kind of.

[327] I like the giant fucking camcorder in the background.

[328] Yeah, all the little, like, bedroom accoutrements.

[329] Yeah.

[330] Like, the kind of tiny people in a big world motif.

[331] Yep.

[332] Like, there's, like, Apple IIe -looking monochrome monitors sitting around.

[333] Like, St. Levin Lord made this game.

[334] Oh, man, I bet he loves this game.

[335] I like it a lot more now.

[336] But, yeah, it's, like, there's, like, giant, there's, like, VHS tapes and, like, Apple IIe -looking computers and stuff like that.

[337] But the soundtrack is out of Top Gun.

[338] Like, you've got these action movie guys.

[339] Like, that logo, yeah, looks like G .I. Joe, but it's more that they're just, like, taking...

[340] But it seems like they're doing that for everything.

[341] Of, like, we are going to have this song that kind of sounds like the Top Gun theme, but is far enough away that no one's going to be able to sue us, we think.

[342] There's a really impressive fake final countdown.

[343] What is the line of that?

[344] Could you go, like, four bars in before it becomes...

[345] They're changing all the notes.

[346] It's a style parody.

[347] It's not a...

[348] It's not the composition.

[349] So it's not even note for note.

[350] Yeah.

[351] But the notes go in the same places that they would have gone.

[352] There's different notes, different melody.

[353] Yeah, I thought that was pretty well done.

[354] But yeah, I guess I never really played the first one very much, so I didn't really know what to expect.

[355] It's that.

[356] It's Tower Defense where you can hop into the towers and control them manually.

[357] But I mean, they've added a lot of stuff to it.

[358] Like a lot, actually.

[359] But big picture, Jeff, for the Summer Arcade promotion, it's easy to remember what the great games were of past years, but every year...

[360] I miss the hits like Castlevania HD.

[361] That's the thing.

[362] The big triumph this year is that there is not a game that is notably shit.

[363] Every game is subject to your taste, but somebody likes every one of those games.

[364] They're all well made for what they are.

[365] I'll at least grant them that.

[366] Whereas last year was Castlevania.

[367] From Dust, I feel like the failing is a technical one.

[368] The game they made is actually awesome.

[369] You just can't play it right.

[370] It takes more effort than it should.

[371] It'll be better with a mouse.

[372] I'm confident about that.

[373] And that's coming soon.

[374] It was a pretty good year.

[375] I still think the first year might be the best.

[376] Because that was like the re -armed year, wasn't it?

[377] No, that was the second year.

[378] Geometry Wars 2, Castle Crashers, and Braid were all the first year.

[379] That's pretty tough to beat.

[380] I don't even remember what the other two were.

[381] Those games are still top sellers.

[382] Yeah, those three games specifically I think are some of the best -selling Xbox Live Arcade games ever.

[383] Always weird to remember that, oh yeah, Castle Crashers sold like...

[384] Like crazy, crazy numbers.

[385] There's no real easy way to see how this is translated into numbers without doing all the leaderboard hunting stuff.

[386] But Castle Crashers, if you go sort by top sellers or whatever on the dashboard, Castle Crashers is number three still.

[387] It's kind of crazy.

[388] It is.

[389] So I kind of messed around with some of that stuff.

[390] I played a little bit of that EYE game.

[391] Oh, God.

[392] Divine.

[393] I'm real sad that I missed that.

[394] Divine Cybermancy.

[395] Cybermancy.

[396] That's why I was onto it.

[397] That sounds like you're totally making that shit up, too.

[398] That does not sound like a real title.

[399] Also, Jeff, that sounds like that's right in your wheelhouse, also.

[400] Cybermancy.

[401] I'm a Cybermancer.

[402] What is Cybermancy?

[403] I know how much you love Cyberpunk and Ren Fares, and this sounds like a perfect combination of the two.

[404] Yeah, pretty much.

[405] Yeah, I don't know.

[406] That game, Dave's playing a lot more of it than I have.

[407] I probably played the first hour of that and went like, oh, man, I can't do this anymore.

[408] I really liked the way that they handled the hacking, though.

[409] Yeah, the hacking is a great concept.

[410] It's just like everything else implemented kind of badly.

[411] Yeah.

[412] I mean, I think Dave summed it up as like he says, this is a bad game, but I love it.

[413] Yeah, yeah.

[414] It's totally – I knew before we even did that video that Dave had to be there, and he was – Is the game aware that it's bad?

[415] He was jumping out of his chair to go buy it by the time.

[416] The tutorials, man. They're so bad.

[417] Just like 22 pages of bad video and tech.

[418] Like taken from what looked almost like a different build of the game.

[419] Because like the heads up display, the UI in the videos is different from what you're looking at.

[420] Oh, man. Do you have time to redo these tutorial videos as we read it?

[421] Nope.

[422] All right, just ship it.

[423] I guess.

[424] There's supposedly a big patch on the way that's supposed to fix a bunch of stuff.

[425] Such as the fact that the enemies can see you from basically the other side of the map.

[426] Well.

[427] And in a lot of cases, the enemies...

[428] Just don't play stealth.

[429] Problem solved.

[430] The enemies respond infinitely in some cases, so...

[431] They want infinite challenge.

[432] Yeah.

[433] That game is messed up.

[434] It is.

[435] And kind of beautiful.

[436] I know.

[437] The art is really nice.

[438] In the way it is messed up, but...

[439] Oh, you mean just like what a jumbled mess it is?

[440] Yeah.

[441] It's like, fuck, man. This game was made by crazy people.

[442] Yeah.

[443] Yeah.

[444] But like the underlying concept, if it all fit together properly...

[445] would be so good.

[446] Exactly.

[447] The concept of cybermancy of any type, let alone divine cybermancy.

[448] The first 20 minutes that I played it, I was like, oh man, this is going to be so good.

[449] Right off the cliff.

[450] It's impressive the amount of slack that will be given to a game like a weird low -budget...

[451] I don't know, what is that?

[452] France?

[453] Yeah, it's French.

[454] It's based on an old board game or tabletop game.

[455] It's been around for a while over there.

[456] But, yeah, just, like, people's, like, a certain crowd's willingness to give slack to, like, well, okay, it's made by a small super indie team.

[457] I think, you know, it's a lot of that, you know, the game is priced accordingly as well.

[458] They're not trying to, you know, hit you for 50 bucks on it.

[459] And there's nothing like it.

[460] No. Yeah.

[461] Also, yeah, that game, like, online co -op.

[462] I didn't try any of that.

[463] I don't know.

[464] Like, seemed, like, relatively ambitious for as kind of, like, weirdly.

[465] broken as it seemed at the same time.

[466] From all the stuff going on in that game, I think it could be a Game of the Year material if it was not so terrible.

[467] Yeah, alright.

[468] That game wasn't terrible.

[469] It could totally be Game of the Year.

[470] Put that on the back of the box that does not exist.

[471] You're saying there's ambition but not necessarily craft?

[472] Yeah, like the voice acting is bad in kind of a hilarious way.

[473] It almost reminded me of...

[474] The game with the island and the little midgets that we were running around kicking.

[475] Cargo.

[476] Cargo.

[477] Like at first it reminded me of cargo with guns in this weird kind of – in the production sense of the voice being really nuts.

[478] Yeah, it's just super strange.

[479] Really unsettling.

[480] Yeah, yeah.

[481] Unsettling is a good way to put it.

[482] So I don't know.

[483] I screwed around with that.

[484] Terraria patch came out, so I screwed around with that.

[485] Still been Terraria?

[486] I guess.

[487] I'd probably write a review of that, I think.

[488] You said you were done playing Terraria.

[489] They patched it, so I figured I'd go back in and see what was up.

[490] And it's one of those things like, I don't know, in some sense it's almost like too little too late.

[491] They patched it to make it more difficult, but I've already teared up.

[492] I've already gotten all the minerals and all the things I need to make all the best gear.

[493] that stays with you from server to server.

[494] So I don't really have any reason to go engage in any of the boss fights and actually look around the map for stuff.

[495] So it's nice that they made it harder, and they've added a few new items that are kind of interesting that I have to go get, but it's all minor stuff in the grand scheme of things.

[496] So it's, yeah, I don't know.

[497] It's a little weird.

[498] Was that a common complaint, that it was too easy?

[499] I don't know.

[500] I haven't really been following the community.

[501] But basically they added like a cooldown for healing potions and kind of offset some of that with regenerating health when you're out of combat.

[502] And, you know, it's – I don't know.

[503] It doesn't seem like hugely impossible anymore or it doesn't seem like it's an impossible game even after these changes.

[504] But, you know, I guess it's a little bit trickier.

[505] You have to think a little bit harder because you can't just like load up on health potions.

[506] Hammer the one key.

[507] Yeah.

[508] Whatever.

[509] Basically.

[510] That's a well -made thing.

[511] I wouldn't even really call it a game because it's a series of smaller goals and they're all personally set.

[512] I'm going to go get the good pickaxe so that I can build stuff better.

[513] Brad Schumacher.

[514] Oh, hey.

[515] Hi.

[516] Jeff, did you do anything else with your break?

[517] No pants in the dark?

[518] Blackout curtains.

[519] There's a lot of that.

[520] No, no. Weather was good.

[521] So it was like it was all open.

[522] Oh.

[523] You know, open windows, air out the house, everything type stuff.

[524] Messed around with Freddy Krueger a little bit.

[525] Oh, yeah.

[526] How was he?

[527] Interesting.

[528] How was the game?

[529] Is it better?

[530] It is better, yeah.

[531] Because they didn't come out and say, hey, we fixed everything, get this patch or anything.

[532] No. Did they just kind of quietly fix some stuff on the back end?

[533] Well, I think that maybe enough people have done the workaround of deleting the pre -order costumes to prevent a lot of the desyncs, but you still run into cases where people haven't downloaded the DLC.

[534] So that's still a problem?

[535] Yeah.

[536] So the problem is that...

[537] How is that...

[538] Patch that game.

[539] So the thing is, I mean, well, to patch that game properly, they would have to force 400 megs of content on people.

[540] Or patch it in such a way that it just comes up and says you can't play online until you've manually gone and downloaded this stuff.

[541] Which I don't think either of those things you can do.

[542] Because at 400 megs you go past the patch limit and you have to be downloadable content.

[543] Right.

[544] But they're not going to give the...

[545] So what they did with this Freddy patch on PS3, it's rolled into a patch.

[546] So everyone has Freddy, which almost seems like a marketing -led, like, well, we've got to make sure everyone's got the potential to see Freddy.

[547] They can't do it.

[548] They didn't do it on 360, probably because they can't, because it's 80 megs a character.

[549] basically.

[550] That just seems like a real weird thing to not have solved this far out from that game.

[551] Not that it doesn't seem to be an easy solution to it, but for the popularity that Microsoft wouldn't work with that, that seems really inexcusable from all perspectives, even if it's not an easy problem to solve.

[552] Yeah, so they've at least fixed, or at least have a fix out there for the desync issue.

[553] So it's not an issue of I cannot play the game at all, but it is that issue of I paid for characters, but because some guy out there has not gone and manually downloaded the free versions of those characters so that he can see me playing as that character, I can't use those characters.

[554] And that's just completely crazy.

[555] Also, they did the thing.

[556] So remember they did the season pass thing where it was like pay for three characters, get the fourth for free.

[557] That was only on 360.

[558] I think because they couldn't figure out how to make it work on the PS3 end of things.

[559] But now that all four characters are out, they have on PS3 gone and released a $15 pack that has all four characters.

[560] So if you bought all the characters all along, you're pretty bummed out right now, probably, I guess.

[561] It's the problem.

[562] These are crazy fucking problems for us to have.

[563] It's crazy problems.

[564] These are stupid problems for us to have.

[565] And they're crazy and stupid problems that we're going to have for the rest of this generation.

[566] And I hope that all of these issues, everything that comes up is informing, like, all the rules that are being made for the next set of platforms.

[567] I just, I have to say.

[568] Because a lot of it's got to be inherent to the architecture of these platforms.

[569] In 360, you've got, you know, that's just rooted in the fact that they can't guarantee everyone's going to have a 400 meg hard drive that they can shoot everything to.

[570] So they just, I'm sure the internal policy is just, you can't do that.

[571] Even though they're probably all banging their heads going, this is actually super simple to solve.

[572] These are our terms of services people have agreed to.

[573] We can't do this.

[574] We can't force this on them.

[575] Yeah, exactly.

[576] So it's a shitty situation that I imagine that by the time we get to new hardware, like these issues won't be issues.

[577] But who is to say there won't be some other horrible thing that we'll all complain about for years?

[578] It's just a weird thing like when we did UT for TNT.

[579] Yeah.

[580] That's a game where I don't have the map.

[581] Oh, just stream it out from the server?

[582] Okay.

[583] It might take 30 minutes, but you're going to get it.

[584] But you'll get it.

[585] Any content you don't have, the server can fucking give you.

[586] And the fact that there's not just some...

[587] But, I mean, the problem there is what if I have content that the server doesn't?

[588] And that was always the problem with those games is that for models and just client -side stuff of just like, my guy looks like Batman.

[589] Well, if the server doesn't have the Batman file...

[590] It doesn't matter.

[591] Right.

[592] No one gets to see that.

[593] So it's – yeah, you're right.

[594] It was really good about maps and mods and that sort of stuff.

[595] But the game doesn't crash.

[596] Right.

[597] Is the thing.

[598] Yeah.

[599] It just says, oh, OK, you don't have it.

[600] Or even just like simple – like since they're not using like complicated – or from the outside, it doesn't seem like they're using complicated, sophisticated like gameplay matching systems.

[601] Like just – if you don't have the character, take them off the list.

[602] Yeah.

[603] You know?

[604] Well, that's what it does.

[605] But I mean don't – Take the player off the list, not the character.

[606] Take the player off the list, not the character.

[607] Yeah, that should be a filter for searching or something like only so many characters.

[608] That doesn't even seem like it's a patch.

[609] Like they have a lot of control it seems on the back end for playlist stuff.

[610] Right.

[611] That seems like something that's an easy fix of come in here if you have DLC characters and want to play with DLC characters.

[612] So that's kind of how it's ended up going is that just one of the chat rooms is always named DLC or DLC with mics.

[613] Right.

[614] I guess they haven't been very communicative about this problem.

[615] I feel like you really, if you're a fan, you've got to dig deep to figure out what the hell is going on.

[616] Which I'm sure from their perspective is don't put a lot of attention on it so that it doesn't become this big deal.

[617] But by virtue of doing that, if you aren't invested in it, if you are just somebody that's playing online and isn't going to message boards and community sites, how the hell are you supposed to know all this stuff?

[618] The thing is only by other players bitching at you about it.

[619] Yeah.

[620] You know, by trying to shame you into downloading these updates that are also, you know, buried somewhere on the 360 dash.

[621] Oh, yeah, no, like I was going through the stuff from MK and it's super confusing, especially once you start throwing in like, okay, so this is like the compatibility.

[622] But what if I actually want the character?

[623] And you just get the character and you don't need the compatibility.

[624] But then wait.

[625] But do I want this other – like just explanation of like what the season pass or whatever the fuck they're calling it is.

[626] Like that plus the characters.

[627] Like it's not even like in the message of the day stuff where they have a feature where they can explain things.

[628] It's not in there, right?

[629] When you connect to Xbox Live, they have had it in there.

[630] Like when the characters are new, they'll say like, hey, go download the compatibility pack because you'll get free unmasked Sub -Zero skin.

[631] Which is totally in the game now.

[632] Like MK3 Sub -Zero is in there.

[633] That's pretty awesome.

[634] Scar and everything.

[635] No scar.

[636] Pre -scar.

[637] Pre -scar.

[638] Oh, right.

[639] Okay.

[640] So I thought that was kind of cool.

[641] But they kind of market it that way.

[642] Like they put two free skins in every compatibility pack and hope that that will entice people to get all that stuff.

[643] Isn't that how Criterion handled it for Hot Pursuit?

[644] Yeah.

[645] Like that seems like the only one.

[646] And that's how they did it with Burnout also is some of that stuff ended up being kind of free just to get people to update.

[647] Because those updates were like.

[648] Huge gig.

[649] Within the parameters of these consoles as set by their makers, that seems like the best way to handle this.

[650] There are better ways to handle it if...

[651] If anything went, if anything goes in the situation, but it doesn't.

[652] The burnout downloads were even crazier because you were downloading something that was just called Burnout Paradise 1 .6.

[653] And you could actually go delete the earlier ones because they were just full patches that had everything.

[654] The naming of that stuff made it very obscure.

[655] You didn't know what was going on.

[656] The problem is that there's no standard for it.

[657] They didn't think this stuff was going to be necessary or possible when they launched this console, so everyone just kind of comes up with their own methods for it.

[658] So every time you approach like, okay, we need to figure out how to get all this content out and have it be like an asynchronous type thing, everyone's like, well, we'll try it this way.

[659] And then someone tries it some other way, and it's never messaged well to the consumer.

[660] For as annoying as this stuff is, it actually makes a really good case for putting all your DLC on the disc.

[661] Like, for as fucked up as that, you know, that whole thing is, like, at least then you can guarantee that everyone has it.

[662] Yeah.

[663] And also, how is it 2011 and, like, fucking fighting games are still, like, the thing that should be, like, online smooth?

[664] Like, you're going 1v1.

[665] Like, sure, it has to have, you know, there's a level of speed to it that maybe other genres of games don't have.

[666] It's not even that.

[667] It's that it was desyncing because the files weren't the same on both ends.

[668] Like it was just an old, a classic multiplayer game problem.

[669] And when it breaks, I haven't done it myself, but does it explain to you what is wrong?

[670] It just says the game has desynchronized.

[671] See, that is, you know, what it sounds like is, it's like, you know.

[672] If they can patch that to say the game is desynchronized, go delete your pre -order skins.

[673] Yeah, it seems like NetherRealm and Warner Brothers, like that could be like a really easy way to, again, I shouldn't say really easy.

[674] I don't know how you can just go in and swap that menu, but that seems like a real simple way.

[675] of explaining that.

[676] I think what actually they were doing is, this sounds like what happened on PS3, is that they just patched the game to where it was no longer an issue, like which versions of the pre -order skins you had on your system.

[677] So they had actually just gone and fixed that problem.

[678] And I think that rolled out on PS3.

[679] but hasn't rolled out on 360 yet.

[680] Or if it has, it was one of those, like, I don't think it's one of those things they can fix in the background because those are all, like, balance patches and stuff.

[681] I don't know that that works.

[682] But their message board said, like, hey, there's something, you know, the fix is in the works, and it'll get out there eventually.

[683] But in the meantime, you can kind of fix it yourself by doing this.

[684] It's just like a real old PC way of like, hey, we're fixing it, but here's a real janky way of doing it yourself.

[685] Add this to the command line.

[686] Everything will be cool.

[687] Check Ed Boon's plan file for updates.

[688] I joke if you will, but again, playing Left 4 Dead 2 on TNT last week opened up to me just how fucking good Steam is.

[689] And just how good all of the...

[690] If there's any...

[691] Okay, Xbox Live has brought into the mainstream...

[692] Definitely forged the way for a lot of what we expect from an online service.

[693] But just the fucking flexibility that you get with Steam, it's incredible.

[694] Like I hadn't really dug into the group stuff or anything like that.

[695] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[696] But having like – The group server.

[697] Oh, being able to have like these – well, it's like Twitter.

[698] Brad and I were talking about this.

[699] It has that asynchronous like, okay.

[700] I have a similar interest as the rest of you guys, but I don't want you on my friends list.

[701] Right.

[702] I don't want to fucking have that close a relationship.

[703] But if I'm out looking for someone to play Left 4 Dead 2 with, I can be in this group.

[704] I know it's a like -minded group once I get into the game.

[705] And Left 4 Dead 2, the Valve stuff has it fucking...

[706] amazingly integrated.

[707] It's beautiful that way.

[708] That's all, I think, built into Steamworks now, right?

[709] If you want to use that for your API, you can.

[710] Anybody who's willing to invest the effort can make their game that tightly integrated.

[711] Good web interface.

[712] You can do virtually anything that you can on a web page as you can from the Steam client if you don't have access to the Steam client.

[713] You know, good chat.

[714] Like just all these fucking great features just really well implemented.

[715] And also, you know, it stays snappy.

[716] Like you look at how, like, okay, I have to go and someone sent me a message on Xbox Live.

[717] Let's go look it up.

[718] Like the waiting for panel to load, panel to load, panel to load.

[719] Okay, that's where the messages are.

[720] Let me click on that message now, panel to load.

[721] Like just the time it takes to just.

[722] process this stuff has become so fucking laborious.

[723] It's become so laborious on the 360.

[724] It's easier when you see that you have a message just like, well, I'm going to go to my computer and read it on their website.

[725] That's what I do.

[726] I'll wait while the game loads and then I'll go check the message and reply to it there.

[727] If you're on Steam, you hit shift tab.

[728] If you're on Steam, you say logged out of friends at all times.

[729] Steam, that dashboard, the integration of that stuff, the shift tab, it's great.

[730] The overlay is amazing.

[731] I add stuff like StarCraft and Age of Empires Online, which we'll talk about in a minute, to Steam and launch it from there just so I can use that overlay and get the stuff.

[732] But you can do that with most Steam games?

[733] Oh, yeah.

[734] Oh, that's fucking awesome.

[735] The overlay works on anything that you launch out of Steam.

[736] Steam's really good.

[737] I don't know.

[738] I don't want to blow anyone's mind.

[739] Steam's really good.

[740] I was sitting there playing AOE this weekend using the Steam overlay web browser to look at the achievements in that game instead of the fucking Games for Windows client that runs anyway.

[741] It was faster.

[742] It was – last week was kind of my realization of like having kind of really dug into Steam and some of the features that it has and kind of stepping back and taking a bigger picture look at how they're distributing games, what they're doing with games.

[743] Like I could – I now understand how this could be someone's sole gaming experience.

[744] You saw the trading stuff, right?

[745] It's just Steam.

[746] Yeah, the trading beta.

[747] The trading stuff is really interesting.

[748] But that's weird.

[749] You guys want to trade me for my extra copy of Vice City?

[750] Even just the fact that you can do that.

[751] But what's weird is that it's common enough for people to have fucking codes for unused games.

[752] I think that speaks more to how weird the retail front of Steam has become.

[753] than it does anything else.

[754] You would buy weird bundles because it's cheaper.

[755] Like, well, I already bought this game once, so now I just have this code.

[756] I don't know what to do with it.

[757] I have like Dawn of War 2, Retribution, and what else?

[758] Vice City, Half -Life 2, and like one other one.

[759] I don't know where half that stuff even came from.

[760] Yeah, that's an odd development.

[761] Well, you can very much that being step one and towards Valve figuring out how to fix the used game dilemma.

[762] digital world and I can kind of see them trying to take that step forward with their games which is what they do with everybody is hey this is the way to do it and we're going to show you it works and then drag your ass over here too.

[763] Because you know I mean imagine if Xbox Live and PSN had sales like Steam did?

[764] Like how many more games I would buy in any of those services?

[765] I mean Xbox Live does do sales but not nearly not like hey go in and buy 20 games for 99 cents and gift them to your friends.

[766] No no they don't take it to the same extreme like Steam definitely So it leads the field on that stuff.

[767] But I don't see...

[768] I think a lot of that is because there's always going to be pressure from retail.

[769] Like, that pressure's not there to that extent on the PC.

[770] A lot of the same games, yeah.

[771] You can buy it in two different worlds.

[772] Or retail PC sales are all but dead at this point.

[773] Yeah, so they don't care about pissing off.

[774] GameStop is devoting so little shelf space to PC games now, so they can get away with it.

[775] I don't know.

[776] The notion of then being able to, like, so, Patrick, I imagine that kind of the inference here is that the next step is being able to trade games that I've already cashed in and activated.

[777] Like, you can easily imagine publishers just signing on for, like, you just take, you know, you've bought your game for $60, maybe you turn it in, you get $20, and they shave a couple bucks off, the publisher gets it, Valve gets a cut, and you get your $20 in credit that you're going to spend in the Steam store.

[778] You know, it's the same thing as GameStop, but it's you doing with digital stuff.

[779] I don't think that's far off.

[780] Yeah, there's probably a way to make that work.

[781] There's a way for people to take that money, which is going to things like OnlinePass and doing that in a much more elegant way that the consumer doesn't feel like they're getting shit on.

[782] I think it's going to be tough.

[783] That's why Valve does it with their stuff first.

[784] I think it's going to be a tough sell.

[785] That's why they do it on the PC.

[786] Yeah, no, no. Like Valve doing it with their own stuff on the PC is the only way to even start that conversation.

[787] The other thing is like on the PC, use sales aren't a problem because everything is tied to a serial number.

[788] It's the thing that like everyone bitching about online passes seems to forget is the online pass is technically way more flexible than gaming on the PC because there's no way to move stuff.

[789] There's no way to sell stuff used.

[790] And I feel like – I don't know.

[791] As they move into more of this stuff, I wonder if the kind of publisher backlash against Valve and Steam will become more prominent.

[792] Like EA is kind of – Yeah, everyone is going to go for it.

[793] The annoying part is if you look at some of the stuff that EA is doing and some of the stuff that they're talking about, like in -game patching and that sort of stuff, they're going and building all that stuff themselves.

[794] But I look at the experience of Steam where it's like as soon as I load up Steam, if there's a patch available for a game I have installed, it just starts getting it.

[795] Like this notion of just like launching the game and having it say like, oh, you need to patch.

[796] We'll take care of it, but then having to sit there and while it takes care of it, it's like click here, here, and here to initiate the patch.

[797] Right.

[798] Let it download, and then you have to restart the game to apply it and stuff.

[799] I'm impressed that the PS3 has started doing that.

[800] Have you had that?

[801] Do you have that turned on?

[802] Oh, I don't have that turned on.

[803] So you can turn on a feature that will, it's one of those like, you know, while the system is asleep kind of thing.

[804] That's a plus only feature though.

[805] Oh, is that a plus?

[806] Okay, yeah.

[807] It's awesome.

[808] I'll turn on my PS3 sometimes and be like, yeah, dude, we went and downloaded all these patches for these games that you have installed.

[809] So the next time you play the Resistance 3 multiplayer beta, it'll actually work.

[810] And I'm like, fucking awesome.

[811] Thanks, PS3.

[812] Yeah, that's cool.

[813] I had forgotten that that was a plus.

[814] But like you're saying, that is, you know, stock Steam feature.

[815] Right.

[816] That is something that just...

[817] It's a great feature.

[818] It's ridiculous.

[819] You have to pay for it.

[820] Yes.

[821] Agreed.

[822] Agreed.

[823] I'm still not sure what I'm paying for with my PlayStation Plus account.

[824] Paying for access to pay for other things.

[825] Are people paying for it again, or are people still on their free time from the outage?

[826] That should be up.

[827] Is it up now?

[828] Right out a while ago.

[829] All right.

[830] I never ended abusing it.

[831] I redeemed it and just never logged on.

[832] Just extended mine, push out mine.

[833] Yeah, I bought Plus.

[834] I haven't used any of the Plus features yet other than I downloaded Sonic the Hedgehog for free, which is about the right price to pay for Sonic the Hedgehog these days.

[835] Did you even boot it up?

[836] Hell no. Maybe I did, actually.

[837] Just make sure that you know you're charging Sega a little bit for bandwidth.

[838] Well, stuff goes away.

[839] This is the fuck thing.

[840] This stuff goes away.

[841] So it's like the sort of thing where the free games on Plus aren't there forever.

[842] So you have to get it right there.

[843] They remain Plus as long as you remain a member, but they aren't available for download indefinitely.

[844] So Comic Zone is up there right now for the Genesis.

[845] And at that point, even I knew.

[846] At no point am I ever going to want to play that game.

[847] So I'm not going to download it for free.

[848] I've gotten less vigilant.

[849] I was definitely on.

[850] on a path of, like, download everything.

[851] Then I ran out of PS3 hard drive space.

[852] Can you fucking imagine?

[853] Can you imagine that?

[854] Well, you forget that you have to go in and manually delete all of the game data, which is separate from game saves.

[855] Like, when I first ran out, I looked through and was like, there's no fucking way all these game saves are taking up 60 gigs.

[856] And then I realized I have to go in and go to all the game data individually.

[857] And then I had to, like, look, I hadn't done that in a while, so I'm like, so am I deleting my saves when I delete the game data?

[858] It's like, this is horrible.

[859] I have a way to do it.

[860] No, no. I filled up my hard drives with games.

[861] Oh, okay.

[862] With actual – that's how much PlayStation Plus stuff they've been throwing out there.

[863] So I don't even get to keep all of the PlayStation Plus stuff on my hard drive anymore.

[864] Too vigilant.

[865] Throw a new hard drive in that thing.

[866] Yeah.

[867] Yeah.

[868] I just went and deleted a bunch of PS1.

[869] I was like, I'm never going to play Abe's Odyssey.

[870] Delete that shit.

[871] There's an HD remake coming out anyway.

[872] Yeah.

[873] I'm not going to play that either, so.

[874] Great.

[875] No harm, no foul on that.

[876] All right, Brad.

[877] Did you want to talk about Toy Soldiers?

[878] Yeah, we covered it pretty well.

[879] I mean, you know, it's tower defense with action.

[880] More of the same?

[881] Well, they've ramped up the action this time.

[882] Okay.

[883] So there is actual third -person shooting as a guy, like Jeff mentioned.

[884] There's basically the Stallone slash...

[885] Was it just vehicular combat?

[886] In the first one?

[887] In turrets?

[888] I need to go back and look.

[889] It was mainly get in the turrets and, like, fire from a stationary position.

[890] I think there were some vehicles, actually.

[891] There was, like, a biplane and stuff.

[892] It was World War I. But obviously being in the 80s, you know, Cold War era, a lot more potential for, like, attack helicopters and F -14s and stuff like that.

[893] A lot more vehicle stuff, but there's also the dudes that run around and jump and shoot rockets.

[894] Yeah, you control all that stuff.

[895] You actually fly the helicopter around on all that.

[896] Yeah, that stuff works pretty well.

[897] So just more robust tower defense.

[898] Yeah, but there's so many extra modes now.

[899] I think the Quick Look should be up by now.

[900] Will Smith has actually played more of the game than I have, so I roped him in on the Quick Look.

[901] But there's versus modes, there's survival modes, there's a bunch of mini -games where you're shooting down giant flies.

[902] flying through some kind of carnival -looking scenario, and, like, it's weird.

[903] I don't know.

[904] There's a lot going on there.

[905] I don't know where it was.

[906] Oh, did you get through your lantern run?

[907] No, nobody will play with me. Damn.

[908] You didn't respond.

[909] Nobody responded to my message yesterday.

[910] I think I was in the middle of wrapping up my L .A. Noir.

[911] I saw you were playing that.

[912] You need to get to level nine.

[913] Is that what you're trying to do?

[914] It's get to level nine and also get a million points.

[915] But I guess they're kind of one and the same.

[916] I forget when I was playing that that I get really addicted to going and checking my map completion percentage like every time I've finished an area.

[917] It's like, oh, I don't want to see.

[918] And that goes up really fast in that game.

[919] That's a short game.

[920] It was like two hours later.

[921] It was like.

[922] 50 % of the what?

[923] Oh, geez.

[924] I completed the map but did not find all the...

[925] I got all the ship upgrade items, but I'm still missing some concept art and artifacts.

[926] You don't need the concept art for achievements.

[927] I'm missing three artifacts.

[928] I think artifacts you need for achievements.

[929] All but one of the artifacts...

[930] Yeah, you do.

[931] All but one of the artifacts are pretty much visible if you go near it.

[932] But there's one...

[933] It's weird.

[934] There's one in particular that's hidden really well.

[935] but not in a way that the rest of the game has prepared you to look for, if that makes sense.

[936] So unless you stumble upon it, you may just never quite...

[937] I don't even know if you would.

[938] Do they number the artifacts in such a way that I can go...

[939] Nope.

[940] But, well, if you're missing multiples, it might be rough, but I was missing one, and I watched the YouTube walkthrough, and it was just like, immediately.

[941] It's that one that's just...

[942] It's hidden in an invisible wall that you just wouldn't expect.

[943] Oh, I think I got that one.

[944] Maybe.

[945] Is it all the way left on the map?

[946] Yeah.

[947] Oh, wow.

[948] You found that one?

[949] Because you can see there's a little area that you can see that there is opening up there.

[950] On the map.

[951] Yeah.

[952] Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

[953] I just went around shooting around in that area.

[954] One of the ones in the corner?

[955] Yeah.

[956] Okay, I think I know what you're talking about.

[957] I haven't gone back to that, but I...

[958] I love the way that game looks.

[959] Fantastic arm.

[960] There's something about the ship movement control that feels fantastic.

[961] It's got good weight, too.

[962] And I love using the arm, too.

[963] It's like a one -to -one movement.

[964] There's a dexterity to it that feels like, even though you're kind of flinging stuff around, but there's enough of a physics -y feel to it that it's good.

[965] But, man, do I not care about shooting stuff.

[966] Shooting is not the best.

[967] As soon as you told me, I just stopped engaging the combat.

[968] I've never engaged in the complex.

[969] I started the game after you had said that.

[970] So I'm just flying through things.

[971] There's no reason to shoot.

[972] It took me a little bit of a learning curve to figure that out.

[973] But after my fourth death, I'm like, okay, these things are just – I'm outmatched by these things.

[974] They constantly respawn and are shooting these new little pustule things at me. I'm just going to thread the needle and just get through these areas.

[975] It would almost be nice if they had tied the weapon progression to the combat or something.

[976] It was weapon progression or even, like, I wish the scanning did something, like, other than just, like, recommend.

[977] Yeah, like a scan percentage or something.

[978] Yeah, like some sort of plot.

[979] I don't know.

[980] Does it not?

[981] I was scanning shit under the assumption that I was.

[982] No, you don't even get an achievement for it.

[983] Yeah.

[984] Because, I mean, that's the thing.

[985] The movement is so smooth and fun that if they were to tie the scanning to that so that you had a reason to be trying to engage with enemies more.

[986] But at a certain point, I just stopped scanning because I didn't need to unless I just wanted to mark the map.

[987] I assumed that it was not for no reason.

[988] It's only if you are having trouble with a specific enemy or boss and you want to know which weapon you should use.

[989] I don't want to fight anything anyway.

[990] So you don't have to.

[991] I mean, there are bosses you have to fight.

[992] Sure.

[993] You scan those.

[994] I did not much care for the final boss.

[995] Yes.

[996] The water boss also didn't like that.

[997] It's the one on the right side of the wall, and there's the two missile shooting things back on the side.

[998] You kind of have to grab onto the arms.

[999] I think that was the one we did in the quick look.

[1000] That one was kind of, yeah.

[1001] Because the air current would blow you in ways you couldn't catch on to the node you wanted to.

[1002] A lot of the game felt like it was...

[1003] That game is not hard at all, except some of the bosses are...

[1004] The boss fights are not hard, but they're way more difficult than anything else in that game.

[1005] They're a little fiddly.

[1006] There are just some weird aspects to the way that you get knocked around and where you're positioning and stuff.

[1007] I don't know.

[1008] Just those laser beams on the last boss and stuff.

[1009] It was one of those things where I got there, died like five times, went like, all right, I just need to walk away from this, and then came back ten minutes later and finished on the first try.

[1010] In the context of how that game got made, it's pretty impressive.

[1011] That means nothing to the average consumer who's paying $15 for a game.

[1012] Like, just looking at the credits and reading an interview, I guess they made it in, like, a year and a half, and there's only, like, 12 people in the credits.

[1013] Yeah.

[1014] Small team, short dev cycle.

[1015] And they cut a lot out.

[1016] Like, it sounds like they cut, like, almost half of a game out of that.

[1017] I went back over the weekend.

[1018] It's a real bummer.

[1019] Yeah, if that game had been twice as long, more importantly, if it had had all the stuff in that initial trailer they put out.

[1020] Because I went back and watched that trailer.

[1021] I don't know if you guys remember that.

[1022] The trailer came out, like, two years ago, almost.

[1023] Nah.

[1024] Like, that trailer came out of nowhere, and you were just like, holy shit, this looks amazing.

[1025] Well, I remember that, yeah, but I don't remember what was in that trailer.

[1026] Then they submerged.

[1027] They went radio silent for a year and a half, two years, whatever.

[1028] And the game came out, and if you go back and look at that trailer, none of the stuff in that trailer is in the game.

[1029] It is in a very simplified or reduced form.

[1030] If they had made that game that they showed in that trailer, it probably would have been amazing.

[1031] Yeah, it sounded like they had cut almost 50 % of the map as they got towards these areas aren't fun to play, so just get rid of it.

[1032] I mean, there's a big fat DLC link right on the...

[1033] I think that's mostly multiplayer stuff.

[1034] I would actually be into that.

[1035] I think the lander run is awesome, except that nobody wants to play it.

[1036] I don't...

[1037] Somebody play it.

[1038] I don't not want to.

[1039] You just caught me in the middle of some shit that I couldn't just bail out of.

[1040] I saw you and the other two people I had spoken to about playing it, and all of you had expressed an interest, and I was like, now's my chance.

[1041] But you were all playing other stuff.

[1042] Oh, yeah.

[1043] Well, similarly, I was...

[1044] Nobody responded.

[1045] Similarly, I was just spamming my friends list when I was looking for Jack players on Sunday.

[1046] Let's make a date.

[1047] Let's do it.

[1048] Play date?

[1049] Yeah, we'll have a Lantern date.

[1050] For whatever reason.

[1051] We'll mix it into TNT.

[1052] We'll fucking figure out a way to squeeze that in there.

[1053] Yeah, especially because I have concerns.

[1054] Age of Empires may not work out.

[1055] I don't know, so we'll see.

[1056] Okay.

[1057] Is that TNT this week?

[1058] We're going to do that in Toy Soldiers.

[1059] We're going to strategy it up.

[1060] Strategy twofer.

[1061] Okay.

[1062] We weren't sure if either of those games would stand up for two hours, but each for an hour I think would be good.

[1063] I'm on some weird vision quest to S -rank the whole summer of Arcade this year.

[1064] Nice.

[1065] I saw that you got 200 fucking Fruit Ninja.

[1066] Fucking Fruit Ninja.

[1067] That's why I hate Classic Mode, because I spent like half of yesterday.

[1068] Half of yesterday, like...

[1069] I had my one good run where I got to, like, 230 -something and didn't quite make it to the 250.

[1070] Oh, it's heartbreaking.

[1071] I got 244 one time.

[1072] Oh, my God.

[1073] Couldn't even break 200 after that for, like, all of Saturday.

[1074] I was just like, fuck this shit.

[1075] And there's nothing to throw.

[1076] You don't have anything in your hand to hurl.

[1077] No, you're just like, fuck, God, fucking...

[1078] Yeah.

[1079] Obscenities, that's what you can hurl.

[1080] Yeah, there you go.

[1081] I definitely...

[1082] Actually, I have a katana.

[1083] I could just lend you if you want to wield that while you play.

[1084] Apparently that doesn't work.

[1085] Apparently actual swords...

[1086] Well, I'm sure that the Kinect wouldn't pick up the sword, but it would still pick up the hand.

[1087] Technically, you're not allowed to do that, because they don't.

[1088] You are the controller.

[1089] Well, and they don't want you to pick up things and break shit, so it's actually built in where it can't detect.

[1090] Right.

[1091] Kicks work, though, is evidenced by the quick look.

[1092] Yeah.

[1093] In fact, one of the half -brick guys wrote me after that quick look went up.

[1094] Well, there's a demo reel inside the game where you see a dude do a fucking windmill kick, and he actually slices something, and I'm like, okay, that's...

[1095] Impressive that he can keep up with that.

[1096] I'm using my hands.

[1097] I'm not going below the waist.

[1098] He sent a pretty funny comment, though.

[1099] He was like, we knew that roughly 100 % of people would try to kick at some point.

[1100] So we figured they would be pretty bummed if we didn't make sure the kicks worked.

[1101] Yeah, that was a bitch.

[1102] I can give you one tip that I found out.

[1103] You need two people, but the eight fruit combo.

[1104] Oh, that's easier than the two player.

[1105] Start the team battle, which is both players working on the same score.

[1106] Right.

[1107] And then the other person steps away.

[1108] Oh.

[1109] There's so much fruit coming out with two people.

[1110] Wow.

[1111] Just swing your arm all the way across the screen.

[1112] What about the theory that we had of arcade mode, like frenzy and slow?

[1113] I was never able to get it on that.

[1114] I got seven a few times on that one.

[1115] See, there's some depth to this game.

[1116] Sure.

[1117] Stuff to do.

[1118] I'm not even going to argue with Jeff about Kinect stuff.

[1119] If he doesn't like Fruit Ninja, he doesn't like Fruit Ninja.

[1120] Also the secret fruit in that, if you haven't gotten that yet.

[1121] No, I haven't.

[1122] The dragon fruit.

[1123] No. When I was reading online, it's, like, completely random.

[1124] Oh, okay.

[1125] I got super lucky.

[1126] It only happens in classic mode.

[1127] Okay.

[1128] But I just happened while I was...

[1129] I still have to hit that 250.

[1130] I'm still close enough that, yeah.

[1131] It popped for me chasing that score.

[1132] But I saw some people on forums, like, you know there's that 10 ,000 fruit achievement, which I don't think any of you are even close to yet.

[1133] Like, one guy said he had cleared over 25 ,000 fruit before he ever saw that fruit come up.

[1134] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[1135] So it's just completely random.

[1136] No, I've got a few thousand for it, but I'm still a ways away from ten.

[1137] By the time I had finished Classic Mode, I had like three games of Zen and I was done.

[1138] I hit the 200.

[1139] So, I've got that Bastion and From Dust finished.

[1140] It's fun.

[1141] Almost done with Shadow Planet, if you guys want to play.

[1142] From Dust sounds like that'd be a bitch to get there.

[1143] It was kind of a bitch.

[1144] The only one that's really hard is that you have to beat the game losing fewer than five villages.

[1145] Oh, yeah.

[1146] So you have to manually mark those down to make sure you...

[1147] So either write down which ones you...

[1148] I don't even know if you can go back and replay scenarios or if it's just once you cross five, you're screwed, but...

[1149] I'm sure...

[1150] I mean, they can't lock you out.

[1151] You're probably right.

[1152] You're probably right.

[1153] Or they may just make you start a new game in place.

[1154] I don't know.

[1155] I just started every scenario over when I lost a village.

[1156] Nice.

[1157] That worked.

[1158] That sounds real frustrating.

[1159] It's all right.

[1160] But, yeah, anyway.

[1161] Makes progress.

[1162] It's hardcore.

[1163] AOE -O!

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] Age of Empires Online.

[1166] Area of Effect Online.

[1167] Yeah, that game is out and free to download by the time you hear this.

[1168] Or should be, unless something crazy happened.

[1169] But I'm playing the final version now.

[1170] Microsoft or Games for Windows getting into free -to -play business here.

[1171] It's weird.

[1172] It's a weird...

[1173] Kind of situation for those guys.

[1174] Now, we actually had Chris Taylor, who's affiliated with this, come into the office and give you a little...

[1175] And one of the...

[1176] I think he's a guy from Robot.

[1177] Yeah.

[1178] I'm pretty sure...

[1179] I didn't ask him to clarify, but I think he was former Ensemble.

[1180] Yeah, Robot is one of the three ex -Ensemble studios that's popped up.

[1181] He made references to having worked on many past AOE games.

[1182] So I think he's been around.

[1183] So there is still some Ensemble blood crossing through this game's veins.

[1184] I think Gas Power came in and started helping with development.

[1185] About a year ago, if I understood correctly.

[1186] But, yeah, it's weird.

[1187] I guess they're testing the waters because, I mean, they're straight -up free points here.

[1188] It is a free -to -download, free -to -play game that has achievement points.

[1189] Windows Phone 7, they put out Minesweeper and Sudoku for free, and those have achievements also.

[1190] Oh, wow.

[1191] Get your phone out.

[1192] Oh, man, I should do that.

[1193] Do that right now.

[1194] Nope.

[1195] Okay.

[1196] You played the free points, but then we were talking about this last week, the points that are tied behind.

[1197] Yes.

[1198] Can we talk about this?

[1199] Let me elaborate.

[1200] Can we talk about this?

[1201] Let's get into it, but first I want to know how many points are free.

[1202] I don't remember the exact number.

[1203] Somebody tallied it up and I looked.

[1204] I think it's somewhere around $250, maybe $300 that you can get without buying anything, which is more than an XBLA game.

[1205] Certainly.

[1206] That's true.

[1207] And it's free.

[1208] I feel like such an asshole talking about achievements for the last 10 minutes.

[1209] But yeah, you get that many points without spending anything.

[1210] I don't know where to start with this game because there's a lot of weird stuff about it.

[1211] What do you buy?

[1212] Units?

[1213] Okay, so...

[1214] Alright, I'll run that stuff down first before I talk about how fucking crazy the pricing model is in this game.

[1215] Or even how crazy this game...

[1216] Like, this game sounds nuts.

[1217] Like, the structure...

[1218] See, that's why I don't know where to start because everything that I want to talk about needs something else to actually...

[1219] No, no, no. Let's first talk about the structure because this is an RTS game with PvE and PvP elements to it.

[1220] It's basically an MMORTS.

[1221] Okay.

[1222] It is...

[1223] You have a hub city.

[1224] You have a capital city.

[1225] You pick a civ.

[1226] Right now, Greece.

[1227] Compton.

[1228] Okay.

[1229] It's the hub city.

[1230] Yeah.

[1231] All right.

[1232] I think Qatadi was the hub.

[1233] You can name it that way if you want.

[1234] The two civs are Greece and Egypt so far.

[1235] Literally, Compton is called the hub city.

[1236] Okay.

[1237] Well, so is Qatadi.

[1238] It's the hub.

[1239] We'll fight then.

[1240] All right.

[1241] Go on.

[1242] All right.

[1243] Compton will win.

[1244] Damn it.

[1245] They're already talking about the next two or three civs.

[1246] They're going to have...

[1247] Oh, God.

[1248] You mean empires?

[1249] Whatever.

[1250] I think they call them civilizations in the game, if I'm not mistaken.

[1251] Persia.

[1252] I can't remember the other two.

[1253] Anyway, there's more civs coming by the end of the year.

[1254] Of that sort of notion.

[1255] Yes.

[1256] The classic ancient civilization.

[1257] Different empires of antiquity.

[1258] Anyway, there's those two to pick from right now.

[1259] So what you get for paying, the way they break it out, this is what's so weird about it.

[1260] Generally, my impression of free -to -play games is a lot of small piecemeal transactions, right?

[1261] Yeah.

[1262] You buy a skin, you buy a hat.

[1263] It's usually ancillary.

[1264] It's not game -breaking, right?

[1265] It's things like, hey, you want to fast travel?

[1266] Well, you've got to buy a fast travel item.

[1267] It's like, pay $5 for the ability to equip epic loot.

[1268] Well, the difference being that it's stuff that you can just buy straight up that you could theoretically earn, but oftentimes the path to earn it is incredibly long.

[1269] Like, yeah, give us a dollar or spend 20 hours to this end.

[1270] So the difference here is that, A, there's no way to grind stuff out.

[1271] If you want the premium stuff, you're paying for it.

[1272] B, it's one lump purchase.

[1273] You have what they're calling a premium civilization.

[1274] And as soon as you make your Civ, literally as soon as you name your capital city, they're like, upgrade now for all this.

[1275] And it's $20 per civilization.

[1276] All right.

[1277] Which, at the beginning, I saw that.

[1278] I was just like, what?

[1279] Because the expectation is they're going to try to sell you more stuff later.

[1280] Right.

[1281] And getting the premium Civ, God, I can't even remember everything it does.

[1282] So there's loot.

[1283] There's color -coded loot.

[1284] So you can equip up through, I think, green loot for free.

[1285] But using blues and purples, you have to have a premium.

[1286] I think there might be premium -only quests.

[1287] You can get advisors.

[1288] You equip advisor cards that enable special units that you can only have when you're premium.

[1289] I think extra bag slots.

[1290] The list goes on and on, basically.

[1291] The stuff that would fully round out the experience and get you a bunch of extra points and let you...

[1292] Use a bunch of, like, advanced units.

[1293] So do you feel like the weird part is just that it's not following kind of the micro?

[1294] Yeah, like, I almost feel like it would...

[1295] $20 is not micro.

[1296] Yeah.

[1297] But if you consider kind of like the way a lot of other games in the free -to -play market are structured, that if you did round up all of those features that you're getting in a premium pack into one thing, you'd probably be paying the same price.

[1298] It's more just like the inability to choose.

[1299] If you don't pay, does it still feel like a full game?

[1300] Or does it feel like a demo of a bigger game?

[1301] I should try that.

[1302] I bought Premium Egypt.

[1303] So maybe I'll make a grease and see how that is.

[1304] But I haven't gotten to the point, I don't think, where it would matter yet.

[1305] Because I haven't found any blue loot.

[1306] Or wait, you know what?

[1307] I actually just got a quest reward that was blue.

[1308] But I think that's probably the most telling thing.

[1309] Like, yeah, it's not priced like a microtransaction, but it's a matter of, like, could you still have fun with the base free game?

[1310] I think you totally could.

[1311] I mean...

[1312] It depends on what you're looking for.

[1313] Are you just playing the game to have fun with the game?

[1314] Then yeah, I think so.

[1315] Do you want the achievements?

[1316] You're going to miss out on a lot of stuff.

[1317] Can you be competitive in multiplayer without a premium?

[1318] That's another thing.

[1319] You can't play ranked PvP without a premium.

[1320] I think you can set up...

[1321] I guess that's one way to keep the playing field level.

[1322] I think there may be restrictions on how you can trade items with people or sell items.

[1323] If you're not premium, your capital city has...

[1324] So you can go to other people's cities and take quests from their quest givers and stuff.

[1325] Can you take their fruit?

[1326] I don't think so.

[1327] Go to their city because your city has oranges.

[1328] No, it's different.

[1329] You can't pay no Tom Nook.

[1330] It is actually exactly like that.

[1331] So if you have a premium sieve...

[1332] I think even if you don't have the premium, you'll have shops in your town that will sell things that their shops probably won't.

[1333] But if you have the premium sieve, you get a kickback on the stuff they buy.

[1334] Why isn't Tom Nook in the Nintendo eShop?

[1335] Why do I have to come up with all this shit, Nintendo?

[1336] Why isn't there a fucking little Tom Nook?

[1337] Because Tom Nook is an asshole who shakes you down.

[1338] They don't want to associate their purchases.

[1339] Just like Nintendo.

[1340] At least own it, Nintendo.

[1341] God damn it.

[1342] You have a character that perfectly personifies.

[1343] Anyway.

[1344] I didn't mean that.

[1345] So how is the game?

[1346] So yeah, the game itself is pretty fun.

[1347] I should preface that by saying that I've never played an AOE game before.

[1348] At all.

[1349] Do you right -click on stuff to fight it?

[1350] Yeah, it plays like an RTS.

[1351] I mean, coming from StarCraft, it is a different kind of RTS.

[1352] It's a lot mashier, or maybe mushy is a better word.

[1353] You said pokey?

[1354] Maybe.

[1355] A little bit just as far as the pathing.

[1356] Well, yeah, it's more plotting.

[1357] The guys take a long time to get where they're going.

[1358] What it feels like to me is box select everything on the screen and just click at the enemy base and let them go fight.

[1359] Old school Command & Conquer, just build a bunch of tanks.

[1360] I'm sitting there trying to play StarCraft and getting frustrated because I want to micro my healers back and have them queuing up commands and stuff.

[1361] It does support some of those things.

[1362] It's not really meant for that level of precision.

[1363] Well, it kind of does when you can do it.

[1364] It's more like the interface kind of gets in the way of you doing that stuff to some extent.

[1365] Movement isn't as sharp.

[1366] Yes, it doesn't feel as snappy and responsive.

[1367] But, I mean, you collect resources, you make units, you kill the other guy's base.

[1368] They require more Vespian gas.

[1369] That's $20.

[1370] Goldstone food and lumber are the resources.

[1371] I don't know if you guys have played AOE.

[1372] Does that ring any bells?

[1373] Yeah, it does ring bells.

[1374] I remember lumber.

[1375] Wood.

[1376] Vinny said he's played all of them.

[1377] I think I'll probably try to get him to sit in when we do a quick look because I would like to know how similar it is.

[1378] My impression is that it's pretty similar to the past games, except that it's really easy so far.

[1379] I haven't hit level 10 yet.

[1380] But I just got to the first mission that I had any trouble beating at all.

[1381] I mean, it kind of sounds like, say what you will about this lump sum, like, premium model that they have.

[1382] It sounds like you're still, you can still get...

[1383] a decent amount of time out of the game before you kind of start really rubbing up against the level of, like, you've got to pay some money for this to really get any further.

[1384] I'm four or five hours in at least, and I don't think I've seen anything yet that I couldn't do without the premium.

[1385] Although, like I said, once you start getting blue loot that you want to equip, or you can't use an advisor card, which means you can't use, like...

[1386] Like archers, I think.

[1387] For instance, in Egypt there are slingers, which are the real basic ranged unit.

[1388] But I think I've got this right.

[1389] If you have the advisor card for a certain thief character or whatever, then you get archers instead of slingers, which are way better.

[1390] But you wouldn't have that if you didn't buy.

[1391] At this point, I'm becoming more and more interested in seeing, because it seems like free -to -play is not going away.

[1392] No. It is becoming more and more prominent.

[1393] Publishers are finding new and unique ways to implement it.

[1394] And I think the quality of games that are coming out that are free -to -play games has finally started to get up there and really compete with games that we're used to paying for.

[1395] This absolutely feels like a quality boxed product.

[1396] Right.

[1397] For sure.

[1398] So I'm just – I am curious to see how this stuff plays out for everyone because everyone is just throwing shit against the wall.

[1399] Everyone is like, all right, let's try it this way.

[1400] I think the more that stuff starts to resemble like the old shareware model, the happier I'll be in some weird way.

[1401] That's kind of how this feels.

[1402] It's just like you're playing Doom Episode 1, and then if you want Archers, you've got to send John Carmack 20 bucks, and they send you back some floppies.

[1403] Pretty much.

[1404] I mean, you know what?

[1405] If it literally still worked that way, and I sent fucking a traveler's check to John Carmack, and then I got six floppy disks, fuck.

[1406] On the achievement side, if you don't care about that, don't worry about it.

[1407] If you do care about that, the way they restrict access is that literally just a bunch of the achievement descriptions end with premium content.

[1408] So it's like doing quests that you would see anyway, or the achievements for hitting every level milestone, 10, 20, 30, 40, they all say...

[1409] Reach level 40 with Egypt with premium content.

[1410] That's sort of the weird thing.

[1411] That's kind of unfortunate.

[1412] You can actually get to something.

[1413] If you're going to lock it away, lock it away.

[1414] Then that's more of the expansion model.

[1415] If you can hit level 40 by just grinding your way there.

[1416] Which it seems like you can.

[1417] But they're just...

[1418] not letting you have the points because you haven't bought something and you chose to...

[1419] That's unfortunate.

[1420] It seems like if they just made the achievements better, if they'd just written them more effectively to work around those restrictions, that might have been better.

[1421] It seems like a simple thing to fix that people will get angry about and they have every right to and I think they could have fixed it a lot easier than just...

[1422] I mean, it could go that way or it could go and they find that it is, in fact, a terrific motivator to get people to...

[1423] No, I think it'll work.

[1424] It makes me sad.

[1425] I don't think there are enough people that care about points for that to really move the needle for them, especially on PC.

[1426] But that's the thing is that if they don't care, then it doesn't matter anyway.

[1427] If they don't care about achievements, then that's not my motivator.

[1428] It's because I want blue loot or I want to do ranked PvP.

[1429] There's material reasons it sounds like.

[1430] I'm going to try this game out.

[1431] I should.

[1432] I got a code for it and then didn't do anything with it because I didn't want to play any serious games while I was off.

[1433] I don't know that I would call it serious.

[1434] In the capital city, it's like WoW Auction House.

[1435] It's more serious than anything that I was willing to play.

[1436] It's been really easy so far.

[1437] I really hope the challenge ramps up.

[1438] And it seems like it is.

[1439] You cash in a bunch of points in your capital to...

[1440] Basically, the tech trees are crazy elaborate.

[1441] You are...

[1442] Picking what kind of units you're going to have at your disposal, like seriously in -depth customization options.

[1443] And is that sort of stuff where once you're making a choice, you can't go back?

[1444] Or is it, do you end up with everything?

[1445] Because, I mean, you call it like an RTS MMO, but do I have to spec in one direction and then start another sieve if I want to see the other stuff?

[1446] Or do I end up with everything as I level up?

[1447] Neither.

[1448] You're not automatically, so the tech tree unlocks by tiers, by ages.

[1449] So, like, I'm in the second age, right, or the silver age or whatever they call it.

[1450] Yeah.

[1451] It's not that you get everything in that age as soon as you get it, and it's also not that you lock yourself out of certain things by picking other things.

[1452] It's just that there is a finite – the currency they use to let you unlock that stuff is finite.

[1453] It comes from finishing quests and doing like – Not necessarily repeatable actions.

[1454] So then can you re -spec?

[1455] Yeah, you can just hit a fat reset button.

[1456] I think you have to pay some coin, which is a different currency.

[1457] There's like five different currencies in the game.

[1458] It's kind of crazy.

[1459] But the MMO stuff comes in just because there's crafting, there's recipes, there's an auction.

[1460] There's a straight -up little chat window with general, LFG, trade.

[1461] It is a straight -up MMO in that respect.

[1462] It's just that when you're doing quests, it's an RTS.

[1463] But it's not like...

[1464] NMO in the sense that you're just going to encounter tons of other player civs while you're playing.

[1465] No, it's weird.

[1466] You have to actively seek out, like, you can go and view other people's cities because when you're getting all the buildings that enable new, like, options, it's like you get, like, an auction house and the craftsman stuff.

[1467] Like, you place it in your city so there's, like, some value, I guess, and go in to look at what people have.

[1468] Like, you can buy, like, little decorations and stuff, but you don't see people running around.

[1469] You don't have a sense of floor.

[1470] It's like standard matchmaking when it's time to fight.

[1471] It's like, we don't do a three -on -three and then go from there.

[1472] Unless you seek people out to interact with, the only sense you'll ever get that there are other people around is seeing that little chat window move.

[1473] And that's basically it.

[1474] And persistence in the auction house.

[1475] Right, right.

[1476] So we've probably talked about this game enough for now.

[1477] But the one thing I wanted to mention that left such a weird impression on me about the pricing is that as soon as you...

[1478] Make your sieve, you hit play, you get into your city.

[1479] The first thing you see, like, front and center is this, like, there are a bunch of buildings already built, but the one that's in the center of your view that I clicked on was the Age of Empires Online Bazaar, which is, like, everything else, all the other shops in your city sell in -game items, like mats, recipes, whatever.

[1480] This one sells DLC.

[1481] That thing sells the content for the game.

[1482] Right.

[1483] The bundles they have in that thing are fucking insane.

[1484] There is a $100 bundle of content already for sale in that thing.

[1485] And that's just everything?

[1486] It's everything through next February.

[1487] Oh, wow.

[1488] So it's like a subscription.

[1489] So you're probably saving some money.

[1490] Assuming that you want to play...

[1491] Assuming that you really like Age of Empowerment.

[1492] Right, but it's just the fact that the first thing you see is the shop selling a $100 bundle of content.

[1493] Whether or not it's a good deal, it leaves a weird impression on you.

[1494] You're right, but at the same time, it's a free game.

[1495] It is.

[1496] That's the thing that...

[1497] I think free -to -play games are always going to have is that kind of weird...

[1498] I don't mind them having $100 worth of stuff and having it as a single bundle.

[1499] You're right, Jeff.

[1500] It's free -to -play.

[1501] They should have that stuff.

[1502] But I think it's bad salesmanship to shove it in your face first thing before you get even a sense of, do I like this game?

[1503] What is this game?

[1504] If you're smart about it...

[1505] You have a gentle hand at first and like, all right, just let the people go in and explore and have fun.

[1506] And then you get to the point where you're like, damn, I can't do this stuff.

[1507] It's a little tool tip.

[1508] It's like, hey, man, these guys wouldn't die so fast if you gave us some money.

[1509] So I got in my first foray into League of Legends this weekend.

[1510] Read a bunch of tutorial stuff.

[1511] Got some pro tips from Riot Games' Christina Norman and decided to have a go at it and just went through the basic tutorials.

[1512] And that game does that stuff smartly.

[1513] At first, you're like, just go play the game, man. Have some fun.

[1514] We've got this marketplace.

[1515] You can buy some shit if you want, but don't worry about it.

[1516] You've got these heroes.

[1517] Even if you're free to play, there's 100 -something different champions that you can choose to play as in that game.

[1518] But when you first start off, even in a free -to -play mode, you have a dozen dudes to choose from.

[1519] I didn't feel like I was want for any content.

[1520] A ton of stuff going on in here.

[1521] Except for the map thing, but apparently that's the genre, and that was part of what I was getting familiar with in a MOBA.

[1522] Yeah, there is the Dota map.

[1523] MOBA.

[1524] There is the one true map in that genre.

[1525] I'll say it's fun to say MOBA.

[1526] It is kind of fun to say MOBA.

[1527] Is that official?

[1528] I'll go with it.

[1529] Has that been codified?

[1530] MOBA.

[1531] I've also heard MOBA.

[1532] MOBA.

[1533] What else have you heard?

[1534] MOBA.

[1535] I've also heard Hero Arena.

[1536] What?

[1537] I don't know.

[1538] I mean, we're already talking about...

[1539] Game genres are stupid.

[1540] No doubt.

[1541] I just call it Dota.

[1542] But we're already talking about Dota, so we might as well say MOBA.

[1543] I'd rather say MOBA than Dota.

[1544] Sounds like a song.

[1545] Valve has already made Dota a word irrespective of any kind of inherent meaning.

[1546] I like that.

[1547] It's not even all uppercase like an acronym anymore.

[1548] It's just like capital D -O -T -A.

[1549] Dota 2.

[1550] Implying that there was a Dota 1.

[1551] It was spelled that way.

[1552] Welcome to the kingdom of Dota.

[1553] Yeah.

[1554] What is going on?

[1555] Dota All -Stars LLC.

[1556] We're sitting here talking about Dota clones and free -to -play games.

[1557] It's changing landscape, my friend.

[1558] The world is upside down.

[1559] Now let me tell you about my favorite iPhone games.

[1560] Well, I find it interesting because of the way that this free -to -play model is like that.

[1561] Publishers are taking steps to legitimize this and be like, no, this isn't just for a crappy little casual social game.

[1562] We can have all the crappy social casual stuff in it and still craft a good deep game.

[1563] Here is a free -to -play game that does not run in your web browser.

[1564] It looks like a game you would buy off -shelf.

[1565] It doesn't even know what Facebook is.

[1566] So yeah, I think I got in like three games of League of Legends over the weekend.

[1567] How long is a game?

[1568] About a half hour.

[1569] If you don't die?

[1570] No, you die.

[1571] Oh, you keep dying.

[1572] You keep dying.

[1573] Oh, okay.

[1574] I don't...

[1575] If you're not...

[1576] Don't feed, man. It's not a free -for -all.

[1577] Well, again...

[1578] Don't be a feeder.

[1579] It's like my third...

[1580] Stick to your lane.

[1581] What does that mean?

[1582] I fucked up, and I know there's so much...

[1583] What the fuck does that mean?

[1584] What do you mean, stick to your lane?

[1585] Stick to your fucking lane.

[1586] Oh, there is a racing game?

[1587] No, there's so much jargon and terminology.

[1588] It's amazing.

[1589] You really, like, that's why I'd feel okay, like, not knowing anything and still being dumb, even at, like, three games deep.

[1590] Like, I still don't have any idea what half this shit means, but I'll figure it out.

[1591] Just trial and error, man. Not gonna lie, half the appeal of getting into a really competitive game is knowing all that jargon.

[1592] Being able to whip it out.

[1593] Just so you can be that asshole.

[1594] Yeah.

[1595] And even, like, even in the tutorials, League of Legends is wise enough to be like...

[1596] I also have to say, anyone who has played League of Legends, the voice for the lady for the tutorials, that accent goes fucking around the world.

[1597] It is all over.

[1598] I don't know what she's even trying to do, but it is a constantly evolving accent.

[1599] I need to hear that.

[1600] It's weird.

[1601] It's real weird.

[1602] So yeah, so League of Legends even has that level of awareness.

[1603] No, but even in the tutorials, it's saying, like, you may hear this referred to as Elaine or top middle bot and things like just kind of basic terminology.

[1604] You may hear yourself referred to as an asshole who doesn't know what he's doing.

[1605] He did.

[1606] He definitely did.

[1607] I bet you did.

[1608] Well, I fucked up.

[1609] So, like, first piece of advice that I got from everyone, and I'm grateful for it because it was the right thing to do, is, like, don't even look at PvP until you are...

[1610] regularly beating intermediate difficulty bot matches.

[1611] Like, just don't even fuck with it.

[1612] You're not ready for that yet.

[1613] And the bot matches are, like, co -op still, right?

[1614] It's still just you versus bots.

[1615] It's five on.

[1616] Okay.

[1617] So it's still, you know, you and four other dudes versus, you know, a bunch of bots.

[1618] So there's still a factor of people talking mess about you even in the bot matches.

[1619] Right, but I'm doing, like, right now I'm doing beginner matches, so everyone else sucks too.

[1620] So we're all just kind of trying to figure it out and slog through it.

[1621] at the same time.

[1622] And I've had some Giant Bomb community members be gracious enough to give me some leads and some tips.

[1623] But the second game that I played, someone invited me. I'm like, all right, sure, let's do this.

[1624] And then it wasn't until I was already in the lock -in phase where I realized, oh, no, that's a whole other team of real dudes.

[1625] Oh, no. Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. I don't want to back out now because I think that might fucking be even worse.

[1626] Yeah, you don't know which one is the more asshole lane.

[1627] Did I just quit?

[1628] The problem is not the guys on the other team.

[1629] The problem is your teammates.

[1630] That's where the hate comes from.

[1631] That is accurate.

[1632] And, man, I'll tell you.

[1633] I'm glad.

[1634] The dude who invited me in the chat was very diplomatic about saying, hey, this dude just started.

[1635] He's figuring it out.

[1636] We can still win this match without him.

[1637] We can still carry.

[1638] So he's already trying to talk down the match.

[1639] Like, we're going to lose, guys.

[1640] I will say this.

[1641] We won.

[1642] All right.

[1643] We did win.

[1644] What was your contribution?

[1645] So I wasn't that detrimental.

[1646] I died a lot.

[1647] Which you're really not supposed to do.

[1648] It's really a bad thing.

[1649] If you let another hero kill you, that's feeding.

[1650] That's feeding.

[1651] What does that mean?

[1652] You gain XP for killing other heroes.

[1653] And gold.

[1654] Like a lot of it.

[1655] Yeah.

[1656] So if you die from a turret or from just one of the mindless mobs that are constantly streaming out, that doesn't benefit their team as much as if a hero comes up and does the killing blow.

[1657] They're actively leveling up off of you.

[1658] Okay.

[1659] Killing blows.

[1660] Intentional feeding is an issue.

[1661] and, like, leveling up other players.

[1662] Because the only way to really grief is to be, yeah, it's, you know, is to fuck up on your own team on purpose.

[1663] So League of Legends is the last hitting, right?

[1664] Yeah.

[1665] Okay.

[1666] So literally, like, my first movement is like, okay, I've seen everyone because there's, you know, the three lanes.

[1667] I'm trying to figure out which one to go to.

[1668] I'm like, all right, there's only one dude in this one.

[1669] There's two in the other two.

[1670] I figure I should probably help him because he needs it the most.

[1671] I start, like, you know, click on the little mini -map to, like, all right, start my pathing.

[1672] Let's go.

[1673] And immediately in the chat, it's like, what the fuck are you doing?

[1674] Annie, what did you do?

[1675] The character's name was Annie, so that's all he referred to is, Annie, where are you going?

[1676] What are you doing?

[1677] What the fuck?

[1678] I'm like, I don't know.

[1679] Tell me. Just give me some direction.

[1680] Was this voice chat or text?

[1681] No, just all text, but just immediate and furious.

[1682] So what did you do wrong?

[1683] That wasn't right.

[1684] I didn't go to the right place.

[1685] You were in the wrong lane.

[1686] No. it's because like there's all this character class stuff so These games are fucking complicated.

[1687] There's a lot going on here.

[1688] That's why I'm waiting for Dota 2.

[1689] I can't catch up to League of Legends at this point.

[1690] Well, I figure there will be a certain amount of skills and basic understanding that will translate.

[1691] Especially if, I mean, we haven't seen any of Dota 2 yet, but I guess by this time next week that'll change.

[1692] But from the sound of it, it almost sounds like Dota 2 is just going to be fucking Dota again in the source engine with UI refinements and stuff.

[1693] Like the heroes and stuff, it sounds like that's all coming over.

[1694] And hell of tournaments.

[1695] But you pick your hero, which there's, like I said, dozens and dozens available to you.

[1696] And there's multiple class ratings for each hero.

[1697] So it's like, well, he's ranged and he's a magic user or he's melee.

[1698] And there's stealth options because there's a fucking jungle that you can go hide in.

[1699] Junglers, that's a class.

[1700] Look out for the junglers.

[1701] And then as you're playing, you're leveling up, and you have this base set of skills that you can increase the effectiveness of or unlock even.

[1702] Is leveling persistent across matches?

[1703] No, just in one match, you're trying to max up your dude.

[1704] And then that's your...

[1705] Your champion is the guy who's actually out on the field, and that's the only character that you're directly controlling.

[1706] But then you are the summoner, and you can assign other specific abilities that you can trigger at certain points to the match.

[1707] You're buying gear, and then there's runes, and then there's rune books, and you've got to map out that shit before a match.

[1708] You're making this sound terrifying.

[1709] It is!

[1710] You can combine certain pieces of gear together to make better gear if you plan ahead.

[1711] This is why when I judged this game for IGF, I loaded it up for ten minutes and just turned it off.

[1712] It's really fun.

[1713] I played it before it came out.

[1714] I haven't played it since then.

[1715] And I'll say this, even not understanding probably a good three quarters of what is going on in any given match.

[1716] It's still a lot of fun.

[1717] All those games.

[1718] I played a bunch of...

[1719] It'd be funny if you were playing with people with appropriate skill levels.

[1720] You need to play with people that are knowledgeable and also tolerant and patient.

[1721] That will let you learn and not just treat you like shit.

[1722] The thing is, it's kind of like a fighting game in that there's a lot to learn about the specific strengths and weaknesses of each hero.

[1723] So is it better just to pick one and just stick with that guy?

[1724] Probably for a beginner, I would think.

[1725] So the advice that I got was for a beginner to stick with ranged characters.

[1726] Just because it's easier to play support and have a little distance between you and the other fighters, the other champions.

[1727] Less to manage.

[1728] Well, it's less high speed.

[1729] Because this game actually, once you get into the fights, these things can move fucking super quick.

[1730] Like, you know, your hero can go from full health to dead in a matter of seconds if the other...

[1731] if the other team is managing correctly.

[1732] And you need to, it's real micro -intensive when you get into the fights.

[1733] You know, you've got to use abilities at the right times.

[1734] You've got to be, you know.

[1735] So your fingers need to be dancing when it comes down to it.

[1736] So when you're doing a ranged thing, my understanding is it's a little bit easier to deal with that stuff.

[1737] So I started with that, and I'm just kind of messing around and trying to figure out which ranged character I like the most.

[1738] I think Ash is one of the starting ones.

[1739] She's basically the character that you go through the tutorial with, and she's pretty easy to use.

[1740] So I may mess with her some more.

[1741] But that game is fun.

[1742] I went between that and doing some XBLA stuff.

[1743] Oh, I was going through my shelves and realizing the games that I have purchased DLC for and then never played the DLC.

[1744] Yeah, we talked about that last week.

[1745] It's bad.

[1746] Yeah, which is why I was playing Alan Wake last week.

[1747] Second DLC is good.

[1748] First one's not very good.

[1749] Oh, man. Do you think so?

[1750] Have you not played both of them yet?

[1751] No, I have.

[1752] The second one was the one I played.

[1753] Did you play the first one?

[1754] I did.

[1755] So there's what?

[1756] The writer?

[1757] Yeah.

[1758] That's the second one?

[1759] No, the signal is the first one.

[1760] The writer is the second one.

[1761] Don't spoil the ending.

[1762] That's the only reason I have to go and play that DLC.

[1763] I won't spoil the ending, but how did you not fucking love that rotating room environment?

[1764] Because I fell off of it like eight times.

[1765] Oh, I guess.

[1766] All right.

[1767] I guess that would suck.

[1768] That didn't happen to me. Oh, I fucking loved that level.

[1769] No, it looks cool, but it's one of those like if you lose your horizon, like trying to maintain some sense of, okay, I'm in this basically the inside of a giant wheel that is turning and I have to get to this specific spot in it.

[1770] If I can't keep a lock on the horizon.

[1771] I have no other good sensory input for what is up and what is down.

[1772] I do remember there being one moment where I literally could not figure out what I had to do, but you would, like, miss the moment where you could execute to get to the next room and just had to wait until you died, and there wasn't, like, a way to just respawn.

[1773] You know, it was...

[1774] I thought the story was good in the second one.

[1775] The first one was just, like, going through the same old environments.

[1776] Yeah, the second one's less combat -oriented, which helps.

[1777] Yep.

[1778] You know, the stuff with the, you know...

[1779] The way the lighthouse was working and timing that with enemies, that was at least a change of pace.

[1780] Yeah, I loved that.

[1781] But just playing that DLC reminded me of kind of in retrospect how disappointed I was in so much of Alan Wake.

[1782] I think that Remedy crafted a great world.

[1783] I think that the way that the storytelling is done is a little heavy -handed.

[1784] Nothing else quite – That's – Their storytelling is always heavy -handed.

[1785] But again, it's true to the kind of storytelling that they are taking – kind of doing homage to.

[1786] Right.

[1787] But just – it's one of those games.

[1788] Love.

[1789] The ideas of, but fucking hate to play.

[1790] Once you actually get to the, all right, now shine a flashlight on this dude and then shoot him a couple of times.

[1791] That game could have used two -thirds less combat than it did.

[1792] There was a little more exploration and atmosphere.

[1793] A little bit of that combat goes a really long way.

[1794] But unfortunately, they put a lot of it in there.

[1795] Stupid coffee mugs.

[1796] If it had been more of a survival horror -ish kind of game and less of a straight third -person shooter.

[1797] You know, like if the enemy encounters had been more kind of scripted and tense instead of just constant floods of enemies coming at you, it would have been better.

[1798] But I finished it, and...

[1799] I won't spoil it, I should say that I liked the, I guess, true ending, which happens with a little more clarification from the writer more so than I enjoyed the much more ambiguous ending of...

[1800] Oh, yeah, no, at the end of the signal...

[1801] You get a little more...

[1802] At the end of the writer, you get a little more...

[1803] sense of what they were trying to communicate with the ending whereas the ending Alan Wake just sort of like ends and you're like this game?

[1804] Yeah.

[1805] Yeah.

[1806] I don't know.

[1807] I can't say either way I can't say I'm chomping at the bit for Alan Wake 2.

[1808] I'd play it.

[1809] Well too bad it's coming.

[1810] Probably.

[1811] I mean they announced something's happening.

[1812] Yeah.

[1813] I don't know what.

[1814] Alan Wake Connect game.

[1815] There is some kind of Alan Wake product on the way.

[1816] Alan Wake.

[1817] Alan Wake carts.

[1818] I don't know.

[1819] I don't know what the right answer is there.

[1820] And then I also played through all of the rest of the Alienware DLC.

[1821] Yeah, I've got to start on that stuff.

[1822] It's good.

[1823] It's still good.

[1824] The gameplay formula in that game, though, because I've logged 20 hours, 22 hours, something like that with that.

[1825] I don't look as fondly back on L .A. Noire as I did as I was playing it.

[1826] I have a strong distaste for a lot of that game in retrospect.

[1827] In retrospect, I feel like a lot of the interrogation stuff is extremely arbitrary.

[1828] Yeah, kind of.

[1829] It's just sort of like, well, it seems it is.

[1830] It's designed to be arbitrary.

[1831] Cold reactions are not.

[1832] consistent with the hard swings within a single interrogation scene can be a little crazy.

[1833] It seems like the big negative thing, the way people act derisively about that game is just to call it one big photo hunt, but without the ability to hit tab and have all the items you can interact with show up.

[1834] Like an adventure game would have.

[1835] I mean, there is that where it's like, OK, let's wander around the environment and find the clues that we need to find to keep the case going.

[1836] But I feel like you don't need all those to finish the cases either.

[1837] Like, I mean, if you're a completionist and you're like, I need to get everything in this environment before I move on.

[1838] I think that's what I like about it.

[1839] I mean, I don't deny that fault to it.

[1840] But to me, the bigger issue is the like once you get into the proper interrogations and it's like, OK, you have three ways to respond to this.

[1841] And it's, you know.

[1842] It's truth, doubt, and lie.

[1843] But what those actually, like the actual meaning of those is so much different.

[1844] And then having to use lie so you can just kind of trick the game to give you a better sense of what the answers are because you can back out of the lie.

[1845] And just, the story gets real bad at the end.

[1846] But it's, see, she actually liked the story.

[1847] I didn't.

[1848] And I, you know, I realize it's divisive, but I really, really like the way.

[1849] I don't want to spoil it.

[1850] The way you discover the conspiracy, I don't.

[1851] Okay, sure.

[1852] The photo, that film.

[1853] Okay, sure.

[1854] But the beats, the actual where that game goes, I love.

[1855] Yeah, I'm with you on that.

[1856] A flamethrower?

[1857] I'm not talking about the specifics.

[1858] Okay.

[1859] But I guess the specifics are where it falls apart for me. It's whatever flamethrower.

[1860] It's contextualized enough.

[1861] Contextual flamethrower.

[1862] And they built it up.

[1863] Those guys are playing at the hemlock last week.

[1864] Yeah, I heard premium Egypt is opening for me. Oh, sick.

[1865] $20 at the door.

[1866] I've got a $20 sack of premium Egypt in my bag.

[1867] Just bring a DLC code.

[1868] Hope the bouncer doesn't frisk me. Oh, word?

[1869] Dude, listen, let me in with it.

[1870] I'll split it with you.

[1871] Get you some of this premium Egypt.

[1872] Yeah, whatever.

[1873] I still enjoyed doing the DLC stuff, partially because when you start a case outside of, like, the main storyline, you get five hints with each episode.

[1874] Instead of, like, remember you get to build up the fucking, like, the...

[1875] Oh, right.

[1876] By getting – Oh, yeah.

[1877] Yeah.

[1878] You start each case just – Oh, wow.

[1879] You've got five.

[1880] Oh, wow.

[1881] And, man, you can really just – it streamlines so much.

[1882] Yeah.

[1883] To be able to just kind of fudge you like – you're like, okay, this one I'm not super sure about.

[1884] Let me see if I can – If I can't intuit my way into the right answer...

[1885] So what's the...

[1886] Oh, God.

[1887] What are those called?

[1888] Intuitions, I think?

[1889] Yeah.

[1890] What is your go -to now?

[1891] Now that the game's been out for a while, do you go with the, what did everybody else pick?

[1892] I do community, absolutely.

[1893] Is that the best way to go?

[1894] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1895] I guess enough people have been out there using facts and stuff now that those numbers should be pretty reliable.

[1896] Yeah.

[1897] Well, I mean, it's always whatever.

[1898] Sometimes it'll be closer, but in my experience, it's always whatever is the majority percentage.

[1899] Right.

[1900] is the right one.

[1901] Because I remember doing that the day it came out and the day after.

[1902] Oh yeah, it was numbers all over the place.

[1903] That's like Catherine has the stuff at the end of every block puzzle where it gives you a moral choice question and at the end it shows what everyone else picked.

[1904] When I was playing it, it was like 100 % one thing.

[1905] I think in some cases it was because I was the first person who had done it.

[1906] Yeah, I could tell that I was probably swaying those things when I was answering those too.

[1907] Sierra Eleanor.

[1908] What else was I playing this week?

[1909] League of Legends.

[1910] Guys, I played Quake 4.

[1911] What?

[1912] What?

[1913] Single player?

[1914] Yeah.

[1915] Dude, I thought you said no serious games.

[1916] Matt Rory was also just playing Quake 4.

[1917] What?

[1918] I tried to even not look at Twitter much while I was off.

[1919] I would load it up and kind of catch up.

[1920] Was it the QuakeCon sale?

[1921] Yeah.

[1922] I saw Rory saying that he bought Quake 4.

[1923] And I was like, man, because we had just been talking about Quake 4.

[1924] and I wanted to see it for myself and see if I really kind of disliked it.

[1925] On a PC?

[1926] Yeah, yeah.

[1927] You played it on the Xbox before, right?

[1928] I had played both, but yeah, I finished it on 360 and went back and played it.

[1929] It's funny.

[1930] They have patched out Activision in that game.

[1931] It now says published by Bethesda.

[1932] Wow.

[1933] That's pretty great.

[1934] That's crazy.

[1935] So I ended up playing like two hours of that.

[1936] I'll just...

[1937] And played some multiplayer and it took a while to get it set up properly.

[1938] The resolution wouldn't stick for a while.

[1939] But I don't like the multiplayer.

[1940] The multiplayer in that game is not Quake 3.

[1941] I think that might have been what we came away from it saying.

[1942] Oh, it's like Quake 3.

[1943] Yeah, it kind of is.

[1944] It is similar.

[1945] It's like someone sat down and said, let's try to make something that's like Quake 3.

[1946] But then they kind of screw up in some ways, and I don't like any of the weapons.

[1947] Anyway.

[1948] That was Raven, right?

[1949] Yep.

[1950] So I played like two hours of the single player or something like that, an hour and a half.

[1951] Is that long enough to get into that?

[1952] The transformation sequence?

[1953] No, no. It's not up to that point.

[1954] It's not that deep.

[1955] And then saved it and walked away from it.

[1956] And I was like, okay, I got to save.

[1957] Like, hey, maybe I'll play some more later.

[1958] Next time I loaded up Steam, it patched the game.

[1959] The game was gone.

[1960] I was like, great.

[1961] Not playing anymore Quake 4.

[1962] Save me from myself.

[1963] Until the next sale.

[1964] Buy it again.

[1965] I can drop the console and skip to whatever level.

[1966] God, the transformation thing in Quake 4 would have been so much cooler if it had not been the crux of their preview and marketing campaign.

[1967] Yeah, if that was a surprise.

[1968] If that was actually a surprise.

[1969] I can't believe they did that.

[1970] Instead of like on the back of the box or whatever.

[1971] Like, come on.

[1972] That was real unfortunate.

[1973] But then again, kind of the only thing that came out.

[1974] Yeah, when else were they going to sell for that game?

[1975] Yeah, I guess so.

[1976] So it doesn't hold up well?

[1977] Did it hold up at the time?

[1978] At the time, it was decent, but not...

[1979] If you gotta buy something.

[1980] The flashlight attached to two guns instead of one, so it was already better than Doom 3.

[1981] I remember that being a bullet point in reviews, like, by the way.

[1982] If you hit the flashlight, it just changes to the assault rifle.

[1983] That was the first mod I downloaded for Doom 3.

[1984] The duct tape mod.

[1985] Anyway, that's all I have to say about Quake 4.

[1986] Maybe I should play Quake 4.

[1987] What are you doing?

[1988] It was outside all of the QuakeCon sales, too.

[1989] They included it in the pack, but there was no deal on it.

[1990] It was still $20.

[1991] It was one of the things that was goosing up the price of the QuakeCon pack.

[1992] The QuakeCon pack was as expensive as it was because Quake4 was in it for $20.

[1993] Over the weekend, I saw a couple other random people on a forum saying they were playing Quake4.

[1994] It was because they just added it to Steam.

[1995] It hadn't been on Steam until then.

[1996] Oh, no, because when I bought the complete Quake pack for...

[1997] TNT when we did that pre -QuakeCon.

[1998] Yeah, like Quake 4 was put on Steam the day of that sale started.

[1999] I had no idea.

[2000] Yeah.

[2001] Okay.

[2002] So that's why everyone's talking about it.

[2003] It's because it hasn't been.

[2004] Activision's other, or I should say, its other Activision published stuff has been like the newest Wolfenstein game that was on there for quite a while.

[2005] But yeah, it now just says, after the id name, it now has the new Bethesda logo as part of the boot up sequence and all this stuff, which is really crazy.

[2006] Boot up the 360 version and see what that looks like.

[2007] Boot up that version of Quake 2 that came with the 360 version.

[2008] Play a little Quake 2 on the 360.

[2009] You should sell some zero point achievements.

[2010] I don't even have all those.

[2011] Dicks.

[2012] What a bunch of dicks.

[2013] Oh, I played a little Hard Reset.

[2014] which is a PC first -person shooter from Flying Wild Hog.

[2015] Best developer name ever.

[2016] Which is a Polish studio.

[2017] All right.

[2018] You got my attention.

[2019] Yep, yep.

[2020] Made up of former CD projects.

[2021] Okay.

[2022] People Can Fly.

[2023] People Can Fly.

[2024] All right.

[2025] And City Interactive.

[2026] Forget that part.

[2027] Don't worry about that part.

[2028] Don't worry about that part.

[2029] It's the first two that really matter.

[2030] The Witcher guys and the Painkiller guys.

[2031] Is there any cybermancy in this game?

[2032] Because hard reset sounds like it would be.

[2033] There may be.

[2034] There may be.

[2035] Hey man, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[2036] Good point.

[2037] It is definitely like derelict cyberpunk kind of vibe to the city that you're in.

[2038] But man, hard reset just sounds like hacker name from William Gibson.

[2039] Yeah, totally.

[2040] Starring Johnny Demonic, right?

[2041] You walk up like, you know, it is an action -oriented first -person shooter.

[2042] You have two guns, but each of those guns has three modes.

[2043] And as you're killing whatever these weird fucking robot things are that are attacking you, there's little tiny robot things that throw like buzz saws at you and then there's – That sounds terrible.

[2044] It is.

[2045] They're like mousers but more fucked.

[2046] And then there's kind of big lumbering robots that you have to dodge out of the way because they charge at you and stuff.

[2047] And you're circle strafing and it's pretty fast.

[2048] So like the painkiller connection I definitely see.

[2049] And then you're picking up some sort of – There's colored stuff on the ground, and sometimes you pick it up and it's ammo, and sometimes you pick it up and it's XP or microchips or some fucking thing that...

[2050] Softs.

[2051] Yeah, some sort of soft.

[2052] Put it in your head.

[2053] And then you go to these terminals, then you can upgrade.

[2054] And because this is a demo version, they give you right out the gate, like, all right, we're going to give you six of these points that you can sink in all over the place, whatever you want.

[2055] So you've got for...

[2056] Basically, you have like one is an energy weapon and one is just like classic fucking gun.

[2057] And so you can do like – you can upgrade like the assault rifle or the mortar or the shotgun abilities and that.

[2058] And that's all like just like mouse wheel rolls.

[2059] So you hit a button to jump from the traditional weapon.

[2060] to the energy weapon, and then once you're on that weapon...

[2061] It's just three ammo types, pretty much.

[2062] It's just, yeah, it's...

[2063] I don't even know, but I don't even know if it splits it by ammo.

[2064] Or whatever it splits it, it's just like three different firing modes.

[2065] Yeah, yeah, so you'll see like slight changes in the appearance as you go from one mode to the next, and then you mess up some dudes, and looks good, runs fast.

[2066] Is it a survival game, or actual story something?

[2067] It's a first -person shooter.

[2068] It feels old school in the way that like that painkiller did of it's like super narrow path.

[2069] You're going to walk in this area and there's just going to be a fucking.

[2070] But they're like stages.

[2071] You're not just like in some arena.

[2072] Right.

[2073] No, no, no, no. It is.

[2074] You're making your way through an environment.

[2075] Absolutely.

[2076] Is there some sort of story component with it?

[2077] You're progressing.

[2078] The story has not been.

[2079] It was not what I was focusing on.

[2080] Sure.

[2081] So much.

[2082] Shooting is an end unto itself.

[2083] There have been no cut scenes.

[2084] There's definitely been some like, yeah, someone's talking in your ear and telling you you got to go over here or something.

[2085] But I. I'm not going to speak about that stuff because I don't recall it too specifically.

[2086] I was more looking at the game.

[2087] Sounds really cool.

[2088] Like, it's like Sirius Sam -ish, maybe?

[2089] Like, just to run a gun?

[2090] A little bit.

[2091] Not that severe in anything.

[2092] Are there any headless robots that scream at you?

[2093] No, no. So that's...

[2094] Oh, God.

[2095] Oh, no. Other than the...

[2096] Like, beyond the pedigree, like the developer pedigree, I do see the...

[2097] You know, these guys had some hand in painkiller and that translates into the way that enemies are, you know, spawned towards you and kind of the size of the levels, things like that.

[2098] Like there's – and there's something about that that feels kind of to a specific age.

[2099] Like you don't have – Yeah, yeah.

[2100] But the weapons don't necessarily evoke.

[2101] Do they?

[2102] Kind of in the hugeness of them.

[2103] You're nailing guys to walls.

[2104] It hasn't gotten weird like that, though.

[2105] The weapons do remind me of Painkiller, but not because necessarily of their extreme exoticness.

[2106] Although, on the energy weapon side, you have this thing that'll straight up shoot out a little lob of energy.

[2107] That'll stick to the ground and then will electrocute any enemies that are within some sort of area of effect on it.

[2108] So the weapons aren't just like pure straight standard first -person shooter weapons, but they aren't as super crazy as the painkiller stuff is.

[2109] We've got a build of it that we can take some video of, so I'm going to shoot a quake look later this week.

[2110] When's that out for release?

[2111] A quake look?

[2112] Oh, man, yes, yes.

[2113] Let's just start doing quake looks.

[2114] Yeah.

[2115] Quake looks...

[2116] Every day.

[2117] I don't actually know when that's supposed to come out, but it's looking awful...

[2118] It's real soon.

[2119] Polished.

[2120] Really?

[2121] Yeah.

[2122] Part of the PR strategy was announce it, show it, release it.

[2123] We're going to announce it when it's basically ready to go.

[2124] It sounds cool.

[2125] It looks great.

[2126] Yeah.

[2127] But hearing that pedigree made me, like, I hoped it was going to be, like, kind of half painkiller, half witcher.

[2128] But it sounds like it's, like, 90 % painkiller.

[2129] It's a lot more painkiller with a little bit of some character progression, it seems, jammed in there.

[2130] But, you know, I played it for maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes, so I'm still pretty early on in it.

[2131] It could evolve in a lot crazier ways, I would say.

[2132] But, yeah, it looks sharp.

[2133] Seems like it has promise.

[2134] I think that's all I got.

[2135] Anything else, Patrick?

[2136] Did you actually play anything?

[2137] I played that Stanley Parable, that Half -Life 2 mod.

[2138] Tell me about that without telling me about that.

[2139] All right, I'll say that.

[2140] What are you doing playing Half -Life 2?

[2141] What is everyone doing?

[2142] Fucking free -to -play and mods?

[2143] Quake 4?

[2144] Quake 4?

[2145] What's wrong with...

[2146] Let's just talk about street hoops.

[2147] Oh, there's some serious magic on the blacktop in that game.

[2148] I haven't played any New Arcade games.

[2149] I was going to say, what's up with your Neo Geo, man?

[2150] It's not electrocuted, so...

[2151] Good.

[2152] I haven't played any...

[2153] I'll report back.

[2154] But yeah, so the Stanley Parable is a Half -Life 2 mod some dude I've been working on for the last couple years.

[2155] And there's instructions if you go on Reddit to make it work on a Mac.

[2156] You've got to go in Terminal, do some hackery, but it works.

[2157] Do I have to sudo stuff?

[2158] It's sudo.

[2159] Is that a term?

[2160] Is it sudo?

[2161] Is it sudo?

[2162] Well, it's...

[2163] Super user do is what it means.

[2164] I would probably pronounce it as pseudo.

[2165] I'll just say yeah.

[2166] I just copied and pasted some lines from the document and it worked.

[2167] I didn't even really know what it meant.

[2168] I just like saying pseudo.

[2169] I just know that whenever I'm doing some shit that I'm not supposed to be doing, it usually involves that command.

[2170] It's allowing you to take actions as root without actually lying in.

[2171] I will say being in Terminal scared the shit out of me. It's some Unix shit.

[2172] Damn kids.

[2173] I don't have any reason to do anything in there.

[2174] I wish I had more reason to be in there.

[2175] The problem is it's scary to me because I don't understand too much of it.

[2176] It's not that I'm inherently afraid or unable to do some command line stuff.

[2177] I just am not familiar enough with Unix protocol and syntax and everything.

[2178] Last time was when I was using DOS and, like, you know, I'm booting up different, you know, to get the memory to fit Dark Forces.

[2179] You know, I had to, like, boot up some things and not other things.

[2180] But that's the last time that I've actually gone in and really fucked around with the hardware of my machine.

[2181] When I can load up Pico, I can do some shit.

[2182] You can read some man pages.

[2183] Sure.

[2184] All right.

[2185] I'll show you my man page.

[2186] I don't want to see it.

[2187] I already saw it.

[2188] I wasn't impressed.

[2189] Oh!

[2190] It's a long page.

[2191] Patrick, what is this thing?

[2192] Tell me again, the parable of Stanley?

[2193] The Stanley parable.

[2194] The Stanley parable.

[2195] So I have like two mod.

[2196] It's basically like a commentary.

[2197] Basically like, you know how games, you know, you kind of do what the designer tells you to and your attempts to subvert what the designer does.

[2198] usually results in you breaking the game, and that sort of breaks the experience for you.

[2199] So we've been sort of trained at this point because of games like Call of Duty, you just follow the path.

[2200] You go outside the path, you're just going to be disappointed that you looked outside the path because this game has not been created.

[2201] They didn't put anything there.

[2202] They didn't put anything there.

[2203] So in the vaguest way possible, because the whole fun of this is really to go in and just see it, it encourages you.

[2204] to try and subvert the game.

[2205] And the game will comment on your ability to subvert it and try and convince you to go back towards other paths that it wants you to go on.

[2206] But then you can weave in and out of what the game wants you to do and what the game doesn't want you to do.

[2207] And the crux of this is a narrator that is talking over everything.

[2208] And the narrator will comment on, hey, fuck face.

[2209] Why are you going down this way?

[2210] Some metatextual, like, in -fiction, out -of -fiction.

[2211] Start real simple, like, and then Stanley walked through the red door, but there'll be a blue door on the other side of the room, and you can go in that blue door.

[2212] The narrator's not going to be happy that you're going down the blue door.

[2213] And so then you'll be walking through the environment, and doors will open and close, trying to encourage you to go back towards the original path.

[2214] So there's tons of endings, and the game really does a phenomenally funny way of commenting on how games are just...

[2215] Basically, the guy's just really pissed that games have gotten down this very linear path, and this is a way of him...

[2216] I was going to say, this almost sounds like some Jonathan Blow -style game activism.

[2217] Oh, yeah.

[2218] No, it is.

[2219] It is.

[2220] It's very much saying this is bullshit that games have gone down this path.

[2221] And there's moments where you can break through the game walls, and the game will comment on how there's no textures in this room because, hey, asshole, you're not supposed to be here.

[2222] But I've already given away too much of it because the fun is...

[2223] is just going through...

[2224] Yeah, say no more.

[2225] I want to check this out.

[2226] But it's...

[2227] And you can play it like five or six times and just really...

[2228] The guys really thought out the different ways.

[2229] So when you try to break it...

[2230] He has thought out the way that you're trying to break it, and the narrator, who is basically a designer, will comment.

[2231] It's this guy with this really funny British accent.

[2232] It's really well done.

[2233] I was going to say, I bet it sounds like one run through it would probably be pretty short, right?

[2234] If he had to account for all these different possibilities, then I would...

[2235] Yeah, if you do the sort of just follow what the narrator tells you, you'll be done with it in five minutes.

[2236] Oh, wow.

[2237] And then the path word...

[2238] You try to break everything in one direction, it'll probably take you about ten minutes.

[2239] And then there are various ones within that, the change.

[2240] So, yeah, it is definitely some Jonathan Blow bullshit.

[2241] But it is, it's really well done.

[2242] Yeah, that sounds awesome.

[2243] It's really interesting and it'll take about an hour of your time to go through the whole thing.

[2244] So I highly recommend it.

[2245] It's free.

[2246] If you have Half -Life 2.

[2247] Do you have Half -Life 2?

[2248] Where can I get this?

[2249] Oh, no. If you have the PC, you can just download the source SDK.

[2250] Oh.

[2251] So you don't actually...

[2252] So it's not even using any of the assets?

[2253] It's just...

[2254] Yeah.

[2255] It's like his own assets.

[2256] You can download the SDK, download the Stanley Parable.

[2257] On the Mac, you do need to have a copy of Half -Life 2 because you go into Terminal and do some weird hackery to get it to essentially use the source SDK that's in...

[2258] I'm going to play it on the Mac so I can use the terminal.

[2259] Yeah, yeah.

[2260] It was very educational.

[2261] I haven't used the terminal in like three years, so.

[2262] You know, this is really embarrassing to admit, but when we got Zonotic for that live show that one time, and I built that thing by running a shell script in the terminal, and it downloaded all the assets and compiled it, it was fucking awesome.

[2263] Yeah, pretty awesome.

[2264] So good.

[2265] Man, I am...

[2266] My CPU is making a game right now.

[2267] Out of text.

[2268] It's like downloading text files and assets and it's going to turn into a game.

[2269] It's like magic.

[2270] And then I grabbed a bunch of games from back home.

[2271] I brought a whole box.

[2272] I went through my parents' lake house garage where they shoved all my shit when I moved away and realized I had four copies of Super Mario All -Stars, one of which had the Super Mario World, Super Mario All -Stars combo pack.

[2273] That's the best one to have.

[2274] So that is the best one to have.

[2275] I don't know why I own Shaq Fu or Batman Forever for the game gear.

[2276] A lot of questionable things in my pile of games that I...

[2277] Yeah, I dug out all kinds of real bad stuff.

[2278] Did you look into some stuff while you were in?

[2279] Yeah, I've been dragging all my game stuff in from the garage.

[2280] I probably have two -thirds of it inside the house now, but brought in the bin full of Intellivision games.

[2281] So if you want to look at the box and instructions for Electric Company Math Fun, you want to have some math fun with me. I got that.

[2282] Super excited about all this Hero Arena shit.

[2283] We should all play Dota.

[2284] All that MOBA shit.

[2285] All the MOBA.

[2286] Whatever we want to call it.

[2287] MOBA.

[2288] MOBA fucker.

[2289] MOBA.

[2290] Yeah.

[2291] Dota 2.

[2292] Team 5.

[2293] I'm already playing.

[2294] Oh, so here's the other thing that I wanted to say about League of Legends real quick, and kind of about all of these games, is someone, and I realize it's not going to be Valve, so it's probably a moot point at this point.

[2295] The weirdest thing to me, not just how similar the mechanics are, or...

[2296] You know, that they're all kind of weirdly derived out of exactly the same game.

[2297] They are, make no mistake, they are at their core all the same game.

[2298] What's weirdest to me is how much they fucking look alike.

[2299] Someone put up a screenshot of like, alright, here's Dota and here's Dota 2 and here's Heroes of New Earth and here's League of Legends.

[2300] I'm like, I only know League of Legends because I literally just played it.

[2301] I could not pick the other three out of a fucking lineup.

[2302] If you squinted, you would not know the difference.

[2303] They look like the art style, the assets, this...

[2304] Warcraft 3 Blizzard derivative.

[2305] That's the flow chart.

[2306] Is this game Warcraft 3?

[2307] Yes, no. We should clarify that some screenshots leaked out purporting to be Dota 2.

[2308] That's what we're talking about here.

[2309] No, I haven't seen them.

[2310] They're from some Chinese website.

[2311] I've seen it, but technically I'm not sure that I could...

[2312] I could tell.

[2313] Why isn't it any different?

[2314] Is it just fighting over the same scraps of these same people?

[2315] Trying to tear them away from the other games they're playing of the same goddamn type?

[2316] I don't know that anybody invested the...

[2317] You're talking about on the art side.

[2318] The stylistic touches and stuff.

[2319] I don't think anybody thought they had to invest the effort to change it.

[2320] The original Dota is such a weird mishmash of...

[2321] The way they made that mod, they made it with Warcraft 3 mod tools.

[2322] And all they did was take every single character model for anything in that entire game and turn it into a playable character.

[2323] And that just became the standard.

[2324] Yeah, so that's why there's a hero that looks like a pirate, and there's, like, three different skeletons, and there's a water elemental.

[2325] But there's not any desire for it to look like something other than that?

[2326] Well, League of Legends actually did.

[2327] Like, they took a lot of license.

[2328] Like, you know, they've got their heroes with playing cards and top hats, and, like, there's giant Yeti with a little girl riding on them.

[2329] But it's still that same kind of nut.

[2330] It's all just, like, jolly nonsense.

[2331] Multiple robots, I'm told.

[2332] Dude, that game reminds me of Unreal Tournament in the same sort of like, we designed a bunch of stuff and then threw it all together.

[2333] Quick 3, for that matter.

[2334] It's like if we thought of it and it seemed like a cool idea for a character, put it in there.

[2335] What about a giant eyeball with two legs?

[2336] You know what?

[2337] I haven't unlocked or paid for that champion yet.

[2338] I've got some Riot Bucks on my account.

[2339] I'll go take a look.

[2340] Are you saying it's in there?

[2341] I'm saying I don't know.

[2342] I'm saying there are so many champions.

[2343] And then for each champion, you can buy, like, there's, like, four different skins that you can unlock or purchase.

[2344] And there's...

[2345] You could spend thousands and thousands of dollars on stuff in League of Legends very, very easily.

[2346] I was reminded over the weekend why I want to align myself with Dota.

[2347] Yeah.

[2348] There's a hero called Brad Warden.

[2349] Nice.

[2350] You know, I just expect that, you know, Valve is...

[2351] pretty good at making games and that they may have a specific acuity for it.

[2352] So they just put out the first trailer for that game right before this podcast.

[2353] That's true.

[2354] Which is a CG -only cinematic trailer, which doesn't seem like something Valve does necessarily.

[2355] Well, I mean, they did all the Meet the Spy and stuff like that.

[2356] It's also days before they're going to be live broadcasting gameplay out of Gamescom.

[2357] And if the screens have leaked out, if that is true, it may just be a response to try and get in front of some of that stuff.

[2358] Looking at the stuff in that trailer, it looks like they are just straight up going to recreate the Dota Heroes and stuff like that.

[2359] Do you think that they're just going to release the game?

[2360] Like alongside Gamescom?

[2361] Have they said anything?

[2362] There's going to be a beta this month.

[2363] Yeah, the beta's still going, and they've said that Press supposedly will get into the beta after Gamescom.

[2364] It could be really soon, but I don't think...

[2365] Because it seems like if they're already at a point where they're letting people play the game for money, it's got to be pretty tight.

[2366] Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's close.

[2367] The balancing has to be at a certain level for sure.

[2368] I bet it's pretty close.

[2369] Yeah, I mean, Dota is...

[2370] Dota 2 is going to be a big stress test for a bunch of new Steam tools that they're rolling out and want other companies to use.

[2371] I wouldn't be surprised September or October if that went into sort of an open beta for people just to...

[2372] Oh, yes.

[2373] Anyway, I would just like to say that someone needs to make one of these games not look like all of the rest of these games.

[2374] Set one in the fucking future.

[2375] Go sci -fi.

[2376] I agree with you, but I think the inherent problem is that when you have like 100, 120 different playable characters you need to make, like what one milieu can you think of that can provide that much differentiation visually and still stay within the godfines?

[2377] The thing is I don't care about, like, and clearly they also don't care about some sort of continuity or, like...

[2378] You have wizards and knights with angel wings and little girls who can summon teddy bears and elves with giant cannons.

[2379] All of this shit is all dumped into the same bucket.

[2380] It's as consistently fantasy as World of Warcraft is at this point, which has fucking motorcycles and all sorts of dumb shit in it.

[2381] The Quake 3 comparison probably makes the most sense.

[2382] All these champions got warped here by something.

[2383] Right.

[2384] So, I mean, I can't look.

[2385] There's room for that.

[2386] My issue is I don't need, I don't even, like, you can have the fiction gin up for some reason.

[2387] I don't even need that.

[2388] All I'm saying is that already there is a market glutted with games that look this very specific way.

[2389] Make one that looks different.

[2390] Like, even just on a service level.

[2391] You just want to make the map look different.

[2392] Yeah.

[2393] On a surface level, I don't want to see that kind of the same tree texture on all of the trees because everyone is kind of trying to make it look like Warcraft 3 where it all spawned from in the first place.

[2394] We'll get past the stage where everything is a Doom clone.

[2395] We will start calling them MOBAs instead of saying, it's like Dota.

[2396] This one is so weird, though, because so many aspects of it have become so entrenched.

[2397] So much of what this genre is is written in stone, down to that specific map.

[2398] People don't want to play competitively on anything but that map with five on five.

[2399] So League of Legends is shaking the world to its very core.

[2400] People who want to play it competitively don't have to play the other stuff.

[2401] Like, they've got that new domination mode coming out, and they've got, like, a 3v3 map and stuff like that, right?

[2402] But it's just weird.

[2403] I mean, you know, like, StarCraft II, they roll out new maps every three to six months on the, like, ranked ladders, you know?

[2404] Like, that game...

[2405] A lot of that game's competitive nature hinges on being on different playing fields.

[2406] It is super, super crazy.

[2407] That was one of the things to kind of wrap my mind around over the course of the weekend is like, no, there's the map.

[2408] This is the map, yeah.

[2409] This is where you play.

[2410] League of Legends is on this map.

[2411] This five -on -five map is to this game as the baseball diamond is to baseball.

[2412] Yeah, yeah.

[2413] So maybe this, I mean, maybe it's possible that they'll pull like a Team Fortress and like this is their way of dragging a community to adopt and be part of a more dynamic gameplay system.

[2414] You know, maybe you'll have that stuff there, but...

[2415] And also, if they're already throwing a million dollars out there, it seems like they'll be pretty serious about the competitive tournament side of it.

[2416] What was the League of Legends guys just announced today?

[2417] Five million.

[2418] Fuck your million dollars.

[2419] So great.

[2420] We've got five.

[2421] Valve getting into, like, are we comfortable with the term esports?

[2422] Sure.

[2423] Competitive gaming?

[2424] Somebody's going to roll their eyes.

[2425] Kind of like competitive gaming.

[2426] If I just say esports, I feel like somebody in this room is going to roll their eyes.

[2427] That's what it's called.

[2428] It is.

[2429] It is the self -applied.

[2430] It's better than competitive gaming.

[2431] It's fast.

[2432] It's the shortest.

[2433] It's two syllables.

[2434] It's quick.

[2435] It's better than professional gaming.

[2436] Yes.

[2437] I'm a professional gamer.

[2438] Anyway, Valve getting into esports is pretty exciting.

[2439] It's crazy to think about.

[2440] esports and free to play yeah like all that stuff happening all at once like all of a sudden it's official and legit and like the biggest developers in the industry are embracing it and who saw that coming like a year ago while korea yes yes it got big enough for gom tv to get hacked right oh did it i heard the email addresses and passwords got yanked My credit card number is over there.

[2441] So if you haven't been notified, then no, you pay through.

[2442] But the email that I saw that someone, I think they posted it on our boards, the email that they got, said like all that stuff through PayPal.

[2443] So your credit card details are not out there.

[2444] You're right.

[2445] I did pay through PayPal.

[2446] But your password, maybe.

[2447] Just check on the fuck.

[2448] We're not allowed to have passwords anymore.

[2449] Jeff and I were talking about this on the way in.

[2450] It's like I almost had my Steam account hacked a couple weeks ago.

[2451] It seems like there's a new service or something that I use that is being purportedly hacked on the daily.

[2452] Like I just can't – I'm just going to let you auto -generate my password every time and then I will put it in the field and hope that it remembers it.

[2453] And if not, guess what?

[2454] The next time I come to the site, retrieve that password.

[2455] But then like the worst part is then, you know, every time that happens, like the importance of your email accounts, you know, the password goes up.

[2456] Yeah.

[2457] And it's like all the stuff being tied to Facebook and all that, like the importance of the Facebook password just keeps getting more and more – getting higher and higher too.

[2458] So it's – eventually the attacks just move higher and higher up the chain to get more and more personal and deeper and deeper access to all your stuff instead of just whatever one account they can get.

[2459] I should just get fucking one password at some point here.

[2460] It's great.

[2461] Yeah.

[2462] It's not – It's still not the end -all, be -all.

[2463] No. I mean, it still doesn't fix things for, like, mobile.

[2464] Right.

[2465] Well, they do have a mobile app.

[2466] They have an iPhone app.

[2467] Yeah.

[2468] Well, la -di -da.

[2469] But I can't envision how that would work.

[2470] You don't have to be a dick about it.

[2471] I'm just telling you there's an iPhone app.

[2472] You know what?

[2473] I kind of have to be a dick about this one.

[2474] I'm a little pissed.

[2475] I'm a little sore about all this password shenanigans.

[2476] Man, I got to go.

[2477] I got to...

[2478] Fuck.

[2479] I got to go change passwords.

[2480] No, I know.

[2481] That realization when you're like, I got to go fucking, like, find all of these things and...

[2482] what I'm even currently using, and where else might that password be.

[2483] Well, before you go nuts, you should verify if that actually happened, because like I said, it was just an email that I saw posted on our boards and haven't seen anyone else talk about it yet.

[2484] You're not sure that it happened?

[2485] I just saw the one email.

[2486] That in itself may have been like a phishing scam or something.

[2487] Yeah, could have been.

[2488] Yeah, a lot of people get confused, but just...

[2489] Because those are everywhere.

[2490] They immediately point to the hacking thing when it may...

[2491] Maybe something just going on with your account or someone got your password from somewhere else.

[2492] Look at my email right now.

[2493] At this point, your passwords are everywhere.

[2494] This is over the weekend, so I would imagine you would have been contacted already.

[2495] Well, I don't look at that email address all the time.

[2496] All right, let's talk news.

[2497] While you're firing up the news, I'm going to say it.

[2498] We should five -man Dota 2.

[2499] No, no, video series.

[2500] When that game is in our hands.

[2501] All right.

[2502] Come play League of Legends before us.

[2503] Come start learning and understanding.

[2504] Whatever.

[2505] I only play New Earth.

[2506] Fuck you.

[2507] The Kahn is bullshit.

[2508] That's my MOBA of choice.

[2509] Yeah, there's a lot of...

[2510] Oh, no, the territorialism amongst the different MOBAs is fantastic.

[2511] You think people are assholes within a given community.

[2512] Oh, man. League of Legends players versus Heroes of New Earth players.

[2513] They need a level playing field to juke it out.

[2514] They don't get along.

[2515] Han, my impression is that Han is generally thought to be a little more hardcore, a little more heavily competitive.

[2516] Yeah.

[2517] I think I chose the lightest of the currently available ones to actually dip my toe in.

[2518] But four of us and Vinny saying it.

[2519] When we get Dota 2 in here, let's form a team and start playing and make a video every day or something.

[2520] It's a good excuse to play a game of Dota 2 a day.

[2521] Daily Dota.

[2522] I like...

[2523] Like there's – the half hour kind of like the match length of that game, like there's a nice balance between, all right, I'm kind of – I can hop in and play something relatively quick but still have a sense of accomplishment when it's done.

[2524] It's not just like this – it's not a super blazing fast like deathmatch round of a first -person shooter or this extensively grueling long -ass campaign.

[2525] It's like, all right, we got up to the top of the map and then we won.

[2526] That's great.

[2527] Let's move on.

[2528] So I like that element of the genre.

[2529] We deeply apologize for the inconvenience.

[2530] Change your password.

[2531] God damn it.

[2532] All right, Brad, we'll let you change your password.

[2533] Patrick, let's talk a little bit about news.

[2534] We already touched on the Valve Steam trading thing.

[2535] Right.

[2536] I don't think we need to go into any further detail about that.

[2537] Nope.

[2538] Not so much.

[2539] Assassin's Creed Revelation multiplayer beta going to be on PS3 only.

[2540] Again.

[2541] Same as with Brotherhood.

[2542] Same as with Brotherhood, so look forward to that.

[2543] 3DS ambassadorship is over.

[2544] Yeah.

[2545] That ended last week.

[2546] If you're not an ambassador now, you ain't an ambassador never.

[2547] Nope.

[2548] Nope.

[2549] And Vinny just missed the window.

[2550] Unless you want to Photoshop your receipt and try and trick Nintendo, which apparently you can't do in Europe.

[2551] We thought it was...

[2552] or maybe I thought, maybe it was just my fault, that it was the end of the 12th, not the beginning of the 12th.

[2553] It was midnight.

[2554] So I came in here on the 12th, going, Vinny, Best Buy near our house has three S's.

[2555] You should buy one today and get on there.

[2556] Yeah, when he had me asking, like, am I still cool?

[2557] And I was like, no. Like, he seemed a little crushed.

[2558] He had already put in the order, and he had already done the store pickup thing.

[2559] So, well, whatever.

[2560] He should have IM'd you before he bought that.

[2561] So yeah, that starts on September 1st.

[2562] The NES games start coming out then, and then the Game Boy ones are before the end of the year.

[2563] Well, at least the NES ones are not in their final form.

[2564] No, yeah, so you have...

[2565] I wish I could pull up the bullshit that they call it, but it's basically just past the DS multiplayer, but they have a term for that.

[2566] Yeah, yeah.

[2567] So eventually the game will have, the updated versions that come later will have wireless multiplayer.

[2568] With asynchronous interpersonal multiplayer.

[2569] Yes.

[2570] Or something like that.

[2571] You know what?

[2572] Oh, of course.

[2573] Something like that.

[2574] Yeah.

[2575] Yeah, it'll come with full feature stuff, and if you're an ambassador, then you get the updated ones.

[2576] It's crazy to me that they actually have to do that on a per -game basis, that there's not just some shell that they can build around NES games to make that stuff work.

[2577] Oh, you mean an emulator?

[2578] Well, I mean, their emulator doesn't automatically support wireless and save states and that sort of stuff.

[2579] considering there are emulators out there that do exactly that.

[2580] Well, the GBA games won't support sleep mode at all, because that'll be just ROM dumps where you're just using the in -game saving mechanism to save to the system.

[2581] So if you shut that machine down, your battery will be dead.

[2582] That's it.

[2583] That's weird.

[2584] And they still, even in the last announcement, they're like, we're not going to sell these, which is just strange.

[2585] Yeah.

[2586] Well, no, because they're lying.

[2587] I'm liars.

[2588] I think they've also said we're not going to sell these for a while.

[2589] It's not ever, is it?

[2590] No, they said there are no plans to sell these.

[2591] Which to me, there are no plans means that we're going to fucking tell you about.

[2592] It's not on the release list yet.

[2593] Maybe they want to sit down and do more to your ability to save or something in those games.

[2594] This is just here.

[2595] We'll give you the ROMs.

[2596] It's fine.

[2597] Use it and then we'll come back with these games later.

[2598] I just found myself thinking over the weekend a little bit of just how disappointing all of their virtual console stuff has been across the board.

[2599] That's probably actually my biggest disappointment of Nintendo.

[2600] It was such a great idea, and it's still such a great idea.

[2601] The fact that it's not some sort of subscription service.

[2602] Yeah, exactly what I was going to say.

[2603] It should have just been...

[2604] I would have paid $15 a month to have access to Nintendo's library of games.

[2605] And just, like, as many third -party games as they could get.

[2606] Like, if it was just like, here's, you know, every NES game ever released in all territories minus, you know, a handful of licensed games that we couldn't clear or whatever.

[2607] Like, that would be a fantastic service that would be worth paying for eternity.

[2608] Yeah.

[2609] You know?

[2610] And if they started rolling other platforms into it.

[2611] You know, add -on for SNES, add -on for, you know, Game Gear.

[2612] Like, if they just went down that road.

[2613] I would pay a lot of money if there's even, like, tiers of...

[2614] Like, I'm willing to throw away a lot of money at Nintendo just to have complete access to their library of hardware and software.

[2615] And, you know, instead it just pushes people further and further towards, you know, like, quasi -legal options.

[2616] Yeah.

[2617] Or, you know, straight up illegal options of...

[2618] Well, when you've bought a game five times.

[2619] Right.

[2620] You know, like, at a certain point, I'm just tired of doing that.

[2621] Yeah.

[2622] And I don't...

[2623] You know, I can't necessarily say I approve of people doing the quasi -legal stuff, but I also don't really blame them when they're just paying for the same shit for the fifth or sixth time.

[2624] At this point, the 20th time for some of those games.

[2625] Yeah, yeah.

[2626] It's too bad.

[2627] It's too bad.

[2628] It's a really big missed opportunity.

[2629] Not to mention the lineup in America is dog shit compared to Japan.

[2630] Yeah, totally.

[2631] And I don't understand.

[2632] That just doesn't make any sense to me. And I think that this is probably some insight into that because clearly they are doing work to every single one of these games.

[2633] Sure.

[2634] If save states and stuff like that aren't going to work in these games, it's because they haven't been able to test it satisfactorily and make sure that it's going to work.

[2635] So there must be more work associated with each one of these releases than I guess we're giving them credit for.

[2636] But it still sucks.

[2637] Yeah.

[2638] There's still time.

[2639] I'm not holding my breath, but it's still early on for the 3DS.

[2640] The Wii U is when they're going to get it right.

[2641] 3DS and maybe they'll turn it around.

[2642] What I'm kind of hoping is that in the future updates, one of the things they're warning people is if your machine breaks or something, right now you lose access to all those games.

[2643] And so they're going to later have a software update that ties this to your Club Nintendo account that is tied in this 3DS.

[2644] You can see that maybe, you know, I'm being more optimistic than I should probably be giving Nintendo credit for it.

[2645] But the idea that, like, all right, so maybe I've bought Legend of Zelda on my 3DS.

[2646] Maybe when I get my Wii U, I put in my account and my game just pulls down from there.

[2647] I've already bought it.

[2648] You know, maybe you pay for some Wii U enhancements or something.

[2649] I think that's probably why they aren't selling SNES games yet on 3DS.

[2650] Or, yeah, yeah.

[2651] Like, there's just some platforms they're not doing on 3DS.

[2652] Because I imagine that they've sold so many of those on the Wii.

[2653] that they'll eventually have to link all this stuff up.

[2654] Yeah, and I think this is maybe the first step towards it.

[2655] I mean, the idea that I have my Wii U and I could be playing Super Mario World on my 3DS, like on the bus, and it's save states that sends that save data to the Wii U, then I can just pick that up on the tablet and keep playing.

[2656] God damn it.

[2657] I want to throw money at you.

[2658] They need to get it together, and they probably won't.

[2659] Nope.

[2660] You know who does have it together, though?

[2661] Who has it together?

[2662] Kirby.

[2663] I love Kirby.

[2664] I love Kirby, too.

[2665] Kirby's great.

[2666] Kirby is Nintendo's unsung hero.

[2667] Yeah.

[2668] Something we didn't talk about, though.

[2669] Yeah, Kirby Mass Attack.

[2670] Did you just see Kirby Mass Attack?

[2671] I saw both of them.

[2672] I can't talk about the Wii one.

[2673] Oh, sorry.

[2674] I thought you were going to be able to talk about it.

[2675] No, it's okay.

[2676] We can talk about the DS one.

[2677] Let's talk about Mass Attack.

[2678] It's basically for the DS.

[2679] Yes.

[2680] Yes.

[2681] The 2DS.

[2682] In classic Kirby fashion.

[2683] Coming in just as the platform is over.

[2684] Being on the cutting edge of the last generation platform.

[2685] Hey, fucking Kirby, could you turn the lights out when you're done here?

[2686] No problem, balls.

[2687] All right.

[2688] I've been doing it for 20 years.

[2689] Yeah, you suck.

[2690] You know what I mean, though.

[2691] I do.

[2692] That's not how Kirby talks at all.

[2693] He'd probably be squeaky.

[2694] I don't want to do that.

[2695] Maybe he does sound like a gruff plumber from Brooklyn.

[2696] Get the fuck out of here.

[2697] What do you want?

[2698] Use guises.

[2699] Fuck.

[2700] So you did a little write -up of this, Patrick, and you refer to this as kind of a spiritual successor to...

[2701] Kirby Canvas Curse.

[2702] The best game on the DS.

[2703] Yeah, like kind of the...

[2704] Whoa.

[2705] That was...

[2706] Whoa.

[2707] Top three.

[2708] It's a fine game.

[2709] That was when I bought my DS.

[2710] That game came out, I'm like, okay, now there's a reason to buy a DS.

[2711] It was a game that made you understand the stylus.

[2712] Yeah, for sure.

[2713] And I don't think anyone has...

[2714] I thought the Yoshi game was the game that made everyone understand the stylus.

[2715] That was basically a tech demo, though.

[2716] They did put that out as game, right?

[2717] This was that idea turned into a full game.

[2718] Yeah, I forgot about that fucking Yoshi game.

[2719] Again, you say this in the article, and I agree.

[2720] I don't know that anyone did full stylus control as well.

[2721] It was like the Wii Sports and the Wii.

[2722] They knocked it out of the park real early and then just...

[2723] Didn't, you know, so many games used the second screen of the stylus for just real ancillary features.

[2724] Kirby Canvas Curse wasn't, you know, the most Kirby game in the world, but it was a really great game that just happened to start Kirby.

[2725] This one is the, you have access to up to ten Kirby's at once.

[2726] A gang of Kirby's.

[2727] A gang of Kirby's.

[2728] And you're guiding them along the screen, and if you hold the stylus down on the Kirby's, it just becomes with the Canvas Curse interface, and you're just dragging them around, and I kept doing that and dying because I was just enjoying dragging them around.

[2729] And, yeah, it's a real simple game.

[2730] It's just, I don't know, Kirby games are fun.

[2731] I feel like Kirby is where Nintendo does its best experimenting from a gameplay perspective.

[2732] Yeah, because it's like this B -level character that it doesn't sell that well.

[2733] And he doesn't necessarily have, like, that many characteristics of his own.

[2734] Like, yeah, you can suck guys and get their powers.

[2735] Is that what we're calling it now?

[2736] Yeah.

[2737] Their powers?

[2738] Is that what Kirby has sung to?

[2739] God damn it.

[2740] It's got to eat, man. I don't want to talk about Kirby this way.

[2741] I'm not comfortable with it.

[2742] Out in the alley behind the bar.

[2743] And imagine it with that voice you gave him.

[2744] What?

[2745] I'm just trying to make a living over here.

[2746] Kirby's better than that.

[2747] God damn it.

[2748] You're the one that started us down this path.

[2749] I know.

[2750] I think Kirby's best work is in the pinball arena.

[2751] Love me some Kirby pinball.

[2752] Is that one that had a cartridge add -on, too?

[2753] Tilt and tumble or whatever?

[2754] Yeah.

[2755] Again, Nintendo using Kirby for whatever weird...

[2756] That was, like, super early motion control stuff.

[2757] That was, what, Game Boy Color?

[2758] Yeah.

[2759] Yeah.

[2760] So funny over there.

[2761] I just got an image of, like, Kirby in a cage in a lab somewhere, like, just testing all of their, like, cosmetic products on him.

[2762] Like, he's just a...

[2763] Oh, you look pretty now, Kirby.

[2764] He's just the sad workhorse of the Nintendo R &D process.

[2765] Does this lipstick make your lips, like...

[2766] Burn off?

[2767] What happens if we rub this lipstick on your eyeballs?

[2768] Does Kirby have lips?

[2769] He does now.

[2770] He did.

[2771] He used to.

[2772] He had them in the original Game Boy game.

[2773] That's the thing.

[2774] Kirby is actually a far -flung future version of Mario.

[2775] He's been cosmetically experimented on so many times.

[2776] Now he's just this soft, amorphous, little pink blob.

[2777] That's what they've reduced a man to.

[2778] That's what Nintendo breaks you down, turns you into a Kirby.

[2779] Dark history of the Mario mythology.

[2780] Yeah, that's what we learned.

[2781] It's the far -flung feud.

[2782] It's Super Super Mario Brothers.

[2783] We're going to find out that Kirby's Dream Land is actually Super Mario Brothers 4.

[2784] 5.

[2785] 6.

[2786] No, we're not going to count.

[2787] That's a sub.

[2788] Super Mario World 2 is a sub game.

[2789] Start counting on Mario Kart arcade games.

[2790] Oh, wait a minute.

[2791] What is Yoshi's Island?

[2792] That's Super Mario World 2.

[2793] And then in Japan, Super Mario World was marked with Super Mario Bros. 4.

[2794] No, no, because that's like Final Fantasy X -2.

[2795] It's totally Final Fantasy X -2.

[2796] The sequel to Super Mario Bros. 4.

[2797] It should be Super Mario 5.

[2798] I still think that since nothing has ever come out of Super Mario Bros. 4, regardless of lineage.

[2799] No, it's Super Mario World.

[2800] The box in Japan straight up says Super Mario Bros. Oh, does it really?

[2801] That's actually the name of it.

[2802] But there's never been a 5.

[2803] Then I will take 5.

[2804] Well, it's already been made.

[2805] It's Kirby's Dream Land.

[2806] There you go.

[2807] That's what we've learned.

[2808] So, for right up on Mass Attack, it sounds like...

[2809] It comes out next month.

[2810] It's a good game.

[2811] Dig it.

[2812] It's a nice...

[2813] I feel like Kirby's came as Kirby as much as I did.

[2814] I'm concerned about this.

[2815] My name is Kirby and this is my favorite mass attack on the space station.

[2816] Fuck.

[2817] The ambassador program.

[2818] Yeah.

[2819] Some doubt has been cast.

[2820] Oh, because you haven't gotten the message?

[2821] Yeah, like.

[2822] Oh, they sent out messages?

[2823] Yes.

[2824] Apparently.

[2825] This happened while I've been in Chicago.

[2826] Saturday morning, I got up and was looking at tweets about stuff and reading the wording that they put out and all this stuff.

[2827] And I was like, what if even if you had it before, you had to sign on to the eShop between the announcement and the deadline?

[2828] Is that when you had to do it?

[2829] Did you have to do that?

[2830] I don't think so.

[2831] That's my fear now.

[2832] I don't think so.

[2833] Me and Patrick didn't do it.

[2834] You probably didn't.

[2835] Did anybody do it here?

[2836] No. None of us did.

[2837] I bought Excite Mike and Xevious.

[2838] I bought Xevious.

[2839] That was like one of my last actions.

[2840] Yeah.

[2841] The window was only like two weeks between the announcement and maybe three.

[2842] I don't think so.

[2843] It seems crazy that that would happen.

[2844] No. I think it's just, like, that's why they're, I guess I should double fair about this, but I think that's why they're just saying, like, don't lose your 3DS or, like, it erases your 3D Ambassador qualification.

[2845] Because I think it's just that 3DS is pinging Nintendo servers.

[2846] Probably.

[2847] They log that.

[2848] I hope so.

[2849] But, I don't know.

[2850] The wording was weird.

[2851] It was like, I can't remember exactly how it was worded, but part of it mentioned applying that new system update, which.

[2852] is out there, you probably don't have it yet if you haven't turned it on at all.

[2853] I left my 3DS here while I was out.

[2854] Yeah, like a small system update came out that it referenced in the materials for that stuff.

[2855] Yeah, I definitely didn't do that.

[2856] Yeah, I didn't either.

[2857] And none of us got the notification saying, you're an ambassador.

[2858] Shit.

[2859] Which I saw pictures of on the internet.

[2860] I'm going to have to look into this tomorrow.

[2861] Yeah, you know what?

[2862] I'll figure this out tomorrow.

[2863] You could be the guy to clear because there's a lot of people asking.

[2864] We are not unique in this predicament.

[2865] I'll figure it out.

[2866] What do you mean eh?

[2867] Eh.

[2868] Eh.

[2869] Did you get your message?

[2870] No, I didn't.

[2871] You know, there's some cool games in there, but eh.

[2872] I'd love to play it.

[2873] No, Jeff, it's eh.

[2874] I would do it.

[2875] I want to play Zero Mission.

[2876] No, there's some great games, but eh.

[2877] I want to play Zero Mission.

[2878] I never really played Yoshi's Island.

[2879] Seems like a good reason to do it.

[2880] Don't you get meh to Yoshi's Island.

[2881] I don't like Yoshi's Island.

[2882] I just conceptually don't like Yoshi, and I fucking hate Baby Mario.

[2883] I've never owned a copy of The Legend of Zelda.

[2884] What?

[2885] The original?

[2886] Yeah.

[2887] No?

[2888] I rented it in time.

[2889] I knew other people that had it, and I bought it.

[2890] You know what?

[2891] I'll bring in my copy.

[2892] No, I don't know.

[2893] How about that?

[2894] I can't bring it with me. I'll bring in my fucking NES, and I'll bring in my sweet gold copy.

[2895] Did you know that each of the dungeons in Zelda all spell out Z -E -L -D -A?

[2896] I think I had heard.

[2897] The actual formations of the dungeons.

[2898] Yeah, that's all Second Quest dungeons, though, right?

[2899] Yeah.

[2900] I don't know if I ever did Second Quest.

[2901] Second quest was ill. I know.

[2902] I know.

[2903] Like it made you sick.

[2904] Yeah.

[2905] Counter -Strike Go!

[2906] What is it?

[2907] Global Offensive?

[2908] Sure.

[2909] Global Ops?

[2910] I definitely got it wrong.

[2911] I think I wrote Global Initiative and then our website went down.

[2912] Global Offensive.

[2913] I got real shit on for that.

[2914] I'm really surprised they didn't just call it Counter -Strike 2.

[2915] That's too much weight.

[2916] You think?

[2917] Yeah.

[2918] So you think this is not that then?

[2919] I think it may be one of those situations that, hey, if it turns into that, wouldn't that be great?

[2920] But if it doesn't, then they're allowed to back off from it.

[2921] I see.

[2922] You know what?

[2923] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[2924] But if you put a 2, you're saying, come on, everybody.

[2925] Whereas with this, especially if they're releasing on XBLA and PSN, which they are, you get people upset.

[2926] And it's like, if the game's good and the original fan base likes it, then they'll come over.

[2927] And then they can just say it's the sequel.

[2928] I think that they're going to throw a whole bunch of...

[2929] Well, I think that they'll try and get all those people over by doing some of the same stuff they're doing with Dota.

[2930] Like all this tournament stuff, like they will straight up have huge cash prize for something.

[2931] And if they are doing a bunch of tournament stuff for Steam.

[2932] Like talk to the community, bring those people in.

[2933] They already did.

[2934] Let those people become the evangelists because Valve can't sell it nearly as well as the people that love.

[2935] you know, 1 .6.

[2936] Like, this is the chance for them to avoid doing that a third time, you know?

[2937] It's not a fourth time at this point, though.

[2938] Those people are fucking crazy.

[2939] Yeah, those people are crazy.

[2940] Like, there are people who wouldn't play 1 .6 Final because they wanted to play 1 .6 Beta.

[2941] Yeah, I mean, people are going to be nutcases about that stuff.

[2942] I don't think I realized.

[2943] But this is their one chance to at least get the majority of players back together if they can get the balance this game to feel right.

[2944] The reports from the people that went and played it said it doesn't necessarily feel like either of those games.

[2945] Oh, they let people play it?

[2946] I missed that.

[2947] Yeah, I'm curious to see because even if they're making it on consoles, will the PC versions feel substantially different than the console versions in terms of how they balance the game and the aiming?

[2948] Because there's some real strong considerations, I imagine, that would go into that.

[2949] I didn't realize how many people still regularly played Counter -Strike.

[2950] Is it a source or an old, old one?

[2951] I mean, either, really.

[2952] A shit ton of people still play those old Half -Life 1 -based versions.

[2953] Yeah.

[2954] The only game that toppled it was Team Fortress 2 after it went free to play, and there was a giant influx of players.

[2955] Otherwise, it's always Counter -Strike.

[2956] That's only you see a source, which I might be mistaken, but I feel like that's always been in the shadow of the original.

[2957] I don't know about it.

[2958] I don't know about it now.

[2959] Maybe Source is bigger now.

[2960] I know there were people complaining very loudly about what Source was, but there are still plenty of people who play Source.

[2961] Turtle Rock did the Xbox port, right?

[2962] That was condition zero, wasn't it?

[2963] Yeah.

[2964] Yeah, that was kind of an offshoot.

[2965] Yeah, that was not really the right...

[2966] Even people who didn't like Counter -Strike didn't like that one.

[2967] Extra.

[2968] CSGO.

[2969] Go!

[2970] Yeah, I don't know.

[2971] CSGO sounds like a free -to -play game that you would associate a bunch of tournament money with.

[2972] A lot of abbreviation?

[2973] Go!

[2974] To me, it sounds like some sort of consumer -grade multimedia video editing suite.

[2975] Yeah.

[2976] I didn't pay for full CS, but I got CSGO.

[2977] Adobe CSGO.

[2978] Exactly.

[2979] Yes, it's the Adobe connection.

[2980] It's the creative suite.

[2981] That's what CS stands for now, for me. It's not Counter -Strike.

[2982] It's creative suite.

[2983] All right.

[2984] It's how things have changed.

[2985] I don't know.

[2986] Valve has demonstrated amazing prescience repeatedly for the last few years.

[2987] Yeah.

[2988] Maybe once again.

[2989] Yeah, we'll see.

[2990] Hey, man, I'll see what happens.

[2991] Maybe they'll pull it off.

[2992] Well, we're going to see it next week.

[2993] It does have dust in it.

[2994] Yeah, they made that very clear up front.

[2995] Well, I'm talking specifically about just eSports stuff in general.

[2996] Obviously, they're not by any means the only ones leading this charge.

[2997] eSports seems to be their way into free -to -play.

[2998] They have gotten out ahead of numerous markets very successfully.

[2999] So if this stuff is going to explode, maybe this is them on two different fronts.

[3000] Just getting ready for it.

[3001] All right.

[3002] Patrick, any other news?

[3003] Slow.

[3004] Slow?

[3005] It's real slow.

[3006] Yeah.

[3007] Fucking Gone TV got hacked.

[3008] God damn it.

[3009] I'll be back.

[3010] Breaking news.

[3011] I'm so agitated right now.

[3012] There's all that Gamescom stuff.

[3013] Yeah, there's the news out of that.

[3014] Yeah, this will have gone up after the press conference if that happens Tuesday morning.

[3015] Oh, yeah.

[3016] Gamescom.

[3017] We're not at Gamescom in case you didn't notice.

[3018] We're here instead.

[3019] Syndicate's supposed to get announced finally.

[3020] Project, what is it?

[3021] Redline?

[3022] Redline.

[3023] Yeah.

[3024] Great.

[3025] Which makes sense for being out there.

[3026] Mm -hmm.

[3027] Yeah.

[3028] Mm -hmm.

[3029] Let's see here.

[3030] Harmonix came through, showed us in Dance Central 2.

[3031] Can't talk about that yet, but once Gamescom starts going, we'll have some video of that.

[3032] Oh, that VidRhythm game, I think, that they mentioned is an iOS game.

[3033] Yes, they have confirmed that VidRhythm is an iOS product.

[3034] But the name went out there a while ago.

[3035] I don't think they've said what it is.

[3036] There's been some stuff on Twitter kind of implying that it might not even really be much of a game.

[3037] Who can say?

[3038] I don't know.

[3039] I bet someone could say.

[3040] Someone, yes.

[3041] Someone absolutely could say.

[3042] Someone could say.

[3043] It's very deep.

[3044] You know what I mean, man?

[3045] Kirby could say.

[3046] Yeah.

[3047] All right.

[3048] Yeah.

[3049] Kirby knows what's up.

[3050] You want to know what VidRhythm is?

[3051] Kirby's got the 411.

[3052] Kirby has seen some things.

[3053] It's no VidGrid.

[3054] I like VidGrid.

[3055] You like that on the Jaguar CD?

[3056] You play the Nirvana and it's a puzzle and you got to unscramble it?

[3057] In my mind, VidRhythm has always been links to VidGrid.

[3058] I don't know what VidGrid is.

[3059] It was this really shitty CD -based game that they did on PC and Jaguar.

[3060] For me, it's always VidRhythm.

[3061] Yeah.

[3062] But it was like – That game was a big – It was basically like they took the video and chopped it up into a three -by -three slide puzzle, and then you had to slide it around until you got the picture back.

[3063] First time I heard the phrase VidRhythm, I thought that the person had said VidRhythm.

[3064] What?

[3065] New VidRhythm?

[3066] I got very excited.

[3067] Man, that would be great.

[3068] Imagine if Harmonix bought the VidRhythm IP.

[3069] Man. DLC for – Harmonix buy the VidRhythm IP.

[3070] And then all of your Dance Central and or rock band songs can just feed into VidRhythm.

[3071] Man. Oh, no. VidRhythm was a great game that was just too hard.

[3072] It was only as hard as whatever music you put into it.

[3073] Please be on my phone.

[3074] Please be on my phone.

[3075] Please be on my phone.

[3076] Nothing's going to change in this.

[3077] You wouldn't have even known this had happened.

[3078] Do you have the VidRhythm soundtrack?

[3079] That's the only good song on that soundtrack.

[3080] I thought you were freaking about your password.

[3081] No, he's just going to play a role.

[3082] I'm going to pull up magic on the blacktop.

[3083] Yeah!

[3084] I want that mashup.

[3085] This is so chopped and screwed.

[3086] This is some fucking cough syrup music.

[3087] I know.

[3088] I think I got the whole thing on here.

[3089] You saw that email I forwarded you speaking of when we were talking about Neo Geo sort of like latent racism about how the game if you change the country selector will change the race of the different characters based on your region and their perception of what that means.

[3090] Totally.

[3091] So weird.

[3092] New releases this week.

[3093] Toy Soldiers Cold War coming to XBLA.

[3094] That's the last of the Summer Arcade games.

[3095] And if you buy that one along with all the other ones, then you're getting Crimson Alliance.

[3096] Also out this week, El Shaddai.

[3097] Is that this week?

[3098] That's out this week.

[3099] I don't want to play that.

[3100] No More Heroes Heroes Paradise for the PlayStation 3.

[3101] That's coming out.

[3102] courtesy of Konami.

[3103] That's the first one, right?

[3104] Yeah, it's a remake of the first one.

[3105] We did a quick look of the demo that they put out, and it's fucking No More Heroes.

[3106] Great.

[3107] Does that have move support?

[3108] Yes, it does.

[3109] But it's not.

[3110] Is it required?

[3111] It is not move required.

[3112] That's great.

[3113] So you can play that with just a regular -ass controller, which is absolutely your first time that you could play that game without motion controls.

[3114] How do you recharge?

[3115] Shake the controller?

[3116] Shake the controller.

[3117] Maybe I'll finally play No More Heroes.

[3118] So it still has that, and it's still fucked in.

[3119] From playing the demo, it still seems to be as fucked as No More Heroes ever was.

[3120] Oh, yeah.

[3121] How does it look?

[3122] Better.

[3123] They improved it more than just...

[3124] Yeah, you know what?

[3125] I need to do some side -by -sides because they clearly have up the resolution of the screen, but it seems like maybe they've cleaned up some textures or it's just one of those cases where the original textures were better than that game would even allow it to show.

[3126] I don't know.

[3127] We'll see.

[3128] It's only out on PS3.

[3129] Only on PS3 here in the States.

[3130] Is it out on both in Europe?

[3131] Yeah.

[3132] Ubisoft published both of those games in the States originally.

[3133] And I guess, I don't know if it was just a matter of...

[3134] We're not interested in going through that again.

[3135] Look guys, we know how much it sold the first time around.

[3136] We're okay.

[3137] We're going to take a pass on this.

[3138] So Konami signed up and I can't...

[3139] There was a lot of...

[3140] back and forth about this when the deals got first announced and I can't remember I can't remember if it's one of those like okay the 360 version is going to come out but it's going to come out way later or if it's just straight up nah I don't think it's coming out on 360 at all I thought it was but it's not going to come out on 360 in this region right like they released it a while ago on 360 in Japan I think even yeah we need some more move games that's weird you can play it on a move if you want to or not whatever it's your choice And Jerry Rice and Nidus, dog football.

[3141] For the Wii.

[3142] Oh, okay.

[3143] Jerry Nidus, or Jerry Nidus.

[3144] Jerry Rice and his dog, Nidus.

[3145] Jerry Nidus and his dog, Rice.

[3146] How are they spelling dog?

[3147] D -O -G -W -G -D -O -G.

[3148] Regular dogs.

[3149] It's not my dogs.

[3150] It's just dogs.

[3151] Okay.

[3152] Great.

[3153] It's a bunch of dogs.

[3154] All right.

[3155] I just want to make sure it's, like, dogs and not dogs.

[3156] Nope.

[3157] Nope.

[3158] Cherry rice and his nidus canal.

[3159] But it's weird.

[3160] All right.

[3161] Fine.

[3162] Fuck you.

[3163] It's a creepy breeding simulator.

[3164] Emails?

[3165] Bombcast at giantbomb .com is the email address.

[3166] First one comes in from Martin, Orange County.

[3167] What's up, Martin?

[3168] Hi, guys.

[3169] Love the show.

[3170] I was driving home from work last night, and all of a sudden...

[3171] I started to wonder.

[3172] What was the first video game to say the word fuck, either in text or spoken dialogue?

[3173] I figured at least one of you might be able to help me out.

[3174] Thanks.

[3175] Oh.

[3176] The question was so powerful.

[3177] It almost knocked Jeff Queen out of his chair.

[3178] I almost fell out of this fucking chair.

[3179] Too much leaning back and consideration.

[3180] Yeah.

[3181] I don't have an answer to that, but speaking of Street Hoop.

[3182] No one was speaking of Street Hoop.

[3183] Give me a second.

[3184] Okay.

[3185] Reading up on it, apparently, is the first, believed to be the first instance of the N -word in a song.

[3186] Huh.

[3187] It's used liberally in the back of one of the tracks.

[3188] Wow.

[3189] But maybe they're not saying, I mean, who can say the digitization is?

[3190] Yeah.

[3191] No, because they put it out on CD, too.

[3192] Oh.

[3193] And they did arranged versions of the songs from the original cartridge version.

[3194] It becomes very clear at that point.

[3195] Man. So there's that.

[3196] Bust a groove.

[3197] Yeah.

[3198] Bust a move in Japan, the dancing game.

[3199] Yeah.

[3200] Really?

[3201] That came out here as a bust a groove.

[3202] Yeah.

[3203] They dropped the N -word.

[3204] One specific use of that.

[3205] And that's why I got a T -rating, right?

[3206] They cut it out of the U .S. release.

[3207] Just drag in my PlayStation 1 playlist.

[3208] Yeah, you gotta be crazy.

[3209] Blank.

[3210] Like, oh, my.

[3211] And I remember playing that level repeatedly.

[3212] I'm like, that's not really.

[3213] You can't actually be saying that, right?

[3214] He's writing about hamburgers.

[3215] It doesn't make sense for that to even be.

[3216] Oh, well.

[3217] That was in the import.

[3218] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3219] That was a great game.

[3220] I feel like I just played Atomic Playboy over and over in that game.

[3221] I don't remember anything else from that game.

[3222] The burger level was the best one.

[3223] The burger level was really good because the guy said the N -word.

[3224] The boss level.

[3225] Damn, this game's real.

[3226] The boss level was good, too.

[3227] Was that game just like a giant robot?

[3228] The game was just like a poor man's parappa, basically.

[3229] Just dancing instead of rapping.

[3230] The fuck word.

[3231] What games?

[3232] I want to say there's some Sega CD game that...

[3233] Really?

[3234] Might have had it in there somewhere.

[3235] It wasn't in Custer's Revenge, was it?

[3236] No. Well, I mean...

[3237] It was, but they didn't say it.

[3238] I would think that there would be some, like, aloe...

[3239] Yeah, like something on the PC, surely.

[3240] Like 80s adventure game that would have that before any sort of console thing.

[3241] Yeah, there was some sleazy shit coming out on PCs.

[3242] Oh, well, yeah.

[3243] I think it's more impactful on the console because...

[3244] Yeah, because it had to go through...

[3245] Actual ratings.

[3246] Yeah, yeah.

[3247] If you want to get to like text adventures and stuff like that.

[3248] But I'm not even talking about people making weird sex text adventures that were all kinds of creepy.

[3249] But even like, you know, Leisure Suit Larry was published by a game publisher that was known for making games.

[3250] Right.

[3251] I think Leisure Suit Larry would count, but I think like the stuff that came before it might not.

[3252] No. Count for our purposes here.

[3253] But I'm trying to think if Leisure Suit Larry would have even said it.

[3254] Yeah, I don't know.

[3255] That's not what those games were really about.

[3256] I only played 6, but it was all very PG.

[3257] Yeah.

[3258] Or PG -13, rather.

[3259] Yeah.

[3260] Pretty safe.

[3261] Well, you'd see a boob.

[3262] You'd see a tit, but it was such a low -res tit.

[3263] It didn't really matter.

[3264] The 80s version of PG -13 before.

[3265] That game was 640 by 480.

[3266] That was a lot of...

[3267] There's a lot of pixels in that nipple.

[3268] No, but I mean they wouldn't go full screen with a nipple.

[3269] You're right.

[3270] It was not like really in your face.

[3271] Not worth the effort it took to get it.

[3272] Yeah.

[3273] Yeah.

[3274] I don't know.

[3275] I can't think of a specific example.

[3276] Just like going back and thinking like, okay, well, you know, GTA.

[3277] I can get that far back and think of the F. But even like GTA 1, you think?

[3278] Gosh, yeah.

[3279] I just can't even think if I can go back that far.

[3280] I don't know.

[3281] We'll table it.

[3282] We'll come back to it.

[3283] We'll continue to consider.

[3284] Next email comes again from Gareth.

[3285] Hi, guys.

[3286] I got into SimCity 4 a few years ago.

[3287] At first, I was having a lot of trouble getting my city's finances to balance, and I was really having to cut into my health and education services, leading to constant strikes.

[3288] Not deterred, I iterated and iterated until I started to turn my cities around.

[3289] Finally, I was able to make a city I considered perfect.

[3290] My Sims lived in identical suburbs and identical houses.

[3291] They caught identical public transport to rows of identical factories.

[3292] The city basically functioned like a forced labor camp, and I was collecting three tax dollars for every dollar I spent on services.

[3293] I looked upon my creation and I was glad.

[3294] Then I went online and saw other people making beautiful cities with irregular zoning and non -grid layouts.

[3295] I realized I'd been treating the game as a cost optimization problem instead of a design tool.

[3296] Have you ever had a situation where you realized that you were playing a game wrong or does this only emerge in complex sim games like SimCity?

[3297] Well, I think...

[3298] I don't even think that's necessarily wrong.

[3299] It's just, you know...

[3300] Different.

[3301] I guess it's something like that.

[3302] It's a matter of what you're trying to get out of it, I guess.

[3303] I'm sure that you could see those weird, irregular layout cities, and they probably did not have that same level of efficiency because they opted to go down one path more than another.

[3304] Sounds like a question for some kind of philosophy of government survey course or something.

[3305] How would you rule?

[3306] In a game context, it's kind of...

[3307] It's addressing the emergent gameplay idea of in a game that you're just given a bunch of tools and said, all right, we have some basic guidelines of where you kind of want to go and what you want to do to keep playing, but that's really all of the structure we're going to give you.

[3308] Go nuts.

[3309] That's what it was in From Dust summarized very neatly that I liked about that game.

[3310] That's what it is.

[3311] That game is a set of tools with some problems to solve.

[3312] Yeah.

[3313] And hey, go about it.

[3314] So it's a question of is there a wrong way?

[3315] Well, I mean, yeah, there very definitely is a wrong way in a game like SimCity because, I mean, money is a finite resource.

[3316] If you're playing in such a way that you are out of money and unable to continue in a meaningful manner, then – But as long as you can keep playing, it can't be a wrong way.

[3317] Well, yeah.

[3318] Because there's no game over.

[3319] Yeah, I guess there's no game over.

[3320] But if you're at a point where you're so hamstrung by that limitation that you can't really – Oh, no, no, no, no. Do anything.

[3321] I agree.

[3322] I think that that's a wrong way.

[3323] I would say that's a wrong way to play.

[3324] What I'm saying is I agree that, okay, yes, in a case of SimCity, there can be a wrong way.

[3325] You can lose.

[3326] You can stop being able to play.

[3327] But any sort of gameplay method that lets you keep playing, whether it be in this very rigid kind of factory mentality, hard grids.

[3328] Yeah, just different ways to solve the problem.

[3329] Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about SimCity in particular, I mean, You could create some kind of miserable dystopia that is self -sustaining.

[3330] Yeah.

[3331] And that, like, you know, that might be morally wrong, but...

[3332] That's what I always ended up with playing SimCity 2000.

[3333] I just always ended up with just, like, really unsatisfying.

[3334] Like, you'd eventually get to the point where it's like, well, I guess I'll just build those arcologies all over the place.

[3335] And that's not really fun or interesting to look at, but it's, like, kind of the only end game I have left.

[3336] So, all right.

[3337] And that was really unsatisfying.

[3338] Playing Deus Ex, you know, you were...

[3339] When we were going through it, you never made it past the first level because you went right through the center.

[3340] To a certain extent, that was playing the first level of that game wrong because you didn't go around to discover the other paths.

[3341] You ended up not playing the game and discovering what was so great about it because you sort of played it wrong.

[3342] to find the other ways to get around rather than brute forcing through combat.

[3343] So you should have been playing, according to the Eric Wolpaw walkthrough, of pick up the flag and walk around and show it to everyone.

[3344] Oh, I forgot about his old Deus Ex wife.

[3345] That's pretty good.

[3346] That's some old man Murray classics right there.

[3347] Love old man Murray.

[3348] So much.

[3349] Let's see here.

[3350] Corey Compton writes in.

[3351] Hey, guys.

[3352] Hub City.

[3353] In the midst of all this news about new consoles with the official announcement of the Wii U and the rumors circulating about Sony and Microsoft consoles under development, I got to thinking about what the next generation, capitalizes both those words, exactly means to video gaming.

[3354] My question basically is just, does the next generation have to mean a new physical console or could it be the way games are being made or a step forward in services offered or new ways to interact?

[3355] what I'm getting at.

[3356] I mean, he's talking about kind of, you know, moving, or in one example.

[3357] Like, yeah, but...

[3358] In kind of the reality of it, the next generation is when developers have to figure out a whole new way to develop games on new sets of tools because the hardware has changed.

[3359] So it all happens at once.

[3360] I think what you'll see, though, is the changes that have been happening kind of over the course of this generation will become codified and built into the system instead of tacked on the way that they have been.

[3361] Yeah, that's been a very organic process up to now.

[3362] But starting a new generation requires some kind of delimiter, right, which is a platform that, you know.

[3363] can't run the old stuff.

[3364] People need a foundation to work on, and having a new piece of hardware allows people to reboot, and it gets the...

[3365] The game industry has the cycle of new IPs at the beginning of a new hardware generation, and that's part of the problem we're running into right now is just the same goddamn games, which are better.

[3366] They're better, and they're clearly better, but they're just the same game tweaked, and it's because this cycle has gone on much longer because of the Wii and how much time it took for those consoles.

[3367] It's a little bit blurrier on the PC because it's like when we talk about next generation, PC hardware, like...

[3368] It kind of doesn't happen anymore.

[3369] It doesn't happen, or yeah, it hasn't happened.

[3370] It's still happening, but you're seeing more powerful stuff.

[3371] But it's that, you know, every five years or so, it's like, you seem like you get those video cards coming out that you're like, oh, fuck.

[3372] Like, tessellation, damn.

[3373] But I mean, hardware on the PC is kind of irrelevant at the moment because the games they're getting made are hamstrung by what consoles can do.

[3374] Yeah.

[3375] By and large.

[3376] Yep.

[3377] But not to the extent where it immediately feels like we need new console hardware.

[3378] Maybe not.

[3379] I don't know.

[3380] Battlefield 3 kind of breaks the mold, right?

[3381] Like they're making that game PC first.

[3382] Well, yeah, maybe that'll be the game that really does it, but I don't know.

[3383] Too bad you have to install Origin to use it.

[3384] But I think, I mean, part of that's also everyone uses middleware these days.

[3385] And it's like until Epic releases like a new...

[3386] Unreal Engine 4.

[3387] Yeah, like that.

[3388] It's like no one's going to develop their own proprietary tech.

[3389] That's not how it works anymore.

[3390] And so...

[3391] That will all happen at the same time sometime in the next couple of years.

[3392] Do you think there's been a generation of gaming hardware where stuff has looked as different from the beginning and the end as it does?

[3393] I'm thinking like maybe 16 -bit when you went from like, okay, these are prettier NES games with a few new scrolling tricks thrown in there to – kind of hedging towards full polygonal effects.

[3394] Especially if you look at the 360, then no. Absolutely not.

[3395] Because look at Perfect Dark Zero versus stuff coming out now.

[3396] And I think this is the stuff where the generational thing starts meaning something a little different.

[3397] Yeah, stuff looks way better.

[3398] And they use the hardware more intelligently.

[3399] But the nature of the platform and the kinds of games that...

[3400] Sure, you're still playing first -person shooters, third -person shooters.

[3401] There's still genre types that are being hit and hit hard year after year, and that stuff stays kind of the same.

[3402] But there's just the methods of consuming.

[3403] What's the introduction of services?

[3404] Like Valve's whole philosophy of gaming as a service.

[3405] That has caught on in the console.

[3406] Yeah, I guess that's the thing that has made the biggest difference.

[3407] It's the things layered on top of the hardware that didn't exist before, and now that's...

[3408] Like, that's the leap next, you know.

[3409] Just go back and look at your PlayStation 2 and be reminded of how thin the front end, even just a generation back, looked compared to all the shit you can do now.

[3410] Go load up a PS1.

[3411] It's fucking crazy.

[3412] Yo, that'll play music CDs.

[3413] You put in a game.

[3414] Oh, God.

[3415] I'm sorry.

[3416] I just remembered something.

[3417] What's up?

[3418] Are you aware how sought after the PlayStation 1 is in the audiophile community?

[3419] No. Either it is or this website that I found is like the most elaborate troll that I've ever seen.

[3420] But it was, like, this three -page exhaustive analysis of this guy who's just, like, dyed -in -the -wool audiophile, like, doesn't know anything about games, but, like, heard from his audiophile friends, like, basically got a PS1, like, third -hand or whatever, and took it apart and was, like, analyzing all of the, like, the DACs in there and just, like, all of the, like, every chip and every piece of equipment that it used and, like, was going into crazy amounts of detail about, like, the warmth of the tones he was getting out of.

[3421] The multi -out on the back of it versus the RCA audio outs.

[3422] Well, here's the thing, though, is audiophiles are fucking lunatics.

[3423] I know.

[3424] They are the craziest of crazies.

[3425] I know.

[3426] I got a bunch of PlayStation 1s.

[3427] I know.

[3428] Maybe he can...

[3429] So, again, either I was duped and this was just a big joke about that kind of thing, or there actually is merit in the audio file community for whatever it is they used in the PlayStation 1.

[3430] To my understanding, that is a big part of the Laserdisc collector scene is because of audio quality.

[3431] There is a...

[3432] Because it's all uncompressed.

[3433] Like it's digital, but it doesn't have any of the compression that starts getting introduced in subsequent media formats.

[3434] So you can see movies with, you know, yeah, okay, it's still only 480 output or whatever for the video, but the audio sounds way better.

[3435] Or somebody thinks it does.

[3436] Yeah, yeah, or someone thinks it does.

[3437] A fair, fair, fair point.

[3438] Let's see.

[3439] I've got an email here from Ed Foster who wants to know, who produces DLC content for AAA titles?

[3440] See, AAA titles are laborious endeavors for the teams making them, and I understand they usually take time off between titles.

[3441] If this is the case, who produces DLC for these titles?

[3442] Imagine that for some larger companies they could have an internal B team that would work on that content.

[3443] I think it's totally up to the specific.

[3444] Yeah, but you also end up in cases where some team's work has pretty much wrapped up for the core game, and while everything else is getting finished up and while the game is in submission, you've got...

[3445] that kind of downtime where you can be working on DLC.

[3446] I mean, the answer is all of the above, right?

[3447] Or you could outsource it to Raven.

[3448] Yeah, I mean, yeah.

[3449] Activision has got clearly studios working on DLC that are not working on the main games.

[3450] Like the Dead Space 2 single -player DLC that came out, they worked on that after the game was off to submission and after it was out.

[3451] The MK team, I think they're doing all their own.

[3452] They're doing everything themselves.

[3453] And there's DLC that ships on the disc.

[3454] So there's another question, kind of a parallel question to this one that prompted me to read this, which was about DLC for downloadable games, which is kind of the other end of the spectrum, where you have much smaller teams, much smaller projects, where the scenarios we're talking about for these big titles, I think most of the time it's pretty clear, regardless of who's working on it, plans are in place and they are working on that shit before that game ships.

[3455] Their post -release plans are already in motion at that point.

[3456] And this other question was more about how does a small independent studio determine when it's time to start working or if there's enough demand for them to start working on DLC that by the time the game comes out, is it something that they have to do beforehand or just kind of trying to predict the timing on that?

[3457] It's got to be really hard because you have to anticipate that the game is not only going to do well but that it will have legs to the point where people will still be interested in seeing more content by the time you're done making it.

[3458] And that's – yeah, I don't know.

[3459] Let alone if you have interest in making more content for that game.

[3460] You could have been working on that game for five years and be like, no, fuck it.

[3461] I never want to make another one of these levels again.

[3462] I've made enough.

[3463] It was an interesting point that Chris Taylor made when he came by to show Age of Empires.

[3464] Is that...

[3465] Name dropper.

[3466] No, no, I mean, he spent some time talking about this.

[3467] That game is essentially never done.

[3468] So there is no, like, month off after the game's out.

[3469] Like, A, they have to sit there and shepherd the servers, like, when it launches, make sure everything works right and stuff.

[3470] Well, there is for Chris Taylor.

[3471] Well, probably.

[3472] Hopefully everybody on that team gets some time off at some point, but they're constantly going to have to keep making new content for it.

[3473] Like, it is, in fact...

[3474] Like, with Total Annihilation, had all those new units.

[3475] Sure.

[3476] Something like that.

[3477] I guess.

[3478] But yeah, it's just like the development process is never done on a game like that.

[3479] But I'm sure it's scale.

[3480] At the point that you're just creating new quests and new individual units.

[3481] There's a lot of advantages to it.

[3482] They can address a lot of old balance issues or problems that need to be fixed or whatever, but it's just like it's the old fire and forget of shove the game in a box, ship it out, that's it.

[3483] to never touch it or think about it again.

[3484] For that kind of game, that's over.

[3485] Then you probably end up having to transition some part of your dev team to almost like that MMO model of like, we're going to have the live team that's going to worry about the game as it currently exists and where it's going to go from here.

[3486] And then they'll bring in the other parts of the studio as it comes time to actually develop new content and all that sort of stuff.

[3487] And all that.

[3488] You end up with the core maintenance crew.

[3489] But meanwhile, your creative leads and all the other stuff are maybe working on full expansions or on the next game or wherever you go from here.

[3490] But yeah, it almost becomes like a customer service plus kind of organization in some way.

[3491] Yeah, I think it's so much different for an online thing like A -O -E -O.

[3492] Yes.

[3493] A -O -E -O.

[3494] A -O -E -O.

[3495] A -O -E -O -E -O -E -O -E -O -E -O -E -O -E -O.

[3496] Yo, Kirby!

[3497] That's it for emails.

[3498] Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

[3499] Once again, bombcast at giantbomb .com is the address.

[3500] And as Brad had mentioned earlier, I'll reiterate, we were playing Age of Vampires Online and Toy Soldiers Cold War on TNT this week.

[3501] So join us Thursday.

[3502] I'll post up later in the week once we figure out how the fuck we'll actually play AOEO with people.

[3503] I can figure out how that works.

[3504] Yeah, we'll muck around with that.

[3505] I know it can be done.

[3506] And hey, maybe there'll be a lantern run in there somewhere too.

[3507] While we're busting out small games, I still need to gold star volcano entrenched.

[3508] All night.

[3509] TNT just help you get your shitty achievements.

[3510] Yes.

[3511] You want to come run TNT, you can have him do that.

[3512] Correct abuse of power.

[3513] Patrick, thanks for coming and sitting in for Vinny.

[3514] He's too damn busy to join us this week, so we miss him as much as you do, and hopefully we'll have him back.

[3515] But always a pleasure to have Patrick in the studio.

[3516] Jeff Gerstmann back in it.

[3517] My thunderous return.

[3518] My throat hurts because I'm not used to talking this much.

[3519] All right.

[3520] We'll let him get back to talking to himself silently.

[3521] Brad, I'll see you on Thursday.

[3522] And, yeah, that's it for the Bobcast.

[3523] Thanks for listening.

[3524] We'll be back next week.

[3525] Bye -bye.