Giant Bombcast 09-20-2011

[0] Hey everyone, it's Tuesday, September the 20th, 2011, and you are listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[1] Oh, my microphone fell away from me. Hold on.

[2] Bringing it back.

[3] I'm Ryan Davis.

[4] Vinny Caravella's in the house.

[5] Hi.

[6] Jeff Gerstmann's in the house.

[7] In the house.

[8] Brad Shoemaker's in the house.

[9] Heyo.

[10] How do you feel about being housebound?

[11] It's warm in this house.

[12] I thought you said it was okay.

[13] It was pretty good.

[14] Minutes ago.

[15] It was pretty good.

[16] I enjoy this pregame show that we have going on lately.

[17] It's actually pretty awesome.

[18] A little warm up.

[19] The only problem is that, in fact, it does warm up everything.

[20] Warming up the crowd, you know?

[21] Yeah, sure.

[22] Getting ourselves warmed up.

[23] Vinny Caravella.

[24] How you doing?

[25] It's Gears Day, you guys.

[26] I called in sick.

[27] The E -Day.

[28] No, E -Day was...

[29] No, it wasn't E -Day, was it?

[30] That was the first one.

[31] Is that what they called it?

[32] Emergence Day.

[33] The first one was Emergence Day, yeah.

[34] Never forget your Emergence Day.

[35] Emerge.

[36] Years Tuesday.

[37] I don't know.

[38] What can you do for...

[39] Oh, man. Brothers to the End Tuesday.

[40] Great.

[41] Bros Day.

[42] Man, I just finished Brothers to the End last night.

[43] We'll talk about that later.

[44] I haven't touched it.

[45] Vinny, have you touched the Gears yet?

[46] No, my copy should be here today, though.

[47] Yeah, I think I got mine today as well.

[48] Today's day.

[49] Yeah.

[50] Should we just talk about it now?

[51] I did get my sweet code from Amazon, though, for buying through them.

[52] What did you get?

[53] What was that for?

[54] Multiplayer skin.

[55] Multiplayer dude.

[56] Did you get your $20 also?

[57] Savage dude.

[58] I did.

[59] Isn't that kind of awesome?

[60] Yeah.

[61] See, it never seems too amazing.

[62] So you got that as well?

[63] Yeah.

[64] All right, so bought Gears or pre -ordered Gears 3, and you get a $20 Amazon gift thing for doing that, and it applies immediately.

[65] So it didn't even ask you, it just did it?

[66] Yeah, it was just like, and I looked through my history because I thought, oh, maybe I just had one sitting in there, and I definitely didn't.

[67] So they were just like stealth -selling Gears for $40?

[68] Yeah, so I bought Gears for $40, and I was able to use credit card points, so I paid like $7 for Gears 3 out of pocket.

[69] And then they gave me the free multiplayer skin, and I got the Ice -T skin.

[70] Thanks for Facebook.

[71] I don't want to subvert your authority on this game, but I think it's worth $7.

[72] I don't know, man. I'll be the judge of that.

[73] Wait, how do you do Facebook and get the Ice -T skin?

[74] There's a Facebook page.

[75] Yeah, there's like a like this page to get an Xbox code for Ice -T.

[76] Is it a universal code or is it single use?

[77] Single use.

[78] But they generate them, so it's just go there and like it and then unlike it after you get the code.

[79] As fast as you can.

[80] Can I just make a Facebook account and go do that?

[81] You have a Facebook account.

[82] I don't want to log into Facebook.

[83] I think I might actually have an extra code that someone sent me that they went and did with their fake account.

[84] That's my next assignment for the Farmville thing is to take that Facebook account that Steve has and just get me a code and then I'm pulling out a Farmville.

[85] So I posed this question to Jeff this morning.

[86] I want to know what Brad and Vinny, what you guys think.

[87] What percentage of the Gears of War audience do you think understands the significance of the Gears cog?

[88] word play.

[89] Ballpark.

[90] 80.

[91] 80?

[92] It's pretty explicit, right?

[93] They call them cogs constantly, don't they?

[94] Right, but understanding that the coalition of organized governments.

[95] What cog means other than that.

[96] May I'm overestimating.

[97] I mean, it's right there.

[98] The visual symbolism is everywhere.

[99] That assumes that you know what a cog is.

[100] I guess.

[101] Don't people know what a cog is?

[102] I don't think they do.

[103] Really?

[104] They never watch the Jetsons?

[105] People that listen to this, what?

[106] Sprockets, they don't use cogs.

[107] No, and Cogswell's cogs.

[108] Okay, fair enough.

[109] Jeez, everybody.

[110] Sprockets award.

[111] The far -flung future of sprockets and cogs.

[112] Sprockets award would be way better.

[113] That's who they're fighting.

[114] Spacely's gone mad.

[115] I don't know.

[116] I would think a vast majority.

[117] People listening to this, the enthusiast crowd, whatever, that's different.

[118] But think of how many people play Gears.

[119] Yeah, it's very popular.

[120] And how borderline...

[121] You don't necessarily hear people talking about cogs a lot lately.

[122] Not really a term that...

[123] It gets tossed around a lot.

[124] They do.

[125] They do use the term gears in the game to refer to themselves a lot, though.

[126] They do.

[127] Yeah, they do.

[128] Especially as they're moving around dealing with these different fashions that maybe don't trust them so much, and they're all, we're gears, come on.

[129] Yeah.

[130] Yeah.

[131] I actually don't even know.

[132] But they're cogs.

[133] Cogs and gears are separate things.

[134] Yeah, I actually don't even know what the relation is.

[135] No, it's just.

[136] When you join the cog, you become a gear.

[137] But what is a cog, really?

[138] It's the coalition of organized governments.

[139] No, no, but like in reality.

[140] It's the coalition of organized governments.

[141] It's an ordered government.

[142] Maybe it is.

[143] Yeah, like is a cog a gear?

[144] I don't even know what a cog does.

[145] There's only one cog.

[146] Is a cog just like a sprocket?

[147] Are we talking about like...

[148] We're not talking about the game.

[149] Are we talking about industrial mechanics?

[150] Sure.

[151] I don't even know what it actually is.

[152] Is it just like a...

[153] See, we in this room barely know.

[154] We know, yeah, there's some sort of connection.

[155] I understand there's wordplay going on.

[156] We know that it's metal and vaguely circular with some kind of teeth on it or something.

[157] I don't think that's true.

[158] I think it's the rod that the cogs come on to.

[159] Where do flywheels come into all this?

[160] I know that the cogs are oiled with the blood of the Gears of War.

[161] How about that?

[162] Done.

[163] I was just thinking about the name Gears of War and how long.

[164] You look at stuff like that and you think, like, that didn't just spring fully formed out of someone.

[165] Like, there is a huge long list where, like, all right, we're going to make this new game.

[166] We have these ideas.

[167] Do you remember, like, all of just, like, the iterative stuff that they were talking about before Gears came out of, like, darkness and, like, you saw character designs way before they had fiction or characters or anything like that?

[168] I mean, they shoved the brew back out there as, like, the tech demo for Unreal Engine 3.

[169] Right.

[170] Like, way back when.

[171] And that was, like, we made this whole thing.

[172] Yeah, like, before Gears of War was a thing.

[173] So, yeah, I wonder what the...

[174] I would love to be in any game developer when they go through that process.

[175] What are we going to call this game?

[176] And at what point for various franchises did they have?

[177] All right, we know what the name of this is.

[178] Space Fighters?

[179] All right, nobody's trademarked Gears of War.

[180] All right, let's figure out what a gear is.

[181] Let's put a pin in that one for now.

[182] What is a gear?

[183] Yeah, and then are you working backwards on the fiction from there?

[184] Well, I mean, you know, trademark dispute being what it is.

[185] You don't want a trenched situation on your hands.

[186] I guess not.

[187] Probably a logical place to start.

[188] So, Brad, you think Gears of War 3 is worth $7?

[189] Jeff, I feel like we know your thoughts on Gears of War.

[190] Oh, yeah, you didn't really talk about it last week.

[191] Yeah, you couldn't.

[192] I would go so far as to say it's worth $60.

[193] What?

[194] That's a lot more than $7.

[195] I'm not donating money to these people.

[196] Well, you know.

[197] No, I'm not saying buy the weapons skins.

[198] What's that worth?

[199] Don't buy the weapon skins.

[200] Okay.

[201] Not even my time?

[202] Yeah.

[203] Not even that undulating rainbow skin?

[204] Yeah, not even really that.

[205] It's like three bucks, four bucks, whatever it actually is.

[206] That's a lot of money.

[207] So do they sell like an all pack?

[208] Yeah.

[209] And that's 50 bucks?

[210] That's, what was that, 45?

[211] I think it was.

[212] 3 ,600 points, whatever that is.

[213] Yeah.

[214] Does that come with like any bundle that's like madman bundle for $400?

[215] Get all the codes?

[216] Nothing?

[217] Nope.

[218] Well, there's a separate season pass.

[219] Yeah, the season pass that gets you the next four pieces of DLC.

[220] There'll be some campaign DLC as well, some multiplayer stuff.

[221] But they've not been explicit about what any of that's going to be, right?

[222] Nope.

[223] And you get an exclusive weapon skin with that one, too, that's not part of the other pack.

[224] But as of now, that's all you get for buying that.

[225] But we don't even know if that's going to be like single -player DLC or maps.

[226] It's going to be both.

[227] There's definitely a campaign or some kind of single -player add -on.

[228] So they've said something broadly about what that stuff's going to be?

[229] There's a fat thing in the single -player menu that says coming soon.

[230] Got it.

[231] Do you think it's the same audience that wants campaign stuff and new multiplayer maps?

[232] Like, how many people went out to a midnight launch and bought that game and came home and just went straight to versus and, like, never going to touch the campaign?

[233] That always fascinates me. Yeah.

[234] I suspect that people will go back and play the campaign at some point.

[235] You know, they probably did get home at midnight and start playing multiplayer, but before it got hard.

[236] Probably the majority will, but, I mean, there's always people for every hardcore competitive game has that subset of the audience.

[237] Norman Chan has never played the StarCraft campaign.

[238] He just plays multiplayer.

[239] That's it.

[240] But I think there's more, like, you know...

[241] Call of Duty and Modern Warfare, that's the classic example of people literally have never touched the single player in that.

[242] I imagine there's probably a little more crossover in the Gears audience.

[243] Yeah, I think that it's kind of a...

[244] A quality thing, too.

[245] I think the Gears campaign, they spend a lot more time on it.

[246] It is longer than the Call of Duty campaign.

[247] The Call of Duty campaign, you wouldn't be faulted for looking at it and going like, eh, they put this together specifically so they could have a bullet point to put alongside Yoda's multiplayer.

[248] A location for one of their multiplayer maps.

[249] It's not to say it's bad, but it's clearly...

[250] Right.

[251] I understand why some people would not play the campaign in that one.

[252] When it comes to Gears, it's like, come on, that's...

[253] That's one of the reasons why I've moved more towards renting or borrowing the Call of Duty games because I'm not going to play the multiplayer competitively and still buying Gears of War.

[254] At least I hope there's still single player value in that.

[255] Gears does a great job of being all things to all people in a lot of ways because it does have You know, the single player campaign and the arcade mode that you can play back through the campaign that way if you like.

[256] And some co -op stuff.

[257] And also the co -op stuff.

[258] You know, it's like the competitive multiplayer is outnumbered.

[259] Right.

[260] In a way.

[261] Yeah!

[262] Squeeze it out.

[263] Sure.

[264] I don't want to get those competitive fools out of here.

[265] So that co -op, that's fully integrated, right?

[266] Yeah.

[267] Four players, though.

[268] Yeah, four players through the campaign.

[269] Like, you know, cut scenes, all that stuff.

[270] And arcade mode is the same deal.

[271] It's just it draws numbers on the screen when you kill dudes.

[272] Is that basically the only...

[273] Difference?

[274] Because, I mean, you're getting points in the background even when you play standard.

[275] You can enable mutators in arcade mode also.

[276] And some of those, like, buff the point values, right?

[277] Or harm them, if you can make it easier.

[278] Like an infinite ammo mutator and stuff like that.

[279] But unlocking those requires you to play so much goddamn Gears of War.

[280] It's not just like skulls.

[281] No, you don't just find them.

[282] You have to meet specific in -game tasks, like get 200 kills with a wretch in beast mode.

[283] Stuff that's going to take some time, which is unfortunate because the mutators seem kind of cool.

[284] I understand some of the laugh track one.

[285] It probably makes sense that it's not easy to unlock because that's crazy.

[286] It just laughs every time.

[287] Wow.

[288] I don't know.

[289] It says laugh track.

[290] Play it in front of a live studio audience.

[291] You've not unlocked that because it requires you to play a whole.

[292] Yeah, because it requires you to play way more than even I've played.

[293] And I've played kind of a lot of that game at this point.

[294] Upwards of 45 minutes of Gears of War 3.

[295] That's right.

[296] Where's my last track?

[297] Last game sucks.

[298] Yeah, I don't know.

[299] I think the game's awesome.

[300] I think the story is really well done.

[301] You have not finished it?

[302] About halfway through Act 4.

[303] Okay.

[304] It's Met IC.

[305] All right, yeah, yeah.

[306] He does well.

[307] Announces his presence.

[308] Yes.

[309] In a very prominent fashion.

[310] What's his game name?

[311] Griffin.

[312] Aaron Griffin.

[313] Aaron Griffin.

[314] The CEO of a fuel company.

[315] Yeah, the Facebook page for when I got the skin gave a little brief character description.

[316] I'm like, I didn't know anything about this going in, and this all sounds like the Gears fiction is going in some really crazy directions.

[317] He kind of hams it up a little bit.

[318] He does, yeah.

[319] Maybe more than a little bit.

[320] Maybe more than most.

[321] He lets more than one motherfucker fly.

[322] They let Ice -T explore the space.

[323] I believe his character has a cane that he walks around with.

[324] Ice, just whatever you feel like a motherfucker is appropriate, go ahead and just throw those in there.

[325] Yeah, colors.

[326] We'll find the balance, all right?

[327] So just whenever you're ready, Ice.

[328] Motherfucker.

[329] Yeah, pretty much.

[330] We're not going to use any of this, right?

[331] Basically, his exit is him riding away, giving a middle finger to this.

[332] He refers to Anya as bitch.

[333] Yeah.

[334] To her face.

[335] Yeah, it's...

[336] It is outlandish in the context of the rest of that story, but it works well enough.

[337] They hired Ice -T to play Ice -T.

[338] Yeah, exactly.

[339] What the fuck are you going to tell Ice -T in a vocal booth?

[340] You're Cliff Blazinski.

[341] You get in there with Ice -T, someone you have grown up listening to and obeying.

[342] All right, Ice.

[343] As I have.

[344] What do you say?

[345] No, Ice -T, I just don't think you've got it.

[346] Like, no, fuck.

[347] Well, I really think the character would want to say this.

[348] Do it.

[349] All right, man. I think the only advice...

[350] You don't hire Ice -T unless you want Ice -T to be Ice -T.

[351] I mean, that's the thing.

[352] That's the only note you can give him is, could you be a little more Ice -T?

[353] Well, he plays it pretty straight on...

[354] He does.

[355] You're right.

[356] He actually is a capable actor.

[357] I'm not saying he is a bad actor.

[358] But in this context, it is almost stunt casting.

[359] Kind of.

[360] And it works.

[361] And then, you know, that lets him kind of play a weird role in multiplayer where all of his dialogue is insane and kind of fourth wall -y.

[362] A little bit.

[363] Yeah.

[364] They had some celebrities in two, didn't they?

[365] Was Ice Cube in two?

[366] No. That's Black Ops.

[367] Oh, man. I thought they had somebody in two.

[368] So is Ice -T the biggest name?

[369] They have the guy who played Bender.

[370] on Futurama in all of the Gears of War.

[371] You may know him as Steve Ballmer from Silicon Valley.

[372] I do know him from there.

[373] Fuck yeah, you do.

[374] He sounds a little more bendery in Gears 3 also.

[375] It's a tonal shift for the story.

[376] It's not the gruff fist bump type stuff that it necessarily was in the past and by taking Marcus down a notch it just sounds like that.

[377] That's a little weird.

[378] If he's not yelling battle cries, you think John DiMaggio just sounds like that's his de facto?

[379] Yeah, I guess so.

[380] You're totally right about that campaign, though.

[381] Where I'm at now is my firm opinion this game is dramatically better than Gears 2.

[382] Yeah, and you had just finished Gears 2.

[383] Yeah, so I left off Gears 2 because I played through it on hardcore and it got hard enough that I was like, ah.

[384] But you had finished Gears 2 when it came out.

[385] No, no. No, really?

[386] That's the thing.

[387] Your first campaign was hardcore.

[388] I got to the end of Act 4 and then, yeah.

[389] Put it down.

[390] I don't know.

[391] Whatever.

[392] I just never got back to it.

[393] Got busy with other video games.

[394] That game's kind of tough.

[395] Yeah, it is pretty hard.

[396] So, I mean, I'm playing the new one on Hardcore because you said to.

[397] Yeah.

[398] And it's a way more pleasant experience.

[399] Like, it's definitely taxing, but it's not...

[400] Right.

[401] It's not unpleasant the way that the two got.

[402] And playing it on normal, it just becomes a different game at that point.

[403] I watched you play it on normal and it seemed like a cakewalk.

[404] You just don't even have to take cover.

[405] You're just like running up onto you.

[406] So on hardcore, is it the guys soak up like too many bullets where you're just like sitting behind cover unloading clip after clip?

[407] It doesn't feel like that because I've read this somewhere.

[408] I don't know if this is accurate or not, but somebody was saying that you down enemies faster in this game than in the past.

[409] I don't know if that's true, but it feels like it.

[410] That was always my problem with the other ones on the harder difficulties.

[411] You're running out of ammo before you're killing everyone.

[412] And you just like literally like oh come on a lot of that a lot of that comes from their animation system the enemies just don't flinch that much when you're shooting them like they continue in whatever animation they're in as you're pumping bullets into them and you don't get a sense that they are taking damage i just i would hate i just did not like emptying like a full clip into a guy and sitting there and like reloading and then that doesn't happen even on hardcore you know i mean if you're aiming properly like shoot boomers in the head And unload a full clip into their head, and they go down.

[413] It always seemed like there was, in normal and past years, there is a specific balance of, we know that it's going to take you a full clip from the Lancer to take down this enemy, and that was a specific choice to make it take that much damage.

[414] Just so that your reload timing would require you to actually use cover, things like that.

[415] Yeah, it all ties together.

[416] I want to say it's not each enemy takes so much damage now, it's that there are more of them.

[417] I don't know if that's accurate or not.

[418] It feels like there are more enemies at a time.

[419] Bigger environments.

[420] I mean, you have, like, a larger crew of people with you more frequently this time, and it feels like the areas are bigger.

[421] That's what they were always talking about, like Cliff always talking about leading up to, was that, yeah, wider path.

[422] And that's partially because we're going to do this four -player multiplayer or four -player co -op.

[423] You've got to have that room in that pack.

[424] And sometimes you have more than four people with you on top of that, some AI guys and stuff.

[425] So, Brad, did you just finish Gears 2 over the weekend?

[426] Yeah, late last week sometime.

[427] Yeah, I played through the last act of Gears 2 just to see how it wrapped up.

[428] The ending was kind of meh.

[429] A little flat.

[430] I remember the very ending, but there's some great set pieces leading up to the ending.

[431] It's also pretty good.

[432] I feel like the last minute or two is a good setup for the next game.

[433] Kind of.

[434] It's a little dark and a little kind of like second act -y.

[435] But you're right.

[436] The stuff that happens at the end of the game is all of a sudden just kind of like, what the?

[437] You guys are adding a lot into the pancakes here.

[438] Yes and no. I don't know.

[439] I feel like I remember distinctly feeling after finishing Gears 2 basically in one sitting.

[440] Going like, nothing really happened.

[441] They started out, shit was bad.

[442] And now it's like, shit is still bad.

[443] It's bad in maybe a different way.

[444] But it was definitely very second act -y.

[445] Well, definitely the second act of gone from bad to worse.

[446] Yeah.

[447] But I thought they started adding in, it was the...

[448] They started making it more of a trilogy.

[449] Then the first one was very standalone.

[450] And then the second one, they're like, okay, we're going to make this a franchise.

[451] We know where this goes.

[452] Let's flesh out these other characters.

[453] Add in some more factions.

[454] Let's make this universe a little bit broader.

[455] I don't know, man. Rustlum.

[456] Sure.

[457] All right.

[458] That's right.

[459] We have time to explore this now.

[460] I mean, what was the checkpoint list?

[461] Like, they introduced the concept of the Lambent or Lambency.

[462] Yes.

[463] Well, it's every kind of...

[464] Look at every single shooter and kind of action thing that has spawned a franchise, right?

[465] You have your first one where you're, I fight Ryan, right?

[466] And then, okay, this worked out.

[467] This sold.

[468] Ryan was a really good opponent, but we beat him in the first one.

[469] So now maybe Ryan has a common enemy that's Brad.

[470] So I'm going to team up.

[471] No, no, no. I come back stronger in the sequel, and then we fight through the sequel.

[472] And during the sequel, this third party is introduced into the mixing room.

[473] Everyone's like, what are these guys?

[474] Who's the Brads?

[475] And then you get to the third one.

[476] It's like, oh, wait, the Brads are really bad.

[477] The Vinny's and the Ryan's have to team up.

[478] I feel like that usually happens in the second one.

[479] We're like, you and I, let's team up.

[480] Let's put aside our differences and take on the Brads.

[481] because you and I were fighting for something, but Brad's going to destroy the world.

[482] So that's more important than whatever you and I were fighting for.

[483] But then that's part three.

[484] Part three is that.

[485] Part three is usually like, yes.

[486] I should come out and say that Gears of War 3 is not that.

[487] Yeah.

[488] For the record.

[489] Well, it's not.

[490] Two seemed like it was going there.

[491] So two definitely seemed like, okay, I'm going to come to more of an understanding of Ryan and understand his problems.

[492] We were fighting, but they were probably fighting for something.

[493] In the first one, it's never It gives nothing away to say that in Gears of War 3, everyone wants to kill everyone.

[494] Yes.

[495] That's how it is.

[496] Alright, well, get me back up to speed.

[497] Remind me of the events of the end of Gears 2, because I remember they sink that fucking city.

[498] I remember they sink that fucking city.

[499] The stuff that sticks out is that by the end of that game, they have introduced the Lambent, they have sunk the last human city, and you, the player, knows that Adam Phoenix is still alive.

[500] Although nobody in the universe, I don't think, knows.

[501] But I think...

[502] Someone in the universe does know that, but you don't know that they know that.

[503] I think even bigger than that, the Lambent being the kind of spin -off from the Locusts, which you realize that the Locusts have bigger problems than just you, that they have this kind of civil war going on.

[504] So in Gears 2, as far as I remember, Lambent are basically just glowing Locusts.

[505] They basically function and they explode, but that's about it.

[506] And they also make things huge.

[507] In Gears 3, you are made to understand what the Lambent...

[508] what lamency really is and it's fucking crazy.

[509] They go nuts.

[510] They go crazy with the enemy.

[511] The laments are not just glowing locusts with guns anymore.

[512] No, because they explode.

[513] No, it's way beyond.

[514] Now they mutate into crazy shit and grow weird arms and then you shoot the arms off and then they explode.

[515] Totally different.

[516] So at the end you fight that giant...

[517] thing in two.

[518] Remember how crazy that thing got with the mutations?

[519] Imagine if all the Lamb did stuff like that.

[520] I forgot about that.

[521] That part wasn't great.

[522] I was thinking about while the city is sinking, you're in the hotel and you get on the Brumac and all that stuff is awesome.

[523] That stuff was good, you're right.

[524] But that last 10 or 15 minutes is a little.

[525] Yeah, I remember now.

[526] Shoot in the helicopter or something, right?

[527] Blow it up.

[528] I don't feel like it's spoiling anything to say that going underground, not a big part of the game.

[529] That's good.

[530] I spent a lot of time underground.

[531] It's summer.

[532] You know, like all the stuff they've been saying about it's summertime and you're going to see exposed arms and like nice weather.

[533] Like it actually gives summertime and things are heating up.

[534] That's right.

[535] Exactly.

[536] In more ways than one.

[537] It's like just put on your SPS.

[538] Lamb and rich on a beach just rubbing on sunscreen.

[539] I'm going to blow up if I stay out here.

[540] I do understand these guys better now.

[541] Yeah.

[542] To our daiquiris!

[543] To the cabana!

[544] You know what?

[545] That is actually what really sticks out to me, is that you do actually understand the characters in this game, finally.

[546] Well, just from the multiplayer, I mean, I don't know if it's spoiled much, but when we're playing the multiplayer beta, you could see the different classes and one of them being a talking locust queen kind of sets up a situation where, okay, at least there's going to be some avenue of communication now with the locust.

[547] And she's in Gears 2.

[548] She's in Gears 2, right.

[549] She's better.

[550] But seeing her as a multiplayer character, like kind of crazy.

[551] Well, yeah, but also it's like, okay, obviously now since she can verbalize and talk, you have now put a face and a kind of voice to the enemy so they can be like, Hey, let me tell you why we're killing you instead of the first one where we're just, you know, just killing them.

[552] Yeah, these bad guys.

[553] Hissing noises.

[554] These are covenant bad guys.

[555] How did you introduce the queen?

[556] It just becomes very zergy to me. I think once you introduce a...

[557] I mean, you need it, I guess.

[558] I want to...

[559] She has a human face.

[560] I want to know what the fuck.

[561] Yeah.

[562] Why is she a human or why does she appear to be a human?

[563] We're not so different.

[564] That's a fantastic question.

[565] I know.

[566] I'm going to be really upset if they don't answer that question.

[567] The Locusts have very good cosmetic surgery, and it's a weird elite thing where they just want human faces.

[568] Really gross, actually.

[569] They graft human faces onto themselves.

[570] That's why they want to kill everybody?

[571] Yeah, they just want their faces.

[572] I don't know.

[573] The storytelling feels a lot more direct and effective as a result.

[574] There's a coherence to it that the first two games lack.

[575] It seems like there's care given to the characters themselves, which is not just...

[576] Marcus, not just Dom.

[577] It's like the stuff with Cole I thought was cool.

[578] Yeah, there's a really good Cole moment in the first act.

[579] So I guess the big question for me is, does it feel like the end of a trilogy?

[580] Absolutely, yeah.

[581] The best part about this game is that there's closure.

[582] So it doesn't feel like you're waiting for Gears 4?

[583] No, no. I mean, there are things that they leave unanswered in this game.

[584] There are things that I wish I knew more about.

[585] I almost wonder if there will be a book or something that explains some of this stuff.

[586] Does it seem intentionally left unanswered or did they just forgot about it?

[587] Because it's stuff that wouldn't necessarily lead to another trilogy of games.

[588] It's more like, but at the end of this, things have happened, situations get resolved.

[589] You can walk away and feel like that was the Gears trilogy.

[590] Yeah, there you go.

[591] That was the Gears trilogy.

[592] To go anywhere from here.

[593] You know, they'll probably have to come up with some new characters, different stories in this universe, different types of games in this universe, or, you know, like, whatever it ends up being.

[594] That is the story of Marcus Phoenix.

[595] Of young Marcus Phoenix.

[596] Yeah, I could see, like, you know, Gears of War, colon, the Pendulum Wars, and just have it be...

[597] You fought in the Pendulum Wars?

[598] Yeah.

[599] I just wonder, like, what does...

[600] It sounds like Epic is done with this at least for a little bit here.

[601] I wonder what...

[602] That is not the same organization that it was before they started making these Gears games.

[603] I wonder what their focus is as a developer now that this is wrapped and done.

[604] I think it's Unreal Engine 4 and turning that tech demo that they put out for Unreal Engine 4 into a game.

[605] You think Samaritan is the next game?

[606] Yeah.

[607] I mean...

[608] It makes sense.

[609] They didn't make that Brumac for nothing.

[610] They didn't put all that artist man hours into it.

[611] They could have never wasted any of those assets.

[612] They're not going to put that much effort into making art or something that's going to go out as a tech demo.

[613] That Brumac is going to be in Forza, and you're going to be able to look around it, look under the hood, and check it out.

[614] I don't want to see the inside of a Brumac.

[615] You look underneath it.

[616] Definitely don't want to look underneath the Brumac.

[617] Pull up the loincloth.

[618] And then there's a very nice British lady to tell you about what's under the loincloth.

[619] 4 .3 liter.

[620] Sack.

[621] Still can't talk about Forza?

[622] No, not until Friday.

[623] I honestly don't have that much to say about it.

[624] Okay.

[625] The things you already know about Forza continue to be in Forza.

[626] Are you suggesting this is the fourth Forza game?

[627] Yeah.

[628] Forza.

[629] I am extremely excited to play that game when it is released.

[630] Yeah.

[631] Forza.

[632] Now Microsoft lawyer is coming down in this office right now.

[633] I would have said that before going and playing it.

[634] It's not.

[635] Yeah.

[636] No, I'm excited to get into Gears 3.

[637] I am totally excited to play some damn Gears 3.

[638] I don't know how they managed to get me hooked on more of the narrative stuff than the gameplay stuff, but somehow they did.

[639] It's shocking to me that it's as much better as it is.

[640] Because I thought that was really the weak spot of the first two games.

[641] Was the narrative?

[642] It was a little bit nonsensical, and the characters were super one -dimensional.

[643] It's a kind of interesting universe, but also Resistance kind of had an interesting universe.

[644] But they totally lost me in the second act of that game.

[645] That's what I'm saying.

[646] It's a great backdrop.

[647] They don't convey what's going on and why you need to be doing it and why it matters.

[648] The stuff with Resistance was like you were finding items in the world that are telling you the main story that don't get explained in the game.

[649] But also Resistance just did a thing of by the end of the second one, giving you no reason to care about the characters anymore.

[650] And then doesn't even Resistance 3, isn't it kind of more of a sequel to Resistance 1 than Resistance 2?

[651] I hope so.

[652] It's kind of how Patrick characterized it.

[653] Yeah, Patrick has nice things.

[654] But it's one of those things that by the end of Resistance 2, I kind of didn't care about the universe anymore.

[655] By the beginning of Resistance 2, I didn't care about it.

[656] That's kind of how I felt at the end of Gears 2.

[657] Like, I jumped into 2, Resistance 2, really excited to see where it went.

[658] And then I feel like it really fell flat.

[659] And then I was like, all right.

[660] See, Brad, I'll agree with you on, like, the storytelling, like, the narrative.

[661] But I think as a universe, like, as a setting, the Gears stuff has always been interesting.

[662] And it's almost more to the fact of, like, because they don't or haven't really explained a lot of what the hell is.

[663] Like, the first game is, like, busting you out of jail.

[664] Bad shit's going on.

[665] Go.

[666] And, like, that's kind of all you know.

[667] Yeah.

[668] And it's like, oh, I'm going to team up with these guys.

[669] Obviously, I have some history with this guy.

[670] Right.

[671] But you derive just from the dialogue and then fight crazy fucking underground monsters.

[672] There's definitely something to be said about, like, busting out of jail to your characters having a confidence in the universe that they already know what's going on, even if you don't.

[673] So, like, Marcus knows this war's been going on forever.

[674] Kind of knows his shit.

[675] Jump in and fight.

[676] Yeah.

[677] Versus, like, discovering it of, like, oh, aliens landed.

[678] There's a real economy to the storytelling in 3.

[679] Like, the Marcus Backstory stuff, there's, like, a real quick playable flashback that explains, like, five different things about where he came from and what's up with his father and, like, why he was in jail.

[680] All this stuff.

[681] And then on top of that, there's a previously in Gears of War video.

[682] Oh, is that on there?

[683] That's great.

[684] A track mode thing that, you know, doesn't necessarily go over the story beats of the first two games.

[685] It more just sets you up and let you go, hey.

[686] Humanity is super fucked.

[687] Like, we fucking, man, we thought we had them, but we don't have them.

[688] Things are going super bad.

[689] Vinny, what edition did you get?

[690] Regular.

[691] Standard.

[692] 60 bucks.

[693] 60 bucks.

[694] You don't want the fat cog?

[695] No. I will report from Jeff's super special edition.

[696] That thing is heavy and kind of awesome.

[697] Yeah, the box that the game comes in and the little flag and the cog in there.

[698] It's got the little metal thing.

[699] The little Adam Phoenix cog thing is pretty cool.

[700] I think the craziest part about it is that they etch a unique Xbox code into the back of that thing.

[701] Do they?

[702] All of them?

[703] Yeah.

[704] Even the ones that come in this edition?

[705] Oh.

[706] I don't think the ones that come in this edition have it because I pulled mine out.

[707] Really?

[708] Unless I missed it.

[709] I don't think it does.

[710] There's the other ones that they have given out at events and put out in the world and stuff that do have those codes.

[711] Hmm.

[712] But I don't know that these...

[713] I swear it said that on the...

[714] Do you have it here?

[715] No, I don't have it here.

[716] You should check.

[717] Always around my neck.

[718] Yeah.

[719] Never drop your cog.

[720] Right.

[721] Yep, just regular old play some Gears of War 3.

[722] Yeah.

[723] That one is perfectly fine to get.

[724] Like I said, I think that the epic edition that they put out is, like, super well made if you're into statues of dudes.

[725] Yeah.

[726] The statue is, like, 80 % of the package.

[727] Right.

[728] In terms of...

[729] And then there's an art book, you know, if that's the thing.

[730] But the box, the game comes in with the, you know, like...

[731] Folds open all nice.

[732] Yeah.

[733] Has the gear in there.

[734] And I guess it's a flag, right?

[735] I don't really have enough room in my apartment anymore for that kind of stuff.

[736] Yeah, totally.

[737] I mean, why should you?

[738] I don't know.

[739] You're a grown -ass man. You're going to put, here's Sarge's Venus.

[740] He's got a gun.

[741] He's on one knee.

[742] He'll make me take my Gundams down.

[743] Put it right next to my Halo helmet.

[744] I'm like, no, come on.

[745] I'm not moving my Halo helmet.

[746] You're crazy.

[747] I haven't moved my Halo helmet, but that's only because it has to go somewhere.

[748] Right.

[749] So it's.

[750] And I have two of them.

[751] I ended up with two of them somehow, which...

[752] Ah, sucker.

[753] Yeah, big packaging is sometimes cool on a store shelf, but then once it's in your house...

[754] I can never bring it home, because I will look at it and go, like, that's not going to fit.

[755] Like, that's going to have to go on some weird other shelf away from everything else.

[756] They kind of feel bad throwing it out.

[757] Like, oh, that kind of is a nice box.

[758] All right, trash.

[759] I just don't want to...

[760] I already do have an abundance of gaming memorabilia all over my house.

[761] But it's...

[762] like two or three levels cooler than the shit that comes with the collector's edition.

[763] Oh, just like...

[764] Yeah, the stuff that you're going to put in your house is going to be like, I got this on a weird trip or this was a limited thing.

[765] Hey, check out this broken soundboard.

[766] Here's the, you know, PS1 Shikato tambourine mini -modi game.

[767] Here is a 6x6 mirror with the Vice City logo on it.

[768] There's also...

[769] There's also a pillow with a razor blade on it.

[770] There's also a point in my life that says Vice City below it.

[771] You know that Vice City shit was the...

[772] I know.

[773] I still have that on my...

[774] I know you do.

[775] On my...

[776] Fridge.

[777] God damn it.

[778] That is the best piece of swag that has ever been produced.

[779] Straight up.

[780] Good lord.

[781] There's also a point too where it's just like, is that the stuff I choose to display now in my house or my apartment?

[782] Like, is this the wall of video game stuff or is this going to be like wedding photos or something else?

[783] Pictures of children.

[784] No, this is going to be my Coke mirror.

[785] That's on the fridge.

[786] That's just on the fridge.

[787] Well, that's a usable item.

[788] It's got magnets on the back so it just sticks to the fridge nicely.

[789] So, yeah, at some point.

[790] It's not just sitting on the coffee table.

[791] At some point.

[792] It's baby powder.

[793] I changed the baby on it.

[794] What you want.

[795] Yeah, what you choose to display.

[796] That stuff maybe is not for me anymore.

[797] Baby being my moves.

[798] But I still do like a collector's edition if they're going to include fiction that supports it.

[799] Like that Halo diary was actually pretty cool.

[800] Yeah, that was neat.

[801] I read that thing.

[802] I mean the stuff they get me with is like in -game stuff.

[803] And that's cool if they could just send me a code from Amazon.

[804] Give me the box.

[805] Put a piece of paper in it.

[806] It does make pre -ordering games from Amazon a little extra Christmassy.

[807] Is that the day that, okay, I pre -ordered it and it's set to deliver on day of release and then that morning.

[808] So it's a little warm up.

[809] It's like, hey, Gears of War 3 is coming.

[810] Here's your code.

[811] Here's your code.

[812] I'm like, great.

[813] I can go hit this on Xbox .com and look at it and say, you got the thing.

[814] I'm like, great.

[815] This afternoon when I come home.

[816] Pre -ordering games still sucks.

[817] Is it pre -ordering?

[818] Not from Amazon.

[819] I guess pre -ordering, technically it is, but if you're just like, I'm going to buy this, I don't necessarily need to reserve it because they're not going to run out Amazon.

[820] With Amazon specifically, it's more just I'm taking care of the transaction ahead of time so that it will be at my house the day it comes out and I don't have to go to a store.

[821] Right.

[822] Sure.

[823] Yeah, I don't feel like they are reserving inventory.

[824] I think people should read video game reviews and then...

[825] And then buy games.

[826] I did, and then I pre -ordered Gears of War 3.

[827] Okay, well, yeah, all right, yeah.

[828] I mean, I guess in this specific case, sure.

[829] Yeah, come on.

[830] And, yeah.

[831] Whatever, I'm going to, you know, I was, by that same notion, I was going and pre -ordering, like, you know, Arkham City and Uncharted 3, because I'm going to want to play those games.

[832] I know that.

[833] Yeah, there's some games that I'm going to play regardless of if they're good or bad.

[834] If Gears of War 3 were terrible, I'd still want to know how that terribly ends up.

[835] And it's not like the little pre -order bobble is like, oh, that's why I want to do this.

[836] No, it's because I get a day of.

[837] I don't pay shipping.

[838] I don't pay taxes.

[839] It's there at my house.

[840] I don't have to worry about, oh, we've got to go to the Best Buy or the GameStop.

[841] You very possibly got $20 off the order.

[842] Yeah.

[843] It's hard to turn down.

[844] It's so weird.

[845] Shazam.

[846] And pay me $20 to buy Gears of War 3.

[847] I'm not paying you a nickel.

[848] No, Fred Amazon did.

[849] Frederico Amazon -y?

[850] That's right.

[851] Zucchini Amazon.

[852] Hey, I gave you 20 bucks.

[853] Come on.

[854] You got it, Fred.

[855] I could never argue with you.

[856] You're so nice.

[857] Got all these copies of that.

[858] Gears 3.

[859] I don't know where this accent has gone.

[860] Yeah, it's Fred Amazon -ian.

[861] Oh, come on.

[862] Then yeah, you don't.

[863] All right.

[864] Does that ever get – do we ever get a good ah, come on?

[865] Oh, constantly.

[866] Okay, good.

[867] He says it when you're boning up your active records.

[868] Yeah, he says it when you miss an active – Do you think they're recycling that line or do you think they have him record that again?

[869] I don't know.

[870] I'm sure he's – He says that every time he says it, he says it the exact same way.

[871] It's just the only way he says it.

[872] He says that line in his sleep at this point.

[873] Yeah.

[874] But I wonder if they had him do, like, 20 reads.

[875] So it's like, yeah, we use a slightly different take this time.

[876] Are the teeth clenched, maybe?

[877] Because things are dire.

[878] Because if you do 20 each game, now we've got 60 of them.

[879] No, I'm saying, like, they did 20 in the first game and then just, like, use.

[880] I'm not even saying they use all 20, but you do 20 so that you have, like, one or two or three good ones.

[881] Marcus Fenix is a different man, though, though.

[882] Like, he's...

[883] I'll find out.

[884] They go through some shit.

[885] They turn it on for combat.

[886] Yeah, yeah.

[887] So when they're fighting, they just sound like they always sound.

[888] The coal train runs on whole grain.

[889] Exactly.

[890] Well, we'll table this for now.

[891] We'll come back next week after we and I have had a chance to chew into that sun.

[892] Did you play any other games?

[893] I did.

[894] I kind of did a...

[895] So when I finished up The Witcher 2, I kind of went into Space Marine and finished that up.

[896] And then oddly left me in a weird place because I was then presented with a bounty of different things to play.

[897] Got the Deus Ex.

[898] But I wasn't really prepared to commit to any one game.

[899] Got the Dead Island.

[900] Dead Island, Deus Ex, Resistance 3, and then a bunch of Gamefly stuff.

[901] So I wound up playing...

[902] castlevania lords of shadow a bunch and i actually really like it really yeah i'm actually really i think if you come at it or at least for me it's like whatever they could have called that game medieval dude crusader right they did they probably should have there was a period of time where it was just called lords of shadow yeah there's there's very little castlevania to be had in that game.

[903] Well, almost at this point in the game with me, it's kind of zero.

[904] The guy's name is Belmont.

[905] You are a Belmont.

[906] Yeah, I think you're the first Belmont.

[907] I think so, because you're part of the order.

[908] There's no other history.

[909] Nobody's even mentioned a vampire at this point in the game.

[910] I mean, the combat is not even predominantly whip -based.

[911] There is whipping, but you've got that cross weapon.

[912] That is the whip.

[913] I mean, I know it sort of whips out, but it's not exactly the same.

[914] It's pretty whippy.

[915] I know it functions as a whip in a lot of cases, depending on how you're attacking, but it's not...

[916] I don't think there's ever, like, a melee, just kind of bash a guy with that.

[917] It's always kind of...

[918] But the character is very different, you know?

[919] He's part of this monastic order, and it's very ceremonial.

[920] The combat is more...

[921] If you were to consider, like, the God of War chain blades as a whip, that is kind of what the combat feels like.

[922] You're just basically making these circles.

[923] I'm just talking about when he walks around, he's carrying this giant cross and not, like, having a whip oil on his belt.

[924] But I like the character.

[925] I think that game looks pretty cool.

[926] I was just turned off by, yeah, it's very God of War derivative in the gameplay.

[927] Some of it, but I seem to remember a lot of people complaining about platforming.

[928] I'm not having too big of an issue with that.

[929] I'm on Chapter 3, but there's a lot of chapters in between, so probably about 15, 20 hours in, maybe more like 10, 15.

[930] The platform we're not having too big a deal.

[931] There's a lot of wall climbing ledges and scooting over ledges and stuff like that.

[932] I thought a lot of the camera angles were kind of poor.

[933] It's a fixed camera, so you can't move the camera.

[934] That's kind of annoying.

[935] In a lot of cases, it's pulled too far out to navigate what you're trying to get through and stuff like that.

[936] It hasn't been too big a deal for me yet.

[937] The biggest complaint I've heard is that the game is too damn long.

[938] And so at some point, so far it's been great for me. The variety has been a lot of things to keep me moving.

[939] They keep giving me new powers, feeding me those.

[940] At some point, if there are just long stretches of doing the same thing, because the combat isn't that engaging, then I can see it really dragging and being like, man, really?

[941] Another 10 hours of just this.

[942] But so far, I actually really like it.

[943] I think it's well presented.

[944] I think the presentation is kind of done.

[945] Patrick Stewart.

[946] There's a lot of Patrick Stewart in it.

[947] Yeah, there's a lot of Patrick Stewart.

[948] There's just weird stuff in it.

[949] It's a very different game than I thought it would be.

[950] There's some Shadow of the Colossus in it.

[951] You're kind of climbing up these giant titans.

[952] Yeah, from the first boss.

[953] There's riding on mounts.

[954] I don't know.

[955] So far, it's been engaging.

[956] I didn't like the horse riding.

[957] I didn't mind it.

[958] I think it's all right.

[959] So anyway, I want to play more than that than I thought I would.

[960] I thought I'd play it.

[961] and maybe get a taste for it and then send it back.

[962] Getting your Gamefly value out of it.

[963] So I end up buying it from Gamefly.

[964] Hang on, hang on.

[965] So you kept it?

[966] I kept it after that.

[967] How many times over have you paid the full retail price of that game?

[968] The full retail price or the price that I paid for it?

[969] Well, either or.

[970] You paid $20 for it.

[971] Yeah, I paid...

[972] Less.

[973] But I'm talking about if you have a one -disc Gamefly account.

[974] Oh, yeah.

[975] I get it.

[976] I probably paid like 80 bucks for that game sitting on my coffee table for a period of months.

[977] So I'm glad I'm enjoying it after keeping it for this long.

[978] So after I bought that, they were able to send me the other game, which was supposed to be Resistance coming, but apparently that is not available.

[979] Never is.

[980] That's why I dumped them, because the availability just went to shit.

[981] Yeah, so I was kind of really bummed.

[982] I was really hoping to play that this weekend, so Killzone 3 showed up.

[983] So I played a bunch of that, and I'm not liking that as much.

[984] I just, something about it.

[985] Rico, it's the Rico -ness of it.

[986] I still hate Rico.

[987] And I try to shoot him every chance I get, but he never dies.

[988] Never dies.

[989] Even in 3D.

[990] Keep pumping him full of holes.

[991] Invincible Rico.

[992] Just have him go fight this guy.

[993] I like Killzone 2 up until...

[994] No, that's how we got into this mess.

[995] Yeah, up until Killzone 2 turned into Rico's story.

[996] And then it's funny that Killzone 3 literally picks up right after that.

[997] It just brought back all those memories.

[998] You're basically walking out of the room and there's Rico right there.

[999] And you're like, what the fuck, Rico?

[1000] Really?

[1001] Are we partnered with this guy?

[1002] Oh, this is terrible.

[1003] I don't want to be partnered with him.

[1004] It's like developers rubbing your face in it.

[1005] Gorilla's just like, no. Yeah, you're stuck with him.

[1006] But there are some things.

[1007] I don't remember Killzone 2 having the revive.

[1008] Did it revive you?

[1009] Yeah.

[1010] It did?

[1011] A little zap gun.

[1012] Yeah.

[1013] In the single player?

[1014] Yeah.

[1015] Okay.

[1016] Because it's weird in 3.

[1017] This just seems weird.

[1018] I don't know.

[1019] It seems like it's breaking me out of the fiction every time I go down and then fucking Rico has to come and revive me. I can't beat you.

[1020] Yeah.

[1021] Maybe that's what's annoying me is that when I die I have to count on him.

[1022] to come and save my life well you have to count on the AI and it's in Killzone 2 there's a lot of cases I can't get over there I can see you for a year in Killzone 3 I had cases where like he was crouched next to me I can't make it.

[1023] I'm like, fuck you, you useless fuck.

[1024] The brutal kills are kind of interesting, but they take up too much time.

[1025] I wish they didn't because every time I go up.

[1026] That eyeball stab is so good.

[1027] It's so good, but then you get shot by everybody while you're doing it.

[1028] And it's like, no, just stab the guy and move on or butt him with your gun.

[1029] Don't be such an asshole and you'll live.

[1030] But I still think that game looks really good.

[1031] And some of the animation stuff, I still like.

[1032] The kind of fluidity and stuff.

[1033] Though it gets in the way sometimes.

[1034] It's one of those things where it was interesting reviewing that game having not played Killzone 2 since it was released.

[1035] Or right around its release.

[1036] Because at some point they patched Killzone 2 to change the controls.

[1037] Or to kind of update the controls and make them a little more...

[1038] To kind of take some of the weight out of them.

[1039] And I guess ideally trying to reduce some of the input lag.

[1040] So Killzone 3 just comes like that.

[1041] Yeah.

[1042] I actually had to slow it down.

[1043] I had to make it less sensitive because it was just – I couldn't – it was too finicky for me for some reason.

[1044] Yeah.

[1045] It was weird.

[1046] So Killzone 3 comes like that and having not played Killzone 2 too much after reviewing that, it was like, man, this feels so different.

[1047] It's crazy.

[1048] And then I went back and played Killzone 2 and it downloaded like nine patches.

[1049] Like, oh, wait.

[1050] This is identical.

[1051] Right.

[1052] Yeah, it did seem like it was the controls.

[1053] Oh, just like that much difference from when Killzone 2 launched and what it became.

[1054] That it was pretty much the same damn game.

[1055] But yeah, there's some cool stuff.

[1056] Do you know if they released that patch like...

[1057] After Killzone, or like around the release of Killzone 3?

[1058] No, no, no. It was like way, way before.

[1059] It was only two, three months after it came out.

[1060] It was like one of those things where there's people constantly complaining about the feel of the game.

[1061] And I thought Killzone 2 felt kind of fine as is.

[1062] It seemed like a deliberate choice and not a, why is this game broken?

[1063] But so it was one of the cases where everyone wants everything to play like Call of Duty.

[1064] And they bowed to that pressure or something.

[1065] I think it actually does control better once they made the change.

[1066] I'm enjoying it so far.

[1067] Aside from my personal feelings on Rico.

[1068] There's an issue.

[1069] There's a weird story thing where they totally bone up.

[1070] somewhere along the way that like wait why okay I've played this in flashback already and it went this very specific way why is it not going that way now huh like it does like a four hours earlier and then you play back up to that point and do that thing again and it's totally different why why you've changed the timeline yeah Totally stupid.

[1071] I'm having some weird audio issues with it.

[1072] It sounds like it should be one of those, like, you know, perceived from another perspective.

[1073] No, you were playing as the same dude.

[1074] Right, right.

[1075] And it's, yeah, it's...

[1076] Or there would be some sort of reveal later of, like, that's why there's a difference.

[1077] Right.

[1078] Luckily for me, my memory is shit, so I can't remember even what happened in the beginning of the game.

[1079] You were dressed up as enemy dudes walking.

[1080] Okay, now I remember.

[1081] When you go back to that part, totally fucking different.

[1082] Really?

[1083] Yeah.

[1084] Right, because the tutorial of that game is you as a...

[1085] Yeah, exactly.

[1086] So when you go back to it, it's not a tutorial sequence the second time around.

[1087] Weird.

[1088] And you're, like, taking different paths and doing different stuff, and it makes no sense.

[1089] It still ends up the way that ends up.

[1090] That would be pretty funny, though, if they did the tutorial again of, like, grab this gun.

[1091] Now aim down the sights.

[1092] Right.

[1093] Good job.

[1094] You obviously like inverted controls.

[1095] It makes no sense.

[1096] I really like...

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] Whoever wrote the story for that gets an F. Rico.

[1099] Rico wrote the story.

[1100] I'll make my part bigger.

[1101] There are parts of the story that are totally fine, but that part of it is so broken.

[1102] How do you actually release that?

[1103] I don't know.

[1104] Insane.

[1105] Insane.

[1106] I wonder if that was just a last minute, like, fuck, we need to have some sort of storytelling device or some kind of mechanic.

[1107] I imagine maybe the...

[1108] The device was there, but they're like, okay, we need some sort of tutorial in here.

[1109] We don't have anywhere in here where we actually show people, explain to people how to play Killzone.

[1110] Like, ah, it's a first -person shooter.

[1111] People can figure that out.

[1112] It's like, no, you need something.

[1113] No, you have to do something.

[1114] I wonder.

[1115] It's fun.

[1116] So then I put a story.

[1117] That's it?

[1118] That's it?

[1119] What?

[1120] Do you think you can hang with this and Gears at the same time?

[1121] Two gritty, mostly brown -looking shooters?

[1122] You know, I'm getting to the point where I'm starting so many games, I just need to, I think, concentrate and finish.

[1123] Gears is not as brown as it has.

[1124] No, no. That was the one thing we didn't really touch on, is that the game looks fucking incredible.

[1125] Like, it looks so much better.

[1126] I haven't played two so recently.

[1127] Like, it looks so much better now.

[1128] That's kind of one of the benefits of them not spending a ton of time underground.

[1129] Yeah.

[1130] The lighting.

[1131] A lot more dramatic use of lighting.

[1132] Like, almost Resistance 3 style.

[1133] Some of the same kind of stuff.

[1134] I just really liked that sequence when you were inside that giant worm.

[1135] That part was so fucking gnarly.

[1136] Nothing like that.

[1137] It's kind of nothing like that in the whole game.

[1138] No, like, weird set piece.

[1139] The set pieces are not as crazy as they were in the movie.

[1140] The set pieces are more just like, oh, God, look how many guys there are.

[1141] We are fucked.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] I don't know, like, yeah, so I'm at this point where I'm starting so many things, I'm kind of getting overwhelmed, getting that weird, like, paralysis of, like, I just don't even know what to play right now.

[1144] I'm kind of in the beginning of Deus Ex, played a little more of that.

[1145] Castlevania, I'm already invested a couple hours in.

[1146] Killzone, 3, I'll probably have to finish that.

[1147] I would really like to jump into Resistance, because Patrick says the story, and that's pretty good.

[1148] Gears, I'm definitely going to drop in.

[1149] Whatchamacallit, the...

[1150] Rebel Assault.

[1151] What's the...

[1152] Renegade Ops.

[1153] I want to jump into that some more.

[1154] That game is pretty great.

[1155] So it's definitely like all these things that are open.

[1156] And then something's coming out soon on Steam.

[1157] Everything's coming out soon.

[1158] When's Rage come out?

[1159] Like two weeks?

[1160] Beginning of October?

[1161] Three weeks, October 4th.

[1162] Yeah, yeah.

[1163] So that's the date.

[1164] I could just see that.

[1165] Oh, I played some more.

[1166] I played a bunch of Kill Switch.

[1167] What?

[1168] Hard Reset.

[1169] What?

[1170] I'm like literally just looking down.

[1171] Names are just flying at me. He's just playing.

[1172] He's like, he's getting back to the original Gears.

[1173] He's like, no, I have to play through the entire Gears trilogy before I can play Gears 3.

[1174] And that actually starts with Kill Switch.

[1175] Kill Switch.

[1176] The game that spawned the cover fire.

[1177] Hard reset.

[1178] Played a bunch of that.

[1179] I mean, turbo button.

[1180] That game's pretty good.

[1181] It's fun.

[1182] That game's maybe too easy.

[1183] I played about 20 minutes of it, and I basically played up to the first upgrade station or something like that.

[1184] It's a little mindless.

[1185] I like the way it looks, but yeah.

[1186] It's super mindless.

[1187] It's very narrow in scope.

[1188] It doesn't seem like it ever gets into huge, huge levels.

[1189] Also, I don't know if the enemies vary that much.

[1190] I've only seen about three different...

[1191] Do you later on?

[1192] Yeah, everything early on is all those little guys.

[1193] There's the little guys.

[1194] You get the big, giant, kind of ape -looking thing.

[1195] I've not played enough to know if it gets any better than that.

[1196] Just last week, I blew all of the dust out of my PC so I can run PC games again.

[1197] Did that work?

[1198] Yeah.

[1199] Okay.

[1200] Yeah, like a bunch of, like a, yeah.

[1201] I had to take it outside.

[1202] Just air it out?

[1203] Okay, there.

[1204] No, Will Smith gave me a little squeezy, air blowy thing.

[1205] That was the old EU's, and that worked out.

[1206] Inside the grills on the CPU fan, it was just completely...

[1207] It was just overheating?

[1208] Literally, I go out and do that, plug it back in, and after fiddling with some RAM stuff, like 20 degrees Celsius drops in temperature on my CPU.

[1209] That's pretty good.

[1210] It went from being like, this is way too hot, to like, yeah, this is about...

[1211] You can operate like this?

[1212] I can understand why you were chugging on games and occasionally locking up, because it's not a good temperature for it.

[1213] CPU, but yes, hard reset, fun.

[1214] Yeah, the upgrade trees are fun.

[1215] Just seeing the gun transform is kind of cool.

[1216] Though...

[1217] Actually, the last time that I booted it up, which was sometime last week, I noticed that there was a fast menus option.

[1218] Oh, yeah.

[1219] Who wants that?

[1220] After hearing you guys talk about the menus, it popped up and said fast menus.

[1221] It's worth seeing them go slow once.

[1222] Yeah, I did.

[1223] But they've also patched that game.

[1224] I think it goes faster.

[1225] Those menus really move.

[1226] I feel like they've sped up the animations on even the slow versions of the menus.

[1227] I don't know.

[1228] I mean, they upgraded the servos on those arms.

[1229] Yep.

[1230] I don't really like the...

[1231] Because the story between the games so much that the panels...

[1232] Yeah, because the first time I played that game, the preview version of that game that they sent us, had none of that.

[1233] It was literally like you just load it up and that first level starts.

[1234] Like none of the motion comic loading screen stuff they have.

[1235] A, because I still don't understand what's happening.

[1236] Yeah, it's super...

[1237] It's like guys just laying out all this stuff.

[1238] The cop wants you to send another cop over to drink with him because he doesn't like to drink alone.

[1239] Yeah, but then there's like robot, renegade robots.

[1240] Renegade robots, and then souls are inside this computer, and I work for the corporation, but I hate the corporation.

[1241] I'm like, wait, so I don't know if you're a cop, if you're a, yeah, I'm confused by your story, and I really don't give a shit, because guess what, robots.

[1242] Just fight the robots.

[1243] I think I gained a better understanding of that game when I downloaded it from Steam, because I clicked install, and it was like, two gig to download.

[1244] I was like...

[1245] Oh, yeah.

[1246] I don't think it's really long.

[1247] Four hours, I think, is the number.

[1248] Yeah, like maybe the price probably should tip me off.

[1249] But I mean, it's weird on like the consoles.

[1250] There's a more regimented approach to like this is a full retail game.

[1251] This is a downloadable game.

[1252] And like you have your expectations about what the game is based on that.

[1253] Yeah.

[1254] But on Steam, it's like, whatever.

[1255] It's like, it could cost anything, it could be anything.

[1256] There is no, like, this is a live arcade game, this is a games on demand, or whatever.

[1257] But that game is kind of fun, and it's like, just hold down the trigger.

[1258] No reloading.

[1259] And basically, your barrel gets real hot.

[1260] And just shoot everything around you, because it all explodes.

[1261] It's very much environmental kills.

[1262] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1263] It's like, oh, I've got to shoot that panel, because it shoots out electricity.

[1264] And shoot that car, and that'll blow up everything.

[1265] Yeah, kind of like explosion management is as important as actually aiming at the things you're trying to shoot.

[1266] And I love that.

[1267] I love the red hot barrels on your gun because you've just been holding it down for too long.

[1268] Yeah.

[1269] So everything is kind of like right now that I'm playing is a little more, a little less deus ex and a little more shooty.

[1270] You know, Castlevania kind of the same thing.

[1271] I think that's where I'm going to put my time for a little bit.

[1272] A little less, a little brainless.

[1273] Well, Castlevania is, I just like the story that's going on so far.

[1274] Kind of interested to see if this, this is like a reboot, right?

[1275] This is what they said Castlevania is from now on.

[1276] So, kind of, I don't know, interested to see what happens.

[1277] See if I'll fight a Grim Reaper.

[1278] I am the Grim Reaper.

[1279] I don't know what Castlevania is.

[1280] Nobody knows what Castlevania is.

[1281] Konami doesn't know what Castlevania is.

[1282] Run to the end of the ledge, duck for three seconds until the treasure chest appears.

[1283] There's no duck button this time.

[1284] Boring.

[1285] Like, when I'm playing that game, I just see the effort that was like, we're going to make this epic and grand, and this is going to be such a good tale.

[1286] and i just feel like my heart goes out to be like i hear you man like there's good production value in here the the artwork is kind of inspired in some places like the character designs are good there's some like pans labyrinth looking dudes in it um i see you guys put some effort into this and so i don't know maybe that is is influencing me and being like i want this to work out for you and i can get behind this uh i really like what i see in it uh but yeah i need to focus i need to I'm going to take two weeks off and finish everything.

[1287] Just get it all done.

[1288] I got a better idea.

[1289] Yes.

[1290] Why don't you take all those games that you just mentioned.

[1291] Yep.

[1292] Throw them away.

[1293] Aw.

[1294] And just play Track Mania.

[1295] Yeah.

[1296] I was thinking about that.

[1297] I was thinking about making some tracks.

[1298] Jeff, you get some quality time.

[1299] Come with me. Mania Planet.

[1300] You show me something?

[1301] Come with me and play Trackmania 2 for the rest of your life.

[1302] Listen to Cher.

[1303] Yes.

[1304] You know what?

[1305] Every time I see it, I think I can make some cool tracks.

[1306] Yeah.

[1307] I want nothing to do with making tracks.

[1308] You don't want to, but you can drive my cool tracks.

[1309] Okay.

[1310] Somebody said.

[1311] I got, last week I got into a little bit of Trackmania 2 trouble.

[1312] First hit.

[1313] I'm not to Jeff's stage yet, but I get it.

[1314] There's no free version of Trackmania now, right?

[1315] Not of two, no. Okay.

[1316] No. Did you see those pictures somebody sent about the end of the world?

[1317] Yeah.

[1318] It's insane.

[1319] It is insane.

[1320] It makes me just want to buy Trackmania just to do that.

[1321] Just to do that.

[1322] So basically, it's weird.

[1323] You can see it there in the quick look.

[1324] You drive off the track, and it doesn't respawn you back on the track.

[1325] You just drive.

[1326] And you kind of just keep going.

[1327] It's just the world.

[1328] You just drive.

[1329] This is Mania Planets.

[1330] Just go, and eventually, apparently, you stop.

[1331] driving over mountains and stuff, and it just becomes a gradual incline until you go past the skybox, like through the sky into heaven.

[1332] And then it just becomes crazy.

[1333] And then Cher is there.

[1334] So he said it takes about three or four minutes just to get to that incline, and then you just go up forever.

[1335] Doesn't sound amazing?

[1336] It's just heaven mania all the way.

[1337] So I just want to make a track that takes you there.

[1338] I don't think you can put track out there.

[1339] But can you make it high enough?

[1340] So is the idea...

[1341] Probably not.

[1342] Is the idea here that they didn't build tracks, they just built this giant map, and then they're just placing the races in...

[1343] The track editor is all block -based, so you're just dropping down these blocks in the center of their play field.

[1344] And the area that you can manipulate with track parts is...

[1345] way smaller than the full area.

[1346] They just want it to look like...

[1347] That's where Shoot Mania is going to take place.

[1348] Over in that area.

[1349] So this is even theoretically just the canyon area anyway.

[1350] There will be other areas and then will they connect to this?

[1351] Will there be revisions to the...

[1352] It'll probably be a situation where they add blocks in each one of the environments and those carry over into the others.

[1353] There will be things that if you buy multiple games will probably...

[1354] transport back and forth.

[1355] I just want to know if I can drive from the canyon area to the fucking jungle area.

[1356] No. If there would be that kind of...

[1357] I don't know.

[1358] I don't know, man. This game is so messed up.

[1359] It is.

[1360] It's made by lunatics.

[1361] It's made by crazy people.

[1362] It's used by crazy people.

[1363] And in some cases, it's really disappointing, but it's also awesome.

[1364] Yeah.

[1365] It's the hoops you have to jump through to...

[1366] Nothing about any of the interface makes a little sense.

[1367] The game does not come with an instruction manual.

[1368] No. So the only reason I know as much as I do about Trackmania is because I played a fair amount of Trackmania United forever, the previous one.

[1369] Right.

[1370] So you were creating a giant bomb group, and I'm like, hey, send me an invite.

[1371] Let's be Trackmania friends.

[1372] You're like, all right, I've sent it.

[1373] I'm like, I have literally no idea where this interface defines that information.

[1374] You can't tell what's just text and what is a button in that game.

[1375] It's like, well, do I click on...

[1376] No, I can't click on that.

[1377] Wait, hold on.

[1378] I clicked on that and it selected it.

[1379] Okay, but then I have to go and hit the OK button over here.

[1380] Wait, you're just giving me a list.

[1381] This isn't even a thing I can select.

[1382] You're just showing me information here.

[1383] And a lot of that stuff is right out of the previous game.

[1384] And weird font choices.

[1385] I don't know what that means.

[1386] It really feels like they really didn't put any effort into usability testing.

[1387] Everything I hear about this game makes it sound like a game designed by programmers.

[1388] Yeah, kind of.

[1389] The stuff you were saying about how you set up a server for that game and you have to install SQL on your machine separately.

[1390] I'm running a server now.

[1391] You're running a SQL server?

[1392] No. I mean, I'm paying for a service that runs a SQL.

[1393] Gotcha.

[1394] But if you want to run a server yourself.

[1395] Walk us through the steps.

[1396] You told me this stuff yesterday and my mind exploded.

[1397] So there's dedicated server software for the game.

[1398] It runs separate from the game.

[1399] Runs separately from the game.

[1400] To tie it, to get it to access to your account, you have to create a separate login account for the dedicated server.

[1401] Where do you do that?

[1402] That's like you're editing XML files, I think, for that.

[1403] To create an account?

[1404] You just kind of enter whatever.

[1405] Okay, so it's not like you're not going to the Trackmania 2 website and being like, I need to create an admin account.

[1406] Then you have to go to the website and link them together.

[1407] So once you start the server, it's like, okay, I know that that's a server name.

[1408] And I know that when this account connects, it will be an admin because this is the account it's tied to.

[1409] Is that set up so that you can have multiple people be admins?

[1410] I'm sorry.

[1411] I'm getting ahead of myself here.

[1412] You could just run a vanilla server.

[1413] You could just download the dedicated server and put it up and be done.

[1414] But it's not going to have any of the stuff that is kind of now standard for a Trackmania server, like persistent records across sessions and the ability to kick people out properly.

[1415] A lot of things are plug -ins.

[1416] So there's a whole architecture for plug -ins, like XML, RPC stuff.

[1417] So you have to run a separate process that is like this plug -in.

[1418] thing and for that to work you have to have php and like my sequel installed on a windows machine um on linux you know you'll probably already have right that stuff so you basically really need to turn your machine into a server yeah like a web server you've got a full right they did not make their own database they just want you to use this open source and this is how it was in the previous game also And the, and it's became kind of the standard for how the game is played.

[1419] And, you know, there's like cross server records keeping now, uh, for, for, for Trackmania United.

[1420] None of that stuff made it into the core of Trackmania 2.

[1421] It is all still, in fact, like the, the, it's like, I don't know, I'm trying to think how to pronounce this.

[1422] Like Zaseco, X -A -S -E -C -O is like the, the, the plugin.

[1423] structure that people use, and this is what will help you serve up music.

[1424] This is what helps you serve up like a jukebox to let people select tracks.

[1425] So it's just as bolt -on, like, after -the -fact feeling as the original.

[1426] But that was in the original that they didn't incorporate into the 2.

[1427] Yeah, exactly.

[1428] They didn't build it.

[1429] And it sounds like they did go and build their own thing called Mania Live, but it's the same.

[1430] It also runs separately outside of the main server and requires PHP.

[1431] That's kind of crazy.

[1432] So someone put together Trackmania 2 server in a box, which if you Google that, you can find it, and it'll actually install the web server and install the plug -in stuff.

[1433] And actually, it's pretty easy to get it up and running.

[1434] Adding tracks is – I don't know how you do it with that.

[1435] I was able to – because another guy was running a server kind of on our behalf unofficially and then he couldn't run it.

[1436] So I was like, I'll try and put it together and just grabbed his map directory and his map list stuff and incorporated it.

[1437] It had it running, but I don't have a good enough connection to really serve that up.

[1438] My upstream is garbage.

[1439] So it was just a poor experience for most people.

[1440] So at that point I was like, fuck it.

[1441] I'm going to rent a server.

[1442] I'm going to go pay money for someone to run this.

[1443] And started looking around and had to decide which site I was willing to pay a bunch of euros to because none of them took dollars.

[1444] But some of them did take PayPal and found a hosting service and went with that.

[1445] And actually getting tracks onto the server is actually really easy now.

[1446] On this pay service.

[1447] Yeah, with their pay service.

[1448] It's not run by Ubisoft or Nadeo or anybody.

[1449] It's like a separate.

[1450] So how much?

[1451] How much Ubisoft do you see in this game?

[1452] It's their logos kind of all over it, but none, basically.

[1453] But in terms of them putting out this game...

[1454] No, zero.

[1455] I think they sell it on their store, but it's only available digitally through the Ubisoft store and I think through trackmania .com directly.

[1456] So it seems like they have a pretty hands -off on some of this stuff.

[1457] It's not on Steam, and because of the way the game's going to hook together with all the different parts and stuff, they've...

[1458] kind of hinted that it might not be on Steam ever.

[1459] Because, like, the way you described it, it kind of just sounds like I'm expecting, like, to install it and, like, have, like, literally have, like, MIDI of, like, Welcome to the Jungle playing with a scroll that says Cracked By, you know, from Ubisoft and, like, you know, just basically, like, you know.

[1460] Razor, you know, 5117.

[1461] That's the thing.

[1462] Like, everything about this sounds like something that John Carmack would have architected in, like, 1996 or something.

[1463] Or just, like, just kind of, like, bootstrappy.

[1464] Then, like, open this info doc that tells you how to put these things in or copy these into the directory.

[1465] And then, like, it says Trackmania in ASCII at the top.

[1466] No, it's, you know, it's got menus.

[1467] And, like, it's pretty playable out of the box.

[1468] Like, first time I booted that up, I was racing.

[1469] I didn't understand.

[1470] Though it does do a terrible job of telling you what the hell you're supposed to do.

[1471] that game.

[1472] It's got this offline component and yeah, you can play it, but then there's a difference between just playing those tracks and beating the times and then you can set an official time, which is then uploaded to the server and you get skill points.

[1473] Well, because there's also the whole world, right?

[1474] You get metal points for getting metals.

[1475] You get skill points for setting official times offline on the tracks that come with the game.

[1476] And then there are ladder points you get for playing online.

[1477] These are all completely separate methods of progression that have zero to do with each other.

[1478] And again, to Jeff's point, never explained in any capacity.

[1479] But the game launches into this kind of interface for Mania World or whatever.

[1480] Where your points are, like your world points.

[1481] There's a screen with a bunch of like, here's a little box and here's a thing that looks like a shield and then here's a bar and then here's another bar.

[1482] And it's got a number at the end of it.

[1483] There's like a messaging system, like their forum is basically the first thing you see, center screen in that thing.

[1484] It just dumps constant information at you without any context.

[1485] If you can get past that, if you can get past the craziness there, it is a terrifically fun game.

[1486] It's one of those things that when I see, it makes me think that somehow this loosey -goosey thing is going to become the thing 20 years from now where everything takes place.

[1487] Like, oh, I'll see you in the Mania.

[1488] Yeah, I'll see you in the Mania.

[1489] Drive to my Mania hub and we'll have a business meeting where I'll give you 70 grams of zazz.

[1490] So there's an internet within the internet inside of Mania.

[1491] planet and it's not it doesn't seem to be working right now but you know the previous game is any indicator it'll probably eventually how to work or basically you can set up storefronts in the game and then people can browse them based on geographical location so you can make your mania zone and then register it in like california or whatever and then you can you can serve up if you've made custom cars or icons or horns or anything like that or maps you can sell them there for in -game currency for planets How do you buy planets?

[1492] You don't.

[1493] You earn planets.

[1494] So you can only earn.

[1495] So getting medals gets you planets.

[1496] Okay.

[1497] So you have all these separate points that then you're converting.

[1498] Right.

[1499] And reaching certain rankings in the ladder on online, you get planets.

[1500] And for connecting every day, you get planets.

[1501] Just play it.

[1502] Can you grind the system?

[1503] Like if you make a server and just have your track that's locked and make it like one and become number one on that track?

[1504] No, being number one on that track doesn't give you anything.

[1505] So that's not part of the ladder stuff?

[1506] No, the ladder stuff is you competing against other players and their positions on the ladder versus yours.

[1507] So if you are on a server with people that are higher ranked than you and you do better than them, you earn more ladder points than you would if you didn't.

[1508] Oh, so you literally have to compete against other people to gain any of those points.

[1509] To gain ladder points.

[1510] Skill points are set from official time.

[1511] And there's no manual and the interface is pretty terrible.

[1512] And it's really too bad because the game itself is really accessible and easy to understand.

[1513] Just drive.

[1514] Just drive.

[1515] And the handling model is stuff that is nuanced and you'll pick up on over time.

[1516] But basically drive.

[1517] But basically just fucking drive.

[1518] I think the thing to wrap your mind around is...

[1519] And I only know this from watching you and from what little Trackmania 1 that I had played.

[1520] You're not really using, in a lot of these races, traditional race tactics.

[1521] Right.

[1522] Because there's no contact.

[1523] You're flying cars.

[1524] Everything clips through everything else.

[1525] It's more a time trial.

[1526] And that's, you know, whatever.

[1527] Honestly, more of a distraction than anything else.

[1528] It's not like that.

[1529] You can turn those off.

[1530] Yeah.

[1531] You can turn off the ghost cars if you like.

[1532] Turn the chair off.

[1533] No, you can never turn the chair off.

[1534] It can be a good thing if you're starting at the same time as another race to get a sense of like, okay, I'm taking this corner better.

[1535] Because all you're trying to do is just run the same thing over and over again until you shave as many, you know.

[1536] tenths of a second as you can off of your best time.

[1537] And all these tracks just get created and uploaded to a community -run server.

[1538] They don't even run their own map hosting service, which is weird because that's so key to the whole experience.

[1539] It's weird that they did not...

[1540] pull all this stuff that the community has built internal and make it better right so it's like you still have to go to mania exchange to download tracks and it's a perfectly functional system works just fine but like in this day and age like like with the community driven nature of that there should be a better in -game map browser or or better just It's insane.

[1541] Well, that's the part that makes me feel like this is – They needed a UI guy and they needed a social media guy.

[1542] A UX guy.

[1543] But the lack of that is the part that makes me feel like this is also crazy and this is the future kind of like of where people will live in there.

[1544] It's very – yeah, Wild Frontier for sure.

[1545] There is that feeling.

[1546] It's got that open source kind of feeling.

[1547] It's kind of refreshing because like games aren't like this anymore and it definitely feels like you're like, okay, I hacked.

[1548] I feel like I hacked Root on this box and we're going to tell that into it instead of a Quake server.

[1549] Don't fucking tell anybody.

[1550] It's almost like a grassroots kind of purity to it.

[1551] I feel like somebody's going to die in Mania World and they're going to die in real life.

[1552] That's like – there's going to be some like – And Cher will play the funeral.

[1553] I mean it's – there is that weird dichotomy that Jeff mentioned was – it's – There's this weird barrier to entry to understand the bigger picture of this game.

[1554] But when you actually get into the race, it is so accessible.

[1555] For now, but wait until Media Planet, right?

[1556] Mania Planet.

[1557] The promise of what they're putting...

[1558] Whatever, Mania Planet comes up constantly.

[1559] When you load that thing up, it's all...

[1560] I think the icon on my desktop doesn't even say Track Mania.

[1561] It just says Mania Planet.

[1562] What they have on the coming soon for Mania Planet kind of Christmas list.

[1563] Ridiculous.

[1564] But then also they've already broken a lot of promises with this game in terms of what it was supposed to have.

[1565] They announced a co -op campaign.

[1566] For the cars?

[1567] Yeah.

[1568] For Trackmania?

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] Which it does not have.

[1571] Modes from the previous game.

[1572] Stunts.

[1573] There was a lot of stuff that was in the previous game that's just straight up not here.

[1574] Which is weird because in a lot of ways it just looks like they just took the previous Trackmania game.

[1575] Like the core of it?

[1576] Yeah.

[1577] And then added a new renderer.

[1578] And then made a new car model.

[1579] And I altered the driving model and said, all right, yeah, we're cool.

[1580] I really like the abstract nature of a lot of the track designs.

[1581] Because it's not just like you have this contiguous ribbon of track.

[1582] It's like, all right, you're going to turn this corner.

[1583] Then you're going to have to jump over this gap edge here.

[1584] It's like you could just drive around this spot, but you're not going to get.

[1585] a good time if you do that.

[1586] So hit these speed boosting strips.

[1587] And then all of a sudden there's no track for a while, and when you're on dirt, you're sliding and drifting all over the place.

[1588] You kind of have to keep yourself going straight.

[1589] It's like, all right, then you're going to drive on these boost strips, and then you're going to go straight up this wall.

[1590] Then you're going to drive on the side of this wall for a while, and then you're going to come down, and you're going to have to drift around this corner behind this other big ramp.

[1591] It's fucking crazy.

[1592] And then the track is you just crashing the wall.

[1593] And you have to...

[1594] There's so many times where it's like, all right, leap of faith here.

[1595] I hope that I am going...

[1596] Fast enough to connect to this next piece of track because if I'm not, I'm just going to hit this ledge and then I might as well just start from the beginning because my time is going to be shit.

[1597] So it is – I mean that's the part that's brutal about it is it is within any session.

[1598] It is just this repetition.

[1599] It's just this do this – perform this track.

[1600] For six minutes.

[1601] Yeah.

[1602] For five or six minutes or ten minutes, it's adjusted accordingly.

[1603] My server is sent to six minutes.

[1604] Most of the ones that I've played have been really short.

[1605] Most of them have been under two minutes per run.

[1606] The good track length is probably around a minute.

[1607] There's something to be said for the tracks that are like 15 or 20 seconds.

[1608] Then you're really just like, I've got to get better, I've got to get better.

[1609] That's all condensed and that's kind of cool.

[1610] I like the track intros.

[1611] But over a minute, it starts to get a little...

[1612] Well, the problem then is like, ah, there was just a random – I caught a weird edge here in the end.

[1613] It's like your whole run.

[1614] You have to do so much more to get back.

[1615] And especially when you're – like you're saying, when you only have five or six minutes, it's like – that's the only thing that I don't know how you fix in track mania is when you get to the point of I literally don't have enough time to make another full run here.

[1616] That's when you spin donuts at the intro to the track until time expires.

[1617] That's what I figured out.

[1618] Honk your horn over and over again.

[1619] There needs to be – I don't know.

[1620] There needs to be sort of weird.

[1621] End game.

[1622] I don't know.

[1623] Yeah.

[1624] Where you're shooting the cars to knock them off the track.

[1625] Because you can't, it's like, I can't do anything meaningful here, but I have to run out the clock anyway.

[1626] So, yeah, everyone goes.

[1627] That's when it kind of becomes a chat room.

[1628] Yeah, I guess.

[1629] It's also the interesting thing about this and, you know, with us running a server and stuff like that now, you know, people that speak English are playing the game, which was not often the case with Trackmania United.

[1630] You got GG.

[1631] That's all.

[1632] Yeah.

[1633] If you were lucky, you got that.

[1634] That game.

[1635] To me, this is kind of what the future of Ridge Racer should have been.

[1636] I feel like Trackmania is drinking Namco's milkshake on this one.

[1637] It's like, yeah, crazy, accessible, over -the -top, wild -ass arcade racer.

[1638] But the origin couldn't be further away from where Ridge Racer started.

[1639] But the product that they're making, if...

[1640] If Namco had any sense and Nadeo hadn't already hooked up with Ubisoft, that seems like that would have been a natural fit between the two.

[1641] Yeah, I mean, the Bugbear game, actually, with their block -based track editor, that seems very Trackmania -like to me, that they do have that block -based stuff.

[1642] Nadeo's French, right?

[1643] Yep.

[1644] I'm all in the family over there.

[1645] Mania.

[1646] Yeah, so the server is called Giant Bomb Official Classic.

[1647] Holds 50 dudes.

[1648] And it's set up in California if you want to dig down through the layers.

[1649] There's only like six servers in California, I think.

[1650] Oh, really?

[1651] That many?

[1652] Last time I checked, it was like two.

[1653] How do I get my tracks to you?

[1654] My sick tracks.

[1655] We have a thread on the boards.

[1656] We have a thread in Trackmania 2 about the server.

[1657] Just post your track to the Mania Exchange.

[1658] Post your Gopher link.

[1659] And then, yes, Archie the Gopher to...

[1660] Come join our Trackmania mud.

[1661] Upload the track somewhere, preferably Mania Exchange.

[1662] And then you have to download it.

[1663] And then tell me where it is.

[1664] Okay.

[1665] And then send me a link to it on that thread.

[1666] But first, figure out how to open up the track editor.

[1667] I saw Jeff do it.

[1668] Yeah.

[1669] It might not be so bad.

[1670] But yeah, we have a couple guys on the boards that have made some pretty good tracks.

[1671] I just want to see.

[1672] I added like four really cool tracks last night.

[1673] And then.

[1674] erased like six.

[1675] We have 140 tracks on that server, which is way too many.

[1676] That's a lot of tracks.

[1677] A lot of them are pretty bad.

[1678] And so basically there's a karma system.

[1679] People can vote yes, no on a track.

[1680] So once things get to like negative 10 overall, no, I have to go manually erase them.

[1681] But you can just see like, oh, people hate this track.

[1682] So I have to log into the server and then there's a command I can issue that causes a really shitty pop -up window to appear that lists the tracks in karmic order.

[1683] And then on my MacBook, I have a web browser open to the administration panel for the company that I'm paying to run this stuff.

[1684] And from there, I delete the tracks.

[1685] But that administration panel only exists because you're paying someone, right?

[1686] Right.

[1687] Otherwise, you'd be in there raw editing crazy files.

[1688] Actually, with the plugins and stuff that are running, you can just type erase track, and it'll erase the current track.

[1689] So I probably could do it that way.

[1690] Since the server has to be restarted every time I add new music, I need to do it through their stuff because I can back up the track list and back up other stuff that way.

[1691] What kind of hot tracks are planned on our Trackmania server?

[1692] I put that Katy Perry ET Dubstep remix in there.

[1693] I was going to say, I would hope for a high representation of Dubstep in there.

[1694] What else?

[1695] I found a bass nectar remix of Where Is My Mind by the Pixies.

[1696] Put that in there.

[1697] Could you get a drum and bass version of the Sesame Street theme in there while you're at it?

[1698] I could probably put that in there.

[1699] People are just fucking complaining like crazy about the music.

[1700] You're just like random people joining going, what the fuck?

[1701] There's only five songs on there at first, so it was an awful lot of Cher and an awful lot of Katy Perry song.

[1702] The Katy Perry one seems to be the one that gets the most hate.

[1703] Really?

[1704] It wasn't even Cher at all.

[1705] People love their Cher.

[1706] I added the Buckner and Garcia classic.

[1707] Very good.

[1708] Because, you know, what other Trackmania server is run by a website that has had a song written about them by the guys what wrote Pac -Man Fever?

[1709] To my knowledge, zero.

[1710] So this is clearly the best Trackmania server on the internet.

[1711] Jeff, you getting into anything else?

[1712] You want to talk about Burnout Crash?

[1713] Yeah.

[1714] Okay, you played a lot more of it than I have.

[1715] That game is cool and it will be a better iPad game someday.

[1716] That game is not good enough.

[1717] This is not Jeff.

[1718] It's sitting before us.

[1719] I understand what he means by that because it's...

[1720] The basic controls in that game, it's – You don't really do a lot in that game.

[1721] And the main mode, like the ordering that you – So first off, the main mode is terrible compared to the other modes.

[1722] The way this game is laid out is like you have this main page and it's like a big long road and along the way you're basically unlocking new locations.

[1723] And when you first unlock a location, all you can do is this primary mode.

[1724] I forget what they call it.

[1725] They've got a name for it.

[1726] Road trip?

[1727] Yeah, yeah.

[1728] Is that it?

[1729] Is that the road trip one?

[1730] Yeah.

[1731] Okay.

[1732] But it's basically you are – you're at this intersection.

[1733] You drive into this intersection.

[1734] You have your initial crash.

[1735] And then you'll see cars coming in from the different sides of the intersection.

[1736] And you get little arrows.

[1737] You get little warnings basically saying like, hey, cars are – we have this many stacked up over here.

[1738] And they're going to start activating now.

[1739] And as crashes happen, you're building up your crash meter so you can – pop that, create a little explosion, kind of try and start some chain reaction.

[1740] And then use aftertouch to float your car around.

[1741] But your aftertouch, you don't have, even on the lightest vehicle, like the buggy, is not great.

[1742] Or it's balanced.

[1743] So you have a bunch of different vehicles that you can choose, and it's the big, heavy cargo truck.

[1744] Explodes huge, but you don't have a huge amount of aftertouch, and the buggy can move a lot more easily, but the explosion doesn't have that much impact.

[1745] But yeah, either way, the amount of actual control you have over the action...

[1746] It doesn't seem like it's great.

[1747] There isn't a lot of it.

[1748] And it's long.

[1749] That initial mode, you're in there for probably, what, four or five minutes or something like that?

[1750] Ideally.

[1751] You can't let the cars escape.

[1752] You can let five.

[1753] Once you let five, it's automatic game over.

[1754] At the same time, you're trying to basically build up this meter to hit these milestones within the match.

[1755] Because it has a hard end.

[1756] Each one of these encounters or whatever...

[1757] You'll let you run out of cars.

[1758] Well, no. It's not that.

[1759] You build up this meter and then this big super event happens at the end and you get some bonuses out of that.

[1760] But I feel like a lot of the times, the super event...

[1761] Yeah.

[1762] Cuts you off.

[1763] Like you could do better if you actually were using the cars to blow up the buildings and there's a lot of hidden – there's like three hidden sports cars and a hidden gold car on each.

[1764] It's not really hidden but they're kind of away from the main path.

[1765] Like harder to get.

[1766] Yeah, yeah.

[1767] You've got to take a little more effort and you get a lot of bonus points for blowing up and basically shooting a car into another car.

[1768] They call them skill shots.

[1769] So – You're kind of serving multiple masters with, like, okay, I've got to make sure that all these cars don't get away from me, so I'm trying to just block these intersections.

[1770] But then occasionally you'll have a bonus vehicle that comes through that you want to let through because that will knock one of the X's off of your list if you can allow him to get through successfully.

[1771] It sounds like there's variety in it.

[1772] But is it too much?

[1773] The problem is that...

[1774] So that mode is not the best.

[1775] And that's the one you have to do first on every single track.

[1776] Because you open up the other two by completing it once.

[1777] And the other ones, one of them is limited by cars.

[1778] There will only be 25 cars to come into this intersection.

[1779] So you want to try and keep them as close together and pristine through the majority of that match as you can.

[1780] And then you'll have kind of basically an endgame where you can pop and...

[1781] build your crash breaker a lot more quickly.

[1782] So it's like you're trying to keep as much fuel for explosions on the map as you can.

[1783] And then set all the buildings on fire by docking cars.

[1784] Yeah, dock cars and dumps, set them on fire, blow stuff up.

[1785] I didn't like that mode.

[1786] That is my least favorite mode.

[1787] I like it better than the road trip one because I really don't like the...

[1788] The one that's time limited, the 90 second one, that's...

[1789] That's the mode.

[1790] So you're just like a shorter bite -sized, like let's just do this in a minute and a half.

[1791] But as you march down this path, like there's different kind of layouts, but you're doing the exact same things.

[1792] There's always like, oh, look out for an emergency vehicle.

[1793] Let him through.

[1794] Or here comes a pizza truck.

[1795] Also, awful sounding game.

[1796] What?

[1797] No. I find the music samples and stuff that they trot out every single – I guess you have played a lot more of it than I have.

[1798] I still find it novel.

[1799] Well, also it was great.

[1800] When the road freezes, it plays Ice Ice Baby for a few seconds.

[1801] And I get now why they compare it to a pinball machine.

[1802] Because every single mode, every single thing has a theme song.

[1803] So every time the ambulance appears, it plays a song.

[1804] For one thing, I didn't have to, but I listened to you play it a bunch before I even touched it.

[1805] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1806] So I was already familiar with the sound, the Dr. Beats sound cue whenever the ambulance comes on.

[1807] Or, you know, it's raining men for this part.

[1808] Right.

[1809] Whatever little sound clip that they decide to use.

[1810] That's part of it.

[1811] But also English dudes trying to not do English dude accents.

[1812] And then blowing it.

[1813] Holy shit.

[1814] Every time the guy talks.

[1815] It's only really in the tutorial for the most part.

[1816] He talks.

[1817] Because there's the DJ on every level.

[1818] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1819] And it's different as you progress.

[1820] And so it's like, no, he's a surfer dude.

[1821] But English guy can't do surfer dude very well.

[1822] Bring back Atomica.

[1823] Bra.

[1824] No, no, none of that stuff.

[1825] Yeah, whoever's doing the voice is obviously a British dude and had one day to record everything.

[1826] Just straight up blows like one line per sentence or one line per paragraph or something, like reveals his true nature.

[1827] Yeah.

[1828] And it sticks out.

[1829] It sticks out hard.

[1830] It sticks out pretty hard.

[1831] And so I blew through all, like I unlocked everything and I blew through all the maps and it's...

[1832] It just gets repetitive.

[1833] And that's Kinect or controller?

[1834] Because there are those constants.

[1835] Yeah, I haven't played much with Kinect.

[1836] This is all with controller.

[1837] There are those constants.

[1838] Like you know, okay, I can't let – like I'm going to have to do this road trip mode every one of these to keep progressing.

[1839] And I know I can't let five cars off the map or else I won't get to play as long.

[1840] And I really want to try and go for these hidden sports cars or the gold car.

[1841] There's a hole over there.

[1842] Definitely want to try and shoot some cars in there.

[1843] So it's like you learn the basic – pretty early on, and then it's just repeating that strategy over.

[1844] It's not like, oh, I have found the metagame in this somehow.

[1845] I got lucky, and so that's why I have $100 million on this one.

[1846] Let's move on.

[1847] So the thing, having not played the game at all, just from basically the quick look EX and stuff that we've seen, I feel like when I see that game, it is literally just a...

[1848] a multiplayer party game like it is something that you want to it seems like it would be very repetitive to try and grind through single player style but like each individual mode is long enough that like having people standing there going like waiting to play well maybe if they were shorter like when we did that four player thing it seemed like the whole thing was like the tension of like is this guy going to beat my score this round oh you got really lucky because it seems like there was a lot of random stuff happening they build all the auto log stuff into it So you're competing against your friends.

[1849] You kind of send challenges and constantly go back and forth with people if you want to do that.

[1850] The autolog stuff, it's functionally, it's the same as what they had in Hot Pursuit last year.

[1851] But it doesn't work.

[1852] And by that I mean without a variety of tasks to perform, without real variety.

[1853] Okay, they've got maybe, I don't know, it was like 20.

[1854] Probably different intersection locations.

[1855] And there's like four or five different kind of thematic zones that you go through.

[1856] I saw the lobster monster.

[1857] He's very big.

[1858] Did you blow up near him?

[1859] What did it do?

[1860] No, he's the super effect.

[1861] He's the thing that comes through at the end.

[1862] That makes sense.

[1863] Scares little children.

[1864] He blew me up, really.

[1865] No, you drive away.

[1866] You spend several minutes just exploding.

[1867] And then you're like, all right, later.

[1868] And then take off.

[1869] Like, what?

[1870] How did I do that?

[1871] I don't understand anything about what's going on.

[1872] That's a game that I can see being a lot more fun.

[1873] Again, back to Jeff's point of short bursts on an iPad, something like that.

[1874] The controls aren't so specific that if you were touching on the screen.

[1875] Tap the screen to explode, tilt to tilt.

[1876] Yeah, tilt to after touch.

[1877] That'll totally work.

[1878] That'll be fine.

[1879] That'll be absolutely fine.

[1880] Right, because the Kinect controls are pretty hands -off, too.

[1881] I think it's like move forward or backwards in the space to move the arrow and then jump.

[1882] I haven't tried it since we got the final version, but playing it with Kinect, I was having trouble figuring out, like, should I be leaning?

[1883] Should I be stepping?

[1884] I think it's like move within the space.

[1885] I think that's what you were doing.

[1886] Yeah, I think that's right.

[1887] And then do the posture, the special posture they give you to explode.

[1888] You jump to explode.

[1889] It's random.

[1890] the mode that we were playing.

[1891] It was like, okay, do this different thing.

[1892] Lay an egg and cheerlead or like hands up in the air.

[1893] That's ridiculous.

[1894] That's kind of cool, I guess.

[1895] Beyond that meeting that we took with the Criterion guys, I haven't seen any of the Kinect stuff.

[1896] Yeah, it's...

[1897] Once I got to the end, and I hadn't played all of the...

[1898] I didn't do all three event types for every intersection or anything, but...

[1899] Even still looking at achievements and whatever.

[1900] Because once you finish the last one, it's just like credits roll and then back to the menu.

[1901] I could see what you guys are saying about the sessions being too long for multiplayer fun because that is definitely one of the big draws.

[1902] My point is that it's not fun.

[1903] It's not really fun in single player for long stretches either.

[1904] That's a game.

[1905] I think to make that more fun, that's a game that you play one or two and then go and do something else.

[1906] And the load times are really long.

[1907] Yeah.

[1908] that intro load time is weirdly long.

[1909] But even if you had people over, you're right, you don't want to be out of the game for four minutes at a time watching somebody else explode.

[1910] Yeah, it doesn't seem like it would be super thrilling to watch other people play.

[1911] I think that what they chose to do with the structure of it is probably the thing that does it the most harm, the way that it kind of forces you into experiencing certain...

[1912] piece of content in that way.

[1913] Because you're right, that mode is not the best mode.

[1914] If they had just swapped it so that the 90 second mode was the mandatory one, automatically better game.

[1915] It's just not even, yeah, because that main mode isn't even the best introduction.

[1916] You have to play so much more conservatively in that mode.

[1917] I can't just blow up constantly because if I'm over in this corner and then four cars go into the intersection, guess what?

[1918] Yes.

[1919] You definitely cannot get as chaotic as you think you would be able to with a game focused on you exploding over and over again.

[1920] Actually, none of the modes really capitalize on that terrifically.

[1921] For all the promise of we took the driving out, so now it's just exploding.

[1922] It's not as good as it is.

[1923] That's not as satisfying as they should be.

[1924] The things you have to do to get a decent score.

[1925] From the people who brought you fucking burnout.

[1926] God damn it.

[1927] So how much is it going for?

[1928] Is it 10?

[1929] It's 10.

[1930] 10 downloadable?

[1931] It is 800 points or $9 .99.

[1932] That's a downloadable.

[1933] Do you think it's $10 worth of fun so far or are you still figuring it out?

[1934] It's not terrible.

[1935] That's for sure.

[1936] I enjoyed it for a while and then.

[1937] It just – yeah, it just kind of lost it.

[1938] It's not – I'm telling you, man. You put that out on a phone.

[1939] You put that out on an iPad.

[1940] We should be clear.

[1941] I don't know that they have any – if they've announced any sort of plans for anything like that.

[1942] Yeah, I don't know.

[1943] They very early on were very clear about plans about that and then didn't announce any of them.

[1944] Okay.

[1945] Yeah.

[1946] It was initially conveyed to me that they were announcing the iPad 2 version at Gamescom, and I don't know if that happened or not.

[1947] So I don't know.

[1948] Well, plans or no, I agree with that assessment of that game.

[1949] It started as a Wii game, if you remember from that interview.

[1950] They had been working on it on the Wii for a while, and then didn't put it out on the Wii.

[1951] That shows in certain elements of that game, for sure.

[1952] Yeah.

[1953] I don't know.

[1954] Did I play anything else?

[1955] Yeah.

[1956] Trackmania 2 is out.

[1957] No shit.

[1958] Played that.

[1959] Buildie blocks.

[1960] Blocks that matter.

[1961] Or you didn't have to, but just to kind of speak to how weird and effed up Trackmania 2 is, you essentially paid for that game twice.

[1962] You bought it as part of the...

[1963] So you bought it as part of the beta thing, which got you into the final game.

[1964] Yes.

[1965] And then right around the time that they switched from, all right, we're going from beta, and now it's a real boy now.

[1966] Right.

[1967] We got some press codes for the game.

[1968] And I'm like, I don't know if this is different from what you have, Jeff, so I'm just going to forward you one of these codes.

[1969] You can do what you want with it.

[1970] And even the person who sent us the codes was like, oh, he's in the beta.

[1971] Okay, well, here's some codes for the retail.

[1972] Like the Ubisoft guy didn't.

[1973] I don't know if people could have gotten into the beta without.

[1974] having a game key already, basically.

[1975] And so on their website, you can log in with your media account and then go into a menu where you can just feed it player keys and it'll take as many as you feed it.

[1976] He just gobbled it right up.

[1977] He's like, yeah, thanks.

[1978] Yeah, there you go.

[1979] Cool.

[1980] Cool, right on.

[1981] Got any more of those?

[1982] And it didn't change anything.

[1983] Media Planets hungry.

[1984] Did you get more planets?

[1985] I think I got 5 ,000 more planets, which I then used to invite people to our group, which is unfortunate because they could have just been spending their planets to join the group all along.

[1986] You have to spend planets to join?

[1987] You have to spend planets to download the game.

[1988] What?

[1989] Wait, so you just buy planets?

[1990] No. When you buy the game, you get 5 ,000 planets.

[1991] When you buy the game, you download it, and that's fine.

[1992] But if you want to download it again...

[1993] 100 planets.

[1994] What?

[1995] Yeah.

[1996] Why?

[1997] If you, you know, if you bone up your, if you lose the install file or something like that, you need to download it again?

[1998] How many points to invite someone to your group?

[1999] 100.

[2000] Why?

[2001] Because Track Media 2 is made by crazy people.

[2002] You can have, you have 50 slots on your friends list.

[2003] Yeah?

[2004] You want 51?

[2005] 100 points.

[2006] 150 planets to add.

[2007] a slot.

[2008] Why do you have to spend points to invite somebody to your group to play with?

[2009] I don't know!

[2010] There's no manual to explain anything!

[2011] It's just the truth!

[2012] I think if you're running a dedicated official ladder server, you get planets on an hourly basis per player.

[2013] Are you running that?

[2014] But, no. I'm running an unofficial...

[2015] So in order to switch it from just an unranked ladder server to a real ladder server, I have to give them a deposit of 10 ,000 planets.

[2016] This doesn't make sense.

[2017] A deposit?

[2018] A deposit?

[2019] Can you get that back?

[2020] It says deposit.

[2021] Like if you don't stay in the carpet or something?

[2022] It says deposit on the screen.

[2023] If I want to create an organization in -game, which I think might be a clan, I don't know.

[2024] Is that planets?

[2025] That's even more.

[2026] That might be 100 ,000 planets.

[2027] How many planets?

[2028] You start with like 5 ,000.

[2029] Okay.

[2030] So 150 planets, not that much.

[2031] Once you burn through that first five, I don't know.

[2032] I don't play great.

[2033] For getting a gold medal on a track, you get 60 planets.

[2034] Oh.

[2035] That is a lot then.

[2036] Yeah.

[2037] Yeah.

[2038] For going up 1 ,000 spots on the ladder or earning an additional 1 ,000 ladder points, you get, I want to say, 500, 200?

[2039] Not a lot.

[2040] Does it cost you planets if you log out?

[2041] No. Quit the game?

[2042] No. Quitting the game is free.

[2043] Launching the game.

[2044] That's 50 planets?

[2045] No. And so every time I log in now, I got a bunch of friend requests when I created the group and the server and all this stuff and accepted all of them.

[2046] And it let me accept all of them.

[2047] And now every time I log in, it says, hey, you have more than 50 friends.

[2048] You need to deal with this or we will.

[2049] What?

[2050] Like, it'll just cut my most recent friends down to 50 at some point.

[2051] But the fact that it let you add friends beyond what your friend list can handle.

[2052] What?

[2053] made this game!

[2054] So I envision a scenario, what if you spend all your planets?

[2055] Because you can also send planets to other players, you can donate to their server and it goes to the player.

[2056] They take a tax out when they do that.

[2057] Nadeo takes a percentage.

[2058] What if they care about planets?

[2059] They want the in -game money to mean something, so they need as many different drains for it as possible, right?

[2060] The economy just accumulates with it.

[2061] So...

[2062] Everyone's planet rich.

[2063] What happens if you spend all your planets on cars and additional friend slots and then your hard drive crashes and you have no planets and you don't have the game anymore?

[2064] And you can't accrue planets.

[2065] Right.

[2066] Do you think you accrue planets in the background on their server?

[2067] No. You'd log in to get those planets.

[2068] So it's on login, I would guess, that you get your daily planets or weekly planets or however they end up giving them to you.

[2069] Can you spend money to buy planets ever?

[2070] No. Buy another copy of the game.

[2071] If you buy another copy of the game and feed it that player key, I think you'll get another $5 ,000 because I think that's how I ended up with $10 ,000.

[2072] I don't know, man. It's messed up.

[2073] It's a weird messed up.

[2074] Can I change my ISK into planets?

[2075] You guys should play it.

[2076] You guys should play it.

[2077] I really want to.

[2078] You guys should play it.

[2079] You guys should play it.

[2080] It's so fucking weird.

[2081] I'm going to build World 1 -1.

[2082] It's so weird.

[2083] Hit the block and a car comes out.

[2084] Anything non -mania related, Jeff, you want to jam with that?

[2085] I'm pretty much all mania all the time.

[2086] Just manic.

[2087] Yeah, there's a lot of that.

[2088] Charlie Sheen.

[2089] It's going around.

[2090] Donna Spreadsheetmaker.

[2091] How's it going, man?

[2092] How you doing?

[2093] Doing good.

[2094] How's Resident Evil 4 in high definition?

[2095] Functional.

[2096] Competent.

[2097] Adequate.

[2098] What is that package?

[2099] These are all great back -of -box quotes.

[2100] Dot, dot, dot.

[2101] Okay.

[2102] Works as advertised.

[2103] I'm sorry.

[2104] What did you say?

[2105] What is that product?

[2106] I don't know if it's actually called Resident Evil 4 HD.

[2107] I don't think that's like the full official title.

[2108] Are there Resident Evils in it?

[2109] No. It's just 4.

[2110] So in Japan, they put this out on a disc.

[2111] Bundled with Code Veronica.

[2112] Yeah, so that's what I wanted to clarify.

[2113] Or Code Veronica X. Yeah.

[2114] Oh, God.

[2115] Okay, there are multiple levels of clarification that need to take place here.

[2116] What is Code Veronica X?

[2117] Is that different?

[2118] That was the updated version they put out on PS2 and Xbox.

[2119] Oh, and Xbox?

[2120] Well, maybe just PS2.

[2121] Maybe it was just PS2.

[2122] Just PS2.

[2123] But it's more than just the Dreamcast version.

[2124] Yeah.

[2125] Sure.

[2126] So the Dreamcast.

[2127] It was one of those things where they added like meat in this one.

[2128] You know, like added it to some kind of additional mode.

[2129] Meat.

[2130] Meat?

[2131] He's like the unlockable character that's been in.

[2132] You mean hunk?

[2133] Yeah.

[2134] Punk.

[2135] Yeah, whatever.

[2136] Was Code Veronica was the first one where they actually had polygonal backgrounds?

[2137] Yes, I think.

[2138] It wasn't just...

[2139] I think that's...

[2140] Yes, yes.

[2141] Okay.

[2142] That's correct.

[2143] It was the Dreamcast one originally.

[2144] Right, yeah, yeah.

[2145] It was the first one on the Dreamcast.

[2146] Yeah, I think X was maybe some bonus feature stuff and cleaned up some graphics a little bit, but...

[2147] So it's that.

[2148] Okay.

[2149] That's not out yet, actually.

[2150] That's not out until next week.

[2151] Yeah.

[2152] What is Code Veronica?

[2153] Code Veronica X. Four came out this week.

[2154] And they're releasing that as a separate...

[2155] The reason I bring it up is that in Japan, this all came out on a disc, and it was on the same disc, right?

[2156] Yeah.

[2157] Is that correct?

[2158] Yeah.

[2159] So Code Veronica X and RE4 came out on this disc on PS3 and Xbox in Japan.

[2160] Biohazard Chronicles.

[2161] Like three weeks ago or something, or a month ago.

[2162] And this...

[2163] Here they have elected to break them up and sell them for $20 a piece on Games on Demand slash PSN.

[2164] It's not even XBLA.

[2165] It's games on demand.

[2166] So that's part of what's so weird about this thing.

[2167] Because it's a games on demand release because of size or whatever.

[2168] Yeah, it's like a 3 .6 gig download, and XBLA games top out at a little over two.

[2169] Bradley, what else is going on, man?

[2170] Renegade Ops.

[2171] Yeah!

[2172] I only played through the first mission.

[2173] I played the entirety of that game since last we spoke.

[2174] Yeah.

[2175] Still good?

[2176] Yeah.

[2177] Game's awesome.

[2178] Played some more of it over a weekend.

[2179] I'd be like Mission 5, I think.

[2180] Those avalanche fellows know a thing or two about explosions.

[2181] Yeah, stuff blows up real, real good.

[2182] They know how to make explosions look real good.

[2183] Why would you pick anyone other than the airstrike girl?

[2184] I played some of the other characters and they have their uses.

[2185] Okay.

[2186] The guy with the...

[2187] I don't find the airstrike super useful either, so...

[2188] Oh, dude, I don't know.

[2189] The airstrike, once you get the ability that makes it hit as soon as you use it, that's when it's good.

[2190] Yeah, because when you first go through that first mission before you have any points to sink into anything, it's...

[2191] There's like a three second delay after you drop it.

[2192] A significant delay.

[2193] And a lot of the targets in that first mission are mobile.

[2194] There are four airstrikes happening at the same time.

[2195] It seems pretty easy.

[2196] But holy shit, I love the structure of that game.

[2197] I love the like, okay.

[2198] It's amazing.

[2199] Like, you have this other kind of, like, side mission that's going on right now.

[2200] You can run around and go to these encampments and rescue these dudes if you want.

[2201] And you get more XP for doing that, and then your jeep levels up.

[2202] But then you've got this clock, or, you know, you don't even know the clock is ticking until it hits this certain point.

[2203] Like, all right, you've got this much time to finish your main objective, or else you're done.

[2204] It's kind of fun with multiplayer, because you can actually split up and just, all right, you do that.

[2205] You go do that one.

[2206] I'm going to take care of this.

[2207] Yeah, that sounds awesome.

[2208] I only played single player.

[2209] The way they notify you that your time is about to run out is amazing.

[2210] There is.

[2211] There's no fucking way you can miss that.

[2212] It goes completely black and white.

[2213] It slows down to about a tenth of the speed.

[2214] Yeah.

[2215] And then it's just like, boom, you've got three minutes.

[2216] Move your ass.

[2217] And I read your review, and I liked it.

[2218] And you mentioned the point.

[2219] I didn't realize that your CEO...

[2220] having his fill, was basically the opening cinematic.

[2221] Oh, yeah.

[2222] It's great.

[2223] Like, they said all the story and everything in motion right there, and he's just like, I got no time for you guys.

[2224] It's just these namby -pamby diplomats just, like, hemming and hawing, like, wringing their hands about what do we do.

[2225] He literally pulls the handful, like, the fistful of medals off of his uniform, fucking throws them down on the table, like, storms out.

[2226] It's amazing.

[2227] He's got his big old chops, real Captain Price -looking motherfuckers.

[2228] Alex made the point that it's basically like the G .I. Joe game that we always wanted.

[2229] They might as well have just given you...

[2230] I know some guys that are down for this mission.

[2231] Find your ragtag group.

[2232] Yeah, and just the basic feel of the way the shooting and the driving works.

[2233] Yeah, the vehicle movement is really awesome.

[2234] You do donuts all day long on those things.

[2235] I mean, it's no Trackmania 2, but it's good.

[2236] Those guys should make a...

[2237] Avalanche should make a Iron Man Ivan Stewart.

[2238] Yeah, dude, that was the first game I thought of when I first played that game.

[2239] I was like, this feels like super off -road.

[2240] There's that looseness to it, that bumpy surfaces.

[2241] Yeah, it's a hell of a game for $15.

[2242] Good stuff.

[2243] Somebody on our forums posited the theory that...

[2244] This is them testing four -player co -op in their engine, so the Just Cause 3 can have four -player co -op.

[2245] I'll take it.

[2246] Dude, make that happen.

[2247] Somebody make that happen.

[2248] God, how would that even work?

[2249] I don't care.

[2250] I want it.

[2251] All right, I'm going to fly the plane.

[2252] I'm going to buzz past you.

[2253] I want you to jump onto it, hang onto the tail of it, and I'm going to do a barrel roll.

[2254] Four players in stunt position.

[2255] Assume the stunt position.

[2256] I'm going to fly you into this building.

[2257] Three dudes are hanging off now.

[2258] Everyone jump out at the last second so we can knock down this building.

[2259] The mayhem would be unbelievable.

[2260] Yeah.

[2261] I like to believe.

[2262] And they would all have great accents.

[2263] All four players.

[2264] Yeah, there's some good voice work in that game as well.

[2265] Some stuff that's actually decent.

[2266] I like to believe that Renegade Ops and Just Cause exist in the same universe.

[2267] Oh, yeah.

[2268] That's all.

[2269] That's contiguous.

[2270] That's the avalanche -verse.

[2271] Yeah, I'm on board with that.

[2272] I'm totally on board.

[2273] Does Dig Dug also take place there?

[2274] No, because it's a Sega.

[2275] Actually, no, I guess there is no publisher continuity there.

[2276] But I still maintain that Renegade Ops is a terrible name.

[2277] It is.

[2278] It is.

[2279] It's just too generic.

[2280] It's not attention -getting.

[2281] Fight Men.

[2282] Although it is also, I guess, in kind of the throwback retro Jackal -y feel of that game.

[2283] Yeah, it fits.

[2284] That's a name that a game would have had.

[2285] It's the bullet storm thing of how did we get to 2011 and there wasn't already a game called Renegade Ops.

[2286] I feel like, really?

[2287] Maybe there was.

[2288] Who knows?

[2289] Yeah.

[2290] I guess like a mode in something was called Renegade Ops.

[2291] It's like some old Data East game.

[2292] There's nobody around to lay claim to it anymore.

[2293] Even the characters look straight at it.

[2294] You can kind of see around the edges how it was probably made on a small budget.

[2295] There is exactly one piece of artwork for each of those characters.

[2296] They never move.

[2297] They never animate.

[2298] I don't think you see them in cutscenes really.

[2299] Slide in and out of frame.

[2300] We gotta get him!

[2301] Pretty much, they've always got the same expression.

[2302] Oh, I destroyed my floating copter!

[2303] But the other characters are decent in some places.

[2304] The guy who has the armored shell that goes around him, because you can still drive while it's on, you just can't shoot.

[2305] But there's a lot of places where you're getting hit real hard with a bunch of stuff at one time, and popping that thing is super cool.

[2306] Hunker down, drive through some buildings, get health.

[2307] Yep, super useful.

[2308] There's no difference in handling models for those guys?

[2309] You thought there is.

[2310] At first I thought there was, but if there is, they don't give you any kind of, like, you know, bars for speed and turning and stuff like that.

[2311] And I tried it again, tried to compare, and, like, they'd seem basically the same.

[2312] The skill trees are actually all basically, other than the skills that pertain to your unique special ability, all the skills are the same.

[2313] They're just distributed in a different order.

[2314] Interesting.

[2315] That's a fun game.

[2316] It is.

[2317] I should try out some four -player there.

[2318] Yeah, in the quick look, we played four -player on a stage on normal.

[2319] This game is just fucking stupid easy on normal with four people.

[2320] I'm just going to go through on normal solo.

[2321] Yeah, that's the way to do it.

[2322] And get a four -player posse to do the hardcore.

[2323] Because by the end of a run on normal, your character will be up to level 40 or something.

[2324] Yeah, you level quick.

[2325] Yeah, you do.

[2326] You ding.

[2327] It's like a straight -up MMO ding.

[2328] It's just like column of yellow light.

[2329] Like, bong.

[2330] I'm like, I'm too busy exploding things to care about that.

[2331] I'll get back to you in a minute.

[2332] Yeah, let me upgrade later.

[2333] But I did.

[2334] When this giant battleship that I'm shooting at is done exploding.

[2335] Oh, man. I wish they used the helicopter a little more often.

[2336] Yeah.

[2337] It's only like two or three times.

[2338] And when you die in the helicopter, it's a touch confusion.

[2339] They do not make it explicit that, hey, go shoot that crate so you get a new helicopter.

[2340] Get another helicopter.

[2341] All right, I guess I'm.

[2342] In a buggy now?

[2343] How am I going to fight that boat now that I'm in this buggy?

[2344] Because you can still drive around.

[2345] There's still that path that you can go down.

[2346] Like, okay, this is the only place I can drive.

[2347] Let's go.

[2348] Yeah, it's a little rough.

[2349] Barreling down this road, and then it just ends in the ocean.

[2350] I'm like, oh, I sucked my buggy again.

[2351] That's not...

[2352] Clearly, I'm doing something wrong.

[2353] It's a little rough, but the core of it is so much fun.

[2354] I did just want to say I played...

[2355] Played a little bit with Will Smith over the weekend on Hardcore.

[2356] Hardcore does not mess around.

[2357] So if you're going to play online with other people, play Hardcore.

[2358] And it does not scale.

[2359] So get your level up, then play Hardcore?

[2360] That's what we're doing, yeah.

[2361] Level up and have a posse.

[2362] Great game.

[2363] I guess that's it.

[2364] That's just the Gears.

[2365] Gears.

[2366] I want to go finish Gears as fast as I can before somebody tells me what happens.

[2367] pretty deep into it.

[2368] Yeah, probably.

[2369] You said you're in Act 4?

[2370] Yeah.

[2371] There's five acts.

[2372] Griffin has sent me on the mission that he put me on.

[2373] I'm still trying to figure out...

[2374] I didn't finish the first one.

[2375] Really?

[2376] You never fought General Rom?

[2377] I didn't.

[2378] I got to some dumb point in that game where...

[2379] just dying behind cover constantly, and I'm like, it was one of those, like, I'm going to put this down for now, I'll come back to you later, and it just never did.

[2380] That was Gears 2 for me. And in Gears 2, I was just like, I'll just play this.

[2381] Yeah, I understand this universe well enough.

[2382] Speaking back to kind of the simplicity of the scenario in the first one, which is just, that first game was just about introducing the aesthetic and kind of the...

[2383] The grimy tone of it all, so...

[2384] What was the...

[2385] I didn't feel like I was missing too much.

[2386] It was the light mass bomb at the end of the first one, right?

[2387] Yeah.

[2388] It's not what happened.

[2389] They planted the bomb.

[2390] I think that's the big story parts, right?

[2391] Yeah.

[2392] Like, you're trying to get that done.

[2393] Yeah, that was the focus in the first one was drop that bomb.

[2394] Drop that bomb.

[2395] Sink Jacinto.

[2396] Yeah.

[2397] Jacinto Plateau, is that what it's called?

[2398] Yeah.

[2399] Adam Phoenix.

[2400] That's what I remember from the second one.

[2401] This is going to be a thing now.

[2402] Adam Phoenix was a big deal.

[2403] Yeah.

[2404] Definitely made him to be a big deal.

[2405] I can't believe I'm sitting here speaking so highly of Gears of War 3.

[2406] I just really didn't expect much of anything out of it.

[2407] I was like, it'll be more Gears, whatever.

[2408] But no, it's the best Gears by far.

[2409] The game was in development for a while.

[2410] They showed it off at two E3s and various events and stuff like that.

[2411] And I never really spent a whole lot of time looking at it.

[2412] And the stuff they were saying about like, oh, it's going to be more players in co -op and wider areas and stuff.

[2413] You look at it and go, that looks good.

[2414] I mean, it looks like Gears, but it looks good.

[2415] Whatever.

[2416] Yeah, but then it seemed like over the last couple of weeks of leading up to me going, like I went and played through the first act like a month ago or something like that now.

[2417] And it wasn't until a couple of weeks before that that I was like, man, I actually totally want to know what happens in this game, like story -wise.

[2418] It came on suddenly of like, I totally want to see this shit.

[2419] And then playing through the first act, I was like, yeah, okay, I super want to know how this actually ends.

[2420] It was weird.

[2421] It was weird.

[2422] Especially with the promise that, like, hey, we're going to do some stuff to move this story along or finish it.

[2423] It moves quickly.

[2424] Not to string you along into a seven -chapter, seven -game series.

[2425] I'll just mention briefly, I've been trying to play that Akron RTS game for about two weeks now.

[2426] I watched you try to play some of it.

[2427] I had to leave the room.

[2428] I still...

[2429] I feel like an idiot, but I still haven't quite gotten...

[2430] Drewstrom's trying to help me, too.

[2431] He sits in a room about an hour a day.

[2432] Well, maybe not that much, but we've been trying to do a quick look of it.

[2433] I'm like, I just don't...

[2434] I still don't quite understand what you want from me. Some kind of time travel RTS, right?

[2435] Yes.

[2436] So you can...

[2437] make your units jump back to save them?

[2438] Is that?

[2439] So you jump back in time.

[2440] Uh -huh.

[2441] And then you're like, okay, here's what, but the present, so you have a timeline.

[2442] Okay.

[2443] You with me?

[2444] There's a line of time.

[2445] Yeah, a line of time.

[2446] With a marker that says, here's the present, right?

[2447] And that time, that present is always creeping forward, right?

[2448] The present.

[2449] Time marches on.

[2450] Time marches on.

[2451] So you jump back in time.

[2452] Uh -huh.

[2453] But the present, what you did in the present, is still going forward.

[2454] So the actions you're taking in the past are going to affect when you jump back to the future present where your units are in the present and the enemies you've killed in the past will be reflected back into the present but also the future of where you are.

[2455] So you're affecting everything forward and time...

[2456] It catches up in waves that go by, kind of like Lumines.

[2457] Shut up.

[2458] It's just like waves come by.

[2459] Shut up.

[2460] But then you also – the enemy or the guys that are with you can also travel in time.

[2461] So then you get two timelines that show you like, all right, Brad is in this place currently.

[2462] Shut your fucking face.

[2463] He's doing this.

[2464] And then you get objectives that are like – No one understands anything.

[2465] They're like, your objective is not to have this guy.

[2466] You're the coke guy at the party now.

[2467] Trying to explain astrophysics that he doesn't understand.

[2468] You need to jump back to 2 .30 because Rathke died at 2 .30, but you're at 4 .30 in the mission, so you need to jump back here.

[2469] And then on your timeline, there are just red blobs that show you big encounters that are happening, so you want to make sure you avoid...

[2470] It's just crazy.

[2471] And then you have chrono energy, but you can travel in time, but you can also teleport around on the map.

[2472] What?

[2473] Shut up.

[2474] Yeah.

[2475] So, like...

[2476] Jeff, what's up with...

[2477] No. When you jump back in time, do your units disappear from the present?

[2478] No. Well, you don't see them unless you jump back to the present.

[2479] But are they there while time is marching on in the present?

[2480] Are they still there or are you taking them out and taking them into the past?

[2481] No, they're still there.

[2482] Well, what are they doing there if you've taken them back into the past?

[2483] I'm not 100 % sure.

[2484] Breaking news.

[2485] What's up?

[2486] Patrick Klevik just sent me a text message that just says beta client downloading.

[2487] What beta would that be?

[2488] I have a pretty good idea.

[2489] Me too, but there's like three betas already on the table that I can think about.

[2490] It's not Battlefield because that's not until 29.

[2491] I think you're looking at the present of where you currently are in the past.

[2492] I tried.

[2493] You know what I'm saying?

[2494] I tried.

[2495] So you jump back to the past, you're killing these guys, and now you've reset the timeline when the time wave catches up because whatever you do in the past is rippled in a wave that actually has to travel through the timeline to effect, to reset what happened in the future.

[2496] So you move back there, and if you jump forward back to the present, your guys will still be where they left you until the time wave catches up, and then they'll be over here because that's where you left them in the past.

[2497] Well, now that you've spent all that time saying that, I just want to say Kirby Mass Attack is really good.

[2498] Oh, that seems cool.

[2499] Yeah.

[2500] How's the time mechanic in that?

[2501] I can't talk about it now.

[2502] Why?

[2503] Because you've blown all of our time.

[2504] We're deep into this podcast.

[2505] I feel bad because I've been trying to show the world this game because I think it might be interesting, but I just can't wrap my head around it.

[2506] I'm not sure if we'll ever do a quick look of it because it would just be me trying to explain that.

[2507] So it would just be like this past five minutes on the podcast.

[2508] But worse because you'd be watching.

[2509] I'd like to rewind the last five minutes of that and ask some more questions earlier on.

[2510] You know what I'm saying?

[2511] Like a fake time bomb, right?

[2512] I don't understand how you do that.

[2513] I've just cut this whole section of the podcast.

[2514] I don't know how you do that.

[2515] Acrons.

[2516] Certain sections cut for time.

[2517] That's right.

[2518] How come I'm in Blocks That Matter?

[2519] What?

[2520] I'm looking at the thumbnail for Blocks That Matter, and that dude looks like a cartoon version of me. That is either the dude who made Tetris or the dude who made Minecraft.

[2521] Is this a game from the people that made Tetris and Minecraft?

[2522] No. Apparently that game is also available on Xbox indie games.

[2523] Oh.

[2524] So it's part Minecraft, part Tetris?

[2525] Yeah, sure.

[2526] You should watch that quick look.

[2527] It's a cool game.

[2528] Platforming.

[2529] Drilling robot.

[2530] A Mr. Driller Mr. Robot.

[2531] A Taizo.

[2532] Yeah, Taizohori is driving a Ridge Racer machine, and then Reiko Nagase's brother is flying overhead, dropping bombs on everyone.

[2533] No, he's driving that machine.

[2534] And above that, he is in space.

[2535] He's driving that machine into a Galaga.

[2536] Are you a Galaga?

[2537] No, Galagas are the...

[2538] I'm a Galaga.

[2539] Let's talk about news.

[2540] Smash watermelons all day.

[2541] Good lord.

[2542] Good riddance.

[2543] Breaking news, beta.

[2544] Guys, something is going into beta.

[2545] I'm going to guess...

[2546] It was Diablo.

[2547] Diablo.

[2548] I've confirmed.

[2549] Could have been Battlefield.

[2550] Could have been Dota 2.

[2551] Could have been Dota.

[2552] I was hoping it was Dota 2.

[2553] I've been hearing enough of the Diablo stuff flying around more fast and furious lately, so I figured this...

[2554] Diablo went kind of wide already.

[2555] Oh, I think that my Battle .net account has the stupid security code on it, and I don't have the authenticator installed anymore, and now I've got to call them.

[2556] Oh, yeah.

[2557] Let's talk about some news.

[2558] News.

[2559] All sorts of stuff going on, you guys.

[2560] Breaking news.

[2561] Got the lights to work on my joust machine.

[2562] Really?

[2563] Got one.

[2564] The other bulbs have burned out.

[2565] But.

[2566] Yeah, I got that.

[2567] I got one of the front panel lights to light up.

[2568] What about your controls?

[2569] Are they still fucked up?

[2570] Yes.

[2571] Okay.

[2572] What do they not do?

[2573] Control.

[2574] Player two runs to the right.

[2575] Player one doesn't flap.

[2576] All right.

[2577] The last time we went in there, Player 1 worked fine.

[2578] And in trying to get Player 2, or at least diagnose Player 2, we ended up fucking up.

[2579] But mechanically, the controls work.

[2580] I actually tested it all, so up until that interface board, everything actually worked.

[2581] So it's totally just that interface board.

[2582] Unless it's something after the interface board, but I don't think it is.

[2583] So, yeah.

[2584] Crazy daughter board on there.

[2585] I think the interface board, it's hard to look that stuff up online, but $10 or $15, but it's like...

[2586] Market price.

[2587] Where can you find one of those now?

[2588] Nowhere.

[2589] I spent about two hours trying to find it.

[2590] My wife got real mad.

[2591] Crytek has announced...

[2592] Crytek and THQ have announced that Crytek is going to make the next Homefront game.

[2593] In other breaking news, there's going to be a next Homefront game.

[2594] I thought they said never.

[2595] No, I thought they said...

[2596] We're going to close down the developer that made the original.

[2597] They were going to move it to Montreal.

[2598] They did that, but they said there would be another one.

[2599] Oh, what was the Never one?

[2600] That was Red Faction.

[2601] They were putting Red Faction back on the shelf.

[2602] Okay.

[2603] Yeah, great.

[2604] Homefront continues unabated.

[2605] Red Faction.

[2606] Smart.

[2607] This is Crytek UK.

[2608] This is the Free Radical guys.

[2609] Basically just Free Radical making it right.

[2610] So there'll be monkeys with guns in it, I guess.

[2611] And then the other talk is that there's been a TimeSplitters 4.

[2612] Four?

[2613] Yeah.

[2614] Four?

[2615] Yeah.

[2616] Four.

[2617] Or five?

[2618] What was the future?

[2619] Geez, I thought there was just a three.

[2620] I thought there was just two.

[2621] Yeah, I guess so.

[2622] No, no, they did three.

[2623] There was one, there was two, and then three they didn't call three.

[2624] They called it like Future Perfect.

[2625] Yeah, Future Perfect.

[2626] So, yeah.

[2627] So, there was word that they had been working on that for a while.

[2628] Right.

[2629] And that got shelved.

[2630] So, I don't know what this.

[2631] It has to do with the fate of that, but that's sloshing around in the mix out there.

[2632] I don't know.

[2633] Thoughts on this collabo?

[2634] Do you think Free Radical making Homefront on the Cry engine?

[2635] I don't know.

[2636] It'll look good.

[2637] Maybe.

[2638] Yeah, maybe that'll be great.

[2639] Hard to say.

[2640] No one ever...

[2641] Homefront was not a good game.

[2642] Yeah, it had potential, but yeah.

[2643] Conceptually, yeah, it had potential.

[2644] Like doing Red Dawn, like whatever.

[2645] I don't know what they're going for.

[2646] Are they going to be like...

[2647] It sounded like Red...

[2648] Or not Red Faction.

[2649] Homefront was trying to be a big multiplayer thing because the campaign was really short, right?

[2650] The campaign was kind of just four hours.

[2651] They basically kind of made it like they thought that people like Call of Duty, let's do something like that.

[2652] Let's make this short, really kind of almost offensive campaign both due to technical issues and just like the wanton mowing down of civilians just like for effect.

[2653] Like, man, this is how intense it is.

[2654] The North Koreans totally shot that fucking kid.

[2655] Joe's Mass Grave, isn't that extreme?

[2656] Oh, my God.

[2657] Let's go skydiving.

[2658] No Russian whatever.

[2659] But then keep the multiplayer as the thing that hooks you, right?

[2660] Yeah, but I don't know.

[2661] I thought the multiplayer was pretty bad.

[2662] So I don't know.

[2663] I feel like they can make a really good single -player game.

[2664] I don't know if those are the guys.

[2665] I think KHQ just invested so much into marketing and awareness of Homefront, even if that game was shit.

[2666] Everyone knows about it.

[2667] Think of all the Korean taco trucks we had to rent.

[2668] I think they actually did a pretty good job with that.

[2669] I think Homefront, the name, got out there a lot.

[2670] It was everywhere.

[2671] Yeah.

[2672] I think they actually did succeed in their marketing.

[2673] I think that, yeah, that is exactly my point.

[2674] It's like, yes, we built this brand.

[2675] They made the investment, and that part paid off.

[2676] They didn't make the investment on, you know, developer and making a game that was worthy of that effort.

[2677] They did a good job of disappointing people.

[2678] Yeah.

[2679] They made sure that everyone knew about this thing, so then they would be disappointed by it.

[2680] Yeah, that was on, you know, bus shelters.

[2681] Oh, yeah.

[2682] Buses and billboards.

[2683] That dude with the bandage on his eyes.

[2684] Yeah, he can't see very well.

[2685] Can she?

[2686] That's it.

[2687] Homefront 2, he did the blindfolds off.

[2688] Telekinesis, sword stuff.

[2689] Psy -ops.

[2690] Sony has rolled out a new Terms of Service for the PlayStation 3, for PlayStation Network specifically.

[2691] And there's language in there that basically says you can't...

[2692] create a class action can't be part of a class action lawsuit to sue us uh basically kind of in response to oh remember when psn was real fucked up earlier this year Well, if that ever happens again, we'll be okay.

[2693] I think even if that happened, I think if you opt in for this thing, it's like, well, you can't be part of any class action lawsuits that might be happening here.

[2694] And that's just straight up, hey, if you want to keep using this, you have to agree to this terms of service.

[2695] So I was wondering, can you return a product if you don't agree with that?

[2696] If you're like, I don't like the changes you've made, I'd like to bring back my PS3 and get my money back.

[2697] Well, in this case, it's not for the PS3.

[2698] It's just for the PSN service.

[2699] It's for the online stuff, right?

[2700] Yeah.

[2701] Well, so Patrick has a story up that's worth reading just to kind of drill down on the specifics of this.

[2702] And how you can opt out.

[2703] And then he also has – he has created a form that allows you to – that you can easily fill out and then mail back to Sony to – because you can't – You can't keep using that shit.

[2704] Do you agree to this currently?

[2705] Is that up now?

[2706] It's not even part of a firmware.

[2707] When you turn your PS3 on, it does not sign in to PSN and you have to manually go to sign in and then it pops up the new terms.

[2708] My PlayStation has been offline for the weekend.

[2709] I got an email that was like, hey, this has changed.

[2710] You can agree to this.

[2711] I don't think they know that I'm offline, obviously, but it came through on my email that was like, hey, new terms of service, whatever.

[2712] And I remember seeing that story.

[2713] I was like, I'm not going to sign up for this.

[2714] I'm going to find out just so I can be contrary and find out what the options are.

[2715] You never know when I want to be part of a class action lawsuit.

[2716] It sounds like fun.

[2717] Yeah, I want my five cents.

[2718] I want my coupon for a shake.

[2719] But so you have 30 days within agreeing to these terms of service to send something to Sony saying, actually, I don't agree with these terms of service.

[2720] And then what happens?

[2721] And then you can't sue Sony for PSN being asked.

[2722] No, if you say, I don't agree.

[2723] That's not even true, right?

[2724] I think you're opting out of that clause, right?

[2725] I talked to Patrick about it some more.

[2726] I mean, just because they put it in an end -user agreement doesn't make it legally binding.

[2727] Oh, really?

[2728] Yeah.

[2729] So it's like they get to put whatever they want.

[2730] It might not even hold up.

[2731] Under, like, actual legal tests.

[2732] Like scrutiny.

[2733] Like your landlord can put whatever the hell he wants in your lease, but that doesn't mean it complies with, like, you know, state tenant law or whatever.

[2734] Even if that checkbox says, I agree?

[2735] Yeah.

[2736] Like, you know, but I mean, if you take it to court.

[2737] If you agree to have regular sex with your landlord in lieu of rent, you could still eventually sue him for that.

[2738] Really?

[2739] Even if you signed and agreed to it.

[2740] That's against the law.

[2741] I've got to make a phone call.

[2742] He characterized it more as a scare tactic.

[2743] It's just like, oh, people see that they have agreed to this thing, and they're like, oh, well, then I guess I can't do that.

[2744] Well, it's a speed bump, too, right?

[2745] To be like, hey, you guys agreed to this, and then they have to go get a lawyer to find out if that's legal or not.

[2746] I didn't know that.

[2747] I thought legal or not, a contract takes precedent, like legal binding.

[2748] No, those things are not above the law.

[2749] You can't sell your children slavery with a contract.

[2750] That doesn't make it okay.

[2751] You can't legally kill a man just because you have a contract.

[2752] Just because he signed a thing saying, please kill me. Really?

[2753] Yep.

[2754] It wouldn't be legal.

[2755] You might get some sort of reduced thing in court or something.

[2756] It was just like, well, we signed this thing and you want to do it.

[2757] Vinny, I got some papers for you to sign.

[2758] It's goddamn government, man. I know.

[2759] It's a big government.

[2760] U .S. out of my uterus.

[2761] Thanks, Obama.

[2762] That's right.

[2763] He did this.

[2764] Yeah, yeah.

[2765] Obamacare.

[2766] Yeah, you got problems with PSN.

[2767] These are the death panels.

[2768] Bring it up with Obama.

[2769] This is the step one of the death panel.

[2770] accepting these new terms of service.

[2771] PS3 version of Assassin's Creed Revelations coming bundled with a copy of Assassin's Creed 1.

[2772] That's pretty awesome.

[2773] That is the single best use of surplus storage on a Blu -ray that I've seen.

[2774] We had enough room to put this other game on here, so here you go.

[2775] Yeah, I wish it would have been...

[2776] The subsequent ones.

[2777] Yeah, you're right.

[2778] I guess they probably have the knowledge of, like, yeah, the most people didn't play this first game.

[2779] And I just wonder.

[2780] It's also the oldest one that has the least value to them.

[2781] More to the point, everything they've shown in Revelations indicates some pretty clear ties to the multi -year stuff.

[2782] Sure, sure.

[2783] And, you know, there's been little sprinklings of that in 2 and in Brotherhood.

[2784] I just don't know that you can make that jump.

[2785] I don't know that if you...

[2786] If you skip...

[2787] Everything in between?

[2788] I mean, 2 and Brotherhood, and I haven't played any of the single -player Revelations, so I can't speak to what that handles like.

[2789] But there's kind of a clear connection as far as the way basic handling is in those games.

[2790] The first one feels so much different.

[2791] It's a little bit stiffer.

[2792] Yeah, I just don't know.

[2793] Structurally, it's just not as good as the games that came afterwards.

[2794] When's that coming out?

[2795] It's a bonus if they were to remake the first Assassin's Creed and update all the control stuff.

[2796] It's not the control so much as the quest design.

[2797] It's the fact that it's nothing but there are nine targets to kill.

[2798] Just grind these.

[2799] For every target, there is a prerequisite of three or four missions, and they're all the same mission.

[2800] It was a good proof of concept.

[2801] Yeah, it was.

[2802] You definitely got the sense that they were figuring out the tech and couldn't really focus on the concept.

[2803] They got the framework in place, but what they filled around it wasn't so good.

[2804] Had to stretch it out for a couple of hours.

[2805] Oh, man. Yeah, it's still a good bonus.

[2806] You're right.

[2807] Yeah, it's a cool bonus.

[2808] I haven't played Brotherhood yet.

[2809] That's not going to happen by November, is it?

[2810] No. Oh, wait, that's right.

[2811] You played two.

[2812] Yeah, I just played two like four or five months ago.

[2813] You were on your path.

[2814] I'm just going to resign myself to be a year behind on Assassin's Creed games.

[2815] Has anybody said this is the end of the Ezio story?

[2816] Yes.

[2817] They've said explicitly this is it for Ezio.

[2818] Okay.

[2819] He sinks the Jacinto Plateau.

[2820] Man. Destroys the mansion.

[2821] Adam Ezio rescues Chris.

[2822] That is another underground mansion.

[2823] Adam Ezio.

[2824] It's his dad.

[2825] Yeah.

[2826] Okay.

[2827] Yeah, he plants the light bomb.

[2828] Film at 11.

[2829] And he's the only one that survives for the suicide mission.

[2830] DC Universe Online is going what?

[2831] Free to play.

[2832] That's a quick one.

[2833] Yeah, that is a quick one.

[2834] That's maybe one of the fastest turnarounds from traditional MMO model to...

[2835] I think games...

[2836] I think MMOs should not launch with...

[2837] not being free to play anymore at this point at this point i bought i bought that game for 60 bucks or whatever it was and then uh you know had my free month you'll be able to play it again and they have three tiers of service so there's the the absolutely positively free tier um which is just you have never paid.

[2838] I think you'll be able to download the client for free.

[2839] Maybe not on PS3.

[2840] I don't really know about that.

[2841] Yeah.

[2842] So there's this free tier.

[2843] Super free.

[2844] Super free.

[2845] Limited inventory slots, limited character slots, all that other stuff.

[2846] If you buy any one thing, or $5 worth of stuff, I think is maybe what it is, you get upgraded to the next tier of service.

[2847] Or if you have paid for it.

[2848] Or if you've paid in the past.

[2849] So if I bought the game?

[2850] If you bought the game and had a subscription at any point, you'll get this middle tier.

[2851] Okay.

[2852] The trial subscription that counts?

[2853] Yeah, premium is the middle tier.

[2854] So if you've spent some amount of money at any point on this game.

[2855] What does that get me?

[2856] That gets you more inventory slots, more character stuff, and I think a little bit more content.

[2857] You get auction slots.

[2858] You get more bank slots.

[2859] You can do item trading, which there is no item trading on the free slot or on the free level.

[2860] Is there a level cap?

[2861] I don't know.

[2862] You hit the level cap so quickly in that game that if they were below the actual cap, it would be really dumb.

[2863] And then there's the tier where you continue paying them $14 .99 a month and you get all the stuff.

[2864] You're subscribing, you get everything.

[2865] People on the middle tier, and I think even probably the bottom tier, which would get them to the middle tier if they bought anything, can buy episodes.

[2866] So they'll sell content packs.

[2867] Newer?

[2868] Yeah.

[2869] Okay, that aren't available now.

[2870] Right.

[2871] Okay.

[2872] Got it.

[2873] We don't have this in our story, but I was reading something else about this change in John Smedley, the guy who runs SOE.

[2874] There was this insane quote from him to the effect of like, yeah, we felt this was the best model in the first place.

[2875] I'm like, well, then why the fuck did you not launch with this model in the first place?

[2876] Probably because DC said, no, we're like the world of Warcraft.

[2877] Our stuff is popular.

[2878] You will charge.

[2879] I bet.

[2880] I bet that has to be it.

[2881] Yeah, you think the SUV's like, no, the future is...

[2882] If he's coming out and saying we should have done this in the first place, then they wanted to do it in the first place and someone somewhere along the way wouldn't let him.

[2883] He's also actually pretty...

[2884] I wish I could remember where I saw this stuff, but he was also pretty candid about like, yeah, this game took a lot longer to make than we anticipated that it would and that had some impacts as far as how some of these decisions were made.

[2885] Smedley's always seemed like kind of a straight shooter.

[2886] Yeah, he definitely...

[2887] From interviews and stuff.

[2888] He comes off...

[2889] Pretty straight up in his talk about this stuff.

[2890] So whatever.

[2891] It's 2011 and MMOs.

[2892] But it's kind of the crazy thing.

[2893] So much money gets spent developing an MMO that I think that the money men behind them or the people even working on them feel like, no way, man. This game is every bit as good as...

[2894] World of Warcraft, it's up there with all this other stuff from all the other third generation MMOs, whatever you want to call them.

[2895] And they all come at it from this approach of just like, of course it's worth a subscription fee.

[2896] I mean, this is great stuff.

[2897] And then see their numbers tank six months in or whatever and go, oh, fuck.

[2898] I guess we got to change like everybody else.

[2899] They probably just need to start launching this way.

[2900] And some of them certainly are.

[2901] It's something I've hoped that would happen for a while.

[2902] You buy a box copy, spend $60, and you get some kind of forever free content.

[2903] I mean, this would make me go back into DC and check it out.

[2904] Why not?

[2905] I always feel like you need to go one way or the other.

[2906] The idea of paying for a box copy of an MMO always seems crazy to me. If I'm going to go play your subscription -based game...

[2907] Just let me download the client for free, because I can't do anything with this until I start paying you the $15 a month.

[2908] Now I understand it's kind of a legacy from a time gone past.

[2909] Yeah, the retail model is what it is, and they don't want to be cut out of the loop.

[2910] But for, you know, it seems like it makes a lot more sense to go that way, although now subscriptions are fucking dead for MMOs anyway.

[2911] I bet that when Blizzard launches its next generation MMO, it will be free to play.

[2912] Absolutely.

[2913] I still think people...

[2914] Don't really like MMOs.

[2915] They like World of Warcraft.

[2916] Yeah.

[2917] And I think, I don't know, I'm watching over the last six years.

[2918] There's an audience.

[2919] There are definitely people who like MMOs.

[2920] Oh, for sure.

[2921] I mean, you definitely see the games kind of rise and fall as people jump from one game to the next or do whatever if a game is broken or whatever.

[2922] I guess I mean that.

[2923] But there are people out there who have played them all.

[2924] That's like, yeah, I was in Rift for like three months and then I maxed out, got bored.

[2925] I guess I shouldn't say.

[2926] We all moved over to this.

[2927] I don't mean people.

[2928] I mean that target that it seems like some developers.

[2929] You're talking about that brass ring, which is like we're going to be.

[2930] That insane.

[2931] mass market right that billion dollars a day international like yeah the the crazy business that blizzard has has built up and so when people are like we're gonna make an mmo to take that down right always seems like kind of crazy to me like wow what a gamble i really don't think those people are are just big MMO fans.

[2932] I think they just really like that world, and some people use it as a chat room or whatever.

[2933] Even some of those people, I mean, the World of Warcraft numbers aren't what they used to be, right?

[2934] Oh, they've definitely ebbed.

[2935] They peaked, I think, a few years ago.

[2936] Right, and I think every time they do it.

[2937] We'd have to have someone at Blizzard that would return our calls to be able to say anything about that.

[2938] Oh, let's move on because there's a bunch of other stuff and we are running along here, Jets.

[2939] So some Windows 8 shit happened last week.

[2940] I know Will Smith saw some of that.

[2941] He's got it running on a machine.

[2942] Yeah, he has a beta version of it here.

[2943] On the site, he's got a look at it.

[2944] We did a live preview.

[2945] Yeah, they did a live thing and that's available on Tested.

[2946] You can check that out at Tested .com.

[2947] Informative.

[2948] That Will Smith.

[2949] In case you were wondering.

[2950] Part of this was the announcement that Games for Windows Live or Games for Windows is no longer a thing they're going to talk about.

[2951] It's Xbox now.

[2952] Well, did they come out and say that or did they just say we are putting Xbox Live into Windows 8 and then let you fill in the blanks yourself?

[2953] I guess that's more accurate.

[2954] It's not that Games for Windows Live is dead.

[2955] Nobody's ever going to come out and say we are killing off this initiative.

[2956] It's really...

[2957] What changes?

[2958] It's a very clear implication.

[2959] This would just be deeper system level integration of the Xbox Live or the live login protocols as it relates to games and friends lists and stuff.

[2960] What changes is hopefully they get developers to care about it more and start using it more.

[2961] Yeah, if they actually integrate it at a system level, it could be cool.

[2962] That could be a cool system.

[2963] If it's called Xbox across the board and they're able to unify those features more directly.

[2964] Maybe more people use it.

[2965] I liken it to what they've done on Windows Phone.

[2966] That's just called Xbox Live.

[2967] You get the impression they could probably implement some of those features better with the way the friends list and messaging works.

[2968] But it's at least most of the way there.

[2969] It's the same profiles, the same points.

[2970] Xbox is a brand that resonates.

[2971] Sure.

[2972] The kids love it.

[2973] How do you like that?

[2974] Shut up.

[2975] Kids love Xbox.

[2976] Hi, I'm so -and -so with Xbox.

[2977] I've got to get that Xbox.

[2978] So this is kind of, I guess, tangentially game -related, but all of the buzz on the internet yesterday was about the split at Netflix where they are dividing their DVD shipping business and their video streaming business into two separate entities, Netflix being the streaming stuff.

[2979] And now Quickster.

[2980] Divide and conquer.

[2981] More like divide and not conquer is what they're going to do for DVDs.

[2982] And as part of that, they said, we're going to do games too.

[2983] At some point.

[2984] It was like an afterthought.

[2985] Yeah, it's kind of like it's tacked on there.

[2986] Wait, the Quickster guys or the Netflix guys?

[2987] The Quickster guys.

[2988] So no streaming games.

[2989] No streaming games.

[2990] Yeah, they're not going to stream games.

[2991] No, they're not trying to go to on -live route.

[2992] It's their mail -in -disc business.

[2993] Quickster's not a good name.

[2994] Not really.

[2995] Quickster's a bad name, but Netflix is a pretty bad name, too.

[2996] I don't know.

[2997] I thought Netflix was fine.

[2998] Quickster sounds like a Genesis game.

[2999] Wait, we're not going to talk about the Twitter account.

[3000] Oh, yeah.

[3001] The Quickster Twitter account is really good.

[3002] Fucking magical.

[3003] Dude owned the Quickster.

[3004] It's spelled the right way.

[3005] K -W -Q -W -I -K -S -T -E -R.

[3006] Some dude already had that on Twitter, and it's just some dope smoking idiot that has it who suddenly got a shitload of attention and didn't know what to do with it.

[3007] And is using it the best way he possibly could.

[3008] What is he talking about?

[3009] Smoking dope?

[3010] Smoking dope, getting high.

[3011] Well, he was before.

[3012] That's what he was talking about before.

[3013] Now it's like, I don't even know what's going on.

[3014] Somebody wants to buy it.

[3015] I don't know, man. No, dude, it's way more specific.

[3016] Have you seen some of the stuff he posted today?

[3017] No, no. I don't follow that account.

[3018] I don't either.

[3019] I've just been looking at it from time to time.

[3020] But one of his posts was effectively, we're not talking about any deals until they're in the six figures.

[3021] Yeah.

[3022] There was another one where he effectively.

[3023] For his Twitter?

[3024] Just his Twitter?

[3025] Yeah, for the account.

[3026] There was another one where he implied that he expected to be cut in on this, like he wanted part ownership of something, and that it would continue to make him money and perpetuate.

[3027] I just envision this man eating a lot of cheeseburgers and being very high and typing this stuff.

[3028] Yeah, whatever.

[3029] Because earlier he made reference to asking his dad for money so he could go buy food.

[3030] Talk about that entitlement culture, huh?

[3031] Amazing.

[3032] Anyway, if you want free entertainment, you don't need to subscribe to anything.

[3033] Just go to the Quickster Twitter account and enjoy it for free until they start charging.

[3034] Or check out the real Quickster.

[3035] Cheats 2000.

[3036] T -H -A.

[3037] Because I expect the cut of this as well.

[3038] Let's talk about some new releases real quick.

[3039] Gears of War 3 is coming out.

[3040] Okay.

[3041] Olay.

[3042] There's other stuff coming out this week, too.

[3043] You want to hear about that stuff?

[3044] Yes.

[3045] F1 2011 for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

[3046] That's out this week.

[3047] Perfect for all you open -wheeled racing enthusiasts.

[3048] Persona 2 for the PSP.

[3049] Perfect for all you open -wheeled racing enthusiasts.

[3050] Supremacy MMA for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

[3051] Ditto.

[3052] Frogger 3D for the Nintendo 3DS.

[3053] 3D or 3D?

[3054] 3D.

[3055] But that's just probably 3D, 3D.

[3056] What?

[3057] That's probably like depth 3D, right?

[3058] Yeah.

[3059] I mean, it's probably polygonal as well.

[3060] You think?

[3061] Yeah.

[3062] Behind the back Frogger?

[3063] They've had that.

[3064] Oh, that sounds terrible.

[3065] Frogger...

[3066] I think it was Frogger 2.

[3067] Every Frogger game that they have made since the original Frogger 2 is terrible.

[3068] No, Frogger 2 for the PS1 was okay.

[3069] It was better than Frogger 1 for the PS2...

[3070] PS1.

[3071] Okay, yeah.

[3072] Frogger cartoons, alright.

[3073] Yeah.

[3074] Dragon Quest Monsters, Joker 2, and Harvest Moon, Tale of Two Towns, and Kirby Mass Attack all out for the Nintendo DS this week.

[3075] The original, but still going strong.

[3076] Harvest Moon Games coming out next month on 3DS.

[3077] Yeah, they're staggering that out by a month.

[3078] Yeah, it is weird.

[3079] I agree.

[3080] Joker 2.

[3081] Yeah, Joker 2, man. They just, you know...

[3082] Japan probably loves that shit because it's like we made a game that's Pokemon, but also Monster Hunter, but also Dragon Quest.

[3083] And also some Dragon Ball.

[3084] Yeah, and it's got a little Dragon Ball in there too because it's got the...

[3085] Akira Toriyama?

[3086] Yeah, he did the Dragon Quest stuff.

[3087] Dragon Quest stuff.

[3088] Do you really think he's doing all the designs himself?

[3089] No, he spends every day drawing a slime.

[3090] Made another one, you guys.

[3091] This one's red?

[3092] This one's red.

[3093] But that's been true to Akira Toriyama character design since the late 80s.

[3094] Of just like, all right, we're just, this hairstyle from this guy plus this headband and then these kinds of eyes.

[3095] This one's blue, this hair's white.

[3096] He's a kid.

[3097] I'm not denying that it's practically a parody of itself at this point, but you don't ever hear about Akira Toriyama Studios or anything.

[3098] It's always attributed to him.

[3099] I think he did the designs and people ran with it.

[3100] Maybe.

[3101] I was thinking about a white slime today.

[3102] You're crazy.

[3103] He's so good.

[3104] He's so good.

[3105] Come on.

[3106] White Slime.

[3107] He's so good.

[3108] He's like a genius.

[3109] Approved.

[3110] Milky Slimes.

[3111] I don't name them.

[3112] I just draw them.

[3113] I'll let you guys take care of that part.

[3114] I don't care.

[3115] And then Burnout Crash is available for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this week.

[3116] There's one more.

[3117] Something else.

[3118] Because there always is.

[3119] Resident Evil 4.

[3120] Yes, thank you.

[3121] Resident Evil 4, available for PlayStation Network and Xbox Games On Demand.

[3122] Is that the full name of that thing?

[3123] Yeah, it just comes up as Resident Evil 4 on both platforms.

[3124] A game called Rotastic is coming out for Xbox Live Arcade this week.

[3125] R -O -W?

[3126] R -O -T -A -S -T -I -C.

[3127] Rotate.

[3128] Not like you're fantastic at rowing.

[3129] You're fantastic at rotating.

[3130] I can see where the confusion would come up.

[3131] Fallout New Vegas, Lonesome Road, the fourth DLC pack for New Vegas.

[3132] Fourth.

[3133] I have a code for that.

[3134] Does anyone want it?

[3135] Are you asking the listeners?

[3136] Because I'm sure we could join someone.

[3137] No, I'm asking the people in this room.

[3138] No, I got one too, so I'm good.

[3139] I didn't get one.

[3140] I'm all right.

[3141] I just want somebody to quickly, who's not me. Patrick, he likes it.

[3142] I tried, he wouldn't take it.

[3143] Really?

[3144] Ilo Milo is on sale this week for five bucks.

[3145] That's a good deal.

[3146] Yeah.

[3147] It's a great game.

[3148] Yeah.

[3149] I agree with that.

[3150] It's a tough game.

[3151] It's definitely ILO.

[3152] Tough but fair.

[3153] ILO?

[3154] Oh, it is.

[3155] It is ILO Milo.

[3156] What was ILO?

[3157] We talked to, when was it?

[3158] PAX East, I think.

[3159] Talked to some Microsoft, some XBLA guys.

[3160] ILO Milo.

[3161] We're all saying ILO Milo.

[3162] That was sad.

[3163] No, I like the better ones.

[3164] ILO Milo.

[3165] Yeah, those are the new releases for the week.

[3166] Let's take a couple of emails while we still have the time.

[3167] Go back to the past.

[3168] Present keeps going.

[3169] Bradley.

[3170] Oh, emails.

[3171] Bombcast at JohnBomb .com.

[3172] First email comes in from Dan Blinman in Tokyo, Japan.

[3173] Hello, Mr. Bomb, says Daniel.

[3174] Metal Gear Solid Rising, Last Guardian, and Final Fantasy Versus XIII have all disappeared off the face of the planet.

[3175] I expected, along with most others, that due to their absence from E3, that the famous being saved for TGS strategy was in order.

[3176] I was aware that Kiji Inafune did announce the time of death for the Japanese game industry some time ago, but it seems that even the heaviest of hitters are now nowhere to be found.

[3177] Most interested in the whereabouts of MGS Rising, it would seem that since its announcement, we have had an MGS 3D remake, three HD MGS remakes, transform...

[3178] and a new graphics engine, but no Rising.

[3179] What is going on?

[3180] Are the rumors of a new studio taking over Rising?

[3181] A possibility.

[3182] Anything's possible.

[3183] Yeah, for one thing, we won't be transfiring here in the United States.

[3184] Yeah, what the hell?

[3185] That was a hilarious revelation during TGS last week.

[3186] Are they going to call it something else?

[3187] No, it's exclusive for Japan.

[3188] Taking that feature out for the American release.

[3189] They went through all that trouble of announcing that thing for the U .S. With an American group.

[3190] Whatever, that's when Japan pre -ordered.

[3191] They got the exclusive Transfarring.

[3192] Did you pre -order America?

[3193] No. No. Do you want the strategy guide then?

[3194] Nope.

[3195] Well, I'm just going to go to Best Buy and get Transfarring anyway.

[3196] Batman Arkham City comes out on October.

[3197] Put down $5?

[3198] Yeah.

[3199] No. Madden's coming out next August.

[3200] Those games did kind of disappear, didn't they?

[3201] They did.

[3202] Yeah, Rising especially.

[3203] Yeah, Rising is...

[3204] Was that...

[3205] What is going on?

[3206] Was that moved?

[3207] It's been a while.

[3208] I mean, these all seem beleaguered to some extent.

[3209] No, that's a...

[3210] It was just a controller.

[3211] No, it's both.

[3212] Was it ever motion controls or anything?

[3213] No. Okay.

[3214] It was all just that slicing watermelons, right?

[3215] It's just you're just thinking Fruit Ninja because that's what that game is.

[3216] Versus 13, I think, is continuing apace.

[3217] I just think that it's taking fucking forever.

[3218] Yeah, what did they do?

[3219] That'll happen.

[3220] But, I mean, Versus 13 was announced.

[3221] right alongside 13.

[3222] But they've shown stuff for that game more recently than that.

[3223] It's been kind of...

[3224] They put out footage of that.

[3225] They've rolled out things.

[3226] I mean, Nomura is running that project, and that guy's a crazy perfectionist and stuff, so I'm sure I'm not surprised that's taken forever.

[3227] Those studios are all kind of having a little trouble.

[3228] There was a rumor...

[3229] Keep in mind, also, there was that whole...

[3230] tsunami thing earlier this year.

[3231] I don't mean that kind of trouble.

[3232] I'm just saying, not to forget that that was a significant thing that impacted all of Japan, even areas that were not necessarily hit by the tsunami.

[3233] I could see that impacting when games were released.

[3234] With Last Guardian, that was a game that when they first showed it, all they had was a trailer.

[3235] for them to take their time on actually producing whatever the fuck that game is actually going to be.

[3236] Those guys, yeah, they always take their sweet time as well.

[3237] Rising is the one that seems a little suspect.

[3238] Yeah.

[3239] That it might just disappear?

[3240] Something may have gone off the rails.

[3241] Well, there was a completely unsubstantiated rumor a few months ago that reminded me, Vanquish guys, Platinum, right?

[3242] Yeah.

[3243] Platinum was rumored, I saw somewhere that they were supposedly taking over.

[3244] But then that hasn't even come to pass.

[3245] Nobody ever said anything, but that sounds like the best thing that could happen to that game, personally.

[3246] And what is versus...

[3247] I can think of a better thing that could happen to that game.

[3248] What's that?

[3249] Cut that game.

[3250] Oh, come on.

[3251] Don't you at least want to see what it turns out to be?

[3252] They didn't show enough of it to, like, really...

[3253] I think Raiden's a great character.

[3254] You could cut those watermelons any which way.

[3255] Yeah.

[3256] Which means that by the time it comes out the other end, it's going to be a Kinect game.

[3257] Right?

[3258] Oh, man. Watermelon?

[3259] You know?

[3260] Oh, don't say that.

[3261] That stuff seems tailor -made for connecting.

[3262] Maybe that's where they start.

[3263] When the watermelon comes out the other end.

[3264] It's riding on rails.

[3265] Riding on rails?

[3266] Riding on rails.

[3267] Riding on rails.

[3268] Just the way you said it.

[3269] I love that board game.

[3270] Oh, man. Weird German board games.

[3271] I get to never understand.

[3272] It's too complicated.

[3273] You just poop on the board, and then you win.

[3274] Watermelon comes out the other end.

[3275] Yeah.

[3276] You know, yeah.

[3277] Rising seems like that could turn into a real StarCraft ghost kind of situation.

[3278] I feel like it's getting too far away from MGS4 at this point for me to even remember what Raiden was supposed to be.

[3279] Cyber Ninja.

[3280] Like Robocop.

[3281] He died and they brought him back.

[3282] Yeah, but it's kind of like too much time is elapsing now.

[3283] I'm kind of losing interest.

[3284] What's Versus exactly?

[3285] Who knows?

[3286] Okay.

[3287] I don't know.

[3288] Last trailer looked pretty awesome.

[3289] What do you do?

[3290] Do you fight?

[3291] Is it a fighting game?

[3292] No. I am fucking stunned that you were more interested in that game than I am.

[3293] Is it a battle arena?

[3294] I don't know.

[3295] Is it an MMO?

[3296] No. I think it's an action game.

[3297] It's like an action RPG.

[3298] Slash, but not in the way that you think of an action RPG.

[3299] Okay.

[3300] I don't know.

[3301] Like, the trailer looked cool.

[3302] It's got a weird, like, sort of modern...

[3303] Looked a lot fucking better than Final Fantasy XIII did.

[3304] It's got, like, a weird modern -day Tokyo vibe to it.

[3305] It's like it's set in the real world or something.

[3306] And what's going on with their MMO?

[3307] Is that still free -to -play?

[3308] 14?

[3309] 14?

[3310] Was never free -to -play.

[3311] No, no, no. No, they didn't charge people for a while because it was so fucking bad.

[3312] Oh, yeah, but they rolled the team.

[3313] They appointed, like, a whole new team of people to make it better.

[3314] I wonder if they started charging people again.

[3315] I don't know.

[3316] See, that's what...

[3317] I think they had...

[3318] They're in a weird kind of place.

[3319] Also, what are they doing with the rest of their publishing arm of publishing Western stuff?

[3320] Deus Ex.

[3321] Which I hope did well.

[3322] That's going to be the weird transition is that those are going to be the games that keep that company going.

[3323] And also Final Fantasy will be like the weird, like, I guess we could still make those kind of thing.

[3324] But I mean, that wasn't effectively an Eidos game.

[3325] Right, yeah.

[3326] But they're all one company now.

[3327] Oh, I know, I know.

[3328] Like, you think another Supreme Commander's coming down?

[3329] No. I don't know.

[3330] Weird places for some of those.

[3331] Square owns Space Invaders now.

[3332] Oh, that's right.

[3333] They bought Taito, yeah.

[3334] That's them.

[3335] Huh.

[3336] It's weird.

[3337] Well, getting back to the Konami stuff for Rising, if that were to get turf to another developer, if it's in some sort of hell right now with its current developer, is there anyone that you think could do...

[3338] Who was the current developer?

[3339] Was it Kojima?

[3340] I think so, yeah.

[3341] Straight up?

[3342] It was being run by a different guy.

[3343] But man, do I not understand that organization?

[3344] With Kojima Productions and relationship with Konami, I really don't.

[3345] They have a logo at the beginning of Castlevania Lords of Shadow.

[3346] Yeah, Kojima oversaw that game.

[3347] He showed up twice and said, yeah, alright.

[3348] This cutscene's pretty good.

[3349] They made that new engine.

[3350] It was the same time they announced Transforming, right?

[3351] It's like, yeah, we've made this new multi -platform engine.

[3352] This is what all our stuff's going to be on.

[3353] What that stuff may be, who can say?

[3354] What was the third game on there?

[3355] It was Final Fantasy.

[3356] It was...

[3357] Last Guardian.

[3358] Last Guardian, right.

[3359] Man, yeah.

[3360] I don't know.

[3361] New Boktai.

[3362] Yeah.

[3363] That's what they're doing.

[3364] Yeah, I wonder if Rising will ever actually be a game.

[3365] And sometimes I wonder if it ever actually was a game.

[3366] Well, I mean...

[3367] I'm sure in their minds it was going to be.

[3368] Yeah, yeah.

[3369] Yeah, definitely.

[3370] Regardless of what's coming past.

[3371] But now that I'm working on all these remakes and stuff, I wonder...

[3372] I mean, they got up on stages at press conferences and showed footage and stuff.

[3373] But there was nothing this year, right?

[3374] No. That's what's so weird.

[3375] Was it last year?

[3376] Yeah.

[3377] I think it was two years ago.

[3378] It was both.

[3379] They announced it two years ago and then showed it?

[3380] Yeah, that's what it was.

[3381] And then showed the watermelon cutting thing last year.

[3382] They had that website that was all.

[3383] Yeah, it's been over two years since they announced it.

[3384] And they've shown that one quick watermelon.

[3385] Yeah, because it was the Beatles rock band year that they did the announcement.

[3386] That sounds right.

[3387] Yeah.

[3388] I don't know.

[3389] Now they're working on like nine remakes, like Zone of the Enders games and all that other stuff.

[3390] You have to wonder if at some point, just like financially, it got weird and they were like, well, if we remake all these games, it won't cost a lot of money and we could put out a bunch of them.

[3391] Yeah.

[3392] I don't know.

[3393] We need the scratch.

[3394] Get it done.

[3395] Health clubs ain't pulling it in.

[3396] Konami.

[3397] That's right.

[3398] Konami has some weird businesses in Asia.

[3399] All right.

[3400] Thanks, everyone, who wrote in.

[3401] We've got to end this podcast right goddamn now.

[3402] Vinny, Jeff, and Brad, thank you guys so much.

[3403] Thank you.

[3404] That's it for the podcast.

[3405] Thanks for listening.

[3406] We'll be back next week.