Giant Bombcast 02-22-2011

[0] Hey, everyone.

[1] It's Tuesday, February the 22nd, 2011, and you're listening to The Giant Bobcast.

[2] I'm Ryan Davis.

[3] I'm Ryan Davis.

[4] Joining me today, Vinny Caravella, Jeff Gerstmann, and Brad Shubaker.

[5] Brad, banana, bread, mouth, BBM, big, beautiful mouth.

[6] Yeah, it's the only kind I like.

[7] Beauty is a factor?

[8] Absolutely.

[9] All right.

[10] It's got to be big and beautiful.

[11] I want a pretty mouth.

[12] Absolutely.

[13] A pretty big mouth.

[14] It's both.

[15] All right.

[16] It's pretty and pretty big.

[17] Great.

[18] Good to start.

[19] Gentlemen, how are you doing?

[20] Start the podcast out with class.

[21] As we always do.

[22] Have you guys recovering from your President's Day hangovers pretty well?

[23] I know.

[24] I partied hard for...

[25] President's Day.

[26] No, nothing really.

[27] Didn't have your traditional President's Day party?

[28] I had Domino's.

[29] It's the Super Bowl of holidays.

[30] You should have eaten all of your fried stuff.

[31] That stuff didn't last.

[32] That's right.

[33] I forgot.

[34] That stuff's already gone.

[35] Two hours past the Super Bowl.

[36] I know.

[37] It was a nice long weekend, though.

[38] Yeah.

[39] I like that.

[40] Nice little three -day.

[41] I didn't know that it was coming.

[42] It was very exciting.

[43] That's the best kind.

[44] Oh, man. The only thing better than a three -day weekend that you're aware of is the one that you're not.

[45] Like, Friday afternoon, try to schedule stuff.

[46] Like, we should really meet on Monday and talk about some stuff.

[47] Like, well, why don't we meet on Tuesday?

[48] Yeah, have fun with it.

[49] Why not meet on Monday?

[50] Because I ain't going to be here.

[51] Fuck yeah!

[52] Nobody's going to be here.

[53] But then it ends up being like the yeah and then no. Because it's like, oh, there's so much that has to get done that turning this into a four -day week just...

[54] Makes it that much worse when you come back.

[55] Yeah.

[56] I appreciated it.

[57] I burned the whole day.

[58] Did you?

[59] What did you do with your three -day weekend?

[60] I played some video games on Saturday, and the day just went away.

[61] You just disintegrated the day?

[62] I felt like I could burn one.

[63] I've got another one in reserve.

[64] You're like, this is an urgency.

[65] You're just like, it's a fake Saturday here.

[66] I'll do that tomorrow.

[67] Demons, souls.

[68] What?

[69] What?

[70] What's souls?

[71] Demons.

[72] It's one demon, but it's multiple souls.

[73] I can't remember.

[74] It's the possessive, singular possessive.

[75] It was a whole Saturday.

[76] You said like 10 hours?

[77] What's the tendency right now?

[78] It's weird because when you go online, it just goes all neutral.

[79] So if you go offline.

[80] Man. Yeah.

[81] So I already had put like about 12 hours in.

[82] I just started over.

[83] That game.

[84] I don't care what people say.

[85] That game is messed up.

[86] Yeah.

[87] It's messed up.

[88] Yeah.

[89] And this time I went through with like – But it's still – it's gotten 22 hours out of you already.

[90] Yeah.

[91] No, I'm not saying it's – But it's still messed up.

[92] I'm not saying it's bad.

[93] It's just messed up.

[94] You considered the possibility that maybe you're messed up.

[95] Yes.

[96] Okay.

[97] That's when I started over.

[98] So the system's out of order.

[99] I'm messed up.

[100] I'm going to go through.

[101] I'm going to do research.

[102] I'm going to go online, get graph paper and charts.

[103] Facts.

[104] Holy crap.

[105] Cloth maps.

[106] Yeah, print them out, go to Kinko's and put them up on the wall.

[107] It's just, yeah, that game's crazy.

[108] It's still crazy.

[109] I thought maybe I'll come back to it now that I have more time.

[110] I'm going to see what's going on.

[111] And it's like I definitely got a little bit further faster this time.

[112] So I got around all that by – I took my Demon's Souls disc and put a blood stain in front of it.

[113] And then when you step on it, it says, don't play Demon's Souls.

[114] Would you like to recover your blood stain?

[115] No. Yeah, you still – I don't want to spend too long on this.

[116] But the thing about that game is it's still – No hand -holding and take that for what you will.

[117] Some people really like that and some people find that kind of infuriating.

[118] It's definitely against the trend of what modern games are like.

[119] Yeah.

[120] Holding your hand as tightly as possible.

[121] This is no hands.

[122] There are no hands in that game.

[123] There are souls.

[124] Nobody – there's like – Souls don't have hands.

[125] You put points and souls into whatever you want, and nobody's like, that's a good idea, or that's going to fuck you over.

[126] Oh, you're screwed now.

[127] 40 hours from now, you're going to realize how dumb what you're doing right now.

[128] And when you spend points to upgrade...

[129] The next time you want to spend points, everything goes up no matter what you drop points into, right?

[130] So it's like, oh, this will cost you five souls.

[131] You drop a point in there.

[132] And it's like, well, next time you want to upgrade something, it's going to be 15.

[133] To the point where you're like, now it's going to cost $5 ,000.

[134] And then it just keeps going up every time you want to drop a point in.

[135] So even if you didn't – it's not like it's category specific.

[136] It's everything.

[137] So it's like, I'm going to put some points into strength.

[138] And you're like, well, that was a really bad idea.

[139] But now the next time you want to put points into endurance, it's going to cost you like – 15 ,000 sold.

[140] Just constant inflation.

[141] And you could just be like, I made some really bad mistakes.

[142] This is real bad.

[143] And you can respec, I think.

[144] But then there's also the whole weapon upgrade system, which is like, they don't just have a DPS thing.

[145] It's like, this sword does 80 damage.

[146] And then you're like, well, that kind of sounds shitty, because this one does 90.

[147] And then you're like, no, but that sword does magic damage, and it also does all this other stuff.

[148] So I'm curious, what...

[149] compelled you to go back to it?

[150] What inspired you to make this move?

[151] I want to understand.

[152] Okay.

[153] I want to know.

[154] Yeah.

[155] It was probably the Dark Souls announcement, right?

[156] That's what got you thinking about this again.

[157] Probably.

[158] I want to maybe something about my personality.

[159] I need to know.

[160] I just need to know what's going on in that game.

[161] People love that game.

[162] Yeah.

[163] People really love that game.

[164] Well, some people.

[165] Some people really love that game.

[166] That's true.

[167] And I need to know what's going on.

[168] And I think I understand it, but, you know, it's one of those games where people are like, I'm on my seventh playthrough and I still haven't.

[169] You can't get everything on your first playthrough.

[170] And I'll just give you an example of what's messed up.

[171] Please do.

[172] Here's a new thing that I found that it's kind of messed up.

[173] Upgrading weapons takes resources.

[174] Let's call them rocks.

[175] Okay.

[176] All right?

[177] And there are different types of rocks that you pick up, right?

[178] And there are shards of a rock, and there are chunks of a rock, and there are pure of a rock.

[179] Okay.

[180] To get the best upgrades, you sometimes need the pure of a rock, right?

[181] Mm -hmm.

[182] Now, there are these things called crystal geckos that appear in a level.

[183] They're like little collectibles.

[184] And you have to kill this little crystal gecko.

[185] And if you don't kill it, it runs away.

[186] Or if you walk up to it too quickly, it runs away.

[187] So when you see a crystal gecko and you don't kill it, it runs away.

[188] That crystal gecko will not appear on that level until you kill one of the major demons on that level.

[189] Let's just say there are four bosses per level, right?

[190] Until you eliminate one of the bosses, that crystal gecko will not appear again.

[191] If you miss it four times, it's gone for the game.

[192] And they're like the only thing that will drop this one pure thing you need to upgrade your weapon.

[193] So like if you fuck up and you're like I did when it's like I don't even know what the hell that thing is until you look online.

[194] You're like, oh.

[195] And like I've seen that thing like twice.

[196] That means I've only got two more chances to go farm that thing for the – and they're like, well, you can't get it now.

[197] You can't get it until your next playthrough.

[198] Is it hard to kill or it's just – It can kind of be hard to kill.

[199] Okay.

[200] I mean, I'm sure people out there are like, it's easy to kill.

[201] Just use, you know, magic darts on it.

[202] And it's like, well, I don't know where you get a magic dart.

[203] You had to have killed 13 of those before to get the magic darts.

[204] So I'm going crazy because I play this game where it's like, well, now I'm using guides.

[205] I'm just going to power up the best sword and I'm going to do this crazy run.

[206] I'm going to get everything.

[207] And it's all just like fucking crazy.

[208] Like, all right, we'll go to this level, farm this.

[209] You're not really supposed to be here yet.

[210] So take this shortcut.

[211] Now make the world tendency perfect black because that's how you farm resources.

[212] And to do that, you got to go into a level, die, jump out.

[213] But first, before you do that, you need to farm these things that recover you so that you can jump out of the level, come back to life, go into the level, suicide, get out, revive, come back in the level, suicide.

[214] So every time you suicide, it brings the thing more towards the dark.

[215] Also make sure you do this offline.

[216] Otherwise, like when you're online, it takes the kind of aggregate of everybody doing it.

[217] which makes it all neutral again.

[218] I think Vinny's speaking in tongues.

[219] I feel like you're talking about how to do stuff on a computer before they figure out how to make computers usable.

[220] So there's just all this stuff going on, and it's probably amazing when you look at it and you're like, well, you can do anything you want.

[221] That's great.

[222] It sounds like the Linux of video games.

[223] So you have to learn the system, right?

[224] You have to spend this time learning the system.

[225] Hey, man, Demon's Souls is only free if your time is worth nothing.

[226] So, yeah, I don't know.

[227] Ten hours in.

[228] And it's still got that thing where it's like you can spend four of those hours going through a level, come out of it on the other side with no – because you don't level up by killing things.

[229] You accrue souls, which you use as currency to level up.

[230] But every time you die, you lose all your souls unless you corpse run back to your body, your bloodstain, and pick up your souls.

[231] But if you die on the way to your body – then that new one is your body.

[232] So if you had 10 ,000 souls and you died, your bloodstain has 10 ,000 souls on it.

[233] You have to go run to your bloodstain, touch it, and you'll get those souls back.

[234] But if you die on your way to your bloodstain, now it's zero souls.

[235] That's where the new corpse is.

[236] That's where the new corpse is.

[237] So the old one disappears?

[238] Yes.

[239] With all the souls?

[240] Yes.

[241] So no checkpoints at any of the levels.

[242] Yeah.

[243] And like respawning everything.

[244] Respawning everything.

[245] I thought that game was crazy, what, like a year ago?

[246] Yeah.

[247] I still think it's kind of crazy.

[248] It is.

[249] But I'll probably go back and keep going.

[250] It's like it's daring you to play it.

[251] It is, yeah.

[252] Come on.

[253] It's just sitting there calling you a pussy.

[254] Well, there's always one thing that's just like, oh, well, maybe I should buy magic.

[255] Maybe that's the way to go.

[256] And they're like, all right, now I can get past this hurdle.

[257] And then it's like bang my head against the wall.

[258] And then it's like, well, maybe you should buy the sword.

[259] And it's like, oh, okay.

[260] It's just nobody's there at the outside being like, you should buy the sword.

[261] It'll be easy.

[262] It's like do whatever.

[263] I don't know.

[264] There's 18 things you can buy here.

[265] It's so crazy.

[266] And then you look online and it is like trying to like figure out.

[267] World economics or something.

[268] Everybody's got their own theory of like, I'm going to – this is a build and this is a build.

[269] Don't put 30 points past this because you get diminishing returns on all this stuff and the stats here.

[270] But as far as you can tell, it's not like there is, like, this is clear -cut the way to play.

[271] I Googled, I was like, beginner's guide to demon souls.

[272] Try applying Reaganomics to it, see what happens.

[273] Yeah.

[274] Trickle down.

[275] Trickle down, bloodstains.

[276] People are like, don't play it online, play in soul form, do this.

[277] If you're alive, people jump into your game and just kind of harass you and kill you.

[278] Yeah, so I was actually going to ask if there is any sign that a lot of people are still playing this online.

[279] Like, are there definitely still people out there?

[280] As soon as I got on and I was alive, which when you're alive, you get full health, and I was like, oh, that's cool.

[281] I'm alive dude jumps into my game and just kills me like within like five minutes and I had to Google again but why is dude jumping because he can yeah I don't know yeah I just played Dead Space 2 yeah still enjoying that you finish it a lot I'm enjoying that a lot I don't know but I think I must be nearing the end you said that last time though and then you were actually only like a third of the way in so I don't know where you at in the least spoilery what chapter don't 10 Yeah, you're getting there.

[282] Yeah, you're making progress.

[283] There's still a good chunk left.

[284] I visited some stuff from the older game.

[285] Yeah.

[286] I'm done with that.

[287] Sure.

[288] Okay, yeah.

[289] Yeah, you're almost in the end game.

[290] Really enjoying that.

[291] I think I haven't run into – just last night was the first time I ever ran into running out of ammo problems.

[292] Really?

[293] Yeah.

[294] Yeah, I think that's right around the time I started.

[295] Ammo started getting real sparse, and then no inventory problems.

[296] Are you buying any ammo?

[297] No. Really?

[298] I refuse.

[299] Okay.

[300] Just buy nodes.

[301] That's all I buy.

[302] Yeah.

[303] That's what I did my second time through, for sure.

[304] Just nodes?

[305] Yeah.

[306] So I'm really enjoying that, and I got the advanced suit, and it just seems like the capacity on that.

[307] I don't think I'll ever run into inventory problems again.

[308] Is that the 2020 or is that 25?

[309] 25.

[310] That's max inventory.

[311] That's the highest you can go.

[312] Okay.

[313] Yeah, so I haven't had any inventory.

[314] In the first one, I had a lot of inventory problems.

[315] This one, not so much.

[316] Brad, does any of that stuff carry?

[317] All of those, yeah.

[318] Oh, from Play 3?

[319] Except not on hardcore, right?

[320] Yeah, hardcore, you have to start a fresh guy.

[321] Ah, okay.

[322] Yeah, I'm kind of interested to go through it again because I've been focusing on just the plasma cutter.

[323] So I haven't dropped points.

[324] I started putting some points into the assault rifle thing, the pulse rifle.

[325] Yeah, what's your arsenal?

[326] The plasma cutter, the pulse.

[327] Is it the pulse rifle?

[328] Yeah, pulse rifle.

[329] And the contact beam.

[330] Really?

[331] Well, because I got back for free.

[332] You were anti -contact beam earlier.

[333] Is it contact beam?

[334] What's the one you get?

[335] The hacker contact beam?

[336] Yeah, I got it for free.

[337] That's one of the ignition bonuses.

[338] Yeah, and I have something else.

[339] Oh, the line gun.

[340] I've had a line gun.

[341] That's exactly what I rolled with.

[342] Yeah, it seems like that's probably...

[343] That's what I ended up with.

[344] There was a while that I had the spear.

[345] That thing didn't work out for me. Didn't really like it.

[346] That was definitely the most fun to me, but it seems like a validation of the weapon design that I know other people that have gone around with four completely different weapons, and they were just like, yeah, these are obviously the four weapons to play with, and it's like, wow, I used none of those.

[347] It really seems to fit.

[348] The plasma cutter is kind of my default walk -around -with gun.

[349] The line gun I use for when shit goes real bad and there's multiple dudes because it's got such a wide spray.

[350] Also, those little dog babies with the tentacles takes off three of those tentacles at a time.

[351] The pulse gun is great for...

[352] This game, more than the first one, has just a lot of one -hit enemies that just swarm you.

[353] So I just mow them now with that.

[354] And then the contact beam, I hardly ever use.

[355] I dump ammo from that for my inventory.

[356] I didn't either until right around the part you're getting to.

[357] It works.

[358] It takes limbs off of guys.

[359] I've actually started using the TK a lot now, too.

[360] That thing's really effective, yeah.

[361] Just ripping arms off of dudes.

[362] They do the same thing the first game does where...

[363] They start throwing, like, dark versions.

[364] It's, like, literally just a darker texture map that is supposed to indicate they have, like, double the health or whatever.

[365] So the contact beam will one -shot most of those things.

[366] Well, now my plasma cutter makes guys go on fire.

[367] Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[368] That's pretty cool.

[369] It doesn't seem that effective, but, I don't know, it sounds cool.

[370] And...

[371] Yes?

[372] Back to the Future, Episode 2.

[373] I played that, too.

[374] I can't wait for 3.

[375] So what did you think about 2?

[376] 3 takes place in the Wild West.

[377] Yes.

[378] No. 3...

[379] Three looks awesome.

[380] Three looks kind of awesome.

[381] I was a little disappointed in episode two.

[382] It was a little – it was not challenging.

[383] It was stupid easy.

[384] The puzzles weren't – It didn't even seem puzzly.

[385] Yeah, they weren't terrific.

[386] And I was a little disappointed like the kind of the sneak preview for episode two at the end of episode one made it seem like there was going to be a whole lot of the you now have to go back to a time when you were already there and have to avoid yourself.

[387] Back to the Future 2 style.

[388] I thought like, oh, that can lead to some just amazing, weird, twisty stuff.

[389] And they touched on it some in the beginning, but like most of the episode, it's kind of a non -issue.

[390] And you're just revisiting the same environments that you saw in the first episode.

[391] So it's like, that's a little recycl -y.

[392] Yeah, that's what it felt like.

[393] But the setup for episode three is crazy.

[394] So they're fooling you again then.

[395] So yeah, so again, I'm like, all right, well, this one wasn't great, but this next one looks awesome.

[396] At least I think...

[397] I don't know how much of it will, but it looks like 3 takes place in new environments.

[398] I can't.

[399] I don't know.

[400] You know what?

[401] I bet it will take place in a reskinned version of downtown Hill Valley.

[402] Sure.

[403] I don't know.

[404] That would be my expectation.

[405] Bald Doc Brown.

[406] But it's alternate 85, right?

[407] That's where you're supposed to go?

[408] So, yeah, I was a little surprised with...

[409] Like there's some setup at the beginning of episode two where you see a different alternate 85 where there are more Tannins around.

[410] That's right.

[411] Riff and like – Yeah.

[412] Biff Tannin has two brothers.

[413] So it's kind of these Tom of Olsen derivative type characters who are there for like a minute.

[414] Yeah.

[415] And then you don't see them for the rest of things.

[416] So I feel like – That's done.

[417] That timeline is over.

[418] But yeah, you're kind of done with that alternate timeline.

[419] So it seemed odd that they would introduce them.

[420] Just for that one kind of short sequence.

[421] Could happen in episode three too.

[422] It could be the same thing.

[423] We go back to – Yeah, I feel like that can't be the last time we see those because they wouldn't build those models and introduce those characters and have that be the only reason.

[424] Yeah, they could.

[425] It does not seem like the economical – Jumpsuits.

[426] Telltale way.

[427] No. I don't know.

[428] It's still fun.

[429] Yeah.

[430] And that was it.

[431] Excellent.

[432] I think.

[433] And then we watched two cars crash into each other.

[434] That happened.

[435] Are you talking about Demon's Souls?

[436] No, I'm talking about just before we started recording this podcast.

[437] Oh, the actual car wreck.

[438] The actual car wreck.

[439] Anyone get hurt?

[440] I don't think so.

[441] The two people, like, yeah.

[442] All right, then it's awesome.

[443] Vinny ran down to see if anything bad was happening.

[444] By the time he got there, the two people were already out of their cars and exchanging information.

[445] So they looked shook up for sure.

[446] Was it civil?

[447] Somebody was waving his hands.

[448] There's no shouting going on?

[449] Not immediately.

[450] But, you know, people were pretty shaken up after.

[451] It was a pretty good impact.

[452] Good bang.

[453] Good hit.

[454] Yeah.

[455] Deployed some airbags.

[456] Yeah, like a truck and like a SUV.

[457] Oh, man. There is nothing more stomach turning than that telltale crunch, that metallic crunch.

[458] It just sounded like a dumpster being dropped off like 10 feet, like just that loud empty bang.

[459] Yeah, a lot of big dust cloud went up.

[460] I don't know what that was.

[461] Yeah, it was pretty good.

[462] Yeah, so that was kind of it.

[463] Anything non -game related for fun this weekend?

[464] What did I do?

[465] How did you honor the presidents?

[466] I honored the presidents by breaking out my harmonica, doing a little harmonica practicing.

[467] Really?

[468] Yep, and practiced a little piano.

[469] Just solo harmonica or harmonica accompanying anything?

[470] Nope, just harmonica.

[471] I went to the used bookstore and bought a How to Play Harmonica book.

[472] Harmonica for dummies.

[473] Yep.

[474] I think that's what it was.

[475] Oh, it was one of those?

[476] Yep.

[477] Fantastic.

[478] It was, you know, used books there.

[479] I was like, oh, I'm going to buy this guy with harmonica at home that I don't really know how to play.

[480] I blow into it.

[481] But I'm like, I'm going to practice.

[482] Are you good at harmonica now?

[483] No. No. I probably have to practice more.

[484] Oh, okay.

[485] Did some of that.

[486] Watch Despicable Me. Yeah.

[487] Eh.

[488] Eh, it's okay.

[489] Eh.

[490] That's not that fun.

[491] Made homemade raviolis.

[492] Ooh.

[493] I did that.

[494] Fancy.

[495] What sort of filling?

[496] Pumpkin.

[497] Nice.

[498] Ah.

[499] I like pumpkin ravioli.

[500] It didn't taste like much.

[501] I didn't put nutmeg or anything crazy in the pumpkin.

[502] I think you've got to do a little bit of that.

[503] Brad had some...

[504] Banana bread over there.

[505] Is that homemade?

[506] It's in my stomach now.

[507] My tummy, my belly, my something.

[508] I ingested it.

[509] All up in your guts.

[510] Yeah, something like that.

[511] Sorry, what was your question?

[512] Yeah, my girlfriend made it.

[513] Excellent.

[514] I slept for 13 hours on Saturday.

[515] I don't think I slept that much the whole three days.

[516] I felt great.

[517] I think I was exhausted from something, and my body was just like – I woke up.

[518] It was like 1 o 'clock on Sunday.

[519] Nice.

[520] I felt – I was in such a bad mood on Saturday night.

[521] And then Sunday I woke up.

[522] I felt great.

[523] Oh, man. I don't know what's going on.

[524] My body is just shutting down.

[525] It's like Demon's Souls recovery.

[526] You just needed to regenerate.

[527] Holy crap.

[528] No corpse run for you.

[529] No. Yeah.

[530] So that was a lot of fun.

[531] Fantastic.

[532] Jeff Kirsten.

[533] Hi.

[534] You want to talk about video games?

[535] Yeah, okay.

[536] What do you want to talk about?

[537] I don't know.

[538] Do you want us to hear about the ones that I've played recently?

[539] Do you have other ones you want to talk about?

[540] Yeah.

[541] Okay.

[542] Let's talk about bases loaded.

[543] Let's talk about bases loaded.

[544] Let's talk about RBA baseball.

[545] The pitching view is nonsense.

[546] Bases loaded is garbage.

[547] Revolutionary is what that was.

[548] There are a lot of people that put a lot of stock into the bases loaded series.

[549] I didn't mind bases loaded.

[550] You guys are crazy.

[551] It's all about baseball stars.

[552] It is all about baseball stars.

[553] Little League Baseball.

[554] Little Ladies, is that the team?

[555] Yeah.

[556] Little Ladies.

[557] Farm the Little Ladies to get your points.

[558] Well, it's spring training, so it's relevant.

[559] Baseball Stars 2, pretty good also.

[560] RBI.

[561] RBI, obviously.

[562] Let's not forget.

[563] King of the Hill there.

[564] I actually spent a little time researching, trying to figure out who owns the rights to RBI baseball.

[565] Did you come up with anything?

[566] I think it sounds like Midway was in control of them at one point and sold them off for not enough money.

[567] A couple of bucks?

[568] Yeah, kind of.

[569] Something like that.

[570] Before they were kind of selling off all their IPs because the word that I got was that there was some talk like, hey, do we own that?

[571] We should do something with that.

[572] Like, no, no, man, we sold that.

[573] Like, oh, why did we do that?

[574] So someone back in 08, they're actually a RBI baseball game kind of surfaced for Xbox Live Arcade.

[575] And it was never released by this company called Six Degrees Games.

[576] And you go to their site now and it's like talking about like MLB Action Pros, which is like some PC virtual world thing.

[577] So clearly they're not in the business of actually putting out games.

[578] That game achievements got out for that game.

[579] So apparently it was mostly developed.

[580] An ESRB rating was given to that game.

[581] So it was pretty far along when it must have gotten crushed out for whatever reason.

[582] What would make, if you were to just say make RBI baseball, bring an RBI baseball back.

[583] What distinguishes that?

[584] Do you go the big style or do you go Sims?

[585] No. Actually, what you do is you go get the Famista series, the pro -yaku, pro -family baseball.

[586] Yeah.

[587] So that game is actually a Namco baseball game that came out in Japan, translated into English with U .S. teams put on top of it.

[588] Okay.

[589] So licensed teams?

[590] So they're doing one of those games for the 3DS.

[591] Oh, wow.

[592] Yeah.

[593] And they've been doing it for years.

[594] Yeah.

[595] Like, even, you know, in the way, you know, RBI hasn't come out here in a very long time.

[596] So that's just an American brand.

[597] And after a while, like, Tengen started – or Tengen?

[598] Tengen?

[599] Are they still around?

[600] Tengen?

[601] No. Oh.

[602] No, they're not.

[603] They ended up – that's how Midway ended up with the rights to it because it was a Tengen game, which was a spinoff of Atari.

[604] But it was Atari Games, the side that was doing arcade stuff.

[605] Tengen.

[606] Didn't they make, like, black hearts?

[607] That was the part that eventually became Midway Games West.

[608] So – Weird.

[609] Or for a while it was like Time Warner Interactive.

[610] And also this is like 1 in the morning.

[611] Last week.

[612] I think that's the appropriate time to be looking up information on obscure Japanese baseball games.

[613] So I'm looking up how to get the blue blood sword and you're spending time looking up RBI baseball.

[614] But yeah, I saw a bunch of screenshots of the 3DS game and thought like, man, they need to bring that over here.

[615] Where's the RBI baseball?

[616] I guess my bigger question is what would make you interested in a baseball game?

[617] When you pitch, it can't go high or low.

[618] You just swing the bat and hit it.

[619] All right.

[620] That's pretty much the dividing line for all baseball, which is why the first Griffey for the SNES, like the first Ken Griffey Jr. game, is the last great baseball game.

[621] They introduced too much.

[622] Yeah.

[623] Past that, they started going for realism.

[624] Past the 16 -bit era, sports games got too crazy.

[625] They became for sports fans.

[626] I like Baseball Stars because I think it did the Tecmo Bowl thing of the weird close -up when they climb the wall, right?

[627] And it's like, yeah, they got the animation.

[628] The cinematic stuff.

[629] Yeah.

[630] And baseball stars, you'd have to farm players.

[631] You'd have to build your own team, and you want to make sure that you had the guys with the highest maximum rating.

[632] So you would sit there and hit reset or re -roll your guys before you'd buy them over and over again until you got a guy with 95.

[633] Until you got a guy that had at least a mid -90 maximum.

[634] And you'd go from there.

[635] And then your team would be garbage for a long time because you'd have to make all the money to still level them up.

[636] I did that.

[637] I had a team of all dudes in their 90s.

[638] So did you play any of this stuff or were you just researching it?

[639] No, I was just researching it.

[640] I wasn't actually playing it.

[641] Don't dip into your own supply, man. No, I played a bunch of games, though, too.

[642] Yeah.

[643] Like Catherine.

[644] So that came out in Japan last week?

[645] Yeah, last week.

[646] You got a copy of that for 360.

[647] You've got your Japanese 360.

[648] What do you think?

[649] I don't know.

[650] It's...

[651] From my perspective of not being able to enjoy any of the story stuff, it's a block climbing game that is not so fun.

[652] It's a puzzle game, basically, with some cut scenes that I don't understand interspersed in the middle of it.

[653] It's almost like a Tomb Raider climbing challenge VR thing or something.

[654] Sokoban, but you're climbing.

[655] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[656] Yeah, yeah.

[657] There's video of that out there.

[658] I'm not going to describe that stuff.

[659] Yeah, so I'm not really getting much out of it, which I wasn't really expecting to get too much out of it.

[660] But I figure I'll play in a little bit, and then maybe we'll record some video and show some of the cutscenes there from a little later on in the game.

[661] So they're working on a patch for that.

[662] So many people have been complaining about the difficulty in that game.

[663] That they're patching it to make it easier, I guess.

[664] Yeah, people even just saying, even people that finished the demo, like they put out that demo and said like, if you can finish the demo, you can finish Catherine.

[665] And then now people are getting it and just going like, you were wrong.

[666] I don't know.

[667] It hasn't been hard for me, but I haven't played too far into it.

[668] So it probably gets pretty devious later on.

[669] Are they going to put that out here?

[670] Probably.

[671] Like eventually?

[672] Yeah, probably.

[673] It's on 360, right?

[674] Yeah.

[675] Yes.

[676] Yeah.

[677] It was pointed out to me by someone, a nebulous someone, that you don't put games out on the Xbox in Japan unless you're planning to release them elsewhere.

[678] Unless they're shooters, like shoot-'em -ups.

[679] Because that's all that comes out.

[680] Yeah, okay, sure.

[681] I mean, there are a lot.

[682] And a lot of those come out region -free, almost as if they know.

[683] Like, all right, the number of people that care about this will just import a copy anyway, so we'll get ours.

[684] But it's also on the PS3.

[685] Yeah, it is.

[686] So it's like they also put it on the 360, which makes it seem...

[687] Even crazier to not come out here.

[688] Right, like for a game with a budget.

[689] They'd spend some money getting it up and running on that system.

[690] But I wouldn't expect it anytime soon.

[691] There's a lot of speech in that game from what I've seen.

[692] A lot of localizing?

[693] Yeah, they'll have to localize the heck out of it.

[694] And they don't necessarily turn those games around super quickly over at Atlas.

[695] So I wouldn't expect.

[696] I bet we hear about it at E3.

[697] I bet they say, hey, yeah, we're doing Catherine, by the way.

[698] But we're not doing it until next year or something.

[699] Or late this year at the absolute earliest.

[700] And the U .S. will get the easy version.

[701] Yeah.

[702] We'll get that.

[703] Press A to win.

[704] Play some Gal Gun.

[705] But I don't want to talk about that.

[706] That's good.

[707] That was last week.

[708] I don't really want to.

[709] You played and finished Killzone 3 and reviewed it.

[710] What do you think of that?

[711] It's pretty good.

[712] Yeah.

[713] The campaign kind of falls apart later on.

[714] It's definitely like it opens really well.

[715] And then as it goes on, you kind of start to notice more and more.

[716] They're like, oh, they didn't change this from Killzone 2.

[717] Or this story bit seems like it was crafted by people who don't care at all about the story in this game or the fiction of the universe.

[718] Anything satisfying with Rico?

[719] Rico is fine.

[720] by the end of that game you're like alright Rico but I mean the game still very much does the I can't reach you thing that the previous game did where you're looking at like a pretty clear view of the battlefield and seeing like I can see you I can see you're sitting right there within range to hit me we saw that during that quick look even yeah Just revive me. Just hit the button.

[721] It's like I know what it takes to revive you and I know that I could do it from around this corner where I can't be hit.

[722] But, hey, you can't reach me. So, yeah.

[723] Fuck you, Rico, again.

[724] That stuff is frustrating.

[725] Rico, Rico, Rico.

[726] Yeah.

[727] I hate that guy.

[728] You think it's better or worse than Killzone 2?

[729] I think it's better.

[730] But it's kind of a – Like it's a not better enough sort of thing.

[731] A lot of it is really identical.

[732] And also it is less better, let's say, if you played Killzone 2 after they patched it.

[733] So a big part of it, you know, when I picked this game up, it was like, man, this is so much faster.

[734] And the control just seems so much more accurate.

[735] But like it still has a heft.

[736] It still has a weight to it.

[737] It still kind of feels like Killzone.

[738] But they've improved it.

[739] And I went back and played a bunch of Killzone 2 while working on this, and at some point they patched in High Precision, which was their kind of subtle, not quite admission that maybe the controls in Killzone 2 were not to everyone's liking.

[740] I didn't really have a problem with them the way they were, but it was like a dead zone issue with the right stick or something where it just wasn't moving.

[741] like other shooters and i guess enough people complained so they said like all right fine we'll meet you halfway and put in this option but we're not sure it's wrong by default if you already have a save it's your call of duty mode so this is just this just has it right uh and and it's just on yeah it's just on so it felt a lot different and then went back and played kill zone 2 and went oh wait it actually this is totally identical um in terms of feel uh kill zone 3 looks a lot better yeah um There's a lot more happening in the sky and stuff like that.

[742] I think the character models look better.

[743] This was already a really good -looking game when it came out two years ago.

[744] For them to bump that up is still really impressive.

[745] The multiplayer is still, I think, a pretty big draw for that game.

[746] Warzone is still a neat mode.

[747] It's less configurable than it was in Killzone 2, but I guess that's something that they've said that they're going to patch in.

[748] But basically there's no custom game support at all.

[749] So in the previous game you could go say, well, I want to do Warzone, but I only want to do capture and hold and body count.

[750] So you could turn off all the other ones and basically turn off certain weapons and stuff like that and build your own custom games.

[751] This doesn't have any of that stuff.

[752] This is just like find match go.

[753] This doesn't even have a create match option.

[754] And the classes are a little less configurable as well.

[755] You can't really combine results from different classes.

[756] They've definitely...

[757] If you want to play as a medic, you're not going to be able to rebuild turrets also with engineer skills.

[758] This is probably kind of a silly question in this day and age.

[759] For me, somebody who probably won't play multiplayer, how long about is the campaign?

[760] Is it worth – It's of an average length.

[761] It's probably about as long as Killzone 2 was.

[762] I didn't sit there and count up the hours.

[763] But I definitely didn't feel like it was a short game.

[764] It didn't feel too much like it was overstaying its welcome either.

[765] But there were some moments – the game kind of leans a little too heavily on kind of turret and vehicle sequences a little more than I'd like.

[766] There are too many things that are like critical to the story that happen while you're manning a turret.

[767] And you're like, man, it's just – The game design feels old.

[768] It feels like it's very much from an era that hopefully we are moving past.

[769] With like Duke Nukem.

[770] Yeah, exactly.

[771] Duke's going to be the game that drags all this forward, kicking and screaming into the future.

[772] No, it feels like the pacing's a little jerky because it's got a lot of cut scenes.

[773] And the design of the game feels at least two years old, if not more.

[774] It's just kind of...

[775] Is there a big cliffhanger?

[776] The first one or the second one kind of had a huge, like, stay tuned for more Killzone.

[777] This game punches out at the end very abruptly.

[778] Like battleships and planes flying over?

[779] Not like Kane and Lunch 2 style or anything like that.

[780] Like there's a resolution to a lot of stuff.

[781] Yeah, I think there will be another Killzone game.

[782] I don't mean to freak you out.

[783] You played a little bit of this in 3D.

[784] Yeah.

[785] This is obviously a Sony published game, so how was that experience for you?

[786] Queasy, bad.

[787] I didn't like it.

[788] It's mostly fine.

[789] It's hard to tell.

[790] I mean, we're still in such early days for 3D that it's hard to kind of tell what's the equipment's fault and what's the game's fault.

[791] Right.

[792] But I haven't had this problem with any of the other games or video stuff that I've watched.

[793] It kind of just kept falling out of 3D.

[794] Was it where you could just see the two sides?

[795] It was like I could move the glasses up and go, yeah, it just looks like that.

[796] See, I had that experience when I saw Killzone 3 in 3D before the game's release, but I figured that was like weird event space and lighting was odd.

[797] It seems like those things are very sensitive to...

[798] Like specific lighting conditions.

[799] Yeah.

[800] So maybe it was just that.

[801] It's really hard to say.

[802] So I don't want to hold that against the game too much until I kind of know for sure.

[803] But that happened a fair amount.

[804] But even when I was able to kind of keep it going.

[805] Yeah.

[806] I'd play two multiplayer matches and then have to stop because it was just too much.

[807] Also, the text becomes really blurry.

[808] The game becomes a lot darker, and the brightness controls in -game aren't enough to offset that.

[809] I think that's something I've heard.

[810] Obviously, 3D makes the games darker.

[811] That's kind of just inherent to a lot of 3D.

[812] So you'd think that...

[813] Whether it's at the system level, the PlayStation 3 does it, or whether the games would do it.

[814] As soon as you turn on 3D, it seems like it should just bump it up.

[815] Because the in -game brightness controls aren't enough.

[816] It was a case where I was turning the brightness up all the way in -game, and I still couldn't see the symbol that it wanted you to see at all.

[817] It's kind of a dark game.

[818] It is kind of a dark game.

[819] But it was definitely darker, and I found it really hard to pick out stuff like...

[820] uh, objective indicators and stuff like that.

[821] Like, you know, you push up on the D pad and it tells you where to go next.

[822] Like half the time I couldn't even see that thing.

[823] I was just like, wait, where?

[824] Okay.

[825] There's there.

[826] And it's far out here.

[827] And you know, any, any kind of menu text or objective text that is popping up in the corners just kind of gets lost.

[828] And I just wonder if that's something that, you know, if you really, really, really spend a lot of time getting used to this stuff, if it's not going to be a thing or if it's just kind of inherent to the process, uh, because it's something that any 3d experience I've had has been, Exactly like that, where just anything that's peripheral vision is gone.

[829] It's only where you are focusing at any given moment.

[830] And even if you're far enough back that you can see the whole TV, it's still not enough.

[831] You're still losing stuff.

[832] I find the same experience watching just 3D movies.

[833] Yeah, same here.

[834] When you look at a section of the screen, that's super 3D, but anything around it.

[835] You don't really have that same effect.

[836] It's just kind of gone.

[837] Yeah.

[838] So I don't really like that.

[839] The 3D.

[840] Yeah.

[841] Did you notice any frame rate stuff or fidelity?

[842] Yeah.

[843] I mean, like the text becomes blurrier.

[844] Like some of the stuff is not maybe as clearly defined as it is in 2D.

[845] But you didn't necessarily experience like huge texture quality drop or anything like that?

[846] It seems comparable.

[847] It seems comparable.

[848] It's not.

[849] It doesn't all of a sudden look like garbage or something if you do anything like that.

[850] I mean the thing about 3D with the games that you have to keep in mind is it's – like these are not systems that were meant to be seen in 3D.

[851] Like they are kind of having to bootstrap this shit in there and figure it out as they go.

[852] Like if 3D becomes a big thing, like when they first started doing polygonal graphics, the hardware wasn't really there to capitalize on it.

[853] So they were kind of just hacking it together.

[854] But once it's like, OK, this is the way.

[855] Then you have all of this research and all of this money going into how do we make this stuff look better and be more efficient.

[856] I just don't necessarily think that the conclusion is that this is the way with 3D.

[857] I mean obviously it's still early going.

[858] No, I agree.

[859] But that's got to be the thing that's going to make 3D.

[860] It has to reach that kind of critical mass of – When you're just doing 3D.

[861] Of like, okay, it's worth this industry's research time to figure out how to do this 3D as effectively as possible.

[862] But a lot of that process is just making sure that your game can run at 120 hertz.

[863] I mean for now.

[864] That's kind of the – I think there are other things too that are – I don't know.

[865] They'll probably get better at like presenting it or like, okay, here's the best way to do UI elements in 3D.

[866] Right.

[867] And even just like we spent all this time trying to fake it like with depth of field and kind of like throwing stuff, blurring stuff and making stuff in focus.

[868] And now it's like, well, now it's in 3D, but now I'm still going to make this blurry because it's like that stuff is disorienting to me. Yeah, it really is.

[869] With movies, it's a – They have control of the camera.

[870] You're looking at what they want you to look at.

[871] And with the games that are in 3D, you can spin that camera wherever you want.

[872] Right up until you throw up.

[873] Yeah.

[874] I can see it being a real challenge of like, well, you're moving it too quickly or you're not supposed to walk so close to that wall or this guy is not supposed to be that close to you.

[875] And things just get all weird.

[876] It's a mishmash of like.

[877] Visual tricks and then 3D on top of that.

[878] Yeah.

[879] So it's weird.

[880] I don't know.

[881] It's definitely not vital to the experience.

[882] I think the game looks better in 2D.

[883] Looks real pretty.

[884] Yeah, definitely.

[885] Of course, it also has move support.

[886] How does that stuff work?

[887] How does it feel?

[888] Functional.

[889] Yeah.

[890] You know, I don't prefer it to the regular controller.

[891] Yeah.

[892] And I'm sure there'll be someone out there who's like, whatever, man. It's like.

[893] Mouse and keyboard, I'm whipping dude's ass because I can spin around so much faster with this thing and all that.

[894] But, you know, that wasn't necessarily my experience.

[895] And I was doing a lot better with the control.

[896] Obviously, you know, it's a newer thing.

[897] So it'll take time to adapt to that.

[898] And I'm much more used to using a game pad.

[899] But I don't know.

[900] It's, you know, you do stuff like.

[901] stab the controller out for melee, twist it to the side for reload.

[902] You still have to hold a controller or that navigation thing in your left hand to move and do some stuff there.

[903] So I kind of just found myself fumbling with the controls a lot more than I had been in the past.

[904] I don't know.

[905] It's totally functional, totally usable.

[906] They give you some aim assists and stuff like that in there if you want.

[907] I mean, obviously only in single player.

[908] Multiplayer is kind of a different story.

[909] But, yeah, playing that game in 3D with the move and playing multiplayer is a really good way to go, you know, three and six because you were standing in a corner spinning around like a lunatic half the time or something like that.

[910] They don't do anything with playlists or anything to break those players out?

[911] Doesn't look like it.

[912] No, it's just everyone just jumps in and goes.

[913] It'd be nice if we'd be like, okay, everyone here is 3D, so everyone has that same handicap or everyone's move or whatever.

[914] Or advantage.

[915] Yes.

[916] Everyone has that advantage.

[917] That makes it not an advantage anymore.

[918] What else, Jeff?

[919] Let's see.

[920] I've played a chunk of Bulletstorm.

[921] Yes.

[922] Still need to work through that for review.

[923] But, yeah, I've been playing some of that this morning.

[924] Lengthy quick look of that up on the site.

[925] Yeah.

[926] Or going up soon?

[927] Probably up by now.

[928] All right.

[929] Very good.

[930] Well, you saw it live.

[931] Or we went and recorded it and immediately came in here to do this.

[932] That was live, right?

[933] Yeah.

[934] So maybe you've seen it already.

[935] Yeah, a lot of groaning, screaming guys in that game.

[936] Everyone is crazy so far.

[937] So it's just everyone going, I'm running.

[938] You know what?

[939] I actually like the name Bulletstorm, but everyone is crazy would be a way better.

[940] I think that's what the game is called in Japan.

[941] I think that's the sequel to Shoot Many Robots.

[942] That game is not as crazy as I have been led to believe, I feel like.

[943] That seems pretty crazy.

[944] I'll get more weapons.

[945] Yeah, it seems like the sort of game that does get crazier as time goes on.

[946] But, you know, playing like into act two of I think there's like at least six.

[947] Yeah.

[948] Yeah, it starts out the tutorials maybe a little too long before they give you the cool stuff that kind of sets it apart.

[949] Yeah, a lot of the early – it's like, hey, it's an assault rifle.

[950] Like, yeah, you can kick guys onto stuff and you can whip them and do this stuff.

[951] But it's mainly you're doing that to set them up to be shot or you're kicking them into spikes or kicking them into big plants and stuff like that.

[952] And there are turret sequences and all the same sort of stuff you would expect from a first -person shooter.

[953] And the dialogue is really kind of rubbing me the wrong way.

[954] Lots of Mad Lib cursing.

[955] Yeah.

[956] Give me a four -letter word.

[957] Now give me an eight -letter word to attach onto it.

[958] Okay.

[959] You're a banana dick.

[960] Yay!

[961] Thank you.

[962] That was only six letters.

[963] Ah, crap.

[964] Try again.

[965] Banana.

[966] Banana -na.

[967] Bananard.

[968] Done.

[969] Bandana dick.

[970] Perfect.

[971] Yeah, that sounds about right.

[972] That's also not eight letters, though.

[973] Close enough.

[974] Close enough for Bulletstorm.

[975] That's right.

[976] Yeah, it's not a game where you're probably going to really care about the story anyway, but the dialogue is just kind of...

[977] grading at some point it's like i get it you wanted to invent a bunch of you wanted to like use a bunch of curse words out of their normal context which is why at some point says someone says they're going to kill your dick or you saw the the green team video and put murder boner into your game yeah uh Which is great.

[978] I think murder boner is a hilarious term.

[979] Sure.

[980] But they use it in this like gruff, like kick -ass military, like bring your murder boner.

[981] I'm like, what?

[982] Wolverine, why would you say such a thing?

[983] I mean, I think since like, I don't know, when they first unveiled that game, when they first actually showed it and it had all this stuff, I've always kind of felt like this is, you know.

[984] Next century Duke Nukem as far as kind of the feel of the – like the fact that there's even the boot I feel kind of betrays the – Yeah, we're – that's kind of – that is one of our sources of inspiration at least for the feel of it.

[985] So I'm not surprised to see them kind of cribbing certain – Yeah, and People Can Fly is good at making like kind of effed up weapons.

[986] So they put a four -barreled shotgun in there.

[987] I feel like out of all of this though that People Can Fly's craft is put on pretty good display here as far as – The weapon designs and making crazy weapons and making them work well.

[988] I do feel like though, at least from that quick look, if you're going to shoot a guy with four barrels of shotgun, they should explode every time.

[989] But that's a weapon they're introducing in like level two.

[990] I know.

[991] You've got to be able to step your game up.

[992] Because if you're blowing people up with a shotgun in the second act, how are you going to top that?

[993] By not giving you ammo for it apparently, I guess.

[994] I don't know.

[995] It just seems like.

[996] You should be doing twice the damage that a two -barreled shotgun would do at close range.

[997] You must wait until you get the eight -barreled shotgun.

[998] What?

[999] What did they call it?

[1000] Bone Duster.

[1001] Bone Duster.

[1002] That's a good way.

[1003] Bone Duster's pretty good.

[1004] That's probably the funniest thing so far of the entire game.

[1005] It's just like, yeah, we made this four -barreled shotgun.

[1006] It's called the Bone Duster.

[1007] When you were playing it, it looked like a lot of fun to play.

[1008] It looked like you were doing constantly just...

[1009] Yeah, it's kind of goofy, just like ripping dudes up.

[1010] You got the leash, you got the boots, you're kind of working combos together with that.

[1011] And, you know, it's kind of up to you how you play it.

[1012] Like I've definitely been whipping guys, leashing guys towards me, kicking them away and then shooting them on the way out.

[1013] Seems like a viable strategy.

[1014] Yeah, it's totally viable.

[1015] It's maybe a little repetitive.

[1016] I think if I was looking around the environment for kind of more creative ways to do stuff, there'd be more cases where I could kick a guy onto spikes and that's more points than that.

[1017] And then the points, of course, feed into the upgrade path.

[1018] Points for looking at things.

[1019] Yeah, you get points for like the Gears of War style.

[1020] Watch this.

[1021] Watch this in -game cut scene for every, you know, holding down the trigger gets you points.

[1022] I like that the numbers rack up while you're doing it.

[1023] While you're holding it down, it's like keep holding it, keep holding it, keep holding it.

[1024] Yeah, 500 points.

[1025] And in some cases, you're being shot at while that happens.

[1026] So it's kind of like, you know.

[1027] A little risk -reward there.

[1028] Yeah, it is a little bit like that.

[1029] So that's well done.

[1030] For the most part, I like how it plays so far.

[1031] Like I said, it doesn't seem as crazy as maybe they've been.

[1032] saying so far, but I haven't seen every weapon yet either, so maybe by the end of it is just...

[1033] And keep in mind, relative community standards for craziness.

[1034] Like, your personal standards for what is crazy may be a bit higher than others.

[1035] Just play a lot of Gal Gun, so...

[1036] This game doesn't have ecstasy shots in it anywhere.

[1037] Well, you haven't made it all the way through.

[1038] If that's a skill shot, if there's an ecstasy shot in this game...

[1039] Actually, it's just a gun that just shoots girls.

[1040] That's the ammo.

[1041] That's the Gal Gun?

[1042] Yeah, the Gal Gun.

[1043] Shoots.

[1044] Uses ladies for ammo.

[1045] All right, I'm on board.

[1046] This game needs a bike gun.

[1047] It's a gun that shoots bikes.

[1048] Don't fucking talk to me about bike guns.

[1049] That come at you at crazy angles and cuts dudes in half in weird ways.

[1050] Super Bowl ring gun.

[1051] But I guess for a game that is supposed to be just like you doing stuff and killing people in all these really crazy ways, the ammo restrictions are a lot harsher than I would have expected.

[1052] Does seem like – Because it's like – I mean you eventually can upgrade the capacity.

[1053] But when you first get the flail gun, you can hold three powered up things.

[1054] When you first get these weapons, yeah, you can only hold like three charged up shots.

[1055] It's not just your baseline ammo.

[1056] Definitely seems like they want you to leash guys and shoot them accurately while they're in slow motion instead of just spraying down, you know, unloading.

[1057] Yeah, and that depends.

[1058] I like that they tab – I like to keep track of throat shots separately from head shots.

[1059] I think that's really funny.

[1060] Watching you play a guy in the junk, he goes down and kind of onto his knees and you can walk up and kick him.

[1061] That's mercy.

[1062] It seemed different than first -person shooters, which is fine by me. The world doesn't need another.

[1063] The core of it doesn't play all that differently.

[1064] You're still just like, I'm going to aim at this dude.

[1065] I'm going to ADS and shoot this guy in the face.

[1066] But he just happens to be flying away from me in slow motion while I'm doing it.

[1067] Or maybe he'll hit spikes.

[1068] Or something like that.

[1069] It seems like the – I guess – I bet that they tried it at one point and probably just couldn't figure out a way to make it like work fairly or really fun or something.

[1070] But I'm really surprised there's no competitive multiplayer in that game.

[1071] Because it seems like mechanically that stuff would be fun to do to someone else.

[1072] I can see just like – But like all the slow motion stuff.

[1073] What is your perspective if you get leashed?

[1074] Right.

[1075] Like what are you seeing?

[1076] Do you get to just see who it is that's doing it or are you seeing the perspective that the character model would be seeing?

[1077] Or are you like struggling out of the slow motion so that you – because some of the guys actually try to shoot at you as they're like flying away from you.

[1078] So is there kind of struggle mechanic to – get aimed back and shoot the guy as he's shooting you.

[1079] And that leash seems like it's so easy to throw out.

[1080] It is.

[1081] It's infinite, just like pop, pop, pop, and you're taking control as a guy's left and right.

[1082] Plus it kind of seems like that game seems to move really quickly and the guys don't take many hits for the most part, right?

[1083] Like two or three hits.

[1084] Some of them really soak it up.

[1085] Depending on where you shoot them.

[1086] Depending on where you shoot them.

[1087] It might just be not so much fun to just keep dumping.

[1088] Yeah, it probably would have been a ton of work to make it.

[1089] balance it all out.

[1090] Actually, yeah, to actually make those mechanics.

[1091] Even just like leash priority, like two dudes trying to leash each other.

[1092] Oh, explosion.

[1093] None of the enemies have leashes.

[1094] So I understand why it didn't make it to the final product, but it's just one of those things where you get it and go like, oh, wait, I actually didn't know what the multiplayer was in this game ahead of time.

[1095] So it's like arena style.

[1096] It's horde mode, but with points requirements.

[1097] So you can't just run around, shoot anybody with no skill.

[1098] You have to kind of team up and do team skill shots and all that stuff.

[1099] But no perks, no persistent kind of like leveling up thing, just kind of your actual number.

[1100] Yeah, it seems like the unlocks are cosmetic.

[1101] You unlock additional taunt animations and armor and different helmets and stuff like that.

[1102] I guess Halo had that, right?

[1103] Yeah, all the armor, cosmetic armor.

[1104] Bulletstorm.

[1105] Bulletstorm.

[1106] Epic edition.

[1107] I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.

[1108] Me too.

[1109] It's neat at the very least.

[1110] Yeah.

[1111] It's got some craziness.

[1112] I want that.

[1113] I kind of just want to see what the end is, if they're building it as super crazy.

[1114] The bit where you take control of the big Godzilla toy and mow guys down with that, really inspired, really neat.

[1115] You haven't seen anything quite like this before.

[1116] So hopefully the game leans heavily on those moments and less on like...

[1117] 500 dudes.

[1118] There I am behind a turret and there are 500 dudes.

[1119] Not to sound like a broken record, but they should probably stop putting turret sequences into shooters.

[1120] I think the people are done with them.

[1121] I know I'm certainly just about done with them.

[1122] So 360 version of that comes with Gears 3 multiplayer beta access when that becomes available.

[1123] It's not available yet, but yeah.

[1124] Does it have a date on it?

[1125] No, I don't believe it does.

[1126] But it's...

[1127] That's tied to the online passcode, so it's something where you'll have to be a first -time owner of the game or something like that unless they're going to sell access.

[1128] Because with that, you can play the online without entering that code, but you get access to seven additional Echoes levels, which is the kind of...

[1129] Single player campaign, from what I've seen so far, is a single player campaign chopped up into small chunks that you play again and again for high score.

[1130] Speed and skill run.

[1131] Keep using skill.

[1132] And you get a gold leash.

[1133] So everyone has a gold leash.

[1134] So everyone has a gold leash.

[1135] Well, you have to pay extra for the platinum leash.

[1136] Damn.

[1137] Blinged out leash.

[1138] Premium leash.

[1139] Leash made out of diamonds.

[1140] I want a diamond leash.

[1141] Step it up.

[1142] Well, very cool.

[1143] Anything else, Jeff?

[1144] Played a little well at TNT Racers.

[1145] It seems like circuit breakers with guns, so I hate it.

[1146] But someone will love it.

[1147] Maybe.

[1148] I don't know.

[1149] That's PSN, Xbox Live Arcade.

[1150] Yeah.

[1151] All that jazz.

[1152] Oh, and I played a little stacking.

[1153] I played kind of the first.

[1154] few sequences of stacking and not to get into that because we've already talked about but i really like it it's pretty good yeah it's nice it's clever it's cute it's endearing yeah and and just you know you don't see games with that aesthetic ever like yeah the the insane combination of going around the cruise ship just kind of i like that there are multiple characters with different kinds of farts yeah And one of them is called Toot.

[1155] Yeah.

[1156] Tooting on guys.

[1157] Classical music and child labor laws and...

[1158] Turn of the century, black and white, silent film aesthetics.

[1159] When you perform the two to action, the little doll looks both ways real sly before he does it.

[1160] Also, I noticed there's some commercial making the rounds that has a song from that game in it.

[1161] Really?

[1162] They must have used public domain.

[1163] It all sounds like Baroque chamber music kind of stuff.

[1164] It must be actual compositions from that period because you hear that stuff elsewhere.

[1165] Or it's just from the same.

[1166] Like library.

[1167] Right.

[1168] Somebody licensed.

[1169] Something like that, yeah.

[1170] Bradley.

[1171] Hello.

[1172] How's it going?

[1173] How was your three day?

[1174] I am tired.

[1175] I'm sorry.

[1176] Jeff, did you do anything weird or interesting other than that for your three day?

[1177] Yeah.

[1178] And then I played Killzone all day on Monday.

[1179] Terrific.

[1180] Yeah, it was good.

[1181] Busy weekend.

[1182] Yeah.

[1183] Yeah.

[1184] I don't like to leave my house much on the weekends.

[1185] That's just a personal policy.

[1186] So was that banana bread made over the weekend?

[1187] No, that's from last week sometime.

[1188] Oh, wow.

[1189] That's got to get eight because it's going to stale up.

[1190] At your advice, I also made some banana bread.

[1191] That's what you do when you have old bananas, right?

[1192] It was the perfect storm.

[1193] I had three bananas that were about to turn, and I'm like, that's just the right amount to make some damn banana bread.

[1194] Like they're a little bit too mushy to want to eat them raw.

[1195] Yeah, you don't want to eat them straight up, but that's still good use for banana bread.

[1196] Yeah, for sure.

[1197] Put some chopped up walnuts in that bitch.

[1198] Yeah.

[1199] I never made no banana bread.

[1200] It's easy.

[1201] That sounds like a great time.

[1202] It is.

[1203] It is.

[1204] It's fun.

[1205] Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever made bread.

[1206] Bread's way harder.

[1207] Really?

[1208] Yeah.

[1209] Banana bread is a quick bread.

[1210] You don't actually have to like punch it down and then let it re -rise.

[1211] You don't have to use yeast.

[1212] What if I had a bread maker?

[1213] That's not the right kind of.

[1214] Yeah.

[1215] Yeah, it is more like cake.

[1216] Yeah, totally.

[1217] It's like a biscuit.

[1218] Yeah.

[1219] As far as the chemistry of it.

[1220] Sometimes my girlfriend will make like banana bread cupcakes or whatever instead of in a loaf format.

[1221] Yes.

[1222] It's like a little muffin kind of thing.

[1223] I was going to say, this doesn't mean I become a cupcake until you put frosting on it.

[1224] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1225] It's more of a muffin.

[1226] You're right.

[1227] You're right.

[1228] Totally right.

[1229] Oh, man. What happened?

[1230] I had a house guest most of the weekend.

[1231] I went to a rip -roaring birthday party.

[1232] Alex and his girlfriend came over for dinner at one point.

[1233] Jeez.

[1234] Busy.

[1235] How was the party?

[1236] Party's good.

[1237] Yeah.

[1238] A lot of people.

[1239] A lot of people came from out of town.

[1240] It was also Chinese New Year that night.

[1241] It was.

[1242] Man, it rained like crazy that day, and there was a big parade.

[1243] That was just a big mess.

[1244] I almost died like nine times driving that day.

[1245] Yeah, that was a...

[1246] Oh, dude, that was some bad...

[1247] Straight up Ridge Racer shenanigans on the freeway.

[1248] We were going to go out and get breakfast, and it was raining so hard and so cold that we went and got pho at 10 in the morning, which is like...

[1249] I didn't even know you could get pho at that hour.

[1250] Got pho.

[1251] Pho.

[1252] Yes.

[1253] You mean pho?

[1254] No, I mean pho.

[1255] Pho.

[1256] I don't know what that is.

[1257] I don't know what pho is.

[1258] It's called pho.

[1259] Is it like a Vietnamese?

[1260] It's noodles.

[1261] Yeah, it's like beef noodle soup.

[1262] Yeah.

[1263] That was right.

[1264] And then I honored our many past commanders in chief.

[1265] Our fallen presidents.

[1266] By holding court with some royalty last night.

[1267] In Oakland.

[1268] I went to see Prince.

[1269] Oh, that's right.

[1270] You went and saw fucking Prince.

[1271] Yeah.

[1272] At the Oracle.

[1273] How was that?

[1274] The president of pop.

[1275] So that was already crazy because you bought tickets for that on Friday.

[1276] Because that's when they went on sale.

[1277] That is nuts to me. He's crazy.

[1278] I guess apparently he's actually just trying.

[1279] It's not like, oh, he decided to play here five days ago.

[1280] It's like.

[1281] Very, very, like, hard business reasons.

[1282] Like, they're trying to subvert the Ticketmaster machine and the scalping machine.

[1283] It seemed like it was deliberately designed to keep scalping from being as prominent an issue of, like, if it's only a couple days in advance, pretty much people who want to go are going to buy them.

[1284] That LCD sound system show in New York or something.

[1285] Like, the last show.

[1286] Yeah, like, he went and added, like, six more shows because seats were going for that for, like, $1 ,500.

[1287] Like, all right, that's ridiculous.

[1288] Yeah, they actually, it was supposed to just be last night and tomorrow night, but they added a third Oakland date on Thursday, if anybody is looking to go there.

[1289] How was it?

[1290] Tell me how it was.

[1291] Fucking great.

[1292] Is it worth it?

[1293] Pretty much reaffirmed my belief that he is the greatest living musical performer.

[1294] Where does he dip into the catalog?

[1295] That was a little bit of a bummer.

[1296] It did not...

[1297] He didn't just play Purple Rain in its entirety?

[1298] He did, actually.

[1299] That was probably the only hit that he played start to finish.

[1300] The song Purple Rain?

[1301] Yeah, because he can't not do that.

[1302] They would riot.

[1303] It's Oakland.

[1304] So did he just do songs?

[1305] Oakland don't fucking play when it comes to stops.

[1306] I mean, he's like so...

[1307] Sort of musically talented, you know, he plays so many different instruments that, like, he basically plays, like, 20 -minute song after 20 -minute song, and each one contains, like, five or six songs.

[1308] Weird.

[1309] Just lots of weird, like, medleys of stuff that he's done and other people's songs.

[1310] Like, he threw some Chaka Khan in there.

[1311] Nice.

[1312] Let's see.

[1313] Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone showed up and jammed with him a little bit.

[1314] Carlos Santana came out at one point.

[1315] Oh, yeah.

[1316] That was awesome.

[1317] He lives around here, right?

[1318] That was awesome because he came out playing his guitar.

[1319] And, like, a few bars into that, like, Prince basically shook his head and, like, handed him his Telecaster.

[1320] And Santana had to play Prince's guitar instead.

[1321] Your guitar sucks.

[1322] But the best part was how high up the guitar rode on Santana because Prince is so short.

[1323] So short that Santana...

[1324] The strap doesn't go out anymore?

[1325] Santana's, like, probably a good, like, foot taller than Prince.

[1326] So he was, like, the guitar was, like, up here.

[1327] Is it purple?

[1328] No, he had his, like, normal yellow Tele.

[1329] And then he also has, like, a completely gold color.

[1330] covered uh stratocaster that was kind of heels was he wearing tall ones very tall ones some lifts uh yeah he definitely goes through some costume changes uh yeah but like purple rain like one verse chorus of raspberry beret he did controversy that was cool some old school like three or four other songs that you probably know and then like a bunch of b -sides and weird jams and shit so it's uh it's a great it's a great show but you never know what you're gonna get because the last time i saw him he did like a like a five song acoustic set in the middle and that was awesome and there was none of that last night and he had whatever strikes prince yeah it's totally like even the tv commercial is like different show every night like you never know what you're gonna get so you know baby think hard before you spend several hundred dollars on it because you might not hear everything you want to come back again um But he's got a night off tonight, which invariably means he's going to play some secret club show in the city.

[1331] So keep your eye out.

[1332] Prince is on the streets.

[1333] He's probably out there somewhere.

[1334] Buying giraffes.

[1335] What kind of crowd hits a Prince show these days?

[1336] It was very diverse.

[1337] I bet.

[1338] It was super diverse, actually.

[1339] Like a lot of young kids, an older crowd.

[1340] 30s -ish, probably, mostly.

[1341] That sounds about right.

[1342] I would say 30s up would be my expectation.

[1343] For the most part, yeah.

[1344] I saw a couple of what looked like teenagers there with their parents and stuff, but for the most part, yeah, our age.

[1345] And up.

[1346] 30 -year -olds getting back into the drug scene.

[1347] Prince is like 50.

[1348] I don't know if you knew.

[1349] Yeah.

[1350] Dude is not young, but he sure looks.

[1351] Does he moan?

[1352] He still looks and moves like, oh, dude.

[1353] Because I don't want to see that.

[1354] The ego is like his stage presence.

[1355] Making love to his guitar.

[1356] Oh, my God.

[1357] You have no idea.

[1358] They don't make them like that anymore.

[1359] Does he ever do the James Brown crazy ego thing?

[1360] I can't go on!

[1361] He does that.

[1362] That's the known James Brown thing.

[1363] But I've heard a lot about James Brown's live performances.

[1364] Where he'll do the...

[1365] Every time he says, the band has to hit it.

[1366] There's a lot of that stuff.

[1367] But he'll try and psych him out.

[1368] Like he's fucking with his own band.

[1369] I was wondering if Prince would do that kind of stuff.

[1370] Definitely similar stuff to that.

[1371] Like a big hang and here's a pause.

[1372] We're not going to kick back into the song until Prince decides.

[1373] Oh, he has them trained.

[1374] They are so trained to watch what he's doing and go along with it.

[1375] It's crazy.

[1376] Sheila E. was there for most of the thing.

[1377] If you know your Prince history, he's one of his former protégés.

[1378] Yes.

[1379] They did like a weird drum off.

[1380] She was playing her little stand -up kit and he was on the bongos.

[1381] And it was just like they were just trading licks back and forth.

[1382] Wow.

[1383] That's awesome.

[1384] That's awesome.

[1385] Great stuff.

[1386] Morris Day in the house.

[1387] Oh, God.

[1388] Dude, I would not be here today if Morris Day had been there last night.

[1389] I'd be running around after Jerome.

[1390] Was there an opening band?

[1391] It was Larry Graham.

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] Fantastic.

[1394] Good show.

[1395] Go see him.

[1396] That sounds like a great use of President's Day.

[1397] Great.

[1398] Yeah.

[1399] Pretty tired now.

[1400] Took fucking like an hour to get out of the Oracle parking lot.

[1401] Anyway.

[1402] Games.

[1403] Played some video games.

[1404] I don't know where to start.

[1405] Start at the beginning.

[1406] Let's see.

[1407] I played a bunch of De Blob 2.

[1408] Oh, yes.

[1409] That's out this week.

[1410] Which is out like today.

[1411] Yeah.

[1412] I guess.

[1413] THQ Internal?

[1414] I'm not sure.

[1415] Who did that?

[1416] I forget.

[1417] The game is exceptionally pleasant.

[1418] It's just like, it's just, it's so chill.

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] For the most part, except for one sticking design point.

[1421] It's really just like.

[1422] What's that?

[1423] The color.

[1424] It's the time limit.

[1425] Yeah, you would say that.

[1426] The use of color.

[1427] Color challenge.

[1428] The time limit.

[1429] Oh, right.

[1430] Did you guys play much of the first game?

[1431] A little B?

[1432] Yeah.

[1433] Did it have the time limit?

[1434] I can't remember.

[1435] I didn't play a lot of it.

[1436] I can't remember either.

[1437] Like you're timed in every world you go into.

[1438] Like Vinny had sat for the quick look on it.

[1439] Like, each level is, like, a good probably 20 to 30 minutes of little, like, mission objectives kind of open world format.

[1440] But you've got this timer ticking down constantly.

[1441] But you can pick up little clocks, right?

[1442] You can.

[1443] And if you do your objectives fast enough and, like, kill enemies on the side and stuff, like, you're getting more time out of it.

[1444] But, like, you cannot screw around or you're going to lock yourself.

[1445] You're going to paint yourself into a corner where, like, you're not going to have enough time to finish the level.

[1446] And then you have to go back, like, a bunch of missions.

[1447] Fuck you, Red.

[1448] Sorry.

[1449] It's okay.

[1450] But it seems like they've added a lot more variety, because the first game was pretty much just run around and paint buildings different colors, if I remember.

[1451] There's a lot more stuff.

[1452] It seems like it's more structured.

[1453] It was just sort of like, paint the area, and then the next area will open up, and then paint the area.

[1454] It's still definitely a lot of that, but it's a lot of paint these different buildings specific colors, and there's all those little 2D platforming levels that spawn off of the open worlds.

[1455] Yeah, I saw some of that stuff.

[1456] Those are pretty neat.

[1457] I mean, it's not challenging in the slightest.

[1458] It's got...

[1459] Sci -fi for kids.

[1460] It's got a Sci -fi kids logo, right?

[1461] They brought that in at one point, right?

[1462] Yeah, we saw that with one of the producers.

[1463] Did any of us give them shit about the way that...

[1464] half of us can't actually play it.

[1465] Yeah, Ryan actually did.

[1466] And what did he say?

[1467] Fuck those guys.

[1468] Yeah, I think, as I recall, I'd have to rewatch it.

[1469] That was a while ago.

[1470] But, you know, it's a game about color.

[1471] A game about color.

[1472] So what are you going to do?

[1473] I mean, he wasn't mean about it, but he was like, what are you going to do?

[1474] It was actually really funny.

[1475] I can't remember what he said because I was listening during the clip.

[1476] Well, I think it was like, you know, they considered it, but like how much...

[1477] How much consideration can they give in their game about painting stuff colors?

[1478] Something about those guys refusing to play a lot.

[1479] Oh, yeah, those guys refusing to see colors.

[1480] What are you going to do?

[1481] Some people are just stubborn.

[1482] Yeah, exactly.

[1483] That's a good point.

[1484] See more colors, you guys.

[1485] Wait, are you trying to say that colorblindness is a choice?

[1486] That's absolutely right.

[1487] That's not.

[1488] Get the fuck out of here.

[1489] Also, first time off of the Wii.

[1490] It definitely benefits from being in HD.

[1491] It looks great.

[1492] It runs really smoothly.

[1493] If they had a part where you could pause that game and move a cursor around and say, what color is this?

[1494] I was doing all right when it was just the primaries, when they started doing the browns and the reds, and that's when it started getting a little muddy.

[1495] I don't know if the first game had this.

[1496] It has got a girlfriend co -op mode.

[1497] What do people call that?

[1498] Couch co -op or asynchronous co -op?

[1499] Asynchronous co -op.

[1500] It's basically Mario Galaxy.

[1501] The other guy moves a cursor around.

[1502] See?

[1503] The other person could be like, I'm the color man. That's totally what Vinny was doing, too.

[1504] The second player can bank a second color, so you can change your color.

[1505] It's true.

[1506] I didn't know what color it was.

[1507] It's kind of neat.

[1508] You had it.

[1509] He did.

[1510] Worked out pretty well.

[1511] You can tell.

[1512] Give me the second one.

[1513] Give me the first one.

[1514] It seems like a really well -put -together game.

[1515] The humor is pretty clever.

[1516] The music is great, actually.

[1517] Synesthesia?

[1518] Kind of, yeah.

[1519] Every color has an instrument associated with it.

[1520] That's how you tell the colors, man. When the turntables come on.

[1521] That means you have yellow.

[1522] It's going to sound really weird.

[1523] I was going to say you're brown.

[1524] The turntables are mapped to brown, right?

[1525] Yep.

[1526] And blue was like a jazz guitar.

[1527] That's racist.

[1528] Or what if we're racist for thinking that could be racist?

[1529] I don't know.

[1530] Recognizing racist stereotypes does not make you yourself racist.

[1531] Keep telling yourself that.

[1532] But presuming that it is may make you racist.

[1533] You might have a point.

[1534] Blue is like a blues guitar.

[1535] Red, clearly the color of saxophone.

[1536] Sure.

[1537] Sure.

[1538] Actually, I would think that would be brown.

[1539] Yeah.

[1540] Saxophones are shit.

[1541] What?

[1542] Nothing to do with racism.

[1543] I just don't like saxophones.

[1544] What do you got against?

[1545] What do you got against a nice sax solo?

[1546] Yeah, what's wrong with sax solo?

[1547] Everything I'm talking about.

[1548] I played a saxophone for a while and I'm with you.

[1549] That's just because you grew up in the 80s and there was nothing but bad saxophone in the 80s.

[1550] Yeah, the majority of the saxophone I've heard is bad.

[1551] There's good sax.

[1552] There's good sax.

[1553] Name the best saxophone player you can think of.

[1554] Stan Goetz.

[1555] I have no idea who that is.

[1556] I think he plays saxophone.

[1557] Who did he play for?

[1558] Bernard Getz's brother.

[1559] He's a jazz player.

[1560] He stabbed a guy on a train with a saxophone.

[1561] And he said saxophones are bad.

[1562] They're only used for bad music and violence.

[1563] Yeah.

[1564] Bad 80s.

[1565] Bad time for saxophones.

[1566] But also the most prominent time for saxophones.

[1567] Bad lighting and bad saxophones.

[1568] It worked fine for a lethal weapon.

[1569] I don't know.

[1570] Lots of backlighting and fog machines and saxophones.

[1571] I don't know what happened.

[1572] And bad suits.

[1573] Long curly hair.

[1574] Sports jackets and, yeah.

[1575] I hear you.

[1576] Yeah.

[1577] There was a time.

[1578] You're saying saxophones are redeemed.

[1579] Saxophones coming back.

[1580] When saxophones walked the earth.

[1581] So DeBlob2, digging it.

[1582] It's neat, yeah.

[1583] I have not deduced the point of that timer yet.

[1584] That seems like kind of a bummer, but otherwise it's pretty well put together.

[1585] Well, is there any other way to lose?

[1586] I mean, they've got to have something in there.

[1587] You can run out of lives, right?

[1588] There are lives.

[1589] You can fall into ink and it drains your paint.

[1590] And I guess you have to wash the ink off in water.

[1591] I guess you could probably die if you had ink on you for too long.

[1592] Otherwise, no. I guess that's...

[1593] But it's a kid's game.

[1594] It kind of is a kid's game.

[1595] It's a little kid's game.

[1596] I mean, if you were focused and you went through all the objectives...

[1597] One after the other, like, you would not have a problem beating the level, yeah.

[1598] But there's, like, honestly, you want to just, like, pick up some colors and go paint some buildings and listen to the jaunty music.

[1599] I wish there was a little more freestyle.

[1600] I could have sworn when they brought it by for the demo that after you beat a level, you can do a free play.

[1601] You do, yeah.

[1602] I mean, I should point out, yeah, like, after you do all the objectives, it opens up, and no more time limit, you can do all this other stuff that opens up after that, and that's cool.

[1603] It's hard to pass those by.

[1604] Yeah, it'd be nice if you could just sort of do that stuff at your leisure.

[1605] But I feel like it says a lot that if you're able to find some satisfaction out of it, and it is, you know, meant for a younger audience, then that's a good thing.

[1606] But it's pretty intelligent.

[1607] Like, there is some sort of, like, chromatic fascism going on in the story.

[1608] Right.

[1609] Chasing down comrade blacks.

[1610] The stuff I saw in the story did look really good.

[1611] It's, like, pretty smartly written, actually.

[1612] It's almost like a Pixar quality.

[1613] There's nothing wrong with a black and white world.

[1614] Of adults can appreciate, like, the kids' game.

[1615] Muddle things up with all that color.

[1616] Game seems neat.

[1617] It's really just a message against estate tax.

[1618] That's what it's all about.

[1619] Obviously.

[1620] Since I had a house guest against my better judgment, I grabbed Hardcore Uprising.

[1621] So I thought that would be a good two -player game.

[1622] Nope.

[1623] That game's poor.

[1624] I don't know.

[1625] Yeah, that was...

[1626] I think the contra part of it is fine if they hadn't made six or eight really awful design decisions that...

[1627] destroy the game.

[1628] That's a lot of awful decisions.

[1629] I know, yeah.

[1630] Well, I mean, like, the actual, like, moving your guy around and shooting stuff is pretty good, and it looks nice.

[1631] You definitely start to see why it does not have the Contra name on it, that someone at some point took a look at it and went, no. You're not allowed.

[1632] Let's not destroy our brand.

[1633] But it's just weird stuff like checkpoints.

[1634] Like, the checkpoints are in awful places.

[1635] Yeah, dude.

[1636] Watch our quick look of it, and we were undone by bad checkpointing.

[1637] That's probably the worst thing about it.

[1638] The way that you accrue experience is bad.

[1639] It's like per character.

[1640] Right.

[1641] So you have to go back and grind it out again on another character.

[1642] So why would you ever play more than one character?

[1643] Because you're just going to upgrade the one.

[1644] Yeah, because it's so much fun to play.

[1645] Yeah, and it's just so stupid hard.

[1646] No, it's hardcore.

[1647] And then my friend who was crashing at my place, the second player can't earn any achievements or anything off of that game.

[1648] So it was like kind of a wash for him.

[1649] So I don't know how much.

[1650] Oh, like even if you bring your profile and there's a fat thing on the menu that says, hey, second player cannot earn achievements or, yeah.

[1651] That just seems mean.

[1652] Yeah, kind of.

[1653] That's baloney.

[1654] Yeah, yeah.

[1655] It's a shame.

[1656] It's a shame that game looked cool.

[1657] Goose egg.

[1658] Oh, well.

[1659] I went to the Telltale thing last week, but I think that's probably going to come up in news.

[1660] Well, let's roll into it.

[1661] I mean, literally over the weekend, all I played was Back to the Future, so I'm ready to talk about it.

[1662] I should say that I played some PixelJunk Shooter 2, speaking of washing things off in water.

[1663] And it seems really cool.

[1664] I'm anxious to see how the multiplayer...

[1665] Did they change it a lot from the first one?

[1666] It's not necessarily a huge...

[1667] Yeah.

[1668] Yeah.

[1669] But, you know, it kind of picks up right where that game left off when you're inside this monster and there's a lot of stomach acid and stuff that rots away at you.

[1670] Fluid dynamics.

[1671] So you have to kind of go wash your stuff off.

[1672] That's pretty quick iteration on that.

[1673] Like for the PixelJunk stuff, they haven't really like revisited one of those concepts that quickly before.

[1674] Well, they did a racers follow -up.

[1675] But they did that for PSP?

[1676] No, it was like an add -on.

[1677] It was literally just like a patch for.

[1678] And they did like another Monsters, like Monsters Encore.

[1679] Oh, right, right.

[1680] Or they did a couple of Encore ones.

[1681] This is the first one that's been, like, two.

[1682] But when you boot it up, it says, like, 1 -4 -A, not 1 -5.

[1683] Pixel Junk series.

[1684] But on, like, the PlayStation Store, it's a fully separate purchase and download?

[1685] When it comes out, yeah, it will be.

[1686] Okay.

[1687] It's not an add -on.

[1688] It's not an add -on for the first game.

[1689] Okay.

[1690] It's not out until March, right?

[1691] March 1st, I think, is when that's actually out.

[1692] So that seems really cool.

[1693] And it has an online multiplayer component, which is, like, I believe, like, two -player.

[1694] competitive like you you you unlock upgrades and and stuff like that for use in the multiplayer whatever it seems really we made our own competitive multiplayer yeah where's our credit me killing myself nice oh i didn't want to say uh though also uh My PS3 is still busted, so I didn't get to play any over the weekend or else I totally would have.

[1695] We did a quick look last week, you and I, Vinny, of Tales from Space about a blob.

[1696] Tales from Space, yeah.

[1697] Which left a really, really good impression.

[1698] That game, the first couple levels of that were a lot of fun.

[1699] I played some solo and it was pretty good.

[1700] Definitely added to have the second player.

[1701] It's like a 2D platformer that's kind of like Katamari Damacy because you're basically running around absorbing stuff in the environment.

[1702] But blobby.

[1703] bigger like gishish gishish yeah yeah gish for kids i heard people referring to it as uh but it's got some nice nice personality yeah it was make the blobs eyeballs go squinny or big well like your different actions are related to like it's the only characteristic other than just them being blobs kind of look like uh They look like blobs.

[1704] Great.

[1705] Good emotive eyes, though.

[1706] Yeah, I want to play more of that, though.

[1707] Yeah, it was fun.

[1708] All right, Brad.

[1709] Telltale.

[1710] Yes.

[1711] Big event last week.

[1712] Let's talk about.

[1713] There's a lot of stuff out of there.

[1714] Telltale is doing a billion games.

[1715] They're reviving all of your favorite adventure game series from the 80s and 90s.

[1716] From every company that made adventure games now.

[1717] Yeah.

[1718] I guess we should, since we're talking about games we played, you know what?

[1719] What?

[1720] Shit, I didn't actually play Jurassic Park.

[1721] They had it playable, and we had Telltale guys play it for us on a video that you can find now on...

[1722] That's right.

[1723] We have a quick -look roadshow of Jurassic Park, the game.

[1724] Yeah, so they drove it.

[1725] I didn't actually play it, but you can...

[1726] Must go fast.

[1727] It's wallpapered with button prompts, so you have a pretty good idea how it plays.

[1728] They were showing the PC version, but they only showed it with Xbox controllers.

[1729] And it's, like I said, covered with...

[1730] hit rb now or you know like hit x and then y and then a they're all they're all like the the asset used for the button right xbox so so so when they were saying that it would be more action it's the action is kind of just like quick time event style for the most part you're not like manipulating a guy with a stick and running around and shooting dinosaurs they actually one of the guys literally said this game is basically like heavy rain like he said it flat out i like every watch in the video you can totally see that To be fair, though, that is at least a significant departure from what Telltale has done up to now.

[1731] That's not to say there's not going to be traditional inventory puzzles and stuff like that, but they definitely seem to be streamlining a lot of that stuff.

[1732] There's almost like a fast travel.

[1733] I don't know if you guys saw the video or not.

[1734] I didn't watch it.

[1735] If you're in a general local area, you can hit different directions on the D -pad.

[1736] I don't know how this will work on the keyboard, but obviously there will be keyboard and mouse support.

[1737] You can literally sort of warp to the hot spots around in the area that you're at.

[1738] It's like, oh, I'm going to – Do you have an inventory?

[1739] I need to go to the T -Rex pin, the paddock.

[1740] So I'm just going to hit right on the D -pad, and I will be there.

[1741] Use clever with girl.

[1742] You don't have to – yeah, right.

[1743] So you don't have to maneuver your guy around the environment constantly just to go back and forth.

[1744] Is it a retelling of the movie?

[1745] It's set during the first movie, but it's – Elsewhere.

[1746] Are you playing as a dude?

[1747] Nobody from...

[1748] So you're, like, side story?

[1749] Yeah.

[1750] I believe there's one guy in it who was in the movie for, like, five minutes or something.

[1751] But, like, they put out a trailer alongside all this stuff, and it's basically, like, what happened to the Barbasol can that Nedra lost.

[1752] Oh, jeez, really?

[1753] Like, the fate of that stuff.

[1754] Oh, then.

[1755] So shit's still going on on the island elsewhere while, you know...

[1756] Right.

[1757] T -Rexes.

[1758] Yeah, there was like the boat waiting for him to bring the embryos.

[1759] Right, and he had all the DNA in the can.

[1760] So it's like some of that stuff.

[1761] Filling in those stories.

[1762] Doesn't seem like a bad angle to take.

[1763] We'll see how it plays out.

[1764] I mean, obviously the first movie is the one everybody cares about.

[1765] Yeah, we don't need to go to the second island.

[1766] Is that what happened?

[1767] I don't even know what happens in the third one.

[1768] There's a third one?

[1769] Yeah, there's Jurassic Park 3.

[1770] Yeah, I think they went back to the first island in the third movie.

[1771] The third movie had Sam Neill.

[1772] Yeah, Sam Neill was back, and then William H. Gacy was in it.

[1773] But Joe Johnston directed it, so it wasn't even a Steven Spielberg joint.

[1774] Weird.

[1775] Isn't there a four on the way?

[1776] What?

[1777] There may be.

[1778] I don't know.

[1779] I think that's been the talk for a really long time.

[1780] Well, there's Jurassic Park four, and then there's the Abraham Lincoln movie, and eight other things that Steven Spielberg's trying to...

[1781] I saw the first movie in theaters and have not seen it since.

[1782] Wow.

[1783] And didn't care for it much at the time.

[1784] I was just like, yeah, I don't know.

[1785] It just looked – I think I'd already reached that point where I'd played so many video games.

[1786] It just looked like technology.

[1787] It's just like, all right, yeah, great.

[1788] You made big dinosaurs.

[1789] The expression that Ryan just made at you sums up my feelings perfect because everybody can see that.

[1790] That was probably like what people talk about when they saw Star Wars in the theater for the first time.

[1791] Yeah, totally.

[1792] Like, wow, this is pretty amazing.

[1793] Dinosaurs are pretty cool.

[1794] Dinosaurs are cool.

[1795] They weren't clay anymore.

[1796] That's fun.

[1797] Yeah, totally.

[1798] I remember my dad even being like, Like, what?

[1799] No, it looked cool.

[1800] Yeah, whatever.

[1801] I guess.

[1802] Sure.

[1803] My favorite thing from Jurassic Park.

[1804] Jeff Grossman.

[1805] Shaded at age nine.

[1806] Was the pseudoscience that all came out of that entire movie.

[1807] Like a whole brand of like, well, they can really do this.

[1808] Could they really do this?

[1809] Well, Amber's a real thing.

[1810] And Mosquito's a real.

[1811] Mosquito's existed.

[1812] They could probably really do this.

[1813] Also hoverboards are – Well, I mean Michael Crichton who wrote the book and everything, like all of his books are just crammed with somewhat plausible pseudoscience.

[1814] Like he – that's his style is to like we'll make it sound like meh.

[1815] Well, I mean it was ahead of the curve enough where like today we're talking about like, yeah, we could probably bring a woolly mammoth.

[1816] We could probably make one.

[1817] And then everybody's like, dude, have you seen Jurassic Park?

[1818] We know how this ends.

[1819] Don't do that.

[1820] Just don't even joke around about it.

[1821] But like we could bring it back.

[1822] Have you seen Terminator?

[1823] Come on.

[1824] Exactly.

[1825] I love when movies become the like, we know how this happens.

[1826] I've seen it.

[1827] It was a documentary.

[1828] The cautionary tale.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] Historical scripts that were sent to us from the future.

[1831] Haven't you seen Sphere?

[1832] I know how this will go.

[1833] Nobody has.

[1834] That's going to be the thing that kills us, though.

[1835] But I did read the book, so.

[1836] Did you?

[1837] Yeah.

[1838] Book is good.

[1839] No, I went on a good Crichton tear there for a while.

[1840] Jurassic Park, the book, is gory.

[1841] Most of the Crichton stuff is like, aside from Jurassic Park, which is pretty good on its own, like most Crichton film adaptations, like Rising Sun was awful.

[1842] And yeah, Sphere did not look very good.

[1843] But they're good books.

[1844] They're fun books, at least.

[1845] Yeah.

[1846] What was the other one?

[1847] What's the Demi Moore rape one?

[1848] Sexual harassment.

[1849] Bulletstorm.

[1850] That's it.

[1851] Hello, Boston.

[1852] I'll be here all week.

[1853] Telltale stuff.

[1854] So Jurassic Park is not the thing I am most excited about from the announcements they made last week.

[1855] Puzzle Agent 2.

[1856] That's the one?

[1857] Has me hyped.

[1858] I thought you were going somewhere else with that.

[1859] I loved the first Puzzle Agent.

[1860] I'm so glad you really enjoyed it.

[1861] I mean, you know, it's American -laden.

[1862] Yeah.

[1863] Love said.

[1864] Which, yeah, like that gameplay style is a lot of fun.

[1865] And to put the kind of quality of...

[1866] of writing and voice work that it's a really goofy trailer telltale yeah it is it's a lot better if you know what's what's going on it was still pretty good pretty funny yeah yeah convince me i'm gonna go back i was just i was so convinced that after that first one after you know their pilot program thing like okay they did this one and then i don't know if it did anything for them but it sounds like it did okay it seemed like one of those things like okay we'll never see more of this again but uh happy to see that they're gonna follow it up so keep that story going And you were saying something about puzzle experts.

[1867] Puzzle experts.

[1868] Oh, man. For that game?

[1869] Actual puzzle experts.

[1870] Yeah.

[1871] Had a conversation with our friend Jake.

[1872] Yes.

[1873] Snake.

[1874] Yes.

[1875] Roberts.

[1876] Yeah.

[1877] And famous Phaneman.

[1878] Yes.

[1879] There also.

[1880] Apparently the guy doing the puzzle design for this thing knows puzzles because he's been making them for about 20 years.

[1881] On his own.

[1882] Yeah.

[1883] It's just like his passion.

[1884] His life's passion is to design puzzles.

[1885] His name is The Riddler.

[1886] I don't know.

[1887] It's Edward Nygma who's working on Puzzle Agent 2 now.

[1888] I guess they had a meeting with this guy and he just shows up with this giant manila envelope this thick full of puzzles he's been making.

[1889] If you want matchstick puzzles, I got that back at the crib.

[1890] That's a much bigger binder.

[1891] Anyway, they say that the quality of the puzzles will be much higher in this game.

[1892] Great, great.

[1893] We brought somebody on board to make sure that happens.

[1894] We got the puzzle guy.

[1895] We found a guy.

[1896] It's weird because that whole game is, I feel like, tongue -in -cheek about this puzzle guy who's like...

[1897] The master of puzzles.

[1898] He's like a kind of lonely dude at the CIA.

[1899] What's the guy's name?

[1900] Nelson Tethers?

[1901] And they found him for real.

[1902] Yeah, and then it's like, no, this is real.

[1903] This is kind of a really sad tale.

[1904] Puzzle Agent.

[1905] Yeah, very excited for Puzzle Agent 2.

[1906] What else got announced at that thing?

[1907] Can you talk about everything?

[1908] Yeah, all embargoes are up.

[1909] God, it was like one thing after another.

[1910] What about King's Quest?

[1911] Yeah, they just kept slapping you with announcements one after the other.

[1912] Isn't that the headliner?

[1913] Barely giving you time to absorb it.

[1914] I guess.

[1915] I don't like Sierra Adventure games.

[1916] Neither do I, but a lot of people do.

[1917] That's why it's not my...

[1918] Yeah, it's crazy that now...

[1919] all adventure games are made by Telltale.

[1920] Yeah, really.

[1921] I guess...

[1922] I don't know what the terms of the business deal are, but it sounds like they have access to just about whatever.

[1923] Like, they're doing King's Quest.

[1924] That's what they announced.

[1925] That's EA owns that stuff, right?

[1926] No, Activision.

[1927] Oh, Activision.

[1928] It was all Sierra, which went to Vivendi when they got bought, and then...

[1929] I was never a King's Quest dude, but Police Quest, Space Quest.

[1930] Dude, new Space Quest.

[1931] Make it happen, please.

[1932] Please.

[1933] Get the two guys back in there.

[1934] I never thought those games were funny.

[1935] What are the two guys from Andromeda doing right now?

[1936] Absolutely nothing.

[1937] Get them.

[1938] King's Quest is hard.

[1939] Still working on a new Space Quest game somewhere.

[1940] King's Quest was like mean.

[1941] All those games are...

[1942] Like if you forgot to pick up The Rock 17 screens ago.

[1943] It was like the LucasArts way.

[1944] It was the...

[1945] Don't die.

[1946] You can die in Maniac Mansion, but you have to kind of go out of your way to...

[1947] Set it off.

[1948] That was the last time they did that.

[1949] Can you literally not die in a lot of those LucasArts games?

[1950] I was totally the Sierra guy.

[1951] Yeah.

[1952] I played a ton of Sierra games.

[1953] They made it so you...

[1954] There were a few cases where you could totally bone yourself and be unable to finish the game.

[1955] Ooh.

[1956] Or...

[1957] That's how I remember it.

[1958] There were things in Maniac Mansion, like if you killed two of your guys in the pool...

[1959] And it just had one instead.

[1960] There was stuff later on that I seem to remember you being totally unable to do.

[1961] But maybe there were enough endings in that game that you could still do stuff.

[1962] That game had a lot of really crazy obscure solutions, though, too.

[1963] Yeah, I guess it did.

[1964] So maybe it's just that they eluded me or something.

[1965] Not impossible, but very hard.

[1966] Definitely post everything else.

[1967] I don't think you could die.

[1968] Those games were all about...

[1969] The way the Telltale stuff is now is just like it's not going to punish you.

[1970] You're kind of just making your way through at your own pace.

[1971] You will eventually uncover the solution.

[1972] It was like click on everything.

[1973] Try out everything.

[1974] You won't get punished for it.

[1975] Click on the pit.

[1976] You're not going to walk into it.

[1977] Anything that's got a timed element to it, you can probably try it again because you'll fuck up the first time.

[1978] That stuff was a big pain in the ass.

[1979] the Sierra games were a lot more harsh.

[1980] A lot of the Sierra games, like, reveled in the deaths that they would put you through.

[1981] It was almost like a Dead Space thing where it's like you want to see all the ways you can die.

[1982] I just had a problem with, like, King's Quest where it was like, you had to click on the right pixel, like...

[1983] And if you didn't pick up that ring that was buried under a tree, then, like, you get to the screen later on and you're like, I have no idea what to do here.

[1984] And, you know, it was kind of before strategy guides and stuff.

[1985] So it's like, I don't know.

[1986] I give up.

[1987] UHS.

[1988] Universal Hint says totally.

[1989] Get it.

[1990] So I wonder if they're going to go the route of Lucas stuff.

[1991] Differentiate this from the...

[1992] I don't know.

[1993] Maybe.

[1994] The way they've been making their other adventure games.

[1995] I mean, Roberta Williams is, like, sailing the world on her yacht.

[1996] Hopefully she's not sailing into...

[1997] contested waters or anything.

[1998] Just going east.

[1999] San Francisco to make their games crazy.

[2000] Right.

[2001] I don't imagine there's any kind of creative oversight coming from the Activision direction.

[2002] I'm sure there's some, but I doubt anybody's going to make this just like the old Kings Quest.

[2003] Are they actually making these games for Activision then, or did they acquire the IP from Activision?

[2004] I don't think they own the IP now.

[2005] I don't think, in general, I don't think Activision is big on giving up IP that's...

[2006] It could be useful.

[2007] I don't know.

[2008] Who knows?

[2009] It was my impression that they have bought the rights they are just making it in partnership with.

[2010] Either way, if you're Activision, you're making this deal because these guys know how to make adventure games and you're not going to do anything else with it.

[2011] So let them have a crack at it.

[2012] If they can make some money off of it, then we get a piece of that and that's good.

[2013] There's no downside for Activision.

[2014] Win, win, win.

[2015] This news definitely makes Activision's actions with that fan King's Quest project maybe a little more forgivable.

[2016] If they had this going on behind the scenes, like trying to set this deal up, you kind of understand.

[2017] But they've let that stuff still go in.

[2018] They relented and actually let that happen.

[2019] The silver lining has been rolling out.

[2020] I haven't seen any of that stuff, but they've been doing it.

[2021] It's a big Telltale show.

[2022] Yeah, that wasn't even the end of it.

[2023] Walking Dead?

[2024] Yeah, that was like the one everybody knew.

[2025] They didn't exactly make a big secret out of that.

[2026] And then the Wall Street Journal went and broke every embargo they had that day anyway.

[2027] Yep.

[2028] Because we're the Wall Street Journal.

[2029] We don't give a fuck.

[2030] What are you going to do to us?

[2031] Oh, no. You're not going to send us free codes for Telltale games?

[2032] Darn.

[2033] So that's also point and click kind of?

[2034] They didn't get into a lot.

[2035] I mean, that's early.

[2036] It's being made.

[2037] I don't think they didn't have anything to show of that yet.

[2038] Zombies.

[2039] But Jake and Sean kind of running that thing from the sound of it or some of the runners of it, so God help us all.

[2040] That's my understanding.

[2041] They're running Puzzle Agent as well.

[2042] Yeah, yeah.

[2043] Should get those guys in here.

[2044] Yeah.

[2045] No. Dude, I think that the best thing out of that Telltale event was their hype video, like that little five -minute infographic thing.

[2046] Five minutes?

[2047] The one you showed me, it was like.

[2048] That thing was lavishly produced.

[2049] I should watch that.

[2050] This very slow build up to why Telltale was awesome.

[2051] Was it body moving?

[2052] Some Fatboy Slim song.

[2053] It wasn't that one.

[2054] It was right here right now.

[2055] It was the Fatboy Slim song.

[2056] Did you know that analysts predict that the last CD will be sold in 2015?

[2057] No. What analyst?

[2058] I don't know.

[2059] Theorist, I don't know.

[2060] There's a think tank right now.

[2061] It was just this constant barrage of information at you about how much microprocessors have shrunk in the last 30 years and how much publishers make on retail game sales.

[2062] Or like introduction of a type of media and length to saturation.

[2063] Yeah, to like 5 million viewers or something like that.

[2064] They still sell LPs.

[2065] As a novelty, yeah.

[2066] Not as a mass market item.

[2067] But think about it.

[2068] If you have a company that makes...

[2069] compact discs you probably want to know oh fuck what's what's the end game here how much longer can we viably make and sell compact discs you think that count dvds count or no no i think when they're talking about cds specifically i can see that music come on cds still Yep.

[2070] Until 2015, apparently.

[2071] I mean, when you see a CD, doesn't it seem like crazy and anachronistic?

[2072] Like, what?

[2073] Why are there still these?

[2074] I only end up with CDs when it's just like, here's this indie thing that this was the only way you could get it.

[2075] Right.

[2076] Only when I see CD -Rs, then I'm like, why would you buy this?

[2077] Just buy burnable DVDs.

[2078] When I see a spindle of CD -Rs, it makes me think regret of like, oh, yeah, you bought like 500 of those, right?

[2079] How many of those do I still have somewhere?

[2080] I still have tons of blank CD -Rs.

[2081] You probably have boxes of those jewel -cased ones.

[2082] Those things are probably just laser -rotting at this point.

[2083] Put music on them.

[2084] I've got my spindle that I have to go at least seven CD -Rs deep because the top ones probably have a half a burn.

[2085] burn on it or broke or something and just grab them from the bottom now.

[2086] Yeah.

[2087] When I have to do something with the DVR.

[2088] Yeah, like when do you like – I don't know.

[2089] I barely even have any.

[2090] Like I think I've had the same spindle of DVDRs sitting there for five years or something at this point.

[2091] We're getting to the point.

[2092] If they had spindles for flash drives, I'd probably have one.

[2093] It's just like I've got a draw full of like one gig, two gig flash drives.

[2094] Yeah.

[2095] Start buying them in bulk.

[2096] Anyway, the upshot of this video is that Telltale is doing well for itself.

[2097] Apparently, because they've just announced like five.

[2098] According to Telltale, anyway.

[2099] Consider your sources.

[2100] But, I mean, yeah, it's kind of awesome to see that they're doing a ton of different stuff right now.

[2101] I mean, it was definitely hard numbers of like revenue went up like 80 % a year ago.

[2102] And you checked all these numbers to make sure that they weren't lying about them?

[2103] Shut up.

[2104] I guess we have to post that video now.

[2105] We've talked about it.

[2106] They put it on their press site.

[2107] I guess they want people to post it.

[2108] Adventure games, huh?

[2109] Yeah.

[2110] 2011.

[2111] Weird.

[2112] Let's go.

[2113] Well, you know, it's the same reason what Jeff and I saw at DICE is everyone is chasing after these indie games, these small team games because low overhead and high potential profit.

[2114] Yeah, exactly.

[2115] It's the margin.

[2116] So if Telltale has figured out this work stream of, all right, well, we have the engine.

[2117] We don't have to make the assets super high res because of the art style considerations or whatever.

[2118] We can turn these things around fucking fast.

[2119] And they can respectably approach licensed content.

[2120] Yep.

[2121] This is a good format for licensed stuff.

[2122] I think they do the episodic stuff.

[2123] They say it'll be five out.

[2124] That's it.

[2125] That's the series.

[2126] It's not like they go episodic and then it's like we're going to do episodic forever.

[2127] And then it's like two months in.

[2128] Well, where's the next episode?

[2129] Right.

[2130] They set.

[2131] timelines and generally hit them yeah it's like every month and then only for five months that's it and then you're done we'll move on to something else everybody else has blown that yeah i can't think of anybody else i would like to see it's interesting though that they are doing or have only ever done uh licensed stuff like even puzzle agent belongs to a dude that technically used to work at telltale but it's his thing so what would the mayor geniuses that yeah like what yeah like what if they decided to go truly original ip like what would that look like i'd be curious to see or like they're always it seems like they're always trying to at least interpolate like what the sensibilities or you know comic timings and styles of these different licenses that they get uh like What is the house style?

[2132] What is their actual personal sensibility?

[2133] It would be interesting to see.

[2134] Well, they're just LucasArts guys, right?

[2135] I mean, at this point, at the core, I guess, I don't know.

[2136] Obviously, they've had to have grown a lot.

[2137] Yeah, I guess so.

[2138] I was going to ask how big that team is now, do you know?

[2139] No idea.

[2140] I always imagine it's like 10 dudes, but it must be bigger than that.

[2141] It is definitely bigger than that.

[2142] They've got like six games going.

[2143] I've been to their offices, and even back then, they had more than 10 dudes.

[2144] Watch out, Snader.

[2145] Sorry, they're going to take over that space.

[2146] I can't believe they're still in that space, frankly.

[2147] They've got a basketball hoop in the parking lot.

[2148] They have to be.

[2149] Yeah, they do love that basketball hoop.

[2150] It's true.

[2151] Were there any other events?

[2152] What else happened last week?

[2153] God damn it.

[2154] It seems like forever ago.

[2155] Great.

[2156] There was something else.

[2157] Great.

[2158] I can't talk about my thing yet.

[2159] I went to a thing, but I can't talk about that.

[2160] Let's talk about other news.

[2161] Let's talk about News Project Destiny.

[2162] Destiny.

[2163] Sorry about Destiny.

[2164] Destiny's Child.

[2165] Bungie's maybe doing an MMOFPS.

[2166] Thoughts?

[2167] Yeah.

[2168] All right.

[2169] No MMOFPS fans in here?

[2170] You guys aren't fans of the genre?

[2171] I guess it could be cool.

[2172] I like Planets.

[2173] Yeah, it sounds neat.

[2174] Let's be honest.

[2175] This is the space occupied by...

[2176] Crimecraft and APB and global stuff.

[2177] What?

[2178] Agenda.

[2179] Global agenda.

[2180] So, so far there hasn't really been a breakout hit here, but I imagine if someone was going to pull this off.

[2181] So is the problem with that many people to lag in a first -person shooter being?

[2182] Yeah, I mean we're used to measuring latency in first -person shooters like from the quake days where it's like you want a ping of 12.

[2183] Right.

[2184] Otherwise you're not playing.

[2185] Otherwise, yeah.

[2186] Anything over 150 is ridiculous.

[2187] Well, you want to point and shoot when the guy's head is in your sight.

[2188] Right.

[2189] And then you want to hit.

[2190] And you don't want client prediction to tell you like after the fact, after you saw the bullet hit the head.

[2191] Right.

[2192] No, it didn't really hit.

[2193] And you even see.

[2194] Like look at the kill cams in a Call of Duty game.

[2195] Sometimes they don't match up at all with what you saw before you died.

[2196] You saw yourself making your way all the way up the stairs and pulling the trigger on that guy.

[2197] But the kill cam is – yeah, exactly.

[2198] You're getting hit halfway up the stairs and that sort of stuff.

[2199] So inherently the thought of taking that kind of like – bang, bang, low latency action and applying it to an actual MMO at some point becomes...

[2200] You know, you have to change the design of the whole game.

[2201] I guess it may have you instanced everything.

[2202] And then at that point, it's no longer an MMO.

[2203] Right.

[2204] Just a lobby.

[2205] Well, this whole rumor is so nebulous that who knows if it actually is an MMO per se.

[2206] Right.

[2207] Yeah.

[2208] That's the other thing.

[2209] Also, Bungie's pretty much said, nah.

[2210] Okay, great.

[2211] So we're done.

[2212] Let's not solve the MMO FPS.

[2213] Well, even if they're just throwing up a smoke screen.

[2214] Yeah, that would not be the first time that someone has lied about that kind of thing.

[2215] But, you know, like a lot of people look at Guild Wars and say it's an MMO when it's totally...

[2216] Totally not.

[2217] Right.

[2218] It could be kind of a situation like that.

[2219] So Bungie was done with Halo.

[2220] Yeah.

[2221] Wait.

[2222] Did you say Bungie's making Halo?

[2223] This is not Halo.

[2224] It's not a Halo.

[2225] Oh, just a first person.

[2226] Oh, I keep throwing it with Halo.

[2227] This is the thing, the Activision deal.

[2228] Yeah.

[2229] Oh, this is that thing.

[2230] You just automatically still think Bungie equals Halo.

[2231] Yeah, totally.

[2232] What's this new Halo game from Bungie?

[2233] Hey, man, they're about more than Halo.

[2234] Eyes up here.

[2235] Sorry.

[2236] Eyes up here.

[2237] Look at my marathons.

[2238] One track mind.

[2239] Influence 2 is coming out on June 7th, right in time for E3.

[2240] Oh, wait.

[2241] Is it really?

[2242] No, E3 is before that, right?

[2243] When's your birthday?

[2244] June 4th.

[2245] Okay.

[2246] Yeah, it's a little before that.

[2247] Oh, it's the week before.

[2248] Is it really?

[2249] Oh, that's awful timing.

[2250] Actually, you know what?

[2251] I think June 7th might be the date.

[2252] I was just looking at it for the calendar.

[2253] Yeah, I think it actually does.

[2254] It might be June 7th the 13th.

[2255] That seems crazy because I always thought people shipped games E3 week to kind of bury them.

[2256] I mean, that's probably not the only motivation.

[2257] But it's definitely easy for every press outlet in the world to miss games that come out.

[2258] 7th through the 9th.

[2259] Oh, through the 9th.

[2260] That's wild.

[2261] The first day of E3?

[2262] Day one of E3.

[2263] Weird.

[2264] Infamous 2.

[2265] Man. Maybe they'll have it at the press conference.

[2266] Maybe they'll ship it out a month earlier or something like that.

[2267] Sony's usually pretty good about that stuff.

[2268] That's true.

[2269] What a weird date.

[2270] I take a freaking wait for that game.

[2271] Yeah, June 7th they also announced their Hero Edition, which is the big crazy, I'm sure.

[2272] What about the villain edition?

[2273] $150 version.

[2274] It comes with like the knapsack, like the messenger bag thing.

[2275] You get the sling bag and you get an eight and a half inch Cole statue.

[2276] What?

[2277] Yeah, you get a little statue of Cole looking all tough.

[2278] You also get this one.

[2279] Eight and a half, not bad.

[2280] It works.

[2281] It gets the job done.

[2282] I believe there's also what's being referred to as an in -game.

[2283] Kessler costume?

[2284] Yes, yes.

[2285] The first bullet point here is an in -game Kessler skin, which sucks.

[2286] Why would you do like...

[2287] That's the worst possible add -on.

[2288] That should be like the punishment for if you play really poorly is, oh, now you have the Kessler skin.

[2289] Oh, pre -order canceled.

[2290] Kessler, we love you.

[2291] I just saw that.

[2292] I thought that was really funny.

[2293] In -game Kessler skin.

[2294] Hero edition, huh?

[2295] Yep.

[2296] Hero edition.

[2297] It doesn't have to be a hero.

[2298] But you do to buy this version.

[2299] If you want to party.

[2300] Yeah.

[2301] It also comes with the villain edition.

[2302] That's how big it is.

[2303] It's pretty freaking big.

[2304] I don't want a statue of coal.

[2305] Yeah.

[2306] Is that cool?

[2307] I don't want any of that stuff.

[2308] It sounds...

[2309] But they always put in some in -game item that you're like, oh, that might actually...

[2310] Electrocloths.

[2311] Yeah.

[2312] That might be worth checking out, but...

[2313] I liked the Bioshock 1 Big Daddy thing.

[2314] Yeah, but that's not coal.

[2315] It's not just a dude with a messenger bag.

[2316] That's not a cool statue.

[2317] Maybe he's doing like crazy electric.

[2318] Guys, statues aren't cool.

[2319] Neither are bookends or helmets.

[2320] I like bookends.

[2321] Well, I like bookends in general.

[2322] You would.

[2323] But not those bookends.

[2324] But like those LittleBigPlanet bookends, like whatever.

[2325] The Mortal Kombat bookends, you know.

[2326] I thought the Big Daddy thing was kind of cool.

[2327] That's what I'm saying.

[2328] Occasionally there's potential for it to be kind of neat.

[2329] There's nothing cool about statues.

[2330] What are you going to do with that stuff?

[2331] Where are you going to put it?

[2332] Over my desk.

[2333] Yeah.

[2334] With everything else.

[2335] It's going to be just like, oh, here's the one thing that's not quite as much crap.

[2336] Surrounded by crap.

[2337] Yeah.

[2338] Right next to Goku.

[2339] Yeah, I'd much rather have digital goods and a box that will fit on my regular game shelves.

[2340] So whenever I have to like, where the fuck am I going to put this giant sized box?

[2341] I think it was the RC car for Black Ops.

[2342] It broke it.

[2343] You're done.

[2344] What am I doing?

[2345] Other than just like deliberately buying this stuff so we can unbox it on camera.

[2346] Yeah, that was a lot.

[2347] You just put that thing right next to your Max Payne 2 box on your DVD shelf.

[2348] My Max Payne 2 box is small.

[2349] No, Max Payne 2 is DVD -sized.

[2350] I guess that goes now.

[2351] But at the time, it was like, what is this weird box?

[2352] I don't get it.

[2353] No, I was a big proponent of the smallening of PC.

[2354] I bought Warcraft 3 and barely ever played it just because they were selling it in the smaller box.

[2355] I'm like, fuck yeah, finally.

[2356] Let's do this.

[2357] That was a big sea change in PC gaming.

[2358] I remember they still had both, though, because I ended up with the big box version of that game.

[2359] Remember, they were putting out Tomb Raider games and the trapezoid box shapes.

[2360] Like PC's like, what are you guys doing?

[2361] Come on.

[2362] We need to stand out.

[2363] No, you need to get smaller because you can't fit as many of your games on these shelves.

[2364] This is not that Viva Pinata box with like the roundy, like what?

[2365] But again, at least it's like that's a goofy shape, but it fits on that shelf.

[2366] I'm only kind of ashamed to admit that I printed out like the regular.

[2367] I'll put it in a normal box.

[2368] Insert for that thing and just stuck it in a DVD case.

[2369] Saints Row 2 had a collector's edition that is just big enough to not fit on my regular DVD shelves.

[2370] The Fable collector's edition also comes in that.

[2371] And also everything in that Saints Row 2 collection is garbage.

[2372] It's like, oh great, it's a one gig USB stick shaped like a bullet.

[2373] It's shaped like a bullet!

[2374] But it's like cheap plasticky crap.

[2375] As soon as you touch it, it's like all of the, it's shaped like a bullet.

[2376] joy goes away as soon as you palm that thing and go, this is garbage.

[2377] It's garbage.

[2378] You're right.

[2379] I'm not going to actually defend that.

[2380] GTA 4, I thought was pretty good.

[2381] That lockbox.

[2382] Though, what am I going to do with it?

[2383] It's like, here's a safety deposit box that you can't put in your safety.

[2384] Yeah, some of that stuff is junk.

[2385] I still have the duffel bag.

[2386] Everything that came with that is still sitting inside that safety deposit box on a shelf somewhere.

[2387] I totally, I'd use that duffel bag.

[2388] And I like the safety deposit.

[2389] I actually thought that was really good and useful.

[2390] set of stuff.

[2391] I like that Halo Reach book, the diary.

[2392] Yeah, that was well done.

[2393] I used the Bionic Commando lunchbox.

[2394] Was that a collector's?

[2395] I can't remember how that was rescued.

[2396] Oh, that's what that was.

[2397] Yeah, you're right.

[2398] Sorry.

[2399] No one else has that.

[2400] Jeff has one.

[2401] Isn't there a Fallout lunchbox too?

[2402] Yeah, I think that was also a press.

[2403] No, that was part of the collector's edition.

[2404] That was a collector's edition thing.

[2405] I still have that Pip -Boy sitting around somewhere.

[2406] Like an actual Pip -Boy?

[2407] Yeah.

[2408] Wow.

[2409] Really?

[2410] Yeah.

[2411] Like on your wrist?

[2412] Yeah, you can put it on your wrist.

[2413] I mean, no, it's actually really small.

[2414] It's like a clock.

[2415] But if you have a really small wrist, you can totally put it on.

[2416] You can put it on your cat.

[2417] They have those bobbleheads too, right?

[2418] Yeah.

[2419] All sorts of dumb shit.

[2420] A lot of stuff.

[2421] Yeah.

[2422] I have a Nuka -Cola on my shelf.

[2423] I did several special editions.

[2424] I drank a Nuka -Cola.

[2425] Oh, you drank it?

[2426] No, I had one at E3.

[2427] Yeah, yeah.

[2428] I took it home from E3.

[2429] I totally drank it.

[2430] Stored it.

[2431] I have a Monkey Island bottle of Grog somewhere that is probably completely undrinkable.

[2432] I think it's about a decade old at this point.

[2433] Raven juice, yeah?

[2434] Crow medicine?

[2435] Murder of crows?

[2436] Yeah.

[2437] No, I did not.

[2438] Remember that Logitech champagne I had?

[2439] Yes.

[2440] I wonder what happened to that.

[2441] Oh, man. It was from, like, 1998.

[2442] Yeah.

[2443] This was from, what was the polygonal Monkey Island game?

[2444] Not Revenge.

[2445] It was the console one?

[2446] Yeah, it was console.

[2447] It was PC as well.

[2448] Was it Escape?

[2449] It was the one that also had solutions to everything in the back of the manual.

[2450] Right.

[2451] It wasn't Escape, was it?

[2452] It was like a 2000, 2001 release or something.

[2453] I have a bottle of Monkey Island branded grog.

[2454] Somewhere that I'm always – because it's like with a bunch of other just like dumb video game shit from that era.

[2455] And every once in a while I worry like things are just going to explode at some point and ruin everything else that's in there.

[2456] But I don't really care about any of it.

[2457] So no biggie.

[2458] No loss.

[2459] You guys want to know what 3DS games are going to come out on launch day here in the US?

[2460] March 27th?

[2461] Because they were talking launch window.

[2462] And now they're like, all right, 16 games.

[2463] Are you ready?

[2464] Wow.

[2465] That's a much higher number.

[2466] Asphalt 3D.

[2467] Great.

[2468] Asphalt being one of the DS launch titles.

[2469] Asphalt being a cell phone game that they have adapted to.

[2470] It's mobile good.

[2471] Nice way to start this off.

[2472] It's for mobiles.

[2473] Yeah, it is for mobiles because it's pre -iPhone.

[2474] Yeah.

[2475] These are alphabetical, right?

[2476] Uh -huh.

[2477] Okay.

[2478] No, this is priority.

[2479] That's the best one.

[2480] I don't know if that's the one you picked up.

[2481] They're like, let's kick it off.

[2482] Bust a Move Universe.

[2483] So popping bubbles.

[2484] Combat of Giants.

[2485] Colon Dinosaurs 3D.

[2486] Yep, I saw that.

[2487] Lego Star Wars 3 The Clone Wars.

[2488] Madden NFL Football.

[2489] Nintendogs Plus Cats.

[2490] Pilotwings Resort.

[2491] That could be cool.

[2492] Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D.

[2493] Rayman 3D.

[2494] Ridge Racer 3D.

[2495] Samurai Warriors Chronicles.

[2496] The Sims 3.

[2497] Steel Diver.

[2498] Steel Diver, right?

[2499] That's the submarine game?

[2500] Yep.

[2501] Super Monkey Ball 3D, Super Street Fighter 4 3D Edition, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars.

[2502] Huh.

[2503] That's 16.

[2504] That is, yeah.

[2505] Math checks out.

[2506] Yeah, they're right.

[2507] They're not lying.

[2508] How do they not put together a new Super Mario Bros. 3D for the launch of this thing?

[2509] They don't need to.

[2510] You don't think?

[2511] No. Like, it's an expensive piece of hardware targeted at a market that's not really used to paying a lot for things called DS.

[2512] Yeah, but it'll sell fine out the gate.

[2513] You think?

[2514] Yeah.

[2515] But maybe it would sell better?

[2516] I don't think they need it to sell.

[2517] It'll sell out.

[2518] I'm surprised Zelda isn't a launch title.

[2519] Or that.

[2520] It's not even a launch window title.

[2521] Really?

[2522] Yeah.

[2523] Maybe they're doing more work on it than they originally planned to, but it seems like that or a Mario of some kind.

[2524] That and Kid Icarus are both outside of the launch.

[2525] Oh, yeah.

[2526] Keep in mind, if we want to go back and look at what the US launch title rollout for the first DS looked like, it was worse.

[2527] I agree, but it had...

[2528] Less titles and less names.

[2529] But it had Super Mario 64.

[2530] Which was awful.

[2531] Yeah, but say what you want about it.

[2532] It's a product with Mario on it.

[2533] Like, that's all it needs to be.

[2534] Just go to the e -store.

[2535] You'll find...

[2536] They had more to prove with the DS than they had with this.

[2537] Like, the DS name means more now.

[2538] And, you know, in light of the Wii and all that stuff, they can charge their $250 for it.

[2539] They will sell out across all regions.

[2540] I mean, they'll ensure that it's a sellout by constraining supply.

[2541] Sure.

[2542] If they had to.

[2543] If they had to.

[2544] But there are enough people that are hot for Nintendo stuff still, you know, that...

[2545] say like, hey, new Nintendo thing, I'm going to go get this.

[2546] And their price points, right?

[2547] They'll go out and get it.

[2548] They're not price -sensitive consumers.

[2549] I get the sense there are a lot of people treating this thing as merely a DS upgrade.

[2550] It's like people who maybe are still on the Lite or something, like they didn't get an XL or whatever.

[2551] It's like this thing will still play all the old games, even the download stuff.

[2552] And there are a ton of retailers out there doing hardware trade -in stuff.

[2553] Oh, yeah.

[2554] Tell me more.

[2555] Like Amazon is doing.

[2556] Really?

[2557] Yeah.

[2558] Like send them your DSi?

[2559] Yeah, you got a DSi.

[2560] This one I've got so many DSs.

[2561] Yeah, like you might be able to like.

[2562] A fair amount of money, like $75 for a DS Lite towards a 3DS.

[2563] Can you restore state?

[2564] Consider what your value to your non -used...

[2565] You've all graduated to DSIs.

[2566] You still have a DS Lite or maybe even a DS Fat somewhere.

[2567] I have that XL, that DSi XL.

[2568] Yeah.

[2569] If you so wanted to, you could definitely...

[2570] I got rid of my Lite in the DSi transaction, I think.

[2571] I think they gave like $80 for a light then.

[2572] Yeah.

[2573] Don't you want to get all your DSiware?

[2574] Yeah, now there's the game purchase transfer issue to worry about.

[2575] Well, yeah, if you got rid of your DSi, then that'd be something.

[2576] You need to figure out what system they're putting in place to handle that stuff.

[2577] I think they need to figure out what system they're putting in place for that stuff.

[2578] Yeah, right, right.

[2579] So you can't.

[2580] The honor system.

[2581] But it definitely makes you feel a little bit less dirty about just re -upping on every Nintendo handheld if you like.

[2582] Divest yourself of the old one when you get the new one.

[2583] So yeah, I think that could potentially offset stuff for a lot of people.

[2584] Anyway.

[2585] I can see why you want to make sure that your copy of My Exotic Farm would not be lost in this transaction.

[2586] Do you know how much shit is written in My Notebook?

[2587] That's probably a lot.

[2588] You have to print it out.

[2589] My novel.

[2590] How many pages?

[2591] Spread out across five different My Notebooks.

[2592] I saw a trailer for a game, a WiiWare game from No. That actually looked pretty cool.

[2593] I mean, whatever.

[2594] There are enough good games on DSiWare.

[2595] Are there?

[2596] Enough?

[2597] Yes.

[2598] For what?

[2599] That you would want to transfer them.

[2600] Brother, come with me. I have spent enough money on DSiWare games where I'm like, I would be pissed if I just lost these.

[2601] Yeah, I've probably spent $30 or $40 on DSiWare games.

[2602] I don't know if I'd be pissed.

[2603] I'd be a little upset for like five minutes or so.

[2604] It would be nice to have your copy of Cave Story with you at all times.

[2605] It might prevent me from trading in my DSi.

[2606] At the least.

[2607] Now, granted, I have a DS Lite that I could also trade in.

[2608] So that's kind of a non -issue.

[2609] I'm just going to take nudie pictures and then send it to Amazon and see what happens.

[2610] Good call.

[2611] Yep.

[2612] Then just wait for the local news story to come out of somewhere.

[2613] Kid got a DSi and it's got balls all over it.

[2614] Just turn it on.

[2615] Open it up.

[2616] The top screen image.

[2617] First, we're going to say this is kind of weird, but those are some good -looking balls.

[2618] You were lucky, kid.

[2619] You get to see a pair like that.

[2620] New Command & Conquer and Kama Studio announced.

[2621] What?

[2622] They're making more Command & Conquer.

[2623] And the new studio?

[2624] Victory!

[2625] Victory.

[2626] Not really announced, I think.

[2627] Like, they put a thing up, official site went live, and then immediately they took it down.

[2628] Is this a fan project?

[2629] I hope so.

[2630] I hope there are fans on the team there making that game.

[2631] Not a lot of information other than...

[2632] Because they closed that...

[2633] Victory Games.

[2634] It's not EALA.

[2635] Okay.

[2636] It's Victory Games, which has...

[2637] But are they based out of that building?

[2638] As well as Austin and Shanghai.

[2639] Okay.

[2640] So they have three offices of Victory Games people.

[2641] That's weird.

[2642] This seems to be becoming SOP for EA.

[2643] Like I said, the Dead Space credits.

[2644] There are like five studios listed in different parts of the world.

[2645] Is there anything else about what this might be?

[2646] Or just a command and conquer?

[2647] The Might and Magic guy is doing it.

[2648] John Van...

[2649] Is it John Van...

[2650] John Van...

[2651] Sanigan?

[2652] Sanigan?

[2653] Sanigan?

[2654] Yeah.

[2655] Well -respected designer.

[2656] What kind of game is it going to be?

[2657] He's the GM there.

[2658] What does he have in his credits here?

[2659] Oh, yeah.

[2660] Like all sorts of Might and Magic.

[2661] Yeah.

[2662] Just like a recent one.

[2663] King's Bounty.

[2664] Is he British?

[2665] Did he do the Heroes games?

[2666] Yes.

[2667] Yes, he did.

[2668] His name was on some of the Heroes games?

[2669] Yep.

[2670] Heroes of Might and Magic.

[2671] Oh, wait.

[2672] Oh, this is – I'm sorry.

[2673] This is like a Heroes spinoff.

[2674] Heroes of Might and Magic, a strategic quest.

[2675] Oh, wait.

[2676] No, that's just the subtitle of the original one, right?

[2677] I don't remember.

[2678] There's a lot of those.

[2679] That's interesting.

[2680] I thought that franchise was done.

[2681] Yeah.

[2682] At least for a – Until Command & Conquer comes out.

[2683] This is the Command & Conquer.

[2684] No, I literally...

[2685] The image that came out of this website, I believe this game is just called Command & Conquer.

[2686] Wow.

[2687] New cane?

[2688] No in -game shots, no art, no nothing.

[2689] Just a logo?

[2690] There were some unit renders or something like that.

[2691] No logo.

[2692] But I think it was some kind of artwork that said, you know, click here to sign up for email updates.

[2693] And it had a picture of some kind of spidery tank -looking thing.

[2694] Wow.

[2695] Or signing up for Command & Conquer updates or something.

[2696] So I don't know.

[2697] When was the last bit of Command & Conquer actually released?

[2698] Like less than a year ago?

[2699] Last year.

[2700] It was like two years ago.

[2701] It was an expansion for four?

[2702] No, four.

[2703] No, they did not expand for...

[2704] It was early last year.

[2705] So it was just four solid?

[2706] Yeah.

[2707] They might have like...

[2708] put out some kind of unit update or something for it.

[2709] I don't really know.

[2710] It's really kind of wasting no time.

[2711] Yeah.

[2712] Even after four tanks pretty badly.

[2713] It's like, all right, let's do it again.

[2714] We don't need to wait.

[2715] Crazy.

[2716] Yeah.

[2717] I wonder if it'll be the same type of game.

[2718] Zero idea of what to expect.

[2719] Just as far as what you might do with it.

[2720] Do you continue trying to chase StarCraft at this point?

[2721] I bet you don't.

[2722] Obviously, they tried to do something weird with 4, but that didn't really pan out.

[2723] They got rid of right -clicking.

[2724] Oh, I think there will be a lot of right -clicking.

[2725] So, Jeff, after 4, what do you think?

[2726] Do you even...

[2727] Let's let Cain go.

[2728] Yeah, I think at this point you clean the slate story -wise.

[2729] Well, it wasn't for positioned as here's the conclusion of the Cain saga.

[2730] But if you're going to just call it Command and Conquer or something like that, I think it's like an all bets are off sort of thing.

[2731] You could pretend that none of that stuff ever happened and not talk about Cain at all if you really wanted to.

[2732] No Tiberium.

[2733] No Cain.

[2734] What are the core tenets of C &C that would seem weird if they weren't there?

[2735] Live action.

[2736] Commandos.

[2737] I think it's GDI, Nod, Tiberium.

[2738] Yeah.

[2739] That's kind of it.

[2740] Yeah.

[2741] G .I. Joe, I guess.

[2742] Yeah.

[2743] And to some extent FMV, but I could see them taking this as the, we're done with that.

[2744] I love FMV, but I would not fault them if they decided to.

[2745] Step away from that.

[2746] Yeah.

[2747] They gave us a lot of years of really crazy FMV years after it made sense for them to do so in some kind of like, no, this is, come on.

[2748] This is what you liked about these early games.

[2749] Come on.

[2750] We need to show these fucking things.

[2751] This is Rick effing flair.

[2752] Or either that or you will play as Macho Man Randy Savage in this game.

[2753] Oh, yeah.

[2754] It's Macho Man versus Tia Carrere.

[2755] Great.

[2756] Great.

[2757] Get that Tiberium.

[2758] That's the game.

[2759] Coming at you like a Tiberium truck.

[2760] What?

[2761] What?

[2762] Funky like a Tanya.

[2763] That's all the news I've got, gentlemen.

[2764] Let's talk about some new releases.

[2765] Okay.

[2766] Only the newest ones.

[2767] Boatstorm's out.

[2768] That is out.

[2769] Killzone 3 is out.

[2770] It is.

[2771] DeBlob 2 is out.

[2772] This is also accurate.

[2773] This is a good week to be playing games.

[2774] I guess.

[2775] I mean, yeah, these are good.

[2776] These seem good.

[2777] All of those seem pretty good.

[2778] I haven't played any of those yet.

[2779] Oh, what's the Xbox Live Arcade release this week?

[2780] Because next week is Beyond Good and Evil HD.

[2781] It's Bajewl Blitz Live.

[2782] Bajewl Blitz Live is this week.

[2783] I think the week after that is Torchlight.

[2784] Yeah.

[2785] And then they're finishing strong on a poker game, I believe.

[2786] Yeah, I think that's right.

[2787] But that's their rollout of the live.

[2788] Oh, yeah, it's the one that connects with the phone.

[2789] The prime time.

[2790] That's the one that they talked about back at E3 or something that was like we're leveraging the 1 versus 100 technology to do live events poker.

[2791] Oh, wow.

[2792] Okay.

[2793] I think that's what this is.

[2794] That's cool.

[2795] I think that's what this is.

[2796] That makes sense.

[2797] But I'm stoked about the other stuff they're doing on this block party.

[2798] I guess I'll buy Torchlight again.

[2799] Bastards.

[2800] Any wearing on 2?

[2801] Yeah.

[2802] They pushed it back to like July -ish.

[2803] To do more of this.

[2804] Faxanadu came out on Virtual Console this week.

[2805] We were just talking about Faxanadu last week, and then Faxanadu came out.

[2806] What's going on?

[2807] Also, I didn't know that was a Hudson Soft game.

[2808] I think that's only through virtue of mergers or something like that, because that's a Falcom game that Nintendo put out.

[2809] Nintendo published it, so I was just like, oh, it's Nintendo.

[2810] There's a bunch of Disgaea games coming out this week.

[2811] Another game in the GG series came out on DSiWare.

[2812] This one's about drifting.

[2813] I believe it's called Drift Series.

[2814] It's 200 Nintendo DSi points.

[2815] They keep saying they're going to put out these Trackmania Wii and DS games.

[2816] No, those are never coming out.

[2817] It's been like a year now of pushed dates.

[2818] Those games are out in other territories also.

[2819] That's kind of the...

[2820] In my understanding, not very good.

[2821] Whatever happened to those other Manias that they announced?

[2822] Yeah.

[2823] World, right?

[2824] Mania World.

[2825] What was the other one?

[2826] Quest.

[2827] Was it Quest Mania?

[2828] Quest Mania?

[2829] I don't know.

[2830] Yeah, I don't know.

[2831] Presumably, Ubi's still sitting on that stuff.

[2832] They also are doing Trackmania 2.

[2833] Love to see that stuff.

[2834] A second Trackmania.

[2835] Yeah.

[2836] I'm trying to see what's going on on PlayStation Network this week.

[2837] I don't know.

[2838] They put out a demo for that Puyus game on WiiWare.

[2839] So if you want to try that for free, learn all about lateralization, colors, numbers.

[2840] This is a family podcast.

[2841] Drew's been playing Stronghold, and I think we should do a quick look of it.

[2842] What is that?

[2843] I don't know.

[2844] It's like a PC game that came out a while ago.

[2845] Wait a minute.

[2846] So you play it on a...

[2847] It's like a computer.

[2848] Like a computer?

[2849] Like that thing you email on?

[2850] Do you ever like...

[2851] My WoW machine?

[2852] It's an iPad game?

[2853] No, it's one of the ones with the thing that you type with the keys on it.

[2854] Oh, typewriter.

[2855] The board with the keyboard and the mouse.

[2856] And then it's hard to explain.

[2857] I'll have him show you.

[2858] Weird.

[2859] I don't know.

[2860] He's got one of those things.

[2861] Remember in 2015, there was the optical things, the CDs?

[2862] Remember when those went away?

[2863] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2864] It comes on one of those.

[2865] What?

[2866] Yeah.

[2867] Well, that's right.

[2868] Knight's Contract also comes on.

[2869] Oh, yeah.

[2870] I haven't seen one of those in a while.

[2871] Come on.

[2872] Vinny.

[2873] Yeah.

[2874] Get ready to get excited.

[2875] I am.

[2876] Space Ace coming to PlayStation Network this week.

[2877] Fuck yeah.

[2878] Give me a type of media.

[2879] I will buy Space Ace on it.

[2880] That was one of the games that Mark Cerny brought up at DICE as part of his talk as like a huge failure because they deliberately made the game too hard.

[2881] as a result of people getting really good at Dragon's Lair.

[2882] People being able to play for like 30 minutes on one quarter.

[2883] On a dollar or whatever they were charging for Dragon's Lair.

[2884] Oh, for Dragon's Lair.

[2885] I beat Space Ace not naturally.

[2886] Sure.

[2887] Yeah, just unlimited whatever it was on my iPhone or my DVD player or my PC or what else has it been?

[2888] Everything.

[2889] My carton of milk.

[2890] Like Coleco LED Space Ace.

[2891] On the Virgin flight from wherever.

[2892] Yeah, your chair.

[2893] It's like the new Doom.

[2894] Just port Space Ace to whatever.

[2895] Doom is no longer on those planes.

[2896] Oh, really?

[2897] That's probably a smart version.

[2898] It's not on the version planes.

[2899] They do still have Mad Bomber, though.

[2900] Yeah, they do.

[2901] All the other games are still there and crap.

[2902] The worst free Linux games in the world.

[2903] Yeah, that's kind of the big stuff for this week and new releases.

[2904] That's big stuff.

[2905] Yeah, absolutely.

[2906] That's a lot of money to spend.

[2907] Yeah.

[2908] Getting ready.

[2909] Don't need to do that.

[2910] So that version of Bulletstorm is the version right now?

[2911] It's the one that has all the gold leashes and stuff?

[2912] Yeah, yeah.

[2913] There's no non -epic edition.

[2914] It's the typical EA.

[2915] Oh, they're all limited for now.

[2916] I actually did see a non -limited edition Medal of Honor.

[2917] Oh, no. Right next to a limited edition Medal of Honor.

[2918] So it seems like those are rolling off the line without whatever it was you got.

[2919] Collector's editions.

[2920] I'm going to go pick that up.

[2921] Seems fun.

[2922] All right.

[2923] Let's do some emails.

[2924] Let's do some emails.

[2925] Do what?

[2926] Let's do some emails.

[2927] Do what?

[2928] Emails?

[2929] Yeah, there we go.

[2930] Very good.

[2931] All right.

[2932] First email here comes in from Reece Grimshaw in West Yorkshire, England.

[2933] I'm not going to read this whole thing, but hey, Jeff.

[2934] Hi.

[2935] Apparently Gal Gun has trans vibrator support.

[2936] Oh, man. That's it.

[2937] Wait, I plug a PS2 trans vibrator into?

[2938] Yeah.

[2939] PS2 trans vibrator works for 360 res, for res HD.

[2940] Does it?

[2941] Yeah.

[2942] Dude.

[2943] Yes.

[2944] That's weird.

[2945] Yeah.

[2946] How did that guy find that out?

[2947] I mean, it's just a USB device.

[2948] Yeah, it is.

[2949] It is.

[2950] Hmm?

[2951] Nothing.

[2952] He used it.

[2953] He just leaves it plugged in at all times.

[2954] Right.

[2955] Until something starts to say, oh, shit.

[2956] This works.

[2957] I just hear it rattling around inside his entertainment center.

[2958] That's what he calls it now, his entertainment center.

[2959] Ew.

[2960] It's rattling around in there.

[2961] There's room for it to move.

[2962] Next email comes from Chase.

[2963] Dear Bombcast, now that both connect and move are out, what do you think will be the focus for this year's E3?

[2964] The last two have been spent hyping us for motion controllers.

[2965] Will this year be all about software, or are we going to see some hardware iterations that may surprise us?

[2966] Thoughts?

[2967] I bet we'll see something that will surprise us.

[2968] Hardware iterations.

[2969] No, you'll see the second wave of Kinect software in earnest.

[2970] There's follow -ups from the stuff that got announced at TGS, probably.

[2971] Right, it's all that crazy Japanese shit.

[2972] Another batch of software that maybe tracks fingers or something by then.

[2973] I assume if that Gears game is real, that that would be an E3 announcement.

[2974] I expect that you would see both from Move and Kinect that, like...

[2975] you'll see a lot of properties that you know using that stuff.

[2976] Even if it's just like, it's a feature in this game or we made a standalone game in this series for that year.

[2977] I think Microsoft has to be also gearing up to announce a bunch of stuff that is not Kinect related because if you kind of look at what they've got announced for this year, it's not a lot of stuff.

[2978] And Sony will be doing its next generation portable show.

[2979] And Sony also has a bunch of stuff already announced.

[2980] for its first -party lineup that will be coming out throughout the year.

[2981] It should be interesting.

[2982] Always a surprise at E3.

[2983] That's right.

[2984] Expect the unexpected.

[2985] New console.

[2986] Lay it on us next year.

[2987] Lay it on us next year.

[2988] I was in the NGP.

[2989] It's time.

[2990] Next year.

[2991] It's probably not time.

[2992] Two years.

[2993] I mean, we are in our portable recharge phase right now.

[2994] Yeah, you're right.

[2995] Maybe next year.

[2996] Not this year.

[2997] Next year, big rumors.

[2998] The year after that, actual announcement.

[2999] That's my guess.

[3000] I guess the question is if they get announced and released in the same year or not.

[3001] For Microsoft, I'd say.

[3002] Microsoft did that last time.

[3003] Sony did not.

[3004] Sony announced one year and shipped the next year.

[3005] I think that's the nature of shipping first in Japan or focusing on the Japanese market.

[3006] That's probably how that kind of has to go down.

[3007] Next year, we start getting leaked screenshots.

[3008] Next year, you start hearing that dev kits are out there.

[3009] There's this refrigerator -sized development box.

[3010] Codenames start coming out and all this stuff.

[3011] And then the year after that, we got, here it is.

[3012] Yeah, you get the E3 2013 announce of hardware.

[3013] And then – Out that Christmas.

[3014] Out for Christmas.

[3015] Right, right.

[3016] That's it.

[3017] That's crazy.

[3018] I see at the end of a press conference like a logo or something.

[3019] This year?

[3020] Yeah.

[3021] You think?

[3022] I don't think – Like just the tiniest hint.

[3023] No one wants to undercut.

[3024] Yeah.

[3025] I know.

[3026] I know.

[3027] I realize like no one wants – like even if they've – obviously they're deep into working on stuff by now.

[3028] whether they use it or not or throw it out or start over or something.

[3029] There's obviously people working on new consoles.

[3030] I bet they're getting close to hardware lock at some point and start refining that thing.

[3031] Hopefully with a little more quality control than last time.

[3032] The wrong kind of solder.

[3033] Whatever, it'll be fine.

[3034] No one uses these things anyway, right?

[3035] 2015, nobody will use an optical drive.

[3036] Whatever, they've conditioned us to accept.

[3037] Returning consoles constantly.

[3038] It's like, well, we had that tobacco last time, but we still sold millions and millions of units.

[3039] I mean, as long as they're paying for the return.

[3040] Yeah.

[3041] Blue triangle.

[3042] Could be.

[3043] It's not exactly acceptable.

[3044] You buy your games on a blue triangle?

[3045] Yep.

[3046] No, you got the blue triangle of death.

[3047] Oh, no. I snort blue triangle.

[3048] It's my future drug.

[3049] I'm a bluehead.

[3050] Oh, it's the blue triangle trade.

[3051] He's at the blue triangle club.

[3052] Other Kinect news real quick.

[3053] Did you guys see that Microsoft announced a Windows SDK that they're putting out for that thing?

[3054] Yeah.

[3055] So they're like sanctioning like PC.

[3056] Which they kind of said they were going to do and then kind of kept quiet about it.

[3057] But I guess they said over the weekend.

[3058] It's weird.

[3059] It's coming this spring.

[3060] That's kind of cool.

[3061] Yeah.

[3062] It'll definitely solve the problem of everything out there right now requires like one of two different hacked drivers.

[3063] Actually gets official.

[3064] Yeah, watching Will Smith trying to figure out how to make that thing work.

[3065] Watching it melt down.

[3066] He's like, oh, this is insane.

[3067] It takes forever and everything's messed up.

[3068] Which, yeah, that's what it's supposed to be on that kind of bootstrappy homebrew level.

[3069] But yeah, cool that they're going to support that.

[3070] Has anybody gotten the move working on a PC?

[3071] No, I haven't tried, but...

[3072] You mean me?

[3073] No, no, anybody.

[3074] Like, are there videos out there of people figuring out how to...

[3075] I feel like that's a lot, that technology...

[3076] It's just the camera is USB.

[3077] And they're Bluetooth devices.

[3078] I want to say that someone totally has done that.

[3079] Not as exciting, I'm sure, as the infrared camera.

[3080] I mean, none of that stuff is, or it's all only as exciting as the stuff people do with it.

[3081] I was wondering, yeah, how much easier it would be to access the abilities of one versus the other.

[3082] It's tough to say.

[3083] People do it.

[3084] I mean, people are already hooking a Wii remotes up to PCs.

[3085] Yeah.

[3086] Through that same.

[3087] type of stuff, so I'm sure whatever you could do with that would port over to the move without too much trouble.

[3088] Yeah, I guess so.

[3089] I guess that take isn't that much different.

[3090] Kids are smart.

[3091] It's just visible light versus invisible light.

[3092] Yeah.

[3093] Eric from Baltimore wants to know about the origins of Vinny.

[3094] Something has been bothering me as of late that was brought to everyone's attention in one of the latest happy hours.

[3095] Vinny appears to only have one shirt.

[3096] Now, I know this isn't true because he is wearing a gray shirt right now.

[3097] Am I?

[3098] Obfuscating my mind.

[3099] He wants to know why is that?

[3100] Does he only have one black shirt or does he only own black shirts?

[3101] I posit a different theory.

[3102] Vinny is, in fact, a Muppet.

[3103] You've cracked it.

[3104] It's not clothes.

[3105] It's not a costume.

[3106] It's stitched onto him.

[3107] That's true.

[3108] We have a different Vinny.

[3109] We have a dress Vinny that we have to use for whenever he has a collared shirt.

[3110] But that's completely different.

[3111] It's not an actual Muppet.

[3112] If you look closer, you can see a difference in wear.

[3113] He's a little bit dirtier in storage.

[3114] But who controls the Muppet?

[3115] Frank Oz.

[3116] A smaller Vinny.

[3117] Frank.

[3118] You've got to have her, right?

[3119] Mike in Ann Arbor, should I play Killzone 1 or 2 before jumping into 3 vis -a -vis the fiction?

[3120] I would say don't play Killzone 1.

[3121] Yeah.

[3122] Whatever you do.

[3123] Brad, thoughts on Killzone 1?

[3124] God, it's been a while.

[3125] Yeah.

[3126] It's an okay game.

[3127] It's not a great game.

[3128] I went back and looked at some footage of it, of the original.

[3129] Killzone.

[3130] It's pretty rough.

[3131] It's not aged well.

[3132] Also, 2 just kind of is off and running at the start, right?

[3133] You don't really need much going into that, I don't think.

[3134] I had not played Killzone 1 when Killzone 2 came out, and the one reference is like, oh, the guy on the station is the guy you played as in the first game, and also Riko's in the first game, but who cares?

[3135] Let's shoot guys.

[3136] Fuck Riko.

[3137] Shoot these British Space Nazis.

[3138] All the stuff you really need to know is told by the intro of Killzone 2.

[3139] So I would start there.

[3140] I mean, that's still a good game.

[3141] You could start there.

[3142] That's still a fine game that's worth playing.

[3143] Yeah, and I think the introductory moments of Killzone 3 might not make a ton of sense if you don't have the context of the end of Killzone 2.

[3144] Ah, yeah.

[3145] Or the hatred.

[3146] Right, yeah.

[3147] But that's stuff you could get by with reading how it ended and looking it up and stuff like that.

[3148] So if you're in the market for two first -person shooters, playing them back -to -back, you're really going to notice, like, man, this is totally.

[3149] I imagine you could probably get Killzone 2 for a song right now, though.

[3150] So if you were going to do that first.

[3151] I actually installed the DLC maps for Killzone 2 on Monday.

[3152] Yeah.

[3153] which I bought in July of 2009 when they were as part of some package deal.

[3154] Oh, you installed them for the first time.

[3155] I never downloaded them ever.

[3156] So I installed them because I went back to Killzone 2 before the review went up and posted something online about it, and a bunch of people wrote back and said, actually, no one plays on those maps.

[3157] They did not get any attention at all.

[3158] It seemed like maybe I shouldn't have even downloaded them.

[3159] All right, one more email here, folks, before my laptop battery dies.

[3160] Josh from Western Australia.

[3161] If Steam achievements were to emit sound when they unlocked, what sound do you think they would make?

[3162] I think it would be awesome if every time you got a Steam achievement, it triggered the default Windows shutdown noise just to freak you out.

[3163] Oh, no, what's – no, I'm still playing.

[3164] Oh, right.

[3165] I just got an achievement.

[3166] That would be pretty good.

[3167] Yeah.

[3168] I don't know.

[3169] What are the sounds of Valve?

[3170] Yeah, I'm trying to think here.

[3171] Like the sound of a crowbar clattering to the floor.

[3172] Sound of a crowbar hitting on metal.

[3173] Sound of a facehugger screeching.

[3174] I always like the idea of custom achievement noises based on the achievement.

[3175] I thought that would be kind of cool.

[3176] It would take significantly more development, I'd imagine.

[3177] Steam achievements do need something because they're really easy to miss. Yeah.

[3178] The pop -up, especially if you're at a really high desktop resolution, the pop -up is so small.

[3179] And there's something about a sound.

[3180] It's satisfying.

[3181] There's like a Pavlovian response when you hear it.

[3182] I don't really like the trophy noise.

[3183] The PS3 trophy noise.

[3184] I think it's fine.

[3185] It's nice and crisp.

[3186] Nice little jingle.

[3187] It doesn't resonate to me. I have to agree with Vinny.

[3188] There is a definite issue of distinction on the Xbox where, like...

[3189] What's the name of the phenomenon where you think you're about to get an achievement and you realize it was just somebody signing on?

[3190] You're like, God damn it, I thought I got it.

[3191] Well, especially because when it happens when you do something that you think you should have gotten an achievement for, you're like, oh, fuck.

[3192] It's even worse when the game happens to hitch just a little bit at that moment.

[3193] You're like, oh, no. They should make different sounds.

[3194] You're right.

[3195] You are 100 % right.

[3196] Yep, yep, yep.

[3197] What were those little crazy vibrating hounds from the first Half -Life?

[3198] Oh, yeah, like the little area of effect, like the little energy explosion thing.

[3199] Yeah, they had a good little...

[3200] pop noise to it.

[3201] I would just be Barney just saying like, way to go!

[3202] Episode 3 is coming.

[3203] Sponsored Achievement Sounds.

[3204] You can pay Steam.

[3205] That's right.

[3206] During this month, any achievements earned will trigger this sound to let people know.

[3207] If you gave me a game for like...

[3208] 60 % off, I would do that.

[3209] Brought to you by Supreme Court Children's Vitamins.

[3210] I don't want to earn a lot of steam achievements, so yeah.

[3211] Chester Cheetah.

[3212] And that's it for emails.

[3213] Thanks for everyone who wrote in.

[3214] What are we doing next week?

[3215] GDC's happening next week.

[3216] So next week's going to be nuts.

[3217] GDC's like starting this week.

[3218] I don't know if you got the memo.

[3219] Yeah, I did.

[3220] It's kind of starting this week.

[3221] I know.

[3222] I know.

[3223] I know.

[3224] It doesn't stop.

[3225] Pretty much roll from GDC then into PAX East and then E3.

[3226] Well, there's a little break.

[3227] And then Game of the Year.

[3228] Shit.

[3229] Yeah.

[3230] So if you guys are ready, get back in here and podcast for eight hours straight.

[3231] I mean, whatever, we'll be doing that for GDC next week anyway.

[3232] Yes, yes.

[3233] You're probably not wrong.

[3234] We still need to mash out our plans specifically, but we'll be at GDC Enforce and we'll be talking to lots of people, hopefully get them on mic here for some bonus podcast action.

[3235] So look forward to that.

[3236] And that's it for this week's show.

[3237] Gentlemen, let's get to it.

[3238] And, yeah, we'll see you guys next week.