Giant Bombcast 07-26-2011

[0] It's Tuesday, July the 26th, 2011.

[1] And you're listening to the Giant Bobcast.

[2] Whoa.

[3] I'm Ron Davis.

[4] Vinny Caravella.

[5] So, hey, I want to say Jeff Gerstmann, Brad Shoemaker here.

[6] You want to say our names?

[7] I just want to get that part out of the way because I want to address something here in the room before we continue on with this podcast.

[8] Oh, you're not changing it up again?

[9] Not the same way.

[10] Because the problem with that is that I knew it was coming.

[11] And so I didn't really get to enjoy the surprise.

[12] The surprise was really for you guys and for the audience.

[13] Oh, okay.

[14] And a surprise it was.

[15] So this week I'm going to try something a little different.

[16] We'll talk about stuff as we usually do.

[17] But as you see in the middle of the table here is the GG button.

[18] Oh, man. What the fuck, dude?

[19] And any time that gets hit by anyone, we will read an email.

[20] So emails can literally happen.

[21] We need a new button.

[22] First email comes in from William from Sacramento.

[23] Dear Bobcast, can you load the 3DS's web browser while playing original DS games?

[24] The last happy hour left me wanting to know.

[25] I don't believe that you can.

[26] Original DS games.

[27] I don't think you can suspend.

[28] Yeah, because when you hit the home button, I think it just says close the software and go back to the home menu.

[29] All right.

[30] We should do it like weddings.

[31] Oh, God.

[32] This is the worst.

[33] This is the best.

[34] It's like you're making me hate emails.

[35] Michael Mason from Montrose, Colorado.

[36] Let's hear.

[37] With your close relationship with Supergiant Games well noted, will Bastion be considered for any Game of the Year nominations, or will it just make your guys personal lists?

[38] This seemed to be like the question of the weekend.

[39] Like, every way that I accept questions on the internet, I really match you.

[40] I think it was the same, like, three people asking you all different ways.

[41] I didn't see that at all, but I felt it.

[42] A pertinent question.

[43] Yeah, I don't know.

[44] I'm still thinking about it.

[45] It seems like we should probably allow it.

[46] I think so.

[47] If it makes it into the nominations.

[48] It would be terrible if it didn't make it in.

[49] Because if it's a good enough game, then it should totally get recognized as being a good game.

[50] The divide being that the review is sort of like direct purchasing advice for people.

[51] If we review it and say, hey, go out and buy this, we are directly encouraging people to spend their money on something.

[52] By the same token, it's like...

[53] It's not like we have some sort of review score cutoff of like, no, that game was given a three or something.

[54] It can't be nominated for Game of the Year stuff.

[55] There's always been a separation between review scores and Game of the Year stuff.

[56] The awards are just what we think.

[57] Yeah, all right.

[58] I have no problem with that.

[59] Vinny, how are you doing?

[60] All right.

[61] How was your weekend, man?

[62] It was okay.

[63] It went by really quickly.

[64] I did not recover.

[65] From the week.

[66] Oh, it was.

[67] Which is just terrible.

[68] Another weekend just burned making your own tortillas.

[69] I did make my own tortillas.

[70] Tell me about that process.

[71] I went out and bought a tortilla press.

[72] What prompted that?

[73] So Joey and I have been making.

[74] What prompted that was E3 and my joy of the breakfast burrito from E3.

[75] Yeah.

[76] And I said, you know, I really, really enjoy a breakfast burrito.

[77] They're good.

[78] They're great.

[79] That could be one of my.

[80] When they're great.

[81] When they're good, they're great.

[82] When you get hold of a bad breakfast burrito, it's the saddest thing in the world.

[83] So why not make your own, right?

[84] Because I would make a bad breakfast burrito.

[85] Take your destiny into your own hands.

[86] I can't find any good breakfast places by me. Brad, if you know a place that makes a good breakfast sandwich by us, let me know.

[87] Depends on what you consider a burrito.

[88] Like E3.

[89] Those things were stout.

[90] I couldn't finish one of those for breakfast.

[91] You put that in me for breakfast.

[92] That's potatoes.

[93] That's the meat in there.

[94] There's some cheese.

[95] That's a full California -style burrito.

[96] It's the full forearm.

[97] A mission -style burrito.

[98] But even a breakfast sandwich.

[99] On Long Island, I can get a breakfast sandwich without fucking moving a car.

[100] Yeah, there's a bagel place.

[101] even the same thing.

[102] But that's not the same thing.

[103] I don't have a good breakfast wrap, but I don't think it's quite what you're looking for.

[104] So, like, I went out and I tried to get sandwiches all foo -foo, kind of, like, 30 -minute wait, and then it was, like, the size of, like, half of my palm.

[105] Like, here's your sandwich.

[106] Hella pinner, bro.

[107] Yeah, terrible.

[108] So, anyway, I could just buy tortillas.

[109] Let's ignore that part.

[110] Tortillas are readily available.

[111] It's true.

[112] They are.

[113] You can go into any grocery store.

[114] But most of them come in packs at like 500, right?

[115] No, no. Or like 10.

[116] Like 10.

[117] Yeah.

[118] So I usually don't eat them during the week.

[119] So I was like, man. I'm just going to make a – I mean let's be fair here.

[120] It's a false premise here that tortillas are somehow expensive or hard to obtain.

[121] They're like a dime.

[122] But it's good to get this part of like the Vinny thought process of this is how we got to the point.

[123] Because I'm not going to make them all the time.

[124] But when I make them, I want to make them the way I want to make them gigantic, right?

[125] I want a giant tortilla.

[126] So Joey and I started talking about it, and Joey probably worked as a tortilla chef for like five years.

[127] Oh, Joey invented the tortilla.

[128] I don't know if you knew that.

[129] Brought it to California.

[130] Yeah, yeah.

[131] Has had every job in the world.

[132] So at some point he was making tortillas.

[133] And he was telling me how he did it and whatever and the flour he should use.

[134] And I went down that road.

[135] And the hard part is just basically pressing them.

[136] So you got to make sure it doesn't stick to anything.

[137] You kind of got to put it between plastic bags.

[138] And if you use a rolling pin, that's hard.

[139] And getting them perfectly round can be kind of hard.

[140] So I looked it up and people were like, yeah, Tortilla Press.

[141] And I'm like, man, I live not that far from the mission.

[142] If I'm ever going to find a place that has tortilla presses, it is going to be 20 minutes south of me in the mission.

[143] So we got in the car and drove around the mission.

[144] And basically I said, stop there.

[145] And I got out of the car while Jesse circled around the block two times.

[146] And I walked out with a wooden tortilla press for like 15 bucks.

[147] And then I made tortillas.

[148] And then we had tacos.

[149] Soft tacos.

[150] And that's the story?

[151] As is so far, I haven't had a weekend to make a breakfast.

[152] How big is this tortilla press?

[153] What sort of real estate is this thing taking up?

[154] It's big enough.

[155] I'm saying it's single purpose.

[156] And it's wooden.

[157] You can't use it for other stuff.

[158] I bet I could find something else to use it for.

[159] You need something pressed?

[160] No. Well, then come to me when you do.

[161] I got some shirts.

[162] Does the press heat it also?

[163] Nope, nope, nope.

[164] Because they're so easy.

[165] So basically it's just this flour and water.

[166] It's this corn flour, and you just add water to it.

[167] Oh, you're not putting any lard in there?

[168] No, that's like a flour tortilla.

[169] This is a corn tortilla.

[170] So basically you just do that, and then you make it into a little ball, and then you literally stick it in the middle of the press, close it.

[171] It comes out as a disc, and all you have to do is heat it up for like a minute and a half or two on like a skillet or something like that.

[172] And then you're done.

[173] Then you have a tortilla.

[174] It's so easy.

[175] It's so – It's just that easy.

[176] It's so easy.

[177] Do you want to show you again?

[178] It's that easy.

[179] You know what's easier is buying a damn tortilla.

[180] Yeah, but then you don't get – Or a stack of tortillas.

[181] So I get to make my own tortillas now.

[182] For less than $15.

[183] Well, in the long run.

[184] Hey, man. This guy wins.

[185] You give him a tortilla, he'll eat for a day.

[186] 750 tortillas later, I profit.

[187] I've done the math, and I figured out what the break -even point is on my tortilla press.

[188] Also, I hate the idea, like, you know, yeah, every time I buy anything that requires tortillas, I'm throwing away, like, two -thirds of the pack.

[189] Because they go back.

[190] But tortillas is crazy cheap.

[191] I know, but now they're even cheaper.

[192] It's still, like, dumb, wasting food.

[193] I hate it.

[194] Sure.

[195] Fair enough.

[196] It's like when I buy a gallon of milk and I throw out the bottom of it, even though that gallon of milk got me through both the boxes of cereal I intended to get through with it, it still sucks.

[197] I don't know.

[198] Also, it's kind of fun.

[199] Okay, that's the part I get.

[200] I understand that.

[201] I like cooking a lot.

[202] It's kind of fun.

[203] And a hot homemade corn tortilla beats anything you're going to buy in the store by miles and miles.

[204] And now I get to make it as big or small as I want.

[205] So the scary part is when you look at this.

[206] I don't know why you included the small claws there because you're just going to make them huge.

[207] Well, so like I looked at the serving size and I was like, well.

[208] I'm going to make eight tortillas.

[209] That's the serving size because we're going to eat some fucking tacos, right?

[210] And so I made it and I was like, well, this should be fine.

[211] And I was like, well, I'm going to double the size they tell you because I want a big tortilla.

[212] And it was still just like, I don't know, let's say six inches across.

[213] And I'm looking for like a 12 -inch.

[214] The size of the thing is basically a record.

[215] So you're looking for flour tortilla sizes out of the corn tortilla.

[216] Yeah.

[217] You want the thing that you're going to wrap a burrito in.

[218] I mean, you're limited now by the size of your press, though, right?

[219] Which is about the size of a record, so it's about 12 inches across.

[220] They do make the smaller one, but that's why I won't.

[221] But I like that there was the burrito was the impetus, but you're using it to make tortillas that you would not use for a burrito.

[222] You would never use a corn tortilla for a burrito.

[223] Why not?

[224] They taste okay.

[225] Because no one would ever do that.

[226] I do.

[227] No, you're making tacos.

[228] Welcome to my taco breakfast then.

[229] Okay, that's fine.

[230] Well, right.

[231] But I could still make a flour tortilla in it.

[232] It's just a flour.

[233] I'm just using corn flour instead of white flour.

[234] And like Brad said, you have to add some more stuff to that white flour.

[235] I will not add lard.

[236] Get that fat in there.

[237] Some Crisco maybe.

[238] You need something.

[239] So anyway, I wound up having to make like three times the amount they tell you to make for like four tortillas.

[240] But there was a lot of fun.

[241] Way faster than I thought.

[242] That was pretty much the big part of my weekend.

[243] I went to Bed Bath & Beyond to find a tortilla press.

[244] It's on their website.

[245] Yeah, good luck.

[246] They're like, I don't think we've ever said, what?

[247] What do you want?

[248] I can check.

[249] I was like, don't check in the back.

[250] Don't look at it.

[251] We've got a snack master.

[252] You want to make some hot sandwiches?

[253] I do.

[254] I bet you can take some of those tortillas and throw those in a snack master and make something special.

[255] Does a snack master not have like corner style for like bread?

[256] It does.

[257] It's bread shaped.

[258] But, you know, now that you're making your own, who says they even have to be circular?

[259] They do have a square tortilla press.

[260] There you go.

[261] You want hot trapezoids?

[262] Just stick it in the waffle maker.

[263] Yeah.

[264] Enter the octagon of flavor.

[265] I'm going to open up a restaurant.

[266] It's going to have flour, breakfast, tacos.

[267] Okay.

[268] I mean, a taco doesn't need to be hard, right?

[269] That's just a hard taco.

[270] Yeah, you can have soft taco.

[271] So you think a taco is the corn flour?

[272] A taco, you put whatever the hell you want.

[273] What if you put breakfast stuff in it?

[274] I mean, as far as, like, you can use a flour or corn tortilla for a taco.

[275] You can fry it, leave it soft.

[276] I don't care.

[277] You know what you should do is get a hold of the Sin City DVD.

[278] Yeah.

[279] Because one of the extras is Robert Rodriguez in his kitchen making breakfast tacos.

[280] It's true.

[281] Have you seen that?

[282] I have.

[283] It looks like a pretty good recipe.

[284] I have.

[285] I haven't tried it.

[286] That's all right.

[287] He's a big cook.

[288] It's a pretty complete start to finish, like making the tortillas yourself.

[289] Here's what to put in it.

[290] I don't like the idea of breakfast tacos.

[291] Tacos are tacos.

[292] Tacos need to have cheese.

[293] Breakfast burrito, yes.

[294] Breakfast taco, what?

[295] Yeah.

[296] I mean, same basic ingredients.

[297] You're just like, ah, but it's just a presentation.

[298] It's just a question of format.

[299] It doesn't wrap around.

[300] Is that the defining?

[301] I feel like you're an alien.

[302] You're asking me to define things that a normal person would already know.

[303] Just know.

[304] What is taco?

[305] How taco?

[306] You'd walk up to a taco and you'd start petting it because you thought that these are the...

[307] I had a problem with some sentient tacos once.

[308] They just would not give up.

[309] Like you're trying to like...

[310] goad, like trick us into answering these questions without making, without it revealing that you have this third eye.

[311] Now I've entered a, now I'm a taco producer or a burrito producer.

[312] I need to know what I'm making now.

[313] Yeah, you got in over your head.

[314] You already got the parts.

[315] You're like, I don't know what the name of the thing that I'm making.

[316] I have to know what I'm serving you.

[317] I'm not just buying it now.

[318] Is this a chimichanga?

[319] A flauta?

[320] I don't know what they are.

[321] This is so peepious.

[322] I don't even know.

[323] Is that a word?

[324] So I had a bed mad for me. I walked away with $300 worth of crap.

[325] Oh, nice.

[326] And then I had to go find my $15 tortilla.

[327] Like, oh, we should get one of these.

[328] We should get one.

[329] What does that do?

[330] I don't know what it makes.

[331] It looks cool.

[332] It's got a place.

[333] Jingle bells when it's done.

[334] Let's buy it.

[335] So you just bought like 14 Snoopy ice shavers.

[336] Oh, man. Yeah.

[337] Dead Bath and Navy Yacht could be really dangerous for gadget stuff.

[338] They want to sell you everything.

[339] It's dumb.

[340] I mean, I don't have an issue with the place because they go, and I'm like, yeah, these are like, wow, that's a weird use, but I don't want to pay $45 for the thing that will do the one function.

[341] I bought a potato ricer.

[342] Why do you need to rice potatoes?

[343] For the hash browns to get the water out.

[344] Does that just make potato chunks that look like rice?

[345] Is that why they call it a ricer?

[346] I think you can squeeze the potatoes through, and they've got little tiny holes that will just strain it out.

[347] Like shoestring potatoes?

[348] Well, that's like you want to grate those.

[349] But once you grate them, you can use the potato rice to squeeze all the water out, which will then make them super crispy when you put them on the griddle.

[350] Oh, okay.

[351] Yeah.

[352] I like it crispy.

[353] I like a crispy potato.

[354] It's all part of the mission.

[355] I feel like this is going to be a multi -week process.

[356] It's going to be October by the time Vinny finds it.

[357] All right, guys, I made my first breakfast burrito.

[358] Also, The Witcher 1 is still okay.

[359] I bought a food van.

[360] I need the food van to make sure I can make these outside.

[361] If you guys know any parking spots or anything, that's the last piece of the puzzle.

[362] So is the plan to make the breakfast burrito like part of your daily routine?

[363] No. Or is this like a weekend thing?

[364] It's a weekend breakfast.

[365] If I was eating a breakfast burrito every day, I'd be a better person.

[366] And dead.

[367] Yeah.

[368] That's what I mean.

[369] So, yeah.

[370] So how is The Witcher 1?

[371] It's good.

[372] I have still really enjoyed The Witcher 1.

[373] Very good.

[374] It takes my mind off of the items I need for the perfect breakfast burrito.

[375] Then you should eliminate it from your life because anything that's preventing you from being your goal is – So what's the protein?

[376] What's the – I don't know yet because – Chorizo?

[377] It would probably be really crispy bacon.

[378] It would be the thing I would go in for right away.

[379] That's what you would want?

[380] Yeah.

[381] That's what I think.

[382] I didn't put it in my planning yet, but it's going to probably do that.

[383] So cut to next week.

[384] I bought a pig.

[385] What do you think about – what if you took your – Your tortilla press and put pancake fixings in it and then put some syrup in the burrito.

[386] Could you do that?

[387] Would that work?

[388] Could you make a really super thin pancake?

[389] No, because this thing doesn't cook anything.

[390] I know.

[391] But I mean, you know, well, once the pancake is done, I could probably squish it down.

[392] But yeah, the batter.

[393] And then I can wrap the breakfast stuff in the pancake.

[394] I mean, really, what you want is a crepe.

[395] You're talking about a crepe.

[396] A super thin pancake is a crepe.

[397] Okay.

[398] All right.

[399] Yeah.

[400] I don't know how to make those either.

[401] Great.

[402] Now I go buy crepe stuff.

[403] I beat Amnesia of the Dark Descent.

[404] I didn't know you were playing Amnesia of the Dark Descent.

[405] Neither did I until about 5 o 'clock on Sunday.

[406] I saw you playing that at like 3 in the afternoon.

[407] Yeah.

[408] What are you doing?

[409] Well, because I just started over.

[410] Do you have like blankets over your windows or?

[411] No. No, my shame is my darkness.

[412] So after coming back from Bed Bath & Beyond, it was plenty dark in the house.

[413] Okay.

[414] I don't know.

[415] I had to start over, so I'd been putting it off for a really long time because I lost my save when my hard drive went months and months ago.

[416] And, you know, it's like a six -hour game.

[417] So I made it through.

[418] It's cool.

[419] It doesn't end as well as I had hoped.

[420] I don't know that it started as well as I had hoped.

[421] It's cool.

[422] It does things that are all right.

[423] But, yeah, it was mostly The Witcher.

[424] And awesome burritos.

[425] Taco burritos.

[426] Burrito taco.

[427] Chimmy burrito.

[428] Enchilada burrito.

[429] Enchilitos.

[430] Enchiralitos.

[431] Yeah.

[432] Floweritos.

[433] Corn floweritos.

[434] I speak Spanish.

[435] It shows.

[436] Yeah, thanks.

[437] It's five years.

[438] Jeff Gerson.

[439] Hi.

[440] Hey.

[441] Hello.

[442] Hey.

[443] Hey.

[444] Hey.

[445] How you doing?

[446] I'm doing all right.

[447] So I got all freaked out earlier today.

[448] Really?

[449] Because I was looking on the Facebook and the.

[450] That'll happen.

[451] And the Chris Sean playing at the Phoenix Theater event.

[452] That event had been canceled.

[453] Oh, no. And I was like, oh, no. What?

[454] Oh, no. Oh, no. And I thought, like, she got too big, but the room had already been booked.

[455] And they said, ah, fuck this.

[456] We're not going to do that show.

[457] And I had already bought tickets and all this other stuff.

[458] Turns out that that was supposed to be – or that's the same weekend as the VMAs for which she is now nominated as Best New Artist.

[459] Great.

[460] So is that the part that freaked you out?

[461] No. I had already known about that and had been voting for her daily.

[462] Great work.

[463] Yeah.

[464] Doing your part for the Bay Area.

[465] Already excited about that.

[466] They're going to reschedule it, and they're going to honor all those tickets.

[467] Okay, all right.

[468] So it's just a matter of getting another date.

[469] All right, okay.

[470] So we will still get to see you, Krishan.

[471] It's just not as soon as we'd hoped.

[472] We should just go to the San Francisco.

[473] I don't know that that one's going to end.

[474] Unless that one got.

[475] That one might be, because it's supposed to be that weekend is when the thing is.

[476] I don't know.

[477] I don't know.

[478] But they definitely bumped that one.

[479] Yeah.

[480] So there you go.

[481] Play any games?

[482] Yeah.

[483] Like what?

[484] Well, I just went and played Gears of War 3.

[485] Shh, we can talk to you about it.

[486] We can talk to him about it all we want.

[487] And we'll have some video of that up on the site.

[488] At some point.

[489] Three weeks from now.

[490] It's got to age.

[491] You can ask me anything about this section of Gears.

[492] Let's see.

[493] But right now I can't ask you anything.

[494] Yeah, I played some more Terraria.

[495] I have put about 30 hours into that game total.

[496] I thought you were done with it.

[497] Yeah, that's eight more hours than you said you were going to play.

[498] Yeah.

[499] I don't know.

[500] At this point, I think I've tiered up to the best gear.

[501] I have the Molten Ham Axe, which is a hammer and an axe that goes in one thing.

[502] Boo!

[503] Yeah, it's not an axe made of ham.

[504] That would be way better.

[505] But it saves a slot because then you don't need to carry around a hammer and an axe.

[506] Of course.

[507] So that's pretty key.

[508] Duh.

[509] It's pretty key.

[510] Wait, how key is it?

[511] Pretty key.

[512] Pretty key.

[513] Pretty key.

[514] And I have played a bunch of Catherine.

[515] I'm still at some point in the back third of Catherine or something like that if I had to guess.

[516] And you don't care for it so much.

[517] I don't.

[518] Yeah.

[519] So from what I had seen of that game, I was like, alright, it seems like it's a...

[520] weird -ass puzzle game that I will tolerate for the weirder -ass dating simulation adventure story stuff.

[521] I guess I was hoping that the block puzzles would be shorter?

[522] Or just varied enough to keep it interesting.

[523] And they do introduce new types of blocks as you play.

[524] You'll have ice blocks that you can very easily slide off of or bomb blocks that explode when you step on them or explode shortly after you step on them to give you some time to get away.

[525] But it is a pretty huge part of that game, right?

[526] But it is the hugest part of that game.

[527] Yeah, the vast majority of your time.

[528] is spent with these puzzles.

[529] The game defaults to easy, so I decided to start playing it that way.

[530] Figured I would finish it on easy, then go back on normal and or hard, just to kind of see how it went.

[531] And, you know, it still gets tricky.

[532] It's not like it's some super cakewalk sort of thing, but, you know, like, basically, I'm on the sixth night, I guess, and it started getting tricky.

[533] Pretty tricky.

[534] Because you're racing against the clock.

[535] It's not just like you can take forever on these block puzzles.

[536] You've got to kind of move.

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

[538] It's multiple stages.

[539] It's the sort of thing that as I finish every single action sequence in that game, I'm thinking, man, thank God I don't ever have to do this again.

[540] Which is...

[541] Rarely a good thing.

[542] So when you're not doing that, when you're not climbing to the tops of these block puzzles, you're hanging out in a bar basically or watching cut scenes.

[543] But the only real interactive portion of the game outside of the bar or outside of the block puzzle stuff is when you're in this bar, you can walk around and talk to people.

[544] Occasionally there are dialogue options.

[545] You can reply to text messages that you get usually from Catherine or Catherine.

[546] And that's where they kind of have a dialogue tree sort of system where you can say different things and that will affect kind of a morality meter that will determine kind of which ending you get and that sort of thing.

[547] But that's like really poorly done.

[548] I mean it's accurate to like a text message – like entering a text message and it's maybe accurate to the way that they want the character to be portrayed but it's just clumsy.

[549] So basically – If you hit the A button or X on PS3, it spits out a line.

[550] If you don't like that line, you can hit the delete button to erase it, then hit the other button again, and it'll spit out a different line.

[551] Is it just randomized?

[552] No, it spits them out in order.

[553] Okay.

[554] So you just kind of go through the options and see what your options are, go with what you want to go with, and hit it.

[555] Once you've settled on that, you hit the advance button again, and it spits out another line.

[556] You go like, oh, I don't want that part.

[557] So you almost envision Vincent being this super indecisive, like, no, I get it.

[558] But in practice, it's just like form of a function to an insane degree.

[559] I see the why they would make that choice, except that to actually make this usable and for you to be able to get through this.

[560] Without being completely tedious.

[561] Yeah.

[562] So that becomes a little tedious.

[563] So that's pretty much it.

[564] There's an arcade machine in the bar.

[565] There's a jukebox.

[566] If you drink in the bar, you climb faster that night.

[567] So you want to have three drinks a night basically.

[568] As you talk to people at the bar.

[569] Sometimes there will be dialogue options there, but it's usually one choice and one swings the morality one way and one swings at the other.

[570] Also, the game is occasionally – and I don't know if this is like a localization issue or what, but the game is occasionally not clear about what the answer – like your choices in these dialogue trees when you're talking to people aren't line for line what you're going to say.

[571] So sometimes I've chosen one thing thinking it meant one thing and had it mean the exact opposite and be like, that's – That's very uncool.

[572] And so I didn't like that very much.

[573] And yeah, I don't know.

[574] It would be worth seeing through if I was connecting with the story, but I really don't like the story.

[575] I don't like the way the characters are written.

[576] I think it's written from the perspective of no sane person would do this, especially given the choices I'm making.

[577] So I'm basically making choices to be faithful.

[578] to my current girlfriend, Catherine with a K, and trying to rebuff Catherine with a C every chance I get, who just, you know, is this, you just kind of wake up next to her and you don't remember how that happened.

[579] It's like, hey, maybe stop hanging out in the fucking bar every night and maybe this will stop happening, you idiot.

[580] Change your behavior pattern some and this crazy thing won't happen anymore.

[581] For as much as he's flipping out about everything that's going on, he's still like, oh, got to go to the bar now.

[582] Even though that just kind of seems to happen again and again.

[583] So that's the sort of stuff I really don't like about it is that he is saying one thing but just going about his business as if, you know.

[584] motivated by some sort of script.

[585] Right.

[586] It just doesn't seem realistic to what a normal human being would do when faced with this situation.

[587] Well, I mean, I guess to kind of play devil's advocate here, this is from the team that made Persona 4, right?

[588] Right.

[589] Is there something about this setting that makes you think that people should be behaving like rational, sane people?

[590] Crazy -ass shit happened in Persona constantly that people were willing to roll with.

[591] The crux of this game is that men are being forced to endure these nightmares of block puzzles, and if they don't climb, they die in real life.

[592] Why?

[593] There's a witch.

[594] I don't know.

[595] I haven't gotten to that part yet, but that's the rumor, and then the rumor is it's a witch, and every hundred years it happens, and the witch doesn't age, and put the rest of it together yourself, I guess.

[596] I think I've already figured out where this is going, but hey, I don't know.

[597] Yeah, I don't know.

[598] I just...

[599] The gameplay is not clicking with you.

[600] The storytelling stuff is...

[601] The whole thing just feels really tedious to me, and it's the sort of game that I just want to play in 10 -minute chunks.

[602] And then turn off.

[603] It's just like, even if I am totally victorious and get a gold medal on a section of the tower, I'm still just like, all right, great.

[604] I totally am not up for another one of these right now.

[605] So it's taken a lot longer to review than I thought it would because basically I stared it down all weekend and went like, dude, the last thing in the world I want to do is play this game.

[606] So review forthcoming, but I feel like I'm just dragging myself back to it every time.

[607] It sounds like the kind of game, it sounds like if it didn't have the Persona 4 pedigree to it, that this is a game that would have come out on the PS2 or the Dreamcast in Japan only.

[608] Right.

[609] You never would have seen a glimpse of this weirdo combination.

[610] Yeah, you're probably right.

[611] In the States.

[612] You're probably right.

[613] Now it's coming to Europe when they announced that.

[614] So it's finally found a European distributor.

[615] I mean, you know, I will say that like the anime sequences look really nice.

[616] Like Studio 4C or whoever it is did really well with that.

[617] There's not a ton of full animation.

[618] But even the stuff that you're seeing in the bar, like the characters are well realized.

[619] You know, kind of voice work from the cast of anime slash Atlas voice.

[620] actors that you have come to expect to appear in things like this your Troy Bakers and whatnot so you know they really nail that stuff like on the production side I think that that's all really well done and the dialogue is well voiced and all that stuff but you know everything other than that is actively pushing me away from this game so it's too bad I like its look.

[621] I like some things about it.

[622] I was hoping that the block puzzle stuff would be more engaging, but it is the opposite.

[623] Did you get free underwear?

[624] Yeah, with that special edition, it does come with underwear and a pillowcase and all sorts of creepy stuff.

[625] Maybe that should have been the first sign that this was maybe not for me. Was the creepy special edition stuff.

[626] Are you playing anything else?

[627] Play anything you actually like.

[628] Jeff Gerstmann.

[629] That Gears of War 3 is pretty good.

[630] You can't.

[631] What?

[632] I don't think you can say that.

[633] Okay, fine.

[634] I don't think you're allowed.

[635] I don't know.

[636] No, no, I haven't.

[637] Hey, tell me about Gears of War 3.

[638] Tell me about the ending of Gears of War 3.

[639] That's on YouTube at this point, isn't it?

[640] Now I'm asking you.

[641] Describe it to me. I hope that the stuff, when all that stuff leaked out, there was a thread on the boards that I had to delete that had some words in the title of it that I really wish I hadn't read about stuff in Gears War 3 that I hope is not true.

[642] But yeah, I think when that game leaked out, all sorts of stuff.

[643] I wonder if they'll react to that leak at all.

[644] That game's out in September.

[645] You record one line here, one line there, or something, maybe.

[646] But the amount of time they've already spent on this game.

[647] You booked the Old Spice guy to come in.

[648] That's right.

[649] Totally fix everything.

[650] Yeah, I haven't really been playing anything else other than that.

[651] Hey, Bradley.

[652] Hey, what's up?

[653] How's it going?

[654] How's it going?

[655] Chilling.

[656] You went and played Star Fox last week.

[657] Oh, yeah.

[658] I did play that.

[659] You did play that.

[660] I forgot about that.

[661] You went over to hang out with our buddies from Nintendo.

[662] Yeah, yeah.

[663] Star Fox 64 3D.

[664] Thanks.

[665] Needs more numbers.

[666] Two.

[667] Star Fox 64 3D 2.

[668] Oh, man. They should have put out Star Fox 2.

[669] Yeah.

[670] All those i64 in 3D.

[671] But all those Star Fox 2 ideas, like most of them, most of the good ones got integrated into, like they turned into a tank stuff.

[672] Other tanks?

[673] Was in Star Fox 2.

[674] Yeah.

[675] In 64?

[676] Yeah, I think so.

[677] That's the one that had the four -player split -screen multiplayer.

[678] Yeah, but tanks were in...

[679] You're on foot.

[680] You're a tank.

[681] The multiplayer, yeah, but the single -player?

[682] Well, I'm not saying that it got integrated in the exact same way, but I'm saying that those concepts were used.

[683] Right.

[684] How's that FX chips holding up?

[685] It's really doing the job.

[686] That's a fucking 20 -year -old workhorse at this point.

[687] They're shoving it into every cart to put it out there.

[688] Yeah, it's just right there.

[689] Guys, I heard they're coming out with Mode 8 soon.

[690] Oh, finally.

[691] It's about time.

[692] Oh, did you hear that from your uncle that works at Nintendo?

[693] Yeah, my uncle knows a guy who works for Nintendo, and he's got all the tapes.

[694] He's got Japan tapes.

[695] He played Slalom before it was out.

[696] That's the same game as was on the N64.

[697] Sure.

[698] But they've gussied it up just like they did with Ocarina.

[699] It looks really nice.

[700] What does that mean for...

[701] for this kind of game, like higher res, no jaggies on the ships?

[702] Yeah, definitely better textures.

[703] I feel like there were longer draw distance.

[704] I feel like there were no textures.

[705] I think what you're getting at is that the R -Wings have very, very basic print of geometric shapes that make them up.

[706] And also, I think there were no textures.

[707] It looks like a modern handheld game.

[708] It looks like what you'd expect.

[709] There was textures at 64.

[710] By 64, they were using real textures.

[711] It wasn't just flat shading.

[712] Oh, definitely.

[713] Not like, oh, you're thinking about the Super NES, yeah.

[714] I never really played much Star Fox 64.

[715] Oh, really?

[716] That was a great game.

[717] I just didn't really get it.

[718] I remember not really caring for it.

[719] Which one did you fight your dad or something?

[720] Or was your dad in?

[721] I mean, you're the kid in Star Fox 64.

[722] In 64.

[723] Wait, what are you, like Fox McCloud Jr.?

[724] No, you're the same Fox from...

[725] From the first...

[726] Super NES and 64.

[727] But isn't your dad in 64?

[728] They put out one on the GameCube, right?

[729] Who's got an iPatch?

[730] I can't believe I have to ask that.

[731] Starbox Assault, isn't that the...

[732] Was that the one that had your dad?

[733] I never played that one.

[734] Somebody had an iPatch.

[735] It was Dinosaur Planet.

[736] Albatross?

[737] It was Starbox Adventures.

[738] Alvaros?

[739] What's the bad guy's name?

[740] Andros.

[741] Andros.

[742] Andros.

[743] Yes.

[744] Well, Andros was like your homie in the first Starbox, right?

[745] No, no. He was a fight, Andros, at the end of Starbox.

[746] Yeah.

[747] But it was because he turned.

[748] But it was like Dr. Andros, right?

[749] Yeah, I think he was the bad scientist or something.

[750] No idea.

[751] He's an ape scientist that went bad.

[752] I know, the frog was all...

[753] Do a barrel roll.

[754] Falco was like...

[755] I was a little disappointed when I played it and it was all fully voiced.

[756] I was pretty bummed to hear real English voices coming out of that.

[757] Well, I mean, that was true to the...

[758] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[759] The original had that.

[760] They had the voice work, but you just wanted it to go back to...

[761] Nothing beats double -double.

[762] But, uh...

[763] It's, uh...

[764] Dib -dib -dib -dib -dib.

[765] Dib -dib -dib -dib -dib.

[766] Dib -dib -dib -dib -dib -dib -dib.

[767] Or you're skipping, Pat, you're pressing start, and you're skipping...

[768] Dib -dib -dib -dib -dib.

[769] Come on, get past the title.

[770] I've read this a million times, but I just want to fight the boss.

[771] Fight Andross.

[772] You know what I thought?

[773] Replaying this, what I was reminded of that's kind of neat to think about in retrospect is that Star Fox 64 had kind of a proto -achievement system.

[774] If you remember, it had a really, really branched campaign.

[775] I wouldn't say really, really, really.

[776] Compared to most campaigns of the day.

[777] But you can go left or right.

[778] No, but that's the thing.

[779] You chose at multiple points in the game.

[780] But it wasn't just choices.

[781] It's like OutRun, man. It just goes infinite.

[782] But it wasn't just that.

[783] What I'm talking about with these sort of weird quasi -achievements is that in the first level, you have to remember this because it's the one that everybody remembers.

[784] We get all the rings?

[785] No. We flare in the arches?

[786] Oh, God.

[787] I can't remember what the sequence is now.

[788] So going under the arches, I want to say, is for power -up.

[789] But I think the secret level is when Falco is being chased by these three guys.

[790] Oh, and you shoot all three of them?

[791] And he's like, oh, you've got to say they're on my tail.

[792] And you have like five seconds to shoot these three guys down.

[793] And if you do that, you go on to this other level.

[794] Right.

[795] And, like, in modern -day terms, like, you would get an achievement for that.

[796] It's like a five -point achievement would pop because you did that or something.

[797] But back then, that was, like, the gateway to these levels that you may or may not actually see.

[798] And when I was looking at it, I mean, they made the point, which is true, because I didn't.

[799] They were like, you know, a lot of players probably didn't even see all the levels in this game because there's all these weird, like, one -off, like, kind of hard things you have to do to actually get to those.

[800] One of the weird things about Star Fox is that, like, the game is not necessarily difficult or long.

[801] Right.

[802] But it's...

[803] They build all that stuff into it to make replays meaningful.

[804] And I think I just never really wanted to do a ton of that stuff.

[805] So I beat Star Fox the first time I sat down with it and go like, all right, cool.

[806] Well, another point they made when they showed it to me was that it had no mid -campaign save in the original.

[807] You turn the power off, turn it back on, you had to start at level one every time.

[808] So is it just like save state stuff?

[809] Is it save anywhere?

[810] Is it checkpointed?

[811] It'll save between levels in the campaign playthrough, which is...

[812] Still maybe less than ideal, but it's better.

[813] You can at least turn the system off and come back to it.

[814] Have they added any content?

[815] Well, the multiplayer is tremendously fleshed out.

[816] There's new maps.

[817] There's Mario Kart style power -ups.

[818] Like you just fly through and a little...

[819] Space banana peel?

[820] A little slot machine thing goes and you get a power -up.

[821] Okay.

[822] I just wonder what they're going to go for.

[823] Because this is, I assume, a full cartridge release.

[824] It is, yeah.

[825] It's kind of been the thing for 3DS games right now has been the compare literally anything else on the 3DS to Ocarina of Time 3D.

[826] and you're like, $40 for Ocarina of Time 3D, one of the greatest games, huge, long campaign, just a tremendous amount of value.

[827] Nice upgrades.

[828] So it's kind of like, how does Star Fox 64 stack up when you're looking at that same kind of proposition?

[829] Yeah, I don't know that it's necessarily the same number of hours or whatever, but with the multiple pass -through campaign and stuff, it seems like there's...

[830] I think the multiplayer probably answers for a lot there, because Star Fox 64 was...

[831] Pretty massively popular for the multiplayer.

[832] I know a lot of people that did get totally roped into that.

[833] That was one of those GoldenEye era dorm room four -player kind of sensations.

[834] Have they added online to it?

[835] It is 99 % sure it's local only.

[836] Oh, you know what?

[837] It is local only.

[838] Here's the weirdest thing about the multiplayer.

[839] It is download play only.

[840] What is that?

[841] Download play is like a cart?

[842] It started on the DS, yeah, like one cart.

[843] kind of downloads a little piece of the game out to some other DSs.

[844] That's the only way you can play multiplayer in this.

[845] I don't understand why.

[846] So there's no kind of persistent multiplayer tracking then for anybody else?

[847] Like you don't get points?

[848] I think it only keeps scores within the session and then you turn it off and move over.

[849] It's just weird to me that there is literally, if I understood correctly, there is no multiplayer mode where all four people have the card and it does something different.

[850] If you don't need the card, then that's great.

[851] It's only in these cases where if it's limited because of that, that it's an issue.

[852] I wonder if they just recognize that, man, what are the chances that four people are going to be in one place with this game?

[853] Let's just give it to them.

[854] But I mean, it's cool.

[855] How are they using the two screens?

[856] What's going on in that bottom screen?

[857] In the multiplayer or just in general?

[858] You pick the boomerang.

[859] You pick the whistle.

[860] You look at the map.

[861] You do a barrel roll.

[862] I honestly can't answer that question because I never looked.

[863] It's just one big button that just says barrel roll.

[864] Tap it.

[865] You did it!

[866] It's a shooter.

[867] It's very fast -paced.

[868] You were looking at the top and you were shooting stuff.

[869] They added tilt controls, right?

[870] Yeah, it has gyroscope controls.

[871] You know, totally optional.

[872] I didn't use them.

[873] I'm trying to think why.

[874] What's the...

[875] How are they DSing this?

[876] It's in 3D.

[877] Yeah, it was weird.

[878] You know, each game is different, but I was able to jack the slider all the way up in this one and had no problems.

[879] So, I mean, different games kind of have different effects that way.

[880] Here we go.

[881] Seems like...

[882] That's fantastic.

[883] Yeah.

[884] It's great.

[885] Tell us how you really feel.

[886] Come on.

[887] It sounds awesome.

[888] Let it out.

[889] Sounds great.

[890] Let it out.

[891] I know what you think.

[892] Local multiplayer only sucks.

[893] It's a bummer.

[894] Period.

[895] Point blank.

[896] End of sentence.

[897] It's kind of a bummer.

[898] I'm going to keep saying things even though the sentence is over.

[899] But you already ended it.

[900] You keep ending the sentence.

[901] Hyphen dash.

[902] They do use the internal camera to pipe a feed of your face like over top of your ship.

[903] That's new.

[904] Which is kind of funny.

[905] I think they showed that somewhere.

[906] It takes a frame grab right at the end of the match.

[907] Right.

[908] It definitely pulled some silly looking grimaces and stuff.

[909] That was kind of fun.

[910] But the big thing is it looks better.

[911] Yeah, it looks a lot better.

[912] Also, it's in 3D.

[913] Yes, it's also in 3D.

[914] I mean, it's called the 3DS.

[915] Well, it's kind of already in 3D if you squint hard enough.

[916] If you had the imagination to see past that 2D plane.

[917] We don't need imagination.

[918] We have video games.

[919] That's right.

[920] This is in place of that.

[921] Oh, that's why I bought that FX chip enabled.

[922] SNES had the FX games, right?

[923] Yeah, Super FX.

[924] Super FX 2.

[925] Is that what it was?

[926] Uniracers?

[927] Wasn't that a Super FX game?

[928] It was FX Racers.

[929] Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

[930] That was pretty terrible.

[931] I want to say not every Super FX game was a 3D polygonal game.

[932] If I'm not mistaken.

[933] I thought that was the technology.

[934] I'd swear.

[935] I think, like, Street Fighter Alpha 2 had some weird shit.

[936] Because I remember at some point...

[937] Also, Street Fighter Alpha 2 came out of the SNES.

[938] Like, how crazy is that?

[939] At some point, I remember hearing that the super effects was, like, secretly, like, a covert, like, copy protection thing.

[940] Because if you didn't have that chip, you could unload the games off the weird floppy drive bootleg things.

[941] Super wild card, whatever was going on back then.

[942] Super wild card.

[943] I always wanted one of those so bad.

[944] I came into contact with one once, and it was the craziest shit ever.

[945] It was neat to just see it.

[946] I knew somebody that had one.

[947] Because it was just like, okay, now I put in disc three.

[948] It's such crazy, weird, illicit shit.

[949] It just looked like this is hardware.

[950] Someone made this?

[951] I knew a guy in D .C. that had one.

[952] It was my first exposure to Tetris Battle Gaiden.

[953] Oh, yeah.

[954] That was how I first played that.

[955] Madness.

[956] Multi -disc games, man. I was digging through my garage, pulled on my Commodore 64 discs and Atari 800 discs inside the house as a process of getting ready to clean all that stuff up and put it somewhere.

[957] Pool radiance, man. Four discs?

[958] Double -sided?

[959] Might be double -sided.

[960] I always wanted a wild card so bad.

[961] I wonder if those even work anymore.

[962] Disc rot.

[963] Right after I fell in love with Final Fantasy 2 and 3 and then Squaresoft decided to stop putting out their Super NES games in the U .S., people were hacking English translations into the ROMs of Secret Amendment 3 and stuff like that.

[964] And if you got those ROMs and split them on floppy disks, you could just play it on a SNES with one of those with a wild card.

[965] That's why I always wanted one of those, but...

[966] I digress.

[967] That doesn't make it okay.

[968] No, that's why I didn't get one.

[969] Settle for your Game Genie, man. That's why I didn't get one.

[970] Yeah, enter the English script on your Game Genie.

[971] Anyway, that looks like a solid, a respectful re -release.

[972] Sure.

[973] Of Star Fox 64.

[974] When is that coming out?

[975] September...

[976] September -ish.

[977] 9th?

[978] I think it's the 9th.

[979] Early September.

[980] It's already out in Japan.

[981] Is it?

[982] Yeah.

[983] Oh, okay.

[984] Thanks, Al. It's great.

[985] It's Q Games.

[986] Q Games of, you know, PixelJunk fame.

[987] Yeah.

[988] Is doing this one.

[989] PixelJunk Star Fox.

[990] Yeah.

[991] This is 2 -1.

[992] Tell me about From Dust.

[993] That's coming out on Xbox Live Arcade this week.

[994] It's a Summer Arcade game from Ubisoft.

[995] Yeah, second Summer Arcade release.

[996] It was supposed to be on PC today.

[997] Or today?

[998] No, tomorrow.

[999] Wait.

[1000] Today is Tuesday.

[1001] It was supposed to be on PC the same day as Xbox, and they just delayed it at the last second.

[1002] I'm just asking you today.

[1003] Yeah, Vinny was asking this morning, and I haven't gotten to play it.

[1004] For the record, they only provided the Xbox version.

[1005] Yeah, Brad, do you think I should get this on the PC?

[1006] My suspicion is that it would be better on the PC, but I can't say for sure without having played it.

[1007] Because of the controls.

[1008] Mainly for the controls.

[1009] It would also look better.

[1010] I mean, it looks great on the Xbox, but you can see some places where, like, draw distance and stuff would be better.

[1011] Guess what?

[1012] It does look pretty good.

[1013] It looks really good.

[1014] Can you try and describe this?

[1015] game like it's just what the game is yeah like just real hard mechanical terms i mean it's a god game you look at it from the overhead perspective you can control like earth or sand or dirt or you know whatever uh lava and water and so those are the three elements that you work with yeah and you control those by literally like and heart yes spirit our powers combined wind um And you do that by literally sucking it up into like a levitating ball of the stuff and just like putting it somewhere else.

[1016] So like you're seeing this landscape, this Kai's Power Tools -esque landscape.

[1017] Yeah, kind of.

[1018] Of water and hills and volcanoes.

[1019] What was that other late 90s software package everybody used?

[1020] Bryce, yes.

[1021] It's totally fucking Bryce in video game form like 15 years later.

[1022] But real time.

[1023] I knew exactly where you were going.

[1024] Real time Bryce would be the sickest thing in the world.

[1025] Not 15 minutes to render one frame.

[1026] I'd render these sick mountains and then there's a sphere in the air.

[1027] What's on the sphere, man?

[1028] I don't know, but now it's my desktop wallpaper.

[1029] You know what it is?

[1030] It's lava because you can make the sphere and you can move it around yourself.

[1031] So, like, I guess I've been watching you over the past week and a half, two weeks, play this game in the office, and I have no, God, I can see, like, what the mechanics are, but I can't parse out just by watching you, like, the objectives.

[1032] Yeah, it makes a lot more sense when you just start playing it.

[1033] All it is is that you have these tiny little ant -sized people, and on every map there are totems on the map.

[1034] And the people can build villages around the totems.

[1035] And the sole objective is get the people to build a village on every totem on the map, and then the map's over.

[1036] But getting the people to the totems is the challenge.

[1037] But like no economy, no religion, no...

[1038] No, no, no, nothing like that.

[1039] It's no like...

[1040] No creature.

[1041] No creature.

[1042] You don't have to gather resources.

[1043] There's no sieve.

[1044] There's no black and white.

[1045] None of that stuff in here.

[1046] It's all about manipulating the environment.

[1047] You do have to get the people from place to place, but they...

[1048] More or less do that on their own.

[1049] I imagine, like, so what are the kinks?

[1050] Like, people are not an economy.

[1051] Like, you don't have, like, a population counter or, like, technological development or any of that stuff.

[1052] I guess one kink, I guess, would be dudes don't swim.

[1053] Yeah, the guys are fucking helpless.

[1054] So you have to cross water.

[1055] This is what I said during a quick look.

[1056] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1057] So there will be, like, a...

[1058] They can swim a little bit.

[1059] Like, if they just kind of...

[1060] Like, if a little wave comes and washes them off, they'll be able to swim back to shore.

[1061] But once they drift out a few feet, like, it's over.

[1062] But you're making land bridges.

[1063] Yeah, yeah.

[1064] Like, they need early on.

[1065] And it helps.

[1066] Like, you give them a waypoint.

[1067] You can only give them waypoints on objects of interest, like a totem.

[1068] You can't just say, you guys go hang out over on this peninsula for a while.

[1069] And it shows, like, a little, like, these kind of wispy lines that sort of look like the wind blowing that indicate the path they can walk along.

[1070] There are a lot of cases where, and this is getting kind of nitpicky because the game's awesome, but...

[1071] There are a lot of cases where it looks like you've made a pretty nice land bridge and all of a sudden it'll just hit like an invisible wall where it's like, why can't they run along that?

[1072] What's the deal?

[1073] You have to kind of like zoom in and orient the camera just enough to kind of widen the path out a few pixels and then they're able to go.

[1074] There's some guesswork involved there.

[1075] So that's some of the challenge, right?

[1076] And Brad, you could probably speak way better to this because I just started doing a quick look.

[1077] But going back to like what are the...

[1078] The kinks.

[1079] Yeah.

[1080] A typhoon will come, right?

[1081] And you have to protect your guys.

[1082] Oh, yeah.

[1083] Are you asking about, like, the challenges?

[1084] Well, I mean, like, you say, like, all right, get the guys to the thing.

[1085] Oh, right, right.

[1086] It sounds like a whole game based on making land bridges.

[1087] So it's like, so how do you introduce wrinkles into this?

[1088] Oh, you mean how does the game challenge you?

[1089] How do you get the gun?

[1090] I thought you were asking about, like, failings in the game.

[1091] No, no, no, no. I mean, like.

[1092] I see.

[1093] Quarter circle forward.

[1094] Right, right, right.

[1095] High punch.

[1096] Yeah, I mean.

[1097] Pretty much every scenario is different.

[1098] Every map is pre -made.

[1099] Somebody hand -tuned this map.

[1100] They're not procedurally generated.

[1101] It's like a puzzle almost.

[1102] Each level is almost like a puzzle.

[1103] Just about every map has something going on, a timer.

[1104] Some maps have a tsunami that comes in every 2 minutes, 30 seconds.

[1105] A couple maps have your villages kind of situated in the path of a big volcano, and that'll erupt on an interval.

[1106] But stuff's happening in real time.

[1107] It's not turn -based.

[1108] And it gets weird.

[1109] Some of the stuff is just weird.

[1110] Like, one of the maps halfway through, the land itself literally, like, undulates.

[1111] Like, every 90 seconds or something, it'll, like, it'll dip way down into this big valley.

[1112] And then it'll, like, kind of move back up into a hill a couple minutes later.

[1113] So not even like there's an earthquake, just some other weird arbitrary force.

[1114] And sometimes when the valley is there, like, these big bulbous water trees will unleash a bunch of water, and it'll fill up and flood the village that's down there.

[1115] I'm going to need you to stop for a second and go back to water trees.

[1116] Water trees, big bulbous, specifically.

[1117] Engorged.

[1118] No, like...

[1119] Two meson trees.

[1120] Water trees made out of water.

[1121] Turgid water trees.

[1122] This is getting gross.

[1123] I've heard about hard water problems, but this is ridiculous.

[1124] Let's step back and talk about fire trees before we talk about water trees.

[1125] Why are there fire trees?

[1126] I was told there were three things in this game.

[1127] I was told there was lava, dirt, and water.

[1128] Can I make a fireball gun out of fire trees?

[1129] I could sit here for a while talking about the mechanics in this game.

[1130] Yeah, there's fire trees that will set vegetation on fire.

[1131] place these water trees around, and they will kind of dispense water when fire comes near.

[1132] So those are basically like a line of protection for the village.

[1133] They sweat?

[1134] Kind of.

[1135] Well, but, I mean, they release a lot of water.

[1136] They sweat profusely.

[1137] They sweat.

[1138] Yes.

[1139] They sweat.

[1140] Yes.

[1141] Yeah.

[1142] God, what else is going on in there?

[1143] There are bomb trees.

[1144] See, bomb trees, that makes perfect sense.

[1145] Of course, yeah.

[1146] Bomb plants, bomb trees.

[1147] And then you also get special powers for activating a totem.

[1148] Jelly water, like you said last night.

[1149] Right, right, right.

[1150] You can make new rock walls by dumping lava into water, and it'll harden into rock.

[1151] You can carve out new canyons for rivers to run down.

[1152] There's a lot of fluid dynamics going on with the water and stuff.

[1153] Everything works together sensibly, so you can bomb out part of a wall with the bomb tree.

[1154] to kind of let some water go through, and then you're basically reshaping the landscape.

[1155] It's really neat.

[1156] That stuff works really well together.

[1157] And it's all, like you're saying, like physics and based.

[1158] Yeah, there's a heavy dose of physics modeling going on.

[1159] Cool.

[1160] And maybe the weirdest part of all this is created by Eric Chahi.

[1161] Yes.

[1162] The guy who made another world slash out of this world.

[1163] So all that world deformation is rotoscoped, right?

[1164] Yes, absolutely.

[1165] He filmed himself for 15 years in front of a green screen.

[1166] That's what he was doing.

[1167] He hasn't made another game since then, has he?

[1168] None that I'm aware of.

[1169] Actually, it was like 20 years ago.

[1170] I don't really know.

[1171] And also spinning out Ferraris on a desk.

[1172] Yeah, right.

[1173] I do not have a chart of that man's career.

[1174] But, yeah, you get some really crazy supernatural powers like Vinny mentioned.

[1175] You can, quote, jellify the water is how they phrase it.

[1176] So it's not just like gathering and moving.

[1177] Your impact can be varied.

[1178] At the core, that's what it is.

[1179] It's just getting your people from A to B to C to D to exit.

[1180] Sure, sure.

[1181] But it is kind of a puzzle game in a way.

[1182] You're trying to solve these puzzles.

[1183] Absolutely.

[1184] Because they're setting you up in really ridiculous ways.

[1185] Like, guess what?

[1186] This volcano is going to erupt every 15 seconds.

[1187] We're only going to give you this one thing to do.

[1188] And you're like, crap, how do I solve this puzzle?

[1189] Sometimes you'll start a scenario and just sit there for a couple minutes scratching your head going like, man, how do I even approach this?

[1190] Like, I'd started one where all of the village totems were basically underwater.

[1191] It's like, shit, what am I going to do?

[1192] You have to find ways to...

[1193] You know, kind of tweak the environment and use...

[1194] Build a wall around it and then...

[1195] Yeah, kind of.

[1196] And there are some instances of pretty precise timing.

[1197] So like I mentioned, you get the Jellify water power, which literally solidifies water for 60 seconds, and you can, like, scoop it out.

[1198] Literally, like, parting the sea and making, like, a path through this water.

[1199] And there are a lot of cases of, like, you've got to turn that power on, you've got to...

[1200] Scoop the water out, make a path, get your guys to run through there before the water comes rushing back in and get all this other stuff done.

[1201] But the guys take a long time to get from place to place.

[1202] I was going to say, you have no direct control over dudes at all.

[1203] So there are definitely some cases where you're just, like, screaming at the TV for the guys to run faster because you've got, like, ten seconds left before the volcano erupts.

[1204] And if the dude who is carrying the rappel lava power does not get back to the village with that power so they can learn it before the lava gets there, like, you're going to start over.

[1205] That kind of stuff.

[1206] Well, it does sound like there is a lot going on there.

[1207] There is a lot going on.

[1208] It could get a little busy and a little kind of hard to keep up with.

[1209] Well, that's good.

[1210] My fear from looking at it was that it was going to be overly simple.

[1211] It was absolutely not just like a sandbox where you were chilling and just screwing around.

[1212] I mean, it seemed like there was, like, objectives or whatever, but it seemed, as far as interaction, went fairly simple, but it's good to hear that there are these other abilities and factors to keep things interesting.

[1213] There's a lot going on, and it definitely encourages you to kind of creatively solve a lot of the different problems in kind of your own way.

[1214] And the only other knock I have against it is just that it's kind of a pain to play with the controller once in a while.

[1215] Like you just wish you had a mouse to swing it around there more quickly?

[1216] Like I said, sometimes the guys don't want to run along the little paths you've made or whatever, and the controller does not enable you to make clean -looking paths.

[1217] You know what I mean?

[1218] You don't have very precise control to move the cursor around.

[1219] When I saw you playing during a quick look, I thought this could be a move game.

[1220] This is one of those games that maybe...

[1221] might work really cool with the move.

[1222] Just the way the mouse moves.

[1223] Yeah, the precision of the move, I bet it would work really well.

[1224] It's a Kinect game, but a move game.

[1225] This could have been one.

[1226] Or a mouse.

[1227] Yeah, or a mouse.

[1228] I was going to say.

[1229] It's only three weeks out.

[1230] And you were saying that they pushed it back just a little bit?

[1231] Yeah, it's only like three weeks away.

[1232] It seems weird to me that they would, because it's kind of been the unspoken thing with a lot of these Star of Arcade games, has not been necessarily like...

[1233] But a timed exclusivity.

[1234] But at least a timed exclusivity for release on other platforms.

[1235] Well, the PC is not the PlayStation 3.

[1236] This is true.

[1237] But I wonder if it's, you know, is that coming out on Steam?

[1238] Is that going to be a Games for Windows Live game?

[1239] It's not Games for Windows Live.

[1240] I'm pretty sure they announced Steam availability, if I have to remember.

[1241] It's probably one of those things where, you know, at some point the equation flips and, you know, the...

[1242] the publisher, Microsoft needs them more than they need Microsoft or something like that.

[1243] Or it's like they get a little leverage and say like, hey, people are really excited for this game featuring this guy who has not made a game in a long time and we've got a lot of good stuff going on and we want to make sure it gets out everywhere.

[1244] They get to push back a little bit against Microsoft in some of those cases.

[1245] And it's Ubisoft.

[1246] That's a pretty big publisher.

[1247] They could probably say, eh, we're going to do this anyway.

[1248] We already said we're putting Kinect into all these Tom Clancy games, even though they don't really need it.

[1249] Let them all do one for us.

[1250] Yeah.

[1251] You're making the handgun.

[1252] You're flipping your...

[1253] What's the sound of one hand shooting?

[1254] Is that a strike?

[1255] Throw a curveball, Ricky.

[1256] Give him the heater.

[1257] Is that $10?

[1258] $15.

[1259] $15.

[1260] It's a really neat game.

[1261] Yeah.

[1262] Other than a couple of small sticking points, if you're into that kind of game, or even if you're just into puzzle games, because it has a really puzzle game kind of feel to it.

[1263] So this is definitely...

[1264] If you're into that kind of game, it's a really...

[1265] pretty funny things.

[1266] Well, it's such a specific cut.

[1267] It is.

[1268] There's other stuff like it, but there's so few of those coming out.

[1269] If you're into that kind of game and nothing else, man, it's been a real bummer for you.

[1270] Well, I am, and it has, because I love both of those games.

[1271] Fans of the genre rejoice.

[1272] Black and White absolutely has its detractors, but I really like Black and White.

[1273] I really like Black and White up to a point.

[1274] And then the level of complexity got to be too much for the controller.

[1275] Yeah, I never finished it.

[1276] I got halfway through it and kind of burned out.

[1277] But yeah, there were things about Black and White I really wanted to like more.

[1278] But the point is that you want more games like that.

[1279] Totally, absolutely.

[1280] You want people to do it better, and just nobody's done it at all.

[1281] Weirdly enough, this whole conversation, I kind of just want to go play Populous.

[1282] Not Populous 2.

[1283] I could support that endeavor.

[1284] Not even the PC version of Populous.

[1285] I specifically want to go play the Genesis version of Populous.

[1286] Because that's the one that I encountered first.

[1287] Yeah.

[1288] I played it on the Super NES first.

[1289] Yeah.

[1290] Actually, yeah.

[1291] I didn't have a computer then.

[1292] Wow.

[1293] To make a weird face.

[1294] Yeah, I didn't have a computer.

[1295] I didn't own a PC until 1993.

[1296] I didn't even have a SNES at that point.

[1297] I played it at my neighbor's house.

[1298] But I was just like, dude, this game's amazing.

[1299] I was using that in Amiga for a while.

[1300] That's crazy.

[1301] Oh, Amigas are pretty awesome.

[1302] You play some cool...

[1303] What's it?

[1304] What do I used to say?

[1305] Dragon Slayer.

[1306] On the Amiga.

[1307] It looked awesome.

[1308] Dragon Slayer?

[1309] Dragon Slayer.

[1310] Dragon Slayer, like a Laserdisc game.

[1311] Yeah, but I guess it was loaded up with video or whatever.

[1312] Yeah, well, they did, yeah.

[1313] Some kind of a track that used to be in the whatever bootleg electronics store I'd go into, and then in the back the guy would sell me G .I. Joe on a floppy disk for my Commodore 64.

[1314] Nice.

[1315] I actually have the Commodore 64 version of Dragon Slayer.

[1316] How does that look?

[1317] Is that just a screen?

[1318] It is the same gameplay, and they have animated it.

[1319] They have made it computer graphics.

[1320] Maybe that's what the Amiga one was.

[1321] It doesn't animate nearly as well.

[1322] Yeah, it might have been.

[1323] Huh.

[1324] Well, they did do a CD drive for the Amiga and, of course, the CD TV.

[1325] which was just an Amiga consolized with a CD drive.

[1326] I always thought the Amiga was the shit.

[1327] Like, when you look at the back of the box, it was like...

[1328] Coming from the Commodore 64, there was definitely something about the Amiga you were like, man, this looks fucking...

[1329] Yeah, all these screenshots are from the Amiga version.

[1330] Look at this Egyptian deluxe paint dude.

[1331] I mean, I had a PC at that time, and I remember seeing the Amiga stuff, and it was like...

[1332] Yeah, I feel really good about missing the whole CGA, EGA era, because when I look back at that stuff, it's just like, man, this stuff looks like shit compared to what was going on on other platforms.

[1333] We had a Tandy and an Epson.

[1334] I mean, you know, Amiga's cool, but it's no Pippin.

[1335] True.

[1336] Made the mistake of looking at Pippin auctions on eBay.

[1337] That's stupid.

[1338] As part of my digging stuff out, I grabbed my 3DO, which I thought was broken, and it totally boots.

[1339] That is so awesome.

[1340] I plugged it in and it at least gets power, which it wasn't doing.

[1341] Is it a Panasonic or a Gold Star?

[1342] It's a Panasonic, but it's a Japanese one.

[1343] So I was worried that maybe some voltage conversion thing was not being done, and I fried it or something.

[1344] But I bought that when we were over there for like $15.

[1345] Wow.

[1346] Yeah.

[1347] Did you throw in your copy of Demolition Man?

[1348] No, I didn't actually hook it up to a TV.

[1349] I just hit the power, opened the drive, went, dude, this thing is going.

[1350] I need to hook it up to a TV, but maybe I'll bring it in.

[1351] Simon Says Bleed.

[1352] Simon Says Bleed.

[1353] Simon Says Bleed.

[1354] Simon Says Bleed.

[1355] Simon Says Bleed.

[1356] Simon Says Bleed.

[1357] Demolition Man on the video is terrible.

[1358] Simon Says Bleed.

[1359] Oh, you don't say.

[1360] I don't mean to surprise you here about the 3DO.

[1361] How do you feel about Demolition Man on film?

[1362] Yeah, it's awesome.

[1363] Yeah, it's amazing.

[1364] Eight times out of ten, you can just say blank is terrible on the 3DO and probably be right.

[1365] A lot of that stuff is really shitty.

[1366] I know.

[1367] It's just one of the few 3DO experiences that I've had that I actually played through.

[1368] Wow, you played through it.

[1369] With Dave Toyster.

[1370] That makes sense.

[1371] After the fact.

[1372] Do you really – I feel like Demolition Man – I like Demolition Man. Yeah.

[1373] But I think it's a terrible movie that I like.

[1374] Like I'm not going to say like Demolition Man is a movie that is – that's a great movie.

[1375] Demolition Man is really bad.

[1376] I don't think it's – no, no, no. I don't think it's really bad.

[1377] I think you're confusing dated with bad.

[1378] I don't know.

[1379] That movie is a product of its era.

[1380] What?

[1381] Was that mid -90s?

[1382] When it came out, that Taco Bell joke was hilarious.

[1383] You know what's funny?

[1384] When it came out, absolutely, yeah.

[1385] I was reading an article about the new Total Recall.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] And that is the exact line of reasoning that Colin Farrell, I think it was Colin Farrell, or maybe one of the producers, somebody in the article was using that exact rationale.

[1388] To justify the existence of the new Total Recall.

[1389] But I don't feel like Total Recall is as dated as now.

[1390] I don't think it's exactly the same.

[1391] They were like, go back and watch it now.

[1392] Some of that stuff, it's a great movie, but some of that stuff is just so cheesy.

[1393] It just doesn't hold up anymore.

[1394] Some of it maybe a little bit aesthetically, but I mean Demolition Man's core thematics.

[1395] I mean, Wesley Snipes doesn't have overalls and dyed hair and bright yellow shirt and neon.

[1396] That made sense for the era that it was taking place in.

[1397] The era that he was coming from.

[1398] But Demolition Man, it's the PC blowback, the politically correct stuff.

[1399] There was all of the casual sex fear with AIDS and everything.

[1400] So they integrate that.

[1401] And that reaction to that was kind of the basis for what this future utopia looked like.

[1402] Sure.

[1403] Again, I love it for the same reason I like Back to the Future 2.

[1404] It's when they show crazy future.

[1405] stuff that is based on stuff that's happening now.

[1406] Extrapolating.

[1407] Freezing time.

[1408] Extrapolated future is one of my favorite things.

[1409] I think Demolition Man is fantastic.

[1410] It's my favorite math rock band, for sure.

[1411] I love watching it, but I still think it's a terrible piece of cinema.

[1412] Man, this is not shot, produced, well...

[1413] The production's okay.

[1414] Some of the effects are pretty bad.

[1415] Dennis Leary lives under the street.

[1416] The action pops.

[1417] Yeah, I mean, fuck.

[1418] Giving Dennis Leary just a full -blown Dennis Leary -ass monologue in the middle of it.

[1419] Tell me that that was not made in 1994.

[1420] And I will tell you to fuck off.

[1421] Because that is exactly...

[1422] I'm pretty sure that's one of...

[1423] It's exactly the era that that came out of.

[1424] So...

[1425] See, I think it's just more...

[1426] It's more dated.

[1427] You groan when you see it for the same reason you groan when you see, like...

[1428] anything that aired on MTV around that time, or, you know, the majority of it.

[1429] I'm not groaning.

[1430] It's that kind of like 90210, just like everything about the 90s just sticks out as being really cheesy, stupid.

[1431] A little bad.

[1432] Like, what were they doing?

[1433] Demolition, man. I think it's a sign of, like, the age that we are all coming to, but, like, the 90s nostalgia thing is super fucking crazy.

[1434] It's been the first time for me where I can say, like, I actually still have that flannel shirt.

[1435] that you wore in the 90s.

[1436] I take comfort.

[1437] And it still fits.

[1438] I take comfort in knowing that, you know, I did the same thing for the 70s in the 90s.

[1439] Yeah.

[1440] The nostalgia for a time before you were born.

[1441] You know, that happened in the fucking disco quiche, like all that shit that was happening.

[1442] You're looking at me sideways.

[1443] I don't know what disco quiche is.

[1444] But I mean, it's just like, I meant kitsch.

[1445] Oh.

[1446] Not quiche.

[1447] Disco crepes.

[1448] Disco crepes.

[1449] I'm not going to make that anymore.

[1450] I called Jesse.

[1451] I'm always talking about disco quiche.

[1452] All you do is you make a regular quiche and you just put a bunch of cocaine in it and you're good.

[1453] Done.

[1454] That's disco, baby.

[1455] But just that appropriation of one generation to another.

[1456] Yeah, I don't know what you take out of the 90s.

[1457] Like, is it the flannel?

[1458] Is that the 90s?

[1459] Is it the mood?

[1460] Is it I hate everything?

[1461] Is it apathy?

[1462] Yeah, it's the grunge.

[1463] It's like, fuck you, 80s.

[1464] Also keep in mind, we have a huge blind spot because you were at least teens at this point, whereas it's the stuff that was for little kids in the 90s that we just don't even have the awareness of.

[1465] Air Raiders?

[1466] Brave Star?

[1467] No, that's you.

[1468] Aren't you the one that made the Captain Planet joke?

[1469] Actually, you made the Captain Planet joke.

[1470] I think I made the Captain Planet joke.

[1471] That was 90s for kids, right?

[1472] Yeah.

[1473] That was kind of outside edge.

[1474] I don't know.

[1475] I watched Captain Planet at the time, so I thought it was fucking stupid.

[1476] A Pokemon is probably a big...

[1477] Captain Planet is stupid in any era.

[1478] Yeah, I guess so.

[1479] A big 90s kid thing.

[1480] Like late, late 90s.

[1481] I don't know.

[1482] Early 90s, I feel like it was right in my wheelhouse.

[1483] Sure.

[1484] For kids.

[1485] Chippendales, Rescue Rangers, those DuckTales, right?

[1486] That's all early 90s.

[1487] Yeah, but that all carries over from the 80s too.

[1488] Yeah.

[1489] What I'm saying is that when you were 17 driving around in your – My Malibu.

[1490] In your Malibu, there was stuff going on for people that were like four at the time that you just had no awareness of.

[1491] Like Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons.

[1492] Like Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons.

[1493] Oh, yeah.

[1494] Which have been on the air for like 15 years and I had just no awareness of.

[1495] It was a huge blind spot.

[1496] Reboot.

[1497] Like how long?

[1498] No, again, because you know it.

[1499] It really has to just be the things I don't know.

[1500] There are things that you do because there's the things you know, the things you know you don't know, and then there's things you don't know you don't know, and that's the biggest group of all.

[1501] I had a little brother, though.

[1502] He's five years younger than I am.

[1503] That might help you.

[1504] Yeah, I think I'd cheat.

[1505] I don't know.

[1506] I saw the revision the G .I. Joes went through and I cried.

[1507] Yeah.

[1508] I saw when they could launch missiles.

[1509] The Echo Warriors?

[1510] Oh, yeah.

[1511] I was already full on into this whole, you know, Arrested Development thing.

[1512] So, yeah, I watched the new G .I. Joe stuff.

[1513] Oh, man, this is bullshit.

[1514] And the new Ghostbuster stuff when they got the new toys.

[1515] It was all bad.

[1516] It's kind of always all bad.

[1517] Ghostbuster toys?

[1518] Eh.

[1519] Like, other than Echo 1, Ecto 1, you're just kind of like, why?

[1520] Why is there an ecto fucking 14?

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] Well, that's when it got bad.

[1523] You spread this too thin.

[1524] This helicopter fights ghosts.

[1525] The crash dummy toys were cool.

[1526] Is that?

[1527] No. Those were cool.

[1528] They fell apart.

[1529] I had plenty of toys that did that.

[1530] It didn't have to be an advertised feature.

[1531] What were we even talking about?

[1532] Red shoot from Dust is pretty cool.

[1533] Look forward.

[1534] It's out this Wednesday.

[1535] It's out tomorrow.

[1536] I want to see the Demolition Man on 3DO if you can get that working.

[1537] Bring it in.

[1538] I will play that awful, awful game.

[1539] It's got great FMV sequences in it.

[1540] It's got some first -person shooting in it that's really super bad.

[1541] It's full -on Hollywood.

[1542] This is the merging of Hollywood and video games, so it's really Sly Stallone.

[1543] Sly Stallone shot a bunch of specific stuff for it.

[1544] Wow.

[1545] All games are going to be like this in the future.

[1546] I want you to watch Demolition Man at some point this week, and then we can watch this, and then you can really appreciate how great Demolition Man as a movie is.

[1547] Again.

[1548] Especially when you compare it to Demolition Man the game.

[1549] I love Demolition Man. I am a huge fan of Demolition Man in the same way I'm a fan of Time Bandits.

[1550] Back when Sandra Bullock was doing edgy stuff that was cool and awesome.

[1551] This was back when you first knew about Sandra Bullock.

[1552] I knew she was a terrible actress.

[1553] Actually, I think, again, I like Sandra Bullock.

[1554] I don't think she acts very well.

[1555] I think she's pretty funny, though, when she does all the stuff that's not acting, like when she's doing interviews and all that.

[1556] Yeah, she's surprisingly charming.

[1557] Yeah, but all the movies she's ever in, God.

[1558] What about Speed?

[1559] Speed's pretty good.

[1560] Speed's pretty good.

[1561] Speed's pretty good.

[1562] I think Speed would be good without Sandra Bullock as well.

[1563] Yeah, sure, but who do you cast in that role instead?

[1564] She's perfect.

[1565] Goldie Hawn.

[1566] What?

[1567] A little too old for it, but okay.

[1568] I see what you're saying.

[1569] I'd still watch that movie.

[1570] Yeah.

[1571] I'd still watch that movie.

[1572] Actually, okay, how about this?

[1573] We replace Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.

[1574] Done.

[1575] Just call it Overboard 2.

[1576] Done.

[1577] Overboard 2 on a bus.

[1578] I like it.

[1579] From dust.

[1580] She hits herself on the head again, doesn't know why she's driving this bus, and he's like, you've got to drive this bus because you're a bus driver.

[1581] Also, this bus is going to explode.

[1582] I've got 15 kids on the bus.

[1583] This is getting complicated.

[1584] I have a chance to leave the bus, but I love being on the bus now.

[1585] We're going to stay on the bus and build a miniature golf course on it now.

[1586] The bus is our home.

[1587] Are they remaking overboard?

[1588] Really?

[1589] Because it's too dated?

[1590] Is that happening?

[1591] You're remaking everything.

[1592] I'll see that.

[1593] Why not?

[1594] I like to overboard.

[1595] Do you get Kate Hudson for that?

[1596] Do you just go there?

[1597] Kurt Russell still just plays the other role.

[1598] Yeah!

[1599] I think you're talking.

[1600] Make it weird.

[1601] Brad, you play anything else, damn it?

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] How are your hard -boiled eggs going?

[1604] Not well.

[1605] One of them got smooshed on the way to work.

[1606] That sucked.

[1607] You need an egg case.

[1608] I have one.

[1609] It's just not very good.

[1610] I made it.

[1611] Okay, you made it.

[1612] I was going to say, how can there be a commercially available egg case that doesn't work very well?

[1613] It's more of an egg caddy.

[1614] Okay.

[1615] Egg hopper.

[1616] It's basically just the egg carton.

[1617] It is the corner of the egg carton.

[1618] You slice it off.

[1619] It is the corner to egg.

[1620] trough the things.

[1621] And you use the rubber band to keep it all together.

[1622] It works as long as you don't pile anything on top of it, which I guess I did.

[1623] Anyway, oh, man. Forgot about that.

[1624] Yeah, I totally forgot about that.

[1625] Next email comes in from Caleb Showalter in Cincinnati.

[1626] As someone who hasn't really dug into a fighting game since the Tekken 3 days, I'm walking into this purchase of Mortal Kombat pretty blindly based on all of your positive coverage.

[1627] Having said this, I absolutely fucked up and picked up the Xbox 360 version out of pure achievement lust, so I'm stuck with a pretty inferior controller to usher in my return to 3D fighters.

[1628] Can I make do with what I have, or should I turn to one of the many third -party peripherals instead, i .e.?

[1629] the Mad Cat's Fight Pad.

[1630] Keep up the good work.

[1631] I don't think...

[1632] For me, and I think different people are going to have different reactions to it, but for me, the Fight Pad doesn't work because of the way the buttons are laid out.

[1633] Because it's meant for a Street Fighter style of 3 and 3.

[1634] Yeah, yeah.

[1635] Whereas I'm definitely approaching it more from the Mortal Kombat control layout standpoint.

[1636] But Block is on the trigger, you know, SNES style type thing or something.

[1637] Caleb said that, you know, he had played Tekken 3, but I don't know how far back his fighting game, because it seems like it's a matter of, hey, I played...

[1638] Mortal Kombat on this system before, so I am used to this 3 -in -3 configuration.

[1639] Yeah, I mean, if he's used to a certain type of MK configuration, I mean, not that this is identical to those games, but that might help.

[1640] But, you know, you might just want to get that Microsoft controller with a transforming D -pad.

[1641] That was definitely enough for me. And that's kind of my preferred way to play it at this point.

[1642] I actually played a bunch of MK on the PS3 over the weekend at one point.

[1643] I don't know why.

[1644] Still getting your ass whipped out there?

[1645] I didn't play a ton online.

[1646] I was just kind of messing around.

[1647] But yeah, I think I prefer that specific 360 controller for that game.

[1648] All right, Brad.

[1649] Play anything else, Brad?

[1650] To even the fancy joystick, of which I have two.

[1651] Just because of a good idea at the time.

[1652] Just because of button layout stuff?

[1653] Yeah, yeah.

[1654] Well, yeah, I think the standard PS3 pad is pretty much fine, too.

[1655] MK works better on a gamepad than just about any modern fighting game.

[1656] It does.

[1657] I've noticed.

[1658] I'm not sure what that comes down to.

[1659] Tekken, I think I might actually prefer on a gamepad also.

[1660] I think any fighting game that relies more on tapping than quarter circles and stuff.

[1661] Right.

[1662] Like rolls or whatever you want to call it.

[1663] I played some of the new Call of Juarez.

[1664] The Cartel.

[1665] The Cartel.

[1666] And you came out with, I would say that Critical Reception has not been kind to that game overall.

[1667] Oh, I hadn't looked, actually, but I was wondering.

[1668] But the thing that surprised me the most from talking to you about it, I know there's a quick look up on the site, is the structure.

[1669] I assumed this was a straightforward, linear, first, single -player, first -person shooter campaign, Wild West but modern.

[1670] It is still linear.

[1671] Okay.

[1672] The structure within the mission is, yeah, it took me by surprise.

[1673] It is a three -player co -op first -person shooter where the AI plays the other two guys if you don't have anybody to play with you, but when you start each mission, you're in kind of an in -game lobby, which actually reminded me a lot of the Left 4 Dead safe houses.

[1674] It's like a friendly little area where you pick up a bunch of guns, and while you're in there, it literally encourages you to press the start button to start matchmaking.

[1675] And you can pull in some more people to play with you if you want.

[1676] So it's kind of one of those makes no distinction between online and offline.

[1677] Kind of, yeah.

[1678] You can play through this by yourself or you can have buddies jump in.

[1679] Exactly.

[1680] Or can randoms just get in there too?

[1681] It must be a setting.

[1682] If you open it up.

[1683] Yeah.

[1684] There are three different characters that have slightly different skills.

[1685] I don't know if each character has different.

[1686] I doubt they have different levels.

[1687] They may have some different trappings around the cut scenes and stuff.

[1688] But there's a couple other cool ideas in there.

[1689] Like, you're all cops from different agencies and stuff.

[1690] Okay.

[1691] And so this is where probably, I have to assume, this is where the character kind of divergence comes in.

[1692] Like, I was playing the LAPD kind of mulleted, sharpshooting, root -and -tooting guy.

[1693] Okay.

[1694] And you'll get, like, cell phone calls while you're going through from, like, people who want you to do things for them that might not quite be on the up -and -up.

[1695] So it's like, all right, this lady calls in.

[1696] Because her baby has Hep C. She needs money for the doctor pills.

[1697] Okay.

[1698] So she wants you to keep an eye out for anything that might help.

[1699] For any Hep C syringes?

[1700] She wants you to find the cure to Hep C. Or, yeah.

[1701] Titten in level two.

[1702] And while you're looking for that, wallet's full of money.

[1703] Got it.

[1704] So basically, you can go a little dirty cop.

[1705] Okay.

[1706] But the key is that you don't want your...

[1707] Teammates, see you.

[1708] So according to the internet, which I spent some time reading since that quick look went up, the AI guys can never catch you.

[1709] Really?

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] You can only get caught online.

[1712] Oh, weird.

[1713] What happens if you get caught?

[1714] There's a persistent ranking or level system, and you get a bunch of XP if you successfully pick it up secretly.

[1715] And you get very little.

[1716] That sounds kind of interesting.

[1717] Yeah, it's kind of a neat idea.

[1718] The idea of creating some like...

[1719] kind of competitive tension while it's still a cooperative.

[1720] Yeah, except that you're not, as far as I can tell, you're not competing for the same secret items.

[1721] No, but I mean just even of just like the, like there is something kind of antagonistic of your co -op partners.

[1722] A little bit, yeah.

[1723] And you don't know what each of their objectives really are because everyone gets individual phone calls.

[1724] Sure.

[1725] Unless you've done that sequence with that character.

[1726] Assuming they're the same and not random.

[1727] I don't know.

[1728] I have to wonder if you get any kind of experience or reward for catching other guys.

[1729] I would imagine.

[1730] Because one of those phone calls you got was like, keep an eye on this dude.

[1731] But I guess also the AI does not go out of their way to do that stuff.

[1732] So it's kind of online only, even though you still get the calls.

[1733] So that stuff's kind of cool.

[1734] Then you get to the part where you're moving around in the 3D space and shooting at guys, and that stuff doesn't play super well.

[1735] The part where it's games, not real.

[1736] And I also saw you driving a bunch, too.

[1737] Yeah, there's a shocking amount of driving, and as far as I can tell, you can't get the AI to drive for you.

[1738] So you have to do that part?

[1739] So any parts where, like, it would be cool if I was shooting at the guys that are chasing us, but instead I just have to drive this shitty truck.

[1740] Yeah, when I played online, I was able to get in the passenger side and, like, hang out the window shooting at guys, and that was pretty neat.

[1741] Yeah, it definitely feels geared toward the online experience.

[1742] And there's that guy in the freaky Obama mask.

[1743] Dude, what was that?

[1744] I think you're all wearing masks, weren't you?

[1745] Well, the girl, I didn't see my guy because I was playing him, but the girl...

[1746] He's apparently wearing a band -easy.

[1747] Oh, that's right.

[1748] I saw him in a cutscene.

[1749] Yeah.

[1750] The girl wears just sunglasses and a hoodie.

[1751] You know, anonymous.

[1752] Who is that girl?

[1753] I thought I was losing my grip on sanity the first time I saw that.

[1754] I am not fucking kidding.

[1755] The Obama mask thing?

[1756] Yeah.

[1757] Because I was driving.

[1758] I was in the car.

[1759] Right.

[1760] And I hit some barricade with all these guys shooting at me and the windows are getting shot out and it's super hectic.

[1761] And I, like, spin around to try to see what's going on behind me, and that's that fucking thing leering at me from the backseat.

[1762] And last time you had seen that guy, he was not wearing the mask, right?

[1763] Not in the cutscene, no. As you recall, there was not a mask putting on sequence.

[1764] I guess he must have been wearing it the whole mission, and I just never got close enough to pay attention to what he was wearing.

[1765] But...

[1766] Freaked you out.

[1767] Oh, man. It was weird.

[1768] It was unpleasant.

[1769] It's not a flattering Obama mask.

[1770] No. It's caricature.

[1771] It's like a rubber mask.

[1772] None of them ever worked.

[1773] None of the president's prob bank masks were ever any good.

[1774] Not accurate?

[1775] Yeah.

[1776] Just evocative.

[1777] Sure.

[1778] I get it.

[1779] Disco quiche.

[1780] You probably shouldn't play that game.

[1781] I don't know.

[1782] I've been playing enough of it to say with 100 % certainty, but I would not recommend.

[1783] But what you played did not make you say, I want to play more of this.

[1784] Not especially.

[1785] Got it.

[1786] No. Got it.

[1787] Yeah.

[1788] I think I...

[1789] Let's see here.

[1790] I finished Puzzle Agent 2.

[1791] You did?

[1792] I did.

[1793] Is it good to dance?

[1794] It's a little disappointing.

[1795] Oh.

[1796] The thing that you had said the last time that we talked about it of the...

[1797] It's a puzzle kind of easy and I'm kind of blown through them.

[1798] Yeah.

[1799] It persists.

[1800] Oh.

[1801] And also they kind of repeat a lot also.

[1802] Birds like split these sacks between the bird legs.

[1803] Well, it's one of those things where like they put a different like window dressing on it.

[1804] Like it's – in one case it's like – You know, rays from the sun that are going to come to the earth and you have to angle them around.

[1805] Or it's, you know, electricity is going to these things.

[1806] You need to provide this much power.

[1807] But you're solving the same puzzle.

[1808] It's the same style.

[1809] Like a lot of the puzzle, like basic puzzle ideas get re -skinned and reused throughout it.

[1810] And just not hard.

[1811] And I'm not saying this as like some sort of fucking puzzle wizard.

[1812] It was just...

[1813] Did you know the Puzzle Wizard?

[1814] Blowing through these challenges pretty quickly.

[1815] It's too bad because I love the story.

[1816] So the story is fine?

[1817] The story is crazy.

[1818] Great.

[1819] It's crazy.

[1820] I still have a session of Puzzle Legend 2 open on my iPad that has been open for about a week.

[1821] Just never stops.

[1822] All tabbed out, tasks switched out.

[1823] It's like, I don't even know if this is saved.

[1824] I'm just going to leave it open and make sure this thing is charged.

[1825] Yeah, it saves pretty regularly.

[1826] Man, what happened to their puzzle savant and his notebook full of team mirrors of puzzles?

[1827] Ryan really is the puzzle wizard.

[1828] Maybe that added to the disappointment, but the first game was tough.

[1829] The first game gave me some challenge with those puzzles.

[1830] I bonked a few.

[1831] I very rarely bailed out on a puzzle.

[1832] I very rarely got it wrong at all.

[1833] The only times that I remember being tough was like – OK.

[1834] So this is going to be kind of spoilery, all right?

[1835] But there is a number sequence puzzle.

[1836] Again, something that they use repeatedly throughout the game where it's like three sets of numbers and it's like what's the next number in this sequence?

[1837] And I'm like I can't – I'm like I don't see what the math is.

[1838] I don't understand like it's – there's no like subtraction plus one kind of – I'm not finding the pattern out of it.

[1839] So I use a couple of hints.

[1840] I use a couple of hints.

[1841] And what I figure out is they want me to – is that if you put all the numbers in a row, it's pi.

[1842] Oh, yeah.

[1843] And so they want me to come up with like six and seven digits deep of pi.

[1844] I had to alt -tab on my iPad and look up pi.

[1845] Oh, so I'm going to go somewhere else and find this information and plug that in.

[1846] Right.

[1847] Like that just – it seemed cheap.

[1848] It seemed like that's not – Well, you don't know pi to – I don't.

[1849] The fifth digit?

[1850] I don't.

[1851] Off the top of your dome?

[1852] Off the top of my head?

[1853] I want your puzzle lizard hat back.

[1854] oh, but I just glued all these stars to it.

[1855] I'm just staffing your badge.

[1856] You'll never get my orb.

[1857] You're a loose wand.

[1858] So, like, that puzzle specifically made me feel like, you know, you're asking me, this is information that is being given inside the game.

[1859] This isn't even information that could be logically deduced from the information that's presented.

[1860] This is just no something outside of the game.

[1861] Yeah.

[1862] And that struck me as, like, man, that's just, that sucks.

[1863] That's just shitty puzzle design.

[1864] outside of anything else they've ever done.

[1865] It feels like they're breaking their own rules.

[1866] Yeah, it kind of throws you.

[1867] If it were like, oh, yeah, it's that kind of game where you just have to have this general trivia knowledge.

[1868] That's also true.

[1869] Yeah, yeah.

[1870] It's like, I never would have thought I needed to just know this without solving something.

[1871] I hit that one, too.

[1872] That was hard.

[1873] That was not fair.

[1874] Yeah, and there's not a ton that are like that, but there are a couple where it's – And it's by the time you get to the last hint that's basically like, it's pie, motherfucker.

[1875] You'll be like, I'm not a mother.

[1876] You're pie.

[1877] What?

[1878] Why would you put pie in?

[1879] I want my gum back.

[1880] This is stupid.

[1881] I don't know why we – But that's OK because I had like 30 -odd pieces of gum by the time it was over because I was never having to use hints because it was so easy to use gum to – I'm up to where you meet the...

[1882] Those are like the coins.

[1883] Those are the hint coins.

[1884] Wow, this really is Professor Layton.

[1885] Yeah, and you find them around the environment, except they're not as hidden as the hint coins, so you just kind of touch them and then...

[1886] I'm up to where you meet the girl in the red sweater, the brunette.

[1887] That stuff gets great.

[1888] Okay.

[1889] That stuff, yeah.

[1890] You know what?

[1891] For my problems with it as a puzzle game...

[1892] Just skip all the puzzle part and just...

[1893] Like, the plot in that game goes so...

[1894] They really crank it up.

[1895] They really go a lot further.

[1896] The first game is that real deliberate fucking low -key kind of vibe of everything's very normal except for how it's not.

[1897] Fuck that.

[1898] They go balls out.

[1899] Still love the sheriff's voice.

[1900] Yeah.

[1901] He doesn't play as big a role, but there's a lot of other really great characters in it, and it goes and...

[1902] Some bizarre directions.

[1903] So if you're already playing it, see it through.

[1904] It's worth seeing the story complete.

[1905] But just completely disappointed by the puzzles themselves, which was too bad.

[1906] Over the weekend, I didn't play much because I went to a wedding on Saturday.

[1907] But I did find a little bit of time to squeeze in some Quake 3 Arena.

[1908] Oh, shit.

[1909] Which we will be playing on Thursday Night Throwdown this week.

[1910] I did play about five minutes of that.

[1911] I think that's about as much as I played as well because I had to spend a lot of time getting custom config files so that the resolution was appropriate.

[1912] I just dealt with the resolution, got onto a server, killed a bunch of dudes, went like, all right, I can still play this game.

[1913] I wanted to go and hop on the server that we will ostensibly be using for TNT and see how that went and got my ass just handed to me. Isn't it R underscore custom height, custom width?

[1914] And then vid underscore restart.

[1915] I think that's nice.

[1916] Oh, yeah, I guess you'd do it right out of the...

[1917] I think that's how you set the...

[1918] Remember that?

[1919] Right from the console.

[1920] Remember setting all your options in a video game by typing into the console?

[1921] But there's a...

[1922] There is a that's been there for a while.

[1923] That's gross.

[1924] What?

[1925] Somebody graffitied the dead spider up there.

[1926] Oh, you've never seen that?

[1927] Nope.

[1928] It's been there for like two months.

[1929] I never look up on it.

[1930] I've never seen that before.

[1931] Oh, yeah.

[1932] I'm always looking down.

[1933] Gross.

[1934] It happened a while ago.

[1935] Sorry, stay grounded.

[1936] It's right over your head.

[1937] You're the ones who smooshed that poor spider.

[1938] Yeah, well.

[1939] Yeah.

[1940] That's why there are all these flies around here.

[1941] There's a fucking comic book around it.

[1942] That's just morbid.

[1943] Yeah, Quake 3 Arena is fucking fast.

[1944] And the people that are still playing Quake 3 Arena are pretty good at Quake 3 Arena.

[1945] That's a disco, man. That's a disco motherfucker.

[1946] That sounds scary.

[1947] It is terrifying.

[1948] Topped up on coke.

[1949] Yep.

[1950] Straight up Disco Quake.

[1951] Disco Quake.

[1952] Disco Quake.

[1953] Sarge.

[1954] I had some trouble connecting to a server at one point, so I decided to play a little Team Fortress 2 on the giant bomb slash tested Team Fortress 2 server.

[1955] So I spent some time with that.

[1956] How'd that go?

[1957] I don't know.

[1958] It's good.

[1959] It's fun.

[1960] Shot guys.

[1961] Got shot a lot.

[1962] Okay.

[1963] I don't really know what to say about that experience other than I just decided to hop in there.

[1964] Did you spend money in there?

[1965] No, definitely not.

[1966] Did you buy anything?

[1967] No, but still, because I have bought enough stuff over the years on Steam, I booted up and it's still like, here's a few rent, here's a thing, here's another thing.

[1968] You put these things on your guy.

[1969] I'm like, I don't really know why I get these things, but all right.

[1970] You pre -ordered this thing two years ago.

[1971] I guess I did, huh?

[1972] I don't know.

[1973] You know, for Quake 3, we should think about maybe streaming out a spectator client and not the person playing.

[1974] Not you playing and dying over and over again.

[1975] Me getting railed in the face over and over.

[1976] I do want to see that from every perspective possible.

[1977] I want to play some of that, too.

[1978] I thrive on the delayed chaos of Quake 1.

[1979] Yeah.

[1980] Because...

[1981] Rockets have a travel time, you know?

[1982] Yeah.

[1983] Like, rockets have splash damage.

[1984] You can bounce guys around, but they might survive, and then they can shoot you while they're in the air.

[1985] Like, grenades have to bounce around before they blow up.

[1986] Quake 3 just has a binary kill hitscan weapon.

[1987] You know?

[1988] The railgun is point, shoot, you're dead.

[1989] Yeah.

[1990] That's it.

[1991] Yeah.

[1992] That is it.

[1993] Fucking somebody lines you up.

[1994] Can't dodge a railgun.

[1995] Unless you just got the mega health.

[1996] But I wasn't even dying from that.

[1997] I was just getting...

[1998] Oh, I know.

[1999] I know.

[2000] blasted in the goddamn face.

[2001] I'm just saying that I think watching Quake 3 is going to be a different experience than watching Quake 1 was.

[2002] Well, I believe, I have an uncertain authority that it's not too difficult for us to switch from Quake 3 to Rocket Arena on our current server setup.

[2003] I don't get the appeal of watching or playing Rocket Arena, for that matter.

[2004] It's rockets.

[2005] I know.

[2006] Too much mayhem for you?

[2007] It's the thing you just said.

[2008] It's the same thing over and over.

[2009] It's rails on rails, man. It's just a big open area.

[2010] Two guys with rail guns.

[2011] Two guys with every weapon.

[2012] Yeah.

[2013] Two discos.

[2014] There's just a lot more you can do in levels with varied layouts and power -ups and stuff.

[2015] I hit this button.

[2016] We'll see.

[2017] What?

[2018] I hit the fucking button.

[2019] Robert Battersby writes in to ask, how do you guys feel about Freddy Krueger being the final downloadable combatant for MK?

[2020] Or really, how do you feel about fun and game cameo appearances in general?

[2021] That's funny.

[2022] I think it's fun.

[2023] It kind of makes me wish that all of the DLC characters had just been novelty characters.

[2024] I don't know.

[2025] Like, did we really need Kenshi and Rain?

[2026] Like, really?

[2027] Like, Scarlet's kind of cool.

[2028] I think all three of them have been good choices.

[2029] They're fine.

[2030] Like, if you look at, like, the choices that they had to work with within the confines of the Mortal Kombat universe, those are the three best choices they could have made.

[2031] But did they have to make those choices?

[2032] Like, they could have just done this.

[2033] Or they could have invented new characters, or, yeah.

[2034] I don't know.

[2035] Like, the cameo character thing, it's, you know.

[2036] I didn't like it when they put fucking Yoda into Soul Calibur.

[2037] Yeah, I guess so.

[2038] It's just they scratched the Mortal Kombat character nostalgia itch so hard it bled in the core game.

[2039] Right.

[2040] There was nobody else that I really wanted to see.

[2041] I thought it was appropriately evocative.

[2042] It was good.

[2043] They nailed every character that you wanted.

[2044] But Kenshi is one of the few characters from the post -MK3 era that is well done.

[2045] And Reign, for whatever reason, I guess a lot of people must have played MK Trilogy.

[2046] but a lot of people really like Rain.

[2047] Yeah.

[2048] I don't understand the affection for Rain at all.

[2049] Yeah, I don't either.

[2050] Rain in an MK trilogy even is ridiculous, and maybe that's why it's kind of funny, but he's actually a really cool character in this game.

[2051] The stuff they've given him is really neat.

[2052] Kenshi is...

[2053] Pretty cool, too.

[2054] I don't doubt that they're executed well.

[2055] It's just that, you know, well -designed moves can be mapped onto any character.

[2056] Sure, sure.

[2057] Like Freddy Krueger?

[2058] Like Freddy Krueger, I guess, yeah.

[2059] I don't know.

[2060] It's a weird fit, but at the same time, maybe it's better that they use Freddy than some of the other guys that they have come up with in those last handful of Mortal Kombat games.

[2061] I think it's weird that he has bigger claws than they're on both hands.

[2062] What?

[2063] It's got two hand claws?

[2064] Yeah.

[2065] That's not pretty cool.

[2066] And they're huge.

[2067] Very, very prominent.

[2068] The press release actually acknowledges the two blade hands.

[2069] It's weird to fight better.

[2070] But that's the thing.

[2071] If this was in Soul Calibur, it would make perfect sense because that's a weapon -based fighter.

[2072] But it's the same thing as Kratos in the PS3 version.

[2073] He has all these weapons and he uses them in every single move.

[2074] Nobody else uses weapons constantly in that game.

[2075] Constantly.

[2076] Like, Striker will pull out a weapon once in a while, but he's still got plenty of just punches.

[2077] Yeah, like, Scorpion pulls out the sword as part of combos and stuff.

[2078] Lots of people will pull out a weapon, but, like, Kratos never puts his weapons away.

[2079] Right, so why does he need both glove hands?

[2080] Yeah, like, you could have plenty of punches with the offhand.

[2081] I mean, you could say, like, Baraka is a good...

[2082] I know, but it's just...

[2083] They did it because they didn't want to have to reanimate it when he turned the other direction.

[2084] Yep.

[2085] I mean, let's get down to it.

[2086] They shouldn't have to, though.

[2087] It's not something that's an issue when you're working with three characters.

[2088] But it's polygonal.

[2089] Can't you just flip them over?

[2090] I think it's like you do the one animation and it doesn't matter.

[2091] I think it's the same reason why they did back punch, front punch buttons instead of high punch, low punch.

[2092] Wait.

[2093] Oh, do the guys assume the same stance both ways?

[2094] Oh, I didn't think about that.

[2095] Yeah.

[2096] Hmm.

[2097] So I would assume that that's the reasoning behind the two glove hands.

[2098] And the awesome thing about him having two glove hands is he just looks like a tall version of Choi from King of Fighters.

[2099] Sure.

[2100] Which was just a midget Freddy Krueger.

[2101] Makes this whole thing super crazy.

[2102] I don't know.

[2103] I think if they weren't going to go out and find a Street Fighter character that they could put into the game and do that part right, this is a fine out of.

[2104] Yeah, exactly.

[2105] That's maybe the other option.

[2106] That would be great.

[2107] Is to put Cobra in.

[2108] So does he have nightmare fatalities?

[2109] Yeah, he throws dudes into an incinerator.

[2110] An incinerator pops up and he throws them in.

[2111] Or drags them into the ground.

[2112] I don't understand how that works on Scorpion.

[2113] Yeah, I know.

[2114] The dude lives in lava when he's out fighting.

[2115] Maybe he's secretly scared of fire.

[2116] Like Superman, the scorpion is allergic to magic.

[2117] Dream magic, specifically.

[2118] It could be, I don't know, it's nightmare hell.

[2119] He's a dream warrior.

[2120] Scorpion's a dream warrior.

[2121] Scorpion is the lead guitarist for talking.

[2122] He's burning in his mind while he's sleeping in the lava in regular hell.

[2123] Freddie Mercury.

[2124] Freddie Mercury is also a great character.

[2125] I would like to see Freddie Mercury in this game, actually.

[2126] Somebody make a grace of 60s and 70s rock fighting game.

[2127] He's a tall dude.

[2128] He could wreck shop.

[2129] Freddie Mercury?

[2130] He's short.

[2131] Maybe he just always looked tall to me. Brian May, I bet he's got some reach.

[2132] Yeah, Brian May is like a praying mantis, that dude.

[2133] I bet, yeah.

[2134] He's huge.

[2135] I bet he studies Shaolin or something.

[2136] He's got his mustache, which adds another six feet on his reach.

[2137] Do you know Brian May is also a physics PhD?

[2138] Yeah, Brian May is a genius.

[2139] Yeah, I've listened to his music.

[2140] But he's also, in addition to being a musical genius, an actual regular.

[2141] He's also a fantastic cook.

[2142] Is he?

[2143] A disco quiche.

[2144] Have you ever tasted it?

[2145] I think my problem with Freddy is looking at the gameplay stuff where he's got these stick claws in the ground and they come up.

[2146] Somewhere else.

[2147] A little cliche.

[2148] No, it looks like it's probably one of those things that's the same as, like, Jax's Ground Pound or, like, you know, Sub -Zero's Air Ice in MK3 where there's three different ways to do it depending on where you want it to go.

[2149] And I don't like playing as those characters at all.

[2150] Oh, where he's just, like, near far.

[2151] Yeah.

[2152] Also, he has a teleport.

[2153] So does everyone at this point.

[2154] Does he drop through the screen or does he have a teleport?

[2155] Rain has a kick that makes you teleport if it hits you.

[2156] Everybody should not have a teleport.

[2157] It's their answer to how to get away from stuff.

[2158] But I feel like every – It's the way of things.

[2159] I feel like every Nightmare on Elm Street has pretty much just been a clip reel of fatalities.

[2160] And so like – Yeah.

[2161] I wish like one of the fatalities would be just one of – like use the spirit of the Nightmare on Elm Street things instead of just like actually throw – like use some dream.

[2162] Turn somebody into a cockroach and step on them or – Make it appropriate for Freddy Krueger instead of – But it's not a matter of – I mean those are – Are you saying they should have gone and added dreamalities to the entire game?

[2163] Specific to each character.

[2164] The fatalities that he has and they show them in this first trailer are appropriate to Freddy Krueger.

[2165] What you want are fatalities that are appropriate to every character that he is going to go and kill.

[2166] I want to see their nightmares.

[2167] Because that's the only way that you can actually do that is that he would have to have – Custom.

[2168] And that's what they did for the Babalities is it's not a custom animation on the, you know, the attacker's part.

[2169] The victim has the different animation.

[2170] Yeah.

[2171] So that would have been cool.

[2172] But a lot of work for a character that is for the five bucks.

[2173] Yeah, for your fourth.

[2174] Or free if you bought the season pass on 360.

[2175] So it's not Warner Brothers with Freddy Krueger, right?

[2176] Isn't that like Miramax or somebody?

[2177] New Line.

[2178] I don't know.

[2179] I don't know.

[2180] And New Line had it and then.

[2181] Wait, don't they still?

[2182] New Line hasn't existed.

[2183] For a while, I don't think.

[2184] Have they?

[2185] New Line put out Lord of the Rings.

[2186] But as a label.

[2187] They're not a standalone organization, are they?

[2188] Someone sold something to someone because that's how we got Freddy vs. Jason because those were originally completely different studios.

[2189] I don't know.

[2190] Patrick said New Line had both of them.

[2191] Okay.

[2192] I don't know.

[2193] I don't know what the corporate lineage is like for that stuff.

[2194] They weren't going to make a Nightmare on Elm Street game anytime soon, so maybe they'll re -release that game on the virtual console.

[2195] Testing the water.

[2196] The LJN classic.

[2197] Yeah, classic.

[2198] It's a classic game.

[2199] Actually, I've never played the Nightmare on Elm Street.

[2200] I didn't either.

[2201] It's a classic.

[2202] It's going to be a connect game.

[2203] Is it as good as the Friday the 13th game?

[2204] Friday the 13th is what everybody played.

[2205] I didn't understand that game at all.

[2206] Fuck that game.

[2207] That game made no sense.

[2208] Fuck that game.

[2209] You ran from screen to screen, and occasionally Jason showed up.

[2210] No, you were trying to get to the cabins where the kids were to rescue the kids from Jason, but Jason was this big, mean motherfucker, so you had to know what the location was to find a weapon that you could actually fight Jason with, because when you started out, you just had fucking rocks, and there would be like...

[2211] crows that would come and fucking attack you.

[2212] And then you had just a bunch of different counselors that you could play as, but they would inevitably just get killed off.

[2213] The Commodore 64 game was kind of cool.

[2214] You know what that game was?

[2215] It was the first game that I ever played that had effectively scary tension.

[2216] Because it was just like the dread of like, oh, God, I'm going to die from stupid goddamn Jason.

[2217] Just like you.

[2218] It's over.

[2219] You're right.

[2220] Just constantly.

[2221] And also just because every single game of that that I ever played just ended in abject fucking failure and tragedy.

[2222] So like that was the expectation going into every time I would load that fucking piece of crap up.

[2223] Then it went back to the movie rental place.

[2224] No, I mean, I made the mistake of buying that one.

[2225] Oh, man. Yeah.

[2226] Tried to go to the.

[2227] KB Toys to get a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2.

[2228] They didn't have it in stock, and my grandparents were there buying, and this was my window for a new NES game.

[2229] That's a bad trade.

[2230] And I was like, ah.

[2231] You couldn't get, like, Star Tropics or something?

[2232] Ended up with a copy of Squoon or something.

[2233] This is like, well, like, you know, this is before I had a Nintendo Power to fall back on.

[2234] There was no, I had no information.

[2235] I just could look at the wall and.

[2236] You should have pulled out your phone and read some reviews of some other recent releases.

[2237] In the KB Toys.

[2238] But I don't know anyone that I could call that would help me. So what good is a phone going to do me?

[2239] Twitter.

[2240] Yeah, Twitter.

[2241] Birds don't know anything about video games either, I'm pretty certain.

[2242] Tweet louder.

[2243] Do KB Toys even still exist?

[2244] I don't think so.

[2245] Oh, they shut down a long time ago.

[2246] Okay.

[2247] That little scary mascot is gone forever.

[2248] Marching band man. He's freaky.

[2249] I've killed!

[2250] I've killed.

[2251] No one believes me. What?

[2252] I'll kill again.

[2253] Oh, I'm going to leave.

[2254] How are you guys doing?

[2255] All right.

[2256] I'm going to mess you up.

[2257] Oh, man, I was just about to ask if you want to take a break.

[2258] God damn it.

[2259] I was just loading up this web.

[2260] I just want to mess up Ryan as he's trying to go through his iPad to get fed. God damn it.

[2261] This next email comes in from Lauren in Four Oaks, North Carolina.

[2262] Hello, sirs.

[2263] I've heard it mentioned that Skyrim may be or should be delayed past its scheduled release date of 11 -11 -11.

[2264] I was just wondering how much time do they have left before the discs actually have to be pressed or just an estimate of how long it takes for a game to be pressed and shipped in general would do too.

[2265] Who did you hear that from?

[2266] Yeah, I didn't understand that part.

[2267] Are you friends with people working on the game?

[2268] Are you?

[2269] No. I don't know.

[2270] You and your puzzle wizard friends?

[2271] We had those Bethesda guys in here earlier.

[2272] Maybe they...

[2273] I could have asked, but I didn't think to...

[2274] Oh, yeah.

[2275] We didn't talk about Prey.

[2276] No. We saw Prey again.

[2277] It was the same E3 demo.

[2278] Yeah, I've seen that demo before.

[2279] I had never seen it before.

[2280] It looks really good.

[2281] That game looks awesome.

[2282] I will reiterate what everyone said during E3.

[2283] That game looks really good.

[2284] Yeah.

[2285] Read that first line again.

[2286] Forget the first line.

[2287] The phrasing sounds really weird.

[2288] I didn't quite understand what could be or should be.

[2289] I heard it mentioned that Skyrim may be and then parenthetical or should be.

[2290] Should be.

[2291] That implies it's not ready or something?

[2292] Like it's fallen behind.

[2293] What the hell does that mean?

[2294] Do you work at a GameStop?

[2295] This is just internet forum bullshit that someone's trying to squash.

[2296] The core of the question here is the manufacture time.

[2297] It obviously depends on how many copies they're trying to get out there.

[2298] Yeah, that is kind of one of the fundamentals.

[2299] And how big the game is viewed by...

[2300] You know, the platform holders and that sort of stuff.

[2301] Basically, the bigger deal your game is, the later you can go.

[2302] And it becomes more and more of a hassle.

[2303] But if you're shipping the biggest game of the year and you need a couple of extra days to make it happen, but you still want it to happen on your release date, they'll kind of find a way to make it work.

[2304] Because in all three cases, manufacturing has to go through the platform holder, right?

[2305] Correct.

[2306] They more or less control that stuff.

[2307] I guess so, yeah.

[2308] That's my impression, I think.

[2309] I think so.

[2310] I've got a tortilla press.

[2311] Yeah, I bet you do.

[2312] And who wants a copy of Skyrim?

[2313] Can you get us five million tortillas?

[2314] If you want a copy, you want a Skyrim tortilla?

[2315] By November 11th.

[2316] I heard that your tortillas may or should be delayed.

[2317] Where'd you hear that?

[2318] Where'd you...

[2319] The fuck did you hear?

[2320] I know some people.

[2321] Stay off the internet.

[2322] Some people in the mission.

[2323] My uncle works in the mission.

[2324] He was telling me about – He had slalom before it was out.

[2325] You can have star -shaped tortillas.

[2326] I had a tortilla – I had a problem with a tortilla leaking out of my press.

[2327] Like I made a tortilla and then found it on the street.

[2328] Bro, man. He just got uploaded to the internet.

[2329] The guy had your tortilla on a blanket.

[2330] Well, I mean, it was obviously like it wasn't the original tortilla, but you could see.

[2331] No, I knew it must have come from my press, though.

[2332] Yeah.

[2333] Because there's a very short chain from basically the bag of flour to my mouth, and it was really just the pressing where it could have gone out.

[2334] Yeah.

[2335] So, yeah, seeing that made me really bummed to see that up on the Internet.

[2336] You got to clamp down on your press, man. I know.

[2337] I saw a forum thread that I had to delete that had like a few words in it that I really wish I hadn't seen about your tortillas.

[2338] I still have time, though.

[2339] We're going to take a break, and we'll be back with some more news.

[2340] And we're back with dead Jeff Gerstman.

[2341] I don't wake him up.

[2342] John Thomas Mason wants to know, flavorize or otter pops?

[2343] What do we call them?

[2344] Flavorize or otter pops?

[2345] Flavorize.

[2346] Otter pops, man. I'm more from orange, bitch.

[2347] I never even...

[2348] I never even heard the term otter pop until I was an adult.

[2349] Otter pop.

[2350] It's Flav -O ice, I think.

[2351] Yeah, Flav -O.

[2352] Flav -O, right?

[2353] Ice.

[2354] Yeah.

[2355] That sounds like some East of the Rockies type bullshit to me. Why don't you go slide with some Hellman's mayonnaise on it while you're at it?

[2356] Have a Hydrox.

[2357] What's a Hydrox?

[2358] Hydrox is an Oreo.

[2359] Those are like bootleg Oreos.

[2360] Yeah, those are cheap Oreos.

[2361] They were never the real Oreos.

[2362] Hellman's really like an object of derision?

[2363] Yeah, what's the Hellman's part?

[2364] Best Foods, bitch!

[2365] Oh, really?

[2366] Yeah, West of the Rockies, it's Best Foods.

[2367] Best Foods isn't a knockoff?

[2368] That's the same brand.

[2369] That's the real, that's what they fake and call Hellman's over there.

[2370] Yeah, Best Foods is the genuine article.

[2371] That's right.

[2372] Our fucking grocery stores are older than yours.

[2373] Yeah, your grocery store is also called Piggly Wiggly.

[2374] What?

[2375] We didn't have Piggly Wiggly.

[2376] We had A &P.

[2377] We had the motherfucking Food Lion.

[2378] Thank you.

[2379] That sounds like a terrible place to go food shopping.

[2380] I don't want to fight a fucking lion for it.

[2381] I think that guy's a lion.

[2382] Food Lion.

[2383] Food Lion was kind of a pain in the ass because all the scrolling was the wrong way all of a sudden.

[2384] It's like shopping carts were hard to use.

[2385] You have to pull on the shopping cart to go forward.

[2386] It just didn't make any sense.

[2387] King of the Grocery Jungle.

[2388] We had Winn -Dixie.

[2389] Sure, okay.

[2390] I'll give you one dig.

[2391] Wegmans?

[2392] Did you have Wegmans in there?

[2393] Bilo?

[2394] I don't know.

[2395] B -I -L -O.

[2396] No. They have Ingles out here?

[2397] That sounds like a reputable establishment.

[2398] Ingles.

[2399] Bilo's a little over it.

[2400] Yeah.

[2401] Yeah, not going to lie.

[2402] Safeway, you're Luckys, you're Albertsons.

[2403] We have Safeway.

[2404] We have Safeway.

[2405] That's because it's a West Coast thing.

[2406] Still don't have Safeway.

[2407] Topps is an electronics store out here, right?

[2408] What?

[2409] Topps?

[2410] I don't know what Topps makes.

[2411] They make baseball cards.

[2412] Yeah.

[2413] Upper Deck, do you go there for Garbage Pail Kids also?

[2414] Yeah, that's a terrible food establishment.

[2415] Yeah, don't go there.

[2416] Also, if you have Netflix streaming, resist the urge to watch the Garbage Pail Kids movie on Netflix streaming.

[2417] Don't ruin my great childhood memories.

[2418] Where it is available.

[2419] They're freaky, man. Those whatever dolls they're using.

[2420] I never saw that movie because it looked creepy and bad and dumb.

[2421] Man. Like, how creepy and bad and dumb it is, though.

[2422] Holy shit.

[2423] Yeah.

[2424] That's some nightmare stuff.

[2425] I implore you, don't seek it out.

[2426] You don't need to.

[2427] I'll do what I can.

[2428] Stay away.

[2429] Make no guarantees.

[2430] Stay away from that.

[2431] Let's talk about some news.

[2432] Let's talk about some stuff that's been going on in the world around us.

[2433] of video games, such as Mega Man Legends 3, which was supposed to be a fan -driven project for the 3DS, getting shit -canned by Capcom.

[2434] Shit -canned is maybe a little harsh.

[2435] They canceled it.

[2436] Okay.

[2437] Because, well...

[2438] They canceled it because you didn't want it enough.

[2439] Well, so it's a...

[2440] That's the problem, I think, with this story, is that they canceled it, and the official Capcom announcement was basically like, we said we want to do this thing for the fans, and upper management looked at this, and it felt it did not meet the criteria for a game to continue development, so we canceled the project.

[2441] The problem came from the one line from the Capcom Europe Twitter account, which is controlled by the Capcom Europe community team, basically implying that...

[2442] Which have probably all been fired by now.

[2443] The implication from what they said was just that, oh, you guys, fans didn't care enough.

[2444] If fans had poured more into this, it would be better or this would still exist.

[2445] Yeah, because that's how development of Capcom works, right?

[2446] And yeah, so it kind of just leaves everyone feeling like...

[2447] Kind of pissed about how this project panned out.

[2448] Yeah, and people have started petitions and all that sort of stuff, and I think they're really misguided.

[2449] I mean, start a petition saying, God damn it, make a good new Mega Man game.

[2450] Not to resurrect Mega Man Legends 3, because there's no guarantee that that game was any good.

[2451] And also, you know, probably Inafune was probably on that thing, and he's not at the company anymore.

[2452] The champion has left.

[2453] Kind of not surprised.

[2454] From Mega Man. They're kind of scorching all the earth that he walked on, right?

[2455] I don't know.

[2456] It's the second Mega Man project canceled in the last year.

[2457] I guess so, isn't it?

[2458] But he left.

[2459] Mega Man Legends 3 prototype edition.

[2460] Yeah, yeah, he did leave.

[2461] But he left not long after it got announced.

[2462] So he probably had, obviously, something to do with its initial creation.

[2463] But as far as its continued existence, I don't know.

[2464] Mega Man Legends 3 Prototype Edition was like the first announced piece of 3DSware.

[2465] And they were going to charge for an auspicious start to the service.

[2466] And that was like a beta?

[2467] Yeah, something like that.

[2468] And now it's canceled.

[2469] Yeah, so focus your energy properly.

[2470] Request a new, demand a new Mega Man game.

[2471] Don't try and get them to resurrect a game that they probably had pretty good reasons to kill.

[2472] If that game wasn't coming together, they probably did the right thing to kill it.

[2473] We'll never know.

[2474] It could have been the best game ever made.

[2475] It probably was the best game ever made.

[2476] They just decided you didn't want it enough.

[2477] I heard it might be or should be the best game ever made.

[2478] The hard thing to parse out is what Capcom games do get through.

[2479] Why is this allowed to be put out?

[2480] I feel like there's hard swings.

[2481] Well, when they're doing stuff like putting out Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 nine months after the original game for $40 with no DLC option, it's hard to know what to expect out of Capcom other than some kind of unsavory business.

[2482] I feel, you know, not the biggest MVC3 fan in the world, but...

[2483] I feel like that they are doing it the absolute wrong, worst possible way.

[2484] Especially after they finally just figured out how to add on to their fighting game.

[2485] With Arcade Edition.

[2486] With Super Street Fighter IV.

[2487] Yeah.

[2488] We thought they finally saw it belatedly, but at least they solved the problem.

[2489] Right.

[2490] Arcade Edition was the right way to do that, and then here we are.

[2491] Same thing.

[2492] Maybe the sales numbers for that were like...

[2493] But they offered it both ways.

[2494] So it was something that the people that...

[2495] So you're going to get it either way?

[2496] So you're going to get that money either way?

[2497] Yeah.

[2498] If people are going to buy it digitally?

[2499] Yeah, basically.

[2500] The DLC route was not as expensive as the disc route, but there were no manufacturing costs associated with it.

[2501] So I don't really know how the economics works out on that.

[2502] I suspect it's more of a...

[2503] Japan thing.

[2504] I'd really be interested to see what the download numbers for Arcade Edition were in Japan on 360 and PS3.

[2505] Like how many people downloaded that compared to how many people just went out and bought it.

[2506] I think it's kind of messed up.

[2507] I haven't played much.

[2508] I think it's messed up, but yeah, I would suspect it is just straight up.

[2509] Was there any DLC for that game?

[2510] Yeah, there were two characters they did right out of the gate.

[2511] If you bought the limited edition, you got a code for those two characters.

[2512] They weren't available at launch.

[2513] Those went up for sale.

[2514] There were also a lot of pre -order costume packs, I think, for various retailers.

[2515] And they're doing that again.

[2516] It feels like just falling directly back into old bad Capcom habits.

[2517] It feels like just...

[2518] I mean, whatever.

[2519] It's a shitty thing to do.

[2520] We live in the future now.

[2521] We don't have to go through this process, and it sucks that people are being made to do this.

[2522] Or they're not being made to do it.

[2523] You know what?

[2524] Just don't.

[2525] Just don't.

[2526] Do something else with your time.

[2527] Yeah.

[2528] We're starting an online petition.

[2529] There are game publishers out there that – I saw a lot of comments on this one from people going like, man, I'm glad I waited.

[2530] I'm glad I didn't buy the first one because now I can just get the – this real version of the game for $40 because Capcom has gotten that predictable.

[2531] If people are jumping to that conclusion about your company, you're probably in kind of a weird spot.

[2532] Capcom's in a weird spot, I think.

[2533] Yeah, yeah.

[2534] And within, let's call it, 20 minutes of the official reveal of Ultimate Capcom or Ultimate Capcom versus...

[2535] Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3.

[2536] Which just looks like the most cobbled together.

[2537] It just took how Ultimate is written in the Marvel sense.

[2538] Yeah.

[2539] drop that over the MVC3 video.

[2540] Oh, like they use even just that text treatment?

[2541] All of the characters were revealed in 20 minutes of that official announcement.

[2542] Yeah, the announcement came with four of the 12 new characters.

[2543] It's like, stay tuned for the reveals of the wrestling.

[2544] Stay tuned for someone to right -click and hit view source on this webpage.

[2545] Ouch.

[2546] So you got Strider.

[2547] You got Firebrand.

[2548] I don't know what a Firebrand is.

[2549] Firebrand is one of the demons from Ghosts and Goblins.

[2550] Okay, yes.

[2551] Virgil, which is the Devil May Cry guy.

[2552] Frank West, Phoenix Wright, and Nemesis.

[2553] Pretty good.

[2554] As far as repping Capcom there.

[2555] Also like all the characters that people wanted in the original that didn't get put in.

[2556] In Marvel you get Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, Nova, Rocket Raccoon, Hawkeye, and Iron Fist.

[2557] Rocket Raccoon is a fucking bizarre.

[2558] Jeff and I were looking this up because I had never even heard of Rocket Raccoon.

[2559] You want to go down a real weird raccoon hole, take a trip over to Comic Vine and read the Rocket Raccoon page.

[2560] Oh man, are there enough raccoon holes in your life?

[2561] Oh, man. It's weird.

[2562] It's a weird character.

[2563] That is a long page.

[2564] It's also a very long page.

[2565] How old is he?

[2566] Late 60s, early 70s, somewhere around there.

[2567] No Gambit, which is everyone's reaction to that roster leak.

[2568] Why is Gambit not in it?

[2569] He was in the other games.

[2570] But also no Mega Man. Right, yeah.

[2571] Still squashing the Mega Man. Crushed no Mega Man in anything.

[2572] Finally, we've got some people in at Capcom running the show that just realized that so much of Mega Man's history is paved with total shit.

[2573] You can't keep a good Mega Man down.

[2574] There are some awesome Mega Man games.

[2575] There are.

[2576] Stop in there.

[2577] Like Mega Man 9 and 10?

[2578] No. Maybe they should just make Mega Man 11.

[2579] Is that what you want?

[2580] You just want Mega Man 11.

[2581] No. No. No, Mega Man 10 was not the right response to Mega Man 9.

[2582] Like Battle Network, the first one of those.

[2583] I like that conceptually.

[2584] The first couple of Battle Network games I'm all right with.

[2585] Conceptually, those games are really cool.

[2586] But again, they just ran it.

[2587] Like kind of for kids.

[2588] It's kind of they did too many of them in too short a period of time.

[2589] They tried to Pokemon them out.

[2590] Yeah.

[2591] Well, they tried to Pokemon them out every year.

[2592] So it was like two versions every year.

[2593] Yeah.

[2594] Pokemon doesn't even do that.

[2595] Yeah.

[2596] But core idea, pretty cool.

[2597] Yeah.

[2598] Let's see here.

[2599] Enuma is talking about making soccer for the SNES is awesome.

[2600] Making Majora's Mask.

[2601] I mean that.

[2602] I'm not.

[2603] For the 3DS.

[2604] Wow.

[2605] Sweet.

[2606] He's, I guess, just sort of probably saying, like, maybe I would do that.

[2607] That might not be the worst idea if people were interested in that.

[2608] Maybe they could release that as a download.

[2609] I could be a guy that might do that.

[2610] You have to imagine there's a certain amount of assets that are shared between Ocarina and Majora's Mask.

[2611] Was that work already done?

[2612] Was that work already done?

[2613] Oh, you're suggesting a download that would bolt on to the cart?

[2614] No, I'm suggesting that it's not a good enough game to warrant being put on a cart, so put it out as part of 3DS.

[2615] Regardless, though, I'm saying...

[2616] No, I'm not saying make it...

[2617] I'm saying use those assets again, not pull them off the cart.

[2618] Yeah.

[2619] I wonder...

[2620] I don't know.

[2621] I wonder how big that is.

[2622] I don't know.

[2623] Because those 3DS carts are pretty big, right?

[2624] They can hold a lot.

[2625] They're like on the order of gigabytes.

[2626] Yes.

[2627] They're hundreds of gigabits.

[2628] I wonder.

[2629] Yeah, I don't know.

[2630] You're going to need a lot of floppies.

[2631] A lot of SD cards.

[2632] I mean, you know, the storage in that thing is not unlimited.

[2633] Right, that's true.

[2634] Not even close.

[2635] Like, I wonder if that's actually feasible.

[2636] But your downloads go to SD cards.

[2637] Right, right, right.

[2638] I mean, how big is the SD card that comes with it?

[2639] It's like two.

[2640] Two gig?

[2641] Yeah, I guess that could work out.

[2642] I just can't see them putting a game of that magazine out.

[2643] That is all just Jeff's crazy talk.

[2644] There's nothing about this being a down little game.

[2645] It's a great idea.

[2646] I would like it to happen.

[2647] But the underlying idea of release real games.

[2648] Some of this work has already been done just because of the closeness of the tech behind Ocarina and Majora's Mask.

[2649] And I've never played it, but I know some people are fucking bananas from Majora's Mask.

[2650] I'll give it another shot.

[2651] So yeah, maybe.

[2652] But what's, at least right now, definitely happening is Twisted Metal is getting its M rating on.

[2653] After David Jaffe had said publicly, you know, we did black and that was M. And it was really well received critically.

[2654] But it was our worst selling Twisted Metal game.

[2655] So I really want to get back to a broader audience, get a T -rated game.

[2656] And apparently there is a live action story intro sequence that is so savage.

[2657] But the ESRB said, we have to give you an M rating.

[2658] And instead of saying, all right, well, we'll do things to the cutscene.

[2659] They said, all right, fine.

[2660] We have an M rating.

[2661] We're going to lean into that and add more crazy shit to the rest of the game.

[2662] So it sounds like don't expect the tone of Twisted Metal Black, which was all rolling stones.

[2663] Seven, you know, like seven serial killer nonsense.

[2664] Super dark.

[2665] It's like this will be violent, but not.

[2666] Comically violent.

[2667] But perhaps comically violent.

[2668] Over the top.

[2669] Is that coming out on disc?

[2670] Yeah.

[2671] So that's full on disc release?

[2672] Yeah.

[2673] Okay.

[2674] It's supposed to come out pretty soon, right?

[2675] Hmm.

[2676] It's a fall release.

[2677] It's a fall release, right?

[2678] So I guess we're close enough to fall that you can say that.

[2679] which is a really scary thing for me to consider here.

[2680] It's almost August.

[2681] Yeah.

[2682] Guess what happens in August?

[2683] What?

[2684] Madden comes out.

[2685] Oh, man. Guess what that means?

[2686] What?

[2687] He sees his shadow, and then games are a month away.

[2688] John Madden sees his shadow.

[2689] And then games.

[2690] Did he see his shadow?

[2691] He says, touchdown!

[2692] Oh, no. Put out all the games!

[2693] Oh, no. Madden comes out, and we go to PAX, and then we come back, and then we review games for three months.

[2694] Hell yeah!

[2695] Is that, like, a legit hell yeah?

[2696] Yeah, totally.

[2697] Or, like, is that an ironic, like, I...

[2698] No, I'm all for it, man. Fucking bored as hell.

[2699] Bunch of bullshit coming out right now.

[2700] It's just, like...

[2701] As opposed to in the fall when there would be a bunch of bullshit coming out.

[2702] But it would all be coming out so back -to -back and so fast, you won't have time to stop and consider it.

[2703] Now it's just like every single moment I spend playing a game that I don't want to play is met with, like, I could be doing nothing, and that would be way better.

[2704] Australia.

[2705] M -Ratings.

[2706] Is getting their M -Rating.

[2707] Are you going to get some Twisted Metal?

[2708] Maybe, maybe, maybe, because they have finally approved the creation of an R18 plus rating.

[2709] I've gotten sick of everybody importing their games.

[2710] Yeah, apparently they got sick of banning everything that has fucking blood in it.

[2711] Rejoice, now you can finally get that Australian copy of Mark Echo's Getting Up Contents Under Pressure.

[2712] There is a weird, long, and storied history of games being banned in Australia.

[2713] I feel like even more so than Germany, which also has very specific and weird...

[2714] Well, it's like German stuff was primarily about swastikas, but then...

[2715] Blood.

[2716] It was like, what, like Turok?

[2717] Didn't they have to go make everyone robots in Turok or something weird like that?

[2718] I think they have to always make people robots.

[2719] Yeah.

[2720] Isn't green blood has to fucking fall out of people or something?

[2721] I don't know.

[2722] I don't really know what the – I want to think that they have snapped out.

[2723] I feel like we would be hearing about that if that was still happening because it would be like Black Ops came out.

[2724] Well, so according to our article, Left 4 Dead being one of the – Left 4 Dead 2 being one of the examples of a game that had been modified for Germany and was able to be put out in Australia because of that previous modification.

[2725] So, yeah, this has presented a big thing.

[2726] I know – Australian game players out there have had to suffer with games just straight up not coming out or coming out in New Zealand and then having to be weirdly imported or something.

[2727] Whatever the situation is there, it sounds like this may bring an end to all that nonsense.

[2728] Great.

[2729] Good on Australia to join the goddamn modern world and create a rating system for content so that people can...

[2730] Just the notion that was like, oh, we don't have a rating for this, so it can't come out here at all.

[2731] Banned.

[2732] What?

[2733] Yeah.

[2734] Our rating system only allows for content that is acceptable up to a certain age group, and then there is nothing above that that is allowable.

[2735] Now their youth can be corrupted like everybody else.

[2736] Fuck yeah.

[2737] It might as well be naked people having sex while they're on fire.

[2738] That's what every video game might as well be.

[2739] And now that'll finally come out.

[2740] To compensate my nude, fire -boning sim that I've been working on for Kinect, it can be released there.

[2741] Controllers just got in the way.

[2742] I couldn't be more thrilled.

[2743] Also coming out for Kinect is Gunstringer.

[2744] Is that this week?

[2745] No. Oh.

[2746] Some point.

[2747] You know what else is coming out for Kinect?

[2748] I was segwaying into the next story, which is that.

[2749] That's coming out for Kinect.

[2750] Gunstringer.

[2751] Let's not count our chickens here, Jeff.

[2752] $40 for Gunstringer.

[2753] And then you'll also get a thing for Fruit Ninja Kinect.

[2754] What's the thing?

[2755] Fruit Ninja HD.

[2756] The game.

[2757] Oh, okay.

[2758] You get the game.

[2759] Some fruit.

[2760] Some bag of strawberries.

[2761] Did they say specifically that it's a code or will it just be on the disc?

[2762] Oh, you know what?

[2763] I don't know.

[2764] That's a good question.

[2765] Yeah.

[2766] I don't have that answer.

[2767] I would bet that because Fruit Ninja Connect's out in a couple of weeks that they would just put it on the disc.

[2768] Yeah, that was my guess.

[2769] Yeah.

[2770] Also prevents you from giving the code to someone else that would otherwise potentially buy Fruit Ninja Connect.

[2771] Also, then you can't get Crimson Alliance for free.

[2772] Right.

[2773] Because you missed out on your summer.

[2774] You won't have bought all of the...

[2775] You have to buy all five Summer of Arcades to get...

[2776] So that's a purchase thing that is not on your system thing.

[2777] That is not tracking download stuff.

[2778] It's a purchase.

[2779] Yes, that Bastion code you got totally boned you for that.

[2780] Now I'm going to buy it again.

[2781] Can I?

[2782] Now it'll say I own this already.

[2783] You already own that piece of content.

[2784] But since you got Bastion, you can spend that money on Crimson Alliance.

[2785] It'll be basically the same thing.

[2786] It's not making sense.

[2787] Yeah, it's early September, $40, which is less than most or less than standard.

[2788] Less than regular Kinect games.

[2789] Standard price for Kinect games, which is usually $50.

[2790] That starts to sound okay.

[2791] That was one of the things that, you know, like, oh, we're turning this Xbox Live Arcade game into a full disc release.

[2792] You're like, ah, I guess, I don't know.

[2793] Yeah, if the game.

[2794] But yeah, if they're knocking another $10 off of it, including Fruit Ninja Connect, it's like, eh.

[2795] It's starting to get up there.

[2796] But what's the most it was going to be on Xbox Live?

[2797] It's going to be $20 tops?

[2798] And everything's $15.

[2799] It would have been $15.

[2800] So it's like...

[2801] So you're getting $15 plus Fruit Ninja Connect, I think, is $10, isn't it?

[2802] Yes.

[2803] Although, wasn't there some story from some Microsoft guys?

[2804] It's getting better.

[2805] Last week about XBLA sizes and prices can and will go up?

[2806] Yeah.

[2807] Certainly.

[2808] Now that 15 is the new 10, it's only a matter of time for 20 is the new 15.

[2809] The XBLA game cannot be far off.

[2810] Or can it?

[2811] I don't think it can.

[2812] Probably not.

[2813] Let's talk about this Star Wars Xbox.

[2814] Man. I don't like Star Wars.

[2815] I think that Xbox looks awesome.

[2816] I've been struggling.

[2817] They've got a great video on the dashboard of Larry breaking it down and showing it to you.

[2818] Does he play the sounds?

[2819] Because I know a lot of those custom ones have...

[2820] It sounds like R2 -D2 when you open the disc tray.

[2821] Of course.

[2822] Yeah.

[2823] You know what I don't need right now?

[2824] Is another Xbox and another Kinect.

[2825] But it's white.

[2826] It's a white Kinect.

[2827] And you know what else I kind of don't give a shit about anymore?

[2828] And it happened for about a decade.

[2829] It's fucking Star Wars.

[2830] And yet you show me this R2 -D2 -looking fucking Xbox.

[2831] Maybe it's the gold controller that looks like C3PO with the fake wire texture on the bottom.

[2832] And then also the white goddamn Kinect.

[2833] White Kinect.

[2834] And I look and I go, $450.

[2835] And a bigger hard drive.

[2836] 320 -gig hard drive.

[2837] 320 -gig hard drive.

[2838] That's fucking insane.

[2839] No, it's...

[2840] You guys are crazy.

[2841] I'm not going to get it.

[2842] Crazy.

[2843] Crazy.

[2844] Also that game...

[2845] Give me your cat and give me $350.

[2846] It'll come back white.

[2847] I've got...

[2848] There's white out in this office.

[2849] I'll paint you R2 -D2 on your 360 for $450.

[2850] Well, no, but I already have.

[2851] I already bought the...

[2852] I mean...

[2853] And it won't make the sound.

[2854] Yeah.

[2855] I'll make the sound.

[2856] You're going to come over to his house and make that sound every time he opens that tray.

[2857] What do you want to say?

[2858] I'll do anything.

[2859] I'll give you a hundred.

[2860] Who needs this money, man?

[2861] I need more tortilla money.

[2862] Tell me what you wanted to say.

[2863] I'll give you a hundred bucks and let you paint my Xbox like R2 -D2.

[2864] It'll be even better.

[2865] You'll have an exclusive.

[2866] One of one, man. I'll buy you a Google controller.

[2867] But if I'm going to spend $450, I'm just going to buy the actual one.

[2868] You have to provide me with value.

[2869] $460 to get one I made.

[2870] I don't want that one.

[2871] What?

[2872] Why not?

[2873] Wait, hold on.

[2874] You're going to make an Xbox?

[2875] Yes.

[2876] For all you know, I'm going to make an Xbox.

[2877] I want to see the process documented of the handmade Xbox from Vinny Caravella.

[2878] It's going to be like my tortilla press wood.

[2879] Actually, it's just my tortilla press.

[2880] Painted like R2D.

[2881] If you were to just build a new case for the 360 that looked like it had that 2600 wood grain look to it.

[2882] How much would you pay for that?

[2883] $70.

[2884] $7.

[2885] I don't know.

[2886] Also, the goddamn thing comes bundled with Star Wars Kinect, which I don't...

[2887] That looks terrible.

[2888] I don't want to play that game.

[2889] Lightsaber on.

[2890] Everything I've seen of that game looks like something that has nothing for me. And yet I'm looking at this going, man, that controller looks fucking awesome.

[2891] Awesome.

[2892] How big is that?

[2893] 250 is the hard drive.

[2894] 250 is the current one.

[2895] Right now.

[2896] So that's cool.

[2897] The bigger hard drive is cool.

[2898] So I imagine right around because Gears is going to have a bundle that will have the 320 also.

[2899] I imagine somewhere around that time frame they'll probably start selling them separately.

[2900] They're kind of hard to get in.

[2901] Do you have to unscrew anything?

[2902] No, you don't.

[2903] Oh, you just snap it off?

[2904] Yeah.

[2905] Okay.

[2906] The hard drive?

[2907] Yeah.

[2908] It pops right out.

[2909] Oh, really?

[2910] Okay.

[2911] I thought you had to get a plate off.

[2912] You do, but that's like it's a clip.

[2913] You just pull it open.

[2914] The hard drive is just a little cartridge.

[2915] Okay.

[2916] Tug it right out.

[2917] I'm surprised they're only going 320.

[2918] Just keep tugging.

[2919] So $200, 350 -gig hard drive.

[2920] I can't believe they're only increasing by 70 gig.

[2921] That's not much of an increase.

[2922] Yeah, they're just like finding a way to drag this out as long as they possibly can.

[2923] I don't even know who manufactures a 350 -gig hard drive.

[2924] That's the first time.

[2925] 320.

[2926] They're out there for sure.

[2927] They're probably out there in abundance because, you know.

[2928] Well, yeah, they're laptop drives.

[2929] That's not a full -size hard drive.

[2930] I think aren't there SSDs at 320 as well?

[2931] I mean, it's a pretty standard drive size, I believe.

[2932] I don't know.

[2933] I just got that 256 SSD.

[2934] I guess in an Xbox context, 70 gig is a lot.

[2935] You know, for me, I have not filled up my 250 gig yet.

[2936] I have about 40 gigs free on mine right now.

[2937] The closest I've gotten was 10 gig free.

[2938] I've got about 70 gigs free right now.

[2939] But I just need to delete old games.

[2940] Yeah, same.

[2941] I just have to prune it.

[2942] Yeah.

[2943] So that's coming.

[2944] Oh, that thing looks...

[2945] Awesome.

[2946] It doesn't even look good.

[2947] It looks great.

[2948] I don't know.

[2949] And I am a Star Wars fan.

[2950] Still?

[2951] Yeah, why not?

[2952] You can't ruin my fond memories of stuff.

[2953] Let me try.

[2954] Okay.

[2955] Buy that thing.

[2956] I was the biggest Star Wars fan, and I just can't do it anymore.

[2957] I'm not saying I love the new stuff that came out, but I still like the old stuff.

[2958] I'll still pop an old Star Wars movie.

[2959] It's hard to go back.

[2960] It's just hard to go back.

[2961] He's penetrated, he's time -traveled, and killed that part of you that liked the Star Wars.

[2962] Well, no, it's just hard to look at that old stuff and not think about the new stuff.

[2963] Yeah, they should really go back and do a pass and update the effects on that old stuff or something.

[2964] Again, that might help.

[2965] Yeah, just clean it up or something.

[2966] Come up with some ideas.

[2967] What if it was in 3D?

[2968] What if it was in 3D?

[2969] I actually liked when they went back and they added that new stuff into...

[2970] Except for the new endings they added.

[2971] Those were crappy.

[2972] Into the original ones.

[2973] It's so terrible.

[2974] The special edition stuff?

[2975] It's all terrible.

[2976] It's all terrible.

[2977] The Jabba the Hutt sequence in Star Wars is fucking so painful to watch now.

[2978] Because all of those updated fucking effects now look super dated in their own way.

[2979] But the space stuff with the other ships looks pretty good.

[2980] And the updated planet stuff looks good.

[2981] Yeah, those stuff look fun.

[2982] I forgot about the Jabba the Hutt thing.

[2983] Like where he can't quite make it over the tail.

[2984] Everything else is what makes it awful.

[2985] They actually fucked up the restoration for the DVDs.

[2986] I mean, this is getting real super obscure esoteric, like video file, digital bits kind of shit.

[2987] Digital bits, man. Yeah.

[2988] But I mean, if you look at like...

[2989] I only like analog bits.

[2990] If you look at like frame computers...

[2991] LaserDisc.

[2992] I do have those LaserDiscs.

[2993] Yeah, so you've got the best possible version of Star Wars, probably.

[2994] I mean, you can look at a bunch of side -by -side comparisons of where the color grading is all screwed up, because they did it in two weeks for the DVDs or whatever, and it's just like...

[2995] They're not on Blu -ray yet, right?

[2996] Lightsabers came out purple in some shots and stuff.

[2997] It's just September.

[2998] It's coming out soon, but it's just the bullshit version, so no thank you.

[2999] Oh, really?

[3000] Who cares?

[3001] Wait, what's the bullshit version?

[3002] The ones you like.

[3003] I'm saying I didn't mind it.

[3004] I saw it in the theater again.

[3005] Oh, but it's like this extended different song in Jabba's palace.

[3006] You know what?

[3007] You guys are reminding me about the parts.

[3008] Did you watch it on DVD?

[3009] Because you know they went and changed even more for the DVD.

[3010] There's yet more.

[3011] Young Hayden Christensen is in there as a ghost now.

[3012] They took out old Anakin Skywalker as a ghost.

[3013] All right.

[3014] You guys might have a point here.

[3015] It is indefensible.

[3016] Sure.

[3017] Empire was okay because they just cleaned up background shots and shit.

[3018] Like, they didn't...

[3019] They even fucked with some of that.

[3020] The stuff I only really liked about Star Wars, even when it was newly coming out, was, like, when they put out those records with the storybooks.

[3021] Yeah.

[3022] Yeah.

[3023] I thought those were all right.

[3024] Those were okay.

[3025] But, you know, the action figures were garbage.

[3026] Yeah, the action figures were pretty bad.

[3027] You know what's pretty cool?

[3028] TIE Fighter.

[3029] That's a great game.

[3030] I just listened to one of those records, like, a year or two ago.

[3031] Dark Forces is pretty cool.

[3032] Turn the page.

[3033] Super Star Wars, anybody?

[3034] Sure.

[3035] Yeah.

[3036] Yeah.

[3037] I never got into the Super games.

[3038] They were kind of crazy.

[3039] I only played the first one.

[3040] Yeah.

[3041] I think I rented Empire and it was super hard, so I just didn't bother.

[3042] That was the thing that I remember about them is they were crazy hard.

[3043] Really hard, yeah.

[3044] Fucked up, man. Yeah, totally.

[3045] But it was fun.

[3046] Good blaster sounds.

[3047] Sure.

[3048] Swing that.

[3049] It was a blaster sound.

[3050] It was just like, the Snaps can do this, so we're going to do it.

[3051] I know.

[3052] It was awesome because what console had done it before?

[3053] It's true.

[3054] That's why Dark Forces was awesome.

[3055] That Empire Strikes Back after the 2600 was awesome.

[3056] Yeah, it was.

[3057] Where the walkers just stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp.

[3058] Shoot him in the mouth.

[3059] Get away for the thing to open.

[3060] Shoot him in the mouth and the butt again.

[3061] I learned a lot.

[3062] They turn yellow at the end or whatever.

[3063] Formative experience.

[3064] All right.

[3065] That's it.

[3066] This podcast is over.

[3067] Thank you, guys.

[3068] That's right, this podcast could go on forever now.

[3069] James from London, do you think that the recent commercial failures of games like Shadows of the Damned and Bulletstorm are due to very generic titles?

[3070] I must admit myself that when I first heard these names, my initial thought was, oh great, yet another generic shooter.

[3071] And even after I had heard journalists such as you guys telling me otherwise, the damage had been done and my view of those games was still tarnished.

[3072] Do you think the...

[3073] Shadows of the Damned and Bulletstorm.

[3074] Stuff came out about Bulletstorm where basically they're saying, yeah, we sold X amount of copies, but not enough to cover the huge budget of this game.

[3075] And Epic's like, eh, we don't care.

[3076] Whatever.

[3077] Yeah, we're Epic.

[3078] We're okay.

[3079] Don't worry about us.

[3080] All right.

[3081] If someone looks at that and goes, I'm going to license Unreal Engine for my next project, our work here is done.

[3082] Then we did make our money.

[3083] Right.

[3084] Mark Rain, don't lose money.

[3085] God damn it.

[3086] That's right.

[3087] He doesn't know how.

[3088] It does not.

[3089] It's true.

[3090] Not in his vocabulary.

[3091] Stacking a grip.

[3092] That's what that dude knows how to do.

[3093] And Suda seems to be doing okay.

[3094] He just announced another game, Lollipop Chainsaw.

[3095] See, now he learned from Shadows of the Damned.

[3096] Wait.

[3097] What?

[3098] Lollipop Chainsaw.

[3099] Are you making that up?

[3100] No. What is that?

[3101] It's this.

[3102] This is the new game that he's making.

[3103] It's called Lollipop Chainsaw.

[3104] Fat upskirt right on the front.

[3105] Yeah, it kind of looks like Anshambara.

[3106] Wow.

[3107] Okay.

[3108] Well, I mean, the screenshot of just weird cheerleader girl with a chainsaw fighting zombies.

[3109] All right.

[3110] In that part, hard to tell.

[3111] I haven't seen anything in motion, so I can't say.

[3112] I don't know that anyone has, so I can't say what that...

[3113] Yeah, maybe the names didn't help.

[3114] But marketing can get around a bad name if you do enough of it.

[3115] Yeah, I mean, kind of the underlying problem, at least for Shadows of the Damned, is that there just wasn't marketing.

[3116] I can't recall.

[3117] I think there was some stuff for Bulletstorm.

[3118] I feel like we talked about this.

[3119] It was like, should there have been?

[3120] Right.

[3121] Like, realistically, how many more people?

[3122] Did that game find its audience, and it just so happens that its audience is small?

[3123] Yeah, remember the Bulletstorm marketing?

[3124] I kind of do.

[3125] It was like Cliff and Mike Capps and, like, what was the one?

[3126] Yeah, they did put out those videos online and stuff, but they never went mainstream.

[3127] They never went TV, right?

[3128] I don't think so.

[3129] That you ever saw?

[3130] Yeah, I did not like the videos they put out.

[3131] That behind -the -scenes stuff I thought was really hokey.

[3132] I remember thinking when they first announced...

[3133] I did not like when they sent me a fucking thing of meat.

[3134] With the USB key somewhere in the middle of it.

[3135] I did not like that at all.

[3136] I just remember when they first announced the game that I thought, how did we get to this point and not already have a game called Bulletstorm?

[3137] That sounds like such a video game name.

[3138] Did Midway not put that out in 83?

[3139] Bulletstorm?

[3140] No?

[3141] All right.

[3142] The Bulletstorm.

[3143] Oh, man. That's really not for news.

[3144] Let's see here.

[3145] Mark from Belleville, Michigan.

[3146] Having not seen an arcade in 15 years, I went to Cedar Point, the amusement park.

[3147] Looking forward to seeing the glorious arcade they once had that I remember from my youth.

[3148] To my chagrin, it was the exact same except a broken down wasteland of old, dim, barely lit arcade cabinets.

[3149] What caught my eye was the X -Men arcade cabinet, and it had dual monitors reflecting on a mirror.

[3150] Many cabinets were like that.

[3151] So my question is, why bother reflecting from a monitor onto a mirror?

[3152] Was it to save backspace?

[3153] That's a good question.

[3154] I've always wondered why you would have games that would do that.

[3155] Wouldn't they do it on the X -Men one to try and, like, blur the line between the multi -monitors?

[3156] Like, the angle of the mirrors were such that it started to look more like one image?

[3157] Because, I mean, I think back to, like, Space Invaders or Tron, where they were using, like, the...

[3158] The backdrops, like the point was that you wanted to try and have this used, like the painted backdrop to create a something.

[3159] Right.

[3160] But for X -Men, I couldn't think of why they would do that.

[3161] Blurring is interesting.

[3162] I'll buy that.

[3163] To try and cover up that line, that could be it.

[3164] Because those were CRTs.

[3165] You couldn't put those things that close together.

[3166] Right.

[3167] You couldn't make it actually seamless.

[3168] Or maybe the back of that cabinet would just fall all over.

[3169] What was that dumbass ninja game that was multi -modern?

[3170] Yeah, Ninja Warriors.

[3171] Ninja Warriors.

[3172] It was awesome.

[3173] Robot ninjas.

[3174] And you didn't find out there were robots until you got hit enough to where the ninja guard got ripped.

[3175] And you were like, fuck, I'm a robot.

[3176] This game just got way cooler.

[3177] Who was that?

[3178] Taito.

[3179] Taito?

[3180] They did Darius games.

[3181] They did a lot of ninja stuff.

[3182] Yeah, they did some of the Darius games.

[3183] The shooters were done on that configuration, that three monitor thing.

[3184] And that was crazy there also.

[3185] Because you can get busted down to Terminator style, right?

[3186] Eventually you're just walking.

[3187] Yeah, totally.

[3188] Shell.

[3189] Yeah, pretty much.

[3190] And then you died, you'd fall to your knees and go...

[3191] Die.

[3192] It was fucked up.

[3193] Were you, like, fighting just, like, tanks?

[3194] Just, like, straight up?

[3195] Like, here comes a tank.

[3196] Your ninja throws shuriken at this.

[3197] You're fighting, like, tons of army dudes.

[3198] They're just, like, guns.

[3199] Just...

[3200] Trying to blast you.

[3201] I remember the game feeling oddly stiff.

[3202] There was something about it that was...

[3203] It was really deliberate.

[3204] I mean, it was like, you know, if you held down the attack button, you would block, which was really awesome.

[3205] But then, you know, you had to make sure that you were blocking in the right direction and height and stuff.

[3206] Then one of those things where you hit things and they freeze or, like, punch it and they, like, ah.

[3207] Flash white.

[3208] Ah, yeah.

[3209] Or, ah.

[3210] Yeah.

[3211] Ah.

[3212] Wait, like what?

[3213] Like what?

[3214] This is the sounds you could be owning for your Xbox 360.

[3215] If you want Vinny to custom make your Xbox.

[3216] I feel like that's something they need to eventually do.

[3217] Like ringtone style?

[3218] Yeah, exactly.

[3219] Like ringtone style.

[3220] Like let you record your own.

[3221] Startup sound.

[3222] If they were to put up a store that let you buy your own disc and startup sounds and stuff, I bet that would do okay for them.

[3223] But recording your own, I think it would be way cooler.

[3224] Oh, it could be cool.

[3225] Jeff, how much would you pay to create a custom startup sound for your Xbox?

[3226] Or buy a new Xbox that was capable of doing it.

[3227] But I'm saying if they were selling the things.

[3228] If they were selling the ability to make your own?

[3229] Yeah.

[3230] No, no. Oh, just buy someone else's?

[3231] Yeah.

[3232] I don't know.

[3233] Like a dollar for the full set?

[3234] I bet they'd go to like four.

[3235] Yeah, that's too much.

[3236] What if they're really good, though?

[3237] There are single pieces of Avatar attire that are $4.

[3238] Yeah.

[3239] Think about it.

[3240] But other people see that.

[3241] Kind of.

[3242] It's like a status -y kind of thing.

[3243] Yeah, you're right.

[3244] No one ever really sees it.

[3245] Except you.

[3246] Except me. I know I bought that scumbag.

[3247] I bought that Bastion outfit.

[3248] Nobody's going to notice.

[3249] Aww.

[3250] I don't really care.

[3251] Aww.

[3252] You see it when you check your friends, right?

[3253] Who checks their friends that way?

[3254] You know what?

[3255] I went into that thing when they first rolled it out saying, man, this is fucking stupid.

[3256] I'm never going to use this thing.

[3257] That's like the only way that I look at it.

[3258] Really?

[3259] That's when you see if people are online?

[3260] I don't know why I do that.

[3261] I don't know.

[3262] It's awful.

[3263] Anyway, that's the news.

[3264] Let's talk about some news releases for this week.

[3265] From Dust for Xbox Live Arcade from Ubisoft.

[3266] 1 ,200 Microsoft points.

[3267] Catherine for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

[3268] More points than that.

[3269] More points than that.

[3270] Money.

[3271] It's like 60 bucks for the regular one.

[3272] I think it's like 80 for the other one.

[3273] That would be what?

[3274] 4 ,800 points.

[3275] All right.

[3276] Sure.

[3277] All right, Mr. Math.

[3278] God.

[3279] Math wizard.

[3280] Your conversion rate.

[3281] Tell me what it's like in Canadian.

[3282] So, yeah, it's summer, y 'all, so not a lot of stuff's coming out.

[3283] So enjoy the games that you have.

[3284] Keep playing Bastion.

[3285] Why don't you?

[3286] Buy Quake 3.

[3287] Yeah, or go buy Quake 3.

[3288] Yeah.

[3289] It's cheap.

[3290] Actually, it's not that cheap.

[3291] I didn't have a copy of it.

[3292] Would you buy the full id pack?

[3293] So it's $20 just for Quake 3 Arena on its own.

[3294] That's nonsense.

[3295] So then it was $30 for all Quake games ever.

[3296] Given the existence of Quake Live, that seems kind of crazy.

[3297] That's probably why they're doing it.

[3298] Because if you want that, you probably want it for a real specific reason, and you'll pay that.

[3299] So I said, alright, fine.

[3300] $30 for all Quake.

[3301] That is somehow more...

[3302] I can stomach that.

[3303] So that was Quake 1 through 3.

[3304] Yep, Quake 3, Team Arena.

[3305] We got Team Arena, which is called Team Arena.

[3306] Yep.

[3307] Did you get Scourge of Armagon?

[3308] That's not a Quake 3 add -on.

[3309] That's a Quake 1 add -on.

[3310] Come on.

[3311] It was all Quake.

[3312] I believe so.

[3313] There's a couple of add -ons that I just don't know what they...

[3314] There were two Quake 1 mission...

[3315] No, two Quake 2 mission packs.

[3316] There were two for Quake 1.

[3317] I can't remember the other one.

[3318] There was Scourge of Armagon and something else.

[3319] Starts with an R. Redemption of something.

[3320] Reconciliation of parts.

[3321] One of them was made by Rogue Entertainment, if I remember.

[3322] Rogue of storms.

[3323] And what was that Quake 2 add -on?

[3324] The Hessianing?

[3325] Right.

[3326] I don't know.

[3327] I don't know.

[3328] Is there a story to Quake?

[3329] Yeah.

[3330] Like an overarching Quake story?

[3331] No. Okay.

[3332] There are stories in the Quake games.

[3333] Quake 4 was tied to Quake 2, story -wise.

[3334] So those are connected, but Quake 1 and Quake 3 are not.

[3335] Where are you fighting?

[3336] Quake 2 was a direct response to Quake 1 being a complete fucking mess of weird shit.

[3337] Which kind of made it awesome.

[3338] That's what I like about Quake 1.

[3339] At the same time, the first episode of Quake is the best episode of Quake.

[3340] Yeah.

[3341] But, I don't know.

[3342] Level design -wise, those are the best levels.

[3343] Sure.

[3344] We're in the shareware.

[3345] I don't remember anything about single -player Quake beyond the fucking shareware levels.

[3346] I played every map in that game a zillion times, but that's valid.

[3347] That's fine.

[3348] Strong.

[3349] I actually like playing Deathmatch on the intro level.

[3350] Oh, like the Quake?

[3351] Yeah, it's great.

[3352] That's a great map for it.

[3353] Lots of tele -fragging.

[3354] They did make those comments a while back about hypothetically if a new Quake game were to be made, they would be into revisiting the Quake 1 weird Lovecraftian mashup kind of stuff.

[3355] Which I would not be opposed to.

[3356] Yeah, but if they can't get the speed down.

[3357] In fact, I want to say they even addressed that they realized that was part of it.

[3358] Or maybe I just read into it.

[3359] Get John Romero back in there.

[3360] Quake 4, man. Yeah, Quake 5.

[3361] No, the Quake.

[3362] Just Earthquake.

[3363] The formal.

[3364] Finally make good on that big fucking Norse hammer you were supposed to have.

[3365] Did you read about the stuff they said before Quake came out about what it was going to be?

[3366] No. It was a completely different game.

[3367] It was not that game at all.

[3368] It was a completely different game.

[3369] I just remember, like, playing it.

[3370] Is that why it was called Quake?

[3371] Because you'd have a hammer there at the ground?

[3372] Yeah, I think so, yeah.

[3373] It was like, yeah, you were some kind of, like, Norse god of thunder or something.

[3374] Like, the name was just a non -sequitur, as far as I could tell.

[3375] It was like, oh, okay, like, it was a weird, like, code name, and then it just ended up becoming the actual name.

[3376] Well, just like what Doom was supposed to be before that got solidified.

[3377] Like, they had this big elaborate story going into it.

[3378] Like, Tom Hall wrote, like, the Doom Bible or whatever, and it was, like, this big fiction.

[3379] You were supposed to uncover logs and stuff as you went, and there would be a story.

[3380] Instead, imps.

[3381] Yeah.

[3382] Yeah.

[3383] I don't know.

[3384] It turns out that imps work.

[3385] Yeah.

[3386] Oh, wow.

[3387] Imps.

[3388] This works right here.

[3389] Just stop what you're doing.

[3390] I don't know that imps continue to work in the same way.

[3391] Not anymore.

[3392] I grabbed the red key, and then the lights went out, and there were imps.

[3393] I hate it when the lights go out.

[3394] Did you look behind you?

[3395] There's probably an imp there.

[3396] Probably.

[3397] You can hear the noise it's making.

[3398] Arr, arr.

[3399] I'd buy that for a dollar.

[3400] I know, just walking up, you see the key, and you're like, God fucking damn it.

[3401] I know when I grab this key, it's just going to go completely, like a door's going to open somewhere.

[3402] Yeah, you'll hear the door opening noise, or you'll hear them grundling somewhere.

[3403] I never finished Doom 2 on the Xbox on Ultraviolence.

[3404] I need to go do that.

[3405] All right, let's talk about some more emails.

[3406] There's still, there's emails left.

[3407] We didn't do all of them.

[3408] Email buttons.

[3409] Email buttons.

[3410] What?

[3411] No, but.

[3412] Can I hit the button to interrupt the email?

[3413] The email button.

[3414] Let's see what happens, I guess.

[3415] Bombcast at giantbomb .com is the email address.

[3416] I never said emails.

[3417] We've been doing emails.

[3418] I'll show you.

[3419] Part of the purpose of this is to take the power of your email utterance away.

[3420] But you did just say email.

[3421] I want to push the button and talk about DSiWare.

[3422] It's retroactive.

[3423] Can we do that?

[3424] Does that work?

[3425] All right.

[3426] What's going on in DSiWare, Jeff?

[3427] It's awesome.

[3428] Great.

[3429] Thanks for checking in.

[3430] They put out 3D Classics Xevious on.

[3431] 3DS.

[3432] Mm -hmm.

[3433] There are clouds.

[3434] They added clouds on the sides.

[3435] Does that help it?

[3436] James in Vineland, New Jersey.

[3437] Is Bastion going to make its way to the PlayStation 3?

[3438] Oh, man. Don't know.

[3439] Don't know.

[3440] I know they're making the PC version.

[3441] Yeah, that's all I've committed to at this point.

[3442] We shall see.

[3443] That's it.

[3444] That's the whole thing.

[3445] Brian Grenz from Salem, Oregon writes in to say, I'm tired of gamers inventing this class of dude bro gamers who don't count as real gamers and who are apparently worthy of scorn.

[3446] I don't see how stereotyping any person is good for the hobby.

[3447] Noted.

[3448] Not really a question.

[3449] It is a pretty lazy and reductive way to look at things.

[3450] Indeed.

[3451] Especially for a group and a pastime that has itself...

[3452] Been the object of much derision.

[3453] The object of much derision for years and years and years and years.

[3454] Yes.

[3455] Who is doing that?

[3456] Who is casting that?

[3457] Just enthusiasts happening all over the place.

[3458] It's the...

[3459] Segmenting them?

[3460] This is weird, weird social stratification going on.

[3461] It's the, oh, you play Call of Duty, you're not really into games.

[3462] It's the...

[3463] I think that that's...

[3464] Valid to some extent, though, at the same time.

[3465] I think that there are people that just play Madden and these couple games that don't.

[3466] Yeah, it's fine.

[3467] It's not like.

[3468] It doesn't make them worthy of scorn because they don't like.

[3469] Totally.

[3470] Because they didn't think Flower was Game of the Year or something.

[3471] I personally thought it was the third best, probably my third favorite game of the year.

[3472] The point being.

[3473] How did we get there?

[3474] You were just talking about Flower?

[3475] No one uses your soapbox, man. You could use it as your soapbox.

[3476] What sort of soap are you selling?

[3477] How much are you willing to pay?

[3478] Do you have a soap press?

[3479] That's the next thing.

[3480] Do you have a soap ricer?

[3481] That's racist.

[3482] You'll know it when you realize it.

[3483] Oh, God, yeah.

[3484] Seriously, right?

[3485] This guy.

[3486] Yeah.

[3487] Man, gross.

[3488] There was that thing, wasn't there a news article?

[3489] I don't think it was news, but no girls allowed, right, at that event?

[3490] At what event?

[3491] It was some local.

[3492] The Texas Land Party had had issues in the past with women being around.

[3493] Guys going a little too crazy said, no women, that's our solution.

[3494] Yeah, their solution was to not allow girls anymore.

[3495] Well.

[3496] They're lost.

[3497] I don't even know what to...

[3498] It's an internet story.

[3499] Yeah.

[3500] Yeah.

[3501] Gross.

[3502] Yeah.

[3503] Ben from Tucson writes in to say, I like to put chunks of pineapple on top of my Triscuit crackers to get that salty and sweet thing going.

[3504] My girlfriend says I am crazy.

[3505] I say it is a tasty treat.

[3506] Who is right?

[3507] Vinny Caravella.

[3508] Pineapple on a Triscuit.

[3509] What do you think?

[3510] I just got to do the way I'm doing the mental arithmetic here of what that would taste like.

[3511] Yep.

[3512] 4 ,800 points.

[3513] Yep.

[3514] I'm going to go no. You're going to say gut reaction.

[3515] Gut reaction, no to pineapple chunk on a Triscuit.

[3516] Yeah, gut.

[3517] Why not?

[3518] Is it taste or is it texture?

[3519] Too sweet.

[3520] You think too sweet?

[3521] The pineapple is pretty sweet.

[3522] Pineapple is pretty sweet.

[3523] I don't need that.

[3524] I don't need that.

[3525] Jeff Gerstmann.

[3526] I'm all for it.

[3527] I think Tucson Ben has invented the new flavor wave.

[3528] Fantastic.

[3529] Brad Shoemaker.

[3530] Nothing worse than a soggy Triscuit.

[3531] Well, you don't let it hang out on there.

[3532] You put it on there and then you eat it.

[3533] What if you make like a party platter?

[3534] You'd make like 30, 40 friscuits with pineapples on it.

[3535] Sounds like he's only making these for himself.

[3536] You never know.

[3537] That's just, you don't want to.

[3538] How about you?

[3539] I'd give it a shot.

[3540] That wasn't the question.

[3541] Is he crazy?

[3542] No. No, he's not crazy.

[3543] I understand the...

[3544] I don't think he's crazy either, and I'd also give it a shot.

[3545] I just think it's probably...

[3546] Well, the question was, is he crazy?

[3547] No, he's probably not.

[3548] I don't have enough information to go on.

[3549] Flavor wave.

[3550] Write it.

[3551] Jacob from Arhas, Denmark.

[3552] It's two A's.

[3553] Greetings everyone!

[3554] In the sweatbox, I was browsing around the Xbox Live Marketplace while I waited for a game to download and I found a feature called Increase Your Gamer Score with the tagline Games to Get More Points, which made me wonder what they meant.

[3555] And lo and behold, it's a list of games available for download on Games On Demand and Arcade that have incredibly easy achievements such as King Kong and Avatar.

[3556] Is this Microsoft completely giving up on achievements or just a sleazy way to sell games to achievement -hungry gamers?

[3557] It's a sleazy way to sell games.

[3558] It's the latter.

[3559] It's kind of a little bit of both.

[3560] Column A, column B. That wasn't sponsored by somebody.

[3561] That could have been something that was provided by one of their partners or something like that.

[3562] That sounds like a sponsored thing.

[3563] But who can say?

[3564] We don't know.

[3565] Yeah, I would not expect the people in charge of trying to get people to buy games are the same people that are in charge of trying to make achievements good, so unsurprising.

[3566] Jason Wiseman from Pennsylvania has a challenge here, I guess.

[3567] I don't know.

[3568] I love a challenge.

[3569] 4 ,800 points.

[3570] You have to pick either a cat with superpowers or a dog with superpowers.

[3571] But there's a twist.

[3572] The dog can read minds and communicate with you telepathically.

[3573] He can plant one tree per day anywhere in the world you want.

[3574] It grows instantly.

[3575] He is also a five -star chef.

[3576] But the dog must be within 25 feet of you at all times or you get bone -chilling migraines.

[3577] He's also racist.

[3578] So if you're around anyone who isn't white, he constantly ridicules them to you through telepathy.

[3579] When you hear the dog's voice in your head, it is the voice of Gilbert Gottfried.

[3580] This is incredibly specific.

[3581] The cat.

[3582] The cat has the power of teleportation and can transport you anywhere as long as you hold it.

[3583] He also does your taxes.

[3584] You always get the highest refund, and he does them the second you get your W -2.

[3585] If the cat lives to be 20 years or older, he grants you the secret to immortality.

[3586] He will teach you one extreme sport of your choosing.

[3587] You become an expert at it.

[3588] Oh, man. This must have been pretty bad.

[3589] Pull it back here.

[3590] If the cat dies before he is 20, you get bad luck for the next year like you're cursed for a whole year.

[3591] The cat is a pack -a -day smoker and can't buy them himself.

[3592] You have to do it.

[3593] He only eats specialty cat food.

[3594] You need to drive to the pet store to get it.

[3595] He's also diabetic.

[3596] You need to make sure that he has insulin.

[3597] Finally, he doesn't like being touched and will scratch you if you do.

[3598] Wait, but you have to hold him to teleport.

[3599] Oh, was that a stipulation?

[3600] Yeah.

[3601] Really?

[3602] He also doesn't communicate, right?

[3603] So you're getting scratched every time you go somewhere?

[3604] Every time you want to teleport somewhere.

[3605] I was waiting for the cat to also be Hitler or something.

[3606] Nope.

[3607] All right.

[3608] Man. These are the conditions.

[3609] What was the dog's first power?

[3610] Read minds, communicate with you telepathically.

[3611] Okay.

[3612] But he's also a scorching racist.

[3613] It's also Gilbert Gottfried.

[3614] Also, he sounds like...

[3615] He sounds like Gilbert Gottfried in your head!

[3616] I think that was the deal breaker.

[3617] As long as that...

[3618] Who's that other...

[3619] Elo?

[3620] Milo?

[3621] Milo and Otis?

[3622] No. That comic, Ryan, you and I have talked about it for a bit.

[3623] I passionately...

[3624] Emo Phillips.

[3625] Emo Phillips.

[3626] I was waiting for the cat to be Emo Phillips, and that would have been the deal breaker.

[3627] This is a tough one.

[3628] Yeah.

[3629] I know.

[3630] I think I would have to go with...

[3631] Well, I don't...

[3632] The cat longevity thing really throws me for a loop.

[3633] Like, what if he gets run over by a car?

[3634] Then you get a year of bad luck.

[3635] Is that meant to be out of your control?

[3636] Is it?

[3637] Like, that's just crap shit.

[3638] Who knows if that's it?

[3639] I mean, as bizarrely specific as the rest of this thing is, that seems like a loose thread.

[3640] I thought that is not...

[3641] I mean, it's a gamble.

[3642] It's one of the risks of, do you want to have this sweet fucking teleporting cat that does your taxes?

[3643] I mean, can the cat teleport out of the way of cars?

[3644] Sure.

[3645] I mean...

[3646] If it wants to.

[3647] You know what?

[3648] We've discussed nothing about the cat's independent teleportation abilities.

[3649] I'm going to go with the cat.

[3650] You're going to go with your pack -a -day smoking cat?

[3651] Yeah.

[3652] That's the part because then he has to be an outdoor cat.

[3653] It's a pain, but then you just, you know, you buy him by the carton and just kind of keep him handy.

[3654] But then he's got to be an outdoor cat and then the chances of him being run over.

[3655] Also, smoking a pack -a -day is not going to do good things for a 20 -year -old cat.

[3656] I think you have a tough chance of getting that cat to hit 20 on a pack -a -day.

[3657] Yeah, we'll see you're a bad luck.

[3658] Yeah, but then you're out.

[3659] I've moved to the country.

[3660] Then you lose all your...

[3661] Cool.

[3662] It's a hard swing because not only did you lose your teleporting tax doing cat, but then you also have a year of bad luck.

[3663] I would move out of the country.

[3664] And then maybe you get audited and you find out that your cat's been fucking you on the taxes.

[3665] I would move to Montana to maximize the chances of the cat surviving.

[3666] Then what good is a teleporting cat?

[3667] You teleport out of Montana.

[3668] Yeah.

[3669] So it doesn't matter.

[3670] But if you're just going to stay in Montana.

[3671] It didn't say the cat has to teleport with you.

[3672] Yeah, you have to hold the cat.

[3673] But does that mean he's going to go with you?

[3674] Unless you want to walk fucking back from everywhere you teleport to.

[3675] Also, he's scratching the shit out of you while you're doing this teleporting because he hates to be touched.

[3676] And you have to keep the cat with you in some weird place.

[3677] I gotta go with racist dog.

[3678] I gotta go with racist dog.

[3679] I think racist dog also plants trees.

[3680] I'm mostly after the immortality.

[3681] See, that might be a big bummer.

[3682] And that's also a huge gamble.

[3683] You don't even know if you're going to make it to that, and that's like a 20 -year thing.

[3684] You're going to have to make this commitment for 20 years before you'll even know if you get the secret of immortality.

[3685] And then maybe the secret of immortality sucks.

[3686] Right.

[3687] Maybe you're just ahead.

[3688] I just don't really see the benefit of the mind reading.

[3689] That's fun.

[3690] Yeah, but it's just fun.

[3691] Think of all the racist things that guy's going to say.

[3692] It's just fun.

[3693] Adam Schwalli in Portage MI.

[3694] Greetings, BombCasts.

[3695] Hi.

[3696] All right, next email.

[3697] Thanks for saying hi.

[3698] I generally don't buy a ton of XBLA games, mainly using Microsoft Points to buy more songs for Rock Band.

[3699] But having bought both Trance and Bastion recently, it struck me as incredibly odd that you cannot buy Microsoft Points in a chunk of 1 ,200.

[3700] Considering that a lot of download -only games come out at a price of $15, it baffles me that Microsoft would take the hit of paying the credit card transaction fees twice so a person can buy at 800 and then 400 points to buy a $15 game.

[3701] I think you are...

[3702] The exception to the rule, if you're doing the two transactions to make exactly $15, I think most people just go the other step up and then have an outstanding balance on there.

[3703] I got these points.

[3704] I should use them.

[3705] I guess I'll just buy them.

[3706] At least that's been my experience.

[3707] So I guess that kind of begs the question, like outside of us who are always – have some sort of outstanding balance on our digital device bullshit accounts.

[3708] I got like – $13 on my 3DS.

[3709] I've got like a penny on my PS3.

[3710] Literally.

[3711] Yeah, I've got three cents on there.

[3712] I don't know how that happens.

[3713] Literally one penny on there.

[3714] Sometimes when you buy points.

[3715] Well, everything is $9 .99 on there.

[3716] Yeah, I think that if you are doing that, you are, I believe, in the minority and not what Microsoft is anticipating.

[3717] They're anticipating people spending more money.

[3718] It's probably worth it for Microsoft to take the hit for people like you that do go to transactions for the other people that buy the extra stuff and then spend it frivolously.

[3719] It would be smart if people were smart.

[3720] If I was smart.

[3721] Well, whatever.

[3722] We buy enough stuff that doesn't really matter.

[3723] But yes, to take the two transaction thing would probably be the more sensible thing to do for average Joe.

[3724] I'd take the racist dog.

[3725] Who doesn't buy a lot of stuff.

[3726] But Vinny still prefers the racist dog over Xbox Live Arcade games.

[3727] If you're going to be racist, Gilbert Gottfried is the way they go.

[3728] He'll at least be funny about it.

[3729] Yeah.

[3730] Digital wallets are so dumb.

[3731] Phil from Brooklyn, New York.

[3732] Could we not just like...

[3733] Just charge me for the exact amount.

[3734] I went to the app store and I bought Lion last week and it just charged my credit card.

[3735] Yep.

[3736] And I had it.

[3737] And that was it.

[3738] Yep.

[3739] And I was super willing to spend that money because it took one click.

[3740] And for anything on the PS3 that's more than five bucks, you can totally do that.

[3741] Yeah, that's true.

[3742] I'll give them that.

[3743] Phil wants to know what happened to Torchlight 2.

[3744] It's still coming.

[3745] They pushed it.

[3746] Okay.

[3747] So that was the thing.

[3748] Pushing it implies they had a hard date.

[3749] Earlier in the year they had said July.

[3750] Yes.

[3751] This didn't come out of E3.

[3752] I was surprised because I saw people subsequent to E3 asking where's Torchlight because they were expecting it this month.

[3753] And they readily told us at E3 when we asked that it was going to be a few more months.

[3754] But they just never made a big, broad press release announcement about it?

[3755] They had never made any commitment that they had to honor.

[3756] They had said, we're targeting, we're hoping for July.

[3757] It was the most firm they had ever been.

[3758] Got it.

[3759] And now they're saying later this year.

[3760] So it's still happening.

[3761] Yeah.

[3762] Yeah, they were at E3.

[3763] You saw it.

[3764] It looked good.

[3765] I played it.

[3766] Me and Patrick played co -op.

[3767] Hot soup.

[3768] What's hot soup?

[3769] It's the new class.

[3770] Oh.

[3771] You can play now as a delicious chicken broth soup master.

[3772] Yum. Can I play as like a chicken soup and then have a chicken that goes back to town and sells my stuff?

[3773] No, it's a crouton that goes back and sells your stuff for you.

[3774] Gelatinous.

[3775] Crouton, like giant cube.

[3776] Final email comes in from JP in Buffalo.

[3777] Buffalo.

[3778] Do you think it'd be possible to build a car that has a ramp on top that it throws down the street with robotic arms, drives off the ramp, then reaches back and picks up the ramp and puts it back on top of the car?

[3779] Yep.

[3780] It's like those bridge layers.

[3781] Yeah.

[3782] Except a lot faster.

[3783] That G .I. Joe bridge layer was one of the awesomest things that they had.

[3784] If you made that dog poop chicken and dumplings.

[3785] We might have a deal.

[3786] Would you eat dog shit?

[3787] Would you eat dog shit if it were chicken and dumplings?

[3788] If it was literally just chicken and dumplings and it came out of a dog's ass?

[3789] If the dog's ass was just constantly coated with chicken and dumplings and it was not like – if it wasn't shit -tainted chicken and dumplings.

[3790] No, it's all these other foods.

[3791] Chicken and dumpling factory up in there.

[3792] Dude, yeah.

[3793] Really?

[3794] I don't think I would trust a biological chicken and dumplings factory.

[3795] It's still a colon.

[3796] It still needs to process through the dog.

[3797] But if what comes out is chicken and dumplings, like undiscernible from homemade chicken and dumplings, like no scientific test says this came out of a fucking dog.

[3798] If it's just like here's some chicken and dumplings, let's do it.

[3799] Really?

[3800] Let's do it.

[3801] I really might hook my mouth up to that dog's ass.

[3802] And that's going to do it for emails.

[3803] I'm cast at giantbomb .com.

[3804] I'd like to thank Brad Shoemaker and Vinnie Caravella, everyone who wrote in.

[3805] Quake 3 Arena.

[3806] I'm playing that on TNT this week.

[3807] Look for more details on that soon.

[3808] And let's see here.

[3809] Free Whiskey Media Happy Hour this week.

[3810] It's for all comers.

[3811] So come watch the show.

[3812] See what we get up to if you're not already a Whiskey Media Premium subscriber.

[3813] And then back here again next week for more Bombcast.

[3814] Thanks for listening.