Giant Bombcast Arrow Pointing Down Podcast 02-24-2008

[0] Back by popular demand, it's the Arrow Point Down podcast, it's February 24th.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] I am joined by TV's own Jeff Gerstman.

[3] Hello, Ryan Davis.

[4] And also sitting on the other side of the couch is Alex Navarro.

[5] Alex, what's up?

[6] I'm not TV's Alex Navarro.

[7] You're not TV's Alex Navarro.

[8] Have you ever been on TV?

[9] I've never been on television.

[10] At all?

[11] Not even like background shot during a news report?

[12] Well, not that I'm aware of, no. No, I'm pretty sure that's never happened.

[13] He's the man with a face for radio.

[14] Thanks, Jeff.

[15] Yeah, no problem, dude.

[16] So, yeah.

[17] Hey, guys, what's up?

[18] Not much.

[19] Glad we got all this stuff set up.

[20] It's like we're kind of comically sprawled out across my living room here.

[21] Yeah, I like that you're...

[22] I want to paint a word picture for the folks at home.

[23] Sure.

[24] We're in Jeff's living room right now recording this.

[25] So in person this time.

[26] Yeah.

[27] Jeff has a large L -shaped couch.

[28] Very luxurious.

[29] It sleeps seven.

[30] It does.

[31] It's a sweet 90 -degree angle.

[32] I slept on it last night, and it was fantastic.

[33] And I'm sitting on one extreme end of it, and there's little separate seat things.

[34] I'm actually going to bust out.

[35] Get your recline on.

[36] Yeah, recline.

[37] Amazing.

[38] Enjoy yourself.

[39] I totally do enjoy it now.

[40] All right, my feet are up now.

[41] I bought that couch for a reason, man. Alex is basically sitting at the other side of the angle from me. Using pillows for armrests.

[42] I've got a Dale Earnhardt.

[43] you know, number three car.

[44] That's number three, man. Number three.

[45] He's going to live forever.

[46] I've got an intimidator.

[47] Before people think, so there's actually a pillow shaped like the number three car.

[48] Not Dale Earnhardt's head.

[49] Which would be better, probably.

[50] Is it shaped like a cut seatbelt?

[51] Oh, man, they cut the Intimidator seatbelt, man. Everybody knows it.

[52] It was too good, man. They had to do them.

[53] And then in the other corner of the room, Jeff has a big professional Chinese microphone set up.

[54] This is sick.

[55] Sick Chinese mic.

[56] Complete with pop screen and everything, and he's standing there like an R &B singer of some kind.

[57] Yeah, I'm standing here.

[58] You want me to put a hand over an ear here so I can kind of really just...

[59] Can you do the thing with the one hand where you hold it up at different points next to your head when you're getting gay?

[60] It's like you're in the studio with Diddy right now.

[61] I'm making the band four or something.

[62] Yeah.

[63] I'll just do hip -hop ad -libs the whole...

[64] I won't say anything.

[65] I'll just, yeah.

[66] Error pointed out.

[67] Yeah.

[68] Yeah, girl.

[69] Uh -huh.

[70] Damn.

[71] So that's the setup in the room here.

[72] Now that we had this meeting of the minds, what do we want to talk about?

[73] Nothing, dude.

[74] I don't know.

[75] No. So should we just end this now?

[76] Yeah, let's just pack it up.

[77] Thanks for joining us.

[78] Hey, that was the second episode of Airpoint Down podcast.

[79] Thanks for coming by, folks.

[80] Thanks for having me, guys.

[81] That was great.

[82] Yeah, it was awesome.

[83] Really interesting perspective on stuff.

[84] I'm really glad you brought a lot to the table, and I think we're all better off having heard it.

[85] Fantastic.

[86] I'm also, just to continue painting the picture here, I'm drinking a delicious Pabst Blue Ribbon.

[87] So you can hear it.

[88] Quality beer.

[89] I've got a Cherry Coke over here.

[90] It's like Coke, but cherry.

[91] I've got a Diet Pepsi.

[92] It's like a Coke, but Pepsi.

[93] Jeff, you've also got a candy bar over there.

[94] You want to talk about that a little bit?

[95] I do, yeah.

[96] I picked this up at a Walmart recently and just haven't gotten around to eating it.

[97] It is a Snickers Nut and Butter Crunch.

[98] Uh -huh.

[99] which it all says limited edition, so I probably shouldn't even be touching this because it's not mint anymore.

[100] No, I see red wrapper on that.

[101] It's reminding me a lot of the peanut butter Snickers bar.

[102] Yeah.

[103] Do you think this is just the same damn thing?

[104] Milk chocolate, peanuts, and creamy peanut butter taste is what it says here.

[105] Ooh.

[106] Derived from what, though?

[107] Yeah.

[108] It's a peanut butter taste.

[109] Yeah, it tastes like peanut butter.

[110] It is not peanut butter, but it is still creamy, like a peanut butter would be.

[111] Very similar to the beverage I had last night.

[112] Did you have a peanut butter beverage last night?

[113] Have you seen this at the 7 -Eleven?

[114] It's a Slurpee Chino.

[115] No. It's a coffee -flavored Slurpee drink.

[116] That sounds kind of haunting.

[117] Yeah, I went to the 7 -Eleven last night and saw that and said, well, I've got to try that.

[118] How was it?

[119] I think Jeff can back this up.

[120] He had a little taste of it.

[121] It's a Slurpee.

[122] It tastes and looks like a Slurpee.

[123] It's not like they turned the Slurpee machine into a Frappuccino machine.

[124] Well, thank God for that.

[125] And it's sweet in the way that a Slurpee is.

[126] It's that kind of syrupy, sugary sweetness.

[127] Right, right.

[128] But then at the end, there's this little surprise.

[129] This little man jumps up and says, Hey, it's also coffee.

[130] Hey, coffee!

[131] Kind of tastes like coffee.

[132] Wow.

[133] But kind of like in a really weird synthetic way.

[134] Right, yeah.

[135] It's like coffee chemicals.

[136] They've distilled it down.

[137] Like when we're all eating pills and we live on the moon base, this is what all our food will taste like.

[138] I envision that little man sort of being dressed in like an 1800s sort of British guy, kind of boppy outfit, but also having kind of a steampunk aesthetic to him.

[139] You know, like those guys that are at GDC.

[140] Steampunk, very big.

[141] Yeah.

[142] It's very hot right now.

[143] Yeah.

[144] But having a very...

[145] Having an elven voice.

[146] Yes.

[147] Back to the Future 3 is very hot right now.

[148] Very hot.

[149] It's a great movie.

[150] Isn't that basically the origination?

[151] Didn't Martin McFly invent steampunk?

[152] I'm going to say yes.

[153] I'm going to say yes also.

[154] So I didn't want to get too derailed there with the slurpy thing.

[155] I did.

[156] Jeff, you want to get in on this?

[157] I'll bust this open and try this Snickers here.

[158] Now, the other thing is there's also Snickers.

[159] Oh, what is it called?

[160] There's an Energy Snickers.

[161] Oh, yes.

[162] Snickers Charge.

[163] Snickers Charge, not just Snickers Energy.

[164] Yeah, no, no. And they basically took, like, the ingredients of a Red Bull and somehow fit it into a Snickers bar, which makes it taste like a Snickers bar, except then on the back end, sort of like your Slurpuccino story there, on the back end of an Energy Snickers is, like, horrible chemical.

[165] Like, okay, you know how chewing caffeinated gum tastes like?

[166] Yeah, it's that kind of accurate.

[167] That weird taste in the back of your mouth, yeah.

[168] Imagine that in candy bar form.

[169] Okay, we're going to smell the Snickers.

[170] Okay.

[171] Smells like chocolate.

[172] Doesn't really smell any different than a regular Snickers.

[173] So far, let's see it.

[174] That looks like a Snickers bar.

[175] It looks like a Snickers bar.

[176] So far, so good.

[177] Let's jump in.

[178] First bite.

[179] Oh, it's hard.

[180] Uh -huh.

[181] Are you keeping it somewhere cold?

[182] Well, this house is a little cold.

[183] That's right.

[184] Another point very worth making, I think, is that it is freezing damn cold in Jeff's house because his heater broke.

[185] My heater broke.

[186] It doesn't work so well.

[187] Oh, wow.

[188] Okay, that's a problem.

[189] Which is also why Jeff is wearing the sweet neck thing that he has on.

[190] I'm just wearing that so I can pull it up like I'm a ninja.

[191] That's true.

[192] All right.

[193] Bite one, Jeff.

[194] You're into it.

[195] Tastes like a Snickers bar?

[196] Yeah.

[197] I mean, that's kind of my issue with this concept is Snickers bars are peanutty inherently.

[198] Like, is there maybe a slightly sweeter kind of thing on the under end there?

[199] Is there a greater intensity of peanutness?

[200] No. Okay.

[201] I'm really not getting...

[202] So basically, it's a Snickers bar.

[203] It tastes like a not very, not a great, it tastes like a subpar Snickers bar.

[204] Huh.

[205] You bought this at a regular store.

[206] You didn't buy this at the grocery outlet or something.

[207] No, no, this is not used food.

[208] I got this at a Walmart.

[209] Okay.

[210] America shops at Walmart, Jack.

[211] It's true.

[212] Big box stores.

[213] Oh, yeah.

[214] Keep them out.

[215] Mom and pop.

[216] Keep Petaluma egg -centric.

[217] Don't even get me started.

[218] I think I just did.

[219] Wait, on what?

[220] On keeping Petaluma egg -centric.

[221] Oh, egg -centric.

[222] Yeah.

[223] Yeah, there's a lot of people here that don't want the big box stores to come in and drive out our local flavor.

[224] They instead want to force us all to leave town anytime we want to buy anything useful.

[225] Yeah.

[226] That isn't a didgeridoo or a fedora.

[227] Well, you know, whenever I need a fedora, I know where to go now.

[228] That's good.

[229] So we're going to pan this, what's it called again?

[230] The Snickers Nutrageous?

[231] Nut and Butter Crunch.

[232] I guess, you know, yeah, it doesn't taste as...

[233] Spell it out for me, please.

[234] I want to know the exact spelling of this.

[235] I want to know how the marketing team attacked this one.

[236] N -U -T.

[237] Uh -huh.

[238] Apostrophe N. Right.

[239] Butter Crunch.

[240] Is butter separate from the nutten?

[241] Yes, it's on a separate line, and it is all lowercase.

[242] And now buttercrunch is not one word.

[243] There's a space between butter and crunch.

[244] Okay, so it's a three -word phrase here.

[245] Four -word phrase, I guess, with the Snickers on the front.

[246] With the n. I think the n is separate.

[247] So five.

[248] Yeah.

[249] So Snickers, nut, n, butter, crunch.

[250] It tastes kind of like those peanut butter Snickers that they try to come out with, but not quite as peanut buttery.

[251] I guess.

[252] It's like they tried to strike a middle road.

[253] I don't know.

[254] It's not different enough.

[255] Fails to differentiate itself.

[256] It is the World War II first -person shooter of candy bars.

[257] Okay.

[258] There's no Whatchamacallit.

[259] That's for damn sure.

[260] Oh, what is?

[261] I love a Whatchamacallit, Jeff.

[262] I also love an Abba Zabba.

[263] Do they still make Abba Zabba?

[264] Absolutely.

[265] Also, and I think this is kind of like the lesser -known cousin of the Abba Zabba, is the Big Hunk.

[266] which is quite tasty.

[267] It's like an Abba Zabba, but with just like nuts in it instead of like the peanut butter.

[268] I haven't had a big hunk in a long time.

[269] I like a good big hunk.

[270] Would you step to the punk with a big hunk?

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

[272] Slap it from his hands as you hit him with a hunk to the ground.

[273] So there's our arrow pointing down food minute.

[274] Before we get into our next topic, I actually wanted to, I guess I'll use this as a segue into our next topic.

[275] So now it's the arrow pointing down drink minute.

[276] Yeah, now it's the airport down beverage taste test minute, which we've already established as being a core part of the show.

[277] Blue Ribbon is delicious.

[278] Which people also are really excited about.

[279] We've got a lot of really great feedback.

[280] Pretty much everyone's like, yes, please more after our lengthy Gatorade Tiger.

[281] I guess before we get into new territory, we should briefly touch on last week's.

[282] Gatorade Tiger.

[283] Oh, yes, yes.

[284] Okay, yeah.

[285] I was not here for this.

[286] Let's wrap that some.

[287] So last week I discovered the Gatorade Tiger, three flavors of Gatorade, branded with Tiger Woods, and tried them out on the air and found out like the red, which we discovered is Red Drive.

[288] Red Drive.

[289] Jeff, after we finished recording that, your interest was piqued?

[290] Oh, for sure, yes.

[291] I'm a beverage enthusiast.

[292] and had to immediately get out there and find some of this stuff.

[293] Couldn't find it in the convenience store or gas station environment.

[294] Had to actually go to a supermarket to get it.

[295] Anyway, I got one of each flavor and tried them, and I think I'm with you in that the citrus flavor is my least favorite, and the grape is great, and the red drive.

[296] Red drive is really, though, I think, the standout flavor of the three because it is the most unique.

[297] Yes.

[298] Yes.

[299] We did that last week, Jeff.

[300] Glad you were able to get on board.

[301] Are you going to be drinking the Gatorade Tiger on a regular basis, do you think?

[302] Well, it's like they're selling the big bottles of it for a dollar a piece right now.

[303] And I was thinking about just stocking up on a bunch of those while they're all introductory.

[304] Because I do like a Gatorade now and then.

[305] I'm just thinking if you keep talking about it, maybe they'll just send you some.

[306] The good people at Gatorade.

[307] It's maybe.

[308] You know, you are promoting.

[309] They're fine product.

[310] We're not being paid to talk about Gatorade.

[311] We just enjoy Gatorade.

[312] We enjoy electrolytes.

[313] But that does not mean you should not parlay your love of Gatorade into getting some free Gatorade.

[314] My love of Gatorade is not for sale, sir.

[315] Jeff has very strong Gatorade integrity.

[316] His drink integrity.

[317] That's admirable.

[318] That's very admirable.

[319] Thank you.

[320] Thank you.

[321] Jeff, I want you to know, I really respect you for that.

[322] Hey, thanks.

[323] All right.

[324] So last week was Gatorade.

[325] This week, I guess I should...

[326] Talk about the time in between.

[327] GDC, Game Developers Conference, 2008 happened this past week.

[328] And we all went and kind of kicked it and had some fun.

[329] Saw some stuff, saw some people.

[330] Alex, do you agree?

[331] Generally productive.

[332] Indeed, quite.

[333] And really fun.

[334] Yeah, a lot of fun.

[335] It was surprising how interesting some of the stuff that went on at that show was, especially considering, you know, we got to go and just kind of do what we wanted for the most part.

[336] Yeah, it's kind of a big change of pace for us.

[337] Absolutely.

[338] So one of the things that was kind of an odd thing at the show was when I went in to get registered as media and get my badge and everything, they gave you this little black tote, and it has, you know...

[339] Scheduling information about when sessions are going on, maps.

[340] Brochure info about the sponsors and stuff.

[341] Yeah, brochure stuff, stuff for GDC Paris.

[342] Stuff for Tokyo Game Show.

[343] TGS.

[344] Booth space, booking up now.

[345] You've got to order by June if you want a TGS booth.

[346] All right, we need to get our TGS booth set up.

[347] Yeah, for sure.

[348] I'm just going to get my own and then just sleep in there the entire show.

[349] All right, that's sweet.

[350] That's cool.

[351] Just say American Man Sleep on the outside.

[352] And then have the no camera sign.

[353] And I'll just stand up front and make X signs with my hands.

[354] No, no tape, no tape.

[355] Also in that tote, in that lovely tote, was a ping pong ball.

[356] Yes.

[357] Okay.

[358] I never figured out why that was there.

[359] It had something.

[360] Some corporate logo on it.

[361] Brand logo on it.

[362] And then also this little bottle of terrifying drink.

[363] Yeah.

[364] Six -hour energy mini thin rush dietary supplement.

[365] It offers instant energy, no crash, sugar -free, and less than one carb.

[366] So it's actually the mini thin brand on there.

[367] Yeah, it is.

[368] As in, like, the asthma medication that you...

[369] That truckers take to stay awake in the middle of the night.

[370] Yeah, that you take when you can't find real speed or whatever.

[371] Now, let me preface this a little bit.

[372] I have experience with the actual mini thins, like, taking them.

[373] And the one time I ever took them, it sent me off into what I could only describe as a psychotic break.

[374] So...

[375] Yeah, I can see you don't need mini thins.

[376] No, well, I needed them because...

[377] I had been up at 24 hours at the time, so I needed them to not die, essentially.

[378] Well, then that just pushes you over the edge.

[379] But that stuff is dangerous in every possible way.

[380] I'm pretty sure I've had a many thing experience.

[381] It basically led to me being so sped it up that I had to just sit still and do nothing.

[382] It was just so fast that I couldn't move.

[383] There was the year at E3 that everyone was spun out of their mind on.

[384] Stop sitting in the booth.

[385] I can't grind it anymore.

[386] So I'm going to go ahead and on the air here, test out.

[387] It claims to be berry flavored.

[388] Well, all right.

[389] That sounds delicious.

[390] So it says shake well, so that means that it has the ability to separate.

[391] Great.

[392] Now, to be fair, I've tried this.

[393] I had mine on Friday.

[394] Or actually, I had a couple of them, so I took one on Friday.

[395] Let's hold all opinions on this until after I get into this.

[396] I can't spoil it for anyone.

[397] I want to get an unbiased reaction.

[398] Oh, I was going to say, Jeff, thank you for holding my mic.

[399] All right.

[400] Cracking it open.

[401] You can go ahead and commentate while I'm doing this.

[402] No, here, I'll do the play -by -by.

[403] So he's opening it up.

[404] He's struggling with the sort of wrapper on the outside here.

[405] There's like a plastic shrink wrap wrapper.

[406] Oh, and then you just take the whole wrapper off it.

[407] All right.

[408] Oh, that's beautiful.

[409] Now it's just an innocuous white bottle that clearly is not dangerous.

[410] Hey, is that the conditioner?

[411] Can I rub that on my hair?

[412] It's actually hand lotion.

[413] My hands get really dry.

[414] All right, so let's have a little sniff.

[415] It smells kind of like a Kool -Aid, like fruit punch Kool -Aid.

[416] Okay.

[417] The initial...

[418] Yeah.

[419] Yeah, you could get a little bit of that.

[420] Yeah, Jeff, you're standing up.

[421] You're getting several feet away from this.

[422] I think you should pour that in the snifter before you take a shot of that.

[423] No, that's plenty.

[424] Now, Alex, you have had previous experience with this.

[425] Should I just try and throw it back, or should I sip it?

[426] You know, I started sipping it, and it was not good, so I shot the whole thing.

[427] I'm going to sip it.

[428] All right.

[429] Yeah, I'm going to go with my...

[430] Actually, you know what?

[431] It tastes like sugar -free Kool -Aid, like the fruit punch flavor.

[432] Yeah.

[433] Actually, not that strong a taste.

[434] I expected it to kind of kick me in the teeth a little bit.

[435] You expected it to be way more, like, acidic.

[436] Yeah.

[437] Jeff, you want to give this a go?

[438] No, no. I want you to have the full six hours of energy.

[439] All right.

[440] Well, I'm just going to guzzle the rest of this back down.

[441] Thanks for holding my mic, Jeff.

[442] Appreciate it.

[443] All right.

[444] Here we go.

[445] One, two, three.

[446] Oh.

[447] Okay.

[448] All the chemicals were on the bottom, weren't they?

[449] Wait, did you do the whole thing at once?

[450] Oh.

[451] That's really bad.

[452] You should have shook Weller.

[453] Oh.

[454] Yeah, I didn't want to spoil that for you.

[455] That's what happened to me, too.

[456] I took a sip, and it was just sort of like, oh, this isn't so bad.

[457] And then I just chugged it.

[458] It was like, oh, God, what have I done?

[459] It's like ground -up pills at the bottom of it.

[460] Yeah.

[461] Like Flintstones vitamins.

[462] Now, let me give you a little preview of what's in store for you, all right?

[463] Oh, God, no. Essentially, this is not as bad.

[464] A trip to the hospital.

[465] We'll get your stomach pumped.

[466] This is not as bad as actually taking many things, but for the early few hours at least, you will be a bit manic.

[467] I mean, not that most people can tell when I'm manic and not manic, but I was getting a little fucking crazy toward the middle of the day.

[468] And after that, yeah, there is no crash.

[469] You will not crash from this.

[470] But you will sort of come to sort of a gentle slope downward to where you just start getting very sleepy afterward.

[471] All right.

[472] Well, I kind of, you know, last night was a little long, so I could use a little boost, a little bump right now.

[473] Yeah, you're going to be good for the next few hours at least.

[474] Well, fantastic.

[475] The podcast is going to go on forever.

[476] No!

[477] Keep talking about things!

[478] Stop hitting me. You guys want to talk specifically about...

[479] about stuff we did at GDC.

[480] Jeff, you and I have kind of covered this stuff a little bit on our blogs.

[481] Yeah, I think we documented a lot of that stuff.

[482] You know, we just kind of ran around and had a good time.

[483] I feel like we made a good set of choices on which sessions to go watch and saw some interesting stuff.

[484] And the kind of nightlife afterward was interesting and productive.

[485] And full of open bars and that sort of thing.

[486] I kind of felt like it was Thursday night, which is kind of second night of the show proper.

[487] Yeah, there was Monday and Tuesday.

[488] There was stuff, too, but that didn't really count.

[489] Just like crazy amounts of parties.

[490] Yeah.

[491] Yeah.

[492] They call it sweet night.

[493] And at the hotel there near the convention center, like basically every single suite on a certain floor had been rented out by a different company.

[494] And they were all running parties.

[495] But it seemed like the only one I heard anyone talking about was the prototype party.

[496] 2K had a suite there.

[497] Eidos had a suite there.

[498] Didn't go over there.

[499] But that was when we made it into the prototype party, which then got, like, fire marshaled, and they weren't allowing more people.

[500] Yeah, basically what happened is, like, the Will Wright EA talk was a couple of blocks away, and then that kind of spun down, and they started charging people for drinks, which is a clear sign that it's time to leave.

[501] Yeah.

[502] So everyone kind of just like I remember like like Sam Kennedy showed up like after everything was kind of dissipating.

[503] He's like, yeah, we just came by here and I don't know.

[504] We're going to go over to this this prototype party.

[505] And I was like, oh, where's that?

[506] It's not the W. Like, all right.

[507] All right.

[508] Go and ran over, found, you know, found Giancarlo and you are like, what are we going to do?

[509] We're going to the W. Yeah.

[510] And then it was absolutely crazy.

[511] That night, I felt like I was in some sort of developer wonderland.

[512] I'm just walking down the street towards the Will Wright thing.

[513] It's like, oh, there's Gabe Newell walking down the street.

[514] This guy made Half -Life just kind of trucking along with his posse.

[515] Weird.

[516] And then we go, it's like, oh, it's Will Wright.

[517] He's standing there talking to us about all sorts of crazy stuff.

[518] Yeah, the Will Wright talk.

[519] There's audio of it.

[520] And I know they had a camera stand.

[521] They had a camera stand, and I saw like four or five cameras up there.

[522] I don't know what people are doing with that footage.

[523] His talk was very clearly videotaped, which is the right way to see it.

[524] The audio will do a decent job, but without kind of seeing the PowerPoint presentation that goes with it.

[525] Which was kind of charmingly handmade.

[526] Yeah, definitely.

[527] It was a very adorable PowerPoint presentation as those go.

[528] It was clever and everything, and it fit the talk, but it was odd kind of just how cut and paste.

[529] You could tell that Will Wright did not have his PowerPoint person do this.

[530] It's like, Will Wright sat down.

[531] I'm not going to waste your time with this stuff.

[532] This is my talk.

[533] I'm going to do it.

[534] That's why everyone loves Will Wright.

[535] I was talking to a friend of mine.

[536] She's like, I want him to be my dad.

[537] He's just so lovable and so enjoyable.

[538] I see him more as kind of a fun uncle.

[539] Yeah, yeah.

[540] It's a fun uncle who knows lots of weird stuff.

[541] So that was absolutely a blast.

[542] If you could find that online, either the audio or the video, wherever that is, I guess I'll try and hunt that down and give people links for that stuff.

[543] Yeah, there's a link to the audio somewhere in one of the comments on my blog.

[544] All right.

[545] I'll go dredge something up, and I'll post that in the post for this.

[546] Now, from what I hear, we never actually went to the craziest party of the entire show, like none of us did.

[547] I was hanging out with a friend of mine last night, and he was saying there was something he just referred to as the White Wolf Party.

[548] Yeah.

[549] Oh, people kept talking about that.

[550] I had heard in past years that it was lame, that it was like they tried to make it be the craziest GDC party.

[551] Well, and the thing is, I think this year, I mean, they were still trying way, way hard, but it officially went over the edge.

[552] Because it was at an S &M club.

[553] And they have midgets and fire ears and stuff.

[554] And apparently, as my friend said on the way out, he saw people fucking on a couch.

[555] Like, just hanging out and having sex on a couch at this party.

[556] And there was someone sitting next to them while it was happening, looking very disturbed and unhappy about the whole thing.

[557] And...

[558] Yeah, so we went to the wrong parties, essentially.

[559] That was clearly where we ended up.

[560] I remember brief flashes of the prototype party.

[561] They had hot dogs there, and someone was like, White Wolf Party is naked girls.

[562] It was super loud at that prototype thing.

[563] Super loud and super packed and super, super hot.

[564] Yeah, it was fun.

[565] And then also, when I was leaving the prototype thing to get some damn air, I saw Ken Levine.

[566] Just kind of walking around, his hair very spiky.

[567] Extremely spiky hair on that man. So yeah, that was kind of...

[568] Actually, do you guys want to talk a little bit about Friday night?

[569] I didn't actually...

[570] Or Friday at GDC.

[571] I didn't actually make it to the show for the third day.

[572] Thanks to Thursday night.

[573] Yeah, I mean, you drunk yourself out of Friday.

[574] Which I only feel like what I really missed out on was hearing Eric Wolpaw talk about story stuff and kind of doing the post -mortem on Portal.

[575] And that was the best thing of the whole show, and you missed it.

[576] You know, I still think that probably the Will Wright thing...

[577] Yeah.

[578] I still had the sense that that trumped it.

[579] I'm talking about as far as the actual proper show goes.

[580] Oh, yeah, sure.

[581] Yeah, that was the best thing I saw.

[582] Yeah, I don't doubt it.

[583] Yeah, it was good.

[584] I mean, it was an interesting talk, and Eric Wolpaw's...

[585] you know, a pretty good speaker.

[586] So he, uh, Kim Swift as well.

[587] Also, she, she did a fine job and it was a pretty compelling presentation.

[588] Not, I mean, not a ton of information in there.

[589] It was more just like common sense stuff of like, Oh yeah, why wouldn't you do it that way?

[590] But, uh, yeah.

[591] Oh, Hey, our, uh, our, our special guest, our, our fourth, fourth man is in the room.

[592] Special guest.

[593] He's waving.

[594] How's it going?

[595] Yeah.

[596] Yeah.

[597] Cool.

[598] Welcome.

[599] So that's kind of GDC in a nutshell.

[600] A lot of fun.

[601] I guess it's – but it's – the kind of conversation that I was having with other game writers out there is a lot of people being frustrated by trying to cover this show in a conventional kind of product -oriented way.

[602] Because there really wasn't a lot of – games to be played or to be seen like there were some but there was a lot of these sessions where you had people that are making games right now that have games coming out but they weren't necessarily talking at length yeah like the Sid Meier talk was definitely interesting because it was Sid Meier talking about what Sid Meier has done over the years and kind of his philosophies but it wasn't focused on the new Civ game they talked like yeah they talked very very briefly about yeah so if you're trying to come out out of that when and distill it down to tidbits of new information You know, there's nothing there for you.

[603] Not a lot to be had.

[604] Yeah.

[605] But, you know, just kind of going and seeing these people talk and kind of witnessing kind of the personalities and kind of who these people are that make some of these great games and kind of hearing their philosophies and their trials and tribulations as they develop games.

[606] That was really fascinating.

[607] Yeah.

[608] That's just also pretty hard to convey because they don't let you film that stuff because I guess like the GDC people sell it or they sell audio tapes or something like that.

[609] because ostensibly you're supposed to be learning how to make games from it.

[610] Tapes.

[611] They have tapes.

[612] Set tapes.

[613] Casingles.

[614] You got 12 -inch casingles.

[615] Oh, nice.

[616] Actually, it's on wire.

[617] Okay.

[618] Yeah.

[619] Nice.

[620] Use wire recordings for that.

[621] That's good.

[622] Big fat reel -to -reel.

[623] Oh, good.

[624] Good, good, good.

[625] Actually, they have the Edison wax cylinder that they recorded.

[626] Oh, nice.

[627] That's good.

[628] That's some hot shit.

[629] You've got one of those players, right?

[630] Perhaps they've upgraded since to some sort of digital format.

[631] I don't know for sure.

[632] I kept on having – one of the things I thought was really funny during all the sessions was that they had – because you get a lot of international developers coming here.

[633] You have a lot of Japanese speakers.

[634] I'm taking off my shoes.

[635] Giving sessions.

[636] Oh, God.

[637] Oh, okay.

[638] Nice no -shows.

[639] You have very short socks.

[640] They're very short, especially for the weather.

[641] Yeah, it's damn cold.

[642] It's damn cold and rainy, and I'm wearing no -shows.

[643] And rainy and bad out.

[644] I got my ankles.

[645] I'm seeing more of your ankle than I think I want.

[646] You've got like Hillary Clinton ankles over there.

[647] Yeah.

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

[649] So a lot of Japanese developers there going to sessions and a lot of Japanese developers giving sessions.

[650] So they had a lot of people translating at these sessions.

[651] And you could get like little headphones.

[652] And I kept on like feeling the urge to grab.

[653] Like the Japanese ones sit there and just listen to the translator talk.

[654] Yeah.

[655] Translating what Sid Meier is saying.

[656] What does a translator have to say about what Lewis Castle is saying about boom blocks right now?

[657] Exactly, yeah.

[658] That was a neat session.

[659] That was a very good one.

[660] It was, yeah.

[661] But again, Lewis Castle talking about Boom Blocks, which is one of the Steven Spielberg games that EA is putting out.

[662] They showed the game very briefly, but mostly they were talking about their processes in making...

[663] Yeah, you didn't leave that with too many nuggets of new information about the game itself.

[664] I guess the one thing is like, oh, here's an Easter egg from the game at the end there, and he showed something and talked about head tracking.

[665] and how you'd be able to somehow set up head tracking in the game, which I think, are you, like, duct -taping the sensor bar on the Wii to your face at that point?

[666] Yeah, that, or he also said you could get, like, there are glasses that have little LED lights, like, on them.

[667] Basically anything with two, like, you know, infrared lights that it can pinpoint from.

[668] Then you put, like, two Wii remotes on the TV, like, above the TV itself.

[669] And it gives you that weird head tracking effect where basically, you know, while you look around, it seems like you are looking – it gives it a greater sense of depth in this weird kind of way.

[670] I guess.

[671] I don't know.

[672] Well, if you've ever seen any of the videos online, it's trippy how effective it is in other applications.

[673] I'd be curious to see.

[674] It's, you know, a fun little thing to throw in there.

[675] But, again, not a lot of video game -specific information.

[676] Yeah, there were a few sessions that were a little bit better for that.

[677] The one for prototype, like, dude played it for like 10 minutes.

[678] And supposedly the APB session.

[679] Yeah, the APB session was the other one.

[680] They apparently showed a lot of the game there, too.

[681] Which I hear was awesome.

[682] Yeah, you drive the cop car.

[683] At level four, you can get a gun.

[684] You drive through the donut shop to get more time.

[685] You hit the buttons to rough up the hippie and stop him from selling dope.

[686] Nice.

[687] Great arcade game.

[688] And you can make Miyamoto.

[689] in APB.

[690] I think Jeff was having a different conversation from you just now.

[691] No, I'm saying you could make Miyamoto in the APB arcade game.

[692] And then, I guess, Gears of War 2 announced a GDC.

[693] Right, yeah, they announced it at the keynote.

[694] The thing that everyone figured would happen fully happened.

[695] Great.

[696] No surprise.

[697] I feel like it's almost non -news.

[698] Like, how coy Microsoft has been about there being a Gears of War 2 is pretty ridiculous.

[699] I will say that I'm a little surprised that they're aiming for Holiday 08.

[700] That seems, obviously, they need it.

[701] Well, they need it, and they obviously jumped right on development of that right after they finished the first one.

[702] Right.

[703] But that still seems just, I don't know, that seems awful soon.

[704] No, I mean, you know, whatever.

[705] Halo came out last year.

[706] Gears of War comes out this year.

[707] I guess, yeah, you've got to alternate franchises somehow.

[708] Yeah, that seems perfect, really.

[709] It's about the right time.

[710] It'll be two years.

[711] I guess it would be two years.

[712] Yeah, that's solid.

[713] That's a good amount of time.

[714] So, nope.

[715] That wasn't much of a big surprise.

[716] Yeah, and there was other stuff like the XNA announcement that Microsoft made.

[717] They're going to finally let those XNA games get out to the average Joe like you and me without as much of a hassle like this holiday season.

[718] If you haven't yet...

[719] I think they might still be up there.

[720] Yeah, I think you can still download them until, like, March 1st.

[721] Until tonight.

[722] No, no. The download, there's two expiration dates for this stuff.

[723] Yeah.

[724] So because this is just a preview of something that they're going to be putting out in December, like, you can download these seven XNA demos of these cool little, well, some of them are cool, some of them are actually not so great.

[725] These little games that just people have made using the XNA software.

[726] Which is just the kind of homebrew development stuff for the Xbox 360.

[727] Right.

[728] It's kind of a subscription service.

[729] It's basically the new Net Your Rosie.

[730] Yeah, yeah, basically.

[731] Except if you don't need a special stupid piece of hardware for it.

[732] Right.

[733] And you can download those up until tomorrow, and then they'll be playable for maybe another two weeks or something like that.

[734] Right.

[735] Which ones did you – I downloaded all of them because I want to check this stuff out because I do like these kind of bite -sized games that they've been cranking out for the Xbox Live Arcade.

[736] And this seems like just kind of a homemade equivalent of that.

[737] A bite of the bite.

[738] So the little demo versions.

[739] The only one that I've actually gotten into or played at all yet is the dishwasher.

[740] Yep.

[741] Which involves no washing of dishes.

[742] Right.

[743] It instead involves using a cleaver to hack robots apart.

[744] And I want to say robots.

[745] And when I say robots, I'm putting air quotes around it.

[746] I see you over there doing bunny rabbits.

[747] I'm doing robots.

[748] They're dancing around.

[749] Oh.

[750] So this somehow means that you don't think that they're actually robots.

[751] Yeah, yeah.

[752] I have suspicions about where the story for that game goes.

[753] But a pretty slick little thing.

[754] Very stylish, kind of dark and nasty and very gory.

[755] You do big, fat, nasty finishing moves on dudes and cut them in half.

[756] Good deal of fun.

[757] Actually reminded me in some ways a bit of No More Heroes.

[758] Really?

[759] Kind of reminded me of like Devil May Cry.

[760] It's all combo based and you can launch them up in the air and jack them up more up there and stuff like that.

[761] I guess just in the finishing move thing and also using it as a transition to start talking about No More Heroes.

[762] Fine, be that way.

[763] All right, fucking now we're talking about No More Heroes.

[764] What's up?

[765] That was a pretty good transition.

[766] Shifting gears.

[767] All right, fine.

[768] You've got to feather the clutch.

[769] That's very nice.

[770] Okay, fine.

[771] Yeah, great.

[772] The other X and A games apparently don't matter.

[773] Fine.

[774] Jelly Car, sorry.

[775] I wanted to talk about Jelly Car for an hour, but now we're not going to.

[776] Do you want to talk about Jelly Car?

[777] No, no, not anymore.

[778] No more heroes.

[779] Let's hear it.

[780] Put it back into reverse.

[781] No, hey, hey.

[782] The Jelly Car does not go backwards.

[783] But this car, the Aeropointing Down podcast car.

[784] Stop fighting!

[785] Okay, I'm sorry.

[786] That was presumptuous of me. Okay, I will just wrap it up by saying the other six games are not as good as the dishwasher.

[787] What about Jelly Car?

[788] Does that even come close?

[789] Not a fan?

[790] I'm not a huge fan.

[791] Kind of neat.

[792] Some people kind of liked it.

[793] Yeah.

[794] But I do highly recommend folks at home download all of these XNA stuff and give it a look.

[795] See for yourself.

[796] If for nothing else, just to let Microsoft know that people are interested in this stuff.

[797] Even though they made it super convoluted to find it.

[798] It's ridiculous.

[799] There's an instruction video on...

[800] the Xbox.

[801] Oh, on the little inside Xbox thing?

[802] Yeah, like Major Nelson sits there with a dude and tells you how to navigate.

[803] Okay, let's go through this horribly convoluted process where you download this program and then hit the Y button to download other programs.

[804] Dude, what?

[805] Yeah, there's steps that it just seems like, why didn't you just take out that step?

[806] Well, I think because it's going to be a preview for their program.

[807] I mean, that's why all this stuff is going away so soon, because it's just a preview for something they're going to do in, like, December.

[808] Sure.

[809] And they just haven't gotten it together yet or something.

[810] All right, so that's XNA stuff.

[811] I guess that's kind of GDC, fellas.

[812] Mr. Recast, do you have anything to add?

[813] Thumbs up.

[814] Thumbs up.

[815] Yeah, I mean, you know, like, played Street Fighter IV.

[816] That's pretty awesome.

[817] Oh, yeah.

[818] You throw some fireballs.

[819] Yeah, if you duck and hit medium kick and then do a fireball, it combos, and that's awesome.

[820] That's all I want that game to do when it does it.

[821] You can 100 -hand slap dudes, so that's good.

[822] You kind of had this similar experience with Smash Brothers.

[823] That was actually playable on the show floor.

[824] I went out there and played some Smash Brothers, and it is exactly what you would think a Smash Brothers game would be.

[825] So I don't need to play it then.

[826] If it's not your thing, then yeah.

[827] I've never liked Smash Brothers, so okay, good.

[828] I'm not a huge fan.

[829] I think the single player are probably pretty cool, though.

[830] All right.

[831] But yeah.

[832] I just find those games just be a chaotic mess.

[833] Like when you actually get a full four -player Smash Brothers game going on, I just feel like...

[834] I'm just going to close my eyes and press A, and I will probably do as well.

[835] Maybe I'm just not good.

[836] I know people talk about there being...

[837] The tournament scene.

[838] Hidden depth.

[839] If someone else touches my controller, I can't...

[840] play no smash brothers we need to go get another controller there's a serious high level kind of play to that game you know you're just not playing it right you still know what you're doing no apparently not apparently yeah apparently these dudes are way into this game and and great for them they're crazy but great great for them yeah glad they found something they like yeah uh do we want to move on yeah what's this no more heroes game actually before we talk about that jeff oh god damn it but i wanted Actually, I wanted to pepper our various interests into this podcast.

[841] There is an empty McDonald's bag sitting in the middle of the floor of the living room.

[842] This is from breakfast.

[843] This is from breakfast.

[844] Do you want to talk about this at all, Jeff?

[845] Are we having another food discussion?

[846] Not really.

[847] I think I've got a lawsuit here.

[848] You think this is actionable?

[849] I think this might be actionable.

[850] If it's not the letter, it's the spirit.

[851] All right.

[852] I'm going to read from the side of this bag.

[853] We use 100 % beef in every burger and there's no percent better than that.

[854] Hmm.

[855] I feel like I've heard that before or seen it on the internet.

[856] Perhaps on the internet under a photo of me where it said you can't beat 100%.

[857] I think this is clearly.

[858] McDonald's is stealing from me. You came up with that phrase on your own.

[859] You came up with the you can't beat 100%.

[860] Yes, while I was asleep, it came to me, and then I woke up and wrote it down and then left the house.

[861] Yeah, but you wrote it down.

[862] But I wrote it down.

[863] But did you actually trademark it?

[864] I wrote it down on the back of a receipt.

[865] That's as official as anything can get.

[866] It was a receipt.

[867] Money exchanged hands to get that receipt.

[868] So it's official documentation.

[869] Oh, okay.

[870] It's admissible in court.

[871] Yeah, exactly.

[872] I can't dispute that.

[873] I wouldn't try.

[874] The receipt is in, Jack.

[875] So do you think you would have been more or less upset over this if it just said, and you can't beat 100 % on the back of that McDonald's bag?

[876] Equally so.

[877] I don't know.

[878] I can't decide.

[879] You'd just be more emotional both ways.

[880] You'd be both more excited and more pissed off.

[881] Yeah, exactly.

[882] It would move the needle one way and then jerk it back the other and it would end up in the same place.

[883] I'd just be heightened senses of everything then.

[884] Yeah.

[885] Couldn't talk loud around you or else it would hurt your ears.

[886] Yeah, pretty much.

[887] That's what you get for, you know, putting it on the internet, man. I didn't put it on.

[888] Well, I guess I did put it on the internet.

[889] You put it on the internet and then other people pass it around the internet.

[890] Yeah.

[891] Well, fantastic.

[892] So best of luck to you on your lawsuit against McDonald's.

[893] Yeah, exactly.

[894] So no more heroes.

[895] I will settle for McGriddles.

[896] You'll settle for Lifetime McGriddles?

[897] No, just like seven or something.

[898] I don't know, like some.

[899] Well, swing for the fences, man. Got to go big.

[900] All right.

[901] Okay, well, all right.

[902] If we're going to swing for the fences, I want Lifetime McGribbs.

[903] Ooh.

[904] Well, what you want is McGribbs all the time.

[905] Yes.

[906] But I'm saying, if you signed up with them and said, I want lifetime McRibs, then you would still only get McRibs once every four years or something.

[907] Because that's as often as they pronounce.

[908] Right, yeah.

[909] I want McRibs as often as I want a McRib.

[910] Yeah.

[911] Which is pretty often.

[912] Would you want one right now?

[913] Yep.

[914] I could go for a McRib.

[915] Although I can only go for about half a McRib before I realize that I don't want a McRib.

[916] Until you realize you're actually just eating tire rubber Dunked in barbecue sauce.

[917] Barbecue tire rubber.

[918] Yeah.

[919] And they put a little rib mark on it.

[920] They burn that into it like it was a real rib at some point.

[921] Yeah, they shape it.

[922] And not like a bunch of grain or whatever it actually is.

[923] It's primarily soy.

[924] Yeah, that's not really rib.

[925] It's actually, the McRib, fun fact, actually vegan.

[926] Wow.

[927] Yeah.

[928] Actually, a vegan product.

[929] I always just figured it was like rib shavings.

[930] They went and got a bunch of racks of ribs from the fucking Cattlemen's or something, and just rib dust.

[931] And whatever's left over, they just kind of scrape off, and then they just put it together into a little mold, and then they clunk the thing down, and then all of a sudden there's McRib, because all the meat has sort of jeeled into one thing.

[932] Yes, there is definitely a McRib factory.

[933] Yeah.

[934] Somewhere.

[935] Or maybe they're grown.

[936] I don't know.

[937] I'm going to say it's somewhere in Taipei.

[938] They're grown in Petri dishes, I think.

[939] Hydroponically, they grow.

[940] Oh, nice.

[941] Right, exactly.

[942] You've got to have grow lights 10, 12 hours on, 12 hours off.

[943] You've got to keep regular sizes going.

[944] McRibs are grown next to the bomb -ass weed, is what you're saying.

[945] And you've got to make sure you've got to separate your genders.

[946] You've got to make sure the males and females aren't close to telling me about it.

[947] No good can come of that.

[948] Yeah.

[949] When McRibs start breeding, the world ends.

[950] All right, so that's...

[951] That's McRibs.

[952] Yeah.

[953] Okay, no more heroes.

[954] Bring it back around.

[955] All right.

[956] Bring it back around.

[957] We're actually going to talk about it.

[958] There are no more heroes in the world of McRib because you can't go get a McRib.

[959] Yeah.

[960] I wish I could be a McRib hero and bring it to the children.

[961] Don't be a hero, Jeff.

[962] So I just finally, after much gnashing of teeth and resorting of Gamefly queues, I finally got a copy of No More Heroes and dug into it.

[963] And I was not...

[964] Killer7, the last game by the designer of Suda51.

[965] Yeah, Grasshopper folks.

[966] Yeah, the Grasshopper folks.

[967] I really liked it in concept.

[968] I really appreciated what Killer7 was trying to do with its severe, insane art style and completely nonsensical story.

[969] Almost complete lack of gameplay.

[970] Yeah, and basic unplayability.

[971] But that unplayability was so intense that I just could not push through it past the first two levels.

[972] But No More Heroes is...

[973] similarly completely out of its goddamn mind, but still totally playable.

[974] Yeah, playable.

[975] It's 100 % playable.

[976] I have to say I'm totally enjoying kind of the semi -mindlessness of the gameplay, of just, you know, run up to dudes and hit an A button a bunch and then swing in the Wii remote to cut them in half or down the middle or whatever.

[977] Yeah.

[978] And then just gushes and gushes and gushes of blood.

[979] Yes.

[980] Buckets.

[981] Fountains.

[982] Fountains of blood.

[983] And then you go collect coconuts for money.

[984] Dude, totally.

[985] Why not?

[986] Coconuts are worth more than human life.

[987] The moment that I knew I liked that game was at the very beginning when the protagonist, Travis, touched down.

[988] Yeah.

[989] Already great.

[990] Yeah.

[991] I was already very stoked knowing that going in when he...

[992] crashes into this lair, this mansion, and he flies off of his motorcycle.

[993] And as he's flying through the air about to attack two bodyguards or something, he just screams, Fuck face!

[994] And then his beam katana, not to be confused with a lightsaber or a laser sword.

[995] And then, yeah, he hits him with it and then just blood everywhere.

[996] Just so Billy Ripken of him.

[997] It was just, I was like, immediately, like once that, just the guy screaming fuck face while flying through the air for no good reason.

[998] I was, oh, on board, sold.

[999] And it just keeps getting better from that.

[1000] Yeah, like pizza suplex and all the other.

[1001] Burger suplex.

[1002] No, there's a pizza suplex also.

[1003] There's a pizza suplex.

[1004] Yeah, there are both.

[1005] And then I did the mission where I had to go and assassinate the CEO of Pizza Butt.

[1006] Yeah.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] The only thing...

[1009] Alex, go ahead.

[1010] No, no, go ahead.

[1011] I didn't really have anything to add to that.

[1012] No, go ahead.

[1013] Go ahead.

[1014] Alex, go ahead.

[1015] Go ahead.

[1016] No, go ahead.

[1017] Jeff, you want to go ahead?

[1018] No, you go ahead.

[1019] Go ahead, dude.

[1020] You guys go ahead.

[1021] No, someone...

[1022] I'll catch up with you later.

[1023] Yeah.

[1024] I'm leaving.

[1025] I'll see you.

[1026] All right.

[1027] Take it easy.

[1028] The only thing I got to say that I'm not loving about the game is driving around Santa Destroy.

[1029] I love Santa Destroy.

[1030] It's a great name.

[1031] I think that's kind of the point, though, is that the open world stuff is supposed to kind of suck.

[1032] Yeah, it's like you just have this horrible motorcycle.

[1033] It's impossible to turn.

[1034] It looks like a budget PS2 game or PS1 game or something.

[1035] Parts of that game look aggressively bad on purpose.

[1036] Yeah, like the way the coins fly out of the dudes when you cut them down.

[1037] It's so ridiculous.

[1038] I think that was the point of the open world.

[1039] Open world games are kind of dumb.

[1040] Yeah, it just looks like a simple 2000 game.

[1041] It might as well be the driving.

[1042] Yeah, it's like, here, check it out.

[1043] We're just going to have this open world because how hysterical would that be to just throw that in for no reason.

[1044] Yeah, there's not really anything to do in the open world other than drive to a location and then take on missions.

[1045] Yeah, it's like they just sat down and said, what are these Americans like?

[1046] They like the GTA.

[1047] Drive around aimlessly around a big open world.

[1048] Let's just give them that then.

[1049] Nothing to do.

[1050] Let's make that in a day.

[1051] There's pedestrians, and if you run them over, they just disappear.

[1052] Yeah.

[1053] They just go, ah, and they disappear.

[1054] And you can boost on your bike.

[1055] You can get a little speed boost.

[1056] Yeah.

[1057] No real good reason to.

[1058] No. Yeah, if you can knock down phone poles and stoplights and coconut trees and stuff.

[1059] Just no real consequence of anything.

[1060] How dare you knock over a coconut tree?

[1061] What did we just finish talking about with coconuts?

[1062] I forgot.

[1063] Coconuts are worth more than human life.

[1064] All right.

[1065] Settle down, Jeff.

[1066] I'm not gonna.

[1067] Jeff, go ahead.

[1068] Go ahead.

[1069] Go ahead.

[1070] No, I'm just gonna take a drink.

[1071] You go ahead.

[1072] Alex, go ahead.

[1073] No, you go ahead.

[1074] I got this thing.

[1075] You go ahead.

[1076] I'm sorry, I was mid -sip there.

[1077] So yeah, I highly recommend the No More Heroes for people who want complete, extremely M -rated lunacy on their Wii.

[1078] Yeah, certainly one of the best games I've played on the Wii.

[1079] Love the guy who plays Travis Touchdown.

[1080] One of the many insane, crazy, collecting wrestling masks.

[1081] And remembering old pro wrestling moves, which I guess I imagine will, or I hope, will pay off at some point in the story.

[1082] Yeah, if you read the manual, it kind of alludes to some stuff like that.

[1083] Fantastic.

[1084] So that's kind of what I have been playing most recently.

[1085] I didn't really play a lot of games during GDC.

[1086] That kind of precluded...

[1087] No, neither did I. I went to a couple appointments here and there for stuff that I was actually supposed to cover.

[1088] But apart from Street Fighter and...

[1089] I played a little Echo Chrome for the PS3.

[1090] Talk about that.

[1091] I want to know.

[1092] That game looks really interesting.

[1093] Which one?

[1094] Echo Chrome.

[1095] Oh, yeah.

[1096] How was that?

[1097] Kind of MC Escher, but a dude walking on top of it.

[1098] That looked neat.

[1099] It looks really neat.

[1100] And the controls are very simple.

[1101] You just kind of rotate the camera to change the perspective of what you're looking at.

[1102] And that, in turn, basically perspective becomes reality.

[1103] So if it all of a sudden looks like it's lower, then he'll fall off and fall and catch it because it's now lower, even though it was higher a second ago.

[1104] holes and you have to position something under the hole so he can fall onto something and it's just neat.

[1105] So the camera becomes much more of an active part of the game and not just like how you're viewing it.

[1106] I think your only other control is to get your dude to stop walking.

[1107] Like if you want to stop him and kind of plan out what you're going to do, you can do that.

[1108] But other than that, yeah, he just kind of goes.

[1109] That's pretty awesome.

[1110] That's fascinating.

[1111] Sounds a little bit like maybe a little bit like Crush?

[1112] In that it plays with perspective a lot, yeah, it's a little similar, but it's, I mean, not so much.

[1113] I mean, obviously there's mechanical differences, but it seems kind of like there's a bit of conceptual.

[1114] Sure, yeah, yeah, I'd say that, yeah.

[1115] I'd agree with you there.

[1116] I played a little bit of Jumper.

[1117] Oh, yeah, but not at the show.

[1118] Not at the show.

[1119] No, this was...

[1120] This was during the course of the show.

[1121] Well, we're done talking about the show.

[1122] We're not talking about the show anymore.

[1123] Stop talking about the show.

[1124] We did that segment already.

[1125] I watched someone play Bionic Commando at the show.

[1126] You want to talk about Bionic Commando?

[1127] Looks okay.

[1128] Did you look at...

[1129] Was it the re -armed or was it...

[1130] No, it was the real...

[1131] The full -on one.

[1132] The full -on one.

[1133] Did the guy's dreadlocks still look totally sweet?

[1134] Yeah, they look pretty good.

[1135] I like good white guys with dreadlocks.

[1136] Top end, like...

[1137] He's got dreads because he's been in prison.

[1138] Do we have a dreadlock engine?

[1139] Not at all a semi -racist concept or completely ridiculous concept.

[1140] Let's make a dreadlock engine.

[1141] Let's make that our middleware.

[1142] Speed dreads.

[1143] Speed dreads.

[1144] I'm actually working on that.

[1145] Middleware for your game.

[1146] Middleware.

[1147] If your anti -hero needs to have dreadlocks, we can hook you up.

[1148] We're also working on speed scarves, but it's totally different.

[1149] Yeah, that's much different technology, much more complicated.

[1150] But look for that coming from us.

[1151] So, yeah, playing a little bit of Jumper, which reminds me a little bit gameplay -wise of Mark of the Cree.

[1152] Oh, the Mark of the Cree.

[1153] Do you remember that, Alex?

[1154] Do you remember Mark of the Cree?

[1155] I do remember the Mark of the Cree.

[1156] I was not a big fan of the Mark of the Cree.

[1157] That was definitely a flawed game, but just the way it had the...

[1158] Like different face buttons corresponded with attacking enemies in different ways.

[1159] This is kind of similar in that there's like a little ring on the ground around enemies and there's four sides to it and those correspond to the four face buttons and you can jump, use your teleportation ability to jump to other sides and hit them while they're not looking.

[1160] Gotcha.

[1161] And now this game...

[1162] Not a bad concept.

[1163] Like I kind of want to like it.

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] But...

[1166] Just mechanically super clunky, very ugly game, bad camera.

[1167] And now this is a game that is not starring the star of the movie so much as a side character from the movie.

[1168] So this is Jumper Griffin's story is actually the name of the game, which tells the backstory of one of the supporting characters from the film Jumper.

[1169] Now who is Griffin?

[1170] Griffin is the kid who played Billy Elliot done grown up.

[1171] So now he's an adult, and these are the choices he's making for film roles.

[1172] This is what happens to the kid from Billy Elliot.

[1173] Jumper looks okay.

[1174] Supporting role in Jumper.

[1175] Apparently very stupid.

[1176] I kind of want to see it, too, because I like Doug Liman's stuff.

[1177] I think it's just got a neat look.

[1178] The jumping looks kind of neat.

[1179] Conceptually, I don't know.

[1180] But it's Hayden Christensen.

[1181] Yeah, I guess that's kind of where it falls apart.

[1182] Apparently, Eminem was up for that role at one point.

[1183] Oh, great.

[1184] Before he gained the weight.

[1185] Wait, for Anakin Skywalker?

[1186] Yeah.

[1187] That would have been a great fit.

[1188] How much better those movies would have been?

[1189] I know.

[1190] Featuring Marshall Mathers as Anakin Skywalker.

[1191] Introducing.

[1192] Yeah, introducing.

[1193] I totally believe that.

[1194] That's way more...

[1195] Couldn't have done worse than Hayden Christensen.

[1196] Yeah, really.

[1197] Why is that guy still in movies, really?

[1198] Well, he's not in movies, he's in Jumper.

[1199] So, although I did also recently learn that apparently Jumper Griffin's story is the name of a book that the author of the original book, Jumper, upon which the film is loosely based, that basically...

[1200] Follows along with the game, I guess.

[1201] So what you're saying is that the sequel book is what the game is derived for.

[1202] It's so convoluted and ridiculous because...

[1203] There's a rich Jumper fiction from which they are drawing from here.

[1204] I would say go ahead and take a pass on Jumper, Griffin's story.

[1205] I hear the achievement points are rather easy.

[1206] That's the one thing.

[1207] That's the one thing that kept me playing for as long as I did.

[1208] I'm probably going to play some more, but 500 points that I got in about an hour and a half, two hours of play.

[1209] Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good game to me. So if you're into points, like Jeff is into points, and I guess kind of like I'm into points, then check out Jumper Griffin's story.

[1210] But if you would like to play games, don't.

[1211] Yeah, and as far as the club goes, don't play it either way.

[1212] Because it doesn't have easy achievements, and it's also not very good.

[1213] Okay.

[1214] The Club.

[1215] I'm still going to check out The Club.

[1216] God.

[1217] I'm very conflicted about that game.

[1218] Granted, I haven't finished it yet.

[1219] I'm going to review it at some point down the road here.

[1220] But it's just one of those games that every once in a while I really want to like it, but it's just so stupid.

[1221] And it doesn't do anything that's particularly stylish or memorable.

[1222] It's just like...

[1223] run through these levels and shoot these guys and then do it more.

[1224] Yeah, I haven't played the final version, but I saw the demo and I've seen it in the past.

[1225] It seems like they're trying to make it a game where it's a shooter where you run around and have to kill people with style, but that they don't necessarily give you enough interesting ways to be stylish other than, I'm going to do a roll before I shoot you?

[1226] Yeah, that's pretty much the extent of it as far as I can tell.

[1227] And it's like, yeah, the multiplayer is a little more interesting, but it's still like the shooting mechanics aren't...

[1228] really interesting enough to sustain it for very long.

[1229] Sure.

[1230] I just find the whole premise of the game...

[1231] I'm not one that usually nitpicks plot points in games like this, because whatever, that's not really the point of it.

[1232] But the whole concept of the game is incredibly stupid.

[1233] Like, there's this club of guys that are like...

[1234] The Boys and Girls Club of America, yeah.

[1235] Yeah, there's this club of guys that are like psychotic killers that go through these, you know, contests where they just have to go kill a bunch of guys and, you know, get the most points.

[1236] I don't mind that part of it, but where do they get these guys...

[1237] that sign up to shoot.

[1238] Are they just also people that are in the club?

[1239] I don't, they've never explained that.

[1240] There's these like grunt dudes who can take like two bullets and then they're dead.

[1241] And it's like, well, if you're one of those guys, why would you ever show up to do that?

[1242] Maybe at the end you learned that all the bullets were fake.

[1243] yeah maybe i don't know i i just for some reason i can't get past that and that's making it really hard to enjoy that game yeah i think for me i guess that game coming from bizarre creations and kind of knowing the like the kudos system from the project gotham racing games yeah i guess i was kind of hoping for something as elaborate as that when it came to chaining together different moves and stuff where it'd just be ringing up like i almost wanted it to just have kudos yeah Like, all right, I've spun a 360 and then shot you.

[1244] Then I did a power over drift as I was running around this corner and shot four more guys in the face.

[1245] Yeah.

[1246] I mean, you look at stuff like Total Overdose and Just Cause and whatever, and there's just a lot more style to games like that.

[1247] You know, like when you're doing the kills and such, and this game just doesn't do any of that.

[1248] Or, you know, I mean, even something like Max Payne, which didn't necessarily give you points for stylish activity, but you wanted to because it was so damn stylish.

[1249] There is no diving in slow motion in this game that I have encountered thus far.

[1250] Which sucks.

[1251] Because every game should have that.

[1252] Yeah, totally.

[1253] So that's the club.

[1254] That's the club in a nutshell.

[1255] That's the club that's out, yeah.

[1256] Yeah, I guess we're coming up on March.

[1257] There's going to be some stuff.

[1258] Yeah, do we want to look at the calendar here?

[1259] There's no gaming new release calendar in my living room.

[1260] All right.

[1261] All right, well, we're going to bring up this calendar here.

[1262] You guys go ahead and...

[1263] In the meantime, so hey, Jeff, what do you think about the Oscars tonight?

[1264] Oh, are those tonight?

[1265] Those are tonight.

[1266] Who's going to come away a winner tonight, man?

[1267] Cobra.

[1268] Yeah, Cobra is going to get Best Picture.

[1269] Cobra.

[1270] Are you still on to go see Cobra?

[1271] Yes.

[1272] Next Sunday, Cobra.

[1273] Next Sunday, we will be going to a movie theater where they will be showing at midnight.

[1274] Special guest.

[1275] Do you want to go see Cobra next Sunday?

[1276] He's in.

[1277] He sounds like he's in.

[1278] All right.

[1279] And the week after that, Commando.

[1280] Yeah, and I'm going to...

[1281] We'll be signing autographs out in front because of our roles in Cobra.

[1282] Come say hi to us at the opening of this gas station.

[1283] Come meet the cast of Cobra.

[1284] See here.

[1285] I played Stalker Channing.

[1286] Patapon.

[1287] Oh, yeah, Patapon's out this week, yeah.

[1288] I hear it's awesome.

[1289] Yeah, people seem to like it.

[1290] And they're selling it for 20 bucks here or something, right?

[1291] Yeah, that's right.

[1292] The Lost game for the 360.

[1293] Oh, that's right.

[1294] I'm reviewing that at some point.

[1295] I'll take a pass on that.

[1296] I don't know anything about Lost.

[1297] I watch it pretty obsessively.

[1298] I watch it and I hate it.

[1299] And every time I watch it, I go, man, I hate this show.

[1300] But then you keep watching it.

[1301] I keep watching it.

[1302] I love it.

[1303] I hate that everyone speaks in ellipses.

[1304] Everyone does not include the part of the sentence that would make anything make sense.

[1305] Like, every time.

[1306] Like, at some point, someone just has to say something that's a fact and not just...

[1307] Well, this last week's episode actually was, like, one of the more informative ones I've seen in a long time.

[1308] Like, they actually...

[1309] But still, just the fact that they just pile things on.

[1310] It's like, you know, now they're off the goddamn island and they've not explained anything that happened in the past three seasons yet.

[1311] I just, yeah, I feel like they're...

[1312] There's no good payoff for that show.

[1313] One day it's all just going to come together and it's all going to...

[1314] I don't believe that.

[1315] It's all going to blow our minds.

[1316] Yeah, see, Jeff was burned on Twin Peaks.

[1317] He knows.

[1318] That's why I don't watch TV anymore.

[1319] And I loved Twin Peaks.

[1320] So basically it's all David Lynch's fault.

[1321] Yep.

[1322] And that's why I watch movies on my iPod.

[1323] Take that!

[1324] David Lynch?

[1325] What are you oohing, Ryan?

[1326] One of my favorite releases here on the calendar, although this is shipping just in February 2008, so who knows.

[1327] Puzzle guzzle.

[1328] I want to guzzle them puzzles.

[1329] Are you a puzzle guzzler, Jeff?

[1330] No. Not professionally.

[1331] Yeah, no. I mean, I have been playing a lot of Professor Layton, so I have been chugging some puzzles, but I wouldn't call myself a puzzle guzzler.

[1332] You liking it?

[1333] People seem to really be into it.

[1334] Yeah.

[1335] Yeah, except...

[1336] I'm really bad at matchstick puzzles.

[1337] So anytime one of those comes up, I just go, ugh.

[1338] It's really hard because there's a fact that just lists every single answer in the whole damn game.

[1339] And once you've turned to it once, you're just like, dude, I don't want to think about this crap.

[1340] Oh, jeez.

[1341] But yeah, I mean, I used to read a lot of brain -teasing books that were basically those exact same puzzles growing up.

[1342] And even then, I would just turn right to the back and look at the solution.

[1343] Kind of work backwards that way.

[1344] Jeff, did we talk about N -plus at all last week?

[1345] No, I think we might have said that it was coming.

[1346] N Plus is out.

[1347] N Plus is out.

[1348] On the Xbox Live Arcade.

[1349] You can buy it with money.

[1350] Please do buy it, although I will say I...

[1351] While you're buying that, buy a copy of Res HD.

[1352] Yeah, buy both of those, please.

[1353] But I felt weird buying N Plus because you pay the $10 for it and it starts downloading.

[1354] It's like 19 megs.

[1355] I just feel like for $10, I should just get more megs.

[1356] Yeah.

[1357] Even if they just pad it out, 75 megs is how big this is.

[1358] Yeah, it's just like we put a lot of music in here or something.

[1359] So, music.

[1360] Seven hours soundtrack.

[1361] Whatever, just garbage files, just junk files in there to pad it out.

[1362] Here's a text file that is 10 megs.

[1363] That would make me feel somehow better.

[1364] Yeah, that game is about the epic quest of ninjas versus gold.

[1365] Or it's more like ninjas versus physics and lasers in search of gold.

[1366] Yeah, but if the gold wasn't there, they wouldn't be there.

[1367] So it's gold's fault.

[1368] So it's ninjas versus gold.

[1369] They're collecting the gold, not like destroying it.

[1370] Yeah, they're not fighting it to destroy it.

[1371] Is it Nazi gold?

[1372] They're not punching gold.

[1373] I don't know.

[1374] Would Nazis have weird robots in physics?

[1375] If it's anything that video games have taught me is that Nazis have technology well beyond our means.

[1376] So you're saying that this is ninjas versus the occult?

[1377] Yeah.

[1378] It's like Hellboy.

[1379] Read your Bible.

[1380] Yeah.

[1381] It's like Castle Wolfenstein.

[1382] It's Castle Wolfenstein, but with ninjas.

[1383] So where is it?

[1384] Robot Hitler is at the end of the game.

[1385] Yeah, is Robot Hitler in the end of the game?

[1386] Yeah, at the very end of the game.

[1387] Master D himself?

[1388] Yes.

[1389] You idiot!

[1390] All right, that's pretty cool.

[1391] And then this week, Trigger Heart Exelica?

[1392] Yeah, that's a crazy...

[1393] It was a Dreamcast shooter that came out in Japan.

[1394] In like 2007 or something.

[1395] Was it recent?

[1396] Yeah, that was a fairly recent one.

[1397] That was a recent Dreamcast release.

[1398] God.

[1399] Not like Revolt.

[1400] Yeah, and it's some kind of shooter where you're anime girls that shoot.

[1401] Okay.

[1402] So that's great.

[1403] Yeah, that's all I would want.

[1404] I'll pay the $10 for that and probably play it twice like I did Omega 5.

[1405] I like Omega -5.

[1406] I just don't, for some reason, don't want to play Omega -5.

[1407] It didn't really butter my hide or anything.

[1408] Is that something you like?

[1409] Is that a good or a bad thing?

[1410] Do you want that from video games?

[1411] Hide buttering?

[1412] I do get a fair amount of that, actually.

[1413] If it doesn't butter my hide, I don't give it anything higher than a 6.

[1414] Is that a 6 out of 6 or a 6 out of 10?

[1415] What are we talking here?

[1416] What scoring system are we talking here?

[1417] 6 out of 7 -5.

[1418] Okay.

[1419] That's an odd cut off time.

[1420] 7 .5 is the new 10.

[1421] Coming up in the near future, Army of Two.

[1422] Oh, yeah.

[1423] Right.

[1424] Yes.

[1425] Looking forward to that one.

[1426] It's weird because you hear whispers about it being a complete train wreck.

[1427] Yeah.

[1428] Well, I mean, it did get delayed, and it's got one of those.

[1429] I'm sure there are a lot of really good, really bad development stories about it.

[1430] All I'm saying is the one or two levels that I played like last year, like at the end of the summer, were great.

[1431] That stuff was fun.

[1432] Unless they've gone around and fucked that up and the rest of the game is a complete pile of shit, I'm at least still looking forward to that one.

[1433] So that's on March the 4th.

[1434] That's soon, man. That's like this week.

[1435] Also on March.

[1436] That's a week after this one.

[1437] So like next Tuesday.

[1438] Okay.

[1439] Not this one.

[1440] What am I going to do this week then?

[1441] Pack your bags.

[1442] You're going to be busy on the 4th because Bully Scholarship Edition comes to the Wii and Xbox 360 also.

[1443] Sweet.

[1444] Super excited about that.

[1445] I actually only played a little bit of Bully on the PS2.

[1446] Yeah, I played about half of it on PS2.

[1447] Happy about that because I really do want to play it on the 360.

[1448] I played Bully pretty excessively when it came out on the PS2, and I am very excited to play it again.

[1449] Yeah, totally.

[1450] And they're selling that for like $10 off.

[1451] I think it's like 50 on 360.

[1452] Fantastic.

[1453] And 30 or whatever it is.

[1454] What's the other platform?

[1455] Wii.

[1456] Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

[1457] I'll probably play the 360 version.

[1458] Now you can waggle the Wii remote to kiss girls.

[1459] Or boys.

[1460] Don't forget that.

[1461] That's important.

[1462] Very important for the gameplay.

[1463] Controversial.

[1464] This game teaches homosinuality to our children.

[1465] This orgasmic rape simulator will not be allowed into our public school system.

[1466] But I would very much like to see it at my home.

[1467] In the dark.

[1468] Here you go.

[1469] It's a port of Stroker for the Commodore 64.

[1470] Oh, great.

[1471] Fucking great.

[1472] Also on March the 4th.

[1473] March the 4th, pretty action -packed here.

[1474] God of War Chains of Olympus for the PSP.

[1475] Which I hear is excellent.

[1476] from the few people I've talked to who have played it all the way through at this point.

[1477] I played a little bit of it.

[1478] It looks like God of War.

[1479] Yeah, it looks like God of War, but it's handheld.

[1480] Right.

[1481] It has a sex minigame again.

[1482] Great.

[1483] Handheld sex minigames.

[1484] Yeah.

[1485] Jack Thompson.

[1486] I bet you're real familiar with those, aren't you, Jeff?

[1487] Oh.

[1488] Burn!

[1489] Looking further out, and there's more and more exciting stuff coming out because video games never sleep.

[1490] Anything else you guys want to...

[1491] rap about?

[1492] I bet you're very energetic right now.

[1493] I'm literally sitting on the edge of my seat here now.

[1494] Yeah, we should check in on that.

[1495] How's that?

[1496] Are you sweating?

[1497] Are you warm?

[1498] Is your scalp tingling at all?

[1499] No, but I feel like I am holding this microphone really tightly.

[1500] Like I'm really gripping onto this microphone.

[1501] And I just realized that my fingers are a little bit white.

[1502] Alright, so how about I punch you in the shoulder a couple times and we see if you feel it.

[1503] Alright.

[1504] Ah!

[1505] Yep.

[1506] Yep.

[1507] Alright, that just hurts.

[1508] Stop punching me. Dick.

[1509] So we have ascertained that he has not lost the ability to feel pain.

[1510] I can still feel pain.

[1511] I'm not like Renard or something.

[1512] So it's not going to be some illy rage where you're picking up dumpsters and throwing them at the police.

[1513] Not yet.

[1514] He still has a good four or five hours on this thing.

[1515] Fingers crossed.

[1516] Maybe if you had a second one.

[1517] Serena Altschul is going to be checking in on you at midnight.

[1518] Let's just say that.

[1519] Smoking illy.

[1520] Oh!

[1521] Questions.

[1522] Oh, right.

[1523] Questions.

[1524] Yes.

[1525] Idiot.

[1526] I forgot.

[1527] We solicited questions last week.

[1528] We solicited questions on the show last week.

[1529] Well, that was a terrible fucking idea.

[1530] No. I got a ton of great questions, though.

[1531] All right.

[1532] I can't believe I'm totally spaced out on that, though.

[1533] God.

[1534] Well, I can.

[1535] Jacob Brodersen writes in from Denmark.

[1536] He wanted to hear us take on something as basic as controllers.

[1537] What do we prefer personally?

[1538] 360, PS3, mouse and keyboard, perhaps even the Wii moat.

[1539] If you had to pick only one controller from the history of consoles, which would you pick?

[1540] Probably the DualShock 2.

[1541] I'd probably say the DualShock 1.

[1542] I'd probably say the DualShock 3.

[1543] So basically, the consensus is DualShock.

[1544] We just can't decide which one.

[1545] Why would you pick the 2 or the 1 over the 3?

[1546] It's wireless.

[1547] Because it only works with the PlayStation 3, dude.

[1548] Well, he's not asking.

[1549] I mean, he's asking my controller.

[1550] Oh, well, that's the thing.

[1551] I don't like the 6 -axis.

[1552] I'm not talking about the 6 -axis.

[1553] I'm talking about the DualShock 3.

[1554] I have not used a DualShock 3, so I can't speak to them.

[1555] I bought one.

[1556] It's great.

[1557] You like it?

[1558] Yeah.

[1559] But at the same time, I've been playing a lot of 360 games, so I'm used to the tighter analog sticks of the 360, and the DualShock sticks are loose.

[1560] God, the D -pad on the 360 one sucks.

[1561] Yes, it does.

[1562] Oh, my God.

[1563] It's functional.

[1564] I'm over it.

[1565] Yeah, I'm pretty over it, too.

[1566] We're past the point of bitching about that because everyone's gotten used to it, I think.

[1567] Here's what I don't like about the DualShock 3 and the 6 -axis as well.

[1568] You don't like that the USB port on it smells kind of like burning electronics?

[1569] I don't like those lower triggers.

[1570] I don't like those big, soft, lower triggers.

[1571] I would rather have either the DualShock 2 with the buttons.

[1572] Driving games are better on the PS3 as a result of that because they basically took that stuff from the Xbox.

[1573] I don't know.

[1574] I've played a ton of Burnout with the DualShock 3, and it seems...

[1575] I like the 360 controllers better.

[1576] I like the triggers on that controller better.

[1577] I don't like the bumpers so much on the 360 controller.

[1578] The bumpers I don't care so much for, but the actual triggers on the controller I think are better than those.

[1579] Oh, let's see here.

[1580] What else?

[1581] What else?

[1582] All right, here's a question from someone who did not choose to leave a name.

[1583] It just says it's from idontwearpanties at emailaccount .com.

[1584] Oh, right.

[1585] It's probably not this gentleman's real name.

[1586] I'm going with it.

[1587] Yeah, all right.

[1588] That's my guess here.

[1589] Because that's not really a shocking email address if it's a dude.

[1590] No. How do you feel about Call of Duty 5 going back to World War II?

[1591] Also, where do you think Infinity Ward should take the next COD?

[1592] How do you feel about future settings?

[1593] Well, I guess, yeah, Call of Duty 5, if they go back to World War II, snooze.

[1594] Totally.

[1595] I don't think they've even officially announced that, but it sounds like that's what everyone seems to assume is that Treyarch's going to do it, and it's going to...

[1596] be like call of duty 3 well that's just gonna be the thing you'll fall you'll fall to that star trek movie scenario of every other one is the good one and then the treyarch ones are not so much the good ones Yeah, well, whatever.

[1597] I mean, Call of Duty 3 was a fine game.

[1598] You look back on it now that Call of Duty 4 is out, and you're like, dude, maybe they should have not.

[1599] Do you want to go play a direct follow -up to Call of Duty 3 at this point after having played 4?

[1600] I don't want to play a World War II first -person shooter ever again.

[1601] So if Call of Duty 5 is World War II, I think everyone here takes a pass.

[1602] As far as future settings for a Call of Duty game.

[1603] Space.

[1604] Not feeling it, because I think part of what makes Call of Duty 4 so thrilling is how they capture the reality of this situation with just the little details in all of the environments.

[1605] Like when you go into the TV studio in that early level, that stuff's so great.

[1606] And having to create this whole fake future universe or something, I don't know.

[1607] But what if you don't have to do that?

[1608] What if it's just the same kind of war -torn scenario?

[1609] but in space with lasers.

[1610] But I guess the thing is that doesn't add anything for me. That does not improve the Call of Duty experience.

[1611] Lasers are pretty cool.

[1612] Lasers are pretty bitching, man. That's the G .I. Joe game then.

[1613] Right, yeah.

[1614] Yes, Infinity War should make a G .I. Joe game next.

[1615] That's what they should do.

[1616] Forget about it.

[1617] Well, the movie is coming out.

[1618] The live -action movie is being filmed right now.

[1619] Yeah, but they're just going to butcher the whole thing.

[1620] They could make it based on that.

[1621] No, they need to make it based on the cartoon so that it's not crap.

[1622] So that Sienna Miller isn't playing the Baroness.

[1623] God, really?

[1624] Yes.

[1625] Who would be better?

[1626] Dennis Quaid as Hawk.

[1627] Anyone with dark hair?

[1628] Dennis Quaid as Hawk?

[1629] Yeah, sure.

[1630] But anyone with dark hair would be a better pick for that.

[1631] Clara Forlani.

[1632] Clara Forlani is never a good pick for anything.

[1633] Christina Ricci as the Baroness.

[1634] Christina Ricci looks like a monkey right now.

[1635] Give her the glasses and whatever.

[1636] It's perfect.

[1637] Or like big bangs to cover her gigantic forehead.

[1638] Well, no, nothing could cover that.

[1639] If she does that, it makes her look even weirder because there's that whole severe bang thing going on right now where girls have the really long bangs that go...

[1640] I like a severe bang.

[1641] Sort of like one of those African tribal masks to cover her entire head.

[1642] There's nothing that can cover that forehead.

[1643] Alright, here's a question that is not video game related.

[1644] Perfect.

[1645] Thanks for writing.

[1646] JC writes in and says, first time listener, first time emailing.

[1647] I know that though being game reviewers, you have traveled the world.

[1648] Okay, I'm sorry.

[1649] I know that through being game reviewers, you have traveled the world and have seen many things.

[1650] What are the craziest foods you encountered overseas?

[1651] I haven't really done too much world traveling.

[1652] I've been to London a couple of times and Tokyo probably seven or eight times, but I've never been to Canada.

[1653] Or Mexico.

[1654] I've also never been to Canada.

[1655] I've been to Canada.

[1656] I can speak of unique Canadian cuisine.

[1657] They just put gravy on everything.

[1658] We already went through this.

[1659] No, no, no. But they also have pizza at McDonald's.

[1660] Right.

[1661] Yeah.

[1662] In Japan, they like to put mayonnaise on pizza.

[1663] If you order from a Pizza Hut or a Domino's, they do have those there.

[1664] And they put very crazy.

[1665] It was very difficult.

[1666] We had a native speaker, and it was still difficult to just get a pepperoni pizza.

[1667] Yeah.

[1668] And on top of that, super expensive to get it delivered.

[1669] And they deliver it on little bikes.

[1670] Really?

[1671] Little bikes.

[1672] So you just have a whole slice of tomato and then a bunch of mayo.

[1673] I see corn show up a lot.

[1674] Yeah, corn on a pizza.

[1675] Mm -mm, good.

[1676] What the hell?

[1677] Just little niblets.

[1678] Yeah, it's a very different food there if you get it, the style that they serve it kind of by default.

[1679] But if you haggle with them long enough and just say, no, dude, red sauce like a pizza and also pepperoni like a pizza.

[1680] Like you would put on...

[1681] What's the cheese situation?

[1682] Because I know Japan, not big into cheese.

[1683] Oh, they have it, you know.

[1684] I mean, were they putting it on the...

[1685] Is it like mayo instead of?

[1686] Oh, it's mayo instead of...

[1687] You know, I don't know.

[1688] We haggled our way around those, so I've only seen pictures of how it's supposed to be.

[1689] But it sounds really scary and not something I want to try.

[1690] Yeah, I don't want any part of that.

[1691] Mayonnaise on pizza sounds just about like the most unappealing thing ever.

[1692] Right.

[1693] And I like mayonnaise on stuff sometimes, but not on that.

[1694] Yeah, I bet you do.

[1695] I might be crazy, but I seem to remember mayo being served as the thing you dip fries in when I was in Canada.

[1696] Maybe that was just one weird place I was in or something.

[1697] Yeah, that's the whole Pulp Fiction thing.

[1698] Or that's France.

[1699] But I'm saying when I was in Canada.

[1700] Canada is like France.

[1701] Next question.

[1702] That's going to do it for questions.

[1703] We've come to the end.

[1704] Thanks for everyone who wrote in, even though I skimmed over most of them.

[1705] Keep on writing.

[1706] And maybe we'll read your ridiculous question.

[1707] Maybe.

[1708] Oh, including yourself.

[1709] That's real convenient.

[1710] Special guest.

[1711] I don't know.

[1712] This is his podcast.

[1713] I've got you on a separate track.

[1714] I could just delete you from this podcast and just be an empty void.

[1715] I'm into this.

[1716] There would be all these weird empty moments.

[1717] Uh -huh.

[1718] Yeah.

[1719] Yeah.

[1720] Uh -huh.

[1721] We should have done that with our special guest.

[1722] Uh -huh.

[1723] But that's going to do it.

[1724] Yeah.

[1725] That's going to be the end of the show now.

[1726] Thanks, Jeff and Alex and Mystery Guest, for coming by.

[1727] No problem.

[1728] Happy to be here.

[1729] I guess coming by, what are you talking about?

[1730] I came up to your house.

[1731] I had to drive for hours.

[1732] Yeah, no, thanks for having me over.

[1733] Thanks for using my microphones.

[1734] All of my audio equipment with your laptop.

[1735] Yeah, this worked out well.

[1736] But hey, thanks for having me, guys.

[1737] Yeah.

[1738] Yeah, yeah.

[1739] I'm just going to keep showing up if that's cool.

[1740] Yeah, fine.

[1741] For every podcast.

[1742] I'm never going to leave now.

[1743] We're never going to tell you where or when we're going to be recording it.

[1744] That's why, because I'm just not going to leave.

[1745] Now that we're doing it on a laptop and it's all bus powered, we're going to be doing this in the street.

[1746] Right, we should.

[1747] Street casting.

[1748] Literally anywhere.

[1749] Street casting.

[1750] I'm going to put street culture, cool cat.

[1751] I'm going to build a PSP into a skateboard.

[1752] We're doing this.

[1753] So tune in next week for that.

[1754] Until then, I've got to come up with some sort of good closing.

[1755] I want people to write in suggestions for a good closing line.

[1756] How about, word, bitch, we out?

[1757] Yeah, that's not bad.

[1758] You want to do that again?

[1759] Let that be our closer?

[1760] Jeff, send us out.

[1761] Jeff, take us home.

[1762] Word.

[1763] Word, bitch, we out?

[1764] Was that what we decided on?