Giant Bombcast 12-20-2011

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

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] We are short a man this week, but we still have Mr. Patrick Klepek.

[3] I am not Vinny.

[4] Mr. Jeff Gerstman.

[5] I'm Vinny.

[6] And Mr. Vinny Caravella.

[7] I'm Vinny.

[8] There it is.

[9] That's not Vinny at all.

[10] I'm Vinny.

[11] That's Brad Shoemaker.

[12] Vinny is furiously working right now on our Game of the Year feature, getting all of the...

[13] are, I don't know, processing the ridiculousness that we've shot.

[14] He is doing some of the most important work that any of us have done all year.

[15] Mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

[16] Yeah, and I'm not even going to talk about it anymore.

[17] Look for Giant Bomb's Game of the Year feature between Christmas and New Year's.

[18] Yeah.

[19] Patrick Lepic, what you been playing?

[20] I'm going to make the Skyrim because I'd put it on hold for like two or three weeks while that patch was, like the backwards dragons, the magic resistance stuff.

[21] Textures.

[22] So once they patched all the fun out of it.

[23] Yeah.

[24] Apparently there are still backwards dragons.

[25] I've read they're rarer.

[26] They're still hanging around.

[27] Which is actually kind of the way it should be, right?

[28] Yeah.

[29] I don't actually want one totally gone because then it's not any fun, but once in a while.

[30] If you end up seeing one here and there, that's okay.

[31] It makes it special.

[32] I mean, if they're going to be completely unable to make this game bug -free, which seems like the Bethesda track record, at least make the bugs interesting.

[33] Yeah.

[34] That's not giving it a pass.

[35] That's not apologizing for it being kind of fucked up.

[36] But if it's going to be fucked up anyway, at least – Might as well be that.

[37] Yeah, at least make it engaging.

[38] The magic existence, that sucks.

[39] Yeah.

[40] Backwards Dragons, a little more forgivable.

[41] But like – so reading all that stuff and especially like the torture that like the PS3 users have gone through, which I felt like – pretty bad.

[42] It's been really poor on Bethesda's part and communicating the issues with it.

[43] I really started to sour on that game because I hadn't been playing it, but I've been reading all this bad shit about it.

[44] Before we do Game of the Year, I really need to go back to that game and remind myself why I was so into it.

[45] Unfortunately, I finished the main quest line, which is perhaps not the best way to remind myself.

[46] I think it's a good little story.

[47] I don't want to spoil it on this version of the podcast.

[48] Given their history, that's probably saying something.

[49] I think it is legitimately cool as a cool little twist.

[50] The problems I had with it was that the sort of conclusion is similar to a lot of fights you have throughout the rest of the game.

[51] Not a lot of interesting things to it.

[52] And I think that their main quest stuff this time really kind of points out where Bethesda is having this issue where their ambitions in the writing are outpacing what they can almost do with the technology and the scripting and sort of the basic systems they have to make their games function where they kind of want to do these things.

[53] They can't really pull it.

[54] It doesn't look as cool as...

[55] So they're kind of cramming it into this engine.

[56] When it works, it works great, but sometimes you can see them stretching it.

[57] They envision this grandiosity that they just can't achieve.

[58] It's kind of unfortunate that they would go have this new engine and do all this stuff and still be bumping up against it.

[59] Hey, buddy.

[60] It's not that new.

[61] It's not a new engine.

[62] I mean, it's like sequences where a traditional game would cut to a very specific set of custom animations and cool shit that would really...

[63] drive home this epic moment but instead Skyrim uses like its generic sort of fight animations that you excuse when you're in the midst of a game and a lot of dynamic systems are happening but it kind of kills all tension when like it's just this bad and the dragon's going through it's like weird like I don't know it's too bad because I liked what they tried to put together but I think they're starting to hit this wall and maybe it's part of the technology of just like these current machines it's hard to say where that wall hits but the main quest is not that good but I do like that it opens up at the end so I can keep playing and I just wanted to get that main quest out of the way so I can kind of do like it kept just bugging me like the thing that you talk about where you keep going to do other things and you're like it's kind of weird that the game doesn't force me well like I should go save the world and I'm off like breaking in and murdering people and that part did bother me so I was like I just need to get out of the way so I can go back and do the side quest stuff so now I'm excited to do that The main quest is better than what they've done before, but I think you're still more looking forward to digging into all the side stuff.

[64] Yeah, absolutely.

[65] I would say the main quest is as good as a lot of the side stuff, which is saying something given what they've done in the past.

[66] Again, it points to the average quality of everything in the game has gone up, and that extends to the main quest too.

[67] And it's nice to have decent textures.

[68] That pops on the weapons.

[69] I did not realize how much of an issue that was on the weapons that are right in front of you the entire time.

[70] You can't go back.

[71] It looks a lot nicer now.

[72] You're playing a console version?

[73] Yeah.

[74] I don't have a PC I can convert to.

[75] Brad, did you say you're still playing on the 360 even though you could have converted?

[76] I basically haven't played that game since the day it came out.

[77] Were you also put in like 90 -something hours?

[78] for the review.

[79] I'll get back to it over the break.

[80] I already know what I think of it.

[81] Is it just Skyrim?

[82] Yeah, so I put like 12 hours into that over the weekend.

[83] That's about it.

[84] I wanted to get into Mario 3D Land, but I eventually resigned myself to knowing that I'm not going to be able to get a chance to play that.

[85] Now it's going to be like my day lost to travel for Christmas.

[86] be the entirety of that.

[87] Yeah, that's what I'm going to do, too.

[88] If you lose a whole day with that, assuming that you can find power to plug that thing in and keep it going, you could...

[89] I have a layover.

[90] Okay.

[91] So, like, I have, like, a...

[92] I'm going to Washington, D .C. where my dad's side of the family is, and so I can have, like, a four -hour flight from San Francisco to Chicago, layover there that I can charge it, and then I should be able to play it from Chicago to...

[93] Yeah.

[94] You should be able to do...

[95] Most of the game?

[96] Finish the first...

[97] You should be able to get to the first actual ending of that and then open up the rest of it.

[98] Great.

[99] In that first four hours, I bet.

[100] In my first arc of my trip, I'll get past the slow part and get to the better part.

[101] I'm looking forward to that.

[102] There are a lot of good platformers this second half year.

[103] That's a great travel game.

[104] Anything else that you're making game plans for?

[105] I've been playing a lot of Pushmo.

[106] Oh, I should say that game is great.

[107] Still deep on the Pushmo.

[108] Yeah, it just started.

[109] Still good?

[110] It's a good game.

[111] Yeah.

[112] I think it's $7?

[113] You say it takes a while before it starts really...

[114] Yeah, it probably takes about an hour and a half.

[115] But there is...

[116] I think unlike perhaps Mario 3D Land, I think there's legitimate reason for that game doling that out slowly.

[117] Oh, totally, totally.

[118] Because the way it ramps up is just like...

[119] Yeah.

[120] You'll be happy to actually...

[121] Sometimes I find myself going back to old puzzles to remind myself what the tricks were.

[122] for some of the old ones because it starts stacking tricks on top of tricks and it becomes really easy to forget.

[123] It's a game that is not worth trying to explain the complexities because it's just such a visually oriented game.

[124] It's a puzzle game where you're moving things in and out and it's using depth perception against you.

[125] We're going to take a look at it.

[126] Jeff tried to explain it already and it's like, I don't really understand and then I went and played it.

[127] It makes complete sense.

[128] What he was attempting to say.

[129] Jeff, your description of the gameplay makes sense once I've actually played it.

[130] Push and pull blocks, and then climb the blocks.

[131] Done.

[132] Yes.

[133] That's roughly it.

[134] That's roughly it.

[135] Yes.

[136] For the most part, that explains the experience, but yeah, that's cool.

[137] Yeah, we'll definitely do a quick look of that.

[138] Yeah, all those Ambassador games just came out for the 3DS too.

[139] Oh, that's right.

[140] I've never played Wireland 4.

[141] That's good.

[142] I want to play that.

[143] That's a good one.

[144] I've never played Minish Cap.

[145] So I want to play that.

[146] I hear that's very good.

[147] I think I've played Zero Mission.

[148] I want to say...

[149] Zero Mission was the first one for GBA?

[150] Yeah.

[151] Okay, then I've...

[152] There were two, right?

[153] Fusion.

[154] Fusion was the...

[155] Yeah, Zero Mission is the...

[156] Oh, no, wait.

[157] Fusion is the one in the ambassador program, I think.

[158] Yes, yeah.

[159] Zero Mission is a remake, right?

[160] Yeah, Zero Mission is the remake of the first game.

[161] Okay, Fusion is the original.

[162] It's more than that.

[163] It's weird.

[164] Fusion is where...

[165] I'm liking on the Metroid...

[166] Who's the Metroid creator's name?

[167] Anyone know?

[168] Yokoi?

[169] Yeah.

[170] Is it?

[171] Gupei Yokoi?

[172] No. That's the Game Boy creator.

[173] Oh, he was later on.

[174] Anyway, the designer of the Metroid games, I think Fusion is where he came back into it.

[175] He wasn't really involved in Metroid 2, or at least definitely Prime, the retro games, which are kind of light on story.

[176] Fusion is where that series takes a real serious, there's a lot of weird narrative that starts with that, and I think Climax with Other M, which was not very good.

[177] I just want to finish the game fast and then be a bikini lady.

[178] There's your story.

[179] Finally, sexy bounty hunter.

[180] Yeah.

[181] What I needed.

[182] Yeah, all those EBA games.

[183] That totally happened.

[184] Yeah, and apparently I guess if you hold Starter Select, then it makes a run in its native res. Otherwise, if you just boot them, it just stretches it to that 3DS resolution, which is like two or three times where the Game Boy Advance games were originally at.

[185] Wait, so if you launch it...

[186] If you just straight up launch it, then it'll stretch.

[187] But otherwise it'll be a lot smaller?

[188] Yeah, but apparently it has a border.

[189] But it looks a lot sharper and nicer.

[190] I mean, maybe if you just don't ever look at it any other way, you'll never notice.

[191] With regular DS games.

[192] Yeah.

[193] I don't know, for a GBA game, I just want that real estate.

[194] That screen is so damn small up top, I'd rather stretch it.

[195] Yeah, I don't know.

[196] If you haven't seen the games, how they...

[197] Would look originally, maybe it wouldn't bother you.

[198] The one thing with the GBA games is they don't have the sleep state function.

[199] Those are, I guess, going to get patched later.

[200] Because Nintendo just figured out patches.

[201] Same thing with the NES games, right?

[202] Yeah, yeah.

[203] They were going to, or the Game Boy.

[204] Yeah, the stuff, yes.

[205] All the Ambassador Program stuff came out before they'd figured out how to do save states and patches and all that stuff.

[206] But they'll patch that in when it's ready to be sold, I guess.

[207] Seems like real basic stuff to figure out.

[208] Well, considering they're not even putting these in the shop and it's like...

[209] Go into your settings, other...

[210] Redownload.

[211] Redownload.

[212] They're doing some backward -ass stuff to get the download later option this time.

[213] And you could queue it up.

[214] Which I could not get to work, and you could not get to work.

[215] Brad is the only one...

[216] I got it to work.

[217] Did you get it to work?

[218] Yeah.

[219] Brad got it to work.

[220] That's probably two hours.

[221] I left it sitting there, and I came back.

[222] And they were all there.

[223] And they were there.

[224] Huzzah.

[225] You have to close out of the shop.

[226] If you just home out of the shop, but the shop is still open in the background, it will not go.

[227] That is the thing.

[228] It says specifically in there, you must close the shop.

[229] I don't want to close the shop.

[230] You must close the shop.

[231] I don't want to close the shop.

[232] So now my 3DS is full of games.

[233] Not a decent battery, but...

[234] Yeah.

[235] Full of games.

[236] I don't know.

[237] I look at it and I just go, I got all these games and these are all theoretically great games, but...

[238] I said I was going to play all those NES games too and I didn't.

[239] I didn't do any of that.

[240] Still, I look at it and I go like, man, I've got The Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2 on this thing.

[241] I can boot that up whenever the fuck I want.

[242] I never played Zelda 2.

[243] Hell of a game.

[244] A lot of grinding, I hear.

[245] It's a lot harder.

[246] Yeah, there are some difficult parts.

[247] But Zelda 1 is a difficult game, too, in comparative.

[248] I've always wanted to play it just because it's such a divisive...

[249] Either it is amazing or it is total shit.

[250] It's because it's total crap.

[251] It's amazing.

[252] It's garbage.

[253] It's awesome.

[254] It's for garbage people.

[255] It's for bad people with no taste who don't know good things.

[256] It's one of the best The Legend of Zelda games ever created.

[257] It's right up there with Majora's Mask.

[258] See, now you're being sarcastic.

[259] No, I'm just fucking with him.

[260] Say it's like Majora's Mask.

[261] You're coming to my side just to be a dick.

[262] It's like Majora's Mask, but good.

[263] It's like Majora's Mask, and then below that is Zelda 2.

[264] And what's below that?

[265] That CDI game.

[266] Scarlet Sword.

[267] Yeah, Skyward Sword, that CD -i game.

[268] Were there two CD -i games?

[269] Yeah.

[270] Yeah, there was a pair.

[271] I don't know anything about the CD -i games.

[272] Wand of Gamelon, is that one of them?

[273] That sounds right.

[274] Yeah.

[275] Ganon's Quest, Wands of Scott Gamelon.

[276] Yeah.

[277] I think a lot of those games.

[278] I don't play a lot of games when I go home.

[279] So I go home for the holidays.

[280] Okay.

[281] So you're out of town for the duration of the break?

[282] Yeah, I don't go home for Thanksgiving because I just pick one or the other.

[283] It's too expensive to go home for both.

[284] Yeah.

[285] But every year I bring home a 360 hard drive thinking, yeah, I'm going to play a game.

[286] And then I usually just end up getting drunk with friends.

[287] So maybe NBA Jam.

[288] That's about it.

[289] That's what we did last year one night.

[290] Other than that, no big games.

[291] Clearing on your handheld stuff.

[292] Yeah, a lot of traveling, so a lot of sitting around before getting to meet up with family, so any big investments probably not.

[293] The Xbox is my only friend where I am from at this point.

[294] Yeah, everyone else left.

[295] Then they don't come back?

[296] That's always the thing.

[297] Theoretically, everyone's supposed to come back, and then everybody's in town for a couple of days.

[298] I don't really talk to anybody from there anymore.

[299] Yeah, good call.

[300] I only keep track.

[301] It's only like two or three people that I keep tabs on.

[302] Keep tabs on?

[303] Yeah.

[304] I'm stalking them.

[305] Make sure that I know where they're at at all times.

[306] I got people.

[307] Interesting phrase.

[308] I got people.

[309] From high school.

[310] Jeff, do you want to talk about The Old Republic?

[311] Sure.

[312] All right.

[313] Does Brad want to talk about anything first?

[314] Because I have feelings we're going to go a bit.

[315] Not really.

[316] All right.

[317] Brad, what have you been playing?

[318] Is Trine 2 still any good?

[319] Still pretty good.

[320] Can you play it on other platforms?

[321] Yeah, I've been.

[322] Oh, I can't remember if I can talk about that.

[323] It's out tomorrow.

[324] It's out tomorrow.

[325] It's out Wednesday.

[326] It's out tomorrow, like Patrick said.

[327] Yeah.

[328] It is out.

[329] Well, that doesn't mean that I can necessarily talk about it, though.

[330] There's no PR people that are still around listening to this shit.

[331] By the time anyone paying attention...

[332] A demo went up prematurely on Xbox Live Marketplace.

[333] That's absolutely true.

[334] It's on my Xbox.

[335] You could purchase that demo, so it's out.

[336] It got out.

[337] I may or may not have also played the full game.

[338] The frame rate is lesser significantly.

[339] The lighting also seems...

[340] It looks about the same.

[341] I've been playing both of them a lot.

[342] Yeah, it performs way less.

[343] It does not perform as much.

[344] No, the frame rate is clearly 30.

[345] You're keeping tabs on it.

[346] 30 or less at all times versus it's running 1080 at a solid 60 on my PC and looks amazing doing it.

[347] So I would recommend playing it on the PC.

[348] It has portals in it.

[349] What?

[350] Finally, straight up added portals.

[351] You mean like?

[352] Like there are two openings in space and you can't move them.

[353] Well, that's not even accurate.

[354] You can't slap onto walls.

[355] Okay.

[356] It's not that kind of portal.

[357] I thought maybe it was just another like Valve indie game thing of, yeah, we put our shit in their game too.

[358] No. So it's more like the developers did.

[359] Prey portals than portal portals.

[360] Oh, no. They are physical objects.

[361] They're like frames.

[362] They're these sort of like ornate looking metal.

[363] They exist in space.

[364] They're not applied to surfaces.

[365] They are...

[366] It's like a Stargate.

[367] It's like a portable hole.

[368] Yes, kind of.

[369] And you can move them around in some cases, but not as much as you would think.

[370] The Wizard?

[371] Or just anybody?

[372] Anybody.

[373] There's like a switch in some cases that lets you move them.

[374] But you throw something in one and it comes out the other.

[375] But generally speaking, still like Toronto?

[376] Yeah, they've added enough stuff that it feels like a good proper sequel at this point.

[377] Okay, because the stuff that we saw was very much like...

[378] prettier trine.

[379] It's very iterative.

[380] I mean, the characters have a few new abilities, but they're basically the same.

[381] Okay.

[382] But it's more how you can interact with the environment and the new stuff in the levels that makes it different.

[383] Cool.

[384] And it's really good.

[385] And then I finished Saints Row the Third.

[386] How about that?

[387] I sound a little less enthusiastic about it.

[388] Yeah, hello.

[389] This is not really the venue to openly discuss the endings, is it?

[390] We have a different podcast for that.

[391] Yeah.

[392] I only did one of the endings so far.

[393] You should do both endings.

[394] Yeah, I'll go back and see the other one.

[395] Yeah, you should do that tonight.

[396] The one that I did was I liked where they were going with it.

[397] Yeah.

[398] It was a good idea.

[399] They had a good joke in mind, but it felt like the execution was at 80%.

[400] They didn't quite take it as far as they could have, perhaps.

[401] I heard a lot of people say that, and I think it's the ending that you're talking about.

[402] I don't know.

[403] I didn't get that vibe at all.

[404] I didn't have that problem.

[405] But, yeah, a lot of people were saying, like, yeah, it's just not quite there.

[406] Some of the other highs are so high, you know?

[407] Yeah.

[408] Yeah.

[409] Like that one.

[410] My response to that was that maybe they took it too far.

[411] Yeah.

[412] Just trust the joke too far.

[413] The whole ending of the game, the whole last, like, 30 minutes felt.

[414] It's a little bit flat to me. Compared to some of the other complete losing.

[415] The first half of the last mission leading up to you making the choice about which ending you're going to go get is not good.

[416] Oh, or you have to just fight in the three different places.

[417] Going and doing the three fights, not a great ending.

[418] And that sucks that you have to do that again.

[419] Yeah, so when you go back and do the other ending, you'll have to do all that stuff again.

[420] But hopefully you will have earned enough fresh stuff in your one finish of the game that you can then buy your invincibility.

[421] Yeah, I do have like $300 ,000 at this point.

[422] Buy your invincibility.

[423] Buy your...

[424] I think I'm high enough level for that.

[425] I didn't...

[426] Yeah, it took me another few hours of playing it after finishing the game.

[427] Which I'm not going to do.

[428] That will not happen to get to the invincibility stuff.

[429] Because I like that game a lot and there's a lot of fun stuff in there, but it all kind of wears thin after a little while.

[430] Sure.

[431] To me. The activity is, you know, like two or three times, so I'm good.

[432] Yeah, it sounds like they're going to do a lot of DLC, so I will go back and...

[433] Story -based DLC, bring it on.

[434] I will go back and dick around with that stuff.

[435] I think if I had a couple months off with it, then those...

[436] Side things would be interesting again.

[437] I just need anything at all to do in that game.

[438] I've done it all.

[439] Do we know what their plans are for DLC for that?

[440] At one point, they were saying a lot.

[441] They intended to do more DLC than any other game before, which is how they were trying to pump up the season pass.

[442] They put out some additional...

[443] I don't know if these came out on console, but I saw on Steam that they had put out a couple of weapon packs.

[444] Okay.

[445] That's just not what I...

[446] Yeah, nothing would make you want to come back to the game.

[447] I need content.

[448] I've eaten through everything in that game that is, to me, worth pursuing.

[449] I want to play it more.

[450] Just give me a fucking excuse.

[451] Give me new events, new modes.

[452] Give me new story stuff.

[453] Anything.

[454] Some mission packs would be appreciated.

[455] Brad, you play anything else?

[456] Star Wars The Old Republic.

[457] For about an hour?

[458] For, like, maybe an hour.

[459] Yeah.

[460] You were so excited for it.

[461] I'm going to play this game.

[462] I'm so excited.

[463] Did you wait in the server queue longer than you played?

[464] Yes, I did, in fact, do that, yeah.

[465] So this was, like, what, Saturday night, Friday night?

[466] Saturday afternoon -ish.

[467] Yeah.

[468] And that was maybe those were the worst queues that I have seen in that game.

[469] Yeah, it said 25 minutes or less, and it ended up being well over an hour.

[470] Yeah.

[471] And you can't really do anything else on your computer while that's happening.

[472] I couldn't play StarCraft while I was waiting to get in.

[473] It seems like a perfect application of that battle log stuff.

[474] If the server queue could literally just be in a web browser.

[475] If they didn't launch you into the direct 3D mode, like actual full screen application.

[476] You can just alt enter.

[477] You can alt enter out of it and turn it into a window.

[478] I'm running a full screen window so I can have my other monitor doing stuff.

[479] Yeah, I guess I could try that.

[480] That would assume that I'm going to play more Old Republic.

[481] Yeah, I suspect that they'll...

[482] Oh, whatever.

[483] They will fix the queuing problem eventually because that's how it works.

[484] Either enough people quit or they add enough server capacity to balance it out.

[485] But I bet this launch is going to be like the WoW launch.

[486] After Saturday afternoon, though.

[487] Whatever.

[488] Today is the official launch of that game.

[489] Right.

[490] So today will be absolute bedlam because you'll have the real launch of this game.

[491] They're taking the servers down Monday night from like 7 p .m. to midnight or something and then throwing them back up for the official launch or whatever.

[492] So yeah, if you thought queues were bad in the pre -launch period.

[493] Although after Saturday afternoon, after that period that Brad sat through and I also sat through the queue once.

[494] Every other time that I jumped into that game over the weekend, it was fine.

[495] I heard that Sunday evening was rotten.

[496] I couldn't see for myself.

[497] It was just people in the stupid general chat going, is there a queue right now?

[498] And people going, yeah, there's like 600 people.

[499] I just waded through it.

[500] It's shit like that.

[501] Seems like the wave sort of idea they were floating didn't do anything to Stan.

[502] Maybe it could have been worse.

[503] So at some point...

[504] In the process, they actually increased the number of players that they allowed to be connected.

[505] So people were waiting in the queue and then had all of a sudden their number drop 300 spots or something because they allowed more connections or whatever it was.

[506] So, I mean, who knows if they're running at full capacity?

[507] Who knows where they'll be at?

[508] Well, it's weird for as at capacity as everything is supposedly, allegedly running.

[509] The world is fucking empty whenever I go anywhere.

[510] So that's the problem.

[511] They've instanced up the world so much, and they have these huge fucking cities with zero people in them.

[512] Yeah.

[513] And you see like 168 people in your instance or something like that, and the zones are big.

[514] Yeah, you don't run into people unless you run to choke points.

[515] your, your shops, your class trainers and, or requesting points, you know, like, like that's the, that's where you see other people.

[516] I just, I, yeah, I find it.

[517] I think it's a good idea to instance up like a lot of the, a lot of elements here, but it seems like when you're in the big cities, like that should feel full.

[518] I'm in like the Imperial home planet, capital city, like as, as much the center of the empire as you can get.

[519] Why y 'all got to play empire?

[520] Because their aesthetics are way better.

[521] Why is everybody I know playing Empire on every server?

[522] I played like eight hours of Jedi in the beta and thought it was boring as shit.

[523] Especially compared to the...

[524] the Empire stuff that I've played.

[525] It is not as good.

[526] Does everybody start in the same zone, the same area?

[527] No, it's split up by class.

[528] But as soon as you get to level 10 and get out of your, around level 10, get out of your starter area.

[529] Well, even in that very first zone, there were class -specific phase points.

[530] Right.

[531] So there are...

[532] Is that just if you happen to go there later?

[533] No, no. A couple of the classes.

[534] You'll have two classes that start in an area.

[535] Both of the Sith classes start in the same place.

[536] Man. As the agent, I started on Huda.

[537] I'm not sure who else started there.

[538] I think maybe Bounty Honors might start there.

[539] The instancing thing, it makes sense from some kind of technical perspective and all that.

[540] It feels like kind of a big ripoff of like – it's like if you're going to instance it all to hell like that, it's just Guild Wars at that point.

[541] Well, so then it's like, well, then what am I waiting in a queue for?

[542] Right.

[543] Like what's my connection to other players really?

[544] Yeah.

[545] If everything is so heavily instanced.

[546] Yeah, even on that capital city sort of level.

[547] And then the phases are all specific instances.

[548] You're always running in and out of little areas that are exclusive to you while you're in there.

[549] So as soon as you go through one of those big green doors, nobody else is going to come in.

[550] No, no one else is going to walk in there.

[551] The enemies are not going to respawn on the same timers.

[552] It's a totally different thing.

[553] The upside is that you never wait for, like, dude to spawn.

[554] Yet you still wait for, like...

[555] So like last night I had to go disable a bunch of AA guns and I get out to where the AA gun panel is that I need to right click on.

[556] And there's like three people waiting there in line to right click on this thing.

[557] And they right click on it and it blows up and the guy runs away, waves to everybody.

[558] And then you wait for like 40 seconds or whatever for it to reset.

[559] And then the next person does it.

[560] And I'm just like, why are we not past this?

[561] Like, how do you?

[562] For everything else.

[563] How have they not fixed this thing?

[564] For all the other lengths they go to.

[565] It's like, oh, look, the gun blew up.

[566] Now we have to wait for it to respawn so someone else can blow it up.

[567] Oh, look, the gun blew up.

[568] Okay.

[569] Oh, it's fixed again.

[570] Oh, that dick ran up and right -clicked on it before I could right -click on it.

[571] Now he blew it up.

[572] Now I have to sit here even longer.

[573] Thanks.

[574] It's just a...

[575] That genre, man. Then you start wondering why you're playing the game.

[576] Which is where I got to after about 30 minutes on each faction, and I said, I can't do this anymore.

[577] 30 minutes, huh?

[578] Level 3 on both characters.

[579] I played for 30 hours.

[580] Man. What are your classes?

[581] I have one.

[582] I basically have one.

[583] Really?

[584] I have two that I played a little bit of, but I have a Sith Marauder that's like level 23.

[585] Is that one of the advanced classes?

[586] Yeah, it's the Sith Warrior split up in two.

[587] DPS.

[588] Yeah, I am the DPS version, the two lightsabers.

[589] That's the guy I wanted to play.

[590] Instead of the one lightsaber and heavy armor.

[591] So after 30 hours, what do you think so far?

[592] It is certainly a massively multiplayer online role -playing game.

[593] It is exactly what I said.

[594] You know what?

[595] Production values are the thing that are going to set this game apart.

[596] And that's what gives you that kind of...

[597] It's giving me fond memories of World of Warcraft, not angry memories of World of Warcraft like most other MMOs do.

[598] They have done a lot of stuff right on the experience side of just like...

[599] Going through and just like, wow, this stuff looks really great.

[600] You can tell that a lot of people made some good art here.

[601] At the same time, you do run into cases where you see the same building.

[602] It's almost like Dragon Age 2.

[603] You see the same building three different ways.

[604] Now there's a wall here, even though there's a clear outline where a door would be.

[605] And in fact, there is a door here in a different version of this building.

[606] It's all real modular on some of this stuff.

[607] Yeah, I've definitely run into that.

[608] But in ways that, I don't know.

[609] Makes some sense.

[610] Yeah, exactly.

[611] That doesn't break the game or anything like that.

[612] It's just a weird thing to notice.

[613] Like, okay, sure, the Empire is going to have prefab buildings that they're going to put on multiple planets, but why would they have this one?

[614] This one, the door's over here.

[615] I don't know.

[616] We thought that would be the cool thing.

[617] For this one.

[618] It's going to the suburbs, man. Same thing.

[619] It's like you don't put the exact same house all next to each other.

[620] But that's because they're all next to each other and you can't, you know, people want to feel different.

[621] It's not two planets away.

[622] Oh, you're talking about the similarities from...

[623] Yeah, see, I haven't done enough space travel yet to start seeing stuff like that.

[624] You got a ship?

[625] I have a ship.

[626] I can fly around in space.

[627] Can you manually fly around in space?

[628] Or do you click where you want to go and then you're there?

[629] If you want to travel to another planet, you click where you want to go and you're there.

[630] But there are space battle missions that are like, you need to blow up the turrets on this space station.

[631] And that's kind of a flash game.

[632] You know what?

[633] It's like they're bringing the magic of rebel assault into today's technology.

[634] So it's like an on -rails kind of...

[635] Absolutely.

[636] It is on -rails.

[637] You have a cursor that you're moving around with a mouse, and your ship is on screen, and it's kind of jankily following the cursor, just moving around all willy -nilly.

[638] So you have to dodge asteroids and shit like that that'll be in your flight path.

[639] That's why they draw your ship, but the movement just looks bad.

[640] And it's like...

[641] Left click for lasers and right click is a paint targets for missiles like Panzer Dragoon style thing.

[642] You can hit the space bar to barrel roll, which I don't know why you would ever do that.

[643] So not exactly the next TIE Fighters, which you're saying.

[644] Seems like one of those things that like we have to have this in here in some fashion and we will do an expansion pack later that.

[645] turns it into the thing yeah i don't know but like when you load it up it says in the upper right corner like how long the mission is going to be because it's on rails it's just like six minutes so you have like six minutes to blow up 50 fighters and you get three or four passes on this space station plenty of time to take out all the antennas and turrets and all the things you need to do uh they throw in a couple of bonus objectives and it's just kind of like free xp or something um yeah it's it's it's I will say it looks kind of nice.

[646] Visually, some of those asteroids are pretty good -looking asteroids, but it's really silly.

[647] It's a hell of a rock texture.

[648] Yeah, they're good -looking rocks.

[649] I remember that Galaxies got really hammered for not having any of that at launch, and that all came in expansions a year later.

[650] So I don't think it was conceivable to ship a game without some sort of space combat, but also thinking that you're going to get...

[651] comparable space combat, give it everything else they have to build.

[652] This game sounds like a whole series of compromises of this grand vision for an MMO that's going to be different and then just colliding with the realities of the genre and just not having or just realizing in order to make this work, in order to make this a shippable product, there are just some things we're not going to be able to do differently.

[653] And we'll try to make it better in the areas that are within our control, which is writing, voice acting, and stuff like that.

[654] And that stuff's pretty good.

[655] I mean, you kind of hear...

[656] It sounds like Jennifer Hale.

[657] You sound like her.

[658] It almost seems like she's voicing, let's say, two -thirds of the female characters or something.

[659] I hear she's in there a bunch.

[660] Yeah.

[661] I thought I heard a couple of Nolan Norths.

[662] I guess he's primarily in the Jedi Consular.

[663] I think that's the voice he actually provides is the male Jedi Consular.

[664] There's a smuggler -looking character that is getting tortured at one point in my storyline that sounded like it was probably him.

[665] Don't know for sure.

[666] If you go look at the voice list for this game, there's, yes, everyone.

[667] Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

[668] Cam Clark up in there at some point.

[669] It's got to be all hands on deck with the number of characters and stories and stuff.

[670] And like actual actors also, like screen actors who are just kind of like, yeah, Richie Lee Cook does this one character voice.

[671] Really?

[672] Yep.

[673] I pulled that one out of thin air.

[674] That's not actually true.

[675] No, that's actually 100 % true.

[676] Does she really qualify as a screen actor at this point, though?

[677] She is primarily known for her face more than she is anything else.

[678] In the past, sure.

[679] She was in that movie, right?

[680] Yeah, that was a while ago.

[681] Yeah, whatever.

[682] I didn't say movie stars.

[683] I said screen actors.

[684] I'm saying not Jennifer Hale, Cam Clark, Phil Lamar.

[685] Phil Lamar's been on some screens.

[686] Sure.

[687] But again, he is primarily a voice actor.

[688] That is my only point there.

[689] Jeff, to your point, I think you're right.

[690] Playing the – I don't know how many hours.

[691] Maybe I did 12 or something.

[692] I'm at about level 12, maybe more, maybe less for the time spent.

[693] Yeah, it feels like it's a familiar experience as far as kind of pacing and structure goes in a lot of ways.

[694] But I have to say that it's also going to be – A while before anyone will be able to tell if this is going to make a long -term difference.

[695] But all the voice work and the way that they present missions and story stuff makes that stuff matter more than it has in other MMOs for me. Simply because it's there and produced.

[696] It's probably just the quality of the story or something like that, but I haven't been skipping as much dialogue with this as I was.

[697] during that weekend with the beta, we're two hours in, I was just like, Jedi story, just boring, boring, boring, cat teeth, who cares, whatever, whatever.

[698] The Imperial Agent story is fantastic.

[699] It's really good.

[700] Like, it's hardcore, and you do some really brutal stuff.

[701] Yeah, I think that's probably the reason that playing Empire is kind of interesting, is because you find dialogue options that just say, like, Let's say, like, no, and then in brackets, kill him.

[702] He's like, yeah, fucking yeah, let's do that.

[703] And as an Imperial agent, like, I'm doing a lot of just, like, no, we need this to work out this way.

[704] It doesn't matter if that, like, it's either he will say no or we will kill him.

[705] Either of those is an acceptable outcome to this interaction.

[706] So, like, killing kids' dads in front of them and then shipping the kids off to Sith Academies.

[707] That's pretty good.

[708] Yeah, it's hardcore.

[709] That's pretty good.

[710] Nasty, nasty, like, just.

[711] Yeah, yeah.

[712] You've got to be a fucking force choking people in cages, like people in prison cells, just choking them through the bars just because I can.

[713] And I found it interesting.

[714] So, you know, there's like the whole light side, dark side.

[715] It's kind of the reason that the dialogue system has any weight is that you are getting these points and then these points will affect your alignment.

[716] And I guess at some point there's gear that you can only use once you reach a certain light or dark side.

[717] Now, there's an option in there that you can set it so that any time there's a light or dark side dialogue option available, it'll tag it.

[718] That's not on by default.

[719] What is it?

[720] Otherwise, it's just all gray area and you're just interpreting it.

[721] Yeah, you have no idea what any – well, it kind of – Yeah, you kind of – when it says kill him, you think, oh, that's a problem.

[722] But it's still not like big, bold, red.

[723] Right, right.

[724] There's no like you're doing good or you're doing bad, which I prefer because I feel like – Jeff, that's how you fell into the just – you know.

[725] I want the best stuff, so I'm just going to choose one side all the time, which is better for gear, but the game's not hard already.

[726] Yeah, it's really not.

[727] So I don't need the best gear, so I'd rather see how the story stuff plays out.

[728] I thought it was interesting that the priorities of the Empire are not always the same as the priorities of Dark Side, Light Side.

[729] It's not like...

[730] Everything that is in the Empire's best interest is always a dark side decision.

[731] Sometimes it just means being a complete dick.

[732] Actually, it always just means what's the cruelest, needlessly nasty thing that you can do in this situation?

[733] Go for that because that's your dark side choice.

[734] Yeah, it's like it would be better for me to leave this guy alive and take him prisoner so he could confess to some stuff.

[735] But I'm just going to kill him.

[736] I'm just going to kill him.

[737] Well, there's weird ones where it's like where either option is either.

[738] We'll either kill these people efficiently and quickly and then we can move on with this or we will let this other thing happen and they will die slowly and horribly.

[739] And it's like, well – and it's like, well, there's one character that's going to benefit from one and he seems like a real asshole.

[740] But then the other one is for the Empire.

[741] Like for as clear cut as the light and dark side stuff might seem.

[742] There are some gray areas in the evil side.

[743] Working with the Empire, it's like all of my choices here are pretty evil.

[744] So you have to kind of divine.

[745] Well, the difference is, is there mercy or not?

[746] In a lot of cases, that's the thing.

[747] Are you granting someone mercy or are you just letting them die slow?

[748] Yeah.

[749] So I turned on the icons.

[750] So whenever I make a choice or whenever I have a choice, it shows if it's going to affect my alignment.

[751] Because I kind of want that gear.

[752] Like I'm dark two now.

[753] I think dark five is as low as you can go on that or as high as you can get in the dark side.

[754] I wonder if you could go to a certain point where then you'd have so much in one side that the story decisions you make, you could be...

[755] Like, you wouldn't be forced to be picking those for gear -related purposes.

[756] Right.

[757] You would have enough points that, like, hey, I want to do this one that doesn't get me points, but that's okay because I have all the points I need.

[758] Well, so it's a balance.

[759] It swings back and forth.

[760] So I have, like, 400 light side points from when before I turned that thing on.

[761] And so I could be darker than I am now.

[762] Oh.

[763] But I made some light side choices.

[764] So it's not like you're just building up both and getting access to two separate trees.

[765] It's you either have one or the other.

[766] That's just kind of the weird flaw of those.

[767] Yeah.

[768] Or the quirk of those systems.

[769] You're kind of like once you go in a direction, you kind of need to keep going that way if you want to benefit from that gear.

[770] And the gear didn't seem fantastic.

[771] I guess that's the only.

[772] But the problem is that gamers are wired to do that.

[773] Right.

[774] So by once you tie the two together as a mechanic.

[775] Most people are not going to be interested in your story.

[776] The story is secondary to getting the points to get the loot.

[777] Yeah.

[778] So the only kind of saving grace I would say is that there are a lot of repeatable quests in that game that have alignment decisions in them.

[779] So you could probably grind your way all the way one way or the other eventually.

[780] That sounds like fun.

[781] Yeah, I know, right?

[782] So after you finished your character's story, if you found yourself going like, oh, well, actually, I want to make sure I have access to all this dark side gear, you could probably just run flashpoints over and over again until you had it.

[783] That just seems too bad.

[784] It seems kind of a missed opportunity to prevent players from maybe doing the most interesting things story -wise because it's all tied to...

[785] I mean, it's MMO, though.

[786] Again, I think there are certain things that just end up happening because they have to craft it to stuff.

[787] A lot of hard decisions probably had to be made.

[788] developing that game but you know in most cases when faced with the how can we make this more like an mmo they checked that box like it's yeah you know tanks healers dps that all that same sort of stuff i like how when you're picking your class those terms are in there yeah but you have to click like three levels deep to find them right like i'm sitting there reading all these descriptions looking at ability lists and like combat role right and i was like please just say tank or DPS or healer, and I will pick my guy.

[789] And then it says, and finally you find it.

[790] All right.

[791] And I'm like, all right, all right, fine.

[792] I'll take this guy.

[793] Yeah.

[794] Yeah, I don't know.

[795] It's certainly well made.

[796] It's Star Wars, so that's kind of a problem with it.

[797] Or not, depending on who you are.

[798] I guess, yeah.

[799] I don't know.

[800] They're tied to the fiction in so many weird ways.

[801] But it's its own Star Wars.

[802] It's this weird thing where, yeah, there's blasters and there's the Empire and the Force and all this stuff.

[803] Some decent KOTOR references.

[804] It's not even the same Empire.

[805] No, no. None of it is really that connected to anything you care about.

[806] Well, let's assume I care about any of that.

[807] Well, presumably, if you're playing this game, you have some affinity for Star Wars.

[808] Like, yes, but I bet that on the notion that it is just going to kind of be the next big MMO, it will attract a certain crowd that kind of doesn't care about the license so much.

[809] Like, they're just going to play this for the 30 days.

[810] Yeah.

[811] If it hooks them, otherwise they just wait until the Panda expansion comes out.

[812] I hate that the entire universe of this game has just become this huge litany of recreations, like pocket recreations of the seven or eight characters from the original movies.

[813] That's every Star Wars thing ever, though.

[814] But it's really egregious.

[815] It's really stupid.

[816] Like, looking at the character select screens, it's just like, here are your character classes.

[817] Obi -Wan Kenobi is a class.

[818] Han Solo is a class.

[819] Stormtrooper is a class.

[820] You know?

[821] Well, I'm playing as...

[822] Boba Fett is a class.

[823] I'm playing as evil Empire James Bond.

[824] Yeah.

[825] And I'm basically a rogue.

[826] It's all just patterned after really specific examples.

[827] Well, you know, Star Wars Galaxies, when you played as Smuggler straight up, the portrait was...

[828] Harrison Ford.

[829] I'm not saying it's not.

[830] It wasn't just like, here's a guy that kind of looks like, no, here's a photograph that we took of Harrison Ford.

[831] He comes in the Han Solo outfit, right?

[832] It's not a new problem, but they've had a long time to figure out a better alternative.

[833] I don't think fans want something other than that.

[834] I think you're asking for a different game.

[835] I guess I'm not a Star Wars fan anymore because that stuff was just off -putting to me. I want to see new characters.

[836] That's what the original KOTOR stuff was so good at.

[837] Both of those first two KOTOR games were really good at telling new stories in that established fiction.

[838] Instead of just retreading the same shit over and over.

[839] The stories aren't retreading.

[840] It's not like, here's our recreation of the...

[841] Yeah, you're right.

[842] They're archetypes.

[843] They're archetypes, but my opening mission was dealing with this weird political intrigue between two hut houses on Hutta.

[844] which I thought they handled it well, made that stuff seem interesting.

[845] I enjoyed the way the story played out.

[846] And once that leg was done, it's like, all right, I'm leaving this planet.

[847] We're going to go on to the next phase, and there's going to be this core thing that's going to push us through the next area.

[848] I found that compelling.

[849] And it's got some pretty good big old emo hair in it, too.

[850] So if you want to be real.

[851] I really, really don't like that hair.

[852] Oh, it's the best hair.

[853] I hate that hair.

[854] I ended up choosing that for my Jedi.

[855] God, that hair is the worst.

[856] Like, I'm not going to play that dude.

[857] Real, yeah, just swoopy in the face.

[858] And it's weird because you'll see, like, old men in the swamps of Huda with this coiffed Justin Bieber hair but still have, like, the wrinkly facial features.

[859] And it's just this dissonance that I can't.

[860] The aesthetic of that game is so weird.

[861] Like if you think about it, kind of the – that squared look that they go for in Old Republic.

[862] Like it's kind of directly derivative of the way the Clone Wars like CG stuff looks where it's very exaggerated and just a lot of hard lines and stuff, which was itself then.

[863] kind of derived from the 2D, like, Clone Wars shorts that they were running on Cartoon Network, I think around the time that the second prequel came out.

[864] That sounds about right.

[865] So, like, the whole aesthetic of this universe and this, like, it's weird to me to think that it is kind of, that has become officially co -opted by Lucas and, I guess, you know, by Bioware now, that the look of this...

[866] series of 2D short animations for TV has become this de facto aesthetic for non -live action Star Wars stuff.

[867] I don't really know, but do you think there are a lot of kids that got into Star Wars and stayed into it because of the Clone Wars stuff?

[868] It's hugely popular.

[869] I've been trying to think who's playing this game and looking at the general chat in there and just everyone in there seems like they either suck or are 12.

[870] Or both?

[871] A lot of kids, like, whenever I go to meet with some of Katie's family, like, her or some of her family, like, kids are, like, right in the age that we're talking about, like, that, who, you know, Call of Duty kids, like, they play these games, and they just...

[872] Okay.

[873] So, yeah.

[874] It was just like...

[875] I think it is a lot of those people.

[876] Just the dumbest shit.

[877] I think I'm going to join a guild just to expose yourself.

[878] Just to have that.

[879] Just turn off the general chat.

[880] Yeah, and turn off the general chat.

[881] There's a way to turn off general chat.

[882] Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

[883] But I don't know that I want no chat because then it's like this weird thing about why am I playing that?

[884] Yeah, totally.

[885] And I mostly am playing alone.

[886] I teamed up with Adam for a little bit, and that was fun.

[887] I played someone with Adam.

[888] Get that flashpoint.

[889] That's a fun flashpoint.

[890] I like that whole scenario.

[891] That was okay.

[892] There's plenty of opportunities to just smoke dudes.

[893] What's a flashpoint?

[894] It's like repeatable instance.

[895] It's a dungeon, basically, right?

[896] Yeah.

[897] That's crazy.

[898] You're taking over the starship.

[899] There's all this bedlam.

[900] Oh, that sounds like the one they showed to press.

[901] It's that one.

[902] It is that one.

[903] It's a good one.

[904] It's the first one.

[905] Yeah, it's the first one that you come to in the game.

[906] That's the Van Cleef of this game, basically?

[907] Except that you blow through this thing.

[908] Adam had already gone through it, I think, twice by the time you got to it with him.

[909] I think he said this was his fourth time.

[910] Yeah.

[911] He was overleveled.

[912] It's your first real exposure to a higher level piece of story content.

[913] Yes.

[914] Yeah.

[915] Okay.

[916] Yeah.

[917] It is not as majestic in scope as Van Cleef, because I don't think anything ever could be.

[918] There was a pirate ship in that cave.

[919] There was a fucking pirate ship.

[920] You come out of the cave, you blow open that door, and you're like, holy shit, there's a fucking ship out here.

[921] Dude, let's talk about World of Warcraft.

[922] Oh my god, man. That whole thing was incredible.

[923] I mean, A, that game is really well made in its time.

[924] Obviously showing its age a little bit now.

[925] But B, I don't know if you can go back if you're a regular person.

[926] If you're not...

[927] the kind of person who serially plays MMOs from one to the next.

[928] I had that feeling once, and it was amazing.

[929] Playing that game, I was fucking addicted to World of Warcraft for two years, but I can't recapture it, and I kind of don't want to.

[930] There still has to be millions upon millions of people that have never had that experience.

[931] Those people will come along and they will play for a couple years and they will see the truth.

[932] I'm kind of on the other end of it this time and it was sort of what kept me playing through the weekend was this notion that we don't roll with a crowd of people that play MMOs like we did when World of Warcraft came out.

[933] No one is twinking anyone.

[934] No one's fucking...

[935] No one's crazy.

[936] So I figure by jumping out way ahead of everybody and being, like, level 23 when, like, I mean, what, Adam's, like, 14.

[937] Where are you?

[938] I'm 12.

[939] If I can just keep that, then when I don't play as much, it won't be that everyone else is racing past me and leaving me in the dust, and then I will have no reason to play.

[940] Like, I'll be the person that's out in front and be like, yeah, I'll come help you.

[941] I'll come help you.

[942] Like, get people up and do that sort of stuff.

[943] Like, maybe it'll work a little better.

[944] that way.

[945] Like playing it all a little more casually or playing with people who are not out of their goddamn minds.

[946] But yeah, to your point, it is an MMO.

[947] It hits a lot of the same conventions that they have before.

[948] It is incredibly well produced.

[949] Yeah, it's really well put together for one of those kinds of games.

[950] It is a good looking game.

[951] It is that kind of game.

[952] It is exactly that kind of game.

[953] It has a lot of the same problems that other games of its type have.

[954] They have not come up with innovative new solutions to problems in a lot of cases.

[955] Yeah, they have addressed the story stuff and the lore stuff by giving you a Mass Effect -style codex for text and fully voiced cutscenes.

[956] That stuff seems really well done.

[957] Yeah, and that stuff is really well done.

[958] And then my first quest was to go kill six of these scavenger slugs.

[959] And I was just like, all right, that's the first and last time I want to do that in this game.

[960] And what happens when you get through that content?

[961] It's not cheap to make.

[962] It's not like they can just punch it out.

[963] Well, they can so long as they have non -basic speaking quest givers because they're just recycling that alien.

[964] Right, if it's just alien dialogue.

[965] Yeah.

[966] Which was already a bummer.

[967] Yeah.

[968] Like immediately the first time I saw.

[969] Could you tell?

[970] You could tell that it was not.

[971] KOTOR was bad about that.

[972] It is not bad like KOTOR.

[973] The worst part is when they stop talking but they leave huge gaps because the amount of text that they have for the translation is clearly way more than the amount of like.

[974] fake alien voice work.

[975] So it's just a guy standing there.

[976] I'm like, alright, I guess I'll read the rest of this while you don't say the fake dialogue that you clearly don't have.

[977] And that bothered me. I realized...

[978] It's where you see them cutting corners.

[979] Yes, yes.

[980] I understand why they would have to cut those corners, but it's still incredibly noticeable.

[981] I'm going to keep playing it.

[982] I think it's...

[983] I like what I've played so far, even if it's not revolutionary or anything.

[984] I'm intrigued by their storytelling techniques.

[985] It's nice to have an MMO that has that level of production quality to it.

[986] It's kind of like a not -since World of Warcraft sort of thing.

[987] Yes, I would agree with that.

[988] I have not had this much fun and felt as compelled to keep playing with an MMO since that first World of Warcraft run.

[989] And it has that level of polish to it.

[990] The underlying content is good enough.

[991] The writing is good enough.

[992] The quest design is good enough.

[993] Even if once you go off, it's like, oh, I'm just going to go find groups of three dudes and shoot them or stab them.

[994] Yeah, that's where I tripped over it.

[995] It's just what you're doing every time they send you off on an errand.

[996] I think that some of those classes are better or worse about that than others as far as what your initial...

[997] I eventually got into that kind of stuff, but the...

[998] The agent class doesn't start you right off with the most tropiest of MMO tropes.

[999] The Sith Warrior stuff was decent as well, especially compared to Jedi where it was straight up a lot of six of these, eight of this.

[1000] I mean, they both had a lot of that.

[1001] The one thing I saw with the Sith Warrior, I don't know if this is, I guess this has to be common to every instance of that class, but I hit a subplot after 30 minutes where there's other Sith initiates who kind of want my head.

[1002] Yeah.

[1003] Like you kind of run into them in a hallway and it starts a cutscene out of nowhere.

[1004] Yeah.

[1005] Did you have that?

[1006] Yeah.

[1007] Like that just has to happen for everybody, right?

[1008] Yeah, I mean you walk through the green area into an instance.

[1009] That's where the story stuff is and it's always identical.

[1010] That was slightly intriguing.

[1011] It's way more interesting.

[1012] The treacherous nature of the way the lore paints the Sith and gives them the kind of treacherous nature means that at some point you kill teachers, right?

[1013] That's the whole point of that.

[1014] whole fiction.

[1015] Right.

[1016] So, hopefully...

[1017] Sith are a bunch of dicks.

[1018] As long as it keeps going in that direction, you know, that sounds kind of interesting and fun to watch play out.

[1019] There's a bunch of real space assholes.

[1020] Like, Empire just wants to control everything.

[1021] Space paranoids.

[1022] The Empire is just...

[1023] They want to control everything.

[1024] They're OCD.

[1025] But the Sith just want to go out there and fuck with each other.

[1026] Treachery is all they care about.

[1027] And I like that divergence.

[1028] I still – yeah.

[1029] It still makes me wish that – and it will probably never happen because who would make the investment on something unproven?

[1030] But it kind of makes me wish that it would happen with a new world, a new set of fiction, like not tied to Star Wars.

[1031] It's something I realized like even about World of Warcraft.

[1032] Like I kind of didn't like Warcraft 3, which is where kind of most of the – Most of the fiction made its way into the game throughout.

[1033] So that was always kind of working against me there, too.

[1034] Makes me wonder if The Secret World will be any good.

[1035] That looks pretty interesting.

[1036] I don't know.

[1037] I wish that they had solved some of the problems of the genre.

[1038] The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head where you look at it and go, oh, that's a neat way to handle that is...

[1039] By giving you companions, they make you more soloable because they're essentially giving you a tank to roll around with.

[1040] Yeah.

[1041] And companions handle all the crafting.

[1042] So crafting is done.

[1043] You can still run around while you craft.

[1044] You can send them off.

[1045] There's very little animation of you moving your hands, standing around in town for an hour while you are crafting items.

[1046] Watching a number go up.

[1047] Yeah, totally.

[1048] You are instead hitting the N key, clicking on some buttons, and then three minutes later it says, we completed that and the number went up.

[1049] And then you have to go in and do it again, which is kind of annoying.

[1050] You're saying, I want more numbers.

[1051] So I keep the numbers going.

[1052] There should just be a keep the numbers going up until I hit this button.

[1053] Option.

[1054] Give me more numbers.

[1055] Just keep these going.

[1056] I don't know.

[1057] I hope I'm not setting myself up for disappointment, but I really want to see that new Blizzard MMO.

[1058] I feel like, if anything, that's our last best hope for, like, really pushing the genre forward, right?

[1059] Like, they're not just going to turn around and make World of Warcraft again.

[1060] I would hope not.

[1061] If that's what they're doing, they're way too smart for them.

[1062] The way they've alluded to it has been, like, it makes no sense to do that because World of Warcraft's numbers are going down, but not at the pace where, like, they need to cannibalize.

[1063] Right, right.

[1064] Like, this is going to keep going.

[1065] That train will just keep going until nobody's out anymore.

[1066] The point is to say they could make the same game and recapture the success again.

[1067] Yeah.

[1068] A lot of people are just over that kind of thing.

[1069] That kind of game is sort of old.

[1070] Yeah, I would like, again, I hate MMO combat systems.

[1071] That's why none of this sounds interesting.

[1072] Yeah, then don't play this game because it is totally exactly the same.

[1073] I thought it was going to be something different.

[1074] It turned into kind of what I expected, but I love the idea of a massively multiplayer game.

[1075] The actual gameplay just never...

[1076] Quite good to me. First I hit the 3 key, and then I hit 4.

[1077] And that usually stuns everybody around there.

[1078] What is up?

[1079] And then I hit 1 a few times.

[1080] With no auto attack.

[1081] I know.

[1082] What?

[1083] I don't know.

[1084] What?

[1085] I think part of it is the way that all the global cooldown stuff works, like with the other abilities.

[1086] I just...

[1087] Like, granted, I didn't put much time into it.

[1088] But I never really got a good sense of where the attack loop was ending and when I should hit the key again.

[1089] I'm just staring at the action bar the whole time.

[1090] Yeah, so I got to the point where I was watching the cooldowns every time.

[1091] I'm not even fighting.

[1092] Yeah, I'm looking at the bottom tenth of the screen the entire time.

[1093] At that point, like, what kind of game are you even playing?

[1094] Right.

[1095] That is an excellent criticism.

[1096] You were playing a Facebook game.

[1097] But I still played it for 30 hours.

[1098] I bet you got some sick lightsabers.

[1099] What color are your lightsabers?

[1100] Right now they're both red, because I've been crafting color crystals.

[1101] Okay.

[1102] With extra...

[1103] Yeah.

[1104] See?

[1105] Wait a minute.

[1106] Wait.

[1107] You can change the colors here.

[1108] Yeah.

[1109] Dude, that infers all sorts of crazy shit.

[1110] I'm back in.

[1111] Yeah, there are four slots on a lightsaber.

[1112] On most lightsabers.

[1113] Even some blasters and armor will have slots.

[1114] Yeah, I just upgraded it out of a blaster rifle that had slots.

[1115] You can throw in better stuff and basically destroy the old stuff over and over again.

[1116] Well, the blasters, I can actually pay money to extract enhancements without destroying them.

[1117] Really?

[1118] Yeah, so I can pull stuff out of my blasters.

[1119] So basically the last blaster rifle that I had, I fucking field stripped for all of its subcomponents.

[1120] Yeah.

[1121] And then just sold it off because it wasn't worth anything without the parts on it.

[1122] And then put all those parts into your new one?

[1123] Yeah, so I can put those into my next piece.

[1124] I wonder if I can do that.

[1125] I can also, if I just overwrite it, if I just put a new thing in that slot, it'll say, hey, you didn't remove that last thing.

[1126] It will be destroyed if you continue this way.

[1127] So I can go either way with those upgrades.

[1128] What else can you do to a lightsaber?

[1129] You replace the hilt, which is just stats.

[1130] The only visual change is the color crystal, but it's like hilt mod.

[1131] Color Crystal, and one other one.

[1132] Can any Force user use any kind of lightsaber?

[1133] I saw they had recommended, or I don't know if it was a requirement, it was like, this guy uses dual lightsabers, this guy uses a double -bladed lightsaber.

[1134] I cannot use double -bladed lightsabers.

[1135] That's the advanced thing, right?

[1136] That's when you specify.

[1137] Yeah, at level 10 you pick your advanced class, and you can't respect that.

[1138] That's when you get access to a skill tree, is when you hit 10.

[1139] And then at that point, yeah, you choose whether you – and you don't really have a chance to go try either of them in combat or anything like that.

[1140] It's just like – Because they say, like, this is an important choice that's going to affect the rest of your experience.

[1141] Choose now.

[1142] Yeah, choose right now.

[1143] It's like, whoa.

[1144] And then they pop up actually a lot of the same menus you can get at the beginning of the game about what those classes are and what they do and stuff.

[1145] But that's kind of it.

[1146] So that's a little weird.

[1147] I don't know.

[1148] But I think in the storytelling area is where this game makes its improvements.

[1149] Everything else is MMO standards.

[1150] But the way that they present mission details and kind of an overarching story for your character seems pretty unique.

[1151] But it's still like you get to an area, you see a bunch of dudes with icons over their heads, you sweep up all the quests that, oh, look, they all happen to take place in the exact same area.

[1152] You go out to that area, you do all those quests, you come back, discover, oh, shit, you missed one, and you have to go all the fucking way back out there to do that last one thing.

[1153] When I realized I had to run all the way across.

[1154] A giant area that I just covered and there's nothing there.

[1155] Yeah.

[1156] I did that last night.

[1157] Right before I stopped as well.

[1158] I was like, ah, shit.

[1159] I was like so close to getting off this planet.

[1160] Yeah.

[1161] I thought about all the other games I could be playing in that same time.

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] And then I stopped.

[1164] But you didn't play them.

[1165] I did.

[1166] I played Saints Row and tried.

[1167] Okay.

[1168] It's all the other games.

[1169] I'm going to keep trying this out.

[1170] I'm curious to see where my interest stops in this.

[1171] And I'll be curious to see.

[1172] I still don't – I mean for as much as we've discussed this game over its lengthy development, I still – I'm still not sure what's going to happen to this game.

[1173] I'm less sure now than I was before I played this much of it.

[1174] It was one of those things that like it's totally a fucking MMO.

[1175] Yeah.

[1176] And that for me is not a great thing.

[1177] But it is made – it is extremely well made.

[1178] Yeah.

[1179] You know, they – have paid a lot of attention and at least made one of those games pretty well, even if they didn't go out of their way to fix a lot of the issues.

[1180] Seems like less of a disaster out of the gate, too.

[1181] Like, Syracuse are a problem and will probably be a problem for the next couple weeks, but it seems like the game itself, once you're in there, other than it being a little empty, is working.

[1182] Yeah, totally.

[1183] I mean, I ran the client for...

[1184] 12 hours straight or something on Sunday, and it didn't crash once or anything.

[1185] A lot of broken content.

[1186] Like, that's always been a problem with lighting.

[1187] I saw a couple of stuff.

[1188] So there are, as far as much as you do send people out to do all your mineral gathering and stuff, there are mineral deposits in World, and some of those are getting stuck, so you can't trigger them.

[1189] I saw a couple of mobs get stuck and continually reset.

[1190] You know, people are getting stuck on geometry.

[1191] Like, typical stuff.

[1192] Well, that's pretty minor stuff.

[1193] I saw a couple of map markers flagged with, like, clearly placeholder text.

[1194] Just like, map marker passive 05 -1.

[1195] Like, wow launched with massive gaps in the quest cycle.

[1196] Right.

[1197] Like, there were entire legs of major quests were just not completable.

[1198] Yeah.

[1199] And stuff like that.

[1200] Like, raid bosses didn't work.

[1201] It's better.

[1202] It seems like it's better than that.

[1203] I have not run into anything where it's like, well, I can't keep going because...

[1204] I mean, people are killing world bosses.

[1205] Stuff's happening.

[1206] That end of the game seems fine from what I've seen of it.

[1207] Or heard other people say about it.

[1208] That's right.

[1209] The good folks of the Kessler run have already killed the world boss on that server.

[1210] There are multiple world bosses, I think, aren't there?

[1211] I don't know.

[1212] Probably.

[1213] They killed a world boss.

[1214] I don't know.

[1215] I haven't seen it yet.

[1216] Again, I'm level 12.

[1217] I haven't seen any of that shit yet.

[1218] I'm just a lowly Imperial agent.

[1219] I should probably join up with those jerks.

[1220] Bunch of jerks over there.

[1221] I should have picked a better name for their guild.

[1222] Name.

[1223] But the best part about it, actually, it's a great name, though, because of how furious people become when they see your name in -world and think that it's a mistake.

[1224] Oh, okay.

[1225] All right.

[1226] That's pretty good.

[1227] That actually makes it fantastic because there's so many people that just...

[1228] Furious!

[1229] No, that's wrong!

[1230] Have they come up to you and said that?

[1231] Not to me, but yeah, multiple other guild members have had that experience.

[1232] I'm going to get into this guild immediately because that's...

[1233] That's so good.

[1234] No, it's the Kessel Run, stupid!

[1235] Anything that angers people who like Star Wars is okay by me. I was Kessler, didn't you watch the movies?

[1236] And the world is full of bad Star Wars pun character names.

[1237] And guild names, like it's everywhere.

[1238] Yeah.

[1239] Which...

[1240] Yeah, fine.

[1241] I'm fine with that.

[1242] I don't need my Star Wars to be that self -serious.

[1243] They do have RP servers if you're into that.

[1244] They do.

[1245] That's true.

[1246] They're probably easier to get into.

[1247] All right, guys.

[1248] But way harder to get into.

[1249] I played it on an RP server in WoW at one point.

[1250] Why?

[1251] Because you didn't talk to anyone anyway.

[1252] I just wanted to see what it was like.

[1253] Nobody paid attention.

[1254] It was just like every other server.

[1255] Just the names weren't.

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] Monkey Dick.

[1258] Right.

[1259] Which is the name of my...

[1260] Right.

[1261] No. It's the server you're on, right?

[1262] Yeah, I'm on Monkey Dick.

[1263] But it's spelled weird with lots of apostrophes and shit in it.

[1264] M -U.

[1265] You gotta get that content filter.

[1266] Jeff, you said that a certain character name wasn't allowed when you were trying to roll your guy.

[1267] Would not let me name my character Terras Kossi.

[1268] That's a shame.

[1269] Wait, was there a...

[1270] Did you put a space?

[1271] Because you can't use spaces.

[1272] Oh, maybe that was why.

[1273] It will...

[1274] Why do they let you hit this fucking space bar?

[1275] I know, I know.

[1276] Yeah, it lets you type out a name with a space in it, and then...

[1277] Because I tried as well, and it just says, like, illegal character.

[1278] That shit is the worst.

[1279] Yeah.

[1280] I hate that game now.

[1281] Everything I said, forget it.

[1282] My Sith character is named after a major corporation.

[1283] Mine is named after...

[1284] And it let me use it.

[1285] An old baseball player.

[1286] Mine is named after an imaginary racist.

[1287] Because space racism in that game runs fast and fucking furious.

[1288] Yeah.

[1289] All right.

[1290] Patrick, is there any – Jeff, did you play anything else?

[1291] No. I played some WarioWare for GBA on my 3DS for a couple minutes.

[1292] It's still pretty good.

[1293] It is.

[1294] Yeah, it's a great game.

[1295] It still might be my favorite WarioWare.

[1296] Did you play Twisted?

[1297] We were talking about this before.

[1298] I played Twisted.

[1299] Twisted I haven't played, but I've heard.

[1300] Yeah, Twisted's really good.

[1301] That's the one that had the sensor in it.

[1302] Yeah, Twisted was great.

[1303] All of them are great.

[1304] Yes.

[1305] Except for the downloadable one that they put out for DS.

[1306] It was too slow when they first put up the...

[1307] It was like a camera one.

[1308] It was like...

[1309] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1310] That was not very good.

[1311] Okay, that's the one I was thinking of that wasn't.

[1312] That Wii one was not fun by yourself, but it was a pretty good multiplayer.

[1313] Oh, if you had a group, that Wii one was awesome.

[1314] That was a good one.

[1315] It just wasn't fun to play, like, by yourself at all.

[1316] I don't know.

[1317] I liked it.

[1318] I like that WarioWare.

[1319] You just like WarioWare.

[1320] I just like WarioWare.

[1321] Yeah, great series.

[1322] WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven are probably my top two Nintendo franchises at this point.

[1323] We have a release date for Rhythm Heaven now, so it's like Xenoblade.

[1324] When is Rhythm Heaven coming out?

[1325] Go fuck yourself.

[1326] Rhythm Heaven is coming out.

[1327] Exactly, Rhythm Heaven.

[1328] April?

[1329] March or April?

[1330] One of those.

[1331] No, no, Xenoblade's in April.

[1332] I thought Rhythm Heaven's February.

[1333] Maybe.

[1334] Soonish.

[1335] I have to keep my Wii plugged in for that much longer.

[1336] Is that what you're telling me?

[1337] Yeah.

[1338] That'll be it.

[1339] I think it's going to be $40, too.

[1340] I think it's cheaper.

[1341] Rhythm Heaven comes out.

[1342] I play the shit out of that and then just box it all up.

[1343] Done.

[1344] Probably.

[1345] They'll all work on the machine later that year.

[1346] Oh, right.

[1347] So I can box it up now.

[1348] Yeah, you could just wait and just play it under Wii U. I don't want to get a Wii U at launch.

[1349] I'm going to get a Wii U at launch.

[1350] Of course you will.

[1351] There'll be one thing that you go like, oh, I definitely want that.

[1352] And you'll get one and go, ah!

[1353] Much like how I'm going to end up buying a fucking Vita for Lumines.

[1354] I came pretty close to ordering now a Japanese Vita.

[1355] There was a moment there where I was like, hey, Will, do you want to take one of these apart?

[1356] And he said, if you get one and will let me take it apart, I will take it apart.

[1357] And I was like, okay, that would be one more thing we could do with it.

[1358] I was like, is it worth spending the $500 plus to get one over here?

[1359] It's like, eh.

[1360] It's not enough games.

[1361] Not enough games, and it's coming out over here so soon.

[1362] The games that are coming out closer to America, like Alex put up a feature looking at some of those.

[1363] There are some legit -ass, cool -sounding games.

[1364] It just doesn't sound like there's very much.

[1365] How do they actually...

[1366] Well, hearing that Ridge Racer is a fucking...

[1367] depressing piece of shit.

[1368] If you want a really good wrap -up of the whole launch, listen to the...

[1369] They haven't done well by the Ridge Racer name?

[1370] They have not.

[1371] The A4 podcast did like a four -hour fucking breakdown of the entire...

[1372] If you want to know everything about that whole Vita launch, they're going to know more than we can say, but yeah, John Riccardi was telling me about how Ridge Racer is $45, whereabouts, comes with three tracks.

[1373] Great.

[1374] It has a horrible frame rate to the point where when you are, I guess, drifting...

[1375] Like 15 frames a second and you can't complete the drift or transition to a new drift because the frame rate is so bad.

[1376] That sounds awesome.

[1377] Thanks, Namco.

[1378] But the most depressing part is something that I heard.

[1379] Oh.

[1380] Is that the dubstep music thing, not in there at all.

[1381] The demo thing, not there.

[1382] Which hopefully that means it'll just get released separately as a downloadable thing at some point.

[1383] They have to.

[1384] That thing was so dumb and awesome.

[1385] They have to put that out.

[1386] But you'll need to get a memory card to be able to save that.

[1387] I don't give a shit.

[1388] If they put that thing out, I will get all that stupid garbage.

[1389] If you can, apparently you can't find them.

[1390] Not enough memory cards at launch.

[1391] You can't find the 32s.

[1392] There are plenty.

[1393] Fours and eights are everywhere.

[1394] Four, eights, and sixteens.

[1395] I think it might be...

[1396] The 16 is the one that people settled on, but yeah, 32 is impossible to find.

[1397] Let's talk some news here for a second, since we're already talking some news here.

[1398] Let's talk about the news of the PlayStation Vita launching in Japan.

[1399] PlayStation Vita's out in Japan.

[1400] Supposedly, shipments were as high as 700 ,000 copies.

[1401] Sounded like it was actually...

[1402] Turned out to be a pretty...

[1403] Actually, all the handles are doing well over there.

[1404] I guess 3DS is selling really well, too.

[1405] Importers made it sound like it would not be hard to get units provided you were willing to pay the marked -up prices that exporters were charging.

[1406] It didn't sell out.

[1407] NCS is out of stock as of this recording, but PlayAsia claims to have them for five and a quarter.

[1408] That's too much money.

[1409] That's a lot of money.

[1410] That's too much.

[1411] I guess Uncharted has some serious visual issues.

[1412] Based on what I was hearing, I had some real aliasing problems.

[1413] I wonder if they'll patch that stuff.

[1414] Well, I wonder.

[1415] I mean, they've got a little bit of time before they do U .S. releases, I guess.

[1416] But I wonder if they're going to patch stuff and work on it or if there's anything left to do or if all this stuff's locked.

[1417] When you turn on the Vita, the first thing you get is a software update.

[1418] Yeah.

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] I'm sure they'll do constant firmware updates.

[1421] There's like this really weird – I think I have this right.

[1422] Like a really weird issue with the PSN stuff where in order to – Something along the lines of if you try to log in with your existing PlayStation Network account when you boot up the Vita, it will say you do not have the updated software to log into this account.

[1423] So then you have to go back to the original PSN menu screen and say, no, I do not have a PSN account, and it will give you a temporary account, which then allows you access to the software update.

[1424] And then once you have gotten the software update, then you go back and put in your login information.

[1425] That sounds great.

[1426] Yeah.

[1427] Well, because what it sounds like is what makes sense, which is that we're going to put out this, the 1 .0 firmware, and we're not going to build in this idea that you're going to have to get a software update because we'll do that after everyone.

[1428] Right.

[1429] And then it turns out they launched a software update prior to its shipping, and then the OS doesn't know what to do when presented with this software update.

[1430] It's weird.

[1431] U .S. launch will probably be different.

[1432] Probably fine.

[1433] Yeah.

[1434] Probably fine.

[1435] Hopefully some lessons learned.

[1436] We consider this a fun beta test for the future of the Vita, I guess.

[1437] It sounds like sales are doing really well.

[1438] It sounds like the software is maybe not there, but, I mean, it's launch.

[1439] And it sounds like the American launch may be pretty good.

[1440] Like Gravity Days looks really neat.

[1441] Sound Shapes, Escape Plan is the other one.

[1442] Escape Plan is from the Fat Princess guys.

[1443] Okay.

[1444] Carbon Games?

[1445] Something like that.

[1446] Yeah.

[1447] So none of that stuff is launching in Japan?

[1448] No, I don't think so.

[1449] I think it launched with, like, Lumines, which is apparently fucking Lumines.

[1450] Great.

[1451] So there's more of that.

[1452] I think.

[1453] Great, I think.

[1454] I don't know.

[1455] The 360, the awful Xbox Live Arcade version really soured me. The PSN one, like, basically everything they've released past that first PSP game has been depressing to me. They actually put out a Lumines 2, right?

[1456] Yeah, it was not.

[1457] No, I heard it was great.

[1458] I don't know.

[1459] I never touched it.

[1460] I still got that first one.

[1461] Yeah, the first one's pretty good.

[1462] I think I'm good.

[1463] Theme packs for the first one probably would have been enough because that's really all those other ones are.

[1464] That's all the Lumines you needed, right?

[1465] Was the first Lumines?

[1466] I don't even think I want a theme pack.

[1467] I think what was in that first one, that is Lumines to me. Guys, let's just all get our PSPs out and get way into playing Lumines.

[1468] That was a great game.

[1469] Have fun with that?

[1470] That was a great game.

[1471] We have a Lumines call at lunch every day.

[1472] We're all over to the studio.

[1473] We're going to play some Luminez.

[1474] Is there multiplayer in that?

[1475] No, right?

[1476] Yes.

[1477] There is?

[1478] Yes.

[1479] What do you do?

[1480] You add blocks to the other dude's field.

[1481] Okay.

[1482] So it's a puzzle game, then.

[1483] Yeah.

[1484] I see.

[1485] It's a block -based.

[1486] I get you.

[1487] Let me tell you about Luminez.

[1488] All right.

[1489] It's pretty good.

[1490] I follow.

[1491] I never got good enough at Luminez.

[1492] I didn't either.

[1493] I didn't figure out, like, the garbage -y trick you could do to play forever, and I didn't get great at the other way either.

[1494] It was still fun for, like, in 20 -minute spans.

[1495] Like, I felt satisfied.

[1496] Like, the music was so great.

[1497] It always looked so good at the time.

[1498] And it appears to be launched with a kick -ass version of Ridge Racer.

[1499] That was a great game.

[1500] It was.

[1501] Yeah.

[1502] Really enjoyed that game.

[1503] I think that they just need to totally rebuild that franchise.

[1504] Like, that was right around the time when they added all the nitrous mechanics and stuff, which was cool.

[1505] The last real...

[1506] fundamental change before they just fell into this, like, you know what, we're just going to shit out the same version of the game.

[1507] And then Registration 6 came out at 360 launch and kind of had all that Nitro stuff.

[1508] Like, some changes, but not a lot.

[1509] Then 7 came out and it was pretty much just 6 with some additional options.

[1510] It's this shitty, disingenuous thing that Namco says of, like, you know, we really want to just make a game for the fans.

[1511] Which doesn't mean...

[1512] Just put the exact same tracks in every fucking game.

[1513] Yeah, exactly.

[1514] When you say that, what you really mean is, yeah, we're not going to put any effort into this because we know how many people are going to buy a Ridge Racer game, and they're always going to buy that Ridge Racer game.

[1515] So three tracks, $45, enjoy yourselves.

[1516] And the idea of a build -your -own Ridge Racer is a great idea.

[1517] Like the idea of paying $10 or $15 for a three -track.

[1518] New Ridge Racer and then build your own from, like, if they're going to start putting out tracks from all the Ridge Racer series.

[1519] Like, hey, did you love R4?

[1520] Well, you know, here's some tracks for that.

[1521] You know, pay five bucks.

[1522] Like, that's actually not a horrible model if they're just going to recycle everything.

[1523] But the economics aren't.

[1524] Yeah, $45 for three tracks is – even if they are chopping up those tracks in multiple ways, which I don't know if they are or not, but that was always the classic Ridge Racer thing is it would be like environments and then they would open up different pathways and close them off depending on if you were playing on hard or easy or whatever.

[1525] If it's that and they're turning three tracks into like nine different actual roadways or something like that, then that's still shitty.

[1526] No, wait.

[1527] I take everything back.

[1528] That is still shitty.

[1529] Yeah.

[1530] Especially if any of those three tracks are tracks that appeared in previous.

[1531] I'm sure they are.

[1532] It's just the laziest, especially which it's weird because I guess the Katamari game is pretty good.

[1533] You can imagine how that trackpad might be.

[1534] And I guess the trackpad, the mechanics of the Vita one is like a stretching and pulling sort of thing.

[1535] They have unsurprisingly released some really weird trailers for that game.

[1536] My Majestic Katamari.

[1537] And it also has the...

[1538] I think that's right.

[1539] I was going to say, they've just about run out of names for those games.

[1540] I think that's what it is.

[1541] They should have just called it We Still Love Slash Are Okay With Katamari.

[1542] But yeah, the idea is you use the back panel.

[1543] There will be areas that you can't get in unless you push together and basically squish your Katamari or stretch it out to let you pick up more stuff at once.

[1544] Sounds like Noby Noby Boy infecting...

[1545] A little bit.

[1546] A little bit.

[1547] And what's also crazy is that game, like this real split with Namco, where that game gets DLC right, where there's a bunch of DLC for it, but there are in -game hidden items, and if you collect all of them, you can get the DLC for free.

[1548] Oh.

[1549] So it's like, how is there this one totally fucked...

[1550] I mean, because it's Ridge Racer.

[1551] Because it's Ridge Racer, yeah.

[1552] Because people are going to buy...

[1553] People like John Riccardi will buy every version of that and grumble about it the entire time, but just don't buy the next one.

[1554] I'm sitting here saying that I think it's total bullshit and I'll probably still end up with a copy of it.

[1555] The American ones should be a lot.

[1556] Hopefully, yeah.

[1557] They can get away with that stuff a lot.

[1558] Japan pays a lot higher prices for things.

[1559] They aren't as competitive with pricing.

[1560] My guess is that will be less of an issue here.

[1561] We'll probably get all the DLC tracks in our version of the game that comes out in February.

[1562] So those of you in Japan.

[1563] Keep in mind, region -free games.

[1564] Good point.

[1565] Patrick, do you want to talk about this Q &A you did with Stephen Toulouse from Xbox?

[1566] Steptoe, I enjoyed that when I was talking to PR, getting connected with him when we were on the phone, the PR person called him Steptoe and then also Stephen and sort of apologized for it because she wasn't sure which one to call.

[1567] Oh.

[1568] That guy, everyone calls him Steptoe.

[1569] He's like, the only time that they don't call me Steptoe is when I'm in trouble.

[1570] I was like, alright.

[1571] It's like the equivalent of my middle name.

[1572] Patrick Benjamin Klupik.

[1573] But he runs security at Xbox.

[1574] Or is one of the main dudes.

[1575] Policy.

[1576] That's right.

[1577] Policy management and...

[1578] So that kind of feeds back into the story that you've been following for a while about people getting banned, perhaps.

[1579] It's more like I ran a story in October that FIFA 12 was this weird phishing target for people getting access to accounts, buying a bunch of ultimate team packs, which is like this sort of metagame that plays on top of FIFA.

[1580] It's like a trading card thing.

[1581] So I guess what people were basically doing was...

[1582] finding accounts that could compromise, buying these packs, and then selling these accounts in other markets, like the UK, like a place where you would want to purchase an account that had a full FIFA Ultimate Team pack.

[1583] And you'd be ostensibly paying less for the account than if you were to purchase all of that yourself.

[1584] I think there's some way to trade cards with other players, too.

[1585] There's a gifting mechanic, too.

[1586] You could gift cards to players from your...

[1587] Are we going to die?

[1588] Yep.

[1589] Is that a pyramid head?

[1590] Yeah.

[1591] Apparently the horse that lives upstairs has died, and now they have to drag its corpse out.

[1592] Maybe it'll stop fucking clumping around through everything we record ever.

[1593] I don't know how they put a horse into high -heeled shoes, but they figured out a way.

[1594] It clomps around up there all day, you were saying.

[1595] Yeah, and so as a result of talking to users about that, There were a lot of people complaining about the sort of like customer service process with Microsoft.

[1596] And so the average time people were having was 25 days for basically, you know, sometimes things are in their control.

[1597] You know, if you had an account and you didn't change your password on everything, you know, if you caught up in the PSN stuff or the Gawker leak like a year ago and you used the same password and everything, like it's not hard for someone to kind of piece that stuff together.

[1598] So it sounded like people were having a hard time just getting Microsoft to kind of solve that stuff.

[1599] I had talked to a bunch of users about some people that had 25 -day scenarios and stuff that went as long as 90 days and had tried to contact Microsoft about it and never heard back.

[1600] And then the two scenarios there are like just spike the story because you don't have any real answers or run it and hope that the company freaks out and then gets in touch with you.

[1601] The latter is what occurred.

[1602] Any word on how long it took Jeff Keighley to get his account back?

[1603] Very quickly.

[1604] Yeah.

[1605] Like a day.

[1606] I was curious.

[1607] Yeah, that is one of the things I didn't touch on, but it's uncommon.

[1608] The one thing that people in our, like us, if you complain about it on Twitter, suddenly you get bumped up in the queue real fast.

[1609] That's actually one of the things that...

[1610] Steptoe denied being a thing, but it's very much a thing where the louder you are about complaining, the better your chances are of getting moved up.

[1611] The bigger your megaphone is.

[1612] They don't want people out there complaining about this stuff.

[1613] It becomes a public relations problem at some point.

[1614] It's the same reason why they used to have a separate...

[1615] process set up for red ring xboxes for journalists because they would much rather people go through that process very quietly than loudly talk about how their xbox is broken again yeah it's like you would get you would say an xbox break and i never like that that option was floated out and i never took advantage of it because it was a little too too weird The Xbox at my desk is showing preliminary signs of a red ring.

[1616] That thing's going to fucking red ring before this year is out.

[1617] That thing's a launch Xbox.

[1618] There's no reasonable reason why that Xbox should still be allowed to run.

[1619] My launch Xbox still works.

[1620] It's not an active service.

[1621] Buy my three or four dead Xboxes that I have torn through.

[1622] Manufacture date October 2005.

[1623] Before that thing ever came out.

[1624] I can't believe it's still going.

[1625] Did that thing go to game?

[1626] Did that thing check out game?

[1627] No. That thing didn't set foot anywhere near game.

[1628] Oh, man. Wish I was that Xbox.

[1629] My Xbox wishes it was that Xbox because it ended up getting smoked not that long afterwards.

[1630] Too much Xboxing.

[1631] I've seen it said that every Xbox from that era is guaranteed to die.

[1632] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[1633] By virtue of it being a launch Xbox.

[1634] Without fail, it will red ring.

[1635] I have heard one of the most coveted numbers within Microsoft is the number of Xboxes that have been turned in for service.

[1636] The number they would never want to actually come out.

[1637] Oh, yes.

[1638] One of the most guarded numbers.

[1639] The worst, most secretive numbers.

[1640] I would love that.

[1641] Oh, whatever, you know.

[1642] Look at that billion -dollar loss and work backwards.

[1643] Yeah.

[1644] I still have my red -ringed Elite sitting in a box surrounded by packing stuff.

[1645] I just never sent back.

[1646] I have another red -ringed Xbox at my house.

[1647] I'm like, what am I going to do with it?

[1648] It's sitting there on a shelf somewhere, and I guess this one's going to join it.

[1649] I'm not going to throw it in the trash because then it's going to go to a landfill.

[1650] Didn't Will say that he knew how to fix that shit?

[1651] That's probably not.

[1652] Yeah, but it's more viable than letting it sit in a closet forever broken.

[1653] I mean, the board is warped.

[1654] Like, there are fundamental problems with the electronics inside it.

[1655] Like, he's not going to, you know...

[1656] He's not going to unwarp it.

[1657] That stuff is amazing in retrospect.

[1658] He's not going to break out a soldering and fix that stuff.

[1659] It was pretty amazing while it was happening.

[1660] That stuff was crazy, and there was...

[1661] Like, the day that Peter Moore did, like, interviews with everybody, and when they announced, like, the three -year warranty extension.

[1662] It's just like, this shit must...

[1663] How bad this shit must actually be for this to be the response?

[1664] Yeah.

[1665] Like, it's mildly terrifying.

[1666] I wish that we had hung on to those other Xbox 360s that we got before launch that would not connect to live ever.

[1667] Oh, yeah.

[1668] Whoa.

[1669] Those weirdly...

[1670] Oh, God.

[1671] Those weird loot ones that they very quietly...

[1672] You should just send those back to us.

[1673] Yeah, that's right.

[1674] It was this moment of like, wait a minute.

[1675] How many in your launch lineup are going to ship?

[1676] I was pointing to the wrong IP.

[1677] It couldn't be updated automatically or anything like that.

[1678] It was just a handful of ones that were totally broken.

[1679] It was this moment of just like, all right, is this launch going to be the most fucked thing ever?

[1680] Hey, they rushed that console to market.

[1681] I don't know if you noticed.

[1682] Don't do that again.

[1683] Yeah, that was weird.

[1684] Although, if these rumors are true about the GPU...

[1685] or the CPU taping out for the next one, and everybody's saying end of the year after next.

[1686] Like, that is a...

[1687] Everything I understand, that is getting a huge jump on your launch to be...

[1688] Taping out now for a 2013 launch?

[1689] Yeah, they're in a very comfortable position where I think they have sort of written off Nintendo as not being able to, probably smartly so, reproduce their phenomenon status a second time, or at least operating as though they're not.

[1690] And then react accordingly.

[1691] Well, I think even if they do, it becomes like they're still kind of over in their different other version of the game industry.

[1692] They're going to be undercutting the Wii U on price and stuff.

[1693] Yeah.

[1694] I was thinking more just like, you know, at no point, even when Wii was on top sales -wise and just crushing everyone, at no point did Microsoft or Sony look like they were trembling about it.

[1695] They were just like, yeah, they're selling those huge numbers to people that are not.

[1696] Our audience.

[1697] Yeah, they're not our audience.

[1698] It's not yet.

[1699] Yeah, and then now they're adding Netflix and services and all this stuff, and it's kind of become the same audience, but I don't know.

[1700] Video games.

[1701] Video games, you say?

[1702] Video games.

[1703] Spider -Man.

[1704] He's a video game.

[1705] All right, so we got Vita launching in Japan.

[1706] It's doing okay, and Step 2 is talking about weirdness.

[1707] Yeah, there's a big interview where we kind of break down some stuff.

[1708] Not a lot of actual, like, real answers, and despite his claims that...

[1709] reporting your problems with Microsoft and your account to the Better Business Bureau will not get you bumped up.

[1710] I have heard too many stories to the contrary from users.

[1711] So if you are one of those people in the 90 -day or plus category, if you dispute it with your bank or file a report with the Better Business Bureau, there will probably be a fair chance that your account will get fixed.

[1712] But a lot of this stuff seems really rooted in stuff that we've talked about in the office a lot of just...

[1713] These consoles weren't meant to last this long.

[1714] These services were not meant to sprawl the way they have become sprawled, and you tack on enough things to a foundation that wasn't meant to do those things, and things are eventually going to become...

[1715] kind of spiral out of control and eventually one of the things you tack on is going to be less secure than the others and people can hammer away on that and even just terms of the foundation they've built to manage these accounts and reverse them when people get a hold of them like i mean i believe septo when he says the moment they change regions and that flips the licenses that creates a massive headache for them and i believe that's probably true and that's what happens in a decent number of these cases so Seems like a lot of that stuff will hopefully be addressed.

[1716] I have no hope in it being addressed anymore this generation, but hopefully it's all like, take notes.

[1717] Right.

[1718] Because there seems like a path now.

[1719] It doesn't seem like it's all going to radically change like it did so much in the last five years.

[1720] It'll be more just a natural evolution, more services, more expansion of those types of services as opposed to this volatile change that you couldn't really have predicted.

[1721] Something like Netflix was inconceivable when the Xbox launched.

[1722] But bottom line is that soccer is to blame.

[1723] Yeah, fuck soccer.

[1724] In all things.

[1725] In all things.

[1726] All of these issues can all be rooted back to soccer.

[1727] So thanks, Pele.

[1728] Thanks a lot, Gretzky.

[1729] Yeah.

[1730] Stick it to those soccer players.

[1731] That's right.

[1732] I certainly will.

[1733] Take that, Saberhagen.

[1734] Yeah.

[1735] Remember when Pele came out at the Ubisoft press conference?

[1736] Yes.

[1737] God.

[1738] Wait, was that for the Wizards, the Pele kids, Harry Potter soccer?

[1739] Something of champions.

[1740] Yeah, tournament of champions.

[1741] Tournament of champions, that was called?

[1742] That might have been.

[1743] Academy of champions.

[1744] Champions Academy?

[1745] Yeah.

[1746] Academy of champions Academy?

[1747] It's almost as awkward as the James Cameron stuff.

[1748] It's just a guy that doesn't.

[1749] No offense to him, but he did, you know, awkward for everybody.

[1750] Yeah.

[1751] Sorry, Pele.

[1752] He listens, I don't know.

[1753] He writes in a lot.

[1754] He's a huge fan, him and Shusha.

[1755] He's always like, run, run, run, run.

[1756] Who isn't that way, though, to be fair?

[1757] Fair enough.

[1758] All right, well, that's it for news, I guess.

[1759] Patrick, anything else happened?

[1760] Not much.

[1761] Not much.

[1762] Everyone's gone, man. Yeah.

[1763] People are too busy.

[1764] To make news right now.

[1765] People are too busy to put out new games also.

[1766] Not too busy to write emails, I bet.

[1767] Trying to, though, out on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade this week.

[1768] So, yeah, that's an option.

[1769] I saw Alan Wake.

[1770] I forgot about that.

[1771] You saw Alan Wake?

[1772] American Nightmare.

[1773] What did you think?

[1774] Memorable, huh?

[1775] Did we talk about that last week?

[1776] No. Mentioned that I was going to see it.

[1777] Okay.

[1778] The first line they gave me when I sat down to see it was, hey, if you thought Alan's Wake – Alan's Wake.

[1779] Some DLC where Alan died.

[1780] Alan Wake was two -third story, one -third action.

[1781] The American Nightmare is the reverse.

[1782] God damn it.

[1783] I have no longer interest in Alan Wake.

[1784] I want three -third story, no -thirds action.

[1785] Yeah.

[1786] That doesn't seem to be the direction they're going.

[1787] No. It's – they – Basically, it sounded like when they were doing some stuff after the fact, they started messing around with some levels, trying to make some gameplay tweaks to make the combat more interesting, realized that they kind of had a slot to do a downloadable game, and that if they were going to release a downloadable game with the Alan Wake name, they had to put some story in it.

[1788] So it sounds more like a downloadable entry with some story trappings as opposed to a full -fledged...

[1789] There was some talk of this being an Alan Wake 2.

[1790] I was going to say, this is not like...

[1791] necessarily representative of the future direction for the series.

[1792] No, the story takes place after.

[1793] So, like, if you've beaten Alan Wake and played both of the DLCs, especially, crucially, you've played the second one because the villain introduced in the second DLC is the central villain in this one.

[1794] Okay.

[1795] And it has a lot of full -screen, full -motion FMV.

[1796] A lot.

[1797] Yeah, the trailer kind of alludes to there being some more actoring from the five folks.

[1798] A lot of actoring.

[1799] Very excited.

[1800] So that sounds good.

[1801] Yeah, that part would be good.

[1802] No doubt.

[1803] When I talked to the Remedy CEO, the Matthias.

[1804] Like I brought that up.

[1805] Traditional Scandinavian.

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] I mentioned over here at Giant Bomb, we're real big fans of FMV.

[1808] I'm not.

[1809] Basically, I was trying to suss out, like, do you get why we are?

[1810] I don't think they do, which actually I think is better off.

[1811] You need to be careful.

[1812] Don't go out there telling everybody that we're big fans of FMV because that's when everybody's going to start doing it.

[1813] I don't think that's a worry.

[1814] See, like right now they don't know.

[1815] See, that's the whole thing.

[1816] I want everyone to start doing it and I want it to turn.

[1817] The cycle must begin again.

[1818] We've already come too far.

[1819] I'm saying, like right now, by their own admission, or at least you have intuited that they don't understand why it's good.

[1820] As soon as people start thinking they understand why it's good and everybody starts doing it, that's when it's not going to be good anymore.

[1821] Yeah, I just didn't get any impression that they understood the ironic nature of it, which I was like, great.

[1822] I'm saying preserve that.

[1823] Told someone recently that they need to bring FMV back to Need for Speed.

[1824] I was told, you don't really want that.

[1825] And I said, no, yes, I do.

[1826] Do not tell me what I do and do not want.

[1827] But don't tell the guys that are going to make this.

[1828] Tell them you want it deadly serious.

[1829] Yes.

[1830] But then give them $9 to make it.

[1831] That's what I'm saying.

[1832] Because the makers of Need for Speed Most Wanted did not think they were making camp.

[1833] Yeah.

[1834] They thought they were making cool, serious.

[1835] action movie, Fast and Furious business.

[1836] As soon as everybody starts trying to force a wink and nod into the video that they're producing.

[1837] Well, then it just requires them to actually be good at it, which if that happened, if everyone got to a point where they could make good, kitschy FMV and do it right, like Twisted Pixel does it.

[1838] They know what they're making.

[1839] Yeah, but that's one studio.

[1840] That's one studio.

[1841] But the point is that most people...

[1842] wouldn't be able to pull it off and wouldn't even try.

[1843] And even them, I would argue, their best stuff was when they just had to do it out of necessity.

[1844] Like the original Explosion Man credits.

[1845] Which is where they just didn't have an ending where it's way cheaper to go shoot something and edit it than it is actually to build game assets.

[1846] You need to cut the entire conversation that just occurred.

[1847] Don't let this out.

[1848] Don't let this get into the public.

[1849] We are treading dangerous ground.

[1850] No, I'm with Jeff.

[1851] I just want a new Need for Speed Most Wanted game with...

[1852] Need for Speed Most Wanted 2.

[1853] Yeah.

[1854] The return of Razor Callahan.

[1855] Yes.

[1856] Yes.

[1857] Is that a character?

[1858] In this one, you are Sergeant Cross.

[1859] Razor Callahan is the main bad guy in Need for Speed Most Wanted.

[1860] All right.

[1861] He is incredible.

[1862] He's done some soap acting.

[1863] Yes.

[1864] He was like...

[1865] I don't want to say it in, like, Chris Evans fucking posse or something.

[1866] All right.

[1867] Have you ever played Need for Speed?

[1868] You should really play Need for Speed.

[1869] You should find the...

[1870] You should go on YouTube.

[1871] It is a good Need for Speed game.

[1872] It is, you know, open world.

[1873] They do a lot of that stuff right.

[1874] But you should just watch some of the stuff that they did that they sat down and said, like, all right, street racing.

[1875] What's it all about, guys?

[1876] Let's figure it out.

[1877] Let's cast some characters and go.

[1878] And the guys they came up with...

[1879] So is this the one with Maggie Q, that girl?

[1880] No, this is before that.

[1881] This is two games prior.

[1882] So this has no one in it.

[1883] No names.

[1884] See, that's my whole point, is that game with Maggie Q in it is what happened when they tried to get back to that.

[1885] You're right.

[1886] But they tried to make that serious.

[1887] But the game never stopped.

[1888] They were still on the regular cycle of...

[1889] That wasn't deliberately campy.

[1890] That was just shit.

[1891] Well, that's what I'm saying, though.

[1892] What was the one in between?

[1893] Carbon?

[1894] Carbon.

[1895] Carbon had some Sergeant Cross in it.

[1896] That's what I'm saying.

[1897] Carbon was okay.

[1898] Well, Carbon was actually connected to Most Wanted.

[1899] Right.

[1900] Undercover, which was the one with Maggie Q. And all three of them had random hot lady in it.

[1901] It was that Dominique whatever was in the – I'm blanking on names.

[1902] Some personality was in the first one as well as in the second one.

[1903] I can't remember.

[1904] So that was not something that they suddenly started doing.

[1905] Oh, I know.

[1906] I'm just using that as an identifier.

[1907] Yeah, no. Undercover's not good, and the cutscenes weren't good either.

[1908] And Carbon had some moments, but it was no most wanted.

[1909] Definitely diminishing returns in that series.

[1910] But Razor Callahan's still an amazing character.

[1911] And you just go YouTube some clips.

[1912] All right.

[1913] You'll be happy.

[1914] YouTube hard enough you'll find clips of me edited into clips with Razor Callahan.

[1915] That's true.

[1916] I don't think you have to take that hard.

[1917] Yeah, probably not.

[1918] That's pretty cool.

[1919] I think your name is...

[1920] Forever linked.

[1921] Forever linked to the name of Razor Callahan in some pretty fundamental ways.

[1922] I'm just saying, if they want to recast the role of Razor Callahan, I am available.

[1923] Okay.

[1924] You'd be his cousin.

[1925] Yeah.

[1926] Blazer Callahan.

[1927] Blazer.

[1928] You look like you can race.

[1929] Not.

[1930] See, and then they don't need to hire riders either.

[1931] Yeah.

[1932] You're like, no, I got this.

[1933] Yeah.

[1934] Don't worry, guys.

[1935] Don't worry.

[1936] I'm a professional.

[1937] I know all about cool things to say to other street racers.

[1938] Such as not.

[1939] Yeah.

[1940] What?

[1941] You're also going to tell people they've been totally moated.

[1942] You've been so moated.

[1943] You've been cum -moated.

[1944] Oh, God.

[1945] Move on.

[1946] Move on.

[1947] All right.

[1948] Let's take it then finally, Brad, to your favorite part of the show.

[1949] I love the emails.

[1950] Bombcast at giantbomb .com is the email address.

[1951] Our first email comes from Olivier in Whiting, Maine.

[1952] I'll sit up for this.

[1953] I was going to lean back, but you were.

[1954] And you got all serious.

[1955] Sir Olivier.

[1956] Sir Olivier.

[1957] No. No, sir.

[1958] No Lawrence either.

[1959] Just Olivier.

[1960] Like that's his first name or some shit.

[1961] Dearest Bomb Squad, if you had to choose between owning your own slick -ass go -kart track or a lifetime supply of Klondike bars, which would you choose?

[1962] Please note that the Klondike bars would all be of the traditional variety and not the dark chocolate or chocolate ice cream variants, and you would have to wear a helmet at all times on the go -kart track for insurance purposes.

[1963] Patrick Klevick, what is your choice?

[1964] Go -kart, easily.

[1965] Jeff Gerstner.

[1966] When he says slick -ass, do you think he means slippery?

[1967] No, he says, I'm sorry, he says sick ass.

[1968] Oh, okay, yeah, then go -kart track.

[1969] Because I don't want a slick track.

[1970] Slick track sucks.

[1971] Brad Shoemaker.

[1972] What if a stream of chicken and dumplings came out of the exhaust of the go -kart?

[1973] There's no provisions here about magical chicken and dumpling carts.

[1974] I'm not a huge go -kart fan or a fan of Kondike bars.

[1975] Wouldn't be the first time I tried to suck on an exhaust pipe.

[1976] I don't really, I don't care.

[1977] You're looking for chicken and dumplings?

[1978] Yeah.

[1979] I will take the ice cream bars and give them to charity.

[1980] That's what heaven is, right?

[1981] There you go.

[1982] Brad's going to take the ice cream bars and give them to charity.

[1983] I will take the go -kart track because that would be a cool thing to have.

[1984] Wouldn't you just get tired of it after like a week, though?

[1985] Yeah.

[1986] But I would still have a go -kart track.

[1987] You have to wear a helmet.

[1988] And I can take the go -karts out onto the regular streets.

[1989] It doesn't say you can't drink either.

[1990] And drive them to the ice cream store.

[1991] Yeah.

[1992] You can drink all your own.

[1993] Yeah.

[1994] While we ride these go -karts.

[1995] Yes.

[1996] All right.

[1997] And also, I don't have to actively keep the go -karts frozen if I decide that I lose interest in them, unlike these constant barrage of Klondike bars that are coming out.

[1998] Because they'll always bring you more.

[1999] It doesn't preclude me from going and buying my own Klondike bars.

[2000] I can't just go buy a go -kart.

[2001] I bet the upkeep on a go -kart track is more than upkeep on Klondike bars.

[2002] It's true.

[2003] You've got to pay people to do that.

[2004] Or do it yourself.

[2005] I just assume that, like, there's just a huge shipment of these Klondike bars that are just going to come in every week.

[2006] Like, all at once.

[2007] Like, regardless of whether you are still interested in Klondike bars.

[2008] Like, weekly Klondike shipment coming in.

[2009] It's like, fuck, what am I going to do with all this goddamn...

[2010] Drive them over to the creek, throw them in the creek, just like I do with all my other garbage.

[2011] But I'm just saying, like, just the time it takes for you to dispose of all of these Klondike bars.

[2012] Charity is going to get tired of them real fast.

[2013] You need to cut the part where I said I'd throw stuff in the creek.

[2014] Nope, just stand in here.

[2015] Everyone head on over to the creek if you want some of Jeff's garbage.

[2016] The creek?

[2017] The creek.

[2018] The creek.

[2019] All these Klondike bars.

[2020] Throw them in the creek.

[2021] Is that what you call them?

[2022] So we got a bunch of emails from people that are super pissed about Skyrim and id State on the PS3.

[2023] Yeah.

[2024] Apparently things are super bad.

[2025] Yes, they are.

[2026] What about the last patch?

[2027] The last patch didn't do nothing?

[2028] No, the latest patch does nothing to alter some of the more egregious problems in terms of having long...

[2029] If you have a large save that you are playing for hours at a time, that is still an issue.

[2030] They were soliciting saved games with people that had problems to hopefully try and address it.

[2031] It did not sound optimistic.

[2032] That's why I recommended to people who asked not to buy the PS3 version before finding out if it was effed.

[2033] Because that was the one version you had not seen.

[2034] Around review time, yeah.

[2035] A, they didn't send it out ahead of time, and B, Bethesda has traditionally had all kinds of problems on the PS3.

[2036] Fallout 3 was not great on the PS3.

[2037] That was not the best place to play a Fallout 3.

[2038] No. Right.

[2039] No. And that continues to be the case.

[2040] I mean, you know, you can sympathize if the PS3 is the one and only place people have to play games.

[2041] Absolutely.

[2042] But I get...

[2043] I'm not going to credit this to any one person because I got a number of these emails, but there are people that are looking for...

[2044] People that are outraged that there is not more outrage about this.

[2045] I think they have a fair point, but that's because...

[2046] I would wager a guess that most of the press and also most of the press copies are on 360 and PC.

[2047] Most of the press copies were 360.

[2048] But then most of the alternate version that any member of the press is playing is going to be on the PC.

[2049] They have a legitimate beef with people not being exposed to that issue as much by virtue of...

[2050] the platforms there.

[2051] Well, it's not even just in the press.

[2052] I mean, the general public.

[2053] Yes.

[2054] Like, I would bet good money that the PS3 version is the least selling of the three.

[2055] And I would probably say that that was the case day one.

[2056] That's not like something that has happened because the PS3 version was fucked up.

[2057] Right.

[2058] But that's just, yeah, you're probably right.

[2059] It's just, you know, it's not like your outrage isn't justified.

[2060] It's just that the chorus is probably pretty small.

[2061] I don't know if I'd say that.

[2062] Comparatively.

[2063] I don't think that's as...

[2064] I don't know if it's...

[2065] It's not as narrow as you think.

[2066] I mean, yeah, I'm sure there's, you know, it's a good at least probably a couple million.

[2067] But if they ship 10...

[2068] Yeah, if they ship 10, it's got to be at least a few million in there.

[2069] But there's 3 million people you're...

[2070] Well, they're getting a funky ass...

[2071] 3 is pretty liberal.

[2072] But for a game that people play for 10 hours at a time and being told that, like, basically every 30 minutes you should quit out so that your save doesn't become...

[2073] dog shit.

[2074] There's nothing good about it.

[2075] I am not in any way defending the game or Bethesda and saying that the issue is raised in this email.

[2076] The issue of there not being enough, yeah.

[2077] Like Brad says, there are reasons for that.

[2078] But Bethesda's subsequent response to this problem, which has been, I felt, largely just dismissive, which is how they've handled it in the past.

[2079] And then one of the...

[2080] programmers are one of the guys who worked in New Vegas basically kind of outlying how this problem is as an underlying issue with their technology and then Pete Hines, their PR marketing guy, just basically saying, no, we solved it.

[2081] That's not the issue.

[2082] We'll then explain what the issue is.

[2083] I think if they be a little more forthcoming about what the problem is instead of just saying, you know, this never came up in testing, send in some save games.

[2084] Maybe that's true, but I feel like they would mitigate a lot of the anger if they would just be a little more.

[2085] forthright about the problems, and instead it sounds like they just didn't test that version enough, and that is...

[2086] I see why you ship a game like that, but that is not...

[2087] No, I mean, the tone of all these emails is frustration, that people feel slighted by Bethesda, because everyone else is having this fucking amazing Skyrim experience, even when it is being weird and buggy on the other platforms, which the PS3 owners should understand.

[2088] It's, you know...

[2089] It's playable, though.

[2090] It's messed up elsewhere, though it's not technically messed up in the same way.

[2091] Absolutely.

[2092] Like, it's a much grander issue.

[2093] Well, I don't know.

[2094] You could find some people on the PC who would...

[2095] be envious of the PS3's problems.

[2096] Yeah.

[2097] Because I've talked to people who to this day have not been able to play it on the PC because it's so fucked up.

[2098] Just like weird hardware configurations?

[2099] But those are weird isolated instances, yeah.

[2100] Like you can't explain those away en masse.

[2101] But yeah, but there has not been that communication from Bethesda.

[2102] Yeah.

[2103] Like they have not, whether the patches aren't working or not, like there needs to be some sort of outreach there.

[2104] Yeah, because like with the Any issues that anyone's run into in terms of specific quests that are broken, they have already come out outright and said that the way the code is structured is like there is data and there is quest stuff, and data is stuff like backwards dragons, magic resistances.

[2105] Quests are a different line of code.

[2106] It's breaking out simpler than I'm sure it actually is, but this is the way they explain it.

[2107] Well, I mean, the quests probably operate at a higher level.

[2108] Yeah, and they said that we're not going to address those until January.

[2109] So if you have a broken quest, but that's not great.

[2110] But at least you know and you're like, I'll just go and focus on the rest of the game, come back and do this quest when I get that patch out.

[2111] Instead, they spent a pretty long time like kind of ignoring that there was anything going on.

[2112] Or just saying, we're looking into it.

[2113] There are issues across all platforms.

[2114] Sort of the generic line.

[2115] Just sort of like scratching there and going, oh, we haven't heard anything about that.

[2116] Oh, we got to look at it.

[2117] And then running away.

[2118] Yeah.

[2119] I wonder how much resources they have in a post -release, because obviously all three versions of Skyrim got problems.

[2120] And the patches they've been putting out so far have been cross -platform patches that fix the same stuff on all platforms.

[2121] So it's been universal stuff that hasn't even really specifically...

[2122] been about the PS3 version.

[2123] Well, here and there.

[2124] The texture stuff.

[2125] The texture thing on the Xbox.

[2126] Well, yeah.

[2127] There are platform -specific fixes.

[2128] In fact, every patch you can find a couple items that says specifies versions.

[2129] But a lot of it's been, you know, when Magic Resistance is broke, it was across all platforms.

[2130] So there's enough unified code.

[2131] Well, I hope they fix it.

[2132] I hope they do.

[2133] Did they fix it in previous Bethesda games?

[2134] Or was it just kind of like a fact of life that's just like, yeah, well, good luck, you guys.

[2135] I played through, you mean on the PS3 specifically?

[2136] Oh, I don't know about that.

[2137] In general, the games do get better over time.

[2138] Well, yeah.

[2139] I played through Fallout 3 like a year and something after it came out, and it was totally fine.

[2140] I guess this is also different from a controller lag issue, which has also been an issue with PS3 Bethesda games.

[2141] I don't know enough about how they resolved it on the other platforms, but I think this one is sold enough that maybe there is a better reason for optimism.

[2142] And I think compared to previous times, people know who Pete Hines is now.

[2143] He's on Twitter and stuff.

[2144] Things have changed where, like Pete Hines has parody accounts.

[2145] Things have changed where people know where to direct their complaints and sort of their rage and just keep doing that, I guess.

[2146] Wait, so rage?

[2147] Wait a minute.

[2148] All of these issues, take them to Pete Hines.

[2149] $20 on Steam.

[2150] Yeah.

[2151] You got a problem with your PS3?

[2152] I'm just saying.

[2153] 360 Red Ring and ask Pete Hines.

[2154] The fan of my PS3 is real loud.

[2155] Pete Hines, what can you do for me?

[2156] Just flip it upside down for 20 minutes, let the fan kick in, and you turn it back over and you'll be fine.

[2157] All right, thanks.

[2158] If those will work, I try it.

[2159] I think it depends.

[2160] Some people will.

[2161] It didn't work for me. Yeah.

[2162] I solved the problem.

[2163] Thanks, Pete.

[2164] I bought a new PS3.

[2165] You bought a new PS3.

[2166] I'm not willing to solve my problem.

[2167] You're solving the world's problem if I do win that.

[2168] Pump that money into the economy.

[2169] That bad yet.

[2170] Next email comes in from Shahar Hay.

[2171] Hay.

[2172] Was wondering what you'd think about a Tony Hawk game in the vein of Trackmania.

[2173] This is just for you, Jeff.

[2174] Everyone else, shut up.

[2175] This question's for Jeff.

[2176] He seems to be vibrating.

[2177] User -created level 60 seconds per run to get your best score with a set time being venue challenges, etc. Chat slash dubstep obviously included.

[2178] Yeah, I mean, that's one way to do it.

[2179] They have had track editors or level editors in Tony Hawk games that are modular and piece -based.

[2180] similar to how Trackmania does it.

[2181] So obviously Trackmania has a whole scripting language that makes it way more robust than anything they're going to put into a level creator on a console game.

[2182] But yeah, sure, that'd be a cool way to do it.

[2183] Yes.

[2184] Though I don't know that dubstep is the right genre for skateboarding.

[2185] I just don't know that that part works.

[2186] Ska step.

[2187] Yeah.

[2188] I don't know.

[2189] We just need to check back in with skateboarding.

[2190] I don't know.

[2191] It's been a while.

[2192] Dan Amrick has his blog, Activision employee.

[2193] Yes.

[2194] One of Swords.

[2195] Yes, One of Swords.

[2196] Talking a little bit about the music and kind of coming out and saying I think what everyone already knew is that they don't automatically have licenses to the old Tony Hawk music.

[2197] And then said like, if you remember the Tony Hawk games were used to kind of break bands in some cases and kind of expose people to new music, maybe they'll do that again.

[2198] Which I guess that's one way to go, but nah.

[2199] It sounds more like they'll probably get a couple of those songs so that people are happy.

[2200] But not all of them.

[2201] And then it's like go do custom soundtracks if you want the whole thing.

[2202] It sounds like it'll be new artists.

[2203] Yeah.

[2204] I guess my only issue with this idea is that it kind of – It suggests a format that is more like the downhill jam levels from the first Tony Hawk.

[2205] Yeah, that would be bad.

[2206] If you're building levels and then doing two -minute runs in them, that would be kind of cool.

[2207] What if it was a case where they took out collisions and you could just have 100 people on that level for that kind of Trackmania style crazy?

[2208] Yeah, because I just immediately think Foundry, and I think...

[2209] Doing that big, grinding that big loop, and if another dude comes around and is going faster than you...

[2210] Just knocks you off the loop.

[2211] Just knocks you right off that loop, and you can't keep going.

[2212] And that's the loop.

[2213] Yeah, it's the one run where everyone goes.

[2214] Yeah, everyone just becomes this horrible...

[2215] It's Dodge Em.

[2216] It's the old Atari game, Dodge Em, but with skateboards.

[2217] You have to know when to jump off.

[2218] Yeah.

[2219] And it can be hard to know.

[2220] You have to know the ledge.

[2221] I'll be curious to see whatever it is that this HD collection looks like.

[2222] Yeah.

[2223] And then what that then means for the future of the Tony Hawk franchise.

[2224] Because like you said last week, Jeff, Activision's got that Tony Hawk for a while.

[2225] Yeah.

[2226] They're paying for it.

[2227] At least a few more years.

[2228] They're paying for it until at least like 2015, right?

[2229] 2015, I think it is.

[2230] That sounds like the right time.

[2231] That sounds right.

[2232] It's ridiculous.

[2233] All right.

[2234] Next email comes in from Maury Suttonen.

[2235] He's in Finland.

[2236] She's in Finland.

[2237] They're in Finland.

[2238] Hey, Bombcast.

[2239] After watching the end of Star Wars Galaxy's things you guys did.

[2240] I got kind of interested in the Old Republic.

[2241] I've watched a bunch of videos and read people's opinions on forums, but I'm still on the fence about the game.

[2242] I remember Jeff being pretty negative about the game, saying that it's a lot like WoW and doesn't bring anything new to the table, so obviously WoW veterans won't find the game very interesting.

[2243] But what about the people who haven't played MMOs before, such as myself?

[2244] Do you think the game would be more enjoyable in this case, or do the game's problems persist for MMORPG rookies?

[2245] I don't know.

[2246] I found myself asking that exact same question while I was playing it.

[2247] I don't know that the game really does a terrific job of explaining how you're supposed to play those games.

[2248] I mean, yeah, you're right in that I'm not sure because you go in, if you've played enough WoW, it's like I kind of understand the beats of how the fundamentals should go.

[2249] You know what a tank does.

[2250] You know how aggro works.

[2251] You know, like pulling is less of a...

[2252] deal, at least from what I've played in this.

[2253] I don't know.

[2254] They have pop -ups, like pop -up tooltip things.

[2255] The first time you do something, it'll kind of explain the big picture stuff about how some of the systems work.

[2256] But getting into that nitty -gritty, I don't know.

[2257] Yeah, for a new player, I like...

[2258] But I think of any MMO that's launched post -World of Warcraft, this will probably be the one that's most friendly to new players because I think you can...

[2259] It'll be promoted enough and popular enough that there will be plenty of new players there with you.

[2260] Everyone figuring it out at the same time.

[2261] You'll have those people that have played all the games all along and they'll just kind of be off and running.

[2262] But if you can team up with a few friends that also don't know what they're doing, you'll probably be able to figure that stuff out.

[2263] Ben Kachero over at Ars Technica did, he hasn't played Mbos before, and I haven't read the whole feature, but he played like 15 hours of it and tried to play it as though the original pitch of, I'm going to play this as KOTOR, and just try and play it himself.

[2264] I read a bit of it, and it sounds like, yeah, it doesn't explain things very well, but that it is largely with some exception.

[2265] I guess there are some missions where you can, there's like, here's the option to do it solo, and then there's another way to do it grouped.

[2266] Like the mission will...

[2267] branch based on whether you want to do it by yourself or with a group.

[2268] Well, it's basically like this flashpoint, this Black Talon flashpoint that we're talking about is, okay, you have to go to this planet from this planet.

[2269] Now you can take this ship over here, which if you're by yourself is probably the best way to go.

[2270] Oh, that's probably what he's talking about.

[2271] That's not...

[2272] That's probably what he's talking about, is the way that it pitches you on that stuff.

[2273] And all that is is an introduction to flashpoints, which are meant to be done as a group.

[2274] So it's either you fly directly to the planet, or you go on this mission, and at the end of the mission it says, do you still want to go to the planet?

[2275] But you do also find when you're on missions, there will be secondary bonus objectives that aren't listed when you first take on a mission, and you'll be in the middle of it and say, oh, kill X number of things here if you want to for this bonus objective.

[2276] Which can sometimes – it seems like sometimes that rolls you into here's an area that is higher level or would require multiple people to go through successfully.

[2277] No, it's never been significantly tougher because most of those bonus objectives are kill 30 of these dudes that you're already killing.

[2278] But I've had ones – I've had like arcs where you'll go into heroic areas.

[2279] Right.

[2280] Which I guess are the tougher areas.

[2281] Typically, there's a heroic quest that is with that.

[2282] So the quests that are meant to be done by multiple people just straight up say, heroic, two plus, or four.

[2283] Just have purple texts.

[2284] And kind of just tell you, you should have four people.

[2285] I did a four person thing by myself last night, but I was also six levels higher than the recommended level for it.

[2286] Yeah.

[2287] So there's some stuff that they do spell out that explicitly.

[2288] Yeah.

[2289] And there's another floor on the space station that straight up is, as far as I can tell, every single flashpoint just shuttles all around you.

[2290] Yeah.

[2291] And you can just run off to any one of them.

[2292] So there is that first one they introduce to you by saying like, hey, if you're playing with friends, you can go this way and do this thing for friends.

[2293] Or don't.

[2294] But you can always go back and do that thing later because that's a thing you're supposed to do eventually with friends.

[2295] Gotcha.

[2296] It's less about it being the same mission.

[2297] Beyond how well it explains all the mechanics, like, I just didn't feel like the world was drawing me in in the same way.

[2298] Like, it's impossible for me to say if this is just down to personal preference or if it was, like, the WoW experience was my first one, so it's my favorite.

[2299] But, like, thinking back on, like, starting at that Abbey and then, like, making your way down to Goldshire and kind of screwing around, killing Hogger, you know, and Princess and all that stuff.

[2300] And then, like, finding Stormwind and, like, oh, shit, look at the size of the city.

[2301] I didn't feel that enticing sense of place in this.

[2302] I dabbled in those two start zones.

[2303] You're right.

[2304] I've been through four planets or something.

[2305] Yeah, I guess I've been through four planets now.

[2306] Yeah, they're all kind of similar.

[2307] You get to the Jedi Temple and that's kind of a big area, but it's also totally fucking empty.

[2308] There's three places to go.

[2309] Everywhere that I went, it was empty.

[2310] There was not a lot of interesting fiction beyond the occasional conversation.

[2311] There weren't a lot of players around.

[2312] Granted, the game's not out yet, or it's just now coming out.

[2313] There are tons of people playing it, and they've been letting people in in huge ways.

[2314] Playing WoW for fucking two years on end, I've never lost that sense of, my God, there's so much in here, and I want to keep finding it and discovering it.

[2315] None of the stuff I saw in this...

[2316] had that kind of draw i don't know how to qualify you're you're right about that like there there's no there is no like storm wind equivalent like the towns are so spread out and sprawling that you never get that sense of it being a bustling hub of activity even with the np i mean they put npcs all over the place right but the vendors and stuff are spread out so far and and you get to like was it so back or something which is like the The kind of next area past that.

[2317] And even that, it's a smaller town overall, but it's really big.

[2318] And as far as I can tell, there aren't even any crafting trainers there.

[2319] So it's not even like a full service area.

[2320] Well, it's this weird thing.

[2321] I think you were kind of touching on it when you were talking about doing like during the preview stuff.

[2322] It feels like they built this world to be full of player characters, but then instanced it.

[2323] out of existence by not allowing that many player characters into any one world.

[2324] So it's like there are these huge avenues and like even in a specific like, all right, you're in the marketplace area.

[2325] Like just everyone is scattered so far.

[2326] It's like, oh, well, you assume that that's because they expect there to be a shitload of people in here.

[2327] And so you want to have room for people to run around and not just have it be this match of everyone through each other.

[2328] The thing you need to get to and it's kind of like when I got it, I was super happy that I got it.

[2329] But then at the same time, It just made me realize that it's kind of a shitty solution to a larger problem, is that at some point, it might be level 18, it's either high teens or just right at level 20, you get sprint.

[2330] Yeah, I hear everyone talking mad love for sprint.

[2331] It's like a 30 % movement speed increase when you're not in battle.

[2332] Why would they lock that away?

[2333] Well, that's basically like getting a mount, it sounds like.

[2334] Well, the mounts are way faster.

[2335] Yeah, but the net effect is the same.

[2336] It's a high level speed increase.

[2337] You get mounts at level 25.

[2338] Back in my day...

[2339] I would say that they would lock that away because they don't want you to run past everything.

[2340] They want you to stop and see the world, but that's a really dumb idea.

[2341] It'd be fine if there was stuff there to see.

[2342] I just didn't notice much.

[2343] I guess someone that doesn't play these games, that sounds stupid.

[2344] That sounds really stupid.

[2345] Locking away, running.

[2346] It's a level upgrade.

[2347] But you're so many hours in at that point that when you get it, it's awesome.

[2348] You're like, oh, fucking great.

[2349] Thank God.

[2350] Oh, I'm moving so much faster than all these other assholes.

[2351] Jesus Christ.

[2352] Just because they've irritated you for 20 hours.

[2353] Then after a handful of hours of sprinting, I was like, this is still too slow.

[2354] And then I'll get a mount at level 25.

[2355] And then there are higher level mounts that go faster.

[2356] They let you mess around with a speeder bike in the area I'm in now.

[2357] Like, there's just a bike sitting there.

[2358] You can just get on it.

[2359] It didn't seem that fast.

[2360] And I just...

[2361] Yeah, I don't know.

[2362] Is that what the mounts are?

[2363] Stuff like speeder bikes?

[2364] Do you ever get a tauntaun?

[2365] I don't...

[2366] I don't know.

[2367] I don't know.

[2368] I've not seen any Hoth shit.

[2369] Hoth is in the game.

[2370] Is it?

[2371] It's on the Galaxy.

[2372] I should hope there is a Hoth level.

[2373] Yeah.

[2374] In a game like this.

[2375] Hoth is there.

[2376] I'm sitting here now, just during this conversation, realizing that the place that I go to now for this density of world content is Skyrim.

[2377] It's all falling into place for me right now.

[2378] Skyrim is the new WoW to me. That's the place where I'm roaming around this massive world and every five minutes finding something new and cool that I haven't seen before.

[2379] Because, I don't know.

[2380] I don't know if the problem is with me or with Old Republic.

[2381] You know, whatever.

[2382] You're older.

[2383] You have more responsibilities as an adult.

[2384] You don't have the time to be spending your weekends in your underwear playing fucking World of Warcraft the whole time.

[2385] Man, that was fucking awesome.

[2386] So...

[2387] What I did this weekend is sat around in a pair of sweatpants and played World of Warcraft for 30 fucking hours.

[2388] That's the upgrade, sweatpants.

[2389] Yeah.

[2390] Just get the sweatpants.

[2391] Just get the sweatpants and everything will be fine.

[2392] That first weekend.

[2393] Dude, yeah.

[2394] I woke up, went home straight after work on Friday night, played until I couldn't stay up anymore, got back up at 8 a .m., played until 1 a .m. I'm like, dude.

[2395] That is pretty much exactly what I did this weekend.

[2396] I played until 3 in the morning on Friday, then woke up at 8 on Saturday going, shit, I should keep laying here.

[2397] Oh, I better get up before the cues get bad.

[2398] And played almost the entire – I played until about midnight that night and then woke up again at like 9 and played until midnight again.

[2399] Were you having fun that whole time?

[2400] I don't know.

[2401] Sure, sure.

[2402] Yeah.

[2403] You know, whatever.

[2404] And I realized something about myself.

[2405] It's not that I'm obsessive.

[2406] I'm not a completionist.

[2407] I don't need everything.

[2408] Like I'm not going to go collect all the flags and do all that stuff.

[2409] But I'm a sucker for any type of persistence.

[2410] In a game.

[2411] That kind of progression.

[2412] When I can say my dude is better because of shit I did.

[2413] If I can look back and the numbers are higher.

[2414] That is a pretty powerful hook.

[2415] It's why Call of Duty 4 works so well.

[2416] Because it merges that idea.

[2417] Or Borderlands.

[2418] It merges that idea with an action -y kind of game that is the type of game that I also like.

[2419] It's more than pure skill.

[2420] The time investment is more than...

[2421] Because you can be bad at a game and say at least I...

[2422] At least I got something out of it.

[2423] But if you're better at the game, you're advancing faster.

[2424] It's when the two links together.

[2425] So yeah, if I didn't hate MMOs, I would really like MMOs is what I'm saying.

[2426] I mean I'm enjoying myself and – but I also subscribe to the first and last.

[2427] First one in, last one out is the way to play an MMO.

[2428] That launch weekend is amazing and when everyone is still discovering stuff and people are showing up with shit that you haven't seen before and you're like, oh shit, how did you get that?

[2429] Like that's still a fun social experience to be had.

[2430] But I never have interest in doing that for – three years or something.

[2431] I didn't have interest in doing that with WoW when it launched.

[2432] I didn't play as long as other folks did there.

[2433] But I like the intensity.

[2434] When it is that zeitgeisty thing and everyone's playing it, no genre benefits as much as the MMO.

[2435] Yes, everyone was playing Skyrim all at once and everyone was talking about it and it helped the conversation, but that never really trickled back to the game experience.

[2436] It never came back to, oh, shit, we should come over to my Skyrim and we'll roll together.

[2437] I mean, the best you can do is hear about something and go seek it out.

[2438] Right, exactly.

[2439] Like, oh, wow, that sounds crazy.

[2440] I want to see that.

[2441] And there's almost like an element of gambling to it with the way drops work.

[2442] You know, there's that notion of just like if I keep at it, like I'm going to get something super crazy and it's going to be awesome.

[2443] So they've added that a level deeper into this game.

[2444] because one of the quest rewards you can pick a lot of the times, when you have to pick between a few things, one of them is just a fucking box.

[2445] It says there's a fucking item that's like level 20 in here.

[2446] Hey, what is it?

[2447] Dude.

[2448] And you're like, I'm going to pick that almost every time, and maybe it'll be something awesome.

[2449] And a couple of times it's been awesome.

[2450] Like, way to rip the last tatters of your fiction off of the raw mechanics in this game and just say, fucking, here you go.

[2451] Roll the dice.

[2452] Maybe you'll get something good.

[2453] There's no reason for this box to be here, but have at it.

[2454] No, it's like, you know, if we're completing a quest, a guy says, like, here, you can have this box, or you can take some currency, you know, some planet -specific currency.

[2455] Get your commendations on.

[2456] It turns it away.

[2457] It's like, who wants to make a deal at that point?

[2458] Exactly.

[2459] Oh, my God.

[2460] It's intoxicating.

[2461] Ugh.

[2462] Yeah.

[2463] You understand why there are some people that get addicted to it and throw away big parts of their lives.

[2464] It taps into some of those same centers for constant positive reinforcement because you're always building your character no matter what you do.

[2465] The element of gambling.

[2466] Slap some electrodes on there.

[2467] I bet your dopamine response is just fucking like this.

[2468] I'm making the discs go into the holes while the thing is strapped to my eye.

[2469] That is what's happening.

[2470] And the whole ship's addicted.

[2471] Damn you, Ashley Judd.

[2472] Damn you.

[2473] Always.

[2474] Next email comes in from Adam Schwalli.

[2475] He's in Portage, Michigan.

[2476] Gentlemen of the Bombcast, we're calling back to the beginning of the year when Dragon Age 2 came out to a largely tepid response, and there was a lot of musings about it on the internet and on your own podcast, that big Western RPGs just weren't feasible in these modern times.

[2477] Now that we live in a post -Skyrim world, it seems like a ludicrous idea.

[2478] Skyrim, being one of the biggest, most Western RPGs of all time, has sold incredibly well despite launching the same week as Modern Warfare 3, and is largely agreed upon to be awesome.

[2479] My question is, do you think Skyrim as an outlier in RPGs are still largely done, or that Dragon Age 2 was disappointing for other reasons?

[2480] Are you guys really suggesting that Western RPGs were done because of Dragon Age 2?

[2481] Maybe.

[2482] I don't know.

[2483] That seems sort of crazy.

[2484] I don't think anybody said that nobody wanted to play them anymore.

[2485] That one game is going to kill them.

[2486] If anything, the implication is that developers are not necessarily in a position to make them on a regular basis.

[2487] Yeah.

[2488] It was a question of like – I mean keep in mind at the time that this was – I mean whatever at the time still.

[2489] It was a Bioware -developed RPG and kind of the expectations that came with that.

[2490] And then kind of actioning it up in some spots.

[2491] Right, right.

[2492] Mass affecting it out.

[2493] I think that – I think the fear of action and shooter sales influencing the design of what would otherwise be more traditional RPGs, that's probably – that is a legitimate fear.

[2494] I don't remember what we said, but I think it's one of those things where, yeah, very few developers are in a position to make something that has that depth of content.

[2495] Right, because we even saw this was the follow -up from BioWare themselves, and even early on it was apparent that they just don't have the depth of the content.

[2496] It's just not there.

[2497] They turned it around too fast.

[2498] And they called it a 2.

[2499] They called it a 2.

[2500] It didn't start as 2, but it came out as 2.

[2501] It's one thing if it was something else, and we're saying, hey, here's something in between.

[2502] Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2.

[2503] I think people positioned that the wrong way, but knew they would sell more if they called it a 2.

[2504] I don't know if you remember, but it took them a long time to make the first Dragon Age.

[2505] They announced that game a long, long time ago.

[2506] I remember when that was on the cover of Computer Gaming World, which was the second time it had been unveiled.

[2507] That game got unveiled three different times.

[2508] It looked radically different.

[2509] They announced the name of it years before they ever showed it.

[2510] Wow.

[2511] Yeah, it must not have been paying attention.

[2512] Point is, that was probably a longer development cycle than EA is comfortable with.

[2513] Yeah.

[2514] So they were not going to get to do that again.

[2515] By contrast, Bethesda clearly has solid processes in place and can make these games well in two to three years.

[2516] Even then.

[2517] Well.

[2518] And then they'll spend another year fixing it.

[2519] You know what I mean.

[2520] The groundwork of the game is very solid.

[2521] Look at what Skyrim is.

[2522] This took a developer that is...

[2523] If we can't say really good, at least has done this a few times.

[2524] I think that's more important.

[2525] Building up that skill set in the process is just unfathomable to do it on that scale.

[2526] Yeah.

[2527] Like, it's not even a matter of money.

[2528] It's just, like, how do you even do that?

[2529] Like, this has taken Bethesda to get to the point of Skyrim decades to get to where they can pull this stuff off.

[2530] It's not like you could just, even if you just handed people a bunch of money.

[2531] And they don't develop anything else internally but games like that, right?

[2532] Yeah.

[2533] Fallout 3 and, yeah, this is, yeah.

[2534] All that said, though, the breadth of the content in that game is fucking staggering.

[2535] It's legitimately just like...

[2536] I'm 40 hours in and there's a major city I haven't been to.

[2537] Is Skyrim an outlier?

[2538] Absolutely.

[2539] Because it takes a lot of skill and a lot of resources to make something like this.

[2540] Skyrim would not be a big deal if it were not such a difficult thing to execute on.

[2541] I still think big games like this are going to be a rarity because it does take...

[2542] Just time and resources and abilities.

[2543] Like they're not going to annualize the Elder Scrolls franchise.

[2544] At least not without destroying it.

[2545] Right.

[2546] I'm not sure they could.

[2547] Right.

[2548] I'm not even sure how feasibly they...

[2549] Then again, I wouldn't have said that about Assassin's Creed.

[2550] It would no longer be recognizable.

[2551] It wouldn't be a...

[2552] You know, yeah.

[2553] You would flatten it across a bunch of studios and bring the quality down.

[2554] I'd like to think ZeniMax is smarter than that.

[2555] I think Bono's smarter than that.

[2556] I doubt Bono's paying much attention.

[2557] Way more curious to see that MMO than anything else.

[2558] I want to know if Matthew Perry has played Skyrim.

[2559] Isn't he a Bethesda fan, super fan?

[2560] Oh yeah, he was like a Fallout fan.

[2561] Like he went on the Ellen show and brought her an Xbox and a copy of Fallout 3 because he was obsessed with it.

[2562] That's why they cast him in New Vegas because he was like Fallout fan number one.

[2563] Weird.

[2564] So yeah, like the idea of some random...

[2565] Yeah, yeah.

[2566] Random actor with, you know, like, former drug problems and stuff.

[2567] Yeah, yeah.

[2568] Seems like a regular Hollywood guy.

[2569] This is my new problem.

[2570] Except all of a sudden, wait a minute, he's spending 12 hours a day playing a Bethesda game.

[2571] Like, what?

[2572] Yeah.

[2573] Dudes like games.

[2574] I guess.

[2575] What I'm hearing is that he shows the VGAs.

[2576] Is that what you're saying?

[2577] Sure.

[2578] That's what it sounds like to me. Next video comes in from Eric.

[2579] It's about handheld game of the years.

[2580] It seems that this is a ridiculous notion.

[2581] I'm going to start this email over.

[2582] It seems to me there is this ridiculous notion that a majority of gamers have that a handheld game can't be a game of the year.

[2583] Where does this come from and why?

[2584] Ghost Trick is probably my game of the year and I see no reason why it can't stand alongside The Witcher 2, Deus Ex, Dark Souls, Skyward Sword, etc. Platform shouldn't matter.

[2585] It should be about the quality of the game.

[2586] Your thoughts.

[2587] I have been there for the selection of handheld games of the year.

[2588] or at least where they've come down to it, where they've been major contenders for sure.

[2589] I think what it comes down to for most people, a console game is going to just be flashier.

[2590] If nothing else, you start looking for, or it's easier to look for spectacle when you start talking game of the year stuff than what are often subtler things that make a handheld game.

[2591] really great.

[2592] Well, it's easier to start looking for a lot of things.

[2593] Consoles are just more capable machines.

[2594] It might be flash.

[2595] It might be depth.

[2596] There's a lot of things that handhelds just can't do.

[2597] Ghost Trick's really awesome.

[2598] I don't know that I would call it my game of the year.

[2599] In fact, I don't know that I would call it one of my top ten games of the year.

[2600] But it is pretty awesome.

[2601] I think just fewer people play them.

[2602] That's in terms of the time you have throughout the year to play X amount of games.

[2603] I think you're more interested in playing that AAA game on your console than you are on handhelds.

[2604] Also, I keep waiting for Ghost Trick to come out on the iPad because it came out on the iPad in Japan.

[2605] Did it really?

[2606] Yeah.

[2607] That translation is just sitting around.

[2608] Slap it on there.

[2609] That would be a good iPad game.

[2610] That would be a great iPad game.

[2611] It's supposedly awesome.

[2612] So, yeah.

[2613] I think it's possible.

[2614] I've seen Super Mario 3 land on some lists.

[2615] So, I mean.

[2616] Yeah.

[2617] Yeah.

[2618] Super Mario 3 lands a hell of a game.

[2619] I mean, I'm sorry.

[2620] Go ahead.

[2621] I don't want to digress too much.

[2622] No. I have a downloadable game that now runs in a web browser, like, right at the top of my list.

[2623] Sure.

[2624] Like, it can happen.

[2625] Just, you know.

[2626] Yeah, I guess, you know.

[2627] But at the same time, I think that, like, when you start going to, like, you know, picking the game of the year, like, people tend to, for the same reason, like, the Oscars don't pick comedies a lot of the time.

[2628] Like, people...

[2629] You go for the big prestige pieces.

[2630] Yeah, I think there's an inherent bias against things like fighting games and racing games and things that aren't big, traditional, sweeping, single -player experiences.

[2631] I think those always get preferential treatment.

[2632] At a staff level, when you get a bunch of people together talking about games, those seem to be the ones, for whatever reason, that people can agree on.

[2633] Yeah.

[2634] I think that's true.

[2635] I think that's what you find.

[2636] I think that's why it comes up in these lists more is that it's an easy common ground.

[2637] Yeah.

[2638] Whereas we're like, ah, you know, I don't really play this type of game.

[2639] You don't really play that type of game.

[2640] But we both played this game.

[2641] We both agree that this game is pretty fucking excellent.

[2642] And that's why fighting games definitely get.

[2643] Right.

[2644] Fighting games, strategy games.

[2645] You're right about fighting and racing games as well.

[2646] Like driving games, like there will be a couple.

[2647] There will always be someone on staff that loves one or two driving games intensely and no one else has seen fucking sight of.

[2648] And those conversations, I imagine it happens across all publications this way.

[2649] I can only speak for a couple of them, I guess.

[2650] Yeah.

[2651] always like someone goes like well i really play i i played four to three and i think it's incredible in the best game i played all year but i'm not gonna win that fight so i'm just gonna say that and say fuck you guys and go ahead and pick your whatever whatever yeah yeah yeah i've seen exactly that happen year after year after year but you have to say it out loud yes you have to say listen i said it out loud i don't know i'm not gonna try and force you assholes into this part of the reason why i feel pretty good about us putting our deliberations out there.

[2652] Because when we say that stuff, at least someone gets to hear it outside of people in that room who just go like, oh yeah, soccer game.

[2653] Sure.

[2654] Also, maybe more importantly, our personal top ten list.

[2655] Sure.

[2656] That's where we can air all those personal preferences without any kind of no oversight.

[2657] Perverting influence.

[2658] Alright, next email comes in from Matt.

[2659] Matt says, Bombcast, I did the math.

[2660] Had Jeff been paying for Star Trek Online Monthly for the past 22 months, Jeff would have paid over $300.

[2661] Boom.

[2662] Coincidentally, that's the cost of a lifetime subscription.

[2663] Boom.

[2664] Jeff is now technically paying for free.

[2665] That's right.

[2666] It's almost like he's making money.

[2667] I am.

[2668] Who's stupid now for buying a lifetime subscription, huh?

[2669] You guys are total fuck -ups.

[2670] You could have got in, too.

[2671] They were selling them.

[2672] You could have just bought one.

[2673] How's Star Trek Online going, Jeff?

[2674] I like Star Trek Online.

[2675] I really want to try it again.

[2676] I like the idea of Star Trek Online.

[2677] After hearing that they redesigned the away team combat stuff, I really want to try it again.

[2678] Like, they supposedly made it more action -y.

[2679] If they actually nailed that, that might be okay.

[2680] Fuck the old Republic.

[2681] Yeah.

[2682] Let's get back into Star Trek.

[2683] Let's get back into Star Trek.

[2684] Yeah.

[2685] See, this is where it comes down to...

[2686] You fucking practically start out with a spaceship in that one.

[2687] But this is where we strip away clean, where it doesn't really matter if it's about MMO stuff.

[2688] It's about, do you still like Star Trek or do you still like Star Wars?

[2689] Like, some affinity for that underlying material, regardless of how it's treated.

[2690] One of those brands has been salvaged and the other one has been torpedoed.

[2691] You know, playing Old Republic as...

[2692] started to crystallize why I don't like Star Wars.

[2693] Yeah.

[2694] It's because it's just the same fantasy bullshit but with laser swords instead of regular.

[2695] Oh, yeah.

[2696] No, it's...

[2697] It's a fantasy series.

[2698] Yeah, it is no different.

[2699] It is Lord of the Rings with some space.

[2700] I just like all of the Imperial stuff.

[2701] Yeah, I like a lot of their design stuff.

[2702] I like the aesthetic.

[2703] The Imperial aesthetic is awesome.

[2704] I like the way TIE fighters look.

[2705] Yeah.

[2706] Their wings, they'll pattern on the wings.

[2707] I like when I run into the Star Destroyers or whatever, wherever it is that I am in space.

[2708] And they just have the huge banners with the spotlight in the middle on the imperial symbol.

[2709] Everything is all black and red and gray and just looks...

[2710] It's a bunch of Nazi shit.

[2711] It is.

[2712] They really lean into the Nazi shit.

[2713] Space Nazis.

[2714] Yeah, they are incredible space Nazis.

[2715] And they are fittingly space racist about it as well.

[2716] Yeah, totally.

[2717] Like right down to the eugenics or whatever.

[2718] Straight up spear destiny in that motherfucker.

[2719] Next email comes in from Scott Lumsden.

[2720] Lumsden?

[2721] Lumsden.

[2722] He has a question about video game trailers.

[2723] Numerous trailers were released during this year's Spike Video Game Awards.

[2724] I'm noticing that many of them, such as CNC Generals 2, use the term in -game footage.

[2725] However, the new Bioshock Infinite trailer specifically uses the term in -engine footage.

[2726] I assume this is to mean that the gameplay for CNC Generals 2 is simply a video found within the game and not actually footage of gameplay.

[2727] I find this to be quite gross and misleading on the part of whoever creates these trailers.

[2728] Perhaps my assumptions are wrong, but if I am correct, I ask you what your feelings are on the use of the term in -engine, or I'm sorry, in -game, if any.

[2729] I think...

[2730] I think you're reading too much into it if you think there are differences between in -game and in -engine.

[2731] They're both kind of getting at the same thing.

[2732] It's just different companies using different terms.

[2733] Yeah, that doesn't mean that you're going to be controlling one of those exploding things in that fashion in that Generals trailer.

[2734] It probably just means that they use the game engine to render it, and it's not some team making high -grade CGI renders of all those models.

[2735] But you're going to see most of that game, I imagine, except for whatever cut scenes and whatever stuff they throw in there, dialogue trees, you'll see it from above like an RTS.

[2736] So I can't imagine you will see that exact footage in there.

[2737] I mean, Naughty Dog used a third version of that phrase, which was captured entirely from a PlayStation 3 or however, exactly however they phrased it.

[2738] Which means that they took a Blu -ray disc and stuck it in a PS3.

[2739] They pushed play on the movie they had rendered out onto it.

[2740] Recorded that.

[2741] Yeah, that's a really dumb phrase to use because there are so many loopholes in that that it just doesn't...

[2742] It's all getting at the same sort of thing of just, look, it's not a CGI trailer.

[2743] Right.

[2744] Like, this is some...

[2745] And it's not like there's some federal agency that's requiring them...

[2746] In the UK there is.

[2747] Oh, is it?

[2748] Yeah, if they're putting out truth in advertising, if they put out commercials and stuff on television that are not representative of what the game really looks like, in some cases even if they were showing the PC version and then promoting the Wii game and not specifying what it was, they would go after them.

[2749] Yeah, Activision's been hit with the...

[2750] suits a couple of times, or fees.

[2751] So apparently there is a federal agency.

[2752] They're very strict about that in the UK.

[2753] Your CCTV.

[2754] It's kind of cool.

[2755] Yeah, no, it is.

[2756] It kind of gets rid of a lot of the bullshit.

[2757] Or if you're going to pull the bullshit, at least they're going to get fined for it.

[2758] Right.

[2759] Spike is not in the UK.

[2760] They're not.

[2761] They are the most American of networks.

[2762] Indeed.

[2763] I see one comes in from Locke.

[2764] Hi, Giant Bomb Squad.

[2765] Locke here from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

[2766] As far as I know, both Brad and Patrick have been and possibly finished testing the slew of games for the IGF.

[2767] Is that accurate?

[2768] Can you talk about that?

[2769] Yeah, I'm doing student showcase stuff now, which Brad is not, but we are done with the first round.

[2770] Of judging for the IGF.

[2771] With all contests of this nature, the cream always rises to the top.

[2772] But both of you said that there were too many great games.

[2773] Is there a way to see, play, or consume the IGF games that did not make the cut?

[2774] There's a complete listing on the IGF website that has a summary of the game, or at least a vague...

[2775] Allusion to what it's about.

[2776] Using video and screenshots.

[2777] Yeah, for everything.

[2778] There's a ton of them.

[2779] Yeah, there's 700, 600, 700 entries this year.

[2780] But you can't play any of them.

[2781] Well, some of them are already out.

[2782] Some are web games.

[2783] Some of them are out.

[2784] Some of them, yeah, like the developers put them up on web pages and stuff.

[2785] There's no build of Fez sitting there.

[2786] Yeah, the big games you're thinking of, like, no, you can't play them.

[2787] And a lot of them after that you have to disappear for several years.

[2788] They submerge.

[2789] They get bought.

[2790] Yes.

[2791] It was really weird.

[2792] Like, you log in as a judge, and it just directs you to your, like, dozen games or whatever that you've been assigned.

[2793] But if you back out, you can see everything.

[2794] Yeah.

[2795] And they're all there to download, and you can't rate them, obviously.

[2796] But it's really eye -opening to be scrolling down the list of all these games you've never heard of, and then, like, oh, Fez.

[2797] Yep.

[2798] Gemini Rue.

[2799] You know, like, I'm blanking on a couple others.

[2800] Like, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet was on there.

[2801] Yeah.

[2802] You know?

[2803] Like, it's weird to see these, like, well -known and, in some cases, already commercially available games.

[2804] like mixed in with these like practically student projects in some cases.

[2805] Yeah.

[2806] Do they have divisions?

[2807] I mean, you have the student showcase stuff, but is there like a bigger division?

[2808] Other than that, it's just a gigantic list.

[2809] It's just a big old melting pot.

[2810] Yeah.

[2811] It sounds like next year there might be, there's a little more structure.

[2812] Yeah.

[2813] Just because it's starting to get kind of unwieldy as the term indie.

[2814] Right.

[2815] It's broader.

[2816] What is indie?

[2817] What is indie?

[2818] Exactly.

[2819] Which is it?

[2820] Define that.

[2821] PopCap?

[2822] No, they're owned by EA.

[2823] Who owns EA, man?

[2824] The people?

[2825] That's the most independent of all.

[2826] It's not the government.

[2827] Like Zynga?

[2828] It's independent?

[2829] Yeah.

[2830] Valve and Epic Games are independent if you want to play that game.

[2831] Fortnite is going to win IGF next year.

[2832] It is indie in spirit, I think, is what it is.

[2833] it come down to the independent spirit awards I guess but then something like Shadow Planet was like made with Microsoft money you know like where does that they don't draw a line we've talked about this like the big fight a couple years ago was Phil Fish calling out Q Games for award winning awards for pixel junk games despite them having a multi -game contract with Sony and the inevitable like they decided not to make a call on it because it was just there's no hard lines you can draw or else it gets too weird At the same time, most games are made with somebody's money.

[2834] Yeah.

[2835] I can't wait for the finals to come out.

[2836] Yeah, I didn't get a very good crop of games.

[2837] We can't really talk about the ones we got.

[2838] I got a couple of okay ones.

[2839] Talking to other people, there were a lot of fantastic stuff that I quickly downloaded builds of so I can try and play them later.

[2840] Yeah, the one year I did it, like, Super Meat Boy and Limbo popped up in the finalists, and that was before anybody had ever heard of that stuff.

[2841] And so it's like, you download it and play it like everything else, and then you're like, oh, shit.

[2842] And a lot of times you're playing, like, PC and Mac builds of games that will just become or are going to be XPLA or PSN games.

[2843] Like, especially if they're built on, like, XNA or something like that.

[2844] Like, it's weird.

[2845] They will never become PC games, but you can play them on your PC.

[2846] Right.

[2847] Yep.

[2848] So I should probably wait for...

[2849] discuss this stuff at length or at any sort of length once the actual words kind of shake out.

[2850] But was there stuff in this round that you felt hit those same notes?

[2851] Was there anything that you hadn't heard of before?

[2852] Not in my group.

[2853] Yeah, not in mine.

[2854] But those names definitely start getting out there.

[2855] Yeah.

[2856] Once we get to the finalists and then also usually on the finalists, you can work out within the...

[2857] each developer to perhaps talk about their games, we might be able to do something a little bit more.

[2858] Some of this stuff has gotten out in the press already.

[2859] Dear Esther was being spoken very highly of, and they just announced that for release in February for like $10.

[2860] Although you can find that right now.

[2861] The one that's in the IGF is just a remake of an existing half -source engine mod.

[2862] It's some sort of ghost story that's supposed to be really good.

[2863] There's a new Cappy game, Super Time Force, which is some Contra game where you die a lot.

[2864] I'm not sure how much I should say because I don't know how much of the content is out there.

[2865] But the new Cappy game, they made Sword and Sorcery and Heroes of Might and Magic Clash of Heroes.

[2866] Creator Clash.

[2867] Creator Clash.

[2868] Creator Clash, yeah.

[2869] It's a hell of a game.

[2870] Next email comes in from Bernard Redmond, Washington.

[2871] Hey, Bondcast, what are some of your favorite pinball machines and which ones do you think are the most important?

[2872] Important pinball.

[2873] Important pinball.

[2874] I think my favorite is probably...

[2875] It's been in my new math rock band.

[2876] I will say it again.

[2877] It's F -14 Tomcat.

[2878] It's probably my favorite pinball machine.

[2879] And high speed.

[2880] Important?

[2881] I don't know.

[2882] Pinbot?

[2883] Pinbot's probably pretty important.

[2884] Pinbot's probably important.

[2885] That's a...

[2886] Medieval madness.

[2887] A big recognizable one.

[2888] It's probably Twilight Zone.

[2889] Twilight Zone and the Addams Family were always the big ones to me. I would call those big, some of the best, and also kind of important for what they did for that era of pinball.

[2890] Kind of raised their profile in the 90s.

[2891] But for me it was Star Trek and the Next Generation, Terminator 2 were like the return of pinball.

[2892] That was like, oh, suddenly I care about pinball.

[2893] It's not just the weird thing my dad goes and plays while I play real video games.

[2894] It made it relevant to a crowd that had just been playing video games and didn't give a shit about pinball previously.

[2895] It's all about the movie tie -ins.

[2896] That's what did it.

[2897] Yeah, I put Star Trek.

[2898] It's like you put the money in and it says, Judgment Day.

[2899] You're like, fuck, I'm going to go see that.

[2900] It's got gun triggers up on the thing.

[2901] Oh, the T2 one was great.

[2902] Terminator 2 kind of cleaned up at the arcades between that and the light gun game.

[2903] Those both in play at the same time.

[2904] Those were arcade hits.

[2905] Yeah, obviously, you know, for source material reasons, love that Twilight Zone machine.

[2906] But that's just well done also.

[2907] It's a fantastic machine.

[2908] That's just a great machine.

[2909] It's a beautiful piece.

[2910] Same with it.

[2911] Yeah, it's a beautiful piece.

[2912] Nice table.

[2913] Yeah, nice table.

[2914] Good pin.

[2915] It's a really nice, yeah.

[2916] Nice pin.

[2917] Got there.

[2918] Yeah, same with Adam's Family.

[2919] That's another good piece from there.

[2920] Have a soft spot for the...

[2921] Super Mario Bros. 3 they made one out of, right?

[2922] Not Super Mario World.

[2923] I think it was 3.

[2924] I think they might have just called it Super Mario Bros. But, like, the art, like, the aesthetic was, I think, Super Mario Bros. 3.

[2925] I think you're right.

[2926] Whenever I go to Santa Cruz, they have one of those there.

[2927] It's not the best pinball game, but it's...

[2928] He talks a lot.

[2929] Yeah.

[2930] And says stuff that he hasn't said anywhere.

[2931] It's like it's custom samples for that.

[2932] Yeah, it's enjoyable for the one quarter, and I'm like, I am satisfied.

[2933] I'm good.

[2934] That is...

[2935] That was the movie theater I hung out at had that machine in it for a while.

[2936] That was annoying.

[2937] I would imagine.

[2938] Yeah.

[2939] It does talk a lot.

[2940] There's a lot of people just walking around dressed up in I'm working at the theater where saying, I'm super now, over and over again.

[2941] That sounds like hell.

[2942] It was pretty rough.

[2943] That was not the two weeks that I was working there, though, so I could leave.

[2944] Next email comes in from Matt.

[2945] He's coming out of Dallas.

[2946] Big D. Big D indeed.

[2947] Long -time listener, and I value your opinions.

[2948] There's something I've been conflicted about for some time.

[2949] Straws.

[2950] Do you peel off the paper with your fingers or tap the straw on the table until it breaks through?

[2951] For most of my life, I was a tapper, but after a streak of broken straws, I switched to the other method.

[2952] I can't help but feel a little less cool, though.

[2953] Should I go back to my old ways, risking the occasional cracked straw?

[2954] Patrick Klepek, how do you deal with straws?

[2955] I think you have to take the risk.

[2956] By tapping?

[2957] Yeah.

[2958] I didn't know there were other ways.

[2959] Jeff, what do you think?

[2960] Yeah, I think tapping is the right way, but lately I've been grabbing, let's say, the first fifth of the straw and just twisting there and ripping that part off.

[2961] Yeah.

[2962] And then I end up with two pieces of straw a lot of the time that way.

[2963] Brad?

[2964] I've been peeling for years because it's what grown -ups do.

[2965] I will tap if it's...

[2966] Yeah, but you peel string cheese.

[2967] I don't trust you when it comes to peeling.

[2968] I can't believe you don't...

[2969] No, I string string cheese.

[2970] Yeah, you can't...

[2971] It's not okay, Jeff.

[2972] No, it's not.

[2973] It's not.

[2974] No. No, it's not.

[2975] You're missing the point.

[2976] You're missing the point.

[2977] You know what grown -ups really do is not drink with straws.

[2978] Also, maybe don't eat string cheese.

[2979] Oh, string cheese is great.

[2980] What is it about being a grown -up that says, I like ice banging off my teeth?

[2981] Like, no way, man. Straws are still fine.

[2982] I'm not saying drink milk through a straw.

[2983] I don't drink milk at all.

[2984] Well, that's...

[2985] Because it's what grown -ups do.

[2986] Oh, I see.

[2987] All right, yeah.

[2988] Well, when you have frail, bitter bones that are cracking like a grown -up, you come see me, Mr. Osteoporosis.

[2989] I'm joking.

[2990] I will tap if it's paper.

[2991] I will twist or tear if it's plastic.

[2992] Because I find that oftentimes the plastic sheath does not tap out as easily as the paper does.

[2993] I bought straws off the internet.

[2994] What kind of straws?

[2995] Just drink straws, just like 3 ,000.

[2996] What kind of drink straws?

[2997] They're not wide, but yeah, they do have stripes on them.

[2998] They're not big, wide straws.

[2999] You couldn't really drink a milkshake with them.

[3000] But one night, I went to a fast food establishment, and they did not give me a straw.

[3001] And I got home, and there was no straw.

[3002] And you're like, fuck.

[3003] I was like, motherfucker.

[3004] So I went to Amazon and ordered straws.

[3005] I said, fuck you, never again.

[3006] I win.

[3007] This one in every 3 ,000 scenario will...

[3008] It has happened twice since I bought the straws, though.

[3009] Okay.

[3010] Now I understand.

[3011] That's a key difference in lifestyle.

[3012] Like, I'm just...

[3013] Yeah, that is...

[3014] Yeah, if you're dealing with that style of beverage...

[3015] Right.

[3016] You definitely...

[3017] Straws happen.

[3018] Yeah, okay.

[3019] Yeah.

[3020] I'm not like getting a pint glass and like, I'm going to pour me some lemonade.

[3021] This wouldn't work without a straw.

[3022] Like a glass of water putting a straw in it.

[3023] My girlfriend will do that.

[3024] Women wear lipstick and thus don't want to fuck it all up with glasses and will use a straw.

[3025] Okay, this makes more sense.

[3026] Yeah, I used to have a big old gross of...

[3027] I guess we'll call them theater straws.

[3028] Yeah.

[3029] Yes, commercial straws that were in the home.

[3030] Commercial grade straws, nothing like them.

[3031] Yeah, yeah, because she likes to drink their straws.

[3032] Weird hankering for some boba now, just because I want to use one of those giant straws.

[3033] A tonically oversized straw that tapioca balls can go through.

[3034] You know who doesn't like straws?

[3035] Ryan McDonald.

[3036] Motherfucker, hate a straw.

[3037] The number of times I've seen that dude take a straw out of a drink and fucking throw it, just go, just, like, get rid of it actively against straws.

[3038] Well, he needs to clear the way so that he can deliver chaw into that cup later on.

[3039] Right.

[3040] Can't spit through a straw.

[3041] Sure you can.

[3042] Next email comes in from John C., San Diego, California.

[3043] John C. asks, What's up with Bioware?

[3044] Is that it?

[3045] That's the email.

[3046] That's a great question.

[3047] Come back next week.

[3048] I think they're doing great.

[3049] Full steam ahead, guys.

[3050] Next email comes in from Chris Norris in Vancouver, Canada.

[3051] I feel better about their whole situation after playing a bunch of Old Republic.

[3052] Seeing that game is at least well made.

[3053] It's well put together and it seems like the launch is probably going okay.

[3054] You made an MMO.

[3055] I don't know how many people want to stick with that sort of thing, and I think that, you know...

[3056] There's still a lot of questions that will have to be answered to buy subscriber numbers and server expansion and stuff.

[3057] But I am not as certain about its success or demise based on what I've seen of that game.

[3058] Yeah, this could keep going for a while.

[3059] At least they have made a good one of those games.

[3060] It is functionally competent.

[3061] To be clear, it is not what I want, but at least they can still set a goal.

[3062] They have not pushed the genre forward in huge ways from what I've seen.

[3063] It does have a little bit of that bio -awareness to it.

[3064] Just enough.

[3065] Just enough.

[3066] But enough of what I love about Mass Effect is still in there.

[3067] Even in just certain design decisions, certain aesthetic decisions, where I can feel little bits of the Mass Effect design creeping into...

[3068] As much as Mass Effect is a rip -off or a conflagration of Star Wars and Star Trek.

[3069] You can feel a little bit of that kind of washing back into Old Republic.

[3070] Yeah, a little bit.

[3071] It's just, I don't know.

[3072] I fucked a Darth.

[3073] Whoa.

[3074] Yeah.

[3075] You want to talk about some Bioware shit right there?

[3076] I guess so.

[3077] I don't know.

[3078] I know I want to fuck a Darth.

[3079] Now that I know that you can fuck a Darth.

[3080] It's hard for me to forget this was made by different people, though.

[3081] Like, the people who made KOTOR went on to make Mass Effect.

[3082] Right.

[3083] Like, that's the actual, that's the true legacy of the KOTOR games.

[3084] Yeah.

[3085] Is Mass Effect.

[3086] Yeah.

[3087] We'll look forward to Mass Effect Online in 2015.

[3088] I would rather that they did that.

[3089] Yeah.

[3090] If they had made a Mass Effect MMO, that would be the ideal, I think, in a lot of ways.

[3091] What if it was all cartoony?

[3092] What if it was all cartoony?

[3093] I wouldn't like that at all.

[3094] Chris Norris.

[3095] What if Shepard was a king?

[3096] Wearing his space crown.

[3097] It was just a holographic crown.

[3098] He wasn't actually wearing it.

[3099] It was just a hollow crown.

[3100] Oh, man. That would be in keeping with the aesthetic of Old Republic, from what I've seen.

[3101] Right, dude.

[3102] The amount of holographic signage that they throw everywhere.

[3103] What is up with the thing every time you level?

[3104] Like the little, like, I don't even know, news ticker thing that flies down your face.

[3105] No idea what the fuck that thing is.

[3106] What?

[3107] I don't know.

[3108] It's weird, though.

[3109] It's like, where are you?

[3110] And then it zooms away with, like, this, like, motion blur on it.

[3111] Well, it's like it's these actual, like, little mechanical things that are flying down.

[3112] Hey, by the way, you went up a level.

[3113] Later.

[3114] Put up a sign to let you know.

[3115] Yeah, I don't know.

[3116] That is weird.

[3117] Where is it coming from and where is it going?

[3118] Does it exist in the same physical space as my guy?

[3119] It must because you see it happening to other players.

[3120] Do you?

[3121] Yeah.

[3122] Oh, wow.

[3123] Okay, I haven't noticed that.

[3124] That's weird.

[3125] Moving on.

[3126] That's it for emails.

[3127] Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

[3128] Bombcast at GiantBomb .com is the address.

[3129] And with that.

[3130] This is our last regular podcast for the year.

[3131] Thanks for listening.

[3132] And be sure and check out Giant Bomb's Game of the Year feature rollout, which will be happening all next week from every day.

[3133] Every damn day we'll be rolling out new winners.

[3134] We'll be rolling out a new deliberation podcast where we record the processes of us deciding on those winners.

[3135] And it'll be a bunch of other shit, too.

[3136] We're doing so much stuff.

[3137] Look for lots of stupidity on the sites.

[3138] Oh, yeah.

[3139] Yes.

[3140] There's other stuff.

[3141] Vinny's off editing right now.

[3142] Vinny's off making sense of it right now.

[3143] Yeah.

[3144] Yeah.

[3145] He's trying to process it for all of us so that it will.

[3146] We gave him the equivalent of nonsense, scribbled on a napkin and said, if you could turn this into something magical.

[3147] Whatever.

[3148] He scribbled it to himself.

[3149] We'll be in here.

[3150] He scribbled it to himself with his left hand, showed it to us and said, all right.

[3151] Now make that into something.

[3152] And we gave him.

[3153] You know, the funny thing is, like, we made a lot of decisions about how it was going to go.

[3154] Like, me, Drew, and Dave.

[3155] Yeah.

[3156] And then, like, made a lot of those decisions based on, like, what's easy and doable?

[3157] And then Vinny came in and said, it's not fucked up enough.

[3158] We got to do this.

[3159] And then, like, exponentially.

[3160] I remember there were some modest plans.

[3161] And then Vinny came back from vacation.

[3162] And they were no longer modest.

[3163] By the end of that day, it was like, all right, here's what we're doing.

[3164] All right.

[3165] All right.

[3166] I think we can pull this off.

[3167] It's going to be awesome.

[3168] It will be awesome.

[3169] Be sure to look forward to that between Christmas and New Year's all over the site.

[3170] And then we'll be back in 2012 with more.

[3171] Not me. Jeff will not be returning to the site in 2012.

[3172] It's good working with you.

[3173] Get that exhaust pipe thing together.

[3174] Do you think the chicken and dumplings will come out of the exhaust pipe?

[3175] Maybe this time.

[3176] If I suck on the exhaust pipe hard enough, something magical will happen.

[3177] And with that, we bid adieu.

[3178] Cram a bunch of flour and chickens into the gas tank.

[3179] Yeah, okay.

[3180] Stack the deck in my favor.

[3181] In your go -kart.

[3182] Yeah.

[3183] A safe and sane holiday season, and we will see you all in 2012 with more of the Giant Bombcast.