Giant Bombcast 11-23-2010

[0] Okay.

[1] Hey.

[2] Hey, everyone.

[3] Hey.

[4] Hey.

[5] Hey.

[6] Hey, everyone.

[7] It's a delicious energy drink.

[8] Hey, everyone, it's Tuesday, November the 23rd, 2010, and you are listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[9] I'm your host, Ryan Davis.

[10] Could you start again?

[11] I'm not ready.

[12] Hey, everyone, it's Tuesday, November the 23rd.

[13] I'll take it again, please, from the top.

[14] Hey, everyone, it's Tuesday, November the 23rd, 2010, and you are listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[15] I'm your host, Ryan Davis, joined by Vinny Caravella.

[16] Hi, what's up?

[17] Jeff Gerstman.

[18] Hello.

[19] And Brad Shoemaker.

[20] Still have to pee.

[21] Your number one source for urine information, soda openings, and Freaknik conversations.

[22] I don't know.

[23] You've got to cut all that Freaknik talk.

[24] Giant Bomb will be there at Freaknik 2011.

[25] Yeah, we have a panel at Freaknik.

[26] We've got a booth.

[27] Come by.

[28] We've got the T -shirt cannon.

[29] We'll be shooting Giant Bomb T -shirts out of.

[30] Wet T -shirt contest, and also we're going to be showing people how to get low.

[31] What was the Freaknik era?

[32] In what years was Freaknik the most active?

[33] Early night, 91?

[34] I guess.

[35] Oh, really?

[36] And it's still going?

[37] What's the Nick in Freak Nick?

[38] It's N -I -K, like beat Nick, but Freak Nick.

[39] I don't know.

[40] I don't know.

[41] Booty.

[42] I put the Nick in Freak Nick.

[43] You know what I'm saying, girl.

[44] I was saying you'd put the Vinny in Freak Nick.

[45] No, but when I go to Freak Nick, my name is Nick.

[46] It's like gut fest.

[47] Yeah, I put the gut in fest.

[48] You're not using that right at all.

[49] These are terrible.

[50] You need to think out the internal logic on these lines.

[51] You're just saying the words back.

[52] Yeah, I put the blank in blank.

[53] I also put the blank.

[54] I put the Hollywood in Hollywood Square.

[55] I put the wood in Holly.

[56] You know what I'm saying?

[57] I put the chicken in the McNuggets.

[58] Let's talk about my pubes.

[59] Oh, don't.

[60] No, let's not.

[61] Vinny, let's talk about video games so Vinny doesn't talk about horrible things.

[62] All right.

[63] Vitty said earlier he was going to put his mitts in my oven, and I didn't know what that meant.

[64] But you do now.

[65] Now, maybe.

[66] Yes.

[67] That's something that would have happened at Freak Nick.

[68] Those are the pillows.

[69] Video games.

[70] Your number one source for that.

[71] Couldn't even press charges for that in 91.

[72] That's true.

[73] That crime didn't exist.

[74] Cyber crime divisions had not been created.

[75] They call it Vinny's Law.

[76] I put the Vinny in Vinny's Law.

[77] You've got a Vinny alert.

[78] Put it on all the boards above the highway.

[79] That was a Vinny alert.

[80] I have to tell all my neighbors when I move in.

[81] It's really...

[82] Mazda pickup truck.

[83] I did my time, all right?

[84] Yellow, rusted.

[85] You see it.

[86] Hey, guys, it's been a great time for video games.

[87] It sure has.

[88] Wouldn't we all agree with that?

[89] I don't think any of us would know.

[90] I played through...

[91] Vinnie Caravella!

[92] I feel like I have not cracked the surface on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood 23 hours in.

[93] Oh, you mean Aspro.

[94] Say, I'm not the one.

[95] I don't start this.

[96] Yeah, that's not okay.

[97] I'm not the one.

[98] Bad influence.

[99] It's all around.

[100] Yellow flag on the field.

[101] Throw that out there.

[102] I'll put the ass there, bro.

[103] Hasbro.

[104] Yes, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[105] I have just gone around buying everything.

[106] Maybe I'm looking at my timer wrong, but I feel like I've been playing it for already 20 hours -ish.

[107] Well, there's one of the timers that isn't the timer.

[108] It's the time of day for when your load is.

[109] It could be.

[110] I don't know.

[111] I've played a lot, and I played a lot this weekend.

[112] Basically just...

[113] Oh, it's a completionist's nightmare for someone like you because there's so many things to do, like missions to go on, towers to climb, stuff to buy, side quests to do.

[114] See, the crazy thing is that you're all doing it pretty early on in the game, right?

[115] You don't have to tell me I'm doing it wrong.

[116] You're doing it wrong.

[117] I know I'm doing it wrong.

[118] Because all that stuff, you can do all that stuff pretty late in the game and you will be better armed and armored.

[119] You will have more money coming in.

[120] Oh, I bet.

[121] But it's not like the game is so hard anyways that he can't.

[122] Well, I bet some of it.

[123] If you're trying to buy everything, there's just a simple like.

[124] Yeah, just get more money faster.

[125] Yeah, just get more money.

[126] Well, even doing all the Borgia Towers, I'm sure, get easier once you have armor.

[127] And dudes.

[128] There was one I could not complete without dudes.

[129] Right, but then you're at a limit of how many dudes you can have until you start taking down Borgia Towers.

[130] So you kind of hit a chicken and egg thing at some point.

[131] Let me back it up.

[132] I'll tell you how ass bro backwards I've been doing this.

[133] Freaknik.

[134] So.

[135] 12 .30, come by our booth when we're teaching you how to back it up.

[136] Bonnaroo.

[137] Do the butterfly.

[138] I put the up and the back it up.

[139] So I went back to Assassin's Creed 2 to do all the DLC before I would.

[140] I started Assassin's Creed while the Assassin's Creed 2 DLC was downloading.

[141] That stuff's good.

[142] I don't know.

[143] It's been out for, what, a year?

[144] Yeah.

[145] No, because it came out in 2010.

[146] I didn't love that stuff.

[147] I went through, like, Battle of Forley.

[148] I downloaded both of them at the same time, and they seem to go seamlessly into each other.

[149] Well, they are, like, right next to each other as far as the timeline in Assassin's Creed 2.

[150] Because you remember Assassin's Creed 2, like, it's all linear, and then there's a couple of jumps, but there's one spot where you're like, oh, these memories are corrupted.

[151] Don't know what that's about.

[152] And it's like, oh, it's about you charging me five bucks to fucking play them later on.

[153] But...

[154] I don't know if they influence any.

[155] I haven't seen anything that really references that so much.

[156] Well, let's see here.

[157] Katerin.

[158] Yeah, Katerin Sforza.

[159] She's a firecracker.

[160] She is, indeed.

[161] She's a pistol.

[162] She is.

[163] She's a whip.

[164] She's a filthy mouth, man. Oh, she is.

[165] Oh, dude, there was that part.

[166] So there's a part in the DLC where it's Fora Lee's getting attacked, and that's her home turf.

[167] And she's just cursing up a storm, calling out the dude on the...

[168] You know what?

[169] The Italian cursing is why you need to play all of the Assassin's Creed, or at least Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood with the subtitles on.

[170] Because they give you the English translations for all of the Italian cursing.

[171] And it is some foul cursing.

[172] It is.

[173] They're going for it.

[174] They go.

[175] She was saying stuff like, do you want to touch my tits?

[176] I'll cut your balls off and shove them up my cunt.

[177] Yeah, I'm not even...

[178] This is not just the way it sounds.

[179] This is what the subtitles turned on?

[180] This is what they translated to?

[181] Or this is what you translated to?

[182] This is what it's saying on the bottom of the screen.

[183] You're saying the wording is actually different in Italian.

[184] They're giving you...

[185] She's just...

[186] They're saying it in Italian.

[187] Right.

[188] But I'm saying if you had it in English, she would not be saying those vile things in English.

[189] Oh, she would.

[190] Oh, does she?

[191] See, I just have it in Italian, so I don't know.

[192] No, it all sounds very filthy.

[193] Oh, but she starts cursing and they switch to Italian.

[194] Yeah, they curse in Italian.

[195] Oh, okay.

[196] Yeah, yeah.

[197] Even when you have it set to English.

[198] Even when you're playing with the English language option, they go into Italian for some of the really foul cursing.

[199] But if you have the subtitles on, it gives you a little English translation that you wouldn't get out of those.

[200] Colorful.

[201] You can tell that they are angry.

[202] You can tell that this is some passionate language.

[203] Yeah, man, that was crazy.

[204] And it made me realize that if there's a language for cursing, it's got to be Italian.

[205] It just flows.

[206] It just comes right out.

[207] It really does.

[208] When it starts cursing.

[209] It's just like this string of epithets.

[210] It's like somebody turned a fire hose on and it's just – Curse words coming right out.

[211] It's impressive.

[212] Kudos to yours.

[213] Thanks, man. We had a long time to work on.

[214] And they really cut right to the bone, though.

[215] They're just not messing around.

[216] No, no. Masculating.

[217] Well, yeah.

[218] There's no dancing around it.

[219] You're a jerk.

[220] Hey.

[221] Hey.

[222] No, no. Why don't you shove your head up my, you know, and then try and breathe because I'm going to suffocate you.

[223] That's no. I'm not going to try that.

[224] I put that in that.

[225] I'm leaving.

[226] We're done with your foul city.

[227] So I went back to Rome after that.

[228] Yeah, that DLC stuff was a good kind of lead into that because you really do see some of the differences in that game.

[229] Once you jump back into Brotherhood, and the biggest being what you've talked about before, Ryan, which is the hammering on that.

[230] The combat.

[231] The combat.

[232] What they've done to streamline.

[233] Hit that button and go.

[234] Yeah.

[235] Which, you know, isn't as lame as it might sound on paper.

[236] Yeah, it sounds like, oh, you just automated the combat.

[237] Which, yeah.

[238] They'll get you.

[239] Which they have.

[240] And there is, you know, you still have to be aware and to keep, like, the string going.

[241] It just makes it go faster.

[242] There's guys.

[243] There are heavy guys that you can't really counter.

[244] Harder to counter.

[245] Yeah.

[246] And there are guys that, you know, you want to set them up for a counter so you can take out the other guys easily.

[247] There's a little strategy in it.

[248] Also, the guys are just faster to attack.

[249] I felt like I spent way too much time in Assassin's Creed 2.

[250] Yeah, just sitting there waiting.

[251] Like saying, okay, I'm in my counter position.

[252] I'm waiting for you to throw something.

[253] Hitting the taunt button hoping that gets it.

[254] But that's not even getting it sometimes.

[255] So, yeah, it's real nice because it's not like you would really have the – Fear of dying in Assassin's Creed 2.

[256] You're just kind of like waiting it out.

[257] And this is just like, all right, five dudes.

[258] Let's just get this over with.

[259] Let's go.

[260] Yeah, because I got spotted.

[261] Fuck.

[262] All right.

[263] Toot, toot, toot, toot.

[264] The gun seems okay.

[265] I didn't really like it in Assassin's Creed 2.

[266] This one seems a little more useful.

[267] Well, he'll use it more for like in contextual executions.

[268] I never busted out the gun.

[269] In two.

[270] Or in this one.

[271] In this one like on its own.

[272] I did it for a couple of those Borgia guys.

[273] I like to get close.

[274] Sometimes they're tough.

[275] I want to get up there.

[276] there and say hey it was me i did this you remember this uh i use the gun to get there's an achievement for killing a guard with a broom yeah put a broom in the gun i've seen the achievement so the gun works with that because you can you know every weapon has a hold down attack button yeah let off with long weapons it is shoot the gun So if you have the broom equipped and just shoot the gun, it still gives you the achievement.

[277] You killed the guy in the garden.

[278] You were holding the broom when you shot him.

[279] That's good to know.

[280] I hadn't figured out where I would get the broom.

[281] I saw a guy sweeping and said, I'm going to bump into that guy and make him drop that broom.

[282] And then I picked it up and ran after a guard.

[283] My favorite part, though, of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood has to be...

[284] And this might be annoying for some.

[285] The full sync or 50 % sync.

[286] Like the do this this way and get the 100 % sync.

[287] And if you don't, if you just want to get it done, get the 50 % sync.

[288] Because I feel like it makes me play that game.

[289] in ways that I would never do.

[290] Like, you know, sometimes I just run up to dudes and just kill everybody.

[291] I think it's a really good addition because, like you're saying, it kind of forces you to play in a different way.

[292] Yeah, like try out this other way.

[293] But if it comes down to it and you're like, fuck it, I just don't care about doing it that way, you can just, you know, run up to dudes and stab them.

[294] Yeah.

[295] So I do appreciate that.

[296] It's like, oh, you know, all right.

[297] I'll try this other way.

[298] Yeah.

[299] I would often try it.

[300] And then I was like, OK, well, they got spotted by the end of the game.

[301] I was like, whatever.

[302] I'm not going to like totally creep my way through this entire castle.

[303] I'm going to kill every single one.

[304] Right.

[305] And it's like if you want to go that way.

[306] And then the nice thing is they actually implemented it this time instead of just.

[307] pretending or feigning like they're implementing it, you can do the chapter select.

[308] So you can just go back and just, I want to redo all these.

[309] Is there an achievement for 100 %ing all of them?

[310] I'm sure there must be something.

[311] There's an achievement for 100 %ing one sequence.

[312] Oh, so I got that.

[313] I got that.

[314] All right.

[315] Because there's 100 % on the, the ones I don't like are the time ones.

[316] Like when you go into like the wolf.

[317] Right.

[318] Yeah.

[319] The wolf like.

[320] Yes, the Romulus caves.

[321] I did the first one of those and said, I do not like these underground cave puzzle things.

[322] I am never doing another.

[323] And that's kind of one of the great things about Brotherhood is that there are so many side things to do that you can just say, not going to do that ever again.

[324] So I did that stuff in Assassin's Creed 2 and thought it was okay.

[325] Like all the jumping puzzles.

[326] Yeah, I really don't mind it here.

[327] I think the controls handle it fine.

[328] I just...

[329] I don't like that.

[330] I prefer, like, Assassin's Creed for me is running rooftops, going through crowds.

[331] For me it was worth doing because I wanted that armor.

[332] So did you do it all?

[333] In Brotherhood?

[334] No, I did not.

[335] Yeah, I'm about, I think, three of five or something.

[336] I'll probably end up doing it on my next playthrough here.

[337] Because it says it's armor again.

[338] Yeah.

[339] And you have to assume.

[340] I mean, I don't know if you guys did the first one, right?

[341] Where it seems like it's...

[342] I haven't played it through so long.

[343] I'm just guessing here.

[344] Brutus' armor.

[345] And there are notes about how you're conspiring to kill Caesar.

[346] So I want Brutus' armor.

[347] Seems kind of cool.

[348] Which brings me to another point about Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[349] The ruins.

[350] Seeing ruins in an old game.

[351] It's kind of cool.

[352] It's like reminding you.

[353] Yeah, in Rome, reminding you just how fucking old Rome is that this guy is running around the ruins of the Colosseum.

[354] And, you know, reading up about that stuff.

[355] In Assassin's Creed 2, it took me a while.

[356] I really hated the editorializing in the descriptions of things, like the dude who's typing those things.

[357] Right, right, right.

[358] And this one, actually, I kind of really like it.

[359] It makes reading that stuff kind of funny sometimes.

[360] I do think I agree with you.

[361] The humor comes through a little bit more in this one.

[362] So kind of reading some of that stuff is actually kind of interesting.

[363] And getting a...

[364] Man, I hope this stuff is all true.

[365] It's hard to tell.

[366] Yeah, I read that stuff and I'm like, man, that's really interesting.

[367] If you don't actually know all that history, you're going to go like, well, some of this stuff is sort of real.

[368] Right.

[369] No, everything is true.

[370] Haven't you heard?

[371] No, nothing is true.

[372] Nothing is true.

[373] Everything is permitted.

[374] They're like, oh, yeah, this dude was going to turn the Coliseum into a wool factory for the country's prostitutes or whatever.

[375] I was like, oh, that's really interesting.

[376] Is that true?

[377] I mean, I know the Coliseum was basically treated as a quarry after Roman Rome fell for a long time because they were just going there and, hey, there's all this awesome marble in this thing that we don't need.

[378] Let's peel it off.

[379] So it's cool.

[380] And, you know, having been to Rome and seeing the ruins in Rome, seeing the ruins again is kind of cool because it's like, oh, yeah, that is actually kind of like right near that other spot.

[381] Yeah, no, you walk up to the Colosseum.

[382] You're like, I know this intersection.

[383] Yeah.

[384] I've seen this.

[385] This looks – there's a floor here, but, you know, that's 400 years to do that to you.

[386] Exactly.

[387] I wrote it.

[388] So that world is just – I love jumping back into it.

[389] And I am actually really glad.

[390] They have set this game again in Italy at this time period.

[391] I will be bummed when they leave it.

[392] They have done such a great job of establishing this world and these characters.

[393] And if they didn't use that engine again and all those assets again, I'd kind of feel bad for them.

[394] I could spend all that time building all this stuff for one game.

[395] Does Rome feel like a distinctively new place to you guys?

[396] I mean, what were the ones in the first one or in the last one?

[397] Venice and Florence and Forley.

[398] It never really felt dramatically different.

[399] Yeah, it's not hugely different.

[400] It feels bigger.

[401] I think there's, like, unique architecture and kind of layout things to all of the cities.

[402] The ruins feel different.

[403] I mean, when you're in, like, the dense urban areas, it's dense urban areas.

[404] Like, you know, a lot of circuitous kind of pathways and alleys and stuff.

[405] But, you know, the big open spaces where the ruins are.

[406] Yeah, I guess the ruins do give it a little bit of a different.

[407] When you were in Venice, there was all the...

[408] canals and whatnot.

[409] And so you do, they do really interesting things in this game.

[410] And I really think this game is great on many levels.

[411] But the kind of the flashback stuff that they have to when you were like pre -Assassin's Creed 2 stuff of when you, before you became an assassin, Ezio, they will flashback.

[412] There's a little like love sequences of you kind of like pining after this woman, which I think are kind of awesome.

[413] I've only done one so far.

[414] It's a dream within a dream.

[415] I think it's cool.

[416] It's cool to flesh that stuff out.

[417] So I'm enjoying it.

[418] I feel like they didn't do a good job of explaining why that's there.

[419] Why you just walk up to this woman and start this mission and he just has this weird flashback.

[420] They talk about it some before Desmond goes back into the animus about like, well, you know.

[421] There's these sequences where he's remembering something else.

[422] Yeah, they give a little hint of stuff kind of freaking out there.

[423] And maybe they will later on.

[424] I've only done the one.

[425] I only did the one.

[426] Do they pop up?

[427] Do they just pop up randomly as you progress?

[428] It seems like, yeah, as you're going along, the little hearts will show up on the map next to the billion other things that are on the map.

[429] There are a lot of things on the map.

[430] What do you want to do?

[431] Everything!

[432] Just let me buy stuff from the map.

[433] I don't want to run up to them anymore.

[434] Just let me just buy patches of stuff.

[435] Yeah, definitely traveling around the city.

[436] Once I got in I'm going to buy everything mode, it got to just be a huge pain.

[437] So that's probably my only complaint so far is not so much the traveling but having to visit a bank to withdraw the money that you collect from that stuff.

[438] Instead of just putting it in your purse, which just seems like I understand it's a little more rooted in maybe the realism.

[439] I don't know why every bank has my money, but just put it in my purse.

[440] Because they're your banks.

[441] Those banks wouldn't exist if you didn't open them.

[442] But, like, just put it in my pocket.

[443] No, you're right.

[444] It's odd of, like, why is this – you know, there are so many other contrivances that we accept.

[445] Why is this not one of them?

[446] Yeah.

[447] It's just a bummer when it's like, crap, I've got to find the nearest bank.

[448] Ah, I don't have the money to buy the nearest bank.

[449] I've got to go back to this other bank that I bought.

[450] I would just pickpocket people until they had the money to buy the closest bank.

[451] Where the fuck is there an ATM around here?

[452] Seriously.

[453] I'm getting no signal on my phone, so I can't find one.

[454] God damn it.

[455] So I'm really enjoying it so far.

[456] And you haven't even gotten to the goddamn guild stuff yet.

[457] I can't believe.

[458] Just play story missions.

[459] I've got a homework assignment for you, Vinny.

[460] Don't play any more Assassin's Creed Brotherhood until you've gone through the story missions when you start building the guild.

[461] I talked to two of the three factions that they wanted me to talk to, and that's about it so far.

[462] Keep going.

[463] Is there more games?

[464] I'm afraid it's going to end.

[465] I'm afraid I'm going to get stuff.

[466] It's like the first fifth of the game or something.

[467] Yeah, there's a huge, huge amount of game left after that.

[468] I'm afraid they're going to fable me. Speaking of which, I finished fable three this weekend.

[469] We can do this now.

[470] We can do this now.

[471] I've been sitting here like, oh man, today's the day.

[472] Everybody's finished it or doesn't care.

[473] I think I hate that game more than you do.

[474] That game pissed me. Oh.

[475] Yes.

[476] Let it out.

[477] What a lazy.

[478] Half -ass.

[479] You've got to be specific about which part you're talking about because that could mean a lot of things.

[480] I mean it about all parts.

[481] I mean it about all parts.

[482] But specifically, there is the, you know, once you become king, even the becoming king part is...

[483] Even the prelude to becoming king is weak.

[484] Even when you go to the southern continent and they like...

[485] Whip out this contrived antagonist, which happens to be the darkness.

[486] Yeah.

[487] Like, it doesn't even have a face or a name.

[488] Horrible, you know, evil forces that you're fighting against.

[489] Oh, by the way, you have to fight evil.

[490] Yeah.

[491] Evil.

[492] They don't have to describe it or, like, put any more thought into it than that is, oh, you have to fight evil now.

[493] Yeah.

[494] And, like, one of my bummers in the game was, like, it is, like, the most stereotypical evil.

[495] Like, black, inky, with the whispery voice.

[496] Oh, really?

[497] We will.

[498] Does Mike Patton do the voice?

[499] It might as well be.

[500] And just kind of shadows pop up.

[501] See, I played like eight hours of it, nine hours, and kind of enjoyed it, but it's kind of like the same deal as Fable 2.

[502] I sat down and had one really good day with it, but then never felt any need to ever return to it.

[503] And again, I enjoyed it.

[504] Especially hearing all the specific stuff about the ending.

[505] Now I'm just like, eh.

[506] And it didn't bother me as much as you two guys, but I think you guys got raw deal.

[507] Well, the problem is that it does not convey just how limited you are.

[508] Yeah, that was your big thing, right, Brad?

[509] Where it's like, hey, you got...

[510] Nope.

[511] You're talking about how limited your time is?

[512] Yeah, absolutely.

[513] And no consistent, you know, they don't tell you how much time you actually have left.

[514] Well, they do, but they mislead you with it.

[515] It's like, all right, you have one year until the attack.

[516] Like, you do one story mission.

[517] You have, like, it's two weeks ahead.

[518] Then it's a month ahead.

[519] It's four things.

[520] It's four things.

[521] But it's like it's two weeks, then it's a month, then it's like three months, and then it's one more day.

[522] Once you become king.

[523] Like, that game is just sprinting to the end.

[524] Yeah, totally.

[525] It's just like, we need to get done with the story as fast as we possibly can.

[526] Like, I wrote something in the review about how it was, like, unnecessary urgency, and all these people in the comments were like, well, they don't make you do the story missions, but, like, the story is pushing you along.

[527] Like, for you to sit there and quest for another 20 hours.

[528] But then it's also retarded because you could go and have 18 kids over the course of this year.

[529] You could, with the same woman, give birth to 90 children.

[530] It's been a busy year.

[531] In like one day.

[532] Like their imposition of the progression of time.

[533] That progression of time does not fucking match with the way time actually passes in Fable.

[534] No, I sat there and watched night turn to day, day turn to night as money would enter my coffers being like, I think I'm just about ready for the next day to go.

[535] Let's trip this switch.

[536] And I feel like the...

[537] Fable 2 just did everything better.

[538] It just did everything better.

[539] I don't know how it was that it all got lost in the process, but even buying businesses was fucking better in Fable 2.

[540] The whole map thing is atrocious.

[541] The upkeep is there.

[542] I don't bother buying houses.

[543] I'm just buying businesses.

[544] I sold them all, yeah.

[545] I wonder what happened with that.

[546] I wonder if they were...

[547] working on their Milo stuff and didn't give Fable 3 full attention to the studio?

[548] It's weird because they just had other stuff going on?

[549] It's a well -produced game.

[550] It doesn't feel like it lacks for manpower that they put into it.

[551] So it just seems like a bunch of bad ideas got in there.

[552] Some of it seems like bad ideas.

[553] Maybe the designers were the ones that were busy thinking about Milo.

[554] Possibly.

[555] But some of it just does feel like unfinished -like.

[556] Like we just kind of stopped developing this.

[557] You mean like maybe that gap of time there.

[558] Like there was supposed to be another three or four missions or something.

[559] Yeah, it seems like there should be more here.

[560] Or even the grand finale is sort of like, well, all right.

[561] Oh, God, that was the worst last mission and boss I could possibly imagine.

[562] But it all blends together.

[563] Like from the moment you become king to the end, it's awful.

[564] It is, it is.

[565] It's poorly made.

[566] It flies against everything that you've been doing in kind of this leisurely pace, in this expanded, expansive world.

[567] And then suddenly it's like...

[568] funnel to the end.

[569] You lose your freedom to roam around and be the sort of hero that you want to be.

[570] I sort of felt the same way, not nearly as dramatically as this sounds, but I kind of felt the same way about Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[571] The very beginning of that game very much funnels you.

[572] Yeah, the very beginning of the game does and the end does as well.

[573] As soon as you get to sequence eight, it's like, alright, let's do this.

[574] Yeah.

[575] You get to a point where it's like – That's probably true.

[576] To be fair, I was also barreling towards the end once I got to – Yeah.

[577] So what I did is I sat down Saturday and said, I'm going to try out Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and then played it like – Finish the game.

[578] Kind of.

[579] I got to like the start of sequence eight.

[580] Yeah.

[581] And then said, I should probably go to sleep because it's three in the morning now.

[582] holy shit it was 7 a .m. of little oh no like it was literally that that entire time got up like twice to you know like cold pizza in the fridge we'll see what's up and basically just did nothing but play that game and I was like okay I'm gonna go to bed then I woke up It's like, all right, I'm going to start sequence eight.

[583] And I did one mission.

[584] So I'm going to go mess around.

[585] Oh, wait, I can't mess around anymore.

[586] So they do lock you out.

[587] Yeah.

[588] It's like suddenly it's like, OK, you need to do these missions because you're here and your guild's not here and you need to just finish this game.

[589] But yeah, after the credits, they dump you right back into the world.

[590] So it's just like, all right, do whatever.

[591] So does Fable 3.

[592] Though Assassin's Creed can never leave you in a position where you would not want to be back in that.

[593] Right.

[594] So it's at least not.

[595] But even, I don't know, I didn't feel like the stuff that happened while you're king, like once they dump you back in the world, it feels to me, aside from you can do some stuff to tweak certain aspects of the world, but I still felt like, eh, this is still Albion.

[596] I can still run around and...

[597] You're talking about after the ending?

[598] Yeah.

[599] So you did not have the issue that I had.

[600] Oh, I definitely did.

[601] But it's still just like, you still do the same shit.

[602] Can we say it?

[603] Sure.

[604] Are we far enough out from that game?

[605] Sure.

[606] Like, what is it that you specifically want to say?

[607] That there's nobody left in your kingdom?

[608] There was nobody there in the first place.

[609] Albion is fucking empty.

[610] There is, like, very little pedestrian traffic in that world.

[611] There was a decent amount.

[612] You run around the Bowerstone market, there's a good few dozen people milling around.

[613] I never had that experience.

[614] I always felt like it was grossly underpopulated, especially for how industrial as they represent Bowerstone as being now.

[615] Yeah, sure.

[616] There's not enough people to support these giant brick factories that are everywhere.

[617] What was your final number?

[618] How many people did you save?

[619] 400 ,000.

[620] Okay.

[621] I had about 100 ,000.

[622] There are literally nobody.

[623] When I ran around, I had to run for five minutes to find anybody.

[624] Yeah, I didn't have a ton.

[625] Completely bare.

[626] It was still just, yeah, that whole sequel just really soured me on the game.

[627] And I liked that they were cartoonish about when you were doing good shit and bad shit in Fable 2, and you drew horns or wings or whatever.

[628] Yeah, I didn't get any of that.

[629] Your guy just always looks like the dude.

[630] You know?

[631] Maybe a little more glowy.

[632] Or if you're a lady, but I feel like you didn't get any of the same sort of customization options.

[633] Or I just didn't have the desire to, I guess.

[634] I don't know.

[635] I'm reading the Fable book.

[636] Yeah.

[637] The Balverine Order.

[638] Actually, the stuff, I mean, maybe this is not...

[639] I don't know.

[640] It doesn't play into the game much.

[641] They go into – it's interesting at least and they set up to kind of like move from Fable 2 to Fable 3 where it's like the creatures of myth or whatever are being pushed away.

[642] And like there's going to be a backlash someday.

[643] And so like reading the book actually seems to play into the evil thing rising up as like this is all the fantasy and myth that industrialization – All the while the slime is under the building and the negative feelings.

[644] It's pretty much what it sounds like and like it's going to erupt.

[645] But, yeah, evil.

[646] And then, yeah, the stuff with your brother is complete horse shit.

[647] Yeah.

[648] And the bummer is we all know it's like you're cleverer than that.

[649] Like you're better.

[650] Like there's really clever stuff.

[651] I don't know.

[652] I'm beginning to doubt it.

[653] I'm seriously beginning to doubt just how clever.

[654] I think we talked about this last week or the week before, but the game, that mission set is the best thing in all of Fable 3.

[655] In the whole game.

[656] Yeah.

[657] Far and away.

[658] It's not a terrible game.

[659] It's just disappointing.

[660] It's a bummer.

[661] You know what's not disappointing?

[662] DJ Hero.

[663] Pac -Man Championship Edition DX.

[664] Also that.

[665] Both of those things.

[666] That's true.

[667] I played a shitload of both this weekend.

[668] Did you?

[669] I did.

[670] DJ Hero, to me, is one of those things that I'm just getting into.

[671] This is a pretty damn good game.

[672] What do you sleep?

[673] When do I sleep?

[674] Or eat?

[675] I kind of don't sleep on the weekends either.

[676] I sleep fine.

[677] 23 hours of Assassin's Creed and a bunch of DJ Hero and Pac -Man S -Rank during the week.

[678] That was during the week.

[679] Pac -Man S -Rank ain't nothing.

[680] That's a couple hours tops.

[681] It's not even a couple hours.

[682] I did it the day that we got it here.

[683] Exactly.

[684] Like I went home and did it in about eight rounds or ten rounds or something.

[685] I had trouble with the five minutes.

[686] The five million.

[687] No, the second one.

[688] The 1 .5.

[689] No, there's a one million five minutes.

[690] It's one million five minutes and two million ten minutes.

[691] Yeah.

[692] And there's a third one.

[693] There's also a one point.

[694] Well, there's a 500 and a one million for five minutes.

[695] There's a. 1 .5.

[696] 1 .5 and 2 for 10 minutes.

[697] I had trouble on the 5 minute one.

[698] I kept getting caught on it.

[699] It took me a couple of bangs.

[700] Yeah, that game's real good too.

[701] Spiral or Manhattan is the easiest one to do that on.

[702] Oh, yeah?

[703] I think Manhattan might be it.

[704] It's all about Championship 2.

[705] I did everything on Championship 2.

[706] It's all totally possible, but if you're having trouble, Champ 2 is...

[707] Follow those dots, baby.

[708] Champ 2 is the best balanced maze of that whole set.

[709] I'm actually kind of disappointed that...

[710] Oh, yeah, maybe I did a highway.

[711] I'm kind of disappointed the achievements are as easy as they are.

[712] Because, like I hate to say, it kind of diminishes my desire.

[713] It does take some of the wind out of sales.

[714] I'll tell you this, though.

[715] Go on to your friend's leaderboards because those things are active right now.

[716] So that's the other bummer that you mentioned in the review.

[717] The fact that your score doesn't show up in those leaderboards and you can't make a direct comparison.

[718] Like, what the hell?

[719] It is weird.

[720] You can go left and right to see your score.

[721] Oh, I want to see it right there.

[722] Yeah, but it's just, okay.

[723] It is a weird decision.

[724] Like, why isn't that integrated?

[725] Because that's all I really care about is where do I stand in that list.

[726] I like the way that Geometry Wars 2 did it perfectly.

[727] Here's the menu screen with all the modes.

[728] Here's everybody's score.

[729] Here's your top ten or whatever it was.

[730] That could have been better.

[731] But yeah, that game is solid.

[732] But shit, man. I went back and played some of the first one after that.

[733] How'd that go?

[734] It's slow, right?

[735] Way harder.

[736] The game is so much harder.

[737] It's so slow, though, isn't it?

[738] Oh, my God.

[739] Come on.

[740] Doesn't it also speed up?

[741] It does.

[742] It does speed up.

[743] But I didn't get to that point because I died.

[744] I didn't realize.

[745] Once you have to start treating ghosts like ghosts again.

[746] DX makes you soft.

[747] It's so good.

[748] I feel like Pac -Man Championship Edition DX is almost more of a racing game than it is a traditional Pac -Man game.

[749] That game is all about finding the pattern, running the routes.

[750] Whenever you get thrown off the track by, you know, one of the rogue ghosts or something or just because you're going too goddamn fast, your number one objective is to get back on that path so you can keep running those routes around.

[751] And it's all about memorization of the patterns.

[752] Like, okay, because you're going to be halfway into one of the sides after you pick up, like, the reset item, the fruit item, before it completely spawns.

[753] So there will be a lot of times where, like, I'm already here.

[754] I don't even know.

[755] The world doesn't even know what it is yet.

[756] Kind of start intuitively knowing, okay, based on what was on the other side that time, this is what's going to show up here.

[757] And that part's fun.

[758] Yeah, absolutely.

[759] That's good fun.

[760] It is, it is.

[761] It's just that they are...

[762] This is kind of like creating a divergent genetic path off of the main Pac -Man line.

[763] Like you've got main Pac -Man line and CE is kind of off to the side of that.

[764] And then this is branching specifically off of CE.

[765] They should have just made it a Rally X game.

[766] It would have made more sense.

[767] Like your classic Namco.

[768] I'm surprised they did maybe DLC, one of the visualization packs.

[769] It's just Rally -X.

[770] Instead of being Pac -Man, it's just Rally -X.

[771] But Championship was a lot about pattern, too, right?

[772] I didn't play that much of it, but regular Pac -Man is just basically running the patterns and kind of memorization.

[773] But the ghosts move more randomly.

[774] In this one, they basically just follow you, right?

[775] Yeah, except for those rogue ones.

[776] But even those ones you can make fall in line.

[777] They'll always be another.

[778] You can kind of game those things a lot.

[779] Like the ones in regular CE are just all over the place, right?

[780] Yeah.

[781] That was my impression.

[782] Well, yeah, they roam.

[783] They're real Pac -Man ghosts.

[784] Yeah, they don't do the lock -in thing like the green ghosts do.

[785] Sleepy ghosts.

[786] I wish it did a little bit something different when you...

[787] eat all those damn ghosts because sometimes I got a big train and it just starts you know it does it like peaks at some point but like man I just wish I kept going you know yeah take it up more octaves and octaves like dog range it just started just throwing junk on the screen yeah just like corruption just like oh god you're eating so many ghosts the game is breaking because man you have a screen yeah something I hate a lot of ghosts I started watching replays.

[788] Of dudes eating ghosts.

[789] I started watching replays of other dudes eating ghosts.

[790] Spectating, Pac -Man DX.

[791] I was in there and I was picking up hot tips from two.

[792] I was like, oh, yeah, you cut around there.

[793] You can make your rat a little bit faster.

[794] Forget those ghosts because it's not worth the time to go over and get them to start following you.

[795] Cut that corner there.

[796] Yeah, I definitely stepped up my Pac -Man CEDX game some from watching replays.

[797] Who are your top picks going into the round of 64?

[798] I was just watching the number one.

[799] Nick Chester is incredibly good at CEDX.

[800] Yeah, I saw him up there.

[801] He's up there.

[802] He's one of the top scorers on my friends list.

[803] But top for five -minute champ two is like two million -something.

[804] Jeez.

[805] Yeah.

[806] Impressive.

[807] I struggle to get that on 10 minutes.

[808] My best is probably like 1 .3 or something.

[809] What's your speed best?

[810] In the 50s?

[811] You hit 60?

[812] What do you mean?

[813] Is there a 60?

[814] I thought it topped out at 50.

[815] Oh, it does?

[816] I was wondering why I was going to say I never broke 50.

[817] But man, once it starts getting that fast.

[818] Yeah.

[819] Fuck it.

[820] I was just laying off bombs.

[821] Slow this shit down.

[822] Once you get about 40.

[823] Once I hit about 40, you start realizing like, oh, I've picked up some speed.

[824] And when you're like, ah, it's going too fast.

[825] There's no way I could stay on this damn pack trail.

[826] That's when I just start like and playing and I will just start yelling randomly.

[827] It's like, ah.

[828] I think it's a must that they had to put that slow motion.

[829] Oh, the game would be unplayable with that little bullet time dodge move.

[830] That's fun.

[831] Yeah, they did an incredible job with that game.

[832] It's a ton of fun.

[833] I like that menu music a lot.

[834] That menu music is amazing.

[835] That's good.

[836] All the music is pretty good.

[837] Some of the music is better.

[838] A lot of it's recycled.

[839] A lot of it is the same from CE.

[840] Apple Bonker.

[841] Apple Bonker.

[842] Apple Bonker.

[843] Bonker.

[844] Is that the name of the track?

[845] Apple Bonker is something totally different.

[846] They still like Bonkers?

[847] The dude on...

[848] There's a dude on Twitter who works at Namco Sound.

[849] He was the guy who wrote the main music for CEDX.

[850] And I guess he's, from what I could tell, it's the English text that's jammed in between all of the Japanese text in his description.

[851] So I'm like, well, the only English words here are Apple Bonker.

[852] As far as I can figure, he's some sort of techno collective.

[853] He's a part of Apple Bonker.

[854] It's a reference to the Beatles' Yellow Submarine film.

[855] Apple bonker.

[856] Fun facts.

[857] I'd say I like apple bonker and jelly.

[858] I don't know if you guys are down with Apple Bunker.

[859] Vinny, what else have you been playing?

[860] Well, that's...

[861] Did I say...

[862] A little fable, a little...

[863] No, no fable.

[864] No fable, you're done with it.

[865] Yeah, it's kind of sad, right?

[866] I might go back in.

[867] I am, as of this weekend, I am done with it.

[868] I put a baby in Will Smith and...

[869] No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. So you guys are not down for weapons trading?

[870] If you're down for weapons trading, don't give it a shot.

[871] If you and I could do it together...

[872] I think it'll take more than just you and me. It made it sound like you need multiple people.

[873] Oh, you know what?

[874] I still want to get...

[875] I need my third upgrade on my legendary weapon, but after that, I might be done.

[876] Man, what's that bummer?

[877] So many bummers.

[878] The weapons really kept me going in Fable 2.

[879] They were powerful, and then this, they just neutered the hell out of them.

[880] By making them upgradable and doing it so that, hey, here's this late game...

[881] 11th hour weapon you're going to get, and it's not even stronger than the weapon you've currently had that you've powered up.

[882] But if you want to power this one up, all you've got to do is do 30 more quests.

[883] Fuck you!

[884] The problem is that the weapons don't scale to what you already have.

[885] They all have their preset damage values, and by the time you even get the late game ones, which should be the best...

[886] The ones you got at the beginning are so upgraded that they're better than that anyway.

[887] And it takes you so long to power them up.

[888] And you have to have it equipped to power it up.

[889] So you've got to be using this lame weapon to power it up when you have a better weapon sitting in your backpack.

[890] And all of the terms are crazy specific.

[891] Oh, yeah.

[892] I'm not killing 300 more hollow men.

[893] You could eat a dick.

[894] I've killed about a billion so far.

[895] I see it come up every time I kill one.

[896] Ryan Davis has killed 500.

[897] I've killed 600.

[898] I've killed some hollow men.

[899] I'm done.

[900] I'm done.

[901] And the fact that you are, you know, that it's Hobbs, Hollow Men, and Balverines.

[902] It is fucking literally all the same enemies that you already killed thousands of in Fable 2.

[903] And you have to keep juggling the weapons every time you run into one of those.

[904] It's like, oh wait, I gotta equip my Balverine pistol now.

[905] 30 years have passed, but the enemies are exactly the same.

[906] And that's what you're gonna get me for finding one of three golden dorkies?

[907] Like this...

[908] kind of lame weapon like or or even killing finding all the gnomes like you're gonna give me this gun that's not even as good as the gun i picked up in the beginning of the game because i've been using it for 12 hours ah it's a mistake that is a mistake well they're putting out dlc already for it the uh the understone quest pack is coming out this week let me get your dog back Maybe you could repopulate the world.

[909] There is a five -star dog potion that they are going to put out with this that will just level up your dog.

[910] Can I run my hero around the world repopulating?

[911] Just seeding the world.

[912] That would be a good deal.

[913] How pointless was my dog?

[914] I didn't give a shit about my dog.

[915] Other than pointing you to dig sites and stuff.

[916] I don't even remember if the dog dies in the end.

[917] Literally, I don't remember what happened to the dog.

[918] The dog doesn't even factor into the ending.

[919] It's a non -entity.

[920] It's not even there.

[921] They already hit their dog story beats last time.

[922] They should have not had a dog.

[923] Dog was just chilling out in the lobby in the home world.

[924] It should have been a ghost dog.

[925] A ghost of your father's dog.

[926] It's like, here's where you're supposed to dig.

[927] And he talks because dead dogs don't talk.

[928] Ghost dog.

[929] Ghost dog.

[930] Yeah.

[931] It should have been Forrest Whitaker.

[932] Yeah, yeah.

[933] Just Cop Dog.

[934] And the RZA showing up.

[935] The RZA should have done the soundtrack.

[936] Way better game.

[937] If the RZA had done the soundtrack to Fable 3, it would have been a better game.

[938] I think we can all agree with that.

[939] I wonder if Fable 4 is on the books.

[940] I do too.

[941] The single determining factor is always how many did the last one sell, right?

[942] So if this sells, then fine.

[943] I have to think if it's not on the books now, next console there will probably be at least one Fable game they'll try out.

[944] I hope they wait at this point.

[945] It's time.

[946] Banging out of Fable 3 clearly not the way to go.

[947] Are they ever going to patch in that Kinect support or do you think that's done?

[948] I'll be mildly surprised if it shows up.

[949] I mean, it feels so late in the game now.

[950] I don't know.

[951] Is anybody even using their Kinect at this point?

[952] I bet more people are using their Kinect than are playing Fable 3 at this point.

[953] Saw a shelf full of them at the Best Buy.

[954] They had restocked.

[955] Oh, yeah?

[956] Yeah, so they're not impossible to find out there.

[957] Yeah, just loose Kinects, not bundles.

[958] Maybe they'll enable the Kinect support and they'll put Fable 3 up for downloadable, like one of those downloadable games.

[959] Anyway.

[960] Games on demand.

[961] Games on demand.

[962] Is that what they're calling it?

[963] Mm -hmm.

[964] Did you want to talk more about – speaking of the RZA, did you want to talk more about DJ Aaron?

[965] No. I just have to say every time I turn that game back on, it's really solid.

[966] It's such a – like a lot of people I know have not played it or aren't touching it.

[967] It's kind of unsung.

[968] Yeah.

[969] It really is a hero.

[970] Yeah.

[971] But it's so good.

[972] It's so tight.

[973] That game is so – the freestyle stuff they give you, it really makes you feel like you're adding your own kind of voice to the song, especially in the cross -fading freestyle stuff.

[974] It's really rewarding.

[975] Yeah, the scratch freestyling stuff I feel like is not as good as it could have been.

[976] You're just doing whatever.

[977] Yeah.

[978] But when they give you control of the fader and you're actually switching back and forth between the tracks.

[979] So I think DJ Hero 3, they need to give you both in the same thing so you can scratch and fade like an actual DJ does.

[980] It was kind of disappointing that it was like, yeah, you can scratch.

[981] You can kind of let off the button and do a little bit.

[982] that stuff and hit the button again through those sections.

[983] It never really feels like you're in direct control.

[984] Oh, it's totally just like, okay, if I move it fast or slow and wide, I'm going to get this sound.

[985] But if I go really fast, you know, really fast.

[986] And if you start going backwards with it, it'll...

[987] It knows that, too.

[988] But it's never quite.

[989] Direct control over the fader.

[990] It's great.

[991] Check that.

[992] I just want to call my wife in the room.

[993] Check this out.

[994] I'm doing this.

[995] Yeah, this is me. This is me. My favorite moments in that, though, are when you're using the sample button.

[996] To basically kind of like re -pattern the chorus of a song.

[997] Yeah.

[998] When it's not just like here's one sample that you're just going to hammer a bunch.

[999] It changes samples over the course of one freestyle section.

[1000] I really like that.

[1001] Like whenever you can do that and it's sort of like I'm chopping up this sample in this little line or whatever.

[1002] It's cool.

[1003] It's a shame that that game probably won't do as well as it should because it is really well executed.

[1004] I think they got a better soundtrack together this time than for the first one.

[1005] I think that taking less of a focus.

[1006] on hip hop stuff has helped them and allowed them to.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] And it's not the case where like, if you go back and look at the first game now in the wake of the second one, the first game seems like corny by comparison.

[1009] Yeah.

[1010] He's just like, Oh, I heard it through the grapevine.

[1011] Nice get guys.

[1012] Really?

[1013] Yeah.

[1014] Yeah.

[1015] And, and I feel like they did a really good job with kind of the friends list integration, like the competition stuff.

[1016] It's definitely something that when I went back, when I went and played a need for speed, hot pursuit.

[1017] I looked at that and just went, oh, this is just all the DJ Hero 2 stuff broken out a little bit differently.

[1018] So I played some Need for Speed Hot Pursuit over the weekend also.

[1019] I really enjoyed it.

[1020] But the thing that immediately jumped out at me that was perplexing was that when it first comes up, it's Criterion Games in association with DICE.

[1021] Oh, yeah?

[1022] Yeah.

[1023] What the fuck did DICE do on that game?

[1024] I don't know.

[1025] That's why the buildings blow up so well.

[1026] Yeah, I'm not really sure what systems they provided.

[1027] We'd have to go through the credits and kind of see where that stuff gets laid out.

[1028] Maybe it is in that code.

[1029] Maybe it is multiplayer stuff.

[1030] It's not on Frostbite.

[1031] Criterion has made multiplayer driving games before.

[1032] This is true.

[1033] And quite well.

[1034] This is true.

[1035] I don't know.

[1036] But it's the only thing that I can think of where the areas of expertise would cross over.

[1037] Yeah.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] Dice did all the car handling.

[1040] Yeah, I was going to say, all those great vehicle controls.

[1041] They just took care of that for Criterion.

[1042] But, man, what a cool game.

[1043] What a game.

[1044] Need for Speed?

[1045] Yeah.

[1046] It's great that there is a good Need for Speed game because it's been a while.

[1047] It's been a little bit.

[1048] It's been a couple years.

[1049] I've only seen you do the quick look, and I saw you playing some.

[1050] This is the obvious question, but it really does look like a burnout game.

[1051] From the menu stuff down to the crumpling of the car.

[1052] When you hit those cars, they have nailed what camera angle you should be looking at when a car flips over.

[1053] It is great.

[1054] That pull away as the car comes at you.

[1055] Cars always flip over awesomely.

[1056] A lot of that stuff feels like it fell out of Burnout Paradise in some cases, but it's at half the frame rate.

[1057] more graphical detail.

[1058] You know, like the car models are great.

[1059] Like the weather effects are incredible.

[1060] Like the camera placement, Mike, that's like, I was talking about wet roads.

[1061] Yeah.

[1062] Great wet road.

[1063] I was cutting, I was cutting a quick look and it was just like, If you just looked at my screen, this could be – it looks a little bit better in motion than the stills, which is a great compliment to that game because not a lot of games can do that.

[1064] They always get the money shot.

[1065] They always know exactly where to put the camera.

[1066] It literally looks like a trailer for a movie or something.

[1067] And they do a great job with licensed cars, which you don't get to bang up as much as your made -up burnout cars.

[1068] But they go as far as they probably could go.

[1069] And the camera angles, I think, really help sell it because they're able to kind of cut away from like, okay, well, we can't show too much stuff.

[1070] The camera angle, the slow -mo, they're great about debris.

[1071] If you notice, there's always insane amounts of glass and little pieces of stuff just in the air.

[1072] So my question about the burnout stuff is – And then the flips.

[1073] The flips also.

[1074] The rolls, just rolling.

[1075] That will always make stuff look more dramatic.

[1076] And that game – I mean a lot of that game is about like when you're playing as the cops, it's – Find the guy and ram the shit out of him.

[1077] Cause that.

[1078] And cause that.

[1079] Chase HQ him to death.

[1080] So it's not that far from burnout in a way.

[1081] Right.

[1082] So is that the thing?

[1083] Is it more burnout than Need for Speed at this point?

[1084] Is it like basically?

[1085] No. It's very much rooted in what Need for Speed has been for the past several years.

[1086] Like going back to like Most Wanted.

[1087] And the other Hot Pursuit games.

[1088] I mean this is like the third game I think to bear.

[1089] the hot pursuit name.

[1090] Um, or third, third.

[1091] Yeah.

[1092] So it play, it plays differently.

[1093] Like we're talking.

[1094] Yeah.

[1095] Cause I mean, you know, you're, you're as the cop, you're calling in those roadblocks and those are very specifically need for speed style roadblocks.

[1096] Um, except that the way you get through them is different than it was in most wanted and most wanted you could, uh, you know, they kind of have like a sawhorse and cover in one area and that's the spot you're supposed to drive through.

[1097] Um, But in Most Wanted, you could also aim at the spots where the backs of two cop cars are together because the trunks are lighter than the engines.

[1098] So you could bash through those spots and keep going.

[1099] So I got really good at doing that.

[1100] I'm really bad at driving through the sawhorse.

[1101] In this game, if you hit cop cars, it's a crash.

[1102] And in Hot Pursuit mode, it's like a third year health or something like that.

[1103] So it's...

[1104] It was a really hard adjustment to make.

[1105] And what is it?

[1106] So what is the kind of butter zone to get through this?

[1107] There's a spot where there just are no cars.

[1108] Okay.

[1109] It's just like some wood little wooden sawhorse thing set up to block off that part of the road.

[1110] And you're just like, I'm going to drive through that part.

[1111] Silly cops.

[1112] And you're calling it helicopters and there's spike strips and stuff.

[1113] It's very much rooted in those kind of Need for Speed cop game mechanics.

[1114] But they do, yeah, they totally have a lot of burnout.

[1115] Like the turbo, the rules by which you gain nitrous is straight out of burnout.

[1116] Which Need for Speed has actually stolen that stuff before.

[1117] So it's nice that the people that actually...

[1118] they stole it from was now making that game, I guess.

[1119] Um, but yeah, it's, it's near misses.

[1120] It's oncoming lane, which when you're driving the cop, maybe a little weird.

[1121] Like if you drive dangerously, you can go faster, but they actually do a good job.

[1122] It's kind of part of the, The rubber bandiness of the AI and what they do to kind of keep things together is if you're the cop and you're in the back, your nitrous bar almost fills up automatically.

[1123] Oh, yeah.

[1124] All the way.

[1125] And it's just to make it fun.

[1126] Yeah.

[1127] It's like you need to get back to the action because otherwise it's going to be dumb.

[1128] Right.

[1129] And for you, especially as the cop.

[1130] Right.

[1131] So they give you that kind of bonus.

[1132] But like the multiplayer is really well done.

[1133] You know, Need for Speed has had online multiplayer before, but I feel like it's always been kind of crappy or like an afterthought.

[1134] where it's like, yeah, you can race with dudes if you want.

[1135] It's all broken up into tiers and not always easy to find a game.

[1136] It doesn't play to the strengths of the single -player game, but yeah, sure, you can race.

[1137] Whereas this feels like they just straight up...

[1138] This is like Criterion's wheelhouse, I feel like, with Burnout Paradise.

[1139] They were like...

[1140] all right we got this like when they took the road rage mode and adapted it into hot pursuit mode that's that's really that's one of the most burnout things of it i think and it's just like a lot of like dropping in dropping out of multiplayer stuff just like kind of when no it's all race events but uh the the core mode is hot pursuit so it's four on four Cops versus racers.

[1141] And the racers end up with some of the same powers.

[1142] The racers can use EMP blasts and spike strips also.

[1143] Okay.

[1144] As well as turbos and jammers, which you can use to jam the cops EMPs and jam their spike strips, however that works.

[1145] Okay.

[1146] But it doesn't turn into Mario Kart.

[1147] Those items don't replenish over the course of a race.

[1148] You start with one of each or two of each or something like that.

[1149] Blur, basically.

[1150] Yeah, yeah.

[1151] And that's it.

[1152] So it's strategic use of your abilities because once you actually drain a car of its health and kill it, it is dead forever for the rest of that race.

[1153] Do you feel like...

[1154] having played a bunch of it that like communication like a teamwork kind of thing pays off it can be like i'm gonna use my as the cops it can be as the racers just go it's just go and then in some sense as the racers like You want to finish first in the race.

[1155] Oh, they're even competing against each other?

[1156] Oh, that's interesting.

[1157] So you'll end up with more XP at the end of a race if you win it.

[1158] Are you immune to your sides?

[1159] Wow, really?

[1160] If you're a cop and you are pointed at another cop, when you push EMP, it will lock onto that cop.

[1161] Oh, bummer.

[1162] Which is bad.

[1163] Yeah, but you can just spin out and...

[1164] Yeah, exactly.

[1165] You can spin out to make the EMP because it takes a while to lock on, but you've wasted your EMP.

[1166] Yeah, yeah.

[1167] So I might as well take out one of these fucking cops while I'm at it.

[1168] Exactly.

[1169] I haven't touched any of the multiplayer, and to your point about the autolog stuff, they've talked it up a lot.

[1170] It is basically...

[1171] It's friends' leaderboards.

[1172] Every other game that we've talked about here today has that feature in some capacity.

[1173] It seems like that is the 2010 trend.

[1174] They go a little bit deeper with it.

[1175] Besides Creed Brotherhood does not have...

[1176] Maybe in the multiplayer.

[1177] It does.

[1178] Well, in the virtual training, actually, it'll pop up.

[1179] Friends leaderboards as you go there.

[1180] Really?

[1181] Like how many dudes you've stabbed?

[1182] Yeah.

[1183] I haven't done much of that stuff.

[1184] I never touched any of the...

[1185] I didn't even get to it.

[1186] I think they show you that they think you have to do one.

[1187] Yeah, you do the one at the beginning.

[1188] Right, right, right.

[1189] Anyway.

[1190] Yeah, that game looks...

[1191] It's terrible, but I would buy that game just because of the looks alone.

[1192] It looks so good.

[1193] It looks really good.

[1194] It handles nicely.

[1195] Why does it look so good and other games look terrible?

[1196] What are they doing?

[1197] What did they get?

[1198] I don't know this for sure, but when I think about the legacy of Criterion, it has been 60 frames per second all the way.

[1199] Yeah.

[1200] And imagine what they could do if they said, we're going to make 30 frames a second.

[1201] We're going to lock it at 30.

[1202] It'll be locked at 30.

[1203] Is it locked at 30?

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] But we're going to half the number of frames we have to produce.

[1206] And they open up the particle box.

[1207] Yeah.

[1208] So like, OK, now we're going to have the fucking coolest thunderstorms you've ever seen in a video game.

[1209] Like, how about that?

[1210] Right.

[1211] That's great.

[1212] It's good on them.

[1213] Yeah.

[1214] So it's though.

[1215] The next Need for Speed game is they're going back to the Shift series.

[1216] Shift 2 Unleashed.

[1217] But it's barely even called Need for Speed.

[1218] But when you put Hot Pursuit in, one of the first things you see is an unskippable trailer for Shift 2.

[1219] You know what?

[1220] And it's only the first time you do it.

[1221] I wouldn't mind that.

[1222] Yeah, it's only once.

[1223] It's only the first time you do it.

[1224] After that, you don't see it again.

[1225] It's on a menu.

[1226] You can go watch it over and over again if you want.

[1227] It is a weird thing to kind of force in there.

[1228] But what's weirder to me is you go through the first several steps of setting up the game.

[1229] Right.

[1230] And it's like, do you want to opt in to emails?

[1231] You get that.

[1232] Do you want to do this?

[1233] Do you want to enter your online passcode?

[1234] Oh, before that trailer?

[1235] I would figure that, you know, you start the game up and like before the menu even comes up, that's when you would see that.

[1236] And then you're like, okay, then we start our game.

[1237] Regardless of placement, games are fucking expensive.

[1238] Like, fuck off.

[1239] Don't do that.

[1240] It's terrible.

[1241] I know it's probably, I mean, everybody must feel the same way out there.

[1242] I'm not breaking any ground, but that shit is killing Blu -rays.

[1243] Like, it is the worst.

[1244] And maybe there's sometimes I feel like they're just on rental Blu -rays.

[1245] Rays, like some are branded like, oh, this is for rental.

[1246] Those unskippable trailers in the front of Blu -rays just makes you want to send stuff back to Netflix.

[1247] Like, really?

[1248] I can't skip through these trailers?

[1249] And if they start putting that stuff in front of video games, man. Always leave it up to EA, though, to kind of like try something out.

[1250] Where can we get in?

[1251] We've got to find a little angle here.

[1252] How far can we push this?

[1253] And they're like, ah, I guess that didn't work.

[1254] Well, whatever.

[1255] No one complains about being able to buy cheats anymore.

[1256] Ha ha.

[1257] Is there some opt -in stuff for that?

[1258] Yeah, you can buy all the...

[1259] Actually, there's not a lot of benefit to it, though.

[1260] You can opt to unlock all the racer -side cars and all the cop -side cars for like $3 each.

[1261] They call them the time -saver packs.

[1262] $4 each.

[1263] But it doesn't unlock the events, so it's only useful to you in multiplayer because you still need to work through the progression on the single -player side to unlock those events to actually use those cars.

[1264] So it's kind of worthless because you're still going to be driving all those tier one cars through single player, like working your way up through there.

[1265] You might as well just do it.

[1266] Right.

[1267] Because the multiplayer is all tiered, too.

[1268] When you go to start a game, it's like, do you want to drive tier one cars or tier five cars or whatever?

[1269] And you can't pick tier four or five at the start of the game because you don't have any of those cars yet.

[1270] But you probably aren't ready to drive those yet because they're stupid fast.

[1271] Save your money.

[1272] The starting cars are pretty fucking fast in that game.

[1273] The starting cars are like...

[1274] Yeah.

[1275] Slow motion to me at this point.

[1276] Oh, I know.

[1277] To your five guards, go like 250 miles an hour.

[1278] It's fucking insane.

[1279] It's kind of like when you finish a 10 -minute run in CEDX and then immediately start a new game.

[1280] You're like, what the fuck?

[1281] Yeah.

[1282] Come on.

[1283] Or just go down to beginner.

[1284] Oh, I made that mistake once.

[1285] Yeah.

[1286] I want to know how to play that game.

[1287] Well.

[1288] Pac -Man?

[1289] No. Need for Speed.

[1290] Oh, Need for Speed.

[1291] Dude, just race, baby.

[1292] I had the same problem with Blur.

[1293] This year.

[1294] I'm terrible at that kind of even remotely realistic racing game.

[1295] Well, it's not realistic at all.

[1296] The cars don't steer very well on their own, so it's very conducive to drifting.

[1297] And all you do to drift is tap the brake.

[1298] In turn.

[1299] Yeah.

[1300] Okay.

[1301] Like, you go into a turn, and as soon as you realize, oh, wait, I can't make this turn, you tap the brake, it kicks out the back end, and you start drifting, at which point you kind of feather the gas off or on to control, like, your angle.

[1302] Like, if you see your angle getting a little too crazy, you let off the gas a little bit, it'll correct, or you hit it more because you can push it around that corner a little more.

[1303] But it is all about drifting.

[1304] And then you might just boost out of the turn.

[1305] Continuing to break through the slide?

[1306] No, you just tap the brake once, which is like...

[1307] Total Ridge Racer style.

[1308] It doesn't handle Ridge Racer.

[1309] It's not that whip crazy.

[1310] There's no reverse 360 spins through corners.

[1311] Right.

[1312] This is universal across this sub -genre of racing, essentially.

[1313] Kind of.

[1314] More or less the same.

[1315] Everyone's going to apply their own...

[1316] take to it in terms of what you have to do to start a drift and what you have to do to maintain a drift or anything like that.

[1317] But any racing game that has drifting in it, that's pretty much how it goes.

[1318] So I was fucking garbage at Ridge Racer for years until R4 came out.

[1319] With the JogCon, which was awesome.

[1320] And that was where I finally learned that, like, oh, you just tap the brake and it goes.

[1321] And I had to drive all the beginner cars all through the first couple of Ridge Racers that didn't drift because I was like, I need to slow down for these turns because I just don't understand how to do it.

[1322] But once you realize, like, you just tap the brake and it goes.

[1323] And in Ridge Racer, it's actually, like, a really good place to learn because it actually totally drives for you.

[1324] Like, that's the big, like, not so big secret to Ridge Racer is as soon as you start drifting, it goes around the corner for you, which is why people can do 360 spins the opposite, like, towards the outside of the turn going around a corner is because it's just on a track taking you around that corner.

[1325] You can still, if you catch traction, you will still hit a wall.

[1326] But as soon as you give up control of the car, as soon as you give up control of traction, it's going around the corner for you and it's up to you to just stop the spin.

[1327] So it's up to you to kind of get the car pointing in the right direction again and re -engage traction and go forward.

[1328] Now that's the opposite, right, of like a Forza or we assume Gran Turismo where like you always want to have traction because as soon as you lose friction, you lose speed.

[1329] As soon as the tires aren't catching on the road.

[1330] There are cases to be made for drifting, depending on what type of turn it is and stuff like that.

[1331] And what you're driving.

[1332] I just always assume.

[1333] Yeah, and the sort of car that you're in.

[1334] In the more realistic sims, as soon as you've lost friction and traction, then you've lost the speed.

[1335] Yeah, you're burning off a lot of speed.

[1336] But it becomes like.

[1337] Are you losing more speed that way than you would slowing your way into a turn?

[1338] Right.

[1339] And that becomes the tradeoff, I guess, that I've never been able to really master.

[1340] Yeah.

[1341] So it's kind of what keeps me from getting to, like, the next level of those sim -style games is not being able to.

[1342] But also drifting in the sim ones is crazy.

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] Forza was really good with the assist stuff.

[1345] You just spin right out.

[1346] You're just, like, you're in the dirt or something like that.

[1347] Like, I tried drifting in those, and it's like, yeah, put my butt out.

[1348] And then it's.

[1349] Off into the wind.

[1350] Go try out some Dirt 2 sometime.

[1351] Oh, Dirt 2.

[1352] A little drifting in there.

[1353] Dirt 2.

[1354] That's just, on dirt, you're just...

[1355] You're always drifting.

[1356] Yeah, you're doing nothing but...

[1357] There is no traction.

[1358] The ground is just moving.

[1359] It's like, here's a straightaway.

[1360] I'm driving sideways.

[1361] I'm flying.

[1362] And that was always the great thing about Ridge Racers, because when they started implementing the...

[1363] different ways that you were building up turbo, it started to become better for you to take the straightaways going totally sideways.

[1364] Which you can't, you know, you can't just do that at will or anything like that.

[1365] But it's, yeah.

[1366] Gosh.

[1367] All right.

[1368] I feel reinvigorated now.

[1369] I played like an hour or two of that last night.

[1370] Yeah.

[1371] Now you want to go back.

[1372] Right about the time I got to, what is it, like unit two on the cop side.

[1373] Right.

[1374] I was just starting to like not be able to take the turns.

[1375] The cars were too fast.

[1376] I couldn't.

[1377] I just couldn't.

[1378] It's tap the brakes or hit the brakes going in if you know you're going crazy too fast for it and then tap it again to start a drift or something like that.

[1379] But yeah, it's basically you just need to give up traction.

[1380] But you kind of need to do the opposite of what you would think you would need to do going into a turn.

[1381] Common wisdom is you want to slow down going into a turn, and then once you reach past the apex of the turn, accelerate again out of it.

[1382] That's exactly what I was doing.

[1383] Yeah, you want to do the opposite of that, which is a hard thing to break.

[1384] But you still want a boost coming out, right?

[1385] You still want to hit that gas as hard as you can once you've re -engaged the road.

[1386] So what you're saying is never slow down.

[1387] Yeah.

[1388] Yeah, basically.

[1389] You drift all the time.

[1390] All right.

[1391] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1392] Slowing down is for chumps.

[1393] It's about Burnout Paradise.

[1394] Right.

[1395] That's for sure.

[1396] Yeah, if you start thinking about the brake as less of a I want to use this to slow down the car and more of a this is the toggle switch for slide, I think that might help.

[1397] Make you hop, you know.

[1398] Get those shoulder brakes.

[1399] Get some sparks coming out.

[1400] All right.

[1401] Now I understand.

[1402] No snaking.

[1403] Now you're speaking my language.

[1404] I mean, that stuff doesn't work too differently.

[1405] Actually, yeah.

[1406] The spark stuff is like some low -grade drifting.

[1407] Yeah.

[1408] What you have to do to kind of keep going the right direction is low.

[1409] But that's how they all kind of change it is the things you have to do to make sure you're heading in the right direction and not burning off too much speed by drifting at too sharp of an angle.

[1410] But it's also direction control.

[1411] It's also kind of like turning the opposite direction of where you want to to keep the drift going in the correct direction.

[1412] Yeah.

[1413] Keep yourself pointed in the right direction.

[1414] Keep yourself kind of pointed into the turn.

[1415] So you're kind of turning right in some cases around a left turn.

[1416] To kind of position yourself properly and that sort of stuff.

[1417] Site corrections.

[1418] We'll go get a zip car.

[1419] It's been raining, so it's going to be totally easy.

[1420] Perfect time.

[1421] I'm going to get one of those little orange egg cars.

[1422] With three wheels.

[1423] All the tourists drive around San Francisco in.

[1424] Oh, man. Just make sure you're going downhill.

[1425] You might be able to go sideways.

[1426] Just lay some bleach out on the road.

[1427] Let's go.

[1428] I'm just going to go and drift down Lombard in one of those.

[1429] It's the entire time.

[1430] And then I'll pick you up and we'll put you back up top and then we'll try it again.

[1431] Get a ski lift going.

[1432] I'll just carry that thing.

[1433] Yeah, so I played fucking Assassin's Creed and Fable 3 wasn't great.

[1434] But Assassin's Creed and Need for Speed and DJ Hero and Pac -Man.

[1435] It was a great goddamn weekend for playing video games.

[1436] Yeah, it was fantastic.

[1437] A ton of good stuff.

[1438] Just play StarCraft, Brad.

[1439] Brad absolutely played some StarCraft.

[1440] What do you think?

[1441] I watched him.

[1442] I saw him.

[1443] You were doing something now.

[1444] I don't mean to re -engage the StarCraft.

[1445] Oh, no. We should.

[1446] I didn't bring it up.

[1447] But you did some weird thing with Norm, didn't you?

[1448] Oh, it was the community tournament.

[1449] The Giant Bomb community tournament.

[1450] Roughly once a month at this point.

[1451] Now, the weird part, though, is that you guys were commentating.

[1452] Norm was.

[1453] I sat out this time.

[1454] The thing will eat your entire Saturday if you let it.

[1455] So how do you commentate?

[1456] Well, one guy spectates and runs it on his – he's either on Justin or Ustream.

[1457] I forget which.

[1458] But he's got a channel.

[1459] Yeah.

[1460] And he runs a pretty nice -looking stream.

[1461] And he – I think in this case he had Norm Mumble in, which is sort of like Skype.

[1462] I guess Mumble is like some new Windows.

[1463] Anybody know about this thing?

[1464] No. He said it's like the best audio conferencing on Windows now.

[1465] Get off my Mumble!

[1466] Whatever it is is better than Skype.

[1467] Yeah, I mean, it's just standard, you know, two or three people talking about a match over a video.

[1468] So he and this other guy.

[1469] Yeah, and I did a little bit of it the last tournament, which was like mid -October, I want to say.

[1470] Did you watch?

[1471] I watched a couple of the matches.

[1472] How was Norm's commentary?

[1473] He's doing all right.

[1474] I think he favors an early expansion a little too heavily.

[1475] Oh, you're saying his gameplay.

[1476] He's himself vulnerable.

[1477] Oh, what are you asking?

[1478] I was asking about his commentator.

[1479] Oh, I didn't see any of the ones he commentated.

[1480] Okay.

[1481] Because he was playing a lot because we both played in this tournament.

[1482] I mean, the best part of this is how well organized it is and how easy it is to get into it and actually compete.

[1483] Can you set that stuff up through Battle .net, like a ladder system?

[1484] No, they're doing it all through some third -party site that will run brackets for you.

[1485] And they'll set you up.

[1486] So basically, it's super easy.

[1487] If anybody wants to do this, there's always a thread in the StarCraft forum on the site.

[1488] You go to that thread.

[1489] And they've got two links.

[1490] And it's like, go to this link to punch in your username and blah, blah, blah.

[1491] And then go to this other link.

[1492] And it basically drops you into an IRC channel.

[1493] It's like a web -embedded IRC client.

[1494] Or you could just go there with MIRC or whatever.

[1495] IRC2, if you prefer.

[1496] Merc.

[1497] Fools get murked.

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] But, yeah, he basically hits a randomized button, and it just builds brackets out of all the usernames that got put in, and then everybody just goes and plays their matches.

[1500] Again, see, they have to set it up themselves.

[1501] Everybody's all in this IRC channel together, so it's pretty lighthearted.

[1502] Everybody's talking shit and stuff.

[1503] But, yeah, you go on and do your matches and come back and report your results.

[1504] Can you spectate in those games?

[1505] They leave it open?

[1506] Yeah, you just have to ask if you want to.

[1507] But good crowd, good turnout?

[1508] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1509] There must have been.

[1510] God, I would dare say like 30 or 40 people.

[1511] That's nice.

[1512] And this is once a month or this is – Ish, yeah.

[1513] Okay.

[1514] If people are interested to get in on this.

[1515] Yeah, just keep an eye on the StarCraft forums.

[1516] They always announce it like two weeks ahead of time.

[1517] Okay.

[1518] How did you do?

[1519] I did all right.

[1520] I made it second round and it was double elimination.

[1521] So I won one, then I lost one, went into the loser's bracket, and then won one or two more, then lost.

[1522] I don't know.

[1523] Do you know why you lost?

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] You don't care why I lost.

[1526] Now I'm just wondering if you know.

[1527] Yeah, I know exactly why I lost because I missed the timing on my opponent's Banshee cloak and he got a cloaked Banshee into my base before I had detection.

[1528] I'll get you every time.

[1529] Make more Marines.

[1530] That's why I've read that.

[1531] I've heard that somewhere.

[1532] Keep making Marines.

[1533] Yes, it was a good time.

[1534] If you like Starcraft, you should play it.

[1535] I just won a copy of NHL 2K6 for 99 cents.

[1536] From where?

[1537] eBay.

[1538] For you voted on you.

[1539] What are you doing?

[1540] So my current gamer score is 99 ,998.

[1541] I am two points away from my 100 ,000 game score.

[1542] You've got to find a one -point achievement and then never use your gamer tag.

[1543] Never.

[1544] Retire.

[1545] I was thinking about that.

[1546] If I could get a one -point achievement.

[1547] At first I was trying to find some two -pointers to land on.

[1548] But I have most of the two -pointers that I could get and any other two -pointers that I could get.

[1549] I would get a bunch of other points on my way to that.

[1550] Are there sites out there that like index all of the one and two and three point achievements?

[1551] There's a list out there.

[1552] So what are you doing with NHL?

[1553] Well, so I thought like, well, at first I thought like, well, I'm going to do something meaningful to cross the line.

[1554] And so I thought that it would be really funny to go get some Xbox 360 launch games.

[1555] Five -year anniversary of that thing today.

[1556] Yeah, today.

[1557] Oh, happy birthday.

[1558] Yesterday.

[1559] Happy birthday.

[1560] Yesterday was the five -year anniversary of the Xbox 360.

[1561] Happy belated birthday.

[1562] Absolutely.

[1563] We got this for you.

[1564] It's a copy of NHL 2K6 for the Xbox 360.

[1565] Oh, you shouldn't have.

[1566] No, seriously.

[1567] How the hell was that five years ago?

[1568] Five animes.

[1569] So, again, keep going.

[1570] Oh, so this is one of the launch titles.

[1571] And then you're going to break it.

[1572] You're going to pop your $100 ,000.

[1573] I think it's only meaningful if you stop, though.

[1574] I think you have to hit that point and then stop.

[1575] Make a new gamer tag.

[1576] Just retire.

[1577] Start over.

[1578] Work on getting that one up to 100 ,000.

[1579] It's like prestiging, right?

[1580] You're prestiging your gamer tag.

[1581] I could get...

[1582] My main's got 100 ,000 points, really.

[1583] So this purchase happened because of that thought.

[1584] Really?

[1585] eBay, though?

[1586] 99 cents, did you say?

[1587] Yeah.

[1588] I could have just lent you my copy of NHL 246.

[1589] Or I could have paid a dollar.

[1590] Yeah, fair enough.

[1591] A dollar?

[1592] This is going to cost more to ship it?

[1593] Oh, yeah, significantly more.

[1594] It's like $4 to ship it.

[1595] I don't know.

[1596] Sure.

[1597] God bless.

[1598] Congratulations on your victory.

[1599] I support you in this endeavor because you are still 15 ,000 points behind me. Is he going to put in a copy of NBA Elite in there?

[1600] Do you have any bids on that?

[1601] Are those all down at this point?

[1602] I haven't seen any of those since that one.

[1603] I haven't seen one in a while.

[1604] I've been checking every few days.

[1605] It's gone.

[1606] The dream is gone.

[1607] We are never going to play that game.

[1608] That's a bummer.

[1609] That's also a bummer.

[1610] I agree.

[1611] Bummer, bummer, bummer.

[1612] I agree.

[1613] But not because I'm way into basketball.

[1614] But yeah, congratulations on winning an eBay bid because that's always fun.

[1615] What did it start at?

[1616] Wait until it's a shitty knockoff like Taiwanese fake iPod.

[1617] 99 cents.

[1618] And you just only won?

[1619] I bid 99 cents.

[1620] Remember that?

[1621] Not even a buy now?

[1622] I do.

[1623] I got my money back.

[1624] I didn't.

[1625] I still have your fake iPods.

[1626] You still have that thing.

[1627] Oh, you both got them?

[1628] I thought you got them.

[1629] Me and him got bilked on the same Dutch auction for iPods.

[1630] Oh, really?

[1631] I thought it was just you, Ryan.

[1632] No, it was both of us.

[1633] Fucking assholes.

[1634] But you didn't, though, because you motherfuckers.

[1635] Won so hard.

[1636] Because, like, where else are you going to get that thing?

[1637] And remember how they were wrapped in, like, bootleg silk ties?

[1638] I still have the fake Hugo Boss pink tie that it came in.

[1639] Like, I think that it's such a victory.

[1640] Did you both send back the device?

[1641] He did.

[1642] I sent mine back.

[1643] And it cost me, like, fucking, like, 30 bucks to ship it or something.

[1644] But I still managed to get, you know, most.

[1645] I'm like, I want some amount of money back out of this.

[1646] How much did it cost, if you don't mind me asking?

[1647] It was close to 100 bucks.

[1648] I'd say more than 100 bucks.

[1649] And view captures?

[1650] I didn't want to, but PayPal only gives you like a 10 -day window to appeal.

[1651] So you still have this device?

[1652] Yes.

[1653] Do you use it?

[1654] I've never taken it out.

[1655] I've never physically looked at it.

[1656] I never opened the box.

[1657] You can have it.

[1658] Really?

[1659] It records audio.

[1660] Such a victory, really.

[1661] I messed around with mine a bunch.

[1662] I know, I saw you.

[1663] Not even as like an ironic, like, look at this goofy piece of electronics.

[1664] It was like, this is just awful.

[1665] No, the fact that they, because didn't it have like a stenciled Apple or it had something weird on it?

[1666] Oh yeah, it was like a, doesn't it boot up to like the old 80s like colored Apple logo?

[1667] Yeah, it's got like the colored stripe fucking Apple logo boot up sequence.

[1668] The Apple that's on the back is like.

[1669] flipped the wrong way and kind of tilted a little bit.

[1670] They didn't put the stencil on correctly.

[1671] They didn't even try.

[1672] They didn't even fucking try.

[1673] And did you guys both report that seller?

[1674] Did you have to?

[1675] I initiated the fraudulent claim process, and that was when the 10 -day thing kicked in.

[1676] We should give that thing away or something.

[1677] That is spectacular.

[1678] Do you wear the tie?

[1679] I don't know where the tie is.

[1680] I don't know where the player is or the tie.

[1681] I'd have to find them.

[1682] I know they're in a box somewhere.

[1683] You guys are both idiots.

[1684] What are you doing?

[1685] What?

[1686] I mean...

[1687] What was it?

[1688] A bulk auction on eBay?

[1689] It's a Dutch auction, yeah.

[1690] What's a Dutch auction?

[1691] Where they have a bunch of items.

[1692] Okay, and it's just...

[1693] You know, I buy a lot of stuff off of eBay.

[1694] I know.

[1695] That was the last thing.

[1696] And for me, it works fantastically 99 % of the time.

[1697] 0 .99.

[1698] Yeah, you buy a lot of stuff off eBay.

[1699] I bought those sweet Twilight Zone things.

[1700] Laserdiscs you buy.

[1701] You buy those Laserdiscs off eBay.

[1702] Oh, that was Craigslist, I think, wasn't it?

[1703] Yeah, I got the TV off of Craigslist.

[1704] No, you are embedded in the social auction house.

[1705] So I got this gigantic fucking French War Games poster.

[1706] It's awesome.

[1707] It's huge.

[1708] It's like 47 by 60.

[1709] Just like massive fucking poster.

[1710] Did you make a frame for that?

[1711] No. Wow.

[1712] No. I had to just like fucking tack it up on the wall.

[1713] It's just so damn huge.

[1714] But folded inside of it was a sweet French burglar poster.

[1715] Nice.

[1716] So get painted versions of Whoopi Goldberg and Bobcat Goldthwait riding a motorcycle up the Golden Gate Bridge.

[1717] In French.

[1718] In French.

[1719] Great.

[1720] So.

[1721] For every time I get burned on fucked up Taiwanese bootleg iPods, I get sweet French movie posters.

[1722] You're right.

[1723] Bonus.

[1724] And the tie.

[1725] And that fucking tie.

[1726] Jeff, have you played anything else you want to talk about here?

[1727] Well, I did play through all of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[1728] Yes.

[1729] Tell us about that.

[1730] That was a long day.

[1731] How was that pizza?

[1732] It was okay.

[1733] It was already a day cold at that point.

[1734] Oh, so it was a pizza that you put in the freezer?

[1735] What pizza?

[1736] Man, weren't you even listening?

[1737] God.

[1738] There were two breaks during the plan of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[1739] One was there was a frozen pizza.

[1740] I thought a whole pie, but maybe just some of the pie.

[1741] It was just a fridge with some pizza.

[1742] Where's the other break?

[1743] I was buying video games over here on my laptop.

[1744] Tell us, Vinny, what was the second break?

[1745] I don't think you went into the second break.

[1746] We're not going to go into the second break.

[1747] The second break was the pizza.

[1748] Yeah.

[1749] Revisiting the pizza.

[1750] Pizza inversion.

[1751] Yeah.

[1752] So I think I just played it the opposite of you where you are somehow 23 hours in and don't even have the guild dudes.

[1753] Whereas I probably played it for about 23 hours and finished it.

[1754] Yeah.

[1755] I think I will agree with anyone who says you're playing this wrong.

[1756] Because I know I am.

[1757] I know.

[1758] I know.

[1759] I know that.

[1760] By nickel and diming my way to try and get money that if I cross a threshold, there is a landslide of money ready to come my way.

[1761] Stingy Sicilians.

[1762] I'm Italian, man. I'm just playing in all Italian.

[1763] I put it on every Italian mode there could be.

[1764] It's grease pouring out of your television now.

[1765] Yeah, just olive oil pours right out.

[1766] Are you playing it in Italian?

[1767] Yes.

[1768] Good for you.

[1769] I played the other one in Italian.

[1770] I have a question because I didn't play this one in Italian.

[1771] Same Italian voice actors?

[1772] I think so.

[1773] Okay.

[1774] It's really weird.

[1775] I didn't put it in Italian when I booted it up.

[1776] And I heard the voices of the other dudes.

[1777] And that's totally Uncharted, dude, right?

[1778] Yeah, it's totally Noel North.

[1779] It always has been.

[1780] And as soon as I heard that, I was like, oh yeah, vaguely remember that he was associated with Assassin's Creed.

[1781] And then I switched it back.

[1782] And I was like, ah, there's my guy.

[1783] Desmond?

[1784] Yeah.

[1785] Is it Desmond?

[1786] Yep.

[1787] They should have an option for all the inanimate stuff.

[1788] That's what I was just about to ask.

[1789] So the present -day stuff is also in Italian?

[1790] Yes.

[1791] It's just a game -level language.

[1792] So do you guys just constantly set it back and forth?

[1793] No, I keep it on Italian.

[1794] So I learned that Pipistrelli is bats in Italian.

[1795] There's not a lot of...

[1796] There are some significant...

[1797] They kind of bookend.

[1798] It's the middle of the game, unless you choose otherwise, is all Ezio all the time.

[1799] Huh, that's different from the first two, right?

[1800] Basically, you can leave the Animus whenever you want through most of the game.

[1801] Do you get like 10 minutes or something?

[1802] But you don't ever have to?

[1803] No, you can leave and just walk around that room all you want.

[1804] Oh, right.

[1805] Whereas the first two, there were interludes back in the present day all the time.

[1806] None of that.

[1807] Oh, weird.

[1808] None of that.

[1809] But you can get out and talk to people and there are little, talk to your guys and they'll be there for little bits of story and you can check your email, which is a gigantic waste of time.

[1810] Yeah, anything ever come of that?

[1811] It's like one or two interesting messages about other teams that are out there doing stuff and their whereabouts.

[1812] But the rest of it is like, has anyone seen my MP3 player?

[1813] We're going out for food.

[1814] It sucks.

[1815] Like the schedule.

[1816] It's like real email.

[1817] You want a copy of NHL?

[1818] Yeah.

[1819] Oh, sweet.

[1820] I gotta go.

[1821] I feel like I'm missing out.

[1822] You are missing out.

[1823] I feel like I'm not part of the zeitgeist here.

[1824] I'm not involved in the conversation.

[1825] Do you guys play any multiplayer?

[1826] Yeah, a little bit.

[1827] I played the tutorial for the multiplayer.

[1828] So I played computer multiplayer.

[1829] Ah, yes.

[1830] I am a fan of the theory of multiplayer in that game, but I don't know that I necessarily want to play much more of it.

[1831] It's cool.

[1832] But I can't figure out how to not get stabbed.

[1833] You can't.

[1834] You can kind of marginalize and minimize the amount that you get stabbed.

[1835] I have to hope that the icon appears over his head to humiliate the guy.

[1836] And they go, oh, that's the guy.

[1837] I need to hit him.

[1838] That's part of it.

[1839] But you also have to play in a way.

[1840] Because you have the little thing in the corner that says how many guys are falling at any given time.

[1841] When you have guys falling, you kind of have to constantly assume that they are on your tail.

[1842] And so constantly, every once in a while, I'm like, okay, I just got to shake whoever's on me loose and sprint through a couple of these doors that shut behind you or just change your altitude some so you're up on a roof or you go down or hide out in a hay bale for a minute.

[1843] You're going to get stabbed eventually.

[1844] It is kind of the problem with that is that it's way easier to stab dudes than to avoid being stabbed.

[1845] you end up with those pileups where like I'm stabbing a dude and then the dude that was following me saw me stab that dude so he's stabbing me and then the guy that was following him I just ended up in spots where I was spawning and then like 10 seconds later getting stabbed and just be like oh I didn't even what what and then have that happen like three times in a row or something I was like okay the game kind of like the game makes it sound like oh you know the more natural that you move the harder you will be to find.

[1846] And that's true sometimes.

[1847] That radar seems pretty on it, right?

[1848] Yeah, but the thing is what you need to do if you're going to try and act casual is you need to line yourself up with another you.

[1849] A lookalike, right?

[1850] Yeah, you need to have a lookalike near you enough so that the guy's like, well, it's one of those guys, but I can't tell which.

[1851] And maybe once you start leveling up and unlocking more of the abilities and perks and stuff and you can cast Disguise or change the crowds to look like you and stuff like that, that's where it becomes easier to escape.

[1852] Just natural escapes are kind of hard to come by.

[1853] I'm at level 11 and I think I just unlocked my second slot so I can have two active abilities now.

[1854] Not a lot of good subtitling on the instructions for the multiplayer.

[1855] I'm just going to say, if you're playing in another language.

[1856] Shouldn't play that in Italian?

[1857] Yeah, you should maybe switch it back because you're like, ah, they're not going to subtitle this, are they?

[1858] I'm like, fuck.

[1859] All right, well, my radar's there.

[1860] You're going to say your Italian's not that strong?

[1861] No, it's not that strong.

[1862] But yeah, they should.

[1863] It would be cool, and I don't think that's the point of the other language stuff is to divide it, but it would be really cool if you could do half and half, like the stuff that's not in the Animus, like choose those parts.

[1864] But good on them.

[1865] I like that they put the English subtitles and Italian voice stuff.

[1866] It makes it a lot of fun for me. I will say the subtitles, though.

[1867] Don't always match the Italian.

[1868] My Italian is strong enough to know that what they are writing on the screen, especially the parts where they write the Italian underneath, is not what they are saying.

[1869] Interesting.

[1870] They swear more in the subtitles than they do in actual Italian.

[1871] Oh, really?

[1872] Yeah, a lot of shits and fucks in the subtitles, but that's not what they're saying.

[1873] Maybe it's just the tone.

[1874] Maybe it's what it's supposed to be.

[1875] Yeah, I'm sure it is.

[1876] And then I played NBA Jam.

[1877] Much of that.

[1878] I thought about...

[1879] I went to the GameStop near the house.

[1880] Yeah.

[1881] And they had a copy of that.

[1882] And I have to...

[1883] I get the feeling that EA just didn't make very many of these.

[1884] Oh, don't say that.

[1885] Because I'm going to go buy it right after this.

[1886] That's scary.

[1887] Try and order a copy, maybe.

[1888] Just get it from Amazon.

[1889] Yeah, that's what I did.

[1890] Yeah, you had no problem with that, but I've seen a lot of places where we went to the Best Buy last week and they straight up didn't have it.

[1891] It does not seem like there are a lot of people playing this game online.

[1892] Yeah, I've heard a lot of people also complain about Dan Reichert from Game Informer.

[1893] Straight up, is it broken?

[1894] Is anyone even playing this thing?

[1895] Because I can't get a game going.

[1896] I was on the phone earlier with one...

[1897] Jonathan Vignocchi.

[1898] We were kind of talking about that same stuff.

[1899] Did you say it was still better than Ballers?

[1900] No, but it is totally better than Ballers.

[1901] So you're still liking Jam?

[1902] We played that for TNT last week and you seem pretty sweet on it.

[1903] Yeah, I'm in the middle of writing the review for that.

[1904] It's great.

[1905] They totally replicated NBA Jam.

[1906] And updated it in some kind of weird ways that I think...

[1907] Probably make the game a little more balanced.

[1908] Even more so than Hangtime and Showtime after that.

[1909] Because they are implementing elements of those other midway basketball games.

[1910] Right.

[1911] The pre -Ballers era.

[1912] Yes.

[1913] Back when the basketball games were great.

[1914] Yep.

[1915] The first Ballers was actually cool.

[1916] Good multiplayer support.

[1917] Yeah.

[1918] Yeah.

[1919] So they have all that stuff, but what they've done in this one is the defense seems a lot more powerful.

[1920] Blocking jump shots is like child's play.

[1921] It's super easy.

[1922] It seemed like it was really hard before.

[1923] Yeah.

[1924] In the original NBA Jam, it is not an easy thing to do, and it's something that got a little bit easier over time, I think.

[1925] I remember Showtime, you could block jump shots.

[1926] A lot more actively.

[1927] But here in the new NBA Jam, you practically have to catch the defense totally out of position to get those shots off.

[1928] Okay.

[1929] And dunks are not too hard to block either, depending on kind of power ratings and stuff.

[1930] It's a little more dice rolly on some of that stuff.

[1931] But still, if you're in position to do that stuff, you do that stuff.

[1932] And the AI is also killer at just blocking jump shots.

[1933] For the better of the game?

[1934] Yeah, I think so.

[1935] I mean, it definitely changes the pace of it and kind of what you do because it means you have to vary up your offense.

[1936] You have to give the defending players a lot more looks.

[1937] It's like, okay, well, this time I'm going to go for the alley -oop.

[1938] This time I'm going to try and pass the ball around to kind of open up myself for a three -point shot or something like that.

[1939] In hang time and stuff, when they started rolling out the alley -oops, that kind of became the only way to score because some of the other stuff got pumped up, but you're like, okay, well, they're never going to be able to block this because the alley -oops come in so hard that they overpower most other players.

[1940] Can you intercept an alley or knock it down or do anything like that?

[1941] You can kind of position yourself to block passes in some cases, but it's not easy with the perspective.

[1942] Lining yourself up for that stuff almost feels like luck in a lot of cases.

[1943] But it's stuff like when you're playing defense, like shoving the guy as the pass is on the way to him or anticipating when the player is going to pass and shoving the guy, which is just classic NBA Jam stuff.

[1944] But that stuff still works.

[1945] And yeah, defense is a lot more active and a lot crazier.

[1946] So it seems like there's just a lot more shot clock violations because you're just like...

[1947] I did see that when you were playing for TNT.

[1948] Yeah, you're just stopping these people from even getting a shot off.

[1949] Weird because it never happens in the NBA where it's like...

[1950] Well, I don't know.

[1951] I shouldn't say that.

[1952] I don't really watch enough NBA to know about that.

[1953] It does happen in regular NBA Jam, regular old, super old NBA Jam.

[1954] And something that did kind of become a little more prominent as Midway went through those basketball games, I think.

[1955] How's the rubber banding stuff?

[1956] It doesn't feel as prominent.

[1957] It doesn't feel like it's quite shifting.

[1958] They kind of want to keep the games close, but not for the same reasons.

[1959] It's not because they want to force every game to end in a tie so you put in more money.

[1960] But being on fire feels a lot less powerful.

[1961] Okay.

[1962] It's crazy.

[1963] You're shooting threes and you seem wide open.

[1964] There's not guys up in your face.

[1965] There's guys maybe three or four steps away from you and they're not going.

[1966] What is going on?

[1967] The game seems broken with that stuff.

[1968] What the hell is happening?

[1969] I wonder if they're balancing the fire so that it's not affecting that stuff as much as certain other statistics.

[1970] I think that might be the case.

[1971] If you're going up for dunks, you're not going to get stopped as much.

[1972] Yeah, those threes were not happening.

[1973] Yeah, and that's probably for the best because you can run away with a game if you're on fire and you can get those shots off.

[1974] They give you like five shots before the fire kind of extinguishes itself, or five landed shots.

[1975] That's enough to just totally blow out the opposition.

[1976] Five field goals.

[1977] Yeah, and basketball.

[1978] Baskets.

[1979] You had some concerns with the original, the Wii version, with the way certain moves were mapped to some shaking.

[1980] How that stuff ended up panning out for the 360.

[1981] It's weird because the tutorial in that game wants you to use the right analog stick for that stuff.

[1982] And even with Classic Controller on the Wii, they did use that stuff.

[1983] But I haven't really had much trouble using the buttons.

[1984] It was one of those things that, like, early on I heard from the guys working on the game that's like, okay, so for dunks, you throw the Wii Remote up to start the dunk and then come down with it when the dunk happens, and you get, like, a power bonus when you do that.

[1985] And it didn't seem clear if that power bonus was...

[1986] also mapping over to the button controls or for something that was exclusive to the Wii Remote.

[1987] So I was like, well, why would you ever use the buttons if you're getting this power bonus?

[1988] But I've been playing with the buttons exclusively on 360.

[1989] I used the right stick for a while, and it's just kind of – I don't much care for it.

[1990] It doesn't feel, right?

[1991] Yeah, it just doesn't feel – because it's like to – because it's the same type motions.

[1992] It's like you push up on the stick to shoot, and then you have to hit – down to release like like not just let go like physically push down on the controller and that's a weird thing so with the buttons is it press and then release basically yeah which is how it's always been which is how it's always been for nba jam i wonder if that's a thing where like if you're if you have history with jam the button stuff makes sense but if you've been playing like real modern basketball games if like the yeah because they have the dual the dual stick setup makes more sense maybe But it's so nice with the release.

[1993] I mean, that's what I really like.

[1994] But you're right.

[1995] It's weird with doing the right stick stuff because you'd think like press up to start shooting and then let go to when you're at your apex or whatever.

[1996] And that's when you walk away from the cabinet, right?

[1997] You release it and you go, whoa.

[1998] Yeah.

[1999] Oh!

[2000] Yeah.

[2001] That kind of like feathered off.

[2002] Wow!

[2003] Exactly.

[2004] Yeah.

[2005] Spin it.

[2006] They need a trackball.

[2007] So the Remix Tour stuff, you care for that?

[2008] It's cool.

[2009] What they're doing is they're taking together that standard NBA Jam gameplay that they've improved in some interesting ways.

[2010] And then they're messing with the rules, messing with the periphery of it.

[2011] So it's like, okay, now the backboards have power meters and you need to do more devastating dunks to smash the backboards.

[2012] You've even taken it and adapted it to a half -court behind the back, like original one -on -one Dr. J versus Larry Bird style for their boss battles and crazy stuff like that, which is kind of as crazy as it gets, as that game will get.

[2013] The half -court stuff, I don't really love it.

[2014] It's all right.

[2015] And the game still plays basically the same.

[2016] It's still about shoves and all that.

[2017] But it's just...

[2018] The perspective, I feel like it's harder to line up your shoves and harder to line up your shots and that sort of stuff on the half court.

[2019] So I'm not really too big on that.

[2020] It's one of those things where it's just such a weird package.

[2021] Because it is this, like, super arcade -y game that, you know, at one point was destined to be downloaded.

[2022] Sure.

[2023] And now it's not.

[2024] And now it's 50 bucks on disc for 360 and PS3.

[2025] And you start, like, looking at the content and going, like, well, is the Remix Tour and the Classic, like, is all that stuff really cool enough to...

[2026] Well, I mean, I feel like that then just kind of kicks up a lot of just the...

[2027] There's a lot of incongruities with the value that we place on...

[2028] how much disc -based games versus how much downloadable games, what value they should offer and how much they should cost versus how much time you get with them or what their feature is set.

[2029] I think it's one of those things where I really like the core game.

[2030] I think it's a great basketball game.

[2031] It's a great NBA Jam game.

[2032] They nail the stuff they need to nail while kind of moving it forward and keeping it balanced and like that.

[2033] But if you're only one man and you don't have a built -in multiplayer posse, you're not going to get very much out of NBA Jam.

[2034] You need people.

[2035] Whether they're online people or local people, you need people to really enjoy that game.

[2036] And it's got to be people that you're going to build rivalries with.

[2037] You can play it against random people and they've got a whole ranked mode and you're unlocking titles and icons like Street Fighter 4 or Modern Warfare 2.

[2038] You're going to have the most fun when you are saying, oh, that's fucking bullshit to people that you know well.

[2039] Like Coons.

[2040] Like Coons, yeah.

[2041] Fucking Coons.

[2042] Yeah, that's really what NBA Jam has always been about.

[2043] So if you have that support system in place, NBA Jam is amazing.

[2044] But it's a one -man game.

[2045] I already beat the AI on its insanest difficulty setting without much trouble.

[2046] And I'm not like Superman at NBA Jam or anything like that.

[2047] It's just not something that I would see myself coming back to, which is like the story for a lot of these midway sports games.

[2048] I mean, I have an NFL Blitz cabinet in my house and never, ever play it because playing against the AI is no fun and no one else is close to as good as I am.

[2049] So it's like, right.

[2050] Plus it's an arcade cabinet so you need to come over to your house.

[2051] Yeah, exactly.

[2052] People have to come there to play it.

[2053] It's a scary place to go.

[2054] A lot of people don't leave.

[2055] Yeah, you don't want to go there.

[2056] Don't go there.

[2057] I just wish that game were...

[2058] Keep it at the same price.

[2059] Just make it...

[2060] easily downloadable on the 360 or something.

[2061] For me, that game seems like an impulse buy.

[2062] It's one of those things where you'd be like, do you want to play?

[2063] It seems like an impulse play where you don't want to necessarily get up and swap the disc out.

[2064] You just want to be looking at the menu.

[2065] It's like, oh, there it is in my recent games.

[2066] Maybe I'll click the A button.

[2067] It's a really good short session kind of game.

[2068] Fire it up, play two or three games and be done with it.

[2069] But if you're telling me that getting up and putting a disk in a system is what's holding you back, you have larger problems.

[2070] That's holding me back from a lot of stuff.

[2071] I have been a strong advocate of not – of a diskless system for a long time.

[2072] But I feel like the downloadable thing is – it's a fallacy in this case because the only reason that it's a topic of discussion is because at one point someone talked about – that a section, a sliver of this product was going to be available as a downloadable bonus.

[2073] But the sliver they were going to pick is the sliver you want.

[2074] That's kind of the rub a little bit.

[2075] The remix tour and stuff is cool, but it's not the core.

[2076] By the time they started talking about that stuff, they had already put out the Wii version on disc without online play for $50.

[2077] I would be a fan of that game.

[2078] I haven't played much of it.

[2079] I haven't played any of it, actually.

[2080] The single player, it sounds like, is not the place to go.

[2081] It's the online stuff or the multiplayer stuff.

[2082] Yeah, I mean the single player is kind of neat because you do unlock weird stuff.

[2083] Like you have your one -on -one battle with Magic Johnson and he can teleport.

[2084] He's magic.

[2085] But you're going to wear through that stuff and come back for the multiplayer.

[2086] All multiplayer stuff should be diskless.

[2087] Every portion of a multiplayer game should just install and be diskless because it's like when you're playing a different game and somebody else is playing that game and you're like, oh, we should play this game together.

[2088] You should just be able to launch into it.

[2089] You should be able to accept that invite and launch that part of that game.

[2090] It's a more elegant solution.

[2091] It's not a question of being too lazy to get up and swap the discount.

[2092] It's just like, yeah, if you want to fire it up for 20 minutes, it would be nice if you could just do that.

[2093] Brad sends me an invite for the Call of Duty multiplayer stuff.

[2094] That multiplayer...

[2095] I mean, it's basically a separate executable at this point anyway in a lot of games.

[2096] So just install that.

[2097] In most cases, it's installed to your hard drive anyway.

[2098] Yeah.

[2099] So just launch that portion.

[2100] Don't let me do the single player.

[2101] I hear you need to...

[2102] But keep in mind...

[2103] What you're advocating is serial numbers for all games.

[2104] That's fine.

[2105] It's already tied to my gamer tag.

[2106] Or it should be tied to my gamer tag.

[2107] What you're advocating is like...

[2108] bringing Steam -like rules to all platforms.

[2109] A lot of disc -based games require you to put in the code to play multiplayer anyway, so that's basically already happened.

[2110] We're kind of heading there.

[2111] That's the price I'm willing to pay.

[2112] This is going to be the thing that eventually destroys the used game market, unless they keep going this route of, give us $10 and we'll give you access to whatever.

[2113] But they probably don't care either way in that case, because they're still getting money for...

[2114] Even a used sale will generate them some revenue.

[2115] But then at that point, it becomes like, If you're installing it to your hard drive and you're able to run it without a disc, then you go sell the disc.

[2116] Like, what does that disc do?

[2117] What can that disc do?

[2118] Those are decisions somebody else can figure out.

[2119] All I know is I want to knock it off my couch.

[2120] Because it's like, you know, you don't buy used PC games.

[2121] You can't.

[2122] No. You know?

[2123] But, like, I'm thinking that eventually anyway we're just going to be downloading these games from the store.

[2124] at some point anyway.

[2125] It's just locked your profile.

[2126] I'm sure Microsoft would probably like it if you're doing that right now.

[2127] I think it's just interesting that like there are people out there that are like complaining.

[2128] a lot about this whole one -time use code for this content to prevent people from buying it.

[2129] I think it's a stopgap measure.

[2130] I do think we will...

[2131] It's like one step towards the digital distribution or just the serialization of all games.

[2132] Keep in mind, everyone wants everything to be free all the time.

[2133] The internet's sense of entitlement is...

[2134] Incredible.

[2135] I'm sure publishers cannot move away from brick -and -mortar sales just yet.

[2136] But I'm sure they would be totally on board if Brad did send me an invite for Call of Duty to play multiplayer.

[2137] And I said yes, and it's like, would you like to download this game and pay us $50 or $60?

[2138] And I were like, all right, sure, whatever.

[2139] So you know what?

[2140] I had a really interesting conversation with Bob while we were in Korea about that very subject, which has already come to pass over there.

[2141] Which is basically...

[2142] basically play like just the single player or just the multiplayer in like so like starcraft like the the billing game time or whatever you can pay like a small amount of money and just play like the multiplayer for as long as you want to play it or the single player i think it's god i think it was something crazy it was like it's like a dollar an hour you're saying well that's in a cafe but you can also like play just a game in your house for like a month I want to say it was like $10 for a month.

[2143] It's basically like a rental.

[2144] Or maybe it was the third.

[2145] I don't know.

[2146] It was some very modest price that you could basically...

[2147] have access to the game for a month, which is more than enough time for, like, you, Vinny.

[2148] Like, all you ever want to do is play a campaign and then, like, never touch it again.

[2149] Yeah, I mean, it basically would be the digital distribution of Gamefly.

[2150] And that's exactly what it was.

[2151] It was, like, pay this nominal amount, have it for a month.

[2152] Like, you would easily have time to play the campaign, and then, like, you're done.

[2153] And you didn't pay it for the multiplayer that you have no interest in playing.

[2154] Yeah.

[2155] But it's also kind of, like, what that market will support.

[2156] Like, that market would not support $60 box games.

[2157] Well, they also, in addition, sell it.

[2158] As a box product, just buy it, you own it, that's it.

[2159] They have it both ways over there.

[2160] But I get the sense that the culture is such that no one does that.

[2161] It wasn't brought up that way.

[2162] They actually didn't launch with a box when the game came out, and there was enough of an outcry that they then went and made boxes and put them out there.

[2163] I wonder how much they charge.

[2164] My point is that I feel like the market here tolerates higher prices for games.

[2165] You're probably right.

[2166] Even if you were to go into a pure digital format, the prices comparatively are still going to be a lot higher.

[2167] There's an expectation of ownership.

[2168] There's an expectation of having access to a thing however long.

[2169] Like Assassin's Creed – yes, the ownership thing for sure.

[2170] But like Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, I mean you guys look at that manual that's in there.

[2171] It's basically the warning stuff.

[2172] I mean they announced – but there's also like – I'm sorry.

[2173] You mean that folded piece of paper?

[2174] Yeah.

[2175] Well, the manual is in the game.

[2176] Yeah, they've also created like a pretty good in -game manual.

[2177] Yeah.

[2178] Though that manual reads like it was written by the designers or something and not an actual manual writer because they talk about gameplay loop.

[2179] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2180] Totally, right.

[2181] Detection loop.

[2182] It was like, okay, these are not – These are not terms that usually end up in manuals.

[2183] I thought it was just an animus thing.

[2184] Like they were trying to get into the system thing, but you're totally right.

[2185] But the part that weirds me out is the infrastructure seems totally there.

[2186] Like the manuals are dying, if not dead already.

[2187] The fact that they can put a full game – Microsoft has allowed them to put full retail games up on that system.

[2188] They're just – choosing not to i don't know if it's microsoft or publishers but the infrastructure seems like it's there yeah i think it's it's you know the infrastructure is totally there it probably doesn't scale yet without getting just all those big downloads maybe but like the hard the hard drive sizes are getting there so people they're there 250 is plenty bigger.

[2189] Because you're installing all your games anyway now or uninstalling them.

[2190] So I feel like everything is in place except the people being like, do you want your game to be day one distribution?

[2191] Well, it's just percentage -wise.

[2192] I think if they turn that hose on, if they turn on day one digital release simultaneous with retail, they piss off all the retailers and there aren't enough people.

[2193] The percentage of people that would buy it digitally is not high enough to make it worth the hassle they would go through with retailers yet.

[2194] And they'll get there.

[2195] But it's not there yet.

[2196] So you think if they just need more of a – you think like next generation that will be built in?

[2197] It just needs to be one of those cases where X is greater than Y basically.

[2198] Yeah.

[2199] It's just at some point they reach the tipping point on that and it's like, okay, fuck the retailers.

[2200] We don't care about them.

[2201] We care about our value to retail partners.

[2202] Even right now, though, what is the blowback they would get?

[2203] It's not as extreme as we're not going to carry your game anymore.

[2204] That's what I think.

[2205] Do you think it's still that harsh?

[2206] It's like there was some story last week saying some British retailers were trying to get together to say, you need to stop putting Steam in your games because you're forcing us to sell a product that installs a competitor to our store.

[2207] It was one of the major, I can't remember which one, I saw that same story, one of the major UK.

[2208] But under threat of what?

[2209] Under threat of we're going to stop carrying your stuff.

[2210] We will stop selling your game.

[2211] Which at some point, yeah, at some point the math becomes such where that's an empty threat.

[2212] Like, okay, well, what are you going to sell then?

[2213] Sell the strategy guides for the game you're not selling anymore?

[2214] But I think – I don't know if the statistics have changed, but a while ago there was like more than 50 percent of 360s aren't even online.

[2215] So it's like they're still going to get sales.

[2216] Yeah, there's a significant percentage that's not online.

[2217] The ecosystem still demands there to be a store for a person to walk into and buy it.

[2218] I'm saying like you're still going to have your brick -and -mortar stores selling stuff.

[2219] Walmart is still going to sell plenty of games.

[2220] I just want to get my game going.

[2221] preload it in day one let me preload it a week before so i don't clog up the system on day one let me download my key or whatever five meg file like it needs to be they need to like separate it from all this preload shit too like you want to go super crazy and like get digital going Just say, this game went gold.

[2222] Buy it.

[2223] We just certified it.

[2224] It's going off in manufacturing now.

[2225] If you want to wait for that one, you can.

[2226] But, dude, it's done.

[2227] So here you go.

[2228] The release dates is basically like as soon as they start the presses, you can download that thing.

[2229] It's going to hit the internet anyway.

[2230] Yeah, exactly.

[2231] Like, dude, yes.

[2232] That gets you out ahead of piracy.

[2233] Yeah, they've moved up album releases to combat leaks and piracy and stuff.

[2234] So no more launch window.

[2235] It's basically just like we finished.

[2236] And allow me to give them a bad idea.

[2237] You know, extra $10 for early access.

[2238] Oh, man. That is just a bad idea.

[2239] Might you play points?

[2240] But if I was going to fucking play Call of Duty and it was two weeks in advance, I can play the digital version for an extra $10.

[2241] Yes, fine.

[2242] But only if they're doing it in a way that you get that added thing.

[2243] Only in cases where they're like, well, we're going to...

[2244] Only sell the limited edition version digitally.

[2245] Yeah.

[2246] Like this thing.

[2247] I think there's a tasteful way of doing this.

[2248] But I think they would get away with the untasteful way of doing it.

[2249] And you know what?

[2250] If they want to.

[2251] If they want to actually take control of this stuff, they need to not fuck consumers over in the process.

[2252] Because they want people to love digital stuff.

[2253] They want to get people to convert.

[2254] They want that direct relationship.

[2255] And you don't get that by.

[2256] boning them out of the gate and here's what you do on the back end i mean this is probably a couple of steps past what they need to do but if the retailers are really going to blow up and go crazy like make it so you buy your download code from them and you get your pre -order bonus from gamestop or whatever and that's the code you enter in to download it and it's like the purchase is made through them and like now i just got my extra gold horse because i bought it through you and like because pre -order bonuses are ridiculous right now and like But all that stuff is just to get you into the GameStop store so that you buy the used copy of something else.

[2257] And their strategy guide.

[2258] It's all a construct to get you in there to not.

[2259] They are making zero money on that new game purchase anyways.

[2260] It is all about their fucking old stock and the stuff that they have the direct relationship with the consumer.

[2261] I'm just waiting for Amazon to start giving me the full price of the game when I buy a game.

[2262] Like, hey, you bought a game.

[2263] Here's $60.

[2264] We're getting there, man. Amazon's being brutal.

[2265] Yeah, Amazon's selling the new Kanye West album for $4.

[2266] MP3 version of it.

[2267] And sidebar here, it's great.

[2268] That new Kanye West album is amazing.

[2269] Absolutely.

[2270] Fucking best thing he's ever done.

[2271] I saw an article written about that.

[2272] Yeah, it said it was pretty good.

[2273] It's very good.

[2274] It's very good.

[2275] It justifies the ego.

[2276] Like all his crazy bullshit.

[2277] You can back it.

[2278] Like, well.

[2279] That album's really fucking amazing.

[2280] I haven't heard any of it.

[2281] He's still an asshole, but damn if that's not an impressive piece of pop music right there.

[2282] He's an asshole you can believe in.

[2283] Absolutely.

[2284] Brett Shoemaker, do you have any other games that you want to talk about?

[2285] We have no time for anything else.

[2286] We just need to end this podcast now.

[2287] Oh, really?

[2288] All right, let's go.

[2289] Just about.

[2290] Let's go.

[2291] I'm going to say some news things, but hot damn it.

[2292] Fuck, I do have one more game.

[2293] You could say Costume Quest.

[2294] Yeah, I finished Costume Quest.

[2295] I finished Undead Nightmare.

[2296] Yay.

[2297] I like the way Undead Nightmare wraps.

[2298] Yeah, it ends a little abruptly, but it's satisfying.

[2299] And it made me really sad.

[2300] I don't have any more reason to play Red Dead at all.

[2301] Make another add -on, please.

[2302] It was a really good one.

[2303] They did a good job with that.

[2304] I picked it back up and powered through that again.

[2305] It's great.

[2306] I would love to see a Lost and Damned or Gay Tony style actually in the world.

[2307] I was happy.

[2308] Oh, just like as another character kind of thing.

[2309] Yeah, sure.

[2310] But the Marston, the Marston story.

[2311] Oh, yeah, Marston's so good.

[2312] The whole clan, though, they build that really nicely.

[2313] That biting rapport that the family has.

[2314] I do like it.

[2315] It's really good.

[2316] And it's really pronounced in Undead Nightmare.

[2317] It's really good.

[2318] Primarily last week.

[2319] Yes.

[2320] You guys were playing your Pac -Mans and your NBA Jams.

[2321] Uh -huh.

[2322] I was playing some Donkey Kong.

[2323] That's right.

[2324] Because he's returned.

[2325] Or the country has returned.

[2326] No country for old Donkey Kongs.

[2327] All right.

[2328] Moving on.

[2329] I'm glad that we could talk for an hour and a half about other games just so we could build up to that great piece of work.

[2330] Finally.

[2331] Finally.

[2332] Rolling that around a little bit.

[2333] Actually, not only did that one just come to me, but I really didn't give it any consideration at all.

[2334] All right, great.

[2335] Did you have another one that you had been saving?

[2336] I wish I had thought about that one.

[2337] So you enjoyed it, you didn't?

[2338] Yeah, it's a really well put together 2D platformer.

[2339] Yeah.

[2340] It's weird.

[2341] It's super well made.

[2342] There's a lot of really ingenious stuff in the genre of 2D platforming.

[2343] I saw you on a barrel flying.

[2344] Yes.

[2345] There are some levels where you're in a barrel with rockets jammed into the bottom of it.

[2346] You're flying.

[2347] I saw a 2D silhouette.

[2348] There's a few minecart levels.

[2349] I don't know if it's been added to the...

[2350] What is the concept page called?

[2351] It's just called...

[2352] Backlit.

[2353] 2D something.

[2354] There's a concept page for platformers with silhouetted.

[2355] It's got that.

[2356] Acknowledging the author of that page again.

[2357] I don't know.

[2358] It's a lot of fun.

[2359] It's really well put together.

[2360] Something about it did not endear itself to me the way that a lot of Nintendo games do, if that makes sense.

[2361] Is it because it was so fucking hard?

[2362] It is really hard.

[2363] I don't think that's the reason, though.

[2364] No. Because it doesn't get painfully, annoyingly hard until the last three or four levels.

[2365] Okay.

[2366] No narrative hooks?

[2367] Yeah, there's not much of a story, which is fine.

[2368] Part of the thing that's kind of kept me away from this game is sort of the thing that's kept me away from the other Donkey Kong.

[2369] Country games.

[2370] I don't care about the extended cast of the Donkey Kong universe.

[2371] There's not much of that in there.

[2372] It's Big the Cat, and there's a robot, and there's an echidna.

[2373] It's that.

[2374] But there's not that much of that in here.

[2375] Cranky Kong has a shop where he sells you some stuff.

[2376] Donkey Kong!

[2377] As soon as they got to that point, I'm like, fuck you.

[2378] They got worse with the subsequent country games, and then DK64 is the apex of that.

[2379] But DK64 is awesome.

[2380] It's just that stuff...

[2381] Is dumb.

[2382] That aspect of it is dumb.

[2383] Which is the one where they rap in the beginning.

[2384] That's DK's.

[2385] DK rap.

[2386] Yeah.

[2387] Talked about that last week.

[2388] Did we?

[2389] Yeah.

[2390] None of that stuff is in here, though.

[2391] It's a big black spot right here.

[2392] Cranky Kong has a shop.

[2393] He sells you some stuff.

[2394] Don't say that.

[2395] I don't like Denny Kong, though.

[2396] Really?

[2397] Like, that's...

[2398] I like Donkey Kong.

[2399] I like Donkey Kong Jr. I do not like old Donkey Kong as Cranky Kong.

[2400] I don't even know which one this is anymore.

[2401] Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong Country is really Donkey Kong Jr. Right.

[2402] Cranky Kong is Donkey Kong.

[2403] And Diddy Kong's goddamn monkey, so where the hell did he come from?

[2404] Yeah.

[2405] He's not even a gorilla.

[2406] What is he, a chimp?

[2407] I don't know.

[2408] He's got a tail.

[2409] Nobody seems to tell him.

[2410] Nobody wants to be like...

[2411] He's just, go off on your air race, okay?

[2412] We don't even know who's his caretaker.

[2413] Who is supposed to be looking after D -Kong?

[2414] I don't know.

[2415] That whole family is dysfunctional.

[2416] I guess for me, the same thing of I don't have that old connection to Donkey Kong Country.

[2417] This looks good, but it's like...

[2418] It looks amazing.

[2419] It looks really good.

[2420] I hate to use the phrase for a Wii game because it's always taken in a really pejorative manner, but it looks really good for a Wii game.

[2421] You're such a jerk.

[2422] What that always means, I mean, that's a shorthand for they have to have good art style.

[2423] Yeah, yeah.

[2424] By the standards of the platform, this looks amazing.

[2425] And yeah, this has a great art style.

[2426] Lots of really lively stuff going on in the levels with just huge pieces of levels falling apart or exploding.

[2427] You get launched way into the background a lot of times, so your guy is super tiny.

[2428] That's cool.

[2429] You've got to do a lot of weird stuff with that.

[2430] I don't know.

[2431] It's weird because the first game had that hook.

[2432] of looking bizarre.

[2433] It just looked like something you had ever seen before.

[2434] Yeah, it's like that whole pre -rendered look of that and Killer Instinct.

[2435] You're like, man, this is what games are going to look like now.

[2436] It's the future.

[2437] This doesn't have that.

[2438] It's a really well -made and nice -looking platformer.

[2439] See, I feel like I had already kind of moved on from the Super Nintendo to some extent when they got into the sequels to Donkey Kong Country.

[2440] The first one, you were like, yeah, all right.

[2441] And by the time they were doing two and three, you're like, I have a Saturn or something.

[2442] I don't even know they did a three.

[2443] Yeah, I think they, yeah.

[2444] Oh, by the third one, Donkey Kong wasn't even in it.

[2445] Yeah.

[2446] It was Diddy Kong and...

[2447] Lucy Kong.

[2448] Yeah, Lucy Kong.

[2449] Is she the one in the Daisy Dukes?

[2450] Dixie Kong.

[2451] Dixie Kong.

[2452] So it was Donkey Kong Country and then Donkey Kong Country 2, Diddy's Kong Quest.

[2453] Kong Quest.

[2454] Oh, man. You're right.

[2455] Kong.

[2456] Let's end this podcast.

[2457] And Donkey Kong Country 3, Dixie Kong's Double Trouble.

[2458] Right.

[2459] Coconut Crackers.

[2460] Which came out in 1996.

[2461] Wow.

[2462] So, yeah, by that point.

[2463] Yeah, by that time you had a PlayStation.

[2464] Wow.

[2465] You know?

[2466] You're like, oh, great.

[2467] Another Donkey Kong Country game.

[2468] Nice going, guys.

[2469] Over here playing Robo Pit.

[2470] Yeah, I clearly got the better end of this deal.

[2471] That's right.

[2472] Playing these first generation PlayStation games.

[2473] Over here enjoying Toshinden.

[2474] One.

[2475] Yeah, you were.

[2476] I've got ESPN Extreme.

[2477] I'm rollerblading.

[2478] I could put this CD into a CD player and then listen to the soundtrack.

[2479] Let's start on track two.

[2480] Don't be crazy.

[2481] Fuck everything up.

[2482] That's right.

[2483] Damage your speakers.

[2484] That's the raw, uncut modem shit right there.

[2485] Man, yeah.

[2486] Bump that.

[2487] Well, very good, Brad.

[2488] Donkey Kong.

[2489] For review of Donkey Kong Country Returns up on the site.

[2490] Good.

[2491] Good game.

[2492] Excellent.

[2493] You should play it probably, maybe.

[2494] Yeah, news.

[2495] We'll talk about news real quickly.

[2496] Robo Pit.

[2497] Robo Pit is now available for the PlayStation.

[2498] What?

[2499] I came out of nowhere.

[2500] You're allergic to Robo Pit.

[2501] I hate you, Robo Pit.

[2502] So Activision is maybe closing down Bizarre Creations.

[2503] Or they're maybe going to sell it.

[2504] I think either way they're firing everyone.

[2505] I thought they were looking into it.

[2506] I think they're looking into selling it, but I think they're going to fire everyone regardless.

[2507] It's a, yeah.

[2508] Sad.

[2509] I don't want to say that they're closing because I don't know what the specifics are, and they haven't really, aside from their official thing of saying, we're looking into what we're going to do with it, and everyone at Bizarre Creations saying, we've all been fired.

[2510] Right.

[2511] So I don't want to put an official decree on this, but Bizarre Creations is no more.

[2512] The guys, what made Project Gotham and Geometry Wars.

[2513] Yeah, and they've been around.

[2514] They've been around for a long goddamn time.

[2515] These are just the recent hits that are associated with their name.

[2516] They're shuttering their doors.

[2517] They're saying that Sega should fund them to build a new studio and they should just make Metropolis Street Racer 2.

[2518] Sure.

[2519] Why not?

[2520] Wasn't there a 2?

[2521] Or a 3, whatever it was.

[2522] Sure.

[2523] I was not a big MSR fan.

[2524] I thought they went straight from Metropolis to PGR.

[2525] You might be right.

[2526] I think there was another driving game they did that was a slightly different name.

[2527] Goldeneye.

[2528] Before they got to it.

[2529] Yeah, that's it.

[2530] The club.

[2531] James Bond.

[2532] Yeah, so those guys are now available.

[2533] Should Microsoft want to put together a studio to make a new Project Gotham game?

[2534] Which is, to me, how this story should end.

[2535] Is going back to Microsoft.

[2536] It's like, okay, you guys can form a new studio or we'll buy Bazaar, whatever makes most sense at the time.

[2537] And get those guys working on a PGR and a new dual joystick.

[2538] Yeah, that's all well and good.

[2539] PGR, whatever.

[2540] I just care about what happens to Steve and Kate Britt.

[2541] Yes.

[2542] That dude could find work working on downloadable games anywhere, I'm sure.

[2543] But the problem is that Activision now...

[2544] But that's fine.

[2545] I think if you say from the makers of Geometry Wars, because Geometry Wars, really, what more do you do to it?

[2546] They pretty much perfected that in two, so if you made something that good in a slightly different style...

[2547] Classic move of separating from the legacy and making something completely bonkers.

[2548] Cakebread Studios.

[2549] Sure.

[2550] No studios, no. Just cake bread.

[2551] Steven Cakebread in a room making crazy dental in the game.

[2552] Steven Cakebread LLC.

[2553] Incorporated.

[2554] Steven Cakebread Presents.

[2555] I don't know how many people were associated with that project.

[2556] I don't know.

[2557] It was a hard -working team, I'm sure.

[2558] I'm pretty sure the first one was just him.

[2559] It sounded like, from talking to those guys, it sounded like it was kind of him.

[2560] Right.

[2561] It did sound like he was in a room by himself.

[2562] Like the music came from other people.

[2563] It's not just.

[2564] And those guys.

[2565] He is the essential component.

[2566] I have to say I really like Blur.

[2567] I mean, Bloodstone.

[2568] I mean, I don't know.

[2569] Didn't play it.

[2570] Yeah.

[2571] That seems like a case of Activision buying a studio and then not.

[2572] doing the things that that studio is already good at.

[2573] Right.

[2574] Hey, how about if you do this?

[2575] Want to try Guitar Hero?

[2576] Yeah, that was the next step probably.

[2577] It's like, well, you guys could do Guitar Hero.

[2578] Just shut us down.

[2579] I mean, you made that Bloodstone.

[2580] Why don't you try some Call of Duty maps now?

[2581] Right.

[2582] Yeah.

[2583] Yeah, I mean, the Bloodstone thing.

[2584] That felt just like Activision saying, like, here you go.

[2585] Here's what your next thing is.

[2586] Like, well, we were thinking here's – If you want to put some driving in it, that's fine too.

[2587] We don't really care.

[2588] It's a James Bond game.

[2589] You guys are British, so we figure this is a great thing.

[2590] You know how this works.

[2591] Just do it and have it to us by tomorrow.

[2592] Aston Martins.

[2593] Whatever.

[2594] Or they were working on a game that's like it's a kind of driving game.

[2595] It's like third -person shooting in.

[2596] I'd be like, great.

[2597] Call it James Bond.

[2598] I mean, I realize the market's tough.

[2599] Blur didn't hit.

[2600] It seems like Bloodstone didn't hit.

[2601] So you got two failures over the course of a year.

[2602] Financial failures.

[2603] I think that Blur was a critically successful game.

[2604] And I think Blur 2 would have...

[2605] But that's not how Activision works.

[2606] That's not the mindset.

[2607] I mean there's no Blur 2 coming out next year.

[2608] And I think I would have liked to have seen what they could do with the Blur 2.

[2609] But would it have come out next year?

[2610] Probably not.

[2611] And would it have done much better?

[2612] That style of game is really cool, but I don't think it's huge.

[2613] I mean, it didn't hit the first time, and I thought it was – I mean, I really liked it, but obviously the audience wasn't there for it.

[2614] And in a post -Gran Turismo world, who knows if it will.

[2615] Did it really not do that well?

[2616] I don't know.

[2617] I don't know for sure.

[2618] But it was new.

[2619] There were a lot of people playing.

[2620] It seemed like there were a lot of people excited about it, but then it was just like boop.

[2621] All that dried up.

[2622] It was like split -second blur.

[2623] I think reviewers were really into blur, and there were a lot of people talking about it, but that probably didn't translate into...

[2624] I think it was a matter of amount spent on advertising versus dividends on that.

[2625] And it was a game that had a longer development cycle than it was originally intended.

[2626] That was supposed to be a holiday 08 release that got pushed into early 09.

[2627] Wait, 09?

[2628] I'm sorry, it was supposed to be an 09 release, and it was pushed into...

[2629] Almost mid -10.

[2630] So, you know, they were not hitting on all cylinders, but it's still unfortunate when anyone loses their jobs, especially when it's cool dudes.

[2631] Anyways, moving on.

[2632] Some teasers about Bioware's new thing.

[2633] There's a picture of a dude with a gun.

[2634] People think it's Mass Effect related.

[2635] It's going to be at the VGA's.

[2636] They're going to reveal some damn trailer for it.

[2637] It's up this week.

[2638] It's the 11th.

[2639] So next.

[2640] I think I'm in the Mass Effect camp on that.

[2641] Isn't it the gun?

[2642] It just looks like a straight out of Mass Effect.

[2643] It could be a gun.

[2644] Or they could have just been recycling 3D art assets for this teaser or something like that and be like, yeah, I got a gun made.

[2645] BioWare is the kind of company to put their best foot forward on their teaser stuff.

[2646] They're not going to shortcut it.

[2647] So class -based multiplayer shooter seems to be a popular theory about this.

[2648] Thoughts.

[2649] A lot of evidence for it.

[2650] Like, they were, like, mining, or not mining, but they were sort of, like, excavating old job postings and stuff.

[2651] And Bioware Montreal was looking for, like, multiplayer designers and coders and stuff a few months ago.

[2652] Stuff like that.

[2653] I mean, if you follow kind of the Bioware...

[2654] Let's just say story development stuff.

[2655] Now is the time for the Mass Effect war to happen, right?

[2656] This is going to be the big war between everybody, between humans and kind of the Reavers coming through.

[2657] And if there is some kind of huge battle, this is where it's going to be.

[2658] Choose your side.

[2659] The thing that I had been hearing that I would prefer to that, though, is some first contact shit.

[2660] Oh, between the...

[2661] Let's take it back a little bit.

[2662] Oh.

[2663] Well, it could be set during that.

[2664] Yeah.

[2665] As a multiplayer game, it could easily be set.

[2666] Geez, I can't remember the names.

[2667] Who are the reptile...

[2668] The bird dudes?

[2669] Yeah, the Turians.

[2670] They're the ones that the humans run up against and have a war with.

[2671] Yeah, that's the first contact stuff.

[2672] That could totally work.

[2673] Yeah.

[2674] Especially if it's class -based.

[2675] You're right.

[2676] Yeah, that'd be cool.

[2677] I'd like to see some of that stuff.

[2678] And the dude that they show has kind of a Jarhead vibe to him.

[2679] But not Shepard, for sure.

[2680] Yeah, there's no way that's Shepard.

[2681] I mean, it could be someone's custom Shepard.

[2682] You have to figure that if they're announcing this next month, it'll probably be out next holiday, right?

[2683] Yeah.

[2684] Doesn't that make sense?

[2685] I would think so, yeah.

[2686] Would it make any sense to ship a multiplayer Mass Effect product next holiday and then...

[2687] Mass Effect 3, like six months later or something?

[2688] Like halfway through 12?

[2689] I think that absolutely makes sense.

[2690] Or even early 12, because 2 was early this year.

[2691] Like, two Mass Effect -branded products that close together.

[2692] Does that make sense?

[2693] I think it makes sense.

[2694] Sure, because they're...

[2695] Especially if this is...

[2696] Just multiplayer?

[2697] Yeah, it sounds like a multiplayer -focused product.

[2698] But is that just, like, overload of the brand?

[2699] Is it, like, getting it out in people's faces too much?

[2700] They were pretty big on the Mass Effect 2 push.

[2701] It's their Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[2702] Yeah.

[2703] I remember all the iPhone stuff and all the books and stuff from Mass Effect 2.

[2704] They were pretty...

[2705] Yeah, but, like, two games in a major franchise, like, six or less, or six or fewer months apart, seems kind of crazy.

[2706] It's the end of Mass Effect.

[2707] Maybe this is like the big finale.

[2708] The end of Shepard's story.

[2709] We're not saying it's the end of Mass Effect.

[2710] We're just saying the end of Shepard's story.

[2711] Mass Effect Reach.

[2712] What could it be?

[2713] Mass Effect Wars.

[2714] Portal 2 got delayed until April 18, 2011, which Valve itself has marked as the shortest delay in the history of Valve delays.

[2715] Self -aware.

[2716] Yeah.

[2717] It was a pretty good press release.

[2718] Grubbins on Ice, a Christmas -themed expansion pack for Costume Quest.

[2719] It's been announced and is forthcoming.

[2720] Still taking place in Halloween?

[2721] No. It's a Christmas thing.

[2722] Timed with, you know, Christmas.

[2723] Yeah.

[2724] I guess it happens in, like, the Monsterland that you're trying to get to in the original game.

[2725] Oh, through the portal, right?

[2726] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2727] So this is actually in on the other side.

[2728] Okay.

[2729] Apparently it's Christmas in Monsterland, too.

[2730] I just like that everyone was like, you guys should do another holiday -themed thing.

[2731] We fucking already were.

[2732] We're several steps ahead of you.

[2733] How much better would have been Thanksgiving, though?

[2734] Who does a Thanksgiving game?

[2735] Namco, Splatterhouse.

[2736] It's the reason for the season.

[2737] Black Friday.

[2738] I have to agree with a lot of commenters on the news story on the site about this.

[2739] It's trick -or -treating at Christmas in more costumes, which just makes no sense at all.

[2740] But that's why I thought it was still Halloween.

[2741] No, but caroling would have made perfect sense.

[2742] Because it's still got the house -to -house.

[2743] Have they showed enough of it for us to know that it doesn't have that?

[2744] Well, yeah, it's still the house -to -house going up and knocking on doors to fight monsters kind of mechanic.

[2745] Yeah, yeah.

[2746] I only saw the box art and I was like, well, maybe they are.

[2747] Maybe they are making it.

[2748] You don't trick -or -treat at Christmas?

[2749] You're wasting your time, man. Long Island, they trick -or -treat year -round.

[2750] Year -round, All Saints Day.

[2751] Come around with bags and say, give me everything you got.

[2752] That's trick -or -treating, right?

[2753] Yeah, something like that.

[2754] I'm dressed as a guy with a gun who has a bag.

[2755] Give me everything you got.

[2756] And a mask over your face.

[2757] Striped shirt.

[2758] Oh, all that news and more.

[2759] But we're not going to get to any of it because we've got to find time.

[2760] Let's talk about some new releases, gents.

[2761] Okay.

[2762] How do you feel about that?

[2763] As Jeff mentioned, Splatterhouse for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in stores this week.

[2764] Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

[2765] That game's $40.

[2766] All right.

[2767] Duly noted.

[2768] What is that game?

[2769] I don't know.

[2770] It's on my desk.

[2771] What is that game, Jeff?

[2772] On your desk.

[2773] It's on your desk.

[2774] We have multiple copies of it here.

[2775] We should try that out sometime.

[2776] Doesn't Majin mean devil?

[2777] I don't know.

[2778] I don't speak Italian.

[2779] Worms Battle Island for Nintendo Wii.

[2780] Don't ask me what that is.

[2781] It's about an island of worms.

[2782] They're fighting.

[2783] Done.

[2784] So you don't ask me because Jeff knows.

[2785] If you have any worms -related questions, point them his way.

[2786] Holy hand grenade.

[2787] John Daly's Pro Stroke Golf for Xbox 360.

[2788] We saw this with the Move controller on the PS3.

[2789] Don't believe that's Kinect supported.

[2790] Freaknik.

[2791] Michael Jackson, the experience for Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable.

[2792] Really?

[2793] Mm -hmm.

[2794] All right.

[2795] They're doing PS3 and 360, but those are coming out next year.

[2796] Okay.

[2797] Or so they say.

[2798] And Gran Turismo 5.

[2799] What?

[2800] Why do you even put that on there?

[2801] It comes out.

[2802] The day before Thanksgiving.

[2803] The last possible moment that they can release it before the shopping starts.

[2804] Pardon my French, but fuck you guys.

[2805] Whatever.

[2806] Does anybody own a copy yet?

[2807] Physical?

[2808] Besides people in France.

[2809] I pre -ordered.

[2810] Oh, did you?

[2811] I pre -ordered one.

[2812] You gotta get that thing from Amazon.

[2813] Copies have started showing up with United States -based reviewers.

[2814] Oh, okay.

[2815] This week, so.

[2816] This is it.

[2817] This is probably going to come out this time.

[2818] There's an unboxing of the limited edition on the PlayStation blog.

[2819] Like, it's probably going to come out this time.

[2820] What if there's a game -stopping bug just, like, right in the middle of it?

[2821] Just be like, ah!

[2822] Shit!

[2823] Copies are...

[2824] They can't patch it out.

[2825] It's like, oh, we've got to recall it.

[2826] No!

[2827] Copies are already at stores.

[2828] Yeah.

[2829] They're just sitting there waiting.

[2830] I got, like last week, someone at a Walmart sent me a picture they took with their iPhone.

[2831] This is happening.

[2832] I'm holding it in my hand.

[2833] It's real.

[2834] Oh, my gosh.

[2835] You know, all the boxes have the, you know, don't sell until this date.

[2836] 17 trillion cars, 500 ,000 billion kilometers of track.

[2837] So Walmart should be happy that as much as I tried to entice this employee to send me a copy early, he would not.

[2838] I need to order that game.

[2839] I need to find out what is in that disc.

[2840] I need to know.

[2841] Xbox Live Arcade this week.

[2842] Old pinball machine parts.

[2843] Xbox Live Arcade this week.

[2844] Crazy Taxi for 800 points.

[2845] You can check that out.

[2846] Quick look at that.

[2847] Already on the side.

[2848] Quick look at that.

[2849] Spider -House will be up by the time you hear this too, right?

[2850] That's right, yes.

[2851] Brad, you had mentioned the Fable 3 first DLC pack is...

[2852] It's supposed to be out.

[2853] I think it's out this week.

[2854] I think it's out today, actually.

[2855] All right.

[2856] Or tonight or something.

[2857] We were going to have preview coverage of that.

[2858] Yeah.

[2859] Preview code didn't work, so we'll be back with that.

[2860] Well, let's not say that that's happening.

[2861] Okay.

[2862] Because you thought that Dead Nation was coming out last week.

[2863] Yeah, that's next week.

[2864] And it's not even this week.

[2865] Oh, that's next week.

[2866] And Poker Night, that is definitely...

[2867] Poker Night's out.

[2868] Poker Night at the inventory.

[2869] Can we confirm that?

[2870] I played it.

[2871] We downloaded it.

[2872] We both have it on our Steams.

[2873] I played it for real.

[2874] Is the Mac version up?

[2875] Yes.

[2876] I know you guys played it, and you can check that out on the site.

[2877] Yeah, a quick look.

[2878] Is it purchasable?

[2879] Yeah.

[2880] We have our friends Jake and Sean from Telltale.

[2881] Wizard.

[2882] Coming over to show us their fucking poker game.

[2883] Yep.

[2884] What the hell?

[2885] You guys made a poker game.

[2886] They made a poker game.

[2887] So look at you.

[2888] What is that game?

[2889] It's a poker game.

[2890] Where you play against Tycho from Penny Arcade.

[2891] It is great.

[2892] The Heavy from Team Fortress 2.

[2893] You literally play poker and they tell stories and make one -liners and quips.

[2894] And it's just like...

[2895] But it is single player on there.

[2896] But they have like unique tells, right?

[2897] Wasn't that one of the things they were saying?

[2898] It's like, you're going to be able to figure out when they're bluffing.

[2899] We didn't play along enough.

[2900] I did see Tycho sort of like twiddling a 20 -sider at one point.

[2901] But that was for an all -in moment.

[2902] That was not like a tell.

[2903] That was a dramatic all -in.

[2904] Apparently there's a bunch of crazy unlocks too in there.

[2905] Like there's like weird camera filters and like...

[2906] ways to change the poker table and stuff.

[2907] Your definition of crazy is different than mine.

[2908] Well, but the stuff they were describing sounded pretty wild.

[2909] Yeah, I mean, I paid $4 .50 for this game.

[2910] I guess you can turn Max...

[2911] I'm okay with that.

[2912] Some of the unlocks include turning Max into a skeletal version of Max and reducing Strong Bad to N64 levels of polygon and texture detail, they said.

[2913] I mean, it's got some interesting color to it, but...

[2914] You should know, Jeff.

[2915] This is a poker game.

[2916] This is a single -player poker game.

[2917] Single -player Texas Hold 'em poker game.

[2918] A game that has been built in for free to such games as Dead Rising 2 and Red Dead Redemption.

[2919] Or available just for free on Xbox Live Arcade.

[2920] Not anymore.

[2921] I guess they surcharged for that.

[2922] But for a long time.

[2923] That's not to say that you cannot find places to play poker for free on the internet.

[2924] Go to giantbomb .net.

[2925] It's not a gambling site.

[2926] It's where the stars play.

[2927] I just want to make sure that everyone's expectations are properly managed.

[2928] You know what?

[2929] For the stories, though.

[2930] For $4 .50, I don't think you get expectations.

[2931] I think it's five now, right?

[2932] It's five.

[2933] I got the pre -order bonus.

[2934] I got the pre -order bonus.

[2935] But it seems like the ability to hear those characters act crazy is what you are coming for.

[2936] It's what you're paying for.

[2937] Is there a lot of dialogue in it?

[2938] Yes.

[2939] Or you can even throttle how much dialogue there is.

[2940] You can decide whether there's cursing or not.

[2941] There's straight up just like dialogue option of like how verbose are these dudes?

[2942] How much talking do they do?

[2943] It depends on how much poker you want to play versus how much.

[2944] It almost seems like the poker is just there to give you something to do while you listen to them tell stories.

[2945] Yeah, that seems cool.

[2946] That seems like enough for the price.

[2947] What do you think Tycho sounds like in your head?

[2948] It's not like how he sounds.

[2949] That's the weird part.

[2950] That character is fully voiced.

[2951] It's weird.

[2952] Does Jerry do the voice?

[2953] Jerry does not do the voice.

[2954] I guess that makes sense.

[2955] My first thought was like, did Jerry do this?

[2956] I'm like, well, no, because that would be even weirder if Jerry did this because he's not really that character.

[2957] It's like that's kind of his avatar, but it's weird.

[2958] I don't know.

[2959] It sounded weird when I heard it.

[2960] There was a professional voice actor that was, I guess, mutually agreed upon and then used.

[2961] It seemed like they got feedback from him.

[2962] I just like the idea of them being able to take these characters from all this different stuff and fit them all together.

[2963] More lawyers than designers.

[2964] Sure, I bet.

[2965] To make this game.

[2966] Confirmed.

[2967] Five lawyers, four developers.

[2968] For this game.

[2969] So the Poker AI is advanced.

[2970] Give you some perspective on that.

[2971] Out now.

[2972] Yeah, available on Steam and TelltaleGames .com right now.

[2973] PlayStation Network, we have...

[2974] Can I play as Tom Byron?

[2975] No. Damn it.

[2976] Well, I mean, you can say that you're Tom Byron and you can say...

[2977] All right, I'll play as Tom Byron.

[2978] I don't know what his play style is or if he doesn't nude or anything.

[2979] He's crazy, and yes.

[2980] BeatSketcher, a PlayStation Move product.

[2981] With the power of the PlayStation Move, BeatSketcher lets you create your own masterpiece and sketch colorful patterns with steady accuracy and flowing expression.

[2982] Doodle to the music in challenge mode and test your artistic flair against others in the competitive modes.

[2983] That's some sort of drawing game.

[2984] With music.

[2985] Yeah.

[2986] Auditorium HD.

[2987] Also PlayStation Move compatible.

[2988] Auditorium is a musical puzzle journey.

[2989] I'm not going to read any more of that.

[2990] Spelunker HD.

[2991] Oh, dude.

[2992] Is that finally coming out?

[2993] Spelunker HD.

[2994] Coming out.

[2995] The PlayStation Network as well?

[2996] That's only PlayStation Network.

[2997] Yeah.

[2998] Yeah.

[2999] Yeah.

[3000] Okay.

[3001] Wasn't sure if there was like some DS version or some other weird thing.

[3002] Nope.

[3003] HD from the DS.

[3004] Nope.

[3005] What's happening?

[3006] I don't have the DS list.

[3007] You don't have the DS list.

[3008] Skip it.

[3009] I printed up the DS list.

[3010] This is the week.

[3011] This is the week.

[3012] This is the week where we skip it.

[3013] I printed it.

[3014] It exists somewhere.

[3015] My Holiday Farm.

[3016] Dream Chronicles.

[3017] That came out last week on 360, didn't it?

[3018] Yeah, it did.

[3019] Pac -Man Championship Edition DX.

[3020] Now available for PlayStation Network.

[3021] I have not played the PlayStation version, but I'm going to assume you'll buy that shit.

[3022] Dragon's Lair HD.

[3023] Awesome.

[3024] You play as heroic knight Dirk the Daring as he journeys to a mysterious castle filled with danger in order to save the fair princess Daphne from the forces of evil and the towering dragon Singe.

[3025] How big is it?

[3026] Do they list the size?

[3027] They don't list the size.

[3028] These are PSN.

[3029] PSN.

[3030] PlayStation Network.

[3031] PSN.

[3032] PlayStation 3.

[3033] PSN.

[3034] HD.

[3035] HD.

[3036] HD.

[3037] High definition.

[3038] Good to hear that they have totally gone back to the original animation cells and got them in there at a higher resolution.

[3039] I'm sure that they didn't just make it widescreen.

[3040] HD.

[3041] The highest of definitions.

[3042] Quick look.

[3043] I really like German air games.

[3044] And Magic the Gathering, Duels of the Planeswalkers.

[3045] Another thing, I think.

[3046] Yeah, that's been out elsewhere.

[3047] I wanted to mention they're having a sale of a bunch of stuff on the PlayStation Network this week, as I think they kind of do on the regular.

[3048] That's super great, though.

[3049] Joe Danger for half price is the one thing I wanted to point out.

[3050] It's usually $15, $7 .50 now.

[3051] That's a cool game.

[3052] If you don't already own it, Joe Danger is a ton of fun.

[3053] Is that a PSN exclusive?

[3054] That is a PSN exclusive.

[3055] You're not going to find that anywhere else, so you need to get it there.

[3056] And it's good.

[3057] It's really, really good.

[3058] I've wanted to get that for a while.

[3059] I think we have a version around here somewhere that runs on a PC.

[3060] That's crazy.

[3061] I don't know anything about it.

[3062] I'm totally going to forget to buy that.

[3063] Because when it was an IGF game, it totally ran on a PC with Xbox 360 button things.

[3064] I did not save any of those IGF builds.

[3065] You destroyed them as you were instructed.

[3066] Burned that hard drive.

[3067] That's all I've got for new releases.

[3068] Moving on.

[3069] Black Friday.

[3070] We have to do it now.

[3071] It's not how this works, Brad.

[3072] Do you want to email me the Nintendo releases?

[3073] Not really.

[3074] You read them then.

[3075] Hey, you know how there's like no TNT this week?

[3076] You're saying there should be no Nintendo.

[3077] I at least want to know what's out.

[3078] It's okay.

[3079] We need to do a public service.

[3080] Let me find them.

[3081] Let me find them.

[3082] Do you guys, are you guys doing anything Black Friday or Thanksgiving sales style?

[3083] You already bought a TV, so you're a major consumer purchase.

[3084] How much is your time worth?

[3085] Well, because Amazon and a lot of online retailers are doing it.

[3086] Steam will have probably something.

[3087] Don't they do the whole following Monday thing?

[3088] Cyber.

[3089] Amazon started doing video game deals as of today, I think.

[3090] Oh, did they?

[3091] I feel like I need to keep track of that stuff.

[3092] That's what Twitter's for.

[3093] Yeah, but if I'm on Twitter, I might as well just be loading up Amazon, right?

[3094] On a computer.

[3095] Have someone else sift through it for the really good deals and post about it on Twitter, and then you go, oh, okay.

[3096] Yeah, so somebody let me know who's doing that so I can follow that.

[3097] Well, there's the, I think it's Amazon Games.

[3098] Do you just follow that?

[3099] Yeah, they have their own Twitter account.

[3100] It's a Twitter account for their game sales, yeah.

[3101] All right, so for Nintendo stuff, real quick, they started doing, I guess, I feel like they did this before, but they announced this like it's a new fucking thing, demos of WiiWare games.

[3102] Well, it's like they did it.

[3103] for a while and then they pulled all the demos down.

[3104] They're like, this was a great success.

[3105] Now we're done.

[3106] Now we're done.

[3107] Thanks.

[3108] So now they're saying, hey, you can get demos on, like, wait, I feel like I went to this before.

[3109] So the listing has just a shitload of, you can get demo versions of these games.

[3110] But we're not reading those.

[3111] Snowpack Park for WiiWare.

[3112] Some sort of snow game.

[3113] Snowpack Park.

[3114] DSiWare, Tetris Party Live, Supermarket Mania, and Music On, Electric Guitar.

[3115] And then VC is Spin Master for Neo Geo.

[3116] Side -scrolling game originally released in 1993.

[3117] Yeah.

[3118] Play the role of adventurer Johnny.

[3119] Night Train Monfries.

[3120] Apparently, Dr. DePlane has stolen your piece of treasure.

[3121] Oh, man. Anyways, moving on.

[3122] Damn it, Dr. DePlane!

[3123] Emails.

[3124] Sorry.

[3125] I apologize.

[3126] You said emails before.

[3127] I said emails.

[3128] I see your emails all day long.

[3129] Let's say it again.

[3130] Literally, it's sitting across from him.

[3131] Sometimes he's just mouthing the word email.

[3132] Just practicing.

[3133] What are you doing later?

[3134] You want to talk some emails?

[3135] Email.

[3136] Bombcast at giantbomb .com is the email address.

[3137] Sean K. With the recent departure...

[3138] I'm sorry.

[3139] Sean K says...

[3140] Hey, Bombcast.

[3141] Hey.

[3142] With the recent departure of Patrice Desilets, creative director of the Assassin's Creed games, I have to admit I'm a little concerned about how Assassin's Creed 3 will turn out without the guy who was really in charge of the overall vision of what the franchise has become.

[3143] Is my nervousness justified, or would you say that there was plenty...

[3144] There was probably enough collaboration on those games that this may not...

[3145] really be an issue.

[3146] It just feels like you're going to start something.

[3147] I'd rather the same people carry on the franchise onward rather than have some random dude come in and potentially fuck things up.

[3148] I have to imagine that there are, you know, I mean, keep in mind the Assassin's Creed series is a series that has had more people work on it probably than any other series in the history of video games.

[3149] At once.

[3150] At once.

[3151] Let's say.

[3152] A lot of people have touched those games.

[3153] I mean, so you're not just going to get random guys like...

[3154] You are the new creative director of Assassin's Creed 3.

[3155] I got a lot of good ideas.

[3156] He's just going to keep it in Italy, man. Let's just go back to Italy.

[3157] Fuck Italy, man. Shit.

[3158] Only if it's Space Italy.

[3159] That's what I'm thinking.

[3160] Future Italian.

[3161] You mean Sicily.

[3162] As we like to call it.

[3163] I think Patrice was probably instrumental to a lot of the decisions made for that franchise.

[3164] I think it's a loss for Ubisoft that he's moved on.

[3165] There are a ton of people that have worked on Assassin's Creed, so I have to imagine they'll be able to find people that have worked on...

[3166] Have a pretty good idea.

[3167] Yeah, have a pretty good handle on a vision for the future for that series.

[3168] I have to imagine that even if it's not set in stone, that a lot of the big picture stuff or the beats for an Assassin's Creed 3 have been probably pretty well mapped out.

[3169] I don't know.

[3170] Did you play Assassin's Creed 2?

[3171] Did you finish that game?

[3172] Yeah.

[3173] They have no idea where the hell that story's going.

[3174] They're just making it up.

[3175] I feel like they're making it up as I'm playing that game.

[3176] Then you need to finish.

[3177] You need to finish Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[3178] Oh, really?

[3179] Okay.

[3180] I do need to finish Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[3181] How crazy is it, by the way, not to make this long podcast longer, but how crazy is it that for the longest time everyone thought of, and some people still think of it.

[3182] I see forum posts all the time.

[3183] I didn't even know that game had a single player.

[3184] That ended up getting pigeonholed as a multiplayer game because people heard they were looking for designers.

[3185] It's like this Mass Effect thing.

[3186] Where they're saying, oh, maybe it's a multiplayer shooter.

[3187] Well, yeah, maybe, but maybe it's also this whole big single -player thing, too, and people are going to think of it as...

[3188] I don't think it's that.

[3189] I think it's a massive failing on Ubisoft's behalf because they did not talk at all about the single -player portion of that game until very near the game's launch.

[3190] But months and months leading up to that, you've got the multiplayer beta going up.

[3191] You've got a lot of preview coverage of that stuff.

[3192] They just didn't let people know that there is this...

[3193] massive fucking single -player experience there.

[3194] Also, in the branding of it, it's not Assassin's Creed 3, and they call it Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[3195] It just sounds like...

[3196] That sounds like a multiplayer game.

[3197] Yeah, it sounds like a multiplayer game.

[3198] It's not Assassin's Creed 2 something, Ezio continues or something.

[3199] It's just weird.

[3200] It's a bummer, too.

[3201] Assassin's Creed 2, Ezio bones and bones.

[3202] bummed out by a lot of things.

[3203] I don't know why.

[3204] You shouldn't.

[3205] It's a bummer.

[3206] But it's a really great week.

[3207] It's a great week.

[3208] I've now caught myself saying bummer.

[3209] You're finding the dark lining in everything.

[3210] Well, no, that's a sad thing.

[3211] People aren't into the single player because it seems...

[3212] Or people just don't know it exists.

[3213] Once everyone learns that there is, they're like, oh shit, that's great.

[3214] I'm going to go get this.

[3215] I didn't think that I was going to give a shit.

[3216] You should see where that story goes because fuck.

[3217] I don't know how I feel about the ending to that game.

[3218] Oh no, really?

[3219] I don't know how I feel about the ending to that game.

[3220] I like what it sets up for the future, but it's fucked up.

[3221] They're not afraid to continue shaking things up and doing crazy things.

[3222] All right.

[3223] You do not expect the ending coming.

[3224] Now I do.

[3225] No. Well, now I expect the unexpected.

[3226] Nope.

[3227] You can't even.

[3228] Moving on.

[3229] I'm about to have six days off here and I'm starting to think about playing all Assassin's Creed all the time.

[3230] You need to go back to one.

[3231] I've got to fucking man up and play Brotherhood in like a day and a quarter.

[3232] I've got my save three assassinations into the first game.

[3233] I've got my save file.

[3234] Fuck the first game.

[3235] Don't worry about the first game.

[3236] I didn't finish the first game either.

[3237] Don't even bother.

[3238] Don't even worry about the second game.

[3239] What?

[3240] Don't even worry about the second game.

[3241] Forget that.

[3242] From the start of Brotherhood.

[3243] Yeah, that's weird.

[3244] They don't do a good enough job.

[3245] It's all or nothing.

[3246] That's what's keeping me from getting into Assassin's Creed.

[3247] I have to play it all.

[3248] You need to start from the first game, collect every flag.

[3249] Otherwise, you're not a man. Otherwise, you'll have no idea what's going on.

[3250] You might think you do.

[3251] It's either that or play Borderlands.

[3252] Watch YouTube videos of the first game.

[3253] Play the second game.

[3254] All right.

[3255] And play Brotherhood.

[3256] You, of all people, would advocate Assassin's Creed over Borderlands.

[3257] Dude, we'll get some Borderlands in.

[3258] Don't worry.

[3259] Would you go play some Assassin's Creed?

[3260] When you're off on your own.

[3261] Yeah.

[3262] Yeah, all right.

[3263] It is 2010's 2009 game of the year.

[3264] It's true.

[3265] All right, next email comes from Tyler.

[3266] Sorry about that.

[3267] In RTP, North Carolina.

[3268] Shit.

[3269] Reppin'.

[3270] Triangle represents.

[3271] Hey, Giant Bomb.

[3272] I've been playing a few Konami Rhythm games lately, all of which have the same quirky English that has been riddled throughout Japanese games since forever.

[3273] Are the instructions like move your feet not slowly to the happy rhythm of ultimate song to becoming the dancing master still kept in these games in 2010 for their Japanese charm?

[3274] Or do the laws of grammar not apply to localization teams?

[3275] I feel like if this is still happening in DDR games in 2010, like you're not playing super old DDR games, then that has to be 100 % deliberate.

[3276] I don't know.

[3277] I think part of it is, you know, it's not.

[3278] It's not a great return on investment, spending money localizing those games properly.

[3279] It's like, eh, whatever.

[3280] It's fine.

[3281] So intentionally unintentional.

[3282] Like intentionally not putting the money in there to get these unintentional mistakes.

[3283] You know what?

[3284] You gain nothing by making DDR more readable.

[3285] Right.

[3286] It's not a game.

[3287] Sure.

[3288] It's not a big story -driven game.

[3289] No. Like you don't need to do native English voice work for Babysitting Mama.

[3290] Like whatever you've got in the Japanese version.

[3291] Whatever you've got out of whatever you've got, period, out of any version, out of anything.

[3292] just plug words into a japanese robot and see what comes out and ship it no no no don't shake the baby oh man joe writes in subject line fucking balloons god right hey bomb casters i have a quick question when was the last time you saw a balloon vendor My wife and I were discussing how ridiculous the scene in Heavy Raid is when you buy Jason a balloon is.

[3293] Who is still buying their kids balloons?

[3294] What kind of kid actually wants a balloon?

[3295] Is it possible to have a less fun toy?

[3296] Yeah, the super scary clown standing in the middle of the mall selling balloons.

[3297] I think there are balloons.

[3298] Just like batting them around, you know?

[3299] I think there still are.

[3300] Maybe not in a mall.

[3301] Maybe at, like, a fair or something.

[3302] Yeah, like on the boardwalk.

[3303] Yeah.

[3304] I think kids...

[3305] Yeah, go to, like, a boardwalk or go to, like...

[3306] But it has to be, like, a fancy...

[3307] You can't just sell...

[3308] I think you're overestimating, like, kids' enjoyment of things that float around.

[3309] Like, kids love cardboard boxes.

[3310] Like, you know...

[3311] Remember fucking...

[3312] There is a whole other angle on this issue, which is that heavy rain takes place in European America.

[3313] Right?

[3314] This is true.

[3315] This is true.

[3316] Just remember how...

[3317] Professor Layton is all Japanese Europe.

[3318] Yeah, same thing.

[3319] European America.

[3320] European America.

[3321] Sort of like Japanese Canada.

[3322] Alejandro writes in with this difficult choice for us to make a call on.

[3323] Which would be more difficult for your lifestyle?

[3324] Having eyes that can only look up or a right hand you can only use while you're yelling?

[3325] So, Vinny, you can only use your right hand if you are yelling.

[3326] All right.

[3327] I already do that anyway.

[3328] I'm Italian.

[3329] But not just for grabbing your crotch or doing that thing where you scrape your fingers underneath your chin.

[3330] I think or Isaac can only look up with no qualifier.

[3331] No qualifier.

[3332] I think the hand that can only move while I'm yelling is way better because then you can yell to do any task.

[3333] But if your eyes only look up, you can never get them to not look up.

[3334] You just move your head down.

[3335] Yeah, but what about down here?

[3336] It's like this.

[3337] But I could just be yelling all the time.

[3338] Now I can scratch my crotch as much as I want.

[3339] I'm tying my shoelaces because now I can just tie my shoelaces.

[3340] Jeff's doing it.

[3341] Jeff's living.

[3342] It just means I look sexy at people all the time.

[3343] I'm like, hey, hi.

[3344] I've got good peripheral vision too, so I don't even need to look like down, down.

[3345] Yeah, but like your eyes, they'll.

[3346] mess you up.

[3347] You're going to fall on your face.

[3348] I'm a -walking.

[3349] See, and Jeff, you have all the reason to go with the other because you're left -handed.

[3350] So, like, using your right hand, you'd be like, eh, whatever.

[3351] But just think about telling that to people, too.

[3352] I can only use this when I'm yelling.

[3353] That's why I gotta yell so much.

[3354] Be like, no, I don't.

[3355] I can use it whenever I want.

[3356] You should just start doing that anyway.

[3357] You're like, wait, what sort of condition do you have that you can only use your right hand?

[3358] It's so sad.

[3359] Vinny's got such a – what does he even have?

[3360] I don't know, but I didn't want to ask him.

[3361] This next email comes in for you, Vinny.

[3362] Nobody else is going to weigh in on the hand situation?

[3363] I'm going with eyes because that means I would have to yell whenever I'm trying to write anything.

[3364] Which would be terrible.

[3365] Trying to...

[3366] I'm usually writing angry letters, so...

[3367] I'm left -handed, so it wouldn't really...

[3368] Can you mumble yell?

[3369] Nice thing you did, I think...

[3370] Yeah, get on mumble.

[3371] Get off my mumble!

[3372] You can yell on mumble.

[3373] Balls of steel.

[3374] Brad, do you have any thoughts on this?

[3375] Where do you weigh in?

[3376] I'll go with the hand thing, because I'm always screaming on the inside anyway.

[3377] Well, then you have to scream on the outside.

[3378] Yeah, let it out, man. Think of, like, if you're gonna come after me because of my disability...

[3379] I just need a separate room and a separate office because that's how many of these have worked.

[3380] So they just don't employ you.

[3381] They say, yes, you didn't have the skill set.

[3382] Then I sue you and then I'm even better.

[3383] Yeah.

[3384] I wonder if you're like yelling like specific stuff or it's just like, ah!

[3385] I think you could probably just have filler yell.

[3386] Like there are times when it makes more sense for me to yell like what it is that I'm doing.

[3387] But at some point you're going to get hoarse, right?

[3388] And you're just going to be like, ah!

[3389] You can't use your right hand anymore.

[3390] No, you're still yelling.

[3391] I don't think if you're making the effort.

[3392] Anyway.

[3393] If you're making the effort.

[3394] What's our next question?

[3395] Vin from New Jersey writes in with this question for you, Vinny.

[3396] Is this a spelling thing?

[3397] No. Okay.

[3398] Is Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2 the best song ever?

[3399] That's really funny.

[3400] Why is he asking this?

[3401] I don't know.

[3402] It's just apropos of nothing.

[3403] Wait, this is really weird.

[3404] I know.

[3405] That's why I'm asking you.

[3406] Have we talked about this?

[3407] I don't think so.

[3408] This must have come up somewhere.

[3409] Maybe.

[3410] I was just having this discussion with you.

[3411] Yeah, we were having a lengthy conversation about how it's the worst song ever.

[3412] Oh, what are you talking about?

[3413] Have you listened to it with headphones?

[3414] No. I need to give you my copy of Rock and Roll Part 2 and listen to it with headphones.

[3415] Who sent this in?

[3416] Vin.

[3417] This is my wife.

[3418] No, Vin.

[3419] What's the email address?

[3420] I'm going to read that out loud, but it's...

[3421] Anyway, listen to it with headphones on.

[3422] It's like the dude took out a memo recorder or something like that, had a guitar, had an idea, and does it all himself.

[3423] And some of it's recorded in the bathroom.

[3424] The guitars are super thin.

[3425] The drums...

[3426] And they're also panned to the left.

[3427] The drums are center panned, but they sound kind of terrible.

[3428] And the vocalized parts are horrible.

[3429] It's like...

[3430] It's a part where he comes in and then drops out.

[3431] It's like, hey.

[3432] And it's really weird.

[3433] They spent all their money recording part one.

[3434] But it's not the version you remember hearing.

[3435] Every time you hear that song, there's gang vocals and dudes thumping on seats and stuff.

[3436] It's a different song.

[3437] It's so weird.

[3438] Maybe it's the version I have.

[3439] Sharks!

[3440] Maybe you have some click track version.

[3441] And then there's a part where it goes, hey.

[3442] It just sounds like it doesn't know what he's doing either.

[3443] It's like, I'm going to fill this in with lyrics later on.

[3444] So it's just kind of like temp track right now.

[3445] Maybe you've got to click track or something.

[3446] Maybe this was demo version.

[3447] Also, I had this conversation with my wife yesterday about I'm just going to write songs to fill that gap of what rock and roll part two leaves behind.

[3448] Are you going to write rock and roll part three?

[3449] But it would be songs that like stadium songs.

[3450] So like one of them was I shouldn't give these away for free.

[3451] But I'm just going to say one of them is like.

[3452] Like, We Won, You Lost.

[3453] That's a song.

[3454] And Go Home, It's Over.

[3455] So, like, just songs that you basically can cue up and play during the middle.

[3456] Go home.

[3457] It's over.

[3458] Like, just songs that people chant.

[3459] Just a good chant.

[3460] Yeah.

[3461] So look for those coming on.

[3462] V. Caravella is going to start working on sports chants.

[3463] Now I need to write in the next day before this podcast goes up.

[3464] Yep.

[3465] You've got less than 24 hours from this recording.

[3466] Crap.

[3467] Because those courses, those hooks are real tough.

[3468] Get to work.

[3469] Anyway, I'm going to mail them to myself.

[3470] Good call.

[3471] Mail this podcast to me. All right.

[3472] That's it for emails.

[3473] Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

[3474] Who wrote that email?

[3475] Vin from New Jersey.

[3476] No, I didn't.

[3477] Why would I think to write that?

[3478] Why would I decide that I know what's going to be funny?

[3479] Why wouldn't I just bring that up?

[3480] Why do I just say, like, speaking of NBA Jam, I could segue that easily.

[3481] All right.

[3482] I will.

[3483] I will.

[3484] I'll listen to that for you and for me. But that's it.

[3485] That's it for this week's podcast.

[3486] Also, Bananaramas, Na Na Hey Hey.

[3487] Also, Weird Listen.

[3488] I think you want a different version of that song.

[3489] Yeah.

[3490] Just saying.

[3491] Good to know.

[3492] Before that email comes in.

[3493] Gentlemen, thank you for your time.

[3494] Thanks, everyone, for listening.

[3495] And, hey, y 'all have a happy, safe, and sane Thanksgiving.

[3496] I stockpiled games.

[3497] Not to drag this podcast out any longer, but I'm just going to say I got The Seperture, Alpha Protocol, Dante's Inferno.

[3498] Christ.

[3499] Wet.

[3500] Do you fucking hate yourself?

[3501] All the hits of Gamefly is sound.

[3502] I imagine people can actually hear how hard I'm furrowing my brow.

[3503] I'm furrowing towards the microphone so people can tell.

[3504] They all came to the box and they're all sitting there ready to go.

[3505] My stack is at least recent games, like Enslaved and Fallout New Vegas.

[3506] I'll play Enslaved.

[3507] Somebody play Enslaved.

[3508] My Enslaved said it's not going to come until after Thanksgiving for some reason.

[3509] Did you buy it from that Amazon sale, the $25?

[3510] That was criminal.

[3511] Yeah, but I had $20 off, so I got it for $5.

[3512] Oh, my God.

[3513] Well, they give you money for buying games.

[3514] Anyway, let's play Borderlands.

[3515] I'm going to play Assassin's Creed.

[3516] Yeah, let's play Borderlands.

[3517] All right, that's it.

[3518] Yeah, if you're in America, have a happy Thanksgiving.

[3519] If not – Have a merry Thanksgiving.

[3520] Exactly.

[3521] But we'll be back.

[3522] So come on back next Tuesday for another edition of the Giant Bombcast.