Giant Bombcast 11-29-2011

[0] It's Tuesday, November the 29th, 2011, and you are listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] We are joined this lovely week by none other than Screen .com's Alex Navarro.

[3] Alex, how you doing?

[4] I'm doing pretty good.

[5] Straight in from the East Coast.

[6] Yes.

[7] Just here to do the Bombcast.

[8] New York City's own.

[9] Yes.

[10] I'm representing Queens.

[11] You're here for the holiday.

[12] I am.

[13] I was here for the holiday.

[14] How was your holiday?

[15] It was very nice.

[16] I saw family.

[17] How's the family?

[18] Good.

[19] I ate a lot of food.

[20] Great.

[21] That's what happens.

[22] Bought some stuff.

[23] Did some things.

[24] Mostly I slept.

[25] I slept a lot.

[26] I like sleeping.

[27] Very good.

[28] Did you play any video games?

[29] Not since I've been here.

[30] Oh my god.

[31] Why did we even have him on here?

[32] I was playing video games before the break.

[33] I don't know.

[34] Why am I even here?

[35] You played video games.

[36] I was supposed to be out of town for this.

[37] That was kind of all you did was play video games.

[38] Jeez.

[39] Now I have to be in this podcast with this guy.

[40] Yeah, I know, I know.

[41] Timing didn't work out.

[42] Good scheduling, you guys.

[43] Good job.

[44] Patrick Klebik's here.

[45] Hey.

[46] And Jeff Gersman, as you've already heard, Brad Shoemaker.

[47] Hello.

[48] Keeping it real.

[49] We actually, that was like one of the arguments for delaying the podcast yesterday.

[50] Was it?

[51] Oh, if we do it tomorrow, then Jeff can be on it.

[52] That's a bad argument.

[53] You're welcome.

[54] It's an argument.

[55] He's on it every week.

[56] Like, who cares?

[57] He's not special anymore.

[58] Well, because he was the only full year who played Star Wars The Old Republic over the weekend.

[59] So he can provide us some insight into that experience.

[60] You hit dudes.

[61] You push the one key to swing a lightsaber.

[62] What's the use key?

[63] One.

[64] Is it one?

[65] I don't know.

[66] Use what?

[67] Lightsaber?

[68] What's the button that I press to interact with a quest giver?

[69] You right click on them.

[70] What if I want to use a button instead of right clicking?

[71] I don't know.

[72] There's never been a podcast more informative on the subject of the Old Republic than this one.

[73] Breaking new grounds here.

[74] Let's start at the beginning.

[75] How much does it feel like World of Warcraft?

[76] All of it.

[77] Pretty much.

[78] God damn it.

[79] There are speeders instead of griffins.

[80] Really?

[81] Yeah.

[82] To get around a zone.

[83] But everyone talks now.

[84] Yeah.

[85] Everyone talks now.

[86] Well, they called that their fourth pillar, right?

[87] Or it was a pillar.

[88] It was the idea that...

[89] MMOs don't have stories, so we're going to give MMOs real stories and real voice acting, but I kind of get the impression it's like, here's all this real voice acting, now go get 10 moles.

[90] It's like this lead -up to a bad quest.

[91] It's six cat teeth, not 10 moles.

[92] Just cat teeth?

[93] Cat teeth.

[94] And then the cat teeth don't drop one -to -one off.

[95] You can't just go kill one cat and get six teeth out of its mouth, even though the model clearly has plenty of teeth in it.

[96] You have to go kill a bunch of cats and wait for the teeth to drop.

[97] Oh, so it's an MMO is what you're saying.

[98] It seems very well made.

[99] And if you like that sort of game and are willing to continue to play that sort of game, I think that they have made one of those games.

[100] We can confirm they made an MMO.

[101] But all the talking and stuff...

[102] is neat for a while.

[103] So I played a Jedi because that seemed like the right answer.

[104] And...

[105] Early on, they put you some kind of cool stuff.

[106] They introduced you to some characters, and you get your talk on in kind of the classic Bioware sense of, look at these camera angles.

[107] Here's this dude standing here.

[108] Now you have a dialogue wheel.

[109] And the dialogue is kind of like what you choose, but it's not word for word.

[110] Exactly, yeah.

[111] And if you take too long, the last thing they said pops up as a little reminder of what you're actually answering.

[112] Oh, that sounds very familiar.

[113] It is the Bioware dialogue system, you know?

[114] And then if you want to be a good guy, you push one.

[115] If you want to be a bad guy, you push three.

[116] And then two is, you know, somewhere.

[117] Smart Alec.

[118] Two is if you don't want any light side or dark side points for your choices, thus locking you out of gear in the late game.

[119] So there's no reason to not.

[120] There's no light side, dark side stuff for other classes, though.

[121] Isn't there?

[122] I think everyone has it.

[123] That's got to be everybody.

[124] It's not every single decision you make.

[125] It'll be certain dialogue choices will be kind of the light side.

[126] But when you chose your character and class and everything, you still had to choose, like, Imperial?

[127] Exactly, yeah.

[128] But you could end up having a lot of dark side points, but still on, you know, Republic.

[129] So the loot has a moral affinity?

[130] There is loot that has that requirement.

[131] There's loot that has a social requirement.

[132] So you have to have grouped up with people and stuff to use some of the gear.

[133] There's gear you can only buy for commendation points that you earn in that zone.

[134] They've got a lot of different shops.

[135] That's not even counting the collector's edition shop that will be for people who bought the collector's edition.

[136] Wait, what?

[137] Yeah, that's one of the perks of buying the – I think it's not even the digital collector's edition.

[138] I think it's only the physical one that there is an in -game shop.

[139] I hate what video games have become.

[140] I hate it.

[141] So the dialogue, I think a lot of the voice acting is really great.

[142] It's certainly better than other MMOs in that respect.

[143] I want to say I heard a Nolan North voice right out the gate on the smuggler quest line.

[144] Are you running into repeat voices much at all?

[145] Not so much.

[146] I played until level 11, so I ended up spending most of Sunday playing it.

[147] What's the point of all this grandiose voice acting and setup if the actual quests themselves or what you're doing are not elevated to the same level?

[148] It just seems like a bunch of setup for...

[149] Yeah, so that's where it sort of broke for me. There's some stuff really early on as you're kind of ascending from Padawan to Jedi at an incredibly rapid rate because you're gifted with the Force.

[150] Lucky you.

[151] And that stuff's all pretty interesting.

[152] I thought it was well done enough.

[153] And about two hours in, I found myself just kind of not watching any of the cut scenes anymore.

[154] You know, I had my laptop sitting there and I was just like, I'm just going to look at the Internet while these guys get their talk on.

[155] Then I will look over and press the one key because I've already ended up getting some light side points and I might as well keep getting them because if I don't get enough, then I can't, then I might not be able to reach the top tier of light side gear.

[156] It'd be dumb to have both light side and dark side points.

[157] Is it binary?

[158] Is it like the KOTOR light -dark system where it will swing?

[159] Or is it just like two different buckets that you're just throwing points into?

[160] I think it's two different buckets.

[161] Because it's – when you make the choice, the light side icon appears on screen and says how many points you just got for pushing the one key.

[162] So you could theoretically have like – Some of each.

[163] Some of each.

[164] I think because I don't think it necessarily will subtract.

[165] But I didn't make any dark side choices because I kept it in the one key.

[166] I wonder if it would lock you out of – like if you unlock some gear at the light side and then start swinging to the dark, do you start – Like, losing access to those things?

[167] Are those contingent?

[168] I don't know.

[169] I didn't earn enough points to even, or even get to a point where I could see what that gear even was.

[170] The fact that the, like, light side, dark side stuff, like, those distinctions are separate from the Republic -Imperial, like, faction thing seems crazy to me. Well, that seems, like, potentially interesting from a story perspective if they take advantage of it.

[171] But, you know, people that have played a lot more of this beta than I have have said that it's...

[172] there's no noticeable change yeah uh which seems uh missed opportunity yeah yeah like well then why do it um and you know you you end up with uh with companions sort of like kotor you know you'll have dudes kind of rolling with you and they will you will earn affection points so you will earn or lose affection points with your companion based on what you say And that's not something quite as simple as they are a light side person or they are a dark side person, or at least that's what the tool tip said.

[173] My robot liked it when I was nice.

[174] So you have a friendly robot is what you're saying.

[175] Yeah, I had a friendly robot that liked it when I upheld the law and was a nice Jedi.

[176] So can you not just straight up skip the dialogue?

[177] As the dialogue is playing out, can you not click through it to speed it up?

[178] I didn't try.

[179] Yeah.

[180] You're making all of Bioware management really sad by saying things like this because they have spent so goddamn much money making all this shit happen.

[181] It's just really clear that it was kind of heading in this direction for a while.

[182] Like, at the original pitch of Old Republic, I remember being at those first events for the game where, like, hey, we were going to take an MMO base.

[183] We're going to...

[184] We're going to evolve it.

[185] We're going to make this beyond World of Warcraft.

[186] It's going to be real story driven.

[187] This is going to be KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

[188] That was their pitch.

[189] That has been their pitch all along.

[190] The KOTOR 3 through 7.

[191] That's their thing to get people like me who's like, I don't want to play this that much.

[192] It seems like it's actually kind of come back around to what you would have expected, which is...

[193] Perhaps a better Star Wars MMO than there was before.

[194] So the part where it really broke for me on the dialogue side was there is a quest where you're out kind of in the wild and you find a pile of bones with a data pad there.

[195] You right -click on it.

[196] You see a little holographic recording of some guy who needs medicine for his kid, and the medicine must be made out of cat teeth.

[197] And he's just talking and talking and talking, sending this message.

[198] Hopefully someone will see it someday because I don't think I can make it.

[199] And then you go through all this stuff and it's like, go get six cat teeth.

[200] God damn it.

[201] But they must be the cat teeth from these specific cats in this specific area.

[202] We know they're the exact same cats in the cave, but they will not drop the teeth.

[203] Don't be a fool.

[204] So you tried to go get them from somewhere.

[205] Yeah.

[206] So, I mean, you know, it is an MMO.

[207] Business as usual.

[208] Yeah, exactly.

[209] Don't think it's not going to be that game.

[210] There were cases later on where I was getting my talk on with a guy who said, you've got to go fight this guy because they've kidnapped this doctor.

[211] Now run all the way across this zone, which is pretty much empty, by the way.

[212] Just huge halls, just gigantic areas with absolutely nothing in them.

[213] Here's a table.

[214] Keep going.

[215] No people?

[216] No people in a lot of these areas, too.

[217] That's not to say that the entire zone is devoid of people, but there are large hallways and stuff in this Senate area that does just nothing.

[218] Is it assuming that maybe that would be all players once the game launches?

[219] I guess, but what would they be doing there?

[220] There's no vendors there unless you're there to socialize and like, I'm waiting for someone to log in so we can go play, which you'd be doing that in the cantina because you earned rest while you're there.

[221] So they've built these huge environments and put like nothing in them.

[222] So point being, I'm running all the way across this zone, staring at the map half the time because it's not always the most clearly designed building.

[223] Get to the other end, kill four dudes with a lightsaber, go through some dialogue that says, man, the agent's going to want to hear about everything you just did.

[224] You should probably go tell him.

[225] Then run all the way back.

[226] No fast travel.

[227] There's fast travel that you can use every 30 minutes to move around the zone, but it's like the Hearthstone.

[228] It's like the classic kind of MMO thing.

[229] You can't just rely on it every single time.

[230] So if you'd used that recently, you would definitely have to run more back.

[231] But it's not like you can't just pay someone like, hey, take me across town.

[232] No, no. There are taxis that will take you around the zone, and that's the speeder bikes that basically act as the Griffins in World of Warcraft.

[233] I didn't see any where I was.

[234] It was just sort of, all right, now you got to go over here.

[235] It sounds like it might not be bad.

[236] I just feel like people have been misled perhaps to what this actually is going to end up being.

[237] Maybe, yeah.

[238] I think it's hard for expectation management.

[239] With the number of years.

[240] For as long as it's been in development.

[241] The amount of money that is supposedly being thrown at this thing.

[242] And perhaps how they originally pitched it and haven't changed that pitch.

[243] Well, the way they continue to lean into the BioWare clout.

[244] Right.

[245] Which gives a certain expectation.

[246] Try cashing on that.

[247] I also feel like all the coverage of that game pretty much over the last year has literally just been everyone shouting as loud as they can, hey guys, this is an MMO.

[248] Please manage your expectations because I think everyone figured this out a while ago.

[249] Before E3, you know, played it and didn't really have a very good time with it in one of their Flashpoint situations.

[250] The game is using all the same terms that you expect from an MMO.

[251] At level 10, you get your advanced class for Jedi, and it's the difference between, like, do you want to be melee DPS or do you want to be a tank?

[252] And it's very clear.

[253] It uses the word tank, which that's fine.

[254] But they're not even disguising it.

[255] Yeah, they're not even disguising it at all.

[256] You're getting lightsabers that you can only equip in your offhand.

[257] Why?

[258] What makes those lightsabers different than the lightsaber I hold in my main hand?

[259] It's shorter.

[260] It didn't look shorter to me. Is the combat interesting at all?

[261] You're hitting numbers on the hotbar.

[262] I think individual characters, at least my guy, was way more powerful than the typical low -level MMO character.

[263] I was taking out five or six guys that were above my level or one level above me without really having to stop and rest.

[264] The combat does keep moving.

[265] I didn't find myself getting overwhelmed.

[266] maybe died like two or three times in closer fights.

[267] And then you get a companion who's this robot who shoots and also kind of pulls aggro from guys.

[268] So a lot of times your robot's just getting beat up and you're just laying waste to everyone while the robot takes the damage.

[269] Doesn't the smuggler class have a cover system?

[270] I'm wondering if maybe...

[271] I want to say that's true.

[272] It does.

[273] I wonder if there are classes that maybe are a little more interesting to play.

[274] That's why I picked the smuggler class in part because I thought that – I had seen some of that stuff and it seemed like it could be interesting.

[275] Maybe a little more action -oriented.

[276] I didn't get far enough into it to – I will say though that like maybe your experience is different on the Jedi stuff, Jeff.

[277] But I felt like for this class they didn't – They never went out of their way to try and introduce, like, here is, like, what makes this class different.

[278] Like, I just got, like, along the right -hand side of the screen, your little, like, you know, exclamation points of, hey, a tool tip.

[279] There's some helpful kit here.

[280] And I have, like, you know, eight or nine of those.

[281] And so I say I'm not going to look at all of these.

[282] So I'm just going to keep trucking because I can just kind of shoot these guys with my...

[283] And that seems to be doing the trick.

[284] So every once in a while I will see this green silhouette on a piece of cover in front of me and be like, can I click on that?

[285] What do I do?

[286] So that's partially on me of like I didn't bother to go and look into the information on how to play the class correctly.

[287] But I also felt like that should be explained a little bit.

[288] Maybe contextualize it a little bit.

[289] When in doubt, right click on stuff.

[290] But yeah, there are mad tooltips all over that game.

[291] And that's, you know.

[292] Yeah, I mean the Jedi earns points and spends points.

[293] So for hitting with your basic slash, you end up earning two focus.

[294] And then the next level force attack costs three focus.

[295] It's kind of like a rogue system.

[296] Yeah, so you're kind of earning points and spending points with your abilities through that stuff.

[297] It's not like a mana system or anything like that.

[298] Yeah, and the crafting system is all companion -based.

[299] It has kind of almost like a torchlight thing.

[300] You can send your companion away for 60 seconds to go sell all of your stuff.

[301] You can't specify what it sells, though.

[302] It just sells all of your common loot, all your greys.

[303] Your vendor trash.

[304] So if you have gear that you know you don't want, I don't think you can add it to its inventory and say, hey, sell this too, because I don't care.

[305] And then the crafting is all companion -based also.

[306] Like you don't go – it is not like World of Warcraft.

[307] Like you're not going to run around and right -click on plants or mining stuff or whatever.

[308] Forget it.

[309] Exactly.

[310] Well, instead what you do is you pay – I think it was like 95 credits, which is not a lot of money.

[311] To send your companion away for three minutes on a gathering mission.

[312] And if they're successful, which, you know, as the stat for that crafting skill increases, they'll be more likely to be successful.

[313] They will come back with materials.

[314] And then the craft, basically.

[315] So I ended up with artifice, which is you constructing lightsabers and that sort of stuff.

[316] Treasure hunting and archaeology.

[317] as my three.

[318] So, you know, you go out treasure hunting, you find power crystals that you can use to build lightsaber parts, and then you can slot those into the four slots in your lightsaber to increase strength and endurance.

[319] Are all lightsabers slotted lightsabers?

[320] I believe so, yeah.

[321] I think so.

[322] I'm guessing this game has the same problem as every other Star Wars game of completely negating any kind of threat that the lightsaber imposes.

[323] Like, you know, in a Star Wars movie, like, lightsaber touches anything, it's dead.

[324] Yeah, no. You're probably hitting stuff.

[325] It's a sword.

[326] You're hitting stuff, for sure.

[327] And you get a lot of abilities and stuff like that.

[328] You know, the ability to leap into combat is useful, mainly because it just helps get you from point A to point B slightly faster than if you had ran all the way over there.

[329] The game doesn't have auto -attack.

[330] You kind of have to keep hitting the one key.

[331] That's peculiar.

[332] And I don't know if that's, like, some deliberate thing where they're like...

[333] this way you're going to feel like you're engaged because you're not just sitting there watching him swing the stuff.

[334] I mean, you know, a one is kind of shaped like a lightsaber.

[335] Yeah, exactly.

[336] Or you can also right -click.

[337] You can keep right -clicking to do the basic attack.

[338] But that just seems...

[339] Yeah, I don't know what the point of that is.

[340] Especially if there's no timing -based.

[341] If the melee had some sort of timing mechanic that's like, hey, if you pay attention in our...

[342] timing your attacks to go along with it, you're going to get a more powerful swing.

[343] I can see why they would want to encourage you to try that out.

[344] There's really nothing like that.

[345] It's stuff that's appeared in other MMOs where if you block or parry an attack, there's an ability you can use immediately following that that only lights up after you've done that attack.

[346] But that's not new to the genre or anything like that.

[347] Yeah, I don't know.

[348] Like I said, it seems well made and they've got all the guild systems and groups up.

[349] all that sort of stuff like you would expect from an MMO but I don't I stopped playing World of Warcraft for a reason and I think people looking for a game that's going to like advance the genre to get people back in on that stuff like I didn't get that feeling from this at all this seems like better presentation you know obviously a different setting and kind of a system in place to kind of force you to take in their lore which I think about all the time I spent not reading Quest dialogue in every other MMO I've played.

[350] It's kind of cool that they're trying to make that stuff matter, but if at the end it is go get six cat teeth.

[351] Right.

[352] Do they just straight up call them cat teeth?

[353] Yeah.

[354] Because you're getting cat teeth from these cats for medicine.

[355] I mean, they're just called cats.

[356] They're Manka cats or something.

[357] They're Star Wars cats.

[358] But I'm just saying the drop.

[359] Space cats.

[360] The drop, I think, is probably make a cat teeth or tooth or whatever it is.

[361] It's not just house cats.

[362] You're not just killing house cats.

[363] No, no, and you're not just killing house cats.

[364] You're not just going to people's homes.

[365] The flesh eaters have trained these cats to be savages, which is why the guy couldn't get the teeth on his own.

[366] Who are the flesh eaters?

[367] They're monsters.

[368] Expanded universe.

[369] Zombies?

[370] No, they're...

[371] Just monsters.

[372] They're just monsters.

[373] They're humanoid dudes with swords and blasters.

[374] To be fair, they've shown some press demos of missions that have more story -driven, meaningful one -off objectives.

[375] Is that the actual main quest stuff?

[376] It's hard to say.

[377] Who's to say how many of the missions are like...

[378] They showed one where you were surviving an ambush on a capital ship that you were on.

[379] Kind of made your way to the bridge and, like, tracked down the captain of the ship and had to decide, like, are you going to kill this guy on the spot or take a prisoner?

[380] And some of that stuff might be the flashpoints, which is designed for repetitive kind of group play.

[381] You know, they're not PvP arenas, but they're sort of instances that you can kind of queue up for, I guess.

[382] Kind of like instance story missions in a way?

[383] Yeah, but all the story missions are instanced.

[384] They have areas in the game that you can't walk into unless you are of the right class in the right phase of your story.

[385] So you'll just see hallways that just have a red glow across the door which says you can't go in here.

[386] Either it's for a different class or it's for your class, but you are either done with that sequence or working up to the next sequence.

[387] So the room where the guy hangs out, the agent that you're dealing with, all the stuff.

[388] around this time, you walk in there and it usually starts a cutscene, or at the very least, you become the owner of that area at that time, which is really only saying that if you're in a group, you're going to be the one making the decisions because it's your story quest.

[389] That's how they prevent other players from just hitting the three key and darksiding you against your will.

[390] Or one of the ways that they combat that stuff.

[391] That's not really an issue.

[392] And then as soon as you walk out of that area, it changes from green to red, and you can't walk back in there until you've gone and completed the mission to trigger the next cutscene.

[393] So it's this really weird thing where you're just kind of seeing these different locked -off areas as you're going through the world.

[394] There's nothing stopping you other than this incredibly gamey thing that just says, no, man. So the game opens with multiple...

[395] pre -rendered cutscenes, which I guess, based on how they've been presenting this game, is not too surprising.

[396] But one of those kind of sets up a bunch of, or at least seems like it's trying to introduce a bunch of very specific characters.

[397] It's not just the kind of the flavor, kind of combat scenario stuff that they've shown.

[398] But it is that also.

[399] It is also that, but there's a lot more.

[400] Talking and sort of like this is a specific guy.

[401] This is a specific situation.

[402] Did you see – it seems like if there's going to be – I talked to the Lady Jedi from the intro cut scene within half an hour or something of me playing it.

[403] All right.

[404] Yeah.

[405] What is that character from KOTOR?

[406] HK -47?

[407] Is that the robot?

[408] Yeah.

[409] My robot is T -7.

[410] He better make an appearance.

[411] He is in there.

[412] They've said he's in there.

[413] Oh, have they?

[414] In some fashion.

[415] But they almost made it sound like he's like a raid boss or something weird like that.

[416] I don't know.

[417] I want him on my side.

[418] Who's to say?

[419] T -7 sounds exactly like R2 -D2.

[420] What?

[421] He makes the same beepy, boopy noises.

[422] Why?

[423] Only they caption it so you know what he's saying.

[424] Which is, you know, they co -tork on it.

[425] It's very helpful.

[426] Same type thing.

[427] It's been thousands of years and robots make the same noises.

[428] Why?

[429] Do you want them to change?

[430] Don't fix what ain't broken.

[431] What's wrong with the robot noises?

[432] They changed literally everything else.

[433] I just think it's weird that humans can understand what those beeps mean and what every other language in the universe means.

[434] But I guess that fits with...

[435] Yeah, that fits with...

[436] Does Star Wars explain that?

[437] Do they have like a fictional reason for that?

[438] I don't know that they do.

[439] No?

[440] I'm sure it's in one of their novels.

[441] Yeah, I was going to say in the expanded other narrative.

[442] They have like a term for it.

[443] Expanded universe.

[444] Expanded universe.

[445] Well, it's a little like go through the character creation stuff.

[446] There's kind of some creepy text concerning the humans.

[447] Like, you know, there's four or five different races.

[448] Yeah, it's like they are the standard by which all other races are judged.

[449] Yeah, it's like by far the dominant race of the universe.

[450] That is some Stormfront business.

[451] No, Stormtrooper.

[452] Oh, yeah, right, right.

[453] Sorry.

[454] And I also thought it was weird that human and cyborg are separate racial classes.

[455] It's like I could play either as a human.

[456] I don't think that was an option for me as a Jedi.

[457] Can't have a cyborg Jedi.

[458] Once you put that stuff in your body, you are no longer pure human.

[459] Yeah, the Jedi is only like purity.

[460] Purity, man. Purity.

[461] You sullied your Jedi temple at that point.

[462] Right.

[463] So there's humans, Twylax, whatever the horn -faced guys are.

[464] Darth Maul dudes.

[465] Darth Maul dudes.

[466] I had cyborgs.

[467] Do you remember any other?

[468] No, I don't.

[469] I was just bummed that they were asking me questions about Star Wars lore that I will never be able to answer.

[470] Can you be a Wookiee?

[471] No. You cannot be a Wookiee, you cannot be a Rodian.

[472] Dumbest game ever.

[473] Which was the bummer for me. Didn't they add Wookiees to an expansion pack on Galaxies?

[474] You could play as Rodians and Wookiees in Star Wars Galaxies.

[475] Well, clearly we now know what Star Wars I'm going to play.

[476] Yeah, totally.

[477] For at least a month.

[478] The rest of this month.

[479] And Han Solo's in that one.

[480] Where's Han Solo in Old Republic?

[481] Well, it's the Old Republic.

[482] Han Solo's not born yet.

[483] You named your character Han Solo.

[484] I did name my character Han Solo.

[485] So he's in the game.

[486] She.

[487] She.

[488] What?

[489] That's right.

[490] Blowing your mind.

[491] Throwing all your expectations straight at the window.

[492] You want to change Han Solo?

[493] No, I spelled it J -A -W -N -C -O -L -L -O -U -G -H.

[494] You're the worst.

[495] I hate you.

[496] You're the worst.

[497] It wouldn't let me just call her Han Solo.

[498] Gee, I wonder why.

[499] It was not cool with that.

[500] Because there are going to be a thousand characters in that game who just called Han Solo.

[501] I'm going to make Luke Skywalker, but it's going to be Luther Campbell Luke Skywalker.

[502] Uncle Luke Skywalker.

[503] Are you just going to wander around the universe telling everyone you've got shit on your mind?

[504] Yes.

[505] I ain't bullshitting.

[506] Yeah, you ain't bullshitting.

[507] Start talking about hoe -ass kid and hoe -ass play.

[508] That's right.

[509] In the time you spent with the game, was there any freedom to roam between planets?

[510] Or were you stuck to the planet you started on?

[511] Or can you immediately just hop in the ship and fly somewhere else?

[512] I'm kind of curious how much you can explore.

[513] You have to basically get up around level 10 and get out of your starting area before you get kind of freer access to the world.

[514] Though, you know what?

[515] I didn't go to the shuttle area prior to it saying go to the shuttle area.

[516] So you could very well just get the hell out of there.

[517] I'm not sure.

[518] But I don't know how that would work.

[519] Is there any kind of manual spaceflight at all?

[520] Not that I saw.

[521] There is some kind of space combat in it.

[522] I think it's directed where you're clicking on the screen.

[523] You're not controlling the actual vehicle itself.

[524] We talked to someone who had played in the beta a while ago, and they said that that thing looked like a bad Flash game.

[525] So I haven't seen the space combat for myself, but it is apparently not a draw.

[526] Yeah, I don't know.

[527] It's a super weird thing that it sticks very close to the conventions of the genre for the most part from what I've played of it.

[528] And that makes it super uninteresting to me. Then you stacked Star Wars on top of that and I'm like, I'm good, thanks.

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

[530] I can't remember the last time.

[531] Someone will be way into, like there will be people who are crazy about that.

[532] But there are people who are way into.

[533] Every MMO.

[534] There is at least someone.

[535] There will be more people who are into this one than are into, say, Rift.

[536] Will there be enough people?

[537] Is that enough?

[538] Considering the amount of money they have sunk into this thing over the last...

[539] I'd be really curious to know both what the numbers they need to hit for profitability are and what their projections are for 90 days out.

[540] I feel like we don't need to be...

[541] We don't need to tell the audience.

[542] That's business analyst stuff.

[543] I don't know.

[544] I feel like we have conveyed our feelings and our suspicions about this game pretty clearly to our audience.

[545] EA needs to know this.

[546] I feel like that's the people that need to know these things.

[547] I don't know if someone has told these people these things.

[548] It doesn't matter.

[549] It's too late.

[550] It was too late two years ago.

[551] The thing in terms of profitability, when you listen to their quarterly calls, it doesn't matter necessarily what happens out of the gate because they're going to have big numbers regardless.

[552] There's going to be a big push.

[553] They've already pre -sold.

[554] Yeah, they pre -sold a bunch of copies.

[555] It's going to be around Christmas.

[556] People have time, so it's going to have a big opening.

[557] What doesn't matter is the first 30 days or the 60 days.

[558] It's what happens after 90 days basically is when you start to see the drop off that happens to every MMO which is like it's the new flavor of the week.

[559] People are interested in it.

[560] They see sort of like the first month or two months of content.

[561] Then they go back to WoW and at this point even WoW's numbers are dropping but still has a pretty high like 10 million user base.

[562] So it's sick.

[563] We're not going to know what happens to Old Public for another six months.

[564] That's when you know that they start talking when they start talking free to play.

[565] Oh, yeah.

[566] Or if they start to have emerging servers.

[567] Yeah.

[568] Those are the two early indicators that an MMO is having trouble sustaining itself.

[569] I have to imagine that they have some kind of plans in place to like, okay, obviously we need to sell this game out of the gate because we spent so much money making it, so we couldn't do free -to -play right now.

[570] But theoretically, they would have to have some sort of plan.

[571] It's all they stand at this point.

[572] Like some sort of idea.

[573] So like, okay, because with Warhammer, they did like the...

[574] the rolling demo thing where you can play up to, like, the first tier of PvP stuff for free.

[575] So I wonder if they do something like that.

[576] Because the story is broken up into chunks.

[577] Like, when I launch the game and get into my character, it says, like, prologue!

[578] You know, so it seems like the careers work in acts.

[579] There'd be a way for them to chop it up if they wanted to offer some sort of prologue demo.

[580] Yeah, we'll see.

[581] Yeah.

[582] Jeff, what else are you playing?

[583] Trackmania 2 is really good.

[584] Tell me about that.

[585] It's a driving game.

[586] Still running a server.

[587] Yeah.

[588] Still running a server.

[589] Are you still one of the most popular Trackmania 2 servers?

[590] It's one of those things where there are so many empty servers that all you need to do is hang out on the server for about 10 minutes and just having one person moves it far enough up the list because the list is sorted by a number of current players that more people will eventually join.

[591] Ah.

[592] So if I hang out on the server for 15 minutes, there'll be two or three people.

[593] And if those people hang out there for another 20 minutes, there'll be all of a sudden seven or eight people.

[594] And then you drive them all off with awful dubstep.

[595] I added way more.

[596] I added way more dubstep.

[597] Yeah.

[598] Yeah.

[599] Any choice pieces?

[600] Red hot chili peppers.

[601] Give it away.

[602] Dubstep remix.

[603] That sounds terrible.

[604] He's got a heavy drop.

[605] The drop is not as heavy as I would like, but it's pretty decent, I'll say.

[606] But yeah, that server's still going, so I don't know.

[607] It's out there.

[608] It's called Giant Bomb Official Classic.

[609] Maybe we should just do another TNT with it or something.

[610] Maybe.

[611] Year -end.

[612] Year -end celebration.

[613] I've been erasing tracks from the server, culling the list down, because there's well over 100 levels on there, and some of them just...

[614] Either tired or just not great driving experiences.

[615] Have there been any rumblings from the Mania people about expanding on Track Mania?

[616] Well, no, because Shoot Mania is up next.

[617] They've been talking about that for years, too.

[618] Shoot Mania and RPG Mania, right?

[619] Or Quest Mania.

[620] But I thought the whole Canyon idea was like, yeah, then they're going to release the next part of this, which will be a whole new area.

[621] Yes, they will.

[622] But first they're going to do...

[623] Shoot Mania and then I believe Quest Mania and then they do Track Mania 2 again.

[624] That's been the plan all along.

[625] It's to not just do Track Mania.

[626] Which was like two years ago at E3 when Ubisoft gives their awkward 30 seconds to the Track Mania stuff.

[627] I don't know why we bought this stuff.

[628] It's crazy.

[629] Explain to me the logic in the Track Mania subtitle naming conventions.

[630] You've got like United and then there's Forever and then there's United Forever.

[631] United took all of the...

[632] And then Canyon.

[633] United just took all the previous stuff.

[634] I don't even want to get together.

[635] I don't even necessarily care about what's in them.

[636] I just want to know how they pick these words.

[637] Well, Canyon's named after the environment.

[638] It's kind of like the area that it's in, right?

[639] Yeah, so Trackmania Sunrise had its environment, and Trackmania Nations was the free -to -play one.

[640] Right.

[641] And Trackmania United is just the paid version of Nations.

[642] So all Nations is is the stadium environment.

[643] Whereas United has six different environments, including the car style that was in Sunrise and some of that other stuff.

[644] So Trackmania 2 is just the canyon environment right now.

[645] And they'll release Trackmania 2 Ice.

[646] They've already done Island.

[647] Really?

[648] Yeah, there's already an island environment.

[649] Space.

[650] Yes.

[651] Yes.

[652] It's amazing to me that this franchise is still around.

[653] And not because I don't like it, because I remember playing the first game and being blown away by how much I actually enjoyed it.

[654] Everyone thought it was crazy.

[655] Yeah, I thought you were crazy.

[656] It was like, what the fuck is this nonsense?

[657] You're out of your mind.

[658] I'm going to not let you review games anymore.

[659] But somehow this has endured and, in fact, thrived, at least in some small sections of the internet.

[660] Yeah, some small, very French sections of the internet.

[661] It's very French.

[662] But it sounds like the drop -off has hit hard.

[663] Oh, it's huge, man. No one is playing that game anymore.

[664] It's sad to see.

[665] There's one or two servers that get some action on a regular basis, and maybe that's where the pro players are going and stuff.

[666] Hadn't it kind of died by the time you reviewed it?

[667] Wasn't that kind of the moment where it was starting to die off?

[668] The week that Battlefield 3 came out is when our server went to shit, and a lot of the other servers did too.

[669] Then it seems like Skyrim just kind of rolled through and cleaned everybody else out.

[670] Understandably so.

[671] People are kind of coming back to it.

[672] To answer your question, Canyon really just applies to the tile set used to make the levels and the specific car and handling model of said car.

[673] So each different environment will have its own tile set and its own car.

[674] All right.

[675] So there is some correspondence to the name, between the name and what's in the name.

[676] They refer to the car as the Canyon car.

[677] So there will not be a Trackmania 2 banana.

[678] There could be.

[679] Okay.

[680] They could use banana tiles.

[681] If all the tiles took place, were set on a banana.

[682] Or banana land.

[683] Right.

[684] And then the car was just a banana car.

[685] Okay.

[686] Like, they could do it.

[687] Sponsored by Chiquita.

[688] And then after that.

[689] Super Monkey Ball.

[690] Trackmania 2, Ayn Rand after that.

[691] Yes.

[692] Sure.

[693] Okay.

[694] It's all on a train track.

[695] You have to keep laying down tracks in front of this train.

[696] And self -sacrifice is not allowed.

[697] Okay.

[698] Trackmania.

[699] Trackmania.

[700] It's still a thing that Jeff is playing.

[701] Yeah, that's pretty good.

[702] Yeah.

[703] Cool.

[704] And that's, yeah, I don't know.

[705] I put another 10 hours into Skyrim.

[706] It continues to be enjoyable.

[707] Fantastic.

[708] I've only just barely scratched the surface of Skyrim at this point.

[709] The patch is coming out tomorrow.

[710] Oh, that's right.

[711] It did come out on the PS3.

[712] It's actually making me glad that I've only barely delved into it yet, that the patch is going to be out by the time I get home.

[713] So I can just jump in and do that.

[714] I was watching a video on the internet of a way to get all your skills up to 100.

[715] Really?

[716] Yeah.

[717] It involves that blood collecting quest.

[718] The item you get from that raises a bunch of stats, and there's a way to basically use that item without the item being used up.

[719] So you can kind of use the item over and over again and make the game and basically just get to 100 on everything.

[720] So basically you become Neo at that point.

[721] Yeah, that sounds lame.

[722] You'd be 100 at everything.

[723] I feel like it's something I'd want to maybe exploit once I'm done with everything.

[724] And I don't want to grind anymore.

[725] I've got no other quest to do.

[726] It's not an especially hard game to begin with.

[727] No, it's not.

[728] But at the same time, I would really like to just have smithing 100 and all that stuff.

[729] Get that out of the way.

[730] I've pretty much decided that as soon as my character, Juergen Prochnow, decides to, once he finishes all the story stuff, he's just going to go through and murder everyone in Skyrim.

[731] Everyone.

[732] So I'll wait until then to use that 100 everything.

[733] You've been warned, Skyrim.

[734] Yeah.

[735] Well, I'm not even on notice.

[736] Ul's pretty good.

[737] My guy's named Prisoner because that's the default name.

[738] I went and looked through.

[739] I was looking at Nordic baby names.

[740] That's good.

[741] So, like, I want my Nord to be extra Nordy.

[742] I was watching the Da Vinci Code, and Jürgen Prochnow is in that.

[743] And I was like, oh, Jürgen Prochnow is a really good name for a character.

[744] I should name my Skyrim character that.

[745] And then I actually did it.

[746] What else have you been playing, Alex?

[747] Oh, let's see.

[748] I spent most of last week on WWE 12.

[749] That was me playing a lot of wrestling.

[750] for about a week there.

[751] I played some of that for the Quick Look.

[752] I watched Jeff play that for the Quick Look.

[753] So now you've had some more time with it, how are you feeling about it, having sunk more hours into it?

[754] I mean, I played it for the Quick Look, and that's it.

[755] Oh, that's it?

[756] Okay.

[757] I haven't really spent too much more time with it.

[758] I know you bought it at a certain point.

[759] We needed it for the Quick Look.

[760] I ended up actually buying it twice because Amazon didn't get it here in time and it had to happen.

[761] I have two copies, too, for no good reason.

[762] This is great.

[763] Four copies of WWE 12.

[764] You're welcome, THQ.

[765] It just happens.

[766] Things happen.

[767] But that was a game that I started out really liking a lot more than I ended up liking it toward the end.

[768] Because they do make some really fundamental changes to the gameplay in that one.

[769] But then you start playing stuff like Road to WrestleMania when everyone's like, oh, yeah, here's that bullshit.

[770] that you're not maybe as fond of anymore.

[771] But the story stuff they did in All -Stars was so good.

[772] I was hoping that Road to WrestleMania would have some of that stuff.

[773] Wait, there wasn't even story stuff in All -Stars, really, was there?

[774] It was all that Randy Orton shit.

[775] Well, yeah, they had the storylines.

[776] I mean, whatever, dude.

[777] They had all that Paul Bearer stuff.

[778] Oh, that's right.

[779] I remember that now.

[780] I barely remember that stuff, to be honest with you.

[781] It was so well done.

[782] I remember all the fucking...

[783] I remember the Paul Bearer stuff.

[784] I remember going after Paul Bearer.

[785] That was really good.

[786] Just basically, like, they reduced all the storytelling down to, like, we're going to insert promos into this.

[787] Yeah.

[788] And they're all incredibly well done.

[789] Yeah.

[790] At least for The Undertaker.

[791] Randy Orton can't talk.

[792] No. Unless he is in front of a live crowd.

[793] And sometimes even then.

[794] And even then that's sketchy.

[795] Yeah.

[796] It's the apex predator.

[797] But.

[798] I am going to, yeah, just the stilted, just worst vocal booth sounding.

[799] See, but the thing with the All -Star stuff is that it was really fun.

[800] It was really fun in that sort of goofy old wrestling kind of way, whereas this is still trying to be the current WWE universe, which is not as great.

[801] And also, the road to WrestleMania revolves exclusively around Sheamus, Triple H, and an imaginary rookie character.

[802] So it's like you can't just pick and choose your storylines.

[803] It's just like one long story that just focuses on those three.

[804] I mean, I like the idea of them doing that because to do it in a way where you could pick any character would make it to create like they're able to at least write custom stuff for that storyline.

[805] It's sensible in a way.

[806] But at the same time, you don't care about Seamus.

[807] There's hours of you playing a Seamus and you're like, God damn it.

[808] I'm still playing as Seamus.

[809] Right.

[810] You know, and I don't know.

[811] For me, the only thing that is like the quality of the writing.

[812] Like, significantly better than it would have been if they had just...

[813] Well, it's better than if they had just gone all, you know, just see what, you know, devil may care or whatever the fuck, you know, let's just play whoever it is you want and here's a bunch of generic storyline stuff.

[814] It lets them have, like, commentary, like, mid -match commentary that applies to the current situation more than it normally would and stuff.

[815] Things that would be a lot harder to do or would sound a lot more generic.

[816] It would be like, he is doing this!

[817] But the storyline is still kind of...

[818] Bad.

[819] I mean, it's still, like, it's sub -TV, which, I mean, if you've been watching WWE lately, that's still not good.

[820] I haven't.

[821] No, I haven't been watching it.

[822] I haven't.

[823] It's been great to not watch wrestling.

[824] I came within inches of going to Survivor Series this year, like just saying, fuck it.

[825] I want to go.

[826] Yeah.

[827] And then I decided against that because tickets were like 200 bucks each.

[828] I was like, no, not going to do that.

[829] That's a lot of money to see.

[830] That's a lot of money.

[831] To see wrestling live, which is already kind of a bad experience.

[832] Also, five matches, one of which is a Diva match.

[833] So it's like, why would I endure that?

[834] No. It's like football when you remove the commentary from it.

[835] Becomes a lot less interesting.

[836] There's an energy to a live wrestling show that I still like.

[837] Unless you think you're going to get stabbed.

[838] Right.

[839] It's kind of cool hearing those pops and seeing The Rock walk out on stage or whatever.

[840] That's still kind of cool.

[841] But I also don't want to pay $200 to go do that.

[842] Yeah, that's not a good value for the dollar.

[843] But it's a better game overall, certainly, than last year's.

[844] I thought they improved the presentation in a lot of significant ways from what I've seen.

[845] The camera stuff's a lot better.

[846] Their HUD -less stuff, I think, is interesting.

[847] I guess I could get in the way of playing the game, but I have zero interest to playing the game anyway.

[848] It kind of makes it difficult to tell the current status of your character.

[849] How badly have you beat up this other guy?

[850] How close am I to earning the finisher?

[851] What's going on here?

[852] Some visual cues somewhere would be helpful.

[853] They do the stuff where your guy kind of holds himself if he's hurt.

[854] Right, but you don't know if that means you're going to get beat or if he's just been working on your arm the whole time.

[855] I'm sorry.

[856] No, go ahead.

[857] How's the animation blending shaping up from year to year?

[858] As somebody who doesn't care at all about those games, watching them from an outside perspective, the herky -jerky way you transition from one stance to another has always been the most off -putting thing.

[859] Well, it's gotten even weirder because they've been adding new moves and new animations, and the newer stuff they keep adding is way better animation quality, but all the old moves are still the weird holdover animations.

[860] So it's like, here's this really stiff, awful -looking suplex followed up by this kind of amazing...

[861] full of free -flowing motion other move that the guy is doing.

[862] It alternates between bad mannequin robots and also something that looks vaguely human.

[863] And then they've added all this Havoc physics stuff that still doesn't feel completely implemented in the game yet.

[864] I just wonder where that even applies.

[865] The weapon stuff, mostly.

[866] Yeah, and it sort of works, but then you'll see a guy bending on the bottom rope, and it suddenly starts jutting out of the ring, and it looks really weird.

[867] They're just, I don't know, they've made overhauls, but it is not the complete reinventing of that brand that they have made it out to be.

[868] That is where Ice come off on it.

[869] And other than that, I've been playing Serious Sam.

[870] I started playing Serious Sam right before I came out here for the break.

[871] BFE.

[872] BFE.

[873] What does BFE stand for?

[874] Big fucking everything, I think.

[875] Really?

[876] I don't know.

[877] I don't know for certain, but that's what I assume it must mean.

[878] Best friends everywhere?

[879] Yeah, totally.

[880] I want to play Patrick's game more.

[881] Yeah, totally.

[882] It's a much more friendly group.

[883] Those guys, when they're like, ah, with the bombs in their hands, I just want to give you a hug.

[884] And then they want to hug you.

[885] You're shooting rainbows out of your machine gun.

[886] But they never get to the gus because they've exploded.

[887] Changes the game.

[888] Yeah.

[889] That is, I mean, the few hours I've played is largely what you know of Serious Sam.

[890] It is dudes running at you and you are shooting them.

[891] Though I have to say that game takes way too long to get going.

[892] Which is to say it takes any time to get going.

[893] Yeah, if you're not shooting like 100 guys immediately.

[894] No, it takes like upwards of 15 minutes before you start shooting guys of dudes.

[895] What?

[896] Yeah.

[897] It is.

[898] Wait, is she even shooting anyone?

[899] Well, no, yeah, because you start out.

[900] Is that a story set up?

[901] Well, there's a cut scene that sets up a story.

[902] Yeah, and then the early going is like hand -to -hand combat and some other stuff.

[903] It's really weird.

[904] Finally, some CQC in there.

[905] Yeah, pretty much.

[906] It's like a quick time event.

[907] You press a button and you pull a dude's eye out.

[908] All right.

[909] You sold me on this.

[910] You're shooting hell of dudes that just start running at you, and that kind of goes on for a while.

[911] I can wait 15 minutes.

[912] But I've been hearing things like there's a level in that game where you have a flashlight and you're running around with a pistol in the dark.

[913] That is a thing that apparently happens in that game.

[914] Doom 3 was a heavy inspiration.

[915] I guess, but...

[916] What the hell is Crow Team doing?

[917] None of this is Serious Sam.

[918] They put out the video that said their funny little official Serious Sam strategy guide, and it was run backwards and shoot.

[919] It's like, I think they get it.

[920] I thought that was funny and clever, and simultaneously it made me not want to play Serious Sam.

[921] Serious Sam is so weird.

[922] It's always been weird, but now the legacy of it of...

[923] Well, when Serious Sam was created, it was as kind of a response to the kind of sophisticating of and complication of first -person shooters.

[924] The gathering of developers.

[925] It was like, no, we want to strip it back down and we want to make this just fast run -and -gun corridors like Doom, right?

[926] So it was already intended as a throwback, but it's now been long enough since Serious Sam was around, really, that it has its own...

[927] throwback quality to it, so the layers are getting too weird.

[928] Yeah.

[929] I don't know.

[930] The few hours I've played have been fine, but I'm also just like, well, yeah, Serious Sam, so cool, I guess.

[931] If you're into Serious Sam, check it out.

[932] The spinoff games are cool.

[933] Here is more of that.

[934] Yeah, I actually thought the little indie games are pretty great.

[935] There's more than one.

[936] Double D is the side -scrolling shooter.

[937] That's the one that has gun stacking.

[938] The gun stacking one's pretty good.

[939] And what was the other one?

[940] There's the turn -based RPG.

[941] Kind of like, actually has an active battle system, kind of like Chrono Trigger.

[942] Amazing.

[943] I don't know what the third one is.

[944] I thought there was a third one.

[945] I mean, I've played some Skyrim.

[946] I'm still only a few hours in.

[947] I've barely done much with my character at all.

[948] I've been killed by a couple of giants at least, so I'm like everyone else.

[949] I snuck up behind a giant and killed him.

[950] Nice.

[951] One shot.

[952] One shot.

[953] Nice work.

[954] I've been watching a lot of videos of people doing really terrible things in Skyrim more than I've actually been playing Skyrim.

[955] People basically becoming hoarders of goblin skulls, just filling their entire house with goblin skulls in a way that is horrifying.

[956] The guy who has become a downright cottage industry of room filled with item.

[957] Well, that in and of itself, for sure.

[958] But even just the look at this fucked up Skyrim video.

[959] Oh, yeah.

[960] Well, did you see the one yesterday about the serial killer?

[961] No, there's a guy who has been killing all his female companions, severing their heads and putting their heads in his in his house, like on shelves.

[962] Yeah, OK.

[963] And like, like, like Kirk Hamilton, like, asked him, why did you do this?

[964] He was like, oh, I don't know.

[965] You know.

[966] Because it's the only way to make the voices stop.

[967] I was lonely.

[968] That's really good.

[969] Once their missions were done, I wasn't really using them anymore, so I just wanted to keep them around.

[970] Oh, hey, Lydia.

[971] So there are all these severed heads on shelves, and their naked bodies are strewn about his house.

[972] Yeah, I've been seeing a lot of screenshots of the nude mod that you can download for the PC version.

[973] It's really weird to me. Some of the mods are...

[974] The nude mod, obviously, you know, hey.

[975] Sure, fine.

[976] It's a PC game.

[977] But the weirder ones are...

[978] This mod cleans up the female faces.

[979] Removes dirt from females.

[980] Specifically the Caucasian females.

[981] I decided to clean the dirt off the Caucasian women.

[982] Purity.

[983] There's something real bad about that.

[984] I don't want to play Skyrim anymore.

[985] It's taken on a very dark bent over the last week or two.

[986] If their aim is to make the game that lets you do anything you want, they have succeeded.

[987] I'm just worried about what that might actually inspire for the real...

[988] Like, once Skyrim is no longer good enough for them, what are they going to do in the real world?

[989] Are those official mods?

[990] Is that through the mod system?

[991] No, they haven't even released the official mod tools yet.

[992] Bethesda is putting out...

[993] They'll put out tools that make it way easier to clean up your white ladies.

[994] Let me tell you.

[995] We'll have a system with which I can filthy my white ladies.

[996] More what I'm looking for.

[997] Yeah, I don't like...

[998] It's starting to sound like Saints Row.

[999] I did play a little bit more.

[1000] Word.

[1001] I went back and restarted Saints Row.

[1002] Yeah, you finished it.

[1003] That's right, you reviewed Saints Row.

[1004] Saints Row's pretty good.

[1005] Pretty goddamn good.

[1006] Yeah, I went back and restarted it because I wanted to try some of the other missions the other way.

[1007] But mostly I'm just running around fucking blowing shit up.

[1008] Just like a cathartic half hour each day of just destroying everything.

[1009] It's fantastic.

[1010] I think when you and I hung out this weekend and we had people who did not know what Saints Row III was, I think the demo you gave was the most perfect demo anyone has ever given of a video game.

[1011] Within five minutes, you just changed yourself into the toilet, gave yourself dual -looting SMGs, and just ran around to start fucking killing cops.

[1012] Toilet?

[1013] Yeah, toilet.

[1014] You should play Saints Row.

[1015] I am playing Saints Row.

[1016] Don't say anything else.

[1017] Don't say anymore.

[1018] You already?

[1019] No. No, you don't.

[1020] It's not even now.

[1021] You don't even know.

[1022] Although he told me some other stuff a couple weeks ago.

[1023] Yeah, I think I...

[1024] Several moments in that game have been diminished because I already knew about it.

[1025] No. Not in the way I'm describing it.

[1026] It will get ruined.

[1027] I need to stop doing activities.

[1028] The activities are okay once each.

[1029] I did every activity.

[1030] I had 100 % Saints territory done.

[1031] But did you do all of the...

[1032] the saints book stuff because that's what i still have to finish no i'm about halfway through the saints book stuff yeah geez that shit is that shit is a slog i don't like that yeah that's just like i actually didn't it seemed kind of broken when i was a little broken i didn't mind doing the triggering it is weird sometimes yeah well i would be looking for a specific car and i would get in the area and then it would just come up and say the car's been destroyed and i have to go back in and reselect the car i mean and then it would do these exact same thing that's the that's the objective stuff like some of their objectives are just broken like i i run into situations where it's like I got into a car with the auto -tune dude, and then suddenly I had beaten the mission.

[1033] That was one of those pimp escort things.

[1034] And just by getting into the car with him, somehow I had beaten it.

[1035] That sounds great.

[1036] It's janky.

[1037] It's totally janky across the board, but it's fun janky for the most part.

[1038] It's just like when little things like that pop up, you're like, uh.

[1039] Yeah, yeah.

[1040] That's no good.

[1041] But more pro wrestling references.

[1042] That's what I want the Saints Row for.

[1043] I want that game to basically be the better wrestling game than anything else.

[1044] It should just have the WWE license.

[1045] They should just give it the WWE license.

[1046] I mean, they've already got Hulk Hogan on board.

[1047] Yeah.

[1048] God.

[1049] That fight is so good.

[1050] Yep.

[1051] Patrick Klepik.

[1052] Hey.

[1053] TSA went through my hair.

[1054] I heard.

[1055] So you went to Nebraska for the Thanksgiving holiday.

[1056] Yep.

[1057] And I was going through TSA, going to Nebraska, and they stopped me. And like, hey, we need to go through here.

[1058] I was like, you know, that's cool with TSA, being funny.

[1059] Guy goes, puts his hand on my shoulder.

[1060] He's like, nah.

[1061] I was like, what?

[1062] Then guy comes from behind me. Oh, wow.

[1063] Sticks his hands in my hair.

[1064] Like into it?

[1065] Yeah.

[1066] Was he wearing gloves?

[1067] I was too traumatized.

[1068] I don't know.

[1069] Hopefully latex gloves.

[1070] How violated versus turned on were you?

[1071] I'm used to.

[1072] You know, I am used to this point.

[1073] It was way worse in college when people would just walk up to me. Touch your hair.

[1074] Touch my hair.

[1075] So I'm used to it.

[1076] Well, weren't you in like at the drive -in territory back then?

[1077] Yeah, my hair used to be much, much, much longer.

[1078] Yeah, and then the other way back, they threw my toothpaste.

[1079] Wow.

[1080] I thought it was the right size.

[1081] Wasn't.

[1082] The guy goes, what do you want me to do with this?

[1083] I was like, what are my options?

[1084] And he just looks at me. And then he just throws it away.

[1085] Throw it out.

[1086] You can eat it.

[1087] You don't want to waste it.

[1088] Come on.

[1089] There was that guy in Russia who they told him to throw out his whole thing of vodka and so he just drank it and gave himself alcohol poisoning while trying to walk through security.

[1090] And he escorted out and almost died.

[1091] Don't actually eat toothpaste, by the way.

[1092] I think that's actually really bad for you.

[1093] No, instead you should just strip down and then just rub it all over your body.

[1094] Here, I'll just use it.

[1095] For its intended purpose.

[1096] So I don't know what you guys use this tingling paste for.

[1097] Should have printed out my options.

[1098] Body paint.

[1099] I went through the airport yesterday and didn't have anything with me because I was just on a day trip.

[1100] And I had to show my ID to a bunch more people than I normally do and had people looking at me like I was crazy.

[1101] I don't know if they just brought a suitcase.

[1102] Yeah, exactly.

[1103] I've got my bag.

[1104] I plan on returning to this place.

[1105] But on a shuttle flight to L .A., you'd think they'd be used to that by now.

[1106] Yeah, exactly.

[1107] Well, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't necessarily people that were attached to that flight.

[1108] Yeah, it was, you know, people kind of throughout the airport.

[1109] OK, this guy wearing a giant bomb shirt.

[1110] Well, yeah, it probably did.

[1111] It was just weird.

[1112] It was, you know, we're doing random ID checks.

[1113] You stop.

[1114] Yeah.

[1115] I'm like, what?

[1116] You're random.

[1117] I just look too fancy free.

[1118] I look too happy to be there.

[1119] I was like, man, whatever.

[1120] I could hang out at the airport all day.

[1121] I ain't got to carry shit.

[1122] Let's go get some omelets or something.

[1123] Nobody likes a happy airport patron.

[1124] No one.

[1125] Almost as if you had let go all of your material concerns.

[1126] Yeah.

[1127] In anticipation of a higher existence.

[1128] This is the end, you guys.

[1129] Guys, I finally made the decision.

[1130] Don't count your versions.

[1131] I'm switching to Verizon.

[1132] Yeah.

[1133] Patrick, tell me about your football experience.

[1134] Oh, wow.

[1135] Yeah, so I went and saw the Bears and Raiders.

[1136] Oh, wow.

[1137] How was that?

[1138] I've done with what they lost.

[1139] So it was great.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] So I will say that the Raiders experience is overstated in terms of the stabbing potential unless you're the type of person that talks back.

[1142] I could see Alex getting stabbed.

[1143] Oh, yeah.

[1144] At the Raiders' stadium.

[1145] No, I've been threatened.

[1146] You're always going to get threatened.

[1147] Especially before the game, it's kind of friendly.

[1148] You're walking through the tailgate lot, and they've got like...

[1149] teddy bears strung up on rope.

[1150] But it's all good fun.

[1151] During the game and after the game, you bring a jacket.

[1152] You bring a jacket, cover up your colors.

[1153] But I wanted to definitely give a shout -out to Zach.

[1154] I will leave his last name absent.

[1155] But he was a Giant Bomb fan that offered to let us Bears fans come by to his Raiders tailgate.

[1156] And he was super nice.

[1157] And then he stabbed me. Yeah.

[1158] Well, he told me where we were, and I could kind of spot it.

[1159] And I was like, I don't mean to be weird, but, like, that's pretty deep.

[1160] Like, can you – would you come get us?

[1161] Like, I don't want to walk through all this raider territory wearing the colors.

[1162] Like, I would have to, like, plot out.

[1163] Like, there were a couple, like, bears, like, safety hideouts.

[1164] You're like, I can, like, stop here and then, like, sprint to the next one.

[1165] Yeah.

[1166] So I made it and he made the experience very nice.

[1167] Excellent.

[1168] So that was – thank you to him for – So you're saying the Raiders' reputation is not all it's cracked up to be?

[1169] If you want to yell back, absolutely.

[1170] I mean the place gives a horrible first impression when you get off the BART and it's just this – everyone being herded through this tunnel that is just full of barbed wire.

[1171] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1172] They're just, like...

[1173] Right?

[1174] So, like, he...

[1175] Barbed wire fences along this, like, kind of narrow path right out of that BART station.

[1176] Yeah, so for, like, a bunch of white people from, like, San Francisco, like, when you go out to there, you're just like, oh, this reinforces all my preconceptions about Oakland.

[1177] Remember the beginning of...

[1178] This is a bad stereotype.