Giant Bombcast 05-03-2011

[0] Hey everyone, it's Tuesday, May the 3rd, 2011, and you're listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] Joining me today, Mr. Patrick Klepek.

[3] The cookies have been eaten.

[4] By none other than Mr. Jeffrey Gerstmann.

[5] This was a horrible mistake.

[6] And then, who wasn't in the room when all this happened but Mr. Brad Shoemaker?

[7] Thank God for that.

[8] Jeff got hungry and decided to break open the now well -expired Grandma's Cookies that have been sitting in this room.

[9] April 19th.

[10] April 19th.

[11] A day that will live in...

[12] Guaranteed fresh.

[13] That's a solid three weeks old printed date.

[14] That was the day Mortal Kombat came out.

[15] Yeah, it was.

[16] And they killed these cookies.

[17] That was their grand fatality.

[18] Yeah, they were not good.

[19] Now there's a time delay fatality on you.

[20] Yeah.

[21] Now that you've eaten these grandma's cookies.

[22] They're gross.

[23] They were gross when they were new.

[24] Yeah.

[25] We've covered this.

[26] I don't know that they've gotten any more gross, but...

[27] Those cookies aren't bad.

[28] Grandma's cookies?

[29] Yeah, they're pretty bad.

[30] They're pretty bad.

[31] These ones specifically, I don't know.

[32] From past experience, I don't really remember.

[33] How about they fresh from the factory?

[34] Grandma's cookies is being bad, but these ones were specifically.

[35] Where are you going to get fresh from the factory grandma's cookies?

[36] At the factory?

[37] Factory fresh.

[38] Organics.

[39] Are they made in Plano, Texas?

[40] There's something just cheap tasting about Grandma's cookies.

[41] Yeah, they're not the best.

[42] It's just like, eh, they kind of half -ass it on the chocolate chips.

[43] It's like all, it's grit.

[44] It just tastes like.

[45] A little heavy on the shortening.

[46] There's a phone number around here.

[47] Yeah, you're going to give them a call, give them a piece of your mind?

[48] Yeah.

[49] Your cookies are always crap, Grandma.

[50] We can go confront them at that confectioner's expo.

[51] You think Grandma's cookies has a booth?

[52] They must.

[53] It's got to be just like a fourth -level subsidiary, though.

[54] There isn't even a Grandma's Cookies.

[55] It's Frito -Lay.

[56] It says right here, Frito -Lay.

[57] The problem is that it's just one step away from where they used to keep the Doritos 3Ds.

[58] And Frito -Lay is just a front for the CIA.

[59] I mean, everyone knows that.

[60] So Grandma killed Osama bin Laden.

[61] Are you saying that the CIA introduced Grandma's Cookies into the hood?

[62] Yeah.

[63] Exactly.

[64] Government conspiracy.

[65] You got an email right over there saying, stop talking about that.

[66] All right, change of subject, everyone.

[67] You're dead.

[68] Brian Cox won't allow us to talk any further about grandma's cookies.

[69] Let's talk about video games.

[70] Video games are delicious.

[71] Chocolate chip.

[72] Can't eat video games.

[73] All right.

[74] You say so.

[75] Patrick Klepek.

[76] Video games.

[77] Yep.

[78] Get it.

[79] Already.

[80] This is great.

[81] Patrick, have you been playing any video games lately?

[82] Things died down a little bit after Mortal Kombat and Portal, so I went back and I finished.

[83] What do you mean after Mortal Kombat?

[84] Like Mortal Kombat is over or something?

[85] If you wanted to.

[86] Mortal Monday is over.

[87] The further we get away from that April 19th, the worse the cookies will come.

[88] And the staler the combat becomes.

[89] Mortal Kombat is never over.

[90] No, I'm still playing the story mode of that.

[91] But I went back and I wanted to finish Dead Space Extraction because I never did that.

[92] Which one is that?

[93] It's the shooter one.

[94] Or it's the Wii one.

[95] It's the light gun game.

[96] The light gun, yes.

[97] And they ported it to the PS3.

[98] Playing it on the PS3?

[99] Yeah.

[100] That's the one to play.

[101] Clearly.

[102] Yeah, it's really well done.

[103] I was a little...

[104] I was hoping that I'd be able to play it.

[105] With my fiance, but it is not a girlfriend -friendly shooter at all.

[106] In terms of the gore?

[107] No, it uses all the fucking buttons on that move controller.

[108] Every single one is used for a different function.

[109] Wait, I thought it was just shoot.

[110] No. Shoot, pick -off, flashlights.

[111] You've got to rotate it to do the whole fire.

[112] Rotate it, hold circle, that's like a melee attack.

[113] There's like a million things going on in that game.

[114] But you really just, by the halfway through, I was just shooting.

[115] I just stopped pressing the other buttons.

[116] I was going to say, like, shoot, dude, seems like that's still the main directive here.

[117] Yeah.

[118] But you still have to do other things.

[119] Like, it'll...

[120] It's not just, like, optional, like, oh, if you do this this way, you're going to get through with the best ending or anything.

[121] No. But it'd be really boring if you weren't doing the other things.

[122] Okay.

[123] So I finished that.

[124] Then it would be like House of the Dead.

[125] Yeah.

[126] Nobody wants that.

[127] Those games got boring.

[128] Yeah.

[129] Typing of the Dead was good, though.

[130] It's true.

[131] Need more typing of games.

[132] Or word packs for the existing ones.

[133] Oh, yeah.

[134] Just a Dreamcast download to add more words to typing.

[135] Because there are so many more words now.

[136] Isn't there a PC version of that?

[137] Yeah, they put it out in Japan.

[138] I don't know if it ended up.

[139] That'd be a good iPad game.

[140] There's a lot of it in English, though.

[141] There was always an English alternate.

[142] I don't know if that version had it.

[143] It'd be clutch.

[144] Trying to play Typing the Dead in Japanese, that's not...

[145] No, that's not easy, especially without a Japanese keyboard.

[146] Or knowledge of Japanese.

[147] Yeah, exactly.

[148] Like, that's a double whammy.

[149] Like, just stacks it up.

[150] Triple whammy.

[151] Just having both of those, no type of good.

[152] That would be a hell of a way to learn Kano, though.

[153] I'm not sure you'd be really learning.

[154] Yeah, I don't know why you'd be really learning.

[155] Or practice it, at least, if you already knew it.

[156] As a supplement, you're not saying, like, people who want to learn how to...

[157] No, no, no, don't start with that.

[158] Step one, typing of the dead.

[159] Once you have the basics down, if you sit down and do that, I'm sure you can...

[160] Yeah, yeah.

[161] Brad, you've taken Japanese courses.

[162] Ages ago.

[163] But you've actually done that work.

[164] Yeah, I've learned like, I don't know, 100 kanji or something.

[165] You could play typing of the dead.

[166] Maybe.

[167] Maybe.

[168] It's slowly seeping out of my head.

[169] You should try.

[170] Like radioactive decay, I'm giving off Japanese ions.

[171] Do you think it's like the key first step?

[172] Learn Japanese?

[173] What's that?

[174] Like a live class, like that sort of setting?

[175] It definitely helped.

[176] That's key.

[177] It definitely helped, yeah.

[178] Yeah.

[179] Absolutely.

[180] I mean, immersion, you know, just getting in it and having to speak it is the way to go.

[181] So just living in Japan?

[182] Yes.

[183] Yelling back at your anime tapes?

[184] You want to learn Japanese, just move to Japan.

[185] That's my tip.

[186] For a tip.

[187] If you want to learn Japanese, move to Japan.

[188] That seems pretty reasonable.

[189] Yeah.

[190] Who couldn't do it?

[191] And teach English.

[192] Yes.

[193] Because everybody can do that, apparently.

[194] Is that some sort of scam?

[195] I've seen a lot of people go to teach English that I would not trust as teaching anything.

[196] I'm not really sure how that works.

[197] Are they coming up short?

[198] kidneys and shit?

[199] It's definitely not a scam, but the barrier to entry is not as high as you would think.

[200] Such as not being able to teach.

[201] Well, you don't have to.

[202] Well, they're different programs.

[203] I'm sure they vary, but a lot of them you don't even have to speak Japanese to do it.

[204] Isn't Jet the popular one?

[205] Yeah, Jet is a big one, for sure.

[206] Like the magazine?

[207] I thought at one point about applying to Jet.

[208] The Black Lifestyle magazine is also running these.

[209] They're teaching Japanese people how to read Jet.

[210] That's smart expanding their readership.

[211] I get it.

[212] This is the future of print journalism.

[213] I gather the big downside of Jet is that you have very little control over where you end up.

[214] So probably not Tokyo.

[215] A lot of people I know, yeah.

[216] You end up in the countryside.

[217] You end up in some tiny town of 10 ,000 people up in the mountains or something.

[218] Isn't that how Japanese Doc Hollywood begins?

[219] Yeah.

[220] That sounds great.

[221] One of them teaches you how to become a samurai just so you can stand up for yourself.

[222] And then you'll learn how to drift.

[223] I'm in.

[224] Where do I go?

[225] Jet .jp?

[226] Where do I go for this stuff?

[227] I think it's a US -based program.

[228] I'm not sure.

[229] Talk to Denzel Washer about that.

[230] Pick up a copy of Jet.

[231] Yeah, it's in the back.

[232] Make sure you check the right box because one box is just subscribe to Jet and the other one is...

[233] Like, go to Japan, and if you check the wrong one, we can be a really heavy shock.

[234] You'd think there would just be entirely separate cards for those things, because it's such a completely different interest.

[235] It's crossover, though.

[236] Yeah, exactly.

[237] It's trying to save money.

[238] You just need to put one right next to the other.

[239] Eco -friendly.

[240] Yeah.

[241] Okay, I get it.

[242] Going green.

[243] That seems like Jet's agenda.

[244] Yeah.

[245] So is this the last of the, is this your cleanup on Dead Space 2 content, Patrick?

[246] Well, what's severed wasn't very good, as I heard.

[247] Really?

[248] I didn't get around to finishing that.

[249] I haven't played it yet.

[250] No, no, no. Well, I was finishing Extraction before, because Severed has the characters from Extraction in it.

[251] So I figured I would finish that before doing that.

[252] I mean, I bought it.

[253] It's only like, what, an hour and a half or something like that.

[254] I played about halfway through it, and just, I don't know what happened.

[255] It's more Dead Space.

[256] Wasn't it a lot of the same series?

[257] It went through the same areas.

[258] It's a good mix of old and new.

[259] It starts out with some new areas, but then you immediately go into the ending levels of Dead Space 2.

[260] And it's a lot of, yeah, I remember this part.

[261] This part sucked the first time, and it still kind of sucks.

[262] The ending areas of Dead Space 2?

[263] That seems like a horrible spot to repeat.

[264] I mean, just like the mines and stuff.

[265] It's not giving away into the story, and presumably you've played all that stuff.

[266] I was going to say, they just make you go through the machine again.

[267] Yes.

[268] Straight.

[269] It starts out that way.

[270] Two needles this time.

[271] Oh, God.

[272] No, no needles.

[273] Oh, man, yeah.

[274] That was...

[275] Patrick, anything else?

[276] Not really.

[277] No. Just kind of chucking through Mortal Kombat.

[278] I just finished Mortal Kombat 1 of the Mortal Kombat story.

[279] Okay, so have you...

[280] So you've beaten Goro.

[281] Yeah, I learned how to...

[282] The game quickly introduced, yo, learn how to be cheap.

[283] Yeah.

[284] Jump kicks.

[285] Check them out.

[286] Jump kicks and just, like, apparently if you do the high fireball with Liu Kang, like, Goro will just jump into it.

[287] Every goddamn time.

[288] Check on, you do that low fireball with Liu Kang over and over again.

[289] That's the first time, though.

[290] Yeah.

[291] Dude, that second time, holy shit.

[292] That's with Raiden, right?

[293] Yeah, yeah.

[294] I finished the story mode over the weekend.

[295] What's different about the second time?

[296] He's just harder.

[297] And you're using Raiden.

[298] More of a dick.

[299] Using Raiden, I mean, it felt like he had more moves.

[300] I'm not sure.

[301] Yeah, well.

[302] Or something was different because it was way harder.

[303] Yeah, it is a harder fight.

[304] I think just Shao Kahn just stuffs more of your attacks.

[305] Yeah, you're talking about that resist.

[306] Do that.

[307] It's that yellow.

[308] It's like they flare yellow.

[309] He flashes and just resists the move.

[310] And then they immediately do 25 % damage against you.

[311] Yeah, I mean, he still takes the damage.

[312] So it's basically like rage from MK versus DC.

[313] Yeah, yeah.

[314] They do take the damage, but still.

[315] Is there any consistency to that, or is that just...

[316] It's completely random.

[317] I only faced Goro a couple times, so I wasn't able to figure it out.

[318] There's some slight...

[319] Well, the consistency...

[320] The lack of consistency comes from them kind of giving you a break and sometimes letting it work.

[321] But when you get to the top of the challenge tower and you're fighting Goro and Kentaro and Shao Kahn kind of all at once, they will resist everything every single time if they are able to, it seems like.

[322] So it seems like sometimes they give you a break elsewhere in the game.

[323] Yeah, when you get to the top of the challenge tower, then it just becomes like you have to wait for them to do specific stuff, and you know that they're open to being hit with, like, Scorpion's spear, in my case.

[324] And you can take advantage of them that way.

[325] So it's just like you're playing cheaply in a different way.

[326] It's like pattern memorization.

[327] It's like you're playing a shooter or something.

[328] That's exactly what that fight turned into.

[329] It was just like, all right, I know which ones he'll take an uppercut off of.

[330] So as soon as he does that, I'm going to teleport behind him to an uppercut.

[331] Well, for me with Raiden, it was all about, like, just kind of...

[332] Basically doing, I guess it's whatever the triangle or Y button is.

[333] I don't know if that's front or rear.

[334] But with Raiden, you can do two punches from that into the shock grab thing.

[335] And he falls down after that.

[336] So then you just kind of jump over, jump punch, punch punch grab again.

[337] So just doing that over and over again through that whole fight.

[338] And no, he'll eventually...

[339] Because you're so close to him that he'll try to attack, which then makes him unable to resist your strike.

[340] But you're coming in so fast that you punch through it.

[341] And once I got really good at that and the timing on that, it wasn't that hard.

[342] But I ended up probably playing that last fight like 30 or 40 times.

[343] Good old exploiting the AI.

[344] Yeah, exactly.

[345] Long -lasting Mortal Kombat tradition.

[346] So, yeah, I mean, there's a history of bad MK bosses.

[347] It seems purposeful in this one.

[348] There's a history of, like, really terrible MKAI.

[349] Just in general.

[350] So this actually is much better than the previous games have been.

[351] The story of fights are much more believable in this.

[352] But could you have made these characters in a way that it would have, like, built off of what the game had taught you thus far?

[353] Just about kind of the basic gameplay systems?

[354] Probably.

[355] Do you think you could have made a compelling and, like, enough of a jump in difficulty?

[356] for these fights without kind of resorting to this.

[357] Because the main complaint that I've heard from people is not that it's tough.

[358] It's just cheap.

[359] It's just that it has no bearing on anything that you've done.

[360] It's not fair.

[361] It's you learning what one specific thing works for this fight and then doing it over and over again.

[362] It's not that the other stuff doesn't work.

[363] It's just that these guys kill you too fast for that to matter.

[364] They do so much damage.

[365] Like Shao Kahn's X -Ray does over half of your life bar.

[366] Yeah, it's like 56.

[367] It's insane.

[368] If you try to play him like conventional fights, you just won't last.

[369] You have to play very defensively and just know when to strike.

[370] But at the same time, Shao Kahn's X -Ray is this really slow wind -up jump with the hammer.

[371] Yeah, you can definitely dodge it.

[372] You can punch him out every single time.

[373] I mean, that's just to illustrate how fucking savage these guys are.

[374] Yeah, yeah.

[375] But, you know, they're not playable characters for a reason.

[376] Yeah, I don't know.

[377] Some of that stuff's a little ridiculous, but it's...

[378] It seems like in one way, sure, it is kind of this callback.

[379] to MK past, but...

[380] But it's a callback to, like, something really dumb for MK's past.

[381] Like, I understand it in the challenge tower, because you're asking for, like, absurd...

[382] Yeah.

[383] But, like, in the story mode, it comes across as a little...

[384] It's a little much.

[385] They do have difficulty settings for the story mode, if you want to go there.

[386] I know, but it's like, when you can do most of it on the normal difficulty, like, you really want to scale back just for that one boss fight.

[387] It's the only consistent thing that I've heard complaints about from people playing it.

[388] I don't know.

[389] Just wanted to get...

[390] Yeah, it's a mindset thing.

[391] You have to kind of change everything that you have learned up to that point in all these other fights and just adjust for these specific boss fights.

[392] It's not that much fun.

[393] Please allow me to register my trepidation about the ending of that story mode, and then that's all I'm going to say.

[394] You know what I'm talking about.

[395] Well, you know, after MK3 comes MK4, so I understand why you would know.

[396] No!

[397] Insofar as what the story of the next MCU game will be.

[398] Yeah, just what it looks like they're setting up for the next one.

[399] I'm just like, oh no, no. Well, you'll always have this one.

[400] Like you said, this Mortal Kombat will last you forever.

[401] Yes.

[402] New characters coming.

[403] Oh, yeah, is that confirmed?

[404] Yeah.

[405] They went ahead and set up a Twitter account for Scarlet.

[406] And then a couple of the guys on the team have pointed to it.

[407] And the other official accounts for, like, Johnny Cage and stuff like that have been, like, following it or interacting with it.

[408] So for those not following the plot, that's Red Lady Ninja.

[409] That's the Red Lady Ninja.

[410] Wait, is this totally new?

[411] Has she ever been around?

[412] This is totally new.

[413] It's a palette glitch from MK2 that would sometimes make Melina or Katana show up in red.

[414] So it was just one of those, like, yo, that's a separate character.

[415] Right.

[416] Preventing them from having to design any characters on their own.

[417] Just like error machines.

[418] Yeah, exactly.

[419] Turn rumors and weird jokes into characters.

[420] So they're doing, looks like they're doing that.

[421] So I imagine if that's the case, then there's that interview that they did.

[422] There's an interview that showed up in like CVG for like half an hour before getting pulled where they said it was going to be Scarlet and Kenshi.

[423] Is he blind?

[424] I would assume he would be blind.

[425] He has to be, right?

[426] Has he ever not been blind?

[427] He's never not been blind, but this would be him showing up in the storyline much earlier than he normally does.

[428] So that's why they might omit the blind part.

[429] They didn't actually end up...

[430] So he actually was called Blind Kenshi for a while before they realized, like, dude's got a blindfold on.

[431] It's obvious he's blind.

[432] Oh, wait.

[433] They never actually did call him Blind Kenshi.

[434] Oh, I thought that was his official name on the select screen.

[435] No, no. I think they eventually just went, nah, it's just Kenshi.

[436] Right, right.

[437] They do tell a lot of origin stories.

[438] with that story mode.

[439] Yeah, they do.

[440] So they cover a lot of ground.

[441] How do you feel about the treatment of the stories of MK's 1, 2, and 3?

[442] I never thought of Cabal as, I mean, are we just talking frankly here?

[443] I think so.

[444] It doesn't really matter.

[445] Yeah, who cares, right.

[446] I never thought of him as a cop.

[447] As you continue to bitch about it, who cares?

[448] Cabal never struck me as a police type figure.

[449] I feel like that's totally new information.

[450] I don't think that was ever part of his backstory.

[451] I don't think he was ever a striker's buddy and a cop.

[452] They probably just had to find some way to work him into the story.

[453] I'm like, ah, whatever.

[454] It's fine.

[455] He was an Earth champion and a dude of import.

[456] He was a black dragon.

[457] They addressed some of that stuff in the story.

[458] But, yeah, like at the start of that, he is straight up a cop with Striker doing cop stuff.

[459] And a ponytail.

[460] And a ponytail.

[461] Cops with ponytails.

[462] Think about that.

[463] Well, considering how Striker rolls.

[464] Yeah.

[465] Yeah.

[466] Striker cleaned it up, man. Turned that hat around to the front.

[467] He's looking presentable.

[468] Got rid of a little bit of that paunch.

[469] Yeah.

[470] Yeah, I don't.

[471] I don't know that, yes, that alteration to the backstory of Cabal is necessarily worth getting up in arms over.

[472] Probably didn't even bear discussion, but here we are.

[473] Yeah.

[474] I'll agree with you.

[475] There's Mortal Kombat mythology in general.

[476] This is where we've ended up is actually talking about the viability of Reign as a character.

[477] Dude, we are totally earnest about this whole thing.

[478] Video games.

[479] Yeah, video games are all right.

[480] Bullshit.

[481] Calling you out.

[482] Oh, man. All right.

[483] Fuck this.

[484] I'm flipping this table over.

[485] We're going outside right now and settling this.

[486] Video games are bad.

[487] Discuss.

[488] I think video games are good.

[489] I think you're wrong.

[490] Debate of the century.

[491] We're finally getting out of the serious topics on this podcast.

[492] Prove it.

[493] Prove it.

[494] Prove by having the debate.

[495] What are you talking about?

[496] Prove that video games are good.

[497] Mortal Kombat.

[498] We were talking about it earlier.

[499] He's really got you there.

[500] I like that game a lot.

[501] It's all right.

[502] You're saying it's just all right?

[503] Yeah.

[504] I'm not saying video games are bad.

[505] Well, see, that already invalidates your opinion.

[506] I'm not saying video games are bad.

[507] Yeah, well, they're not good.

[508] Oh, so you're just changing your position now?

[509] Well, yeah.

[510] That's the worst debate I've ever had.

[511] Twitter's convenience.

[512] That's the worst debate.

[513] Eh.

[514] You're really committed to it.

[515] It's video games that are not worth talking about.

[516] So if they were better, I'd put more heart into it.

[517] Maybe I should just side with you because I played through Fable 3 this weekend.

[518] Yeah, video games aren't so good.

[519] Wasn't that totally by accident?

[520] Yeah, so I guess...

[521] You had played some before.

[522] Yeah, I played about a third of the 360 version when it came out before realizing that I didn't want to play it ever again.

[523] It's not great.

[524] And then they sent along a copy of the PC version, which is not up until the 17th, so actually I can't review it, but let's just talk about Fable 3 generally in a non -platform specific way, regardless of what platform it appears on.

[525] Why now?

[526] Or let's say, you know, just because the 360 version.

[527] I don't even know.

[528] Maybe the PC version is a totally different game.

[529] It's not.

[530] I need to know.

[531] Fable 3 is not good.

[532] I need to know why now.

[533] Because you had a copy of the Xbox version six months ago, which has languished somewhere.

[534] Because they sent it over, and I was like, well, I want to see what's up.

[535] I just built this PC.

[536] Yeah, but you can see what's up in like 30 minutes.

[537] Let's see what's up.

[538] Why did you keep going?

[539] Because I was working on my laptop and just had Fable running.

[540] All weekend.

[541] And then whoops.

[542] And just happened whoops.

[543] Like it just kind of stumbled.

[544] 10 hours of gameplay later.

[545] You accidentally operated the controller to the conclusion of the game.

[546] Pretty much.

[547] Okay.

[548] Yeah.

[549] That actually pretty well represents my experience with Fable 3 as well.

[550] Yeah, man. What a disappointing game.

[551] Yeah.

[552] Even taking the qualified experience of Fable 2 into consideration.

[553] Yeah.

[554] which it had its problem.

[555] Even as someone who really enjoyed Fable 2, it had issues.

[556] There were things about it that didn't...

[557] work as well as they should have or as advertised.

[558] Fable 3 is a game that feels, even though it's not, it's a game that feels very wide open when they first kind of present you with the world and this list of quests, and you're like, man, there's going to be a lot more like this, I bet.

[559] This is great.

[560] And then some of it's really inventive, kind of standalone stuff, like where you're going into the weird RPG world.

[561] That is easily the high point.

[562] Yeah, that is the high point of the entire game, exactly.

[563] Comedically, certainly.

[564] This is some goofy little side quest.

[565] And you start thinking like, oh, there's going to be a lot more stuff like this.

[566] Like, nope, there's this stuff.

[567] And then we're going to funnel you into this very tight path through the entire third act of the game.

[568] And occasionally let you out to go finish up any of this side stuff that you didn't do.

[569] But by the time you get to this point, you will have done all of the side stuff that actually matters.

[570] It's actually like well done.

[571] When they do the shift, it just feels so unearned.

[572] You don't feel like your hero's quest has gone on for long enough.

[573] Yeah, exactly.

[574] The whole point of the game, building up the game, you're going to become king.

[575] Yeah.

[576] And then you become king, and then everything kind of sucks after that.

[577] Yeah.

[578] Everything kind of sucks during it.

[579] I thought it started to suck before that.

[580] Yeah, I guess it feels like it runs out of content or something.

[581] The whole interlude on the southern continent felt very out of place to me. Like a shoehorn to that end just to kind of draw it out a little bit.

[582] Before you spent the rest of the game sitting on a throne hitting buttons to make decisions.

[583] Right.

[584] Yeah, and it seems like maybe whoever was designing that game...

[585] You know, the ending of it, I feel like they really wanted to try and teach players a lesson about the way the world works.

[586] It was like either you can be popular or you can save everybody, but sometimes you have to make tough decisions.

[587] Like they wanted their moral choices to carry weight, but everyone who plays games is so hardwired to get the best ending that I feel like that's why so many people are so frustrated by the way that game concludes.

[588] is because to actually get that best ending, I had to leave the game on overnight and then let it sit.

[589] Because you need a certain amount of gold in order to...

[590] Yeah, you need a bunch of money at the end of that game.

[591] And I had been buying property all along and was still broke just from buying and doing upkeep on property and stuff.

[592] So it was like...

[593] It was like a real boring way to introduce a moral choice of having to have enough gold.

[594] Well, the thing is, you're not supposed to...

[595] If you make the choices that make you unpopular with the people, it's a lot easier to get that gold.

[596] But why would you do that?

[597] Because gamers are trained to be the inside.

[598] They were just so overcommitted to trying to teach that lesson and to that whole device as a game mechanic.

[599] There wasn't the weight leading up to that to justify it.

[600] They didn't convey that to the player.

[601] Yeah.

[602] On the philosophical level, I feel like they just created a false dichotomy because in every single case, it was the unpopular decision versus the profitable one or whatever.

[603] You can either be loved and sacrifice everybody.

[604] Or you can be hated and save everybody, basically.

[605] It was just like an either -or -or proposition.

[606] There were no shades of gray there at all.

[607] Exactly.

[608] And it felt like it was a very basic lesson in how politics works.

[609] Right.

[610] Or something...

[611] just really shallow like that.

[612] It's really good intentions, but they got really gamey with how they implemented the actual choice.

[613] They were going to implement this thing, they were going to make this thing happen, regardless of the other sacrifices.

[614] And they give you the out of, like, I'm going to let this game sit until I have about 7 million gold here right before I take on the last mission.

[615] or the last set of the last day of kingly duties or whatever.

[616] So you have a way of doing all the popular stuff and then just reverting at the last second.

[617] Yeah, or you do all the popular things, which puts you very far in the hole from a gold perspective, making it impossible to save everyone, theoretically, unless you do what I did, which is like let it sit for about nine hours, just accumulating gold from all the properties you've purchased.

[618] And then you can save everybody and be popular.

[619] And you win, and you also win, and you win.

[620] Except for the part where you played Fable 3.

[621] Except for the part where I left Fable 3 running for about 30 hours or whatever it was over the weekend.

[622] The thing that I remember just being really terrible about that section is it gives you no sense of how long that period is.

[623] Yeah, I feel like we're recovering stuff we've talked about already.

[624] We have.

[625] It remains true.

[626] And there were some people back then and even recently that said, like, how can you say that it's a big funnel towards the endgame?

[627] They give you plenty of opportunities to break out of it, blah, blah, blah.

[628] But the thing is, is you only know that by looking at a FAQ or, like, basically, like...

[629] Other people telling you.

[630] When it was me playing through it the week before it came out, when nobody had played it, and just stumbling through that and having no idea.

[631] And it goes from day 121 to day 1.

[632] At that point, you've crossed the point of no return.

[633] It's totally crazy.

[634] I wanted to throw a game out the window.

[635] It's totally crazy.

[636] I kind of want to put this just because it sounds...

[637] It seems like an interesting experiment that just...

[638] completely failed on, on every level.

[639] Yeah.

[640] It almost feels like the design doc sounded really promising and just the implementation of it just went like, it almost, it almost feels like they cut stuff out at the end because the pace accelerates very noticeably from like a two week interval to a couple months to all of a sudden, like six months passes in the blink of an eye.

[641] And you know, it's, there's a guy in place who says like, you know, Hey, just, you need to sign this thing so that you know how many people are going to die in the coming battle.

[642] Um, and this might be the time to put some more gold in your treasury, uh, Before you sign this, if you're not cool with what's going down, which is like they're very clear, like this is the time.

[643] You can still leave right there and go do more side stuff and let it sit if you need more money.

[644] But it also says you have 121 days left.

[645] And doesn't communicate how that time is going to progress.

[646] If you don't already know that going in, like it almost happened to me. I looked at a fact like.

[647] Right before that point, just kind of out of boredom, like, oh, how much Fable 3 is left?

[648] How much more do I have to endure here at this point?

[649] I was like, oh, God.

[650] Oh, apparently it'll be hours of me letting this controller sit here with me running into a wall over and over again so that it keeps going or whatever.

[651] Because then there's the whole weird busted passage of time idea.

[652] Yeah, where time is still passing.

[653] Right, where you're sitting there watching the sun rise and set, but it doesn't actually take days away from a day counter.

[654] It is still a day.

[655] It's just a, yeah.

[656] The whole end of that game is really disconnected, and they don't give you the right kind of feedback.

[657] And on top of that, the character that's giving you this advice of like, hey, you might want to put money in the bank, is a jerk who wants you to do all the bad things and keep all the money for yourself.

[658] So you've already kind of like...

[659] Or I had gotten to a point where I was tuning him out.

[660] I was like, I don't want to do anything this guy recommends because he is a bad person.

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

[662] A lot of big flaws at the end of that game.

[663] It just feels like...

[664] You can kind of see...

[665] I feel like I see what they were trying to do.

[666] It feels like the halfway point in the Lionhead development process.

[667] I feel like they were forced to ship that game well before.

[668] They had to turn it into a game before they had figured out how they were going to make it work.

[669] I feel like there is clearly this sort of...

[670] They knew at the end of Fable 2, in the third game, you're going to be king.

[671] How that's going to actually manifest and how that's going to work itself out.

[672] We'll have the focus of the gameplay shift at a certain point.

[673] They hadn't really figured out the beats of all of it, but at some point someone said, you guys got to fucking ship a game for Holiday 10.

[674] This is what they had at the time.

[675] It's kind of what it feels like, at least.

[676] Yeah.

[677] It doesn't feel like a fully formed idea.

[678] It's a Fable 3 for the Xbox 360.

[679] Available now.

[680] PC version is coming out on the 17th.

[681] Look out for a PC version.

[682] I wonder if that one will be any different.

[683] Look forward to coverage on GiantBomb .com.

[684] Hey, guys.

[685] What's up?

[686] Remember that list of things that don't bear discussion?

[687] Yes.

[688] Fable 3.

[689] Got it.

[690] Along with...

[691] Cabals, origin stories, Fable 3.

[692] The nature of Fable 3.

[693] But it, I don't know.

[694] Some great voice acting in that game.

[695] Oh, in Fable?

[696] Yeah.

[697] Oh, dude, yeah.

[698] I mean, the atmosphere, the writing, the voice acting, like, everything that was not the design elements about it, you know?

[699] Like, everything that was not...

[700] Aw, this game stuff.

[701] Yeah, everything that was not related to how it is mechanically put together and conveys information and how you interact with it.

[702] Like, all those...

[703] Yes, the part where it's a game is lacking, but...

[704] Peripheral stuff.

[705] Whatever.

[706] All the snarky British humor.

[707] If this was an interactive comic book.

[708] It was a motion comic.

[709] How about if it was a better game?

[710] Yeah.

[711] Okay.

[712] Fable 4.

[713] It got me thinking just about the nature of games and rewards in games and stuff.

[714] We've all gone soft.

[715] Games aren't games.

[716] They're not challenging products anymore.

[717] They're thrill rides.

[718] Yeah.

[719] They're designed for you to see them through to the completion.

[720] And when they give you these options of like, yeah, you can do this, but it's less than ideal.

[721] There's going to be some segment of the population that goes like, well, if I have to go out of my way to make sure that I get the best possible ending, I will then go do that no matter how weird and ridiculous it is.

[722] Well, they don't make the bad choices or the great choices compelling.

[723] That's a really big problem for game designers.

[724] They want to do good side and bad side, but you always see that people do the bad side or the great side, their second playthrough, which isn't what they want to do because at that point you've experienced the story, but it's hard to make.

[725] What you'd like to see is a game that makes being the bad guy almost a more enjoyable game experience.

[726] You should suffer.

[727] But then do you want to handicap people?

[728] Fable kind of tries to do that.

[729] Fable does handicap.

[730] If you are the good guy, then you need that much more money because you're spending money building schools and crap like that.

[731] But they let you cheat out of that, essentially.

[732] Basically, I think if they had removed the ability to save everybody and made it that hard either or, that would have been a much stronger finish for that game.

[733] There's no way out of this.

[734] Either you can have people like you, or you can save them.

[735] Or, you know, some...

[736] But pretty much even Fallout does that, where you can be as horrible as you want, but if you just give a dude in the desert a water bottle, it completely switches your karma.

[737] So they don't...

[738] I think developers don't want to have people commit to those, because...

[739] Yeah, because no one wants to play 40 hours of a game when they realize that they've totally screwed up.

[740] Yeah, so they always...

[741] It's why you can change your dog into different breeds over and over again, and also they're like, oh...

[742] Yeah, it's why you can pay for haircuts in video games.

[743] Because you've gone and totally screwed up.

[744] I could barely be bothered to buy real haircuts.

[745] Exactly.

[746] I completely messed this up.

[747] I didn't want the faux hawk after all.

[748] I wanted the afro.

[749] Totally different kind of game, but Infamous did a pretty good job of incentivizing both styles of play and then also kind of locking you into one.

[750] Because if you played the good side, you got like...

[751] The powers that you got were more precise, you know, they focused on, like, sort of surgical precision, whereas the bad side got you a bunch of powers that were just, like, in mass destructive, you know, blew everything up.

[752] And once you went down one of those paths, you had to stick with it, so...

[753] They were offering different styles of play there.

[754] But, like, what if you got, like, 15 hours in or whatever on that game and then realized that, like, the story wasn't going the way you wanted it to?

[755] I think part of that's part of a player thing, too, because you want to force players to do that, but then...

[756] If they don't like the way it's going.

[757] I'd really like to see the percentages of players that are willing to play through a game twice to experience it from a different perspective or whatever.

[758] And how many people are just like, well, I'm going to play this once.

[759] Or how much is that really just they want the achievements for the other side as opposed to actually seeing what the moral consequences are from the other side.

[760] From a gameplay perspective or from a storytelling perspective, I'm kind of over it.

[761] I'd rather these guys just focus their energies on one really good one.

[762] Exactly.

[763] Because that's why they can't commit.

[764] The choices always feel false.

[765] And I'll always just find, okay, what's the breaking point in this story?

[766] Where do I have to save the game so I can...

[767] Where does it fork?

[768] Yeah, exactly.

[769] Okay, I'll have to roll back a couple hours and then I can get to this point and I can see what all this guy's stuff...

[770] It's more about just like, I want to see the content that I paid for.

[771] And that stuff feels kind of squirreled away into these little side things.

[772] For bigger games, I guess there's something to be said for the idea of I saw this thing that most people didn't see and it was awesome.

[773] But if these games are huge and expensive, you've got to cram all that shit into that main line.

[774] To make this style of game viable, you have to...

[775] make those assets count.

[776] Bethesda's done it a lot over the years of putting some of their best stuff in the side quests.

[777] You can go back to Dark Brotherhood and Oblivion and stuff like that.

[778] But wouldn't that have been better considering how shit the main story stuff was?

[779] It wouldn't have been more awesome if that was part of the main?

[780] It's almost like the Portal 2 stuff with the early playthroughs having the stuff that ended up being the end of the game because they realized this stuff's so good, why don't we make sure everyone sees it?

[781] And maybe more developers need to think about stuff that way.

[782] If you're going to have a linear experience like that and you're going to try and tell a story, it seems like it makes absolute sense.

[783] It's like, let's put the good stuff there where everyone's going to see it.

[784] Yeah, it's with open worlds and side quests and, you know, adventuring style of games that we run into this where, yeah, they fill the game full of side quests, which is great because if it was just this huge open world with a big linear thing, then you end up with Mafia 2 and no one wants that.

[785] Right.

[786] Yeah, I don't know.

[787] It's...

[788] So, like, the disconnect is between, like, they have a shitty moral dilemma as well as their games.

[789] So make that the game.

[790] Yeah.

[791] Make the game.

[792] Do you make the game best, you know, make the critical path of the best stuff and all the side stuff suck, or do you make all the side stuff great?

[793] Game Dev Story 2.

[794] Look for it.

[795] Yeah.

[796] Save that for Game Dev Story 3D.

[797] Finally.

[798] Jeff, did you play anything else other than Fatal 3 this weekend?

[799] Goodness gracious.

[800] No, not really.

[801] I've been messing around with Mortal Kombat, continuing to play that.

[802] Because they have the patch coming up, right?

[803] Yeah, they've got a patch.

[804] They said they were working on...

[805] Basically, matchmaking in that game doesn't work.

[806] Yeah, King of the Hell and the ranked 1v1 stuff was totally borked.

[807] You hit ranked game and it just sits there and goes like, we're looking.

[808] And it never, ever finds anyone for me. Is that a case -by -case or is that just...

[809] I've gotten into two ranked games since they reset the servers on the 19th.

[810] It was fine leading up to that.

[811] So I imagine it's just like...

[812] Load issues.

[813] Load issues that they're having to address in a patch.

[814] But I guess they've also got some balance changes in the works.

[815] Some stuff on Twitter that Paulo Garcia was saying is that they're making some changes to Kano.

[816] I thought Kano was already pretty good.

[817] They're making Kano better from the sounds of it.

[818] They're making it sound like people are not into Kano.

[819] The upward ball will recover faster, I guess.

[820] I thought he was one of the toughest AI guys already.

[821] Yeah, the AI Kano seems rough.

[822] It seems like they make Kano a little harder than the others.

[823] I don't know.

[824] I enjoy playing as Kano.

[825] I think it's great that they're going to be committed to making balance changes and doing all this stuff, but I've already gotten into the classic MK form of I just want to do random select and fight guys.

[826] I'm with you in spirit, but man, that's a lot of characters to learn.

[827] It's not that hard, though.

[828] When it was 12, I could totally handle that.

[829] Maybe it's just because I've probably already sunk like 40 or 50 hours into the game between the challenge tower and the story and all that other stuff.

[830] You know, I guess if you went through the story and the tower, you probably would have it pretty good.

[831] The tower forces you to play.

[832] The tower forces you into different characters.

[833] You know, so having been forced to play as every single character, I can say with some certainty that I never want to play as Shang Tsung ever again.

[834] And followed closely by Shiva.

[835] But, yeah.

[836] I guess, yeah.

[837] Having played that much of that game, I pretty much know how to do all of the specials and stuff like that.

[838] Like, ridiculous combos with every character.

[839] Like, no way.

[840] I'm not great with everybody or anything.

[841] But that's how I've had the most fun with the game so far.

[842] Like even when Sid was over here on Friday whooping our asses.

[843] I understand Sid Schumann's no joke.

[844] Never would have taken that guy, like prior to like a month ago, never would have expected him to be like the world's biggest MK super favorite.

[845] Dude, came over with a little stick, a t -shirt stick over here.

[846] Even before that game came out, he came over here and played MK2 for a while against us.

[847] And that dude has...

[848] I hate this phrase, but that guy has solved MK2.

[849] He is all Neo in the Matrix with that game.

[850] He is seeing the code running behind it.

[851] He knows every in and out and every trick in that game.

[852] I don't think he ever stopped playing it.

[853] I beat him twice, and I'm pretty sure the second time he let me win.

[854] You still felt good about it.

[855] It's because all of his cohorts were telling him that he had to let people win or we would all stop playing with him, which is exactly what happened.

[856] Yeah, I walked by and I was like, you're being an asshole, Sid.

[857] Stop.

[858] I played two matches against him, and I was like, all right, I'm good.

[859] Yep.

[860] See you.

[861] I'm going to go back to drinking beer.

[862] Play with the controller upside down or something.

[863] I had to do that.

[864] There were a couple of challenges that flipped the screen upside down.

[865] Oh, really?

[866] And there's also one where your controls are reversed.

[867] So at one point, I literally was playing with the controller held upside down.

[868] And the other one, I was tilting my head around to see the screen the right way.

[869] Challenge tower sounds messed up.

[870] It's really messed up.

[871] Is that really deep into it that you got to that stuff?

[872] I think one of the upside down ones is not all that deep into it.

[873] But yeah, the reverse controls one is pretty high up there.

[874] I think it's kind of a grind.

[875] Like, I've been plugging away at it.

[876] I'm only on, like, 30 -something, I think, out of what?

[877] You're not plugging away on it hard enough.

[878] 250?

[879] No, 300.

[880] 300?

[881] Man. I was basically doing, like, 30 of them at a clip there.

[882] I would, you know, play the game for a while and be like, all right, I'm going to get in the challenge tower, knock out about 20 or 30 of them.

[883] Yeah, I was thinking, like, maybe I'll do 10 a night from now on until I finally finish it.

[884] Yeah, it starts getting hard around 250 or so.

[885] Three Shao Kans. Yeah, at one point you were asked to beat three Shao Kans with Shang Tsung.

[886] What?

[887] That was where I realized I never wanted to play a Shang Tsung ever again.

[888] So one of the things the game does is if you lose on a challenge repeatedly, eventually it starts giving you a break.

[889] Don't tell me that.

[890] I had suspected that playing story mode, and I really didn't.

[891] I don't know if the story mode does it.

[892] I kind of think it does.

[893] It probably does.

[894] I had totally about a third of the way through the story mode.

[895] I was like, man, it seems like when I lose about three times.

[896] Yeah, some of those double matches, all of a sudden they wouldn't be using their specials.

[897] What they do on the challenge tower is if you lose...

[898] a bunch, then all of a sudden matches that weren't restoring your health between fights will start restoring your health between fights.

[899] That's very obvious.

[900] If you want to make the final challenge easier, you load it up and lose 15 times and then go from there.

[901] I just went through the fights myself and lost 15 times of my own volition before it started giving me that break.

[902] It's all doable.

[903] It's all totally doable.

[904] Brad Shoemaker.

[905] Hello.

[906] You finished Portal 2 yet?

[907] I did.

[908] What did you think?

[909] Oh, man. It's pretty good.

[910] That's a pretty strong finish.

[911] Have we all finished?

[912] Yeah, pretty strong finish.

[913] You finally, you didn't get spoiled?

[914] No, I didn't know a damn thing going into the, yeah.

[915] That's a nice twist at the end there.

[916] Yeah.

[917] What is the statute of limitations I'm talking about?

[918] I don't know.

[919] We've established some statutes.

[920] I think it's got to vary, though.

[921] I think it varies from game to game.

[922] It's a pretty short game.

[923] When the games are good and the stories are the best part about them, I think we go a little longer.

[924] Yeah.

[925] I don't think we've given up anything too bad so far, but yes, the story is good.

[926] I guess it has only been, what, two weeks?

[927] Yeah.

[928] Wait, is that it really?

[929] Yeah, it's only been two weeks.

[930] Oh, God.

[931] I guess that game deserves about a month.

[932] I thought it felt like it had been about a month.

[933] Oh, jeez.

[934] And also keep in mind, you know, European releases.

[935] That shit didn't come out until that Friday.

[936] Ew.

[937] Yeah, bleep all that.

[938] Just cut it out.

[939] Sorry.

[940] Brad's trying to talk about .2 to your ear holes.

[941] Hey, man, you asked.

[942] You asked.

[943] The answer is yes.

[944] Let me give you some spoilers for Universe Sandbox.

[945] If you blow up the sun, it fucks up everything.

[946] What's Universe Sandbox?

[947] It's out on Steam.

[948] I've seen the name.

[949] It's not really a game, but it does have Steam achievements, which I thought was kind of cool.

[950] Do you get one for blowing up the sun?

[951] No. You get one for launching it.

[952] None of the achievements are all that great.

[953] Is this actually...

[954] This is actually a sim.

[955] This is not a game.

[956] Oh, God.

[957] It is, like, you can create your own universe.

[958] You can actually create planets and set the mass and all this stuff.

[959] We're going to do a quick look of it.

[960] Fuck.

[961] I'm there.

[962] But you can just load up, like, our solar system and click on the sun and click on blow up.

[963] Shut the fuck up.

[964] Like, it blows up.

[965] Explode?

[966] And, yeah, basically.

[967] Like, actual, like...

[968] Kinetic energy being released or just like delete it from existence?

[969] Kinetic energy being released, yeah.

[970] So you can...

[971] There's aftershock and there's all over there.

[972] And then it shows what happens to the solar system after that.

[973] Like where does the Earth go?

[974] Is this thing trying to teach you any real science or is it just like a...

[975] The gravity is apparently based on real gravity.

[976] Well, yeah, I mean, yeah.

[977] But you can blow up the sun.

[978] But you can blow up anything.

[979] You can blow up the Earth.

[980] You can click on the Earth, blow up the Earth, see what happens to the moon.

[981] The moon just goes, man. It's got nothing.

[982] I downloaded something like this a while back that was not on Steam.

[983] This thing has been around for a while.

[984] I wonder if this is actually the same thing I played with.

[985] There was a trial version out that I got about that.

[986] This has been around for a while.

[987] It's new to Steam.

[988] I may have seen this in the past.

[989] It's pretty fun.

[990] They have some community -made scenarios, and someone basically made Halo.

[991] So it's just like, here's the Halo ring orbiting around this planet, and then here's the thing that orbits Halo, and then here's the Forerunner gas mining facility.

[992] or whatever, and you just blow up Halo.

[993] What have you done with this besides blow things up?

[994] That's about it.

[995] Oh.

[996] Yeah.

[997] I haven't tried creating a universe yet, only destroying.

[998] And usually our galaxy, specifically.

[999] Great.

[1000] Great.

[1001] But yeah, you get that personal investment.

[1002] Exactly.

[1003] Stakes are higher.

[1004] It's like, what would happen if Venus blew up?

[1005] What would happen if Venus blew up?

[1006] Pretty fucked.

[1007] Can we also just delete stuff and see what happens?

[1008] Yeah.

[1009] Yeah.

[1010] Or move it around.

[1011] Yeah.

[1012] Like, did they pull a bunch of NASA data sets?

[1013] Is it all, like, pretty accurately modeled?

[1014] I'm not sure about, like, the accuracy of, like, you know, where stuff is in space on this date, but it does have real dates in there and stuff.

[1015] So, like, you know, by default, I think the default Milky Way simulation starts in 2008.

[1016] You can see what would happen if the sun blew up on your birthday.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] Can you, like, fly to Canis Majoris or whatever?

[1019] I mean...

[1020] Yeah.

[1021] We're talking the whole galaxy here.

[1022] Pretty much.

[1023] You're getting real excited.

[1024] I'm so excited.

[1025] You can go to Wolf359 and do something.

[1026] Blow it up if you want.

[1027] Okay.

[1028] You hit that button.

[1029] I was going to say, so far it just sounds like, it doesn't sound like.

[1030] Is the blow it up button always present on screen?

[1031] As soon as you select anything, a little panel slides out that has like the mass of that body and you can change that and do a bunch of different things there.

[1032] And then down at the bottom is just this button.

[1033] Blow up.

[1034] There's advanced options for blowing things up where you can set, like, the force of the explosion or whatever and also the number of projectiles, which default to, like, 13 or something like that.

[1035] So you can see 13 pieces just go...

[1036] I was going to say, this doesn't sound like a construction simulator whatsoever.

[1037] Well, I mean, you can start with a completely empty universe and fill it full of your own homemade stars if you want.

[1038] Could you say change mass and volume independently?

[1039] Because then you can make a black hole.

[1040] Yeah.

[1041] You can take a giant star.

[1042] Well, if you blow up a star.

[1043] You could condense it.

[1044] No, you could condense it down to super tiny but the same mass. Then you get a black hole.

[1045] That would be cool.

[1046] I believe that does happen.

[1047] So it has a bunch of tutorials and stuff you can go through.

[1048] And one of them is like, what would happen if the Earth had the same mass as the sun?

[1049] And you do it, and everything goes fucking crazy.

[1050] Let's end this podcast.

[1051] Could do that quick look.

[1052] Brad Schumacher sounds like this is the quick look for you.

[1053] As soon as Vinny gets in, we're going to do it.

[1054] Excellent.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] I should mention Vinny's out because of eyes.

[1057] Yeah, his eyes have gone bad.

[1058] Me and he Paul Kenshi.

[1059] That's right.

[1060] Exactly.

[1061] Blind video editor.

[1062] I learned from this experience that macula is an unpleasant word.

[1063] Yeah.

[1064] Such as in macular degeneration?

[1065] I guess, yeah.

[1066] Whatever's going on there.

[1067] Macular Conception.

[1068] That's that Madonna Greatest Hits thing, right?

[1069] So we hope Vinny still has eyes the next time we talk to him.

[1070] The Macular Collection.

[1071] It sounds like he just needs to spend less time staring at monitors.

[1072] Yeah, which that would help.

[1073] Probably doubles for all of us, I guess.

[1074] Maybe.

[1075] That would help.

[1076] Brett Schumacher.

[1077] Yes.

[1078] Other than Portal 2, which we won't talk about at length, other than to say you liked it.

[1079] Yes, it's good.

[1080] I look forward to playing more of it when they put out free DLC.

[1081] Indeed.

[1082] Thank you, Valve.

[1083] I went down to Sony last week.

[1084] Oh, yeah.

[1085] Which was a pretty fun time to go to Sony.

[1086] Oh, I bet.

[1087] But actually, nothing really.

[1088] Was there a room?

[1089] Nothing to report about that.

[1090] No explosions?

[1091] Was someone standing near a room and just touching the doorknob?

[1092] Nope, it's still hot.

[1093] It's still hot.

[1094] I think this room's still on fire.

[1095] I don't think we can go in there.

[1096] No, it was pretty calm.

[1097] Okay.

[1098] I just went from the elevator to a conference room and played a bunch of Infamous 2.

[1099] All right.

[1100] And then it was led directly back to the elevator.

[1101] Get the hell out of here.

[1102] Yes.

[1103] So you didn't hold this press event in some sort of data center somewhere?

[1104] No. Didn't try to hold it in the cloud.

[1105] Certainly not.

[1106] Did you have to supply a credit card to get into the conference room?

[1107] No, I bought a prepaid card and gave it to them.

[1108] That's smart.

[1109] Bought it in the lobby.

[1110] And they let me right up.

[1111] Infamous 2, man, I want to play that game right now.

[1112] Holy shit.

[1113] The most recent trailers they've been releasing look incredible.

[1114] Yeah.

[1115] Thank God it plays exactly the same.

[1116] Like, just, you know.

[1117] top -level control stuff feels exactly like the first one.

[1118] I thought that was one of the best playing third -person shooters I have ever played.

[1119] Just feel the movement and the aiming and the dodging.

[1120] All of the mobility stuff.

[1121] I was going to say, why would you call it a third -person shooter?

[1122] There's a lot of shooting in that game.

[1123] There's a lot of holding the left shoulder button to zoom to an over -the -shoulder shooting perspective.

[1124] You have a rocket launcher, you have grenades.

[1125] It's just space grenades.

[1126] Yeah, it was electric grenades.

[1127] It's electric everything, but it's a shooter.

[1128] Everything is a flamethrower.

[1129] Right.

[1130] I mean, there's melee and stuff too, but I mean, it feels, it controls.

[1131] No, I'm saying I agree with you.

[1132] Yeah, it's what I'm saying.

[1133] I'm just hammering the point home.

[1134] The second one seems like it has a lot more animation.

[1135] Going on with the combat.

[1136] It seems much more flowing.

[1137] I could see that, yeah.

[1138] Maybe.

[1139] I don't know.

[1140] It looks and feels and plays pretty similarly.

[1141] So what about a sitout to you?

[1142] Giant monsters!

[1143] Okay.

[1144] Holy shit.

[1145] Alright.

[1146] The first game didn't really have, well, it had a couple bosses, but they were kind of muted boss fights.

[1147] Did you play, Patrick?

[1148] Yeah.

[1149] I think I remember you.

[1150] You were dudes.

[1151] You were not a huge fan.

[1152] No, it didn't, because you're right.

[1153] It was a third -person shooter, and very early on I became extremely frustrated by enemies who had actual guns who could shoot really long distances, whereas my electric -powered gun, which was me, had a very...

[1154] Distinct and short distance.

[1155] You get a sniper rifle pretty quickly.

[1156] I just didn't get to that point, and that game had a save system that allowed me to, if not lose progress, I feel I was running back to where action was from my stupid home base really, really often.

[1157] Yeah, that rooftop.

[1158] Yeah, I felt like maybe I was just hanging out with Zeke.

[1159] Oh, Zeke.

[1160] It's just that it's a dead part of that city, so anytime I'm like, okay, I want to actually go and...

[1161] Were you one of those prototype guys that was all like prototypes better than Infamous?

[1162] No, I played through prototype, and I acknowledge its shortcomings as well, but it let me keep playing for some reason.

[1163] I can't promise that Infamous 2 will do much for you, because...

[1164] It very much feels like the same game with a lot of new stuff layered on top of it.

[1165] I mean, intellectually, looking at Infamous, I can tell it's clearly the better game.

[1166] It's a lot more polished.

[1167] They've done a lot of work on the framerate and the...

[1168] I hate to use the word, but the jankiness, the open world jank, seemed to be at a minimum.

[1169] There's a lot of destructible stuff now.

[1170] You can blow entire walls off of warehouses and stuff.

[1171] Shit breaks everywhere.

[1172] There are clearly parts of the world geo.

[1173] The level geometry.

[1174] There are buildings that are clearly static and you can't do anything with them.

[1175] Can you tell the difference between them?

[1176] Not so much.

[1177] You would have to shoot a rocket at it and see what happens.

[1178] But a lot of stuff breaks.

[1179] You can straight up shoot your way out of a building if you don't feel like looking for the door in a lot of cases that I saw.

[1180] That was pretty cool.

[1181] Geomod technology.

[1182] Was there any inside stuff in Infamous 1?

[1183] There was some underground sewers.

[1184] Those were kind of like one -off little platformy levels.

[1185] It was mostly outside, actually.

[1186] I mean, this was like open warehouses where an entire side is open or something.

[1187] It's not like you're loading into a building or something.

[1188] Monsters, anyway.

[1189] So, yeah, they didn't have a lot of boss fights in the first one, but they have straight -up Godzilla -sized, like, giant shit stomping around.

[1190] Wow, that's awesome.

[1191] Like, big -looking.

[1192] It was, like, halfway between Godzilla and, like, Praying Manus or something, just rampaging through the city, destroying everything.

[1193] It had weak points.

[1194] You shot him.

[1195] They died.

[1196] So, I mean, you know, that stuff was cool.

[1197] Oh, God, what else was going on?

[1198] There's, like, there's different disciplines now.

[1199] It's not just electric powers.

[1200] It's like ice or whatever now.

[1201] So, yeah, that was the thing.

[1202] The first game, you picked your good or bad alignment, and then you kind of got electric powers tailored to that.

[1203] Yeah.

[1204] My impression of it is that everybody's got the electric powers as a base now, and the fire and ice powers are sort of like what you get depending on which way you go.

[1205] Oh, okay.

[1206] And aren't they still trying to angle it so that it's still derived from electric ice or it's electric fire?

[1207] They seem pretty separate from what I could see.

[1208] Okay.

[1209] They kind of loaded me in with a debug dude that just had a whole bunch of stuff, so I just kind of played with a bunch of the powers.

[1210] But which one is good and which one's bad?

[1211] Is fire bad?

[1212] They didn't.

[1213] Fire's always bad.

[1214] Fire bad?

[1215] Fire bad.

[1216] It's weird.

[1217] I guess there are characters in the story who have these powers, and that's where you learn them.

[1218] What?

[1219] Like there are other superhero -powered guys running around this city.

[1220] It's not just you anymore.

[1221] And so I guess you'll align yourself with either the ice guy or the fire guy, and that's kind of how you get that stuff.

[1222] Yeah, okay.

[1223] Which one is voiced by Keith David?

[1224] Which one is David Keith?

[1225] You can only dream.

[1226] That's the eternal question.

[1227] That's the yin and yang.

[1228] If that guy even gets auditions.

[1229] Where's David Keith now?

[1230] We know where Keith David is.

[1231] Yeah, Keith David's fucking everywhere.

[1232] He's fucking in the passenger seat while Ice Cube is driving and they are cursing at someone on the street.

[1233] In all seriousness, is he in that game?

[1234] I don't know.

[1235] I was like, for all I know, he has been cast.

[1236] He was, in fact, cast.

[1237] They're saying, look at this motherfucker right here.

[1238] Up here on this bike.

[1239] Yeah, fuck that cube.

[1240] Talking about the voice acting, though, I talked to him about it some.

[1241] Oh, I guess that is a big deal with that game.

[1242] Everybody hated the new Cole.

[1243] So, you know, they redesigned...

[1244] They hated the voice of New Cole, and they hated the look of New Cole.

[1245] So they redesigned him at first, and everybody hated it, so then they re -redesigned him to be more like the old one.

[1246] I never really understood that.

[1247] Did people really identify with Cole in the first place?

[1248] I mean, he was a...

[1249] That's probably what led them to redesign him or something.

[1250] They're like, nobody really cares.

[1251] He was a proto -bald dude like every single...

[1252] He was a random anti -hero character.

[1253] Yeah, just like, we have a gravelly voice.

[1254] Crowley Volley's short hair, so he's easy to render.

[1255] Yeah, I just didn't understand why there was all this flack.

[1256] The game was fun.

[1257] I didn't care for the story or the characters.

[1258] It makes sense.

[1259] It's like, yeah, it was a level of rage that was approaching the Devil May Cry stuff, but at least with Devil May Cry, there were like four games in, so you could understand.

[1260] I don't really get it either, but it raised people's ire.

[1261] But you didn't notice anything playing it?

[1262] Point being, the...

[1263] So, you know, they visually redesigned them a long time ago.

[1264] We knew about that.

[1265] But the voice acting that people heard that they hated so much early on, that was kind of like all they had recorded.

[1266] They had not done the bulk of the recording at that point.

[1267] So...

[1268] All that criticism informed how that guy actually played the character when they went and did all the real sessions.

[1269] So he pretty much sounds like that first guy.

[1270] It must have been a really fun session.

[1271] Like, so all that stuff you did early on, everyone fucking hates it.

[1272] We want you to sound like this other guy.

[1273] You can just try to sound like the old dude.

[1274] The guy we had before.

[1275] Anyway, point is he looks and basically sounds like the old guy.

[1276] So anybody who was up in arms about that can rest easy.

[1277] I think it's just a concern when you've got a character like that that maybe you enjoyed his...

[1278] Elements of the everyman presentation of Cole that if suddenly he's getting all, I don't know.

[1279] Well, you know, Prince of Persia, like you talk about Sands of Time, where you go from the first one where it's like he's this good archetype, and then, yeah, like your immediate impulse seems to be to dark him up and make him more extreme.

[1280] So, you know, seeing that as kind of...

[1281] He's boogie boarding on electricity.

[1282] Right.

[1283] It can be a little jarring just from a consistency standpoint.

[1284] Well, I think it's that knee -jerk, like, hoping that doesn't happen.

[1285] You know, it's expecting the worst.

[1286] Right.

[1287] for that kind of stuff.

[1288] Yeah, for sure.

[1289] So, yeah, they've got the lightning powers, they've got the fire and ice powers.

[1290] There's also, like, ionic energy, because you had ammo before that was just electricity, and so now, like...

[1291] So he brushes teeth?

[1292] Yes, totally.

[1293] All right, great.

[1294] You think he'd never have to?

[1295] With ionic power.

[1296] He'd never have to brush his teeth.

[1297] The power of ultrasonic.

[1298] They're just clean all the time.

[1299] Waves.

[1300] Electric teeth cleaning.

[1301] I didn't get a sense of really how that stuff's going to feed into the powers, but you will have different powers that only work on that kind of energy.

[1302] What happens when that guy keeps his tongue on at 9 volts?

[1303] Do you create an air ionizer that then you put in the rooms of people with respiratory illnesses?

[1304] It's a backpack you run around with.

[1305] Okay, you run around with one of those sharp image things and then everyone gets sick?

[1306] Yep.

[1307] That sounds like a pretty evil path thing to do.

[1308] That's Infamous 2 in a nutshell.

[1309] Is the morality stuff any more interesting?

[1310] So I remember in the first game, it really not making any difference on the story.

[1311] It was more what powers you got as opposed to having any...

[1312] It changed cut scenes.

[1313] You would get different cut scenes depending on what you did.

[1314] There were those very infrequent, very specifically scripted good or bad choices.

[1315] It was whether or not your girlfriend thought you were a total monster or just mostly a monster.

[1316] The morality was lame.

[1317] It was more like, what powers did you want to just go down that path?

[1318] I would agree that it was definitely contrived, but it was also present.

[1319] It wasn't insignificant what it did to the storyline, but they didn't show any of that stuff here, so I don't really know.

[1320] You could grind good and bad points in the first one by, like, either kind of killing or healing civilians and stuff like that.

[1321] And that stuff's still in here.

[1322] So there's that.

[1323] But then just, like, the only other mechanical thing I can think of is that you can have multiple powers in each slot now.

[1324] Like, you had to kind of pick one before and stick with it.

[1325] But now, like, you can have, like, two or three versions of the pea shooter.

[1326] You can have multiple kinds of grenades.

[1327] That's cool.

[1328] And, like, very quickly just hold down the D -pad and swap out which one you've got on that button.

[1329] So there's, like, a lot more stuff you can do with combat.

[1330] It plays really well.

[1331] They've added a bunch of stuff to it.

[1332] It looks better.

[1333] It seems like it has a smoother frame rate.

[1334] It just seems better all around.

[1335] And all the user -created missions.

[1336] Yeah, and all that stuff.

[1337] That game sounds crazy.

[1338] Yeah, I cannot wait.

[1339] And it's out next month?

[1340] It's out the first day of E3, which is June 7th.

[1341] Next month.

[1342] E3?

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] Yeah.

[1345] E3?

[1346] Yeah.

[1347] Stop it.

[1348] Yep.

[1349] Anything else, Brad Shoemaker, you want to talk about?

[1350] Outland, I played a bunch of that.

[1351] You played a bunch of it?

[1352] I'm almost done with it.

[1353] Goodness gracious, do you still like it?

[1354] Look for a review soon.

[1355] That game is great.

[1356] Is it?

[1357] It's somewhere between great and fantastic, I haven't decided yet.

[1358] Okay.

[1359] It's really good.

[1360] I don't know how far you guys got into it, but...

[1361] I only played a little bit past the tutorialized stuff.

[1362] I mean, I did that stuff where we went to Ubisoft and played kind of a weird vertical slice of stuff, but it seemed like a lot of waiting.

[1363] I think it looks incredible.

[1364] Waiting for...

[1365] Waiting for platforms to come back and be in the right position.

[1366] There's not that much of that.

[1367] I just felt like there was a lot of, like, as you were going up through these, as you're progressing through these kind of self -contained puzzles, because it's kind of like a floor mentality there of you're going to hop through this set of these moving platforms, then you get to a little break area, and then, you know, you'll go on to the next set.

[1368] I found that a lot of those were very trial and error based.

[1369] So there was a lot of, like, jump to a certain point, get knocked off by red bullets when you were expecting blue bullets.

[1370] And then it's like, okay, now I have to wait for these moving platforms to then get into the right alignment so that I can make a second run at this thing.

[1371] Was that based on the thing you saw at their office?

[1372] This was based a little bit on that and a little bit on kind of the opening of the game.

[1373] I don't know.

[1374] Once you get the, I mean, so just to explain what it is.

[1375] Also kind of a slow run up at the beginning of that game.

[1376] Maybe a little bit.

[1377] They definitely, they wait a while.

[1378] So what it is, it's about 80 % of a Metroidvania.

[1379] Like everything is not quite as.

[1380] interconnected as it could be in that sense.

[1381] Yeah.

[1382] But it is a big world where all the levels are stuck end to end.

[1383] It's just that there are a lot of loads and weird ways that you get from place to place.

[1384] And it does not convey that early on.

[1385] Not a ton, though.

[1386] But it's that mixed with the color contrast of Ikaruga, basically.

[1387] I guess I don't get the Metroidvania thing so much.

[1388] Because there are a lot of areas early on that you can't get to until you get powers later and you can come back and get into them.

[1389] Which just doesn't seem like there's that same depth of powers to be got.

[1390] Well, there's pretty much all that stuff.

[1391] I mean, there's no grappling hook, but there are equivalents.

[1392] There are launch pads and teleporters and...

[1393] Okay, well, I haven't seen it.

[1394] Like, charge abilities that will bust down walls that you can't, like, it's all in there.

[1395] From playing it for, like, 20 minutes or, you know, however long I spent with it, like, yeah, the early parts of the game don't even give you any indication of that, I thought.

[1396] So, I mean, like, it sounds awesome that it has all that in there.

[1397] The only way you would know that is by looking at the subscreen and seeing that there are, like, a dozen powers that just say locked and you don't know what they are at that point.

[1398] But, yeah, they're totally...

[1399] There are countless instances of going back and getting through walls or through obstacles that you couldn't before.

[1400] It was hinted at when I first looked at it that, yeah, there would be some reason to go back and look at stuff.

[1401] At this point, I've got a charge melee attack.

[1402] I've got a beam that you can sweep around and hit people with.

[1403] Tons of stuff.

[1404] That sounds awesome.

[1405] It takes a little while to ramp up.

[1406] It's cool that it's all kind of like...

[1407] contained in one playthrough.

[1408] In that early stuff, when I did see areas that I couldn't get to yet, I figured that was like second playthrough sort of thing.

[1409] In fact, probably two, three hours in, you unlock the teleporters where you can just zip right back to those maps if you want.

[1410] The combat has a lot of depth to it.

[1411] Because you've got an upward kind of uppercut swipe.

[1412] Yeah, I think the launcher and the combo stuff is really fun.

[1413] You can use that as a launcher.

[1414] You can slide into guys to stun them and then launch them and then jump up and hit them in the air before they hit the ground and they're dead.

[1415] Lots of stuff you can combo together.

[1416] And then bullet hell.

[1417] Tons of bullet hell in that.

[1418] It's like the red and blue.

[1419] Because you don't take damage from same colored bullets.

[1420] So you have to hit the right bumper or whatever.

[1421] It gets fucking intense at some point.

[1422] You're having to constantly change colors back and forth to navigate this just insane.

[1423] cloud of bullets and platforms everywhere because there are platforms you can only stand on when you're a certain color, but then the other color of bullets are coming at you.

[1424] So you're leaping in the air and trying to change color long enough to take that swipe of bullets and then be the same color again when you land.

[1425] Or there are parts where there are two horizontal platforms that you need to jump between, but there's a vertical platform of the same color, so you have to jump at that platform, change color in midair, and then change back before you hit the other.

[1426] It's going to sound super rad.

[1427] It's intense.

[1428] I really want to play this.

[1429] It is awesome.

[1430] It's really good, and it looks amazing.

[1431] The art style is...

[1432] It's only $10.

[1433] Yeah, and it's only $10.

[1434] It's got some pretty decent co -op stuff in there.

[1435] Yeah, we were messing with the co -op.

[1436] And that was last week's XBLA.

[1437] Yeah, and who knows what is going to happen now, but it was, I guess, scheduled to be out on PSN this week.

[1438] Yeah, I don't know if it would end up being a giant content dump.

[1439] It was supposed to be the week before.

[1440] It was supposed to be the same week.

[1441] Oh.

[1442] Originally.

[1443] Okay.

[1444] Our database might be wrong.

[1445] Well, I mean, we had it down as this week.

[1446] Someone just pushed it back a week.

[1447] Yeah, that's possible.

[1448] Because it didn't come out the week before.

[1449] It's like, well, it has to come out next week, right?

[1450] Yeah, I guess so.

[1451] PSN will be back next week, right?

[1452] So they say.

[1453] They're saying it will actually be back this week?

[1454] Maybe.

[1455] Maybe.

[1456] We'll see.

[1457] Part of it.

[1458] I just got my SOE notice last night of, hey, we also may have lost your credit card information too.

[1459] So we're going to shut down those services as well.

[1460] They didn't.

[1461] They didn't.

[1462] No. In the U .S., you're okay.

[1463] Okay.

[1464] Rest of the world, you're fucked.

[1465] You may have been double -dipped.

[1466] Yeah.

[1467] That's no good.

[1468] Anyway, play that game.

[1469] It's awesome.

[1470] Outland, $10, Xbox Live Arcade, now.

[1471] It's beautiful, and the combat, all the gameplay.

[1472] PlayStation Network, maybe someday.

[1473] I highly recommend it.

[1474] Yeah, how long has it been so far?

[1475] I would bet the story mode's probably six -ish hours long, maybe.

[1476] It's about a normal length for that kind of game.

[1477] And talking about these downloadable games, I forgot all about the game that I played a lot of last week, and that's Trouble Witches Neo.

[1478] Oh, that's right.

[1479] You played a lot of Trouble Witches Neo.

[1480] Yeah, you did play a lot of that fucking game.

[1481] Why did you play so much Trouble Witches Neo, Jeff?

[1482] I don't know.

[1483] What's wrong with you?

[1484] How many achievement points?

[1485] Seven.

[1486] Seven.

[1487] Seven.

[1488] It has a bunch of, like...

[1489] There's one that's three?

[1490] There's one that's 13.

[1491] Yeah, and then there's another one that ends with a nine.

[1492] And there's like a one -point one, right?

[1493] Well, you always have one that ends with a lemon.

[1494] Yeah, it ends up matching out.

[1495] It's 200 in the end.

[1496] Yeah, exactly.

[1497] It's like the game if you have an odd number to score.

[1498] I get even again by going into the shop and placing the cursor over the face of the anime girl who works in the shop and pushing the button until I get kicked out of the shop by her evil sister.

[1499] If I do that 13 times, I'll get 13 points.

[1500] I don't know that I'm going to do it, though, because I don't know that I want to play Trouble, which is Neo ever again.

[1501] How long does it take for you to get kicked out of the shop?

[1502] Like five seconds or something like that.

[1503] You just slamming on the button as she laughs.

[1504] It's not like a five -minute process.

[1505] No, no. But then you have to charge it up.

[1506] Right.

[1507] But then you get kicked out of the shop and you have to play the game again to get to the next shop and get kicked out again.

[1508] Oh, okay.

[1509] You can't just constantly go back to the shop.

[1510] Is this more shooter?

[1511] It's a side -scrolling anime -themed shooter wherein you – play as witches.

[1512] They localized this game.

[1513] Shooter.

[1514] There's a lot of dialogue.

[1515] There's a lot of dialogue in the story mode.

[1516] Shooter in the greatest sense, right?

[1517] Yes.

[1518] That scrolling shooter.

[1519] That type of scrolling shooter.

[1520] But you're not a ship.

[1521] You're a girl.

[1522] You're a girl on a broom and a dog who runs in the air and also shoots.

[1523] I don't know what it is, but I have a place in my heart for shooters where you're not a spaceship or a flying vehicle of any kind.

[1524] You're something that shouldn't be flying and shooting.

[1525] I like that, too.

[1526] Maybe if you were just a dog.

[1527] Yeah.

[1528] Flying dog.

[1529] Maybe that's a hidden mode where you can just play as the dog.

[1530] There's a lot of dialogue in that game, which is all poorly acted and recorded.

[1531] What sort of troubles do the witches get into?

[1532] Neo Trouble.

[1533] So, like, reimagined Trouble?

[1534] Yeah.

[1535] Trouble we've seen before.

[1536] Nouveau Trouble.

[1537] Yes, Nouveau Trouble.

[1538] Trouble, which is Nouveau.

[1539] Got it.

[1540] Which is, of course, the original title.

[1541] I don't think that's actually true.

[1542] Probably not.

[1543] So they do have the original Japanese voices in there, but then they also have these really poorly translated localized English voices, which are amazing, because they're so goddamn bad.

[1544] Is he recommending playing with the English voice acting?

[1545] Absolutely.

[1546] It's really good if you played in an office and don't have the headphones on, so everyone around you can hear those voices.

[1547] Do you think it was intentional?

[1548] You think they knew what they were doing?

[1549] I don't know.

[1550] I don't know.

[1551] I want to know.

[1552] I think everything in that game is intentional and very deliberate, but not for any comedic reasons.

[1553] The broader question, is it possible to make a really bad English dub of an anime in this day and age?

[1554] Don't you know what you're doing if you do that?

[1555] I'm not sure they care.

[1556] None of these people sound like they actually speak English.

[1557] It all sounds like it was spoken phonetically.

[1558] Okay.

[1559] So it sounds like some old school dudes that just have been making games like that all along or something did it or something.

[1560] It's not like they just went down to the accounting department.

[1561] Dude, who knows?

[1562] Who can say?

[1563] Don't question the methods of Banpresto.

[1564] I'm going to slowly back away here.

[1565] It's not even Banpresto.

[1566] I'm saying these are ex -Banpresto dudes.

[1567] You're saying they probably did time at Banpresto.

[1568] Banpresto DNA in this game, clearly.

[1569] Actually, SNK published it.

[1570] They did not develop it.

[1571] That sounds about right these days, because that's what?

[1572] That's Playmore?

[1573] Yeah, SNK Playmore.

[1574] So it's weird Koreans.

[1575] Studio Siesta, I think, is the name of the studio that actually developed it.

[1576] That totally sounds like a Band Presto spinoff.

[1577] Three guys that used to work at Band Presto that now are off on their own.

[1578] Let's keep making shooters, you guys.

[1579] They told them they couldn't make those games anymore.

[1580] We proved them wrong.

[1581] Triple Witch's Neo, taking up slots.

[1582] Right.

[1583] No, the game, yeah, I don't know.

[1584] That game originally came out in arcades at some point.

[1585] Sure.

[1586] It's now available on your Xbox.

[1587] Does it go sideways?

[1588] It doesn't go top down?

[1589] Sideways.

[1590] Side scrolling.

[1591] Side scrolling.

[1592] Scrolls to the right.

[1593] Yeah.

[1594] Force movement.

[1595] Force movement.

[1596] Got it.

[1597] Force scrolling.

[1598] Okay.

[1599] Yes.

[1600] There are different witches to play as, each with different types of shots, and you can buy it.

[1601] You beat that game.

[1602] Anyway, I beat the game with one of the characters.

[1603] It's not a particularly long game, and you can continue as much as you want.

[1604] So, again, just proving that games are really about thrill rides and making sure you see every little bit of great story that they have developed for you.

[1605] Trouble Witches Neo is not a difficult game to finish.

[1606] I don't want to spoil the ending, but did they get out of trouble?

[1607] They get out of one specific type of trouble, but they get into a bunch of wacky, wacky trouble at the end there.

[1608] It sounds just like them.

[1609] The anime otaku witch that I played as, which that's literally how she is billed.

[1610] That's not me making that up.

[1611] Is she the astrologist?

[1612] Yeah, she's the genius astrologist.

[1613] She is naked at the end.

[1614] You don't see anything, but she's got a wand that transforms her into stuff, but ha -ha, it makes her naked for a split second, and that's the wacky fun.

[1615] I shouldn't have spoiled the ending.

[1616] I'm really sorry.

[1617] All right, I'll cut that part out.

[1618] I'm really sorry for spoiling.

[1619] There are a multitude of characters.

[1620] That's just one of them.

[1621] I'm sure more of them get new.

[1622] Wasn't that game like 15 bucks?

[1623] Did they charge way too much money for Trouble Witch's Neo?

[1624] I don't know how much it is, but yes, they charge way too much money for Trouble Witch's Neo.

[1625] Got it.

[1626] It's a fun name to say, Trouble Witches Neo.

[1627] It really is.

[1628] How about Nin Nin Jump?

[1629] Is that fun to say?

[1630] I was a little disappointed that that's how you said it after seeing the way that they were spelling it out.

[1631] I think that's the way to go.

[1632] Nin Squared Jump would sound a bit weirder.

[1633] I was just thinking Nin 2 Jump.

[1634] Even though I realize you're right, it is a little squared too.

[1635] I bought that after that Quick Look.

[1636] That's K, right?

[1637] SK, speaking of games, I'll probably never play again.

[1638] That's $5.

[1639] That's $5.

[1640] Yeah, it's $5.

[1641] It goes to a good car.

[1642] $5 that goes to Japan release, so that's pretty awesome.

[1643] Yeah.

[1644] But as a game, you're saying that it's all right.

[1645] It's all right.

[1646] I don't think it's trying to be anything more than just like that.

[1647] Does it have those ninjas?

[1648] Right.

[1649] Does it have ninjas in it?

[1650] Does it have more than one ninja?

[1651] There are a ninja.

[1652] But you're a puppet on a stick, really.

[1653] Not a real ninja.

[1654] A ninja puppet on a stick.

[1655] Yeah.

[1656] It's just a nin.

[1657] Yeah, you jump.

[1658] You get the jaw part.

[1659] You jump, and also you get a grappling hook.

[1660] Sounds like what Outland was missing.

[1661] Bring these two games together, have a party.

[1662] The other game doesn't need a grappling hook.

[1663] There's plenty of other ways to get around.

[1664] Oh, I finished the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Da Vinci's Disappearance DLC, and I'm kind of disappointed.

[1665] What a surprise after that stellar Assassin's Creed 2 DLC.

[1666] Well, a little bit of a – but it seemed like so much was learned in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood about just the basic kind of gameplay systems that weren't as appreciated in 2.

[1667] I had hoped – I guess much as I had hoped with Fallout New Vegas that the DLC there would be better, but that first pack was pretty garbagey for – For New Vegas.

[1668] After the DLC in Assassin's 2 wasn't that great.

[1669] I just sort of wrote off.

[1670] Yep.

[1671] Damn.

[1672] I mean, it's stronger.

[1673] Like, it's much more story -focused.

[1674] But it's sort of like, at a certain point, how much impact can you have because this stuff is happening?

[1675] Plus, I assume I'm going to get an annualized Assassin's Creed anyway, so I really don't need to extend my Assassin's Creed experience.

[1676] You need to be playing Assassin's Creed games all the time.

[1677] Which you could be if you were playing the multiplayer.

[1678] They've definitely extended the hell out of that part.

[1679] But if you're just going for the single -player stuff, I don't know.

[1680] It still manages to, I feel like, fall prey to the stuff that was least enjoyable about Brotherhood.

[1681] Too much automatic fail stuff, too much just having to – just very strict conditions for how you can complete stuff, which I felt they had really done a great job in Brotherhood of addressing with the sync percentage completion thing where it's like, well, if you don't kill any other dudes, you'll get 100.

[1682] But if you accidentally kill some of these other dudes, in addition to the main dude you're trying to kill, we'll still let you slide through.

[1683] We're just not going to give you 100 % completion.

[1684] We'll give you 100 % sync.

[1685] Kind of feel like other parts in Brotherhood where you could clearly tell other teams were working on this part.

[1686] Like, does it feel like the DLC was like, man, this is made by the C team.

[1687] Yeah, maybe.

[1688] This might be the Desmond stuff in Brotherhood.

[1689] This might be the B team stuff.

[1690] Yeah.

[1691] Maybe.

[1692] I could talk, I guess, a little bit about the new Deus Ex game.

[1693] What I saw of the game being played.

[1694] What colors did you see?

[1695] Black and gold.

[1696] Got it.

[1697] Black's not a color.

[1698] He's got a point.

[1699] He's got you there.

[1700] Gold.

[1701] Okay.

[1702] All I saw was gold.

[1703] I saw gold and then I saw the absence of gold.

[1704] Wait a minute.

[1705] Black's all the colors.

[1706] Is that right?

[1707] White is not a color.

[1708] White is all the colors.

[1709] White is all the colors.

[1710] Because you bend white and then you get all the colors.

[1711] Oh, right.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] But there's no bending black.

[1714] Keep that in mind.

[1715] You push the explode button.

[1716] Get all the colors.

[1717] Venus.

[1718] What would happen if she blew up Venus?

[1719] I don't have a lot to say about the new Deus Ex game.

[1720] Did you know you could cook a pizza on the surface of Venus in like less than 10 seconds?

[1721] That sounds awesome.

[1722] How would we get it back?

[1723] You would be cooked too.

[1724] I would be in a space suit.

[1725] Anti -Venus space suit.

[1726] How are you going to eat the pizza?

[1727] They don't make that yet.

[1728] I would take the pizza away from Venus.

[1729] How would we get that pizza to Venus in the first place?

[1730] Pizza spaceship.

[1731] Couldn't you just stick the pizza out the window of your spaceship if you were near Venus and get the same results?

[1732] It's cold in space.

[1733] Do I need to go?

[1734] Yeah, but you're still getting radiation.

[1735] Wait, is this like microwave pizza?

[1736] Because I don't want real pizza.

[1737] I don't know.

[1738] What sort of pizza are we talking about here?

[1739] Are we talking like a real?

[1740] But are we talking like a restaurant pizza?

[1741] Or just like spun one?

[1742] DiGiorno?

[1743] Some bagel bites?

[1744] Yeah, is it a DiGiorno?

[1745] I think we're talking Little Caesars pizza pizza.

[1746] All right, I'm in.

[1747] So shitty pizza.

[1748] Why am I taking that to space?

[1749] Rectangular pizza.

[1750] You see if you can make shitty pizza better by bringing it to space.

[1751] What if this pizza was prepared in space?

[1752] You can stop by the Space Little Caesars and pick up the ready -to -bake or whatever they call it.

[1753] That's hot and fresh.

[1754] Ready to radiate.

[1755] Yeah, is what the signs say.

[1756] Yes, but between four hours, that's four Venus hours, they guarantee that they will have these pizzas available to you.

[1757] Seems like a really bad use of space technology.

[1758] That's like, what the fuck else is NASA going to do?

[1759] It's like they only got like a couple more flights left.

[1760] Fuck it.

[1761] There's a Venus to make pizzas.

[1762] Why?

[1763] Science.

[1764] We gave them good reasons for us to go to space.

[1765] They didn't like that, so.

[1766] Yeah.

[1767] Because we're filming a reality television show.

[1768] Now can we have our money?

[1769] Yeah.

[1770] It's willing to subsidize.

[1771] pizzas going into space.

[1772] I'm getting on Caesar 1 flying out to Venus.

[1773] Gonna make some crazy bread.

[1774] We gotta figure out a way to make pizzas viable for space.

[1775] Yeah, space pizzas.

[1776] People are gonna be eating food in space.

[1777] We gotta make sure that pizza is one of the main foods they're gonna eat.

[1778] We need to get a toehold here.

[1779] How do you keep the toppings from floating off of the pizza before it bakes?

[1780] What sort of fundamental changes are we going to have to make to pizza?

[1781] You need an adhesive to keep all the ingredients.

[1782] You need an oven that travels around the edge of a centrifuge and then everything will stay nice and flat.

[1783] What you need is circular, self -contained pizza.

[1784] A pizza sphere?

[1785] Or like a pizza tube?

[1786] So it would be the dough?

[1787] Jeff's mind just broke.

[1788] I want a pizza sphere.

[1789] The problem with that, though, is then you have to get an outside piece that is exactly proportional as you go into the middle.

[1790] The real problem with the pizza sphere is that the delivery driver's fucking foil bags are not meant to hold balls.

[1791] They're meant to hold flat objects.

[1792] Yeah, that's true.

[1793] So you need some kind of custom.

[1794] I'm going to say point one.

[1795] We're talking Little Caesars.

[1796] They don't deliver.

[1797] They do.

[1798] They totally do.

[1799] You're going to need some kind of custom end freight apparatus to hold spheres.

[1800] Does the Little Caesars and Petaluma deliver?

[1801] I'm pretty sure it does.

[1802] Why would I get that shitty pizza delivered?

[1803] Why would I pay them to bring that shitty pizza to my house?

[1804] The only reason I would get that shitty pizza is if I'm nearby, because it's just the pizza is ready right now.

[1805] I want pizza right now, and I continue to hate myself.

[1806] Then, yes, I will go.

[1807] And I have $5.

[1808] Yes, I will go to the Little Caesars.

[1809] I'm just saying a pizza sphere in my mind is about the size of a basketball.

[1810] That's probably way too big.

[1811] Couldn't you just like make a calzone and then – I think you'd have to individualize.

[1812] You could.

[1813] You want individual pizza balls?

[1814] You want personal pizza balls?

[1815] It would have to be like equivalent of a slice.

[1816] I want a party ball but pizza.

[1817] So then you just get like a box of pizza balls.

[1818] Those would probably be – But then it just comes with like dipping sauce.

[1819] Then it's like that's not even the same thing.

[1820] I want the equivalent of a pizza but a ball.

[1821] You want the personal pan pizza sphere.

[1822] No, I don't want personal nothing.

[1823] No, that's what you want.

[1824] What I'm saying is that hot pockets are space food, is basically what I'm trying to get at here, is that they've already invented the perfect space food, and it's hot pockets.

[1825] And Dippin' Dots.

[1826] They already won the race with Dippin' Dots and Hot Pockets.

[1827] Ice cream of the future.

[1828] I'm going to go eat a salad.

[1829] Invest now.

[1830] Man, these cookies made everyone fucking crazy.

[1831] I didn't even eat these fucking pizzas.

[1832] Did you?

[1833] Are you sure?

[1834] Cookie.

[1835] Pizza cookies.

[1836] Oh, sure.

[1837] Pizza cookies?

[1838] What?

[1839] Pizza cookies.

[1840] Dessert pizza.

[1841] That's a dessert pizza.

[1842] No, they sell those pizzas that come with cookies in the box.

[1843] Have you seen those?

[1844] That's a really disturbing trend.

[1845] The cookies are inside the pizza.

[1846] Hey, you lazy shit.

[1847] You're going to put your dinner into the oven and then heat it up yourself.

[1848] After the pizza, I want to eat the cookies.

[1849] The oven's already hot, dumbass.

[1850] Why don't you put some fucking cookies in there?

[1851] Are you saying it's an unbaked pizza with unbaked cookie dough?

[1852] Yeah.

[1853] Oh, my God.

[1854] They're not pre -cooked cookies?

[1855] No, it's all DiGiorn's do -it -yourself style.

[1856] We are witness.

[1857] You don't look really good after eating that entire pizza myself.

[1858] Do they cook at the same time?

[1859] Do they cook them separately?

[1860] I think you probably have to do it separate.

[1861] You wouldn't want to do it at the same time because then the cookies would not be as fresh when you were done eating pizza.

[1862] Also, the cookies would then smell like pizza.

[1863] You wouldn't want that?

[1864] No, because I just got done eating that whole pizza.

[1865] If I could get a cookie pizza, I will change cleanse.

[1866] Space pizza.

[1867] Space pizza.

[1868] When archaeologists of the future excavate our adobe dwellings and they find the stuff.

[1869] The experimental pizza sphere creator I'm working on.

[1870] They will mark the pizza and cookie package as the beginning of the fall of our society.

[1871] I'll clear this is where the tide started going back.

[1872] This is the inflection point.

[1873] I'd like to know aperture science is food technology.

[1874] We're on the way out.

[1875] It's got to be somewhere.

[1876] DLC.

[1877] Yeah.

[1878] DLC.

[1879] They stuff cookie dough into the crust of the pizza.

[1880] It's like a stuffed crust pizza, but you got cookie dough in there?

[1881] Wait, why stuff it in the crust?

[1882] Just make the crust cookie.

[1883] See, Aperture Science seems like a very anti -food company.

[1884] Food seems very inefficient for the way Aperture Science does business.

[1885] Robots ain't got to eat.

[1886] They would want to cut the whole, even if they're using humans, because there's plenty of those around and they're cheaper to produce than robots.

[1887] Just a food through gas or something.

[1888] Yeah, but it would be worse.

[1889] It would be, yeah, food pill is too easy.

[1890] Food gas.

[1891] Food injection.

[1892] Just breathe.

[1893] It's got to be something.

[1894] Soaks in through your pores.

[1895] Yeah.

[1896] Food mist.

[1897] It's got to be something that is completely contrary to the way you would actually inject.

[1898] It's like a food mist that makes all your skin feel like you just ate a pizza sphere.

[1899] Something slightly dehumanizing.

[1900] Exactly, exactly.

[1901] Like a food gel that you rub, like you massage into your scalp.

[1902] Food socks.

[1903] You wear special socks and then you sweat.

[1904] Throughout the day.

[1905] As you sweat, that gets the food into your pores.

[1906] That activates the food in the food socks and it seeps in through your feet.

[1907] And you still taste it in your mouth, but it's also combined with your feet smell and taste.

[1908] So your feet, would they smell like pizza at the end of the day?

[1909] They smell like your feet.

[1910] Mine already do.

[1911] And also with pizza.

[1912] Or I guess more like pizza spheres.

[1913] Because they wouldn't actually try and emulate real pizza.

[1914] They would try and emulate future pizza.

[1915] Fair.

[1916] But you'd still taste all of it in your mouth.

[1917] I think the pizza sphere would have to have an inner crust.

[1918] You'd have an outer crust and then an inner crust.

[1919] I think that's why you've got to go tube, not sphere.

[1920] I think sphere is impractical.

[1921] Tube like a burrito?

[1922] Yeah.

[1923] Pizza tubes.

[1924] Pizza tubes.

[1925] Pizza burrito.

[1926] I'd eat that.

[1927] Pizza burrito.

[1928] Get back.

[1929] Yeah.

[1930] You can send it through those spacey tubes, too.

[1931] Pizzones, I guess, is what I'm talking about.

[1932] It's always what I'm talking about.

[1933] Bring it back to quality products like Pizzones.

[1934] I do not mean here to bring it back around to Deus Ex.

[1935] I don't mean to shortchange this game.

[1936] It's futuristic.

[1937] Because it's futuristic, and I'm sure people...

[1938] What do they eat in that game?

[1939] People are gels.

[1940] Like black and gold.

[1941] Honey and licorice.

[1942] It's a very specific future.

[1943] The first two things came to mind.

[1944] I like it.

[1945] Because, I mean, that game seems like it makes good, like, very specifically on, like, how the first Deus Ex game I played.

[1946] That is actually my favorite game.

[1947] Which I know people are deep, deep into.

[1948] Oh, yeah.

[1949] And also not so much into the second one at all.

[1950] No. Well, I remember at a GDC presentation.

[1951] The guy was basically like, so the first one was amazing.

[1952] This one was a giant piece of shit.

[1953] So I'm like, I don't know how this third one's going to turn out, but you got the right philosophy.

[1954] Apparently, they told us at E3 last year when they took this project on, everybody on the entire team sat down and played through the first one.

[1955] Whether they had played it before or not.

[1956] Don't touch the second one.

[1957] They all sat down.

[1958] Don't even have that knowledge seep into your brain.

[1959] So this stuff's a prequel.

[1960] This is all taking place before the first game.

[1961] I guess kind of aesthetically, the tech that you're using feels like it's mechanical.

[1962] Like you haven't gotten to the nano state of the first game.

[1963] There's a lot of like limb replacement and stuff.

[1964] All that stuff's happening sort of in the story as you're playing it.

[1965] Right, like in like 20 or 30 years, all of that stuff will be status quo, but they're still at kind of like, well, we're doing biomechanical sort of, you know.

[1966] Yeah, trying to have better limbs by just completely replacing limbs or different body parts and crazy futuristic sunglasses.

[1967] If I could get better limbs, I would do it.

[1968] If they said we want to cut off your right arm and put on a better right arm, I would totally let them.

[1969] Don't ask for any specifics.

[1970] It's like it'll be better.

[1971] How about a pizza?

[1972] What if they gave you a pizza arm?

[1973] A pizza arm?

[1974] Yeah.

[1975] Your arm is not made of pizza.

[1976] But it always regenerates.

[1977] Oh, okay.

[1978] All right.

[1979] If it was a regenerating pizza arm, then yeah, okay.

[1980] Oh, my God.

[1981] Different flavors every time you shoot through it.

[1982] Oh, man. I don't know.

[1983] As long as I have control over the flavors.

[1984] Oh, it looks like I'm growing some sausage there.

[1985] Great.

[1986] It's great stuff.

[1987] Gross.

[1988] Barbecue sauce.

[1989] I don't want you to have a pizza arm.

[1990] Then I guess I won't play Deus Ex.

[1991] Bad for the workplace.

[1992] It's not one of the options.

[1993] So they showed me a very specific scenario being played through where you're approaching this facility and you need to figure out what was going on in this facility and kind of who the bad guys were.

[1994] And it's very much the – you can go in guns blazing or you can use your stealth to – depending on how your character is specced to – to kind of sneak around, but it's all very like, okay, activate my stealth, and while my stealth is activated, this meter is running down.

[1995] Like, it still feels, it feels the way that games don't feel anymore.

[1996] Particularly in...

[1997] In terms of, like, choice?

[1998] Particularly...

[1999] Well, how fucking hard -ass, like, old PC games, PC RPGs specifically, used to be about implementing their crazy rule sets.

[2000] Okay, if you want to do this, you're only going to have – like there's real risk of if you don't do this correctly or you mismanage your powers, you're going to be in the middle of this open – you know, courtyard in this compound where there's three levels of dudes on catwalks around you with guns where if they see you, they're just going to smoke you on sight.

[2001] So, like, in the playthrough that I was shown of, you know, this guy actually doing it, he had to be very measured with all that stuff.

[2002] And there was a lot of, like, okay, I'm just going to wait here for that dude to complete his, you know, his little kind of guard cycle, his little sentry cycle.

[2003] So once he comes back here...

[2004] I'll know that this other dude is in this other location, and I can use, like, my non -lethal thing to tase him, and that'll keep me, you know, non -lethal aligned and all that kind of stuff.

[2005] You can get away with that more in PC games because you had quick save and quick load, so it wasn't as much of a risk when you were trying to do things.

[2006] Like, console games don't have that as much.

[2007] I don't believe this game will have that.

[2008] I believe this game will be very checkpointed.

[2009] So, yeah, so, like, you know, he was showing these areas, and it seemed...

[2010] Pretty clear that, OK, yeah, the path he took was kind of the stealth path.

[2011] And as he looked back, he could kind of see like, oh, if I was going to go more guns blazing, this would probably be the way I would go.

[2012] And the reasons for that seemed clear.

[2013] And even there being like multiple stealth paths.

[2014] But it seemed very much like either you were going to go whole hog into being stealth dude or you're going to go the other way.

[2015] And then there's like kind of peripheral alignment stuff as far as like, well, I'm going to be big into – well, I guess the two other things are hacking.

[2016] which is basically like lockpicking and stuff like that, and conversation.

[2017] But the conversation stuff seems like you can avoid some fights, but it's the stealth and the combat stuff you will always need to kind of have on hit.

[2018] Right.

[2019] Because it's not a game where you can get through entirely just by speech, which I actually asked and I was a little bummed to find out that I could not literally just talk my way through this game because I would love to see a game.

[2020] It took its RPG element that seriously.

[2021] It was able to take it to that extreme and let you literally just dialogue tree your way through.

[2022] It's probably my favorite thing about the ending of New Vegas.

[2023] Right.

[2024] Being able to speed your way through.

[2025] The Bethesda -type RPGs are more about the role -playing than the fighting.

[2026] Deus Ex traditionally is a lot a shooter.

[2027] The role -playing is when you're...

[2028] In combat or stealth, like the role -playing is the character you've rolled or created.

[2029] It came out of the first -person shooter community.

[2030] If you had left out the names there through what you were just describing, you could have plugged in Alpha Protocol.

[2031] Yeah, I was totally thinking about Alpha Protocol.

[2032] To everything you just said.

[2033] And so I'm kind of worried about everything you just said about Deus Ex, I guess.

[2034] What if Alpha Protocol was good?

[2035] Alpha Protocol definitely had a lot of really cool things in it.

[2036] What if they made a good game out of those concepts?

[2037] A great Alpha Protocol.

[2038] That would be awesome.

[2039] This definitely seems like it is focused on hitting those notes from that first game as far as the gameplay pacing.

[2040] I didn't see the dude fuck up too much.

[2041] So I can't speak necessarily to the level of punishment that will actually be meted out when that game comes out.

[2042] But it seemed like it was pretty harsh about that stuff.

[2043] Or it was implied that it could be pretty harsh about that stuff, let's say.

[2044] The only thing that really stuck out at me was that there was some generally good voice acting.

[2045] That was undercut by some really terrible voice acting.

[2046] It would be like right in the middle of it.

[2047] So this game is made in French -Canadia.

[2048] Yes.

[2049] And that shows in the voice acting where someone will have a pretty good – like let's say there's a character who's supposed to be like a street dealer and he's got a pretty good patois for that character until he gets to a certain point where maybe it's like a whole word or just a syllable in a word.

[2050] Maybe in their version of the not -quite -as -far -flung future, everyone is French -Canadian.

[2051] Well, that would help the fiction.

[2052] Yeah.

[2053] That would help the believability of certain accents.

[2054] Small tweak.

[2055] Yeah, exactly.

[2056] In this timeline, Quebec won the war.

[2057] Exactly.

[2058] So that stuck with me oddly.

[2059] It was one of the first things that happens in the demo is you talk to a dude and he's kind of rapping at you until a certain point where it all breaks down.

[2060] Yeah, that's all I have to say about Deus Ex.

[2061] A lot of the game is playing it.

[2062] So I think a lot of that will be more born out of...

[2063] Absolutely.

[2064] I mean, yeah, they kept on really emphasizing the action RPG elements of it, and it is being in that moment, and it seems cool.

[2065] It seems natural.

[2066] Part of it, there's elements of the way the world is set up that's like, okay, you have laid this out in order to create proper contrivances for all of the spectrum of variances that you can have in the way your character is developed.

[2067] But then once you actually get into those scenarios, or at least kind of the way scenarios can develop as you go, still seems very natural.

[2068] Like how enemies will react to your presence in certain scenarios and where you are.

[2069] Like if you take down a guard and then leave that guard in plain sight, if another guard has a path that crosses that, what that can mean for you.

[2070] Taking it to that level of depth, that can make it seem very, not procedural, but kind of evolutionary.

[2071] It can just kind of come out of the play of the game.

[2072] So we'll see how that actually bears out when the game is finished, which I think is going to be pretty soon.

[2073] Socom 4 has some body moving in it.

[2074] Do you have to do some moving of dudes?

[2075] No, I mean, you can dance.

[2076] No, yeah.

[2077] There's some stealth missions in that where it's just kind of clunky old mechanics of just like, here's a fat stealth meter on the screen.

[2078] You should probably make sure it doesn't fill up and then move bodies after you kill them.

[2079] You still going through that campaign?

[2080] It's not.

[2081] I have not finished it, but I don't know.

[2082] I don't think I will.

[2083] It's not fun.

[2084] Not that SOCOM has ever been about.

[2085] It's a single -player campaign, but...

[2086] That's all you can play right now.

[2087] Poor, poor, poor SOCOM.

[2088] Let's move to news, gents.

[2089] And Patrick Klepek, what's the current PlayStation Network news?

[2090] Shit's still broke.

[2091] Great.

[2092] Check back in next week.

[2093] It's coming back apparently sometime this week in scattered segments.

[2094] They had a bullet point list of things they're bringing back, which starts with online multiplayer.

[2095] When that happens, it's really tough to say.

[2096] They just said this week, maybe.

[2097] Pretty safe to assume there will be a firmware update alongside that.

[2098] Yeah, there's a firmware update that will force you to change your password.

[2099] They did disclose at a press conference in Tokyo that 10 million credit cards were potentially exposed, but they cannot still confirm whether the information was actually taken.

[2100] Is that 10 million random accounts out of that 70 -whatever million?

[2101] They don't seem to know.

[2102] At least the information we have is just that that.

[2103] 10 million potentially exposed of the 77.

[2104] But they said it was 77 million total accounts, but like 35 million master accounts?

[2105] Is that what the number is?

[2106] I don't know, but that would make sense given that the 77 is a bloated number for what is actual use on PSI.

[2107] I have three accounts myself.

[2108] 77 is just a more impressive number they use in their press releases.

[2109] It's not at all the active.

[2110] When they want it to sound like a lot.

[2111] Yeah, it's kind of backfired in this situation.

[2112] It doesn't help that Sony Online Entertainment got...

[2113] hit two.

[2114] It was the same San Diego data facility, so presumably the same attack.

[2115] So this has to be like several weeks after the initial PSN attacks, right?

[2116] Or are they just scrubbing back through?

[2117] No, it sounds like they're just scrubbing back and realized in addition to the PSN stuff, oh shit, also Sony Online Entertainment said 26 million accounts.

[2118] In that case...

[2119] Almost 13 ,000 credit cards were exposed, but it was from a 2007 database.

[2120] 24 .6.

[2121] 24 .6.

[2122] But just under 13 ,000 credit or debit cards were exposed, but only 900 are still active because it's from an old database.

[2123] And they're not from the U .S. So that was 13 ,000 non -U