Giant Bombcast 10-18-2011

[0] Hey, everybody.

[1] It is Tuesday.

[2] Whoa.

[3] It is Tuesday, October the 18th, 2011, and you are listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[4] I'm Ryan Davis.

[5] Joining me today, clipping stuff on, Mr. Vinnie Carabella.

[6] Number one clip on.

[7] How's your pop screen?

[8] Have you addressed your issues?

[9] I had to wash my hands.

[10] I had to scrape stuff with a hand.

[11] Pop screens got all switched around and there were unknown particles on my pop screen and I just saw Contagion last weekend.

[12] What did you think of that?

[13] It was great.

[14] It's a very subtle disaster movie.

[15] I like the way it moves.

[16] It was less about the disaster and how normal people would have to do their job and deal with shit.

[17] I really enjoyed how Gwyneth Paltrow looked awful.

[18] in any of her scenes.

[19] I enjoyed Larry Frishborn.

[20] He looked pretty bad.

[21] Yeah.

[22] But also, it was not a lot of yelling and running around with heads on fire.

[23] It was more of like...

[24] fucking, how do you do your job when the world's exploding?

[25] Right.

[26] And like, I don't know.

[27] And your job is to keep the world from exploding.

[28] Yeah, and like, you know, there's just guys in real monotone voices being like, you know, you're going to have to go to court for this.

[29] And be like, yeah.

[30] And it was like, in like six months.

[31] And it's like, okay.

[32] And that's the end of that.

[33] It's like very much grounded, I thought.

[34] It's good procedural.

[35] Yeah.

[36] It's like Outbreak, but without all of the bombast.

[37] Yeah, exactly.

[38] I kind of enjoy that.

[39] And again, it was like every good horror movie.

[40] We are the real monsters.

[41] Oh, also, soundtrack by the guy who did the score for Drive, which, if you know that, makes a lot of sense.

[42] Patrick Klepek is here!

[43] Hey.

[44] How's it going, sir?

[45] It's all right.

[46] How goes Horror Month for you?

[47] It's pretty good.

[48] Speaking of films, here on our movie podcast.

[49] Paranormal Activity 3 comes out this week, which I'm pretty amped about.

[50] It's gotten very good reviews.

[51] It does.

[52] I still need to...

[53] Oh, yeah, they've been doing...

[54] Haven't been reading very much, but, yeah, better than the second one, and the second one's pretty good.

[55] I still need to see the second one.

[56] It's pretty hard.

[57] Anything else weird that you've watched thus far?

[58] I'm trying to think.

[59] Nothing too...

[60] Watch The Thirst, which is that Korean director who did Oldboy and The Devil.

[61] I Saw the Devil.

[62] That one's really good.

[63] I Saw the Devil is like a revenge fantasy, but then you think you know where it's going to go, and then they fuck a dude over, and then they fuck another dude over.

[64] It looks good.

[65] I also love the poster art for that.

[66] It's really good and intense.

[67] Jeff Grossman is here.

[68] Hello.

[69] How goes your sky landing?

[70] It's great.

[71] Did you land in the sky?

[72] I put the monsters on the power base, and then they're in my video game.

[73] That's my horror story.

[74] Physical things are creeping into video games and vice versa, and I don't really know what's what anymore.

[75] It's kind of frightening, and also...

[76] I watched a part of Bad Boys 2.

[77] In your horror month?

[78] Yeah.

[79] How do you watch part of Bad Boys 2?

[80] I mean, I know that movie's three hours long.

[81] Yeah.

[82] Yeah.

[83] I watched the second ending.

[84] Oh.

[85] Oh, yeah.

[86] Yeah.

[87] Oh, yeah.

[88] We were talking about this.

[89] We were talking about it, and I was like, yes.

[90] I just put it onto my computer.

[91] For that sort of digital use.

[92] And I was like, I'm just going to fire this up while I do something else.

[93] And then I found myself watching the end of Bad Boys 2.

[94] Because that movie ends.

[95] And then it's like, what if we had another half hour here?

[96] What do you guys think about Cuba?

[97] I love Cuba.

[98] Let's go.

[99] It's only like 210, 220?

[100] No, that's not long enough.

[101] Can you imagine like a 90 -minute Michael Bay movie?

[102] I was just thinking about this.

[103] That would be called editing.

[104] Every single one of his movies is almost three hours long.

[105] It would just be split screen the whole time.

[106] There'd have to be two things happening at once at all times to fit in all of that award winning amazing story.

[107] All those slow motion shots.

[108] Have any of you guys seen the third Transformers movie?

[109] I talked to you about it.

[110] About how I thought it was maybe the most terrible movie of our lifetime.

[111] It's insane.

[112] Like how it gets to a point where it's like, okay, everything's going on in Chicago.

[113] Let's go to Chicago.

[114] And it's like an hour action scene.

[115] It's just like one hour that's just like action scene after action.

[116] Just like fucking robots and buildings falling over and explosions.

[117] And like characters are being introduced and then killed over the course of this one like hour long action scene.

[118] And then the movie just fucking ends.

[119] It's like killed the bad guys.

[120] Autobots won.

[121] Credits.

[122] Just, like, no wrap -up or anything.

[123] It's just, like, and that's where we decided to stop the movie.

[124] It's not like it ended.

[125] It's just, yeah, this is...

[126] How much more footage do we have?

[127] It's, like, two hours and 40 minutes.

[128] Yeah, okay, that's probably a good place to stop.

[129] Sure, sure.

[130] I can render some more robots.

[131] So what did you actually think of it?

[132] Did you enjoy it?

[133] I enjoyed the part where – so Leonard Nimoy voices one of the robots.

[134] Sentinel or whatever.

[135] And he straight up says the Spock line, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few at one point.

[136] Why?

[137] But that's how that movie is.

[138] It's dumb.

[139] It's so dumb.

[140] Also blatantly racist.

[141] I had – An Asian character?

[142] But not as – So you saw it?

[143] Yeah.

[144] Opening night, baby.

[145] IMAX in 3D.

[146] But not as blatantly racist as the second one.

[147] Yeah, the second one happened.

[148] Oh, yeah, the twins.

[149] The twins were way, way, way worse.

[150] Although the thing that kept throwing me off was hair on robots.

[151] Yeah.

[152] Like a bunch of the robots.

[153] The smart doctor robot or whatever?

[154] He's got like bioluminescent hair.

[155] Also the cloak.

[156] But also he's balding.

[157] Like he doesn't have hair on the top of his head.

[158] It's just like wraparound to let you know that, oh, he is an older, more distinguished robot.

[159] And then Sentinel, the Leonard Nimoy character, has a fucking robot mustache.

[160] There's one in the second one that has a cane.

[161] Yeah.

[162] Why does he have a cane?

[163] Why does Megatron have a cloak?

[164] He's not hiding.

[165] It did make him look kind of cool.

[166] Yeah.

[167] So I had missed two.

[168] And I thought one was like fairly – I was like, okay, it's kind of dumb.

[169] But it's an action movie.

[170] It's kind of taking itself at least a bit seriously.

[171] I don't know what happened in two.

[172] But three is like a vaudeville act.

[173] Like three is like – You know what?

[174] And I'll tell you this.

[175] Three reigns it in some from two.

[176] Really?

[177] Yeah.

[178] Like the stuff in two is – Oh, my gosh.

[179] Three has like little sidekicks.

[180] Two is like an atrocity.

[181] Two has extended bits with the parents, like way more with the parents.

[182] Like eating pot brownies on a college campus and then the parents just go off for 20 minutes being high.

[183] Yeah.

[184] Wait, what's cool?

[185] What?

[186] And then they go to Paris, and then you, like, are following them in Paris being, like, bad racist Americans in Paris.

[187] So it's, like, meet the Fockers in, like...

[188] It's a movie within a movie, yeah.

[189] Yeah, it's this whole other movie is happening.

[190] They run into Ben Stiller, and then there's, like, this comedy mishap of, like, oh, no, there's botanese brownies.

[191] And then somehow they, like, show up at the climactic battle at the end.

[192] Like, they get kidnapped.

[193] Like, off camera, they get kidnapped, and then just at one point, a robot, like, drives up to the fight and just dumps them out.

[194] In Egypt.

[195] Yeah, in Egypt.

[196] In front of the pyramids.

[197] With a giant transform with two balls that are clanging.

[198] But I feel like in 3, it's like Optimus Prime has eaten a pot brownie and goes on a trip.

[199] That whole movie was terrible.

[200] There's so many dumb jokes in it and plays for comedy and bits.

[201] But that's Michael Bay.

[202] Michael Bay can't resist really awful comedy bits.

[203] And no one will tell him no because his movies make so much money.

[204] But then all the fights, do you think that to some level the general movie going public totally wants that?

[205] I can't imagine that.

[206] The action wasn't that great.

[207] Look how much money that movie made.

[208] A billion dollars.

[209] Why?

[210] Because there's robots.

[211] I don't get it.

[212] They're in disguise at one point.

[213] You know what I do like though?

[214] They're in terrible disguises.

[215] They are the worst disguises.

[216] I will say this.

[217] Three uses the in disguise thing better than either of the first two.

[218] There are actually moments where it's like, oh shit, that's a robot.

[219] where it had not been let on.

[220] They should have just named the movie.

[221] Oh shit, that's a robot.

[222] You've summed up everything that's awesome about all of Transformers with one sentence.

[223] And I, you know, for as much as I don't care for the movie designs of the Transformers, I like the sounds they make.

[224] Whoever did the sound design for their lasers and when they transform, I like that stuff.

[225] Just the weird digital...

[226] It was all lost on me. And Bumblebee parsing together, like, movie clips to talk.

[227] See, this is why I saw it on opening night in IMAX in 3D, because if I'm going to see a movie this dumb, I'm going to see it the dumbest way possible.

[228] D -Box would have been the only improvement that I could have done.

[229] And it didn't come out in D -Box.

[230] And so when you see that movie in IMAX in 3D, the opening shot, basically, of that film is whatever the new model, the Megan Fox replacement.

[231] You know, she's walking up the stairs, and her ass is just...

[232] in front of the camera, and it's all in 3D.

[233] The first shot of the goddamn movie is this model just swishing her ass around in 3D, and I just...

[234] Like wearing a dress shirt over panties, so just a little bit of butt is kind of peeking out.

[235] And it's not even subtle 3D.

[236] It's like popping out at your eyes 3D.

[237] That sounds awesome.

[238] Michael Bay likes what it likes.

[239] The whole audience just looks around at each other like, we're all seeing this.

[240] This is happening.

[241] Her butt's going to transform into...

[242] Oh, shit.

[243] Her butt's a robot.

[244] That's the porn version of Oh, Shit, It's a Robot.

[245] And Brad Shoemaker is here.

[246] Oh, hey.

[247] Have you seen Transformers, Brad?

[248] No. Any of them?

[249] I stopped after the first one.

[250] That's why I elected not to chime in.

[251] Yeah, you and I saw the first one.

[252] That was my last experience with Transformers.

[253] I made an effort to not see any of them ever because I thought they all looked real terrible.

[254] And then by the time they came out on HBO or something, I ended up...

[255] in bits and pieces from having people around me watching them because I...

[256] I'm around idiots a lot of the time.

[257] Saw the first one and the second one that way.

[258] Then you just have to see the third one.

[259] You've got to know how this story wraps up.

[260] No interest.

[261] The third one, the story, I don't even remember.

[262] It's like nonsensical.

[263] It might as well not even be there.

[264] Actually, it makes way more sense than the second one.

[265] I guess I should watch the second one.

[266] Does Megatron turn into a gun in this one?

[267] No. Then I'm not going to see it.

[268] Yeah, I'm with you.

[269] Then I'm not going to fucking see it.

[270] As far as I'm concerned, there is one Transformers movie and it came out.

[271] 1986.

[272] And I don't mean a space gun, people.

[273] No, no. I mean a fucking pistol.

[274] What, a Luger?

[275] Yeah.

[276] Right.

[277] A Walther.

[278] Is that what it was?

[279] Yeah, it was a Walther P -38.

[280] Yeah.

[281] With a weird stock extender on it and a scope because all cool pistols have scopes.

[282] But that wouldn't fix those.

[283] And then he turned into a gun.

[284] That wouldn't be the thing that would be like, oh, these are good now.

[285] But wouldn't that be over the top in a way better way if all of a sudden he just turned into a giant World War II era pistol or something?

[286] What if he turned into a person -sized pistol and somebody just picked him up and started shooting it?

[287] Or struck down and another robot picked it up.

[288] Starscream's got to shoot him, right?

[289] That's who fires the gun?

[290] There is a...

[291] There's Soundwave.

[292] I don't know if Soundwave is in 2.

[293] I can't remember.

[294] They do have a fake Soundwave in this.

[295] He's terrible.

[296] Is he like an iPod or something?

[297] No, he doesn't do anything.

[298] He makes like shockwaves happen on the ground.

[299] How is he Soundwave if he has a vehicle?

[300] I think it's Soundwave.

[301] See?

[302] Yeah, this is bullshit.

[303] Because he has the little cassette.

[304] He still has like laser beak.

[305] Yeah.

[306] And Laserbeak disguises.

[307] Actually, Laserbeak's disguises are probably the most significant.

[308] Like a plasma TV or something.

[309] I don't know.

[310] But the weirdest part was, what's his face in it?

[311] Not Soundwave.

[312] The dude who guards Cybertron.

[313] Shockwave.

[314] Shockwave?

[315] Yeah, Shockwave.

[316] He's in it.

[317] And he's a giant worm?

[318] No, no, he's running around on the giant worm.

[319] And he could turn into a space pistol.

[320] Is he a Cyclops?

[321] Yeah.

[322] At least I got that right.

[323] That's the only way you know it's supposed to be Shockwave.

[324] Also because people say, Shockwave!

[325] And then a worm comes out of the ground.

[326] You were not totally in the wrong for thinking that those were the same thing.

[327] Does he launch the giant worms?

[328] He's hanging out on it or something.

[329] I don't know.

[330] I can't believe they have Leonard Nimoy spouting Star Trek lines when he has history as another Transformers character.

[331] Why don't they draw them?

[332] The rich legacy.

[333] The whole thing is garbage.

[334] You're getting caught up.

[335] Your incredulity is being misplaced because it's the whole thing.

[336] It's not these minor details.

[337] If you want a dumb movie, imagine how much dumber it could have been if they had been totally faithful to original series Generation 1 Transformers, but it had been this big budget.

[338] live action movie where it was turning into a giant pistol and shooting stuff.

[339] I could go for that.

[340] Just lean into the stupidity inherent to the premise.

[341] Where does Optimus Prime's trailer go when he transforms it?

[342] He does have the trailer in the beginning of 3.

[343] It becomes like a recharging station.

[344] It's his weapon cache.

[345] It transforms and turns into its platform and he runs up to it and grabs his melee weapons.

[346] The cartoon, it seems like, takes itself way more seriously than the movie.

[347] Oh, absolutely, yeah.

[348] The cartoon is pretty – Optimus is not joking around.

[349] He doesn't crack wise.

[350] He's a rust ghost or something.

[351] It's fucked up what's happened in the end of that series.

[352] And so, yeah, it's weird to watch this movie, this big -budget movie.

[353] be like slapstick.

[354] The whole thing is like one big bad comedy act.

[355] Like, I don't.

[356] Well, I think it swings hard.

[357] Like, then it's like, look at the destruction of Chicago and how serious this is and I'm going to fight and no, we don't want you to die.

[358] Like, it, yeah.

[359] Michael Bay knows nothing about consistency of tone.

[360] He's just like, all right, now it's funny.

[361] All right, now it's sexy.

[362] All right, now it's action.

[363] I can never follow.

[364] There's a problem with the first one.

[365] I can't follow the robots when they fight.

[366] They've gotten better at it, but you're right.

[367] They've at least started coloring them more.

[368] Because the first one was just like gray versus gray.

[369] And shot up way too close for you to tell where one robot stops and the other starts.

[370] And the shaky cam.

[371] They move it back a little bit.

[372] They don't use the shaky cam as much.

[373] And they use slow -mo like nuts.

[374] Yeah, there's a lot of slow -mo.

[375] There's a lot of slow -mo, jumping, flipping robots.

[376] And the red shirt robots.

[377] I don't know where all these Decepticons are coming from.

[378] The moon.

[379] What?

[380] Cybertron.

[381] What?

[382] The moon is Cybertron.

[383] Space bridge.

[384] Got to get the Energon to the space bridge.

[385] I don't know.

[386] There were no red shirts in the cartoon.

[387] And they got to hijack it.

[388] Spike has to drive the space car on the space bridge to bring the Energon to Cybertron.

[389] So they do mention Energon?

[390] I think in the movie.

[391] But they never show the cubes.

[392] That's all I want.

[393] They're loading cubes into Soundwave.

[394] How about the Matrix of Leadership?

[395] Really?

[396] But not well.

[397] That's in two, right?

[398] That's when we see Transformer Heaven.

[399] Remember how crazy...

[400] Not even fucking joking.

[401] And Shia LaBeouf goes to Transformer Heaven.

[402] And is told by the Transformer Elder Gods to go back.

[403] Really?

[404] You really need to see...

[405] If you are this angry about three, you really need to see two.

[406] Transformer Heaven, Transformer Elder Gods.

[407] For how much worse, you'll come back and say, yeah, 3 wasn't so bad.

[408] They cleaned it up.

[409] You'll be like, yeah, made some notable improvements.

[410] You're missing the dip in 2.

[411] You're going from 1 to 3.

[412] The really dark second act.

[413] And being like, why would they go this direction after the first one?

[414] I remember tearing up in the movie when the Matrix of Leadership is passed, when Prime is giving it to Rodimus.

[415] I would cry right now.

[416] You put that loaded up on YouTube.

[417] It's because you saw it when you were seven.

[418] Yeah.

[419] Well, I think if a kid saw this when he was seven, he would probably vomit.

[420] Yeah, I was going to say, are seven -year -old kids totally into New Transformers?

[421] Yeah.

[422] You think?

[423] All right.

[424] Billion dollars.

[425] You know what?

[426] Kids are into whatever you put in front of them.

[427] Skylanders.

[428] They don't know any better.

[429] I'm into Skylanders.

[430] Shelby was saying his daughter is way into Spyro.

[431] Yeah, which is a ridiculous concept of, wait a minute, there are people that are into Spyro?

[432] And there's no cartoon?

[433] I think it's telling that when I signed up for the website so that I could use my Skylanders in a bunch of really bad Flash minigames, the email it sent said, your child has signed up for an account on this website.

[434] Because it didn't ask for your email address.

[435] No, it asked for my parents' email, which I thought about putting my mom's email address in there, but she probably didn't.

[436] I would have been really confused.

[437] Probably.

[438] She would have said, no, you're not old brother.

[439] Yeah, exactly.

[440] This is bad for me. No, you are too old.

[441] She would just say, this is not age appropriate for you, Jack.

[442] What?

[443] We need to talk.

[444] I've got this email.

[445] Here, go look at some pornography.

[446] I've sent you a couple of links.

[447] I want to put Trigger Happy onto the portal of power.

[448] I need to get a cha -cha!

[449] That's right.

[450] Where's that chop -chop?

[451] Chop -chop.

[452] I almost ordered a chop -chop.

[453] But I would have had to order the separate one because the adventure packs are not sold via Amazon Prime.

[454] That means I couldn't have it tomorrow.

[455] If you can't have it tomorrow, it does not matter.

[456] Right.

[457] I've got limited time, man, before the Skylanders craze passes.

[458] We can hit the Toys R Us on our way back.

[459] Yeah, let's do that.

[460] All right.

[461] They'll have that.

[462] Okay.

[463] Pick me up.

[464] Pick me up a couple.

[465] You're seriously going to go buy that, aren't you?

[466] Yeah, and if we're going to do video of this, I'm going to turn into it, and we're going to produce the best, dumbest coverage that we can produce.

[467] Jeff, explain Skylanders.

[468] All right, so.

[469] To folks at home.

[470] Through the 80s, through, you know, for generations, people have used toys and cartoons and other properties.

[471] It's a good Transformers segue.

[472] Yeah, like as a means to sell products.

[473] You know, Transformers the cartoon, like the argument people add about it was that it was little more than an ad for the toys.

[474] I disagree because there were such heavy stories in there.

[475] But they were also highly effective.

[476] They were highly effective advertising.

[477] It went even deeper than that.

[478] Remember that Captain Power stuff where you could actually shoot at the TV show?

[479] Yeah, you bought the toys to shoot at your TV.

[480] Jeff and I have watched.

[481] No, no, no. That's the laser tag.

[482] Captain Power was the videotapes.

[483] Yeah, it was videotapes.

[484] There was also a daily show.

[485] But they only made like eight episodes or something like that.

[486] There were these like crazy glowing red and white spots on the enemies.

[487] And you actually shoot at them.

[488] And the gun with the ship, which was a gun, would keep score.

[489] You would have to look away from the TV with the pistol or the spaceship when bad things were on screen that were shooting at you and have to go back.

[490] Oh, to dodge.

[491] So it was like time crisis.

[492] Okay.

[493] It was just using like, you know, like zapper gun, just like color flashes.

[494] Yeah, so you'd record it and you'd pause the tape on the thing you're supposed to shoot and just pull the trigger over it again until you win.

[495] But if you ran out of points, if you got hit too much, the dude would eject.

[496] There was like a motor in there.

[497] He would pop out of the cockpit of this spaceship.

[498] That's amazing.

[499] It was awesome.

[500] Fucking awesome.

[501] And also, yeah, and the Captain Power, the production on the show itself, lots of...

[502] There's some crazy proto -CG on there.

[503] That and also some very primitive blue screen stuff.

[504] Not green screen, definitely blue screen.

[505] We should dig that stuff up.

[506] That stuff we were watching yesterday, the Nightmare, the clips you were sending me of that, similar level of...

[507] bad, great.

[508] I need to have some UK friends send us a full season of nightmare.

[509] Series.

[510] Series over there, not seasons.

[511] Get it straight.

[512] So Skylanders.

[513] So that brings us to Skylanders, which is kind of the latest twist in this whole nefarious, like, you get this, and then you need to get these, then you need to get this.

[514] So what it is, is you go buy the starter pack, and it's $70.

[515] Yep.

[516] Available on all platforms.

[517] And even, it's a PC version.

[518] Yeah.

[519] PC and Mac.

[520] Yeah.

[521] Yeah.

[522] Well, no, the game?

[523] Yeah.

[524] Crazy.

[525] Yeah, they sell a package that's called PC slash Mac.

[526] That's insane.

[527] A lot of iMacs out there.

[528] That's true.

[529] So you get the portal of power, which is this USB cable that leads to this little base that you can put your dudes on.

[530] It glows.

[531] And it glows when you plug it in, so that's great.

[532] And color cycles.

[533] Yes, color cycles.

[534] That's great.

[535] You get three dudes.

[536] You get Spyro, Trigger Happy, and...

[537] Gild something.

[538] Fish guy with a spear.

[539] Murloc dude.

[540] Yeah.

[541] Get Murloc looking dude.

[542] And so the idea is that you're playing.

[543] Do you know if you get the same three?

[544] Yeah.

[545] Those are the standard three.

[546] So there's.

[547] He's a fire type.

[548] Magic.

[549] Magic.

[550] Spyro's a magic type.

[551] A tech type.

[552] Trigger Happy's a tech.

[553] And the other guy's water type.

[554] And that's important.

[555] So there's already a strong Pokemon.

[556] Yeah.

[557] Catch them all.

[558] There are like eight types.

[559] There are 32 different figures.

[560] But you only get the three.

[561] And basically you take these figures, they must have RFID chips or something like that in there, and you place them on the base, and then they are in your game.

[562] Like instantly.

[563] Instantly.

[564] I mean, there's animation that takes place.

[565] It's not like totally instantly.

[566] And it's also a unique ID.

[567] Yes, it is a unique ID because you're getting gear for your dudes.

[568] You're collecting hats that will let you crit better.

[569] So this is now Jeff's Spyro.

[570] Yes, exactly.

[571] So it has ownership.

[572] Like it says, you own this.

[573] You can give it a nickname if you like.

[574] Honey, make sure that you write your name and your phone number on the bottom of it in case you lose it.

[575] You can take your dude off and put another guy on at any time.

[576] So they build puzzles in this game based around you need to have a tech guy right here to open this gate.

[577] And that's the puzzle.

[578] There's a tech logo on the gate and it says you need to have a tech guy to open this gate.

[579] If you lose that toy.

[580] You're boned.

[581] Well, no, no. You buy another one.

[582] Yeah.

[583] Well, more of the point, you don't have one to begin with.

[584] Parents are boned, right?

[585] Right.

[586] What do you mean?

[587] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[588] So I do have a tech guy.

[589] But yes, there are eight types or something like that across all of them.

[590] So you're not going to have all of them.

[591] You're not going to be able to see the entire game right out of the gate.

[592] And, you know, the different characters have different abilities.

[593] So Spyro can shoot fire and does like a fire charge.

[594] Trigger happy, has guns, and he can also throw...

[595] golden safes that appear out of nowhere.

[596] Like, I don't know what that's about.

[597] That's so trigger happy.

[598] And then the other guy has like a water cannon that is like Mario Sunshine style and also a harpoon, like a spear gun.

[599] And then since he's a water guy, he can cross water.

[600] So you'll find water.

[601] You can swim across it to get to the treasure chest on the other side.

[602] More hats.

[603] You can kind of see where this goes because they have 32 different dudes.

[604] And across eight types.

[605] So if I was going to buy a dude on his own at the store, what's that called?

[606] So the pricing seems to be somewhere between $8 and $10 per dude.

[607] But they also have produced three packs that are three packs for $20.

[608] Okay.

[609] So you can get Chop Chop.

[610] Which we encountered.

[611] So we found gear that only Chop Chop can wear.

[612] So it's not even like class specific.

[613] It is character specific.

[614] Dude Pacific.

[615] Dude Pacific, which is my new beach broadcast show that I'm working on.

[616] It's debuting next fall.

[617] We're going to take some time with this one.

[618] Yes.

[619] So when you find the Chop Chop gear, it's like, hey, do you want to watch a little video of Chop Chop?

[620] And they produced movies for each one of these characters.

[621] This Chop Chop just run around with a sword just effing guys up.

[622] And you're like, that guy looks awesome.

[623] We got to go buy that.

[624] I need some Chop Chop, mom.

[625] So if that's locked in, if that's hard -coded, which I assume it is, everybody's going to encounter Chop Chop first.

[626] There's going to be a run on Chop Chop.

[627] So we need to buy up all the Chop Chops.

[628] So we need to get all the Chop Chops.

[629] Yes.

[630] Before people realize, oh, shit, I need a chop -chop to get in here.

[631] Oh, God, it's going to be terrible.

[632] Okay, so you've got three.

[633] Yeah.

[634] You'd say there's eight types.

[635] Yes.

[636] So you need to see everything in the game.

[637] Disregarding the gear thing, like the character -specific gear, you need to buy five more of these dudes.

[638] At least.

[639] At least to see, like, the different areas or whatever.

[640] Yeah.

[641] So, like, another, like, 40 or 50.

[642] They're not necessarily full -on areas, though.

[643] Like, when they have these gates that you can only open if you're a specific dude, it's just there's some treasure, some coins or something over there.

[644] It's not like, oh, here's a whole level that only this guy can partake in.

[645] But.

[646] You can also buy worlds, right?

[647] Yeah.

[648] So the one thing I have.

[649] bought so far, because I need to see how this works, is they are selling something that is like the pirate pack.

[650] It's like some adventure world.

[651] And it says, unlock a whole new world in your game.

[652] It comes with a little fish creature, which I imagine is going to be another water type, which is a bummer for us.

[653] I'm handling it pretty well so far.

[654] This pirate -themed world, which is a boat.

[655] It's a picture of a boat on the box.

[656] I don't know what it's going to be.

[657] No, no, I mean like what you have to put on the magic portal.

[658] I don't know.

[659] That was just the cover of the box.

[660] I don't know how it's going to end up.

[661] I don't know how we get this into the game.

[662] That's why I ordered it because it's different.

[663] Whether it has a code or it just unlocks a door and it's already on the disc.

[664] Yeah, I imagine it's all on the disc.

[665] Yeah.

[666] It has to be because it's – I mean on all these platforms, like not all of them are going to be internet cable.

[667] What happens if you play like with the handheld ones?

[668] Like do these integrate with each other?

[669] I'm not sure.

[670] There's a 3DS one and I'm not – so the figures also come with codes.

[671] And I imagine at some point – You theoretically could punch maybe into your – Yeah, yeah.

[672] Also and when you're playing on the 360, you can generate a web code that is a code that I imagine you can enter on their website to update your dude with the bright hat if you're not playing on the internet.

[673] Hopefully it syncs automatically if you're on the internet.

[674] It would be a real bummer if you had to exchange these codes around all the time.

[675] But the third thing in that pack, Ghost Swords.

[676] Sold.

[677] Ghost Swords.

[678] As soon as I read Ghost Swords, I was like, yeah, I'll buy that.

[679] That'll be here tomorrow.

[680] How much was this World Adventure Pack?

[681] $20.

[682] $20.

[683] And I think Will and Norm was looking at the total cost for everything, and it would be like $400 to get.

[684] To get it all?

[685] To get all of these Skylanders stuff.

[686] Jeff, you know what you have to do.

[687] No, I can't do that.

[688] Come on.

[689] It's like a Star Trek Online.

[690] Yeah, lifetime subscription to Skylanders.

[691] All right, I'm in.

[692] Let's do this.

[693] We'll go to Toys R Us tonight.

[694] We'll see what's there.

[695] If they have these three packs, I'll get them.

[696] The one packs seem a little sketchy.

[697] Actually, they gave characters away back around E3, well before the game was out.

[698] So I think I have a Spyro.

[699] It might just be a Spyro.

[700] I have a spare Spyro.

[701] What if?

[702] Maybe your backup Spyro.

[703] We get like a backpack generator.

[704] Uh -huh.

[705] And we just – we basically – Go to the store.

[706] Get a 360 running on a battery.

[707] Get this – bring your portal there and just put the boxes on top of a – Well, the better idea – because, yeah, you can hold the figures like, I don't know, three inches above it and it will still read.

[708] We get all the gear and then we leave.

[709] That might work.

[710] But – What might also work is cloning the RFID.

[711] Assuming it's using RFID.

[712] It's got to be.

[713] I can't.

[714] Is there magic in there?

[715] I mean, I just don't know what the tech is.

[716] Yeah, those are pretty much the two choices.

[717] If it's not RFID, it's probably magic.

[718] I mean, I don't know what else broadcasts passively as a chip from those things.

[719] Fairy dust works pretty well.

[720] I don't know.

[721] It screams at it.

[722] I mean, I'm just saying I literally don't know.

[723] Let's crack open and see its guts.

[724] Yeah, I do want to.

[725] You want to see its blood run out?

[726] As soon as I'm sure that we can do that without breaking it, we will totally break one.

[727] Yeah.

[728] And figure out and look at its insides.

[729] But so what's the actual game?

[730] Yeah, is the game actually worth playing?

[731] Eh, it's a kid's game.

[732] Yeah, of course.

[733] But, like, what is it?

[734] It's sort of a top -down, like, fixed camera perspective.

[735] Like, you don't have camera control.

[736] It's real simple.

[737] You're just kind of walking around the world busting stuff up.

[738] I shot a bunch of trees and coins came out.

[739] You're fighting any dudes?

[740] Yeah, you're fighting some dudes and doing some jumping.

[741] There's, like, jump pads that you can bounce on to get up to higher areas and stuff.

[742] And, yeah, you're fighting dudes.

[743] There's a battle mode, so you can do two -player competitive.

[744] Two Skylanders on at one time?

[745] Yes, you can put two Skylanders on the base.

[746] Is the base, like, platform or specific?

[747] The bottom of it says...

[748] like Portal of Power for Xbox 360, like on the sticker on the bottom.

[749] Cord is gray.

[750] Yeah, and it had all the breakaway cable stuff, but I wonder if that's just, to meet Microsoft's requirements, they had to make one of those, and maybe the rest are all totally generic.

[751] But then you also were able to plug that into your computer.

[752] Yes.

[753] And it worked on that at least.

[754] So, I mean, there's a PC version of the game, but also they have a website where I installed Portal drivers for my Mac.

[755] Great idea, always.

[756] Just installing random drivers for total bullshit.

[757] And when the install process for these drivers finished, it pulled up a terminal.

[758] It just popped the terminal window and said, process completed.

[759] Really elegant stuff.

[760] Yeah.

[761] That's not going to freak out.

[762] But sure enough, once that process was done, I could totally scan my Skylanders into these awful Flash games without entering the code instead.

[763] You have two options.

[764] You can enter a code or put them on the base.

[765] I was like, ooh, put him on the base.

[766] Let the magic work.

[767] And one of the Flash games is like a really bad Angry Birds clone.

[768] Like really bad.

[769] It's got to be weird to be Ted Price.

[770] Looking at this game, being like, what happened to Spyro?

[771] I don't know what the hell's going on.

[772] That first game, they made the first three?

[773] I forgot.

[774] That was bought by Vivendi.

[775] All the Crash Bandicoot stuff.

[776] But this is the most interesting thing that has been Spyro -related since those three games, as far as I'm concerned.

[777] Yeah, totally.

[778] Good or bad.

[779] At a certain level, it's a kid's game.

[780] Yeah.

[781] Like we can talk about and think about like – Guess what, guys?

[782] The kids game is not super engaging to me. Yeah.

[783] But it seems well made for what it is.

[784] And at least from like the business perspective of it, it is like nefarious and awesome.

[785] Insidious.

[786] It's interesting.

[787] It's interesting.

[788] It's totally interesting.

[789] Yeah.

[790] And I bet kids would be totally into it.

[791] The only catch is that none of these figures actually move or do anything.

[792] So when you're not using them for the game, there's nothing cool you can do with them.

[793] Can you imagine the tiers when your kid takes their, because you said all the gear attaches to a specific thing, right?

[794] Like you take it to school, it gets lost, it gets stolen, and then all of a sudden all your gear is just gone.

[795] Yeah, totally.

[796] Like you're leveling that dude up and unlocking additional attacks and stuff.

[797] Oh, they totally get swiped.

[798] And then the options you have when you have it on the base, you can actually reset it.

[799] Right, so if you get a used one, if you steal some kid's thing and it's got his nickname and his ownership on it, you can totally get away scot -free.

[800] That's terrible.

[801] Being a kid's tough.

[802] Yep.

[803] I think it's weird that they don't randomize any of it.

[804] You can't buy the starter pack with different people.

[805] So you and I, if I bought it, we would have the same guys.

[806] It's not like I just immediately come over to your house and be like, oh, I've got a sorcerer type.

[807] The early parts of the game are tutorial -like in nature, and it makes sense for them to be able to assume that you have one of each of those three types.

[808] But I've got to buy an expansion pack.

[809] To open up a new area, everybody who is in on this has to buy something.

[810] Yes, everyone has to buy something.

[811] Or you're the rich kid and you buy them all and then you just come over to my house to unlock it.

[812] You can't touch my Skylanders.

[813] I think you can play two -player with Skylanders that are owned by the same person if you want.

[814] But I want this gear.

[815] I want the hat.

[816] And there's no online, right?

[817] No. Also, all the achievements on the 360 version are tied to primary profile.

[818] only so you wouldn't even get points if you went over to someone else's house and played have you tried we should get all right i should get one and we should try and what happens if you plug in two magic portals into the same 360 what would happen It's only one way to find out.

[819] What if you get two portals and then you put one portal onto the other portal?

[820] Or what if you put the Skylander in range of both portals?

[821] Why stop there?

[822] There's five USB ports on that thing.

[823] Then a hot chick comes out of the computer.

[824] Five, that's insane.

[825] You're a madman!

[826] Spill coke on the portal.

[827] And then weird science happens.

[828] Yep.

[829] I made a dragon lady.

[830] I don't know.

[831] And Chet turns into a pilot.

[832] She answers to Spyro.

[833] It's kind of hot.

[834] This half dragon.

[835] Does she have a tail?

[836] She's got a tail for days.

[837] Ah!

[838] Well, thank you for that extensive Skylanders update, Jeff.

[839] I'm glad I could help.

[840] I look forward to hearing more about this, and I can't wait to get to Toys R Us.

[841] I'm taking your credit cards away.

[842] Taking all your cash.

[843] It'll lock you up for a week.

[844] Now he's just going to have to steal.

[845] Now he's just going to...

[846] We're going to be shoplifting at the Toys R Us.

[847] You can't be trusted.

[848] Oh, dude.

[849] It goes way further back from that.

[850] I'm conducting a service.

[851] He's going to be hanging out at the school.

[852] I got that chop -chop.

[853] You like that chop -chop?

[854] Yo, I got a level eight chop -chop over here.

[855] Yo, I got chop -chop for sale!

[856] Yo, who wants chop -chop?

[857] Chop -chop?

[858] You could be on the other side of the chain -link fence trying to fit the figures through.

[859] I got chop -chop.

[860] But you look like a...

[861] And I got an eighth.

[862] You look like a kid who knows quality.

[863] I get you Chop Chop, but maybe you want Aquafarian.

[864] Now, these are friend prices.

[865] That's right.

[866] Just give them a taste.

[867] I'm just going to give you this one for free.

[868] I like you.

[869] You're a smart kid.

[870] You're a smart kid.

[871] Just come back to me when you need something else.

[872] Or what if it really is writing back to the figures, like the data, so that you could hack those and just hack all the gear onto them and just start selling bootleg, level maxed out Skylanders.

[873] It's like, yo, man, this one, you put it in, the whole game goes upside down.

[874] It would be even better, though, if you could just start manufacturing your own RFID chips and putting them in bootleg.

[875] Actually sculpted.

[876] Yeah, it's like here's Bart Simpson.

[877] Put it on there and then Spyro appears.

[878] That's actually what I want to do is take other action figures, like take these chips out of these dudes and put them into other stuff.

[879] Oh, yeah.

[880] I mean, not that it would change what the game did, obviously.

[881] No, but it would be fantastic.

[882] I just like the idea.

[883] That's a chop chop.

[884] That's what you're talking about.

[885] Take this marital aid and slap it on the power base.

[886] Trigger happy.

[887] Chop chop indeed.

[888] Or you just take it down to just the RFID or whatever the chip is that's in there.

[889] And you're just carrying around super incognito.

[890] Slap your wallet on it.

[891] Oh, shit.

[892] It's a robot.

[893] Oh, shit.

[894] It's a robot.

[895] Just put them into Transformers.

[896] Yeah.

[897] Yeah.

[898] Sky's the limit.

[899] Because that's what Activision will probably do next.

[900] If this does well, sure.

[901] That's actually a great idea.

[902] Yeah.

[903] Shit.

[904] We've also got – I contacted Mr. John Vignocchi and he's going to send us some of those Cars 2 iPad toys.

[905] I think Will has those.

[906] Did he get them already?

[907] I think he bought the wrong ones at first.

[908] He bought a bunch of Cars 2 toys that were not.

[909] It's like, yeah, now I just have all these fucking Cars 2 toys.

[910] And it was a lot, too.

[911] Yeah, it was like 10 or 12 or something, big old pack.

[912] Awesome.

[913] But yeah, I think Johnny's going to send a couple of those.

[914] I'm curious to see.

[915] Because kind of this similar idea of take a toy, place it on the...

[916] The iPad screen.

[917] The iPad screen.

[918] So it's like the bottom of each toy has like a different...

[919] It doesn't have as much stuff.

[920] It's not like RFID.

[921] Right, right.

[922] It's just like a different pattern of conductive, so it touches the screen in a set pattern, and that's how they dictate.

[923] Yeah.

[924] And the app itself is free, so you're just buying the toys.

[925] Okay.

[926] But that stuff, I want to see what that looks like because that seems like it could be, I don't know.

[927] More weird kid stuff.

[928] Yeah, totally.

[929] Even if this is exploitative, all kids' toys are always exploitative.

[930] They're always designed to try and goose you for a little more for fucking Castle Grayskull or whatever.

[931] I got a thing that might not be exploitative.

[932] Why not let me get my profile on an RFID tag that I can attach to my keychain and then let me just scan that in front of a 360 so I don't have to recover a profile anytime.

[933] Yeah, okay.

[934] Kids will love it.

[935] I'll let you do that.

[936] All right.

[937] Think about it.

[938] Who can I call?

[939] Yeah, that would be great.

[940] I know.

[941] It would be great.

[942] If you could hack the portal of power to – Scan my profile.

[943] Yeah.

[944] Yeah.

[945] I should just get a little bobblehead of me and I just want to put it – that's what I carry around.

[946] I wonder why.

[947] Just dig out my bobblehead of me. And put an RFID in it.

[948] Chop, chop.

[949] Yeah.

[950] Exactly.

[951] All right.

[952] We'll table this Skylanders discussion.

[953] Any further Skylanders discussion for next week once we get all this stuff.

[954] So look forward to that part two.

[955] Don't want to have inaccurate information.

[956] Until then, hey, Mr. Vinny Caravella.

[957] Hey, man. I've been just working on my RFID login system.

[958] What you been playing?

[959] Beat Resistance 3.

[960] If you have any question about what number of game you're playing this year, it's probably the third one.

[961] For a second, I thought you had maybe played a game called Beat Resistance, and I was going to say that sounds like a really kick -ass rhythm game.

[962] Beat Resistance.

[963] I can't believe I missed the first two.

[964] Damn it.

[965] This is a big year for the thirds, so get with the Killzone 3.

[966] Resistance 3, Gears of War 3.

[967] Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3.

[968] Uncharted 3.

[969] Batman 2.

[970] Assassin's Creed 2.

[971] 3.

[972] That's right.

[973] 2 -3.

[974] I'll take that.

[975] That's totally a 2 -3.

[976] Mass Effect 3 would have been.

[977] Would have been Elder Scrolls IV.

[978] Five.

[979] Five.

[980] Three.

[981] Three.

[982] Anyway, beat it.

[983] That game's pretty good.

[984] Yeah.

[985] Except for the parts where...

[986] You had really weird...

[987] You had a much different experience with the game scripting than I did.

[988] Yeah, so at least five times...

[989] Five.

[990] Not three.

[991] And maybe at most five times.

[992] Okay.

[993] I had to reload...

[994] checkpoints and saves because the scripting would get hung up and not move me on to the next sequence.

[995] So like, and for very obvious reasons sometimes, sometimes not so obvious.

[996] Like one time I got done with this big old firefight, this diorama -esque sequence, right?

[997] Like, oh my God, things are happening.

[998] All this crazy stuff is happening.

[999] And then I finished a battle.

[1000] I'm just hanging out there.

[1001] Nothing's happening.

[1002] I'm talking to Ryan.

[1003] You're like, we beat it.

[1004] And I'm like, okay, great.

[1005] And then Jeff, you're hanging out.

[1006] They're just standing there.

[1007] I've received no residuals.

[1008] And then Brad is stuck in a car, like clipped halfway through a car.

[1009] Just like Brad.

[1010] Just like, you know, why?

[1011] Just get out of the car, Brad.

[1012] And I'm like, I bet Brad has to go walk over two feet to go trigger the next sequence.

[1013] But since Brad is stuck in a car.

[1014] And Brad's also a girl.

[1015] She's stuck in a car.

[1016] Nah.

[1017] It's not going to happen.

[1018] So I have to reload, fight through that whole battle again.

[1019] And then sure enough, after the battle is done, she walks over two feet and is like, let's go.

[1020] And then it goes.

[1021] And then it saves the checkpoint.

[1022] So that happened about four or five times.

[1023] Like, dude would just be crouched.

[1024] Forever.

[1025] And with an icon over his head, I'm just walking around him in a circle.

[1026] He'll be like, I know you're the guy who's got to open the door.

[1027] Just open the door.

[1028] You're not going to open the door?

[1029] Fine.

[1030] We reload.

[1031] Fight that whole battle again.

[1032] He's like, great job.

[1033] We won.

[1034] That's all of them.

[1035] And opens the door.

[1036] Let me go open this door for you.

[1037] Sounds like Medal of Honor.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] So that happened about that specific style of the NPC not doing his thing probably happened about three times.

[1040] And two times.

[1041] An enemy would clip through a wall, and you have to kill all the enemies.

[1042] And, like, I had to go hunting around, listening for where the enemy is in the wall, and then use something that had, like, an area of effect to kind of blow through a wall, like a grenade or something.

[1043] At least you have the auger that can technically go through walls, which is pretty useful for that.

[1044] Yeah, or use the auger to pretty much shoot through the wall and find it.

[1045] But, like, hunting him down by sound, like, literally, like, see, I think he's here.

[1046] Okay, I think he's here.

[1047] And then it's, like, shooting up through the wall.

[1048] You got surround sound?

[1049] I do.

[1050] So that helps out.

[1051] That helps out.

[1052] So that was annoying, but the game is actually really good.

[1053] So the technical stuff aside, the weapons I thought were fantastic.

[1054] They have an upgraded path for weapons where you're actually collecting points as you use the weapon.

[1055] Like Ratchet style?

[1056] Yeah, like Ratchet style.

[1057] You know, not coincidentally, like Ratchet style.

[1058] So the great thing is, though, if you die, all the progress you made on that weapon sticks with you.

[1059] So you literally just – Like Ratchet style.

[1060] You can grind through it.

[1061] And the upgrades are meaningful.

[1062] So it's like – It's not just – these bullets are more powerful.

[1063] Yeah, it's like the shotgun goes from like regular shotgun to like the bullets are incendiary.

[1064] So it's like now everything is lighting on fire.

[1065] And that makes you want to use every weapon.

[1066] The weapons are good on their own, but it makes you kind of want to, oh, the next upgrade for this sounds kind of awesome.

[1067] I'm going to use this until I get it.

[1068] So that was really fun.

[1069] The story is much better than 2.

[1070] Because it has basically nothing to do with 2?

[1071] Yeah.

[1072] Is it kind of more of a sequel to 1, or does it just separate?

[1073] It's kind of like Insomniac said, man, we introduced a lot of mythological elements to our story that we don't really have any.

[1074] way to explain or maybe they're leaving open questions so that when they're done with this franchise that other developers could come in and answer them for them.

[1075] But it feels like a side story, like a really good side story.

[1076] It technically does carry forward what happened in 1 and 2 and you're trying to stop the Chimera menace.

[1077] But it's very loose how it connects and it's sort of irrelevant.

[1078] You don't have to have played 1 and 2.

[1079] You can jump in a 3 and...

[1080] and really enjoy it.

[1081] The new engine is great.

[1082] The lighting and effects are amazing.

[1083] But the story does not...

[1084] feel like it is the end of anything.

[1085] It answers no lingering questions about the universe.

[1086] In a nutshell, they're trying to cool the planet because the Chimera like it cold.

[1087] I like it cold.

[1088] Everybody likes it at 65 or under.

[1089] They're trying to drop the thermostat even lower.

[1090] To do that, they're also opening up a wormhole.

[1091] I don't know.

[1092] They're bringing Cybertron through.

[1093] Even though like the little journals in the game insinuate that they've been here like War of the World style for thousands of years.

[1094] Which is interesting.

[1095] They're trying to set up this stuff.

[1096] Except it's like hidden away in a notebook that is optional.

[1097] So like by the end of the game, you're basically just trying to kind of – they're fighting your way to stop in New York City this one thing that's happening there.

[1098] He's trying to start global warming.

[1099] Yeah.

[1100] Yeah, it is right.

[1101] Thanks, Obama.

[1102] So basically you're just buying a bunch of Aquanet and just kind of holding that in the button for about eight hours.

[1103] Depending on if you find everything or not, you're holding down the spray can for about eight hours.

[1104] Did you play with the move for that?

[1105] No. I didn't put the move in.

[1106] Did you hold down the trigger?

[1107] No. Spray my hair.

[1108] So, like, it's a cool game.

[1109] It's really, really good.

[1110] I wish I didn't have those moments with those bugs in it.

[1111] But the game has really weird weapons.

[1112] And I think they're good.

[1113] The vomit weapon is probably the best.

[1114] It's like this goo gun that you shoot on enemies, and then it causes them to vomit and then explode.

[1115] And you have the alt attack is just this giant.

[1116] glob that goes and sprays in front of enemies and it sounds like that's how you kind of broke some of the scripting.

[1117] Yeah, because I was, I don't know, it could have been because I was like literally, it's a big area of effect attack that's like if you're in this poison cloud, everybody's just going to like start retching and kind of like blowing up.

[1118] So I was just like, I'd see guys and I'd fire it way far before I had triggered it and he'd be like, oh my god, those are the bad guys.

[1119] And so I'd walk up and then they'd all be throwing up on the ground and then the guy I was with would know what to do and he'd just stand there and be like.

[1120] Fuck.

[1121] Time paradox.

[1122] You weren't supposed to do that yet.

[1123] That's a pretty bad way to blow up, though.

[1124] Yeah.

[1125] Oh, it's disgusting, too.

[1126] It's kind of awesome.

[1127] Okay, I think I feel better.

[1128] Oh, no!

[1129] This giant cyst!

[1130] And then these giant pus things start growing on them until they start coming at you, and then you shoot them, and they just explode into another pus cloud.

[1131] It's really good.

[1132] Actually, I thought the game was really good.

[1133] I liked it better than Killzone 3.

[1134] I don't know, the direct comparison is just because they're PS3, first -person shooters.

[1135] Also, Rico wasn't there.

[1136] Also, I made Rico throw up and kicked him out of Resistance 3.

[1137] No, the characters are all actually pretty good.

[1138] They try for a lot of gravitas, and it worked mostly until the scripting would get me and be like, video game.

[1139] Like, crap video game.

[1140] So, yeah, I recommend it.

[1141] Yeah.

[1142] It's good.

[1143] If you haven't played the first two.

[1144] I didn't try any of the multiplayer.

[1145] I assume it's in there.

[1146] It sounds like you almost might be better off if you haven't played the first two because those didn't exactly lay a great foundation.

[1147] And they don't really reference that much.

[1148] It's like they have Nathan Hale Memorial Cemetery.

[1149] I think you're right.

[1150] Yeah, don't read the Wikipedia story summaries for the first two because then you're like, wow, this story is real deep.

[1151] They just go surface level on the actual story.

[1152] They have a previously.

[1153] previously in Resistance thing that is as long as it needs to be and basically sets it up.

[1154] It's like this virus entered our atmosphere in the 1900.

[1155] Chimera are taking over.

[1156] They're fighting their way across the world.

[1157] Stop them.

[1158] That's it.

[1159] Yeah.

[1160] Nathan Hale tried to stop them.

[1161] It didn't work out.

[1162] You're the guy you were into without spoiling some major stuff.

[1163] He's a squad member into and then you take him over.

[1164] Whatever.

[1165] They spoil that in that opening thing.

[1166] They say here's everything that happened.

[1167] Yeah.

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] But it's a pretty good game.

[1170] I definitely recommend playing it.

[1171] And then I tried some Rage.

[1172] And I guess they patched a bunch of stuff on the PC.

[1173] They did put out one pretty significant patch.

[1174] Yeah, which expands the PC options.

[1175] Beyond the first patch?

[1176] No, that was the first one.

[1177] But there is a bigger patch coming.

[1178] The first thing was actually a driver update, not a patch to the game.

[1179] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1180] I'm talking about since then there was an actual patch to the game itself.

[1181] So this adds options for like V -Sync and some other like...

[1182] Texture fixes and stuff.

[1183] Was that stuff not in there before?

[1184] No. There were no options.

[1185] You had to do it on the hardware level, right?

[1186] There were zero.

[1187] Their whole philosophy was 60 frames a second or bust.

[1188] So the engine would actually dynamically turn features off as it was playing to keep the frame rate high.

[1189] So they just didn't offer any manual options.

[1190] That's a noble goal.

[1191] It is.

[1192] At the same time.

[1193] For the PC crowd.

[1194] Not for that audience.

[1195] So those things in there.

[1196] Do you know if that's true on the...

[1197] For the console version?

[1198] Yeah, so an example on the PS3 version, which is the one I played through, you'll have instances where the resolution drops to barely above high -definite, like 720p.

[1199] And what happens is, like, you don't really notice it when you're playing the game, but if it occurs during a moment where, for example, you switch to a menu, all of the text and graphics are garbled, and then you'll switch out, turn around a bit, and then the resolution will pop back to where it's supposed to be.

[1200] And that's that way.

[1201] But that would happen in just, like, walking forward.

[1202] Like, it wasn't, like, there are eight enemies on screen.

[1203] Like, it was just the game was...

[1204] dropping features and resolution in order to maintain the 60 frames per second, which must be also related to how the texture pop -in is working.

[1205] At random times, I would just go to create an object and it would just be garbled mess that I had to exit out, wait for the resolution to switch, and then go back in.

[1206] It's definitely doing that on the console side as well.

[1207] I think people determine to a lesser degree that happens on the Xbox, but it doesn't drop the resolution as much, so you don't see it.

[1208] That's kind of interesting, though.

[1209] Well, they picked one thing that they were going to focus on and nail, and they did.

[1210] But they did it at the expense of some other stuff.

[1211] Sure.

[1212] You kind of have to.

[1213] So the only big thing that I ran into on the PC, booting it up fresh from that patch, was there was horrible, horrible tearing.

[1214] Maybe the worst I've ever seen.

[1215] Yeah, it was pretty bad on our machine here.

[1216] And it happened.

[1217] It didn't happen.

[1218] Easy to fix.

[1219] But it happened on every move.

[1220] Like, it's just a big ban.

[1221] Oh, yeah.

[1222] But I couldn't get it to save the turn of vSync option on.

[1223] So I had to do some monkeying around and go into the graphic drivers for NVIDIA and say, okay, add Rage to this.

[1224] Here's a special case.

[1225] And I had to say, like, let Rage decide.

[1226] And I think in my global options, I had to let the game decide.

[1227] And then once I had added that specific...

[1228] claws into the, you know, the logic of the video card.

[1229] Oh, just like the video card driver settings overriding anything?

[1230] Yeah, or something.

[1231] And then it would stay on.

[1232] And then it fixed it.

[1233] And it was fine.

[1234] I mean, it's still got a very slight texture pop in.

[1235] I haven't gotten that far in a game.

[1236] But it seems to be working fine.

[1237] Now I'm just playing Rage.

[1238] There's a bigger patch, actually, on the way.

[1239] For the texture stuff, right?

[1240] There's going to add console commands, too, I think?

[1241] I can't remember exactly.

[1242] All I know is that Carmack's been out there talking about it, saying, like, you know, this is basically going to be the best version of the game.

[1243] I think they're, like, fixing all the stuff that they know is wrong.

[1244] He's been out there saying crazy technical shit.

[1245] Yeah.

[1246] So there's also...

[1247] You can also get in there and you can...

[1248] Vertex shaders, also rockets, flight maps.

[1249] All right, see ya.

[1250] If you say so, Johnny.

[1251] You can enable, if you want to really dig in and edit some config files, you can enable the bigger textures.

[1252] I'll let it go.

[1253] Bigger than Mega?

[1254] Mega -est.

[1255] So there's like the 8K textures and the 16K textures.

[1256] It forces the high -res textures rather than doing the layered.

[1257] If you go on the Steam forums, you can find all the launch options that maxes that stuff out.

[1258] And you kind of have to do that if you want to maintain the achievements because the moment you go into the console, it disables the achievements, but you can get it to do.

[1259] console commands prior to the executable running so that you can maintain the achievements.

[1260] That's right, that game's Steamworks, right?

[1261] Yes.

[1262] So the biggest thing I'm running into now after the V -Sync fix was do I want to play this with a controller or do I want to play this with a mouse and keyboard?

[1263] And the vehicle controls on the keyboard are kind of lame, but the gunplay with the mouse is really good.

[1264] So it can kind of have both going at the same time.

[1265] A little trade -off there?

[1266] Yeah, a little trade -off.

[1267] Can you actually just like...

[1268] Pick up the controller.

[1269] Absolutely.

[1270] They designed it around that.

[1271] But all the prompts on the screen will be for the controller.

[1272] You should get a wheel.

[1273] I should just get a wheel.

[1274] That's what I was thinking.

[1275] Just get foot pedals.

[1276] We get a racing wheel.

[1277] You mount it in the middle, so then you just put your hands around the wheel for any of the first -person controls and then just come back and grab the wheel when it's time to drive.

[1278] Why don't I just give you the wireless speed wheel and you can get one of those wireless 360 things for PC, and I bet it would just totally work.

[1279] And then get a light gun.

[1280] Yes.

[1281] Lucky and wild.

[1282] Like in Breaking Bad.

[1283] Yes.

[1284] That's right.

[1285] Oh, then you're like Rage.

[1286] Yeah, like Rage.

[1287] Man, I saw it.

[1288] I finished season four.

[1289] What is it?

[1290] It's at least three different episodes that that game is in, right?

[1291] Yes.

[1292] My favorite one, though?

[1293] And the box will be laying about an episode.

[1294] My favorite one is there's that fight.

[1295] There's a tussle and a bookshelf gets jostled and the copy of Rage falls very prominently into frame.

[1296] It's crazy because it's this natural fight between two characters and somebody gets slammed against this bookshelf and it...

[1297] You have to wonder, was there a PA right off the frame?

[1298] Is it very carefully dropped the copy of the game into place?

[1299] I think you could probably CG that in.

[1300] Maybe.

[1301] I also saw why you thought if we didn't have that discussion here about the opening of that game and I thought there was a spaceship.

[1302] I probably would have thought there was a spaceship involved.

[1303] It's a big spiky hunk of rock, though.

[1304] Yeah, but who knows?

[1305] It could look like a bad spaceship.

[1306] We've seen plenty of alien spaceships that were just hunks of rock.

[1307] Yeah, I mean, granted, I knew the story going in.

[1308] Right, because they don't.

[1309] Someone else wrote in and said, I'm with you until you had that conversation.

[1310] I thought that you were living in space and crashed.

[1311] Yeah, they don't do a good job of saying, like, these are bunkers and stuff.

[1312] I mean, I knew it because we had talked about it a bunch.

[1313] If they had just come up and said, like, you know, Fallout, right?

[1314] All right, here we go.

[1315] They call them arcs, right?

[1316] The underground things?

[1317] Yeah.

[1318] Like that arc kind of...

[1319] Yeah.

[1320] And they also say apothesis is on its way.

[1321] They don't say like, you know, this killer asteroid that's going to wipe us out.

[1322] So yeah, it is not set up very...

[1323] I don't know if it sets it up more as you go along.

[1324] Yeah, I mean, yeah.

[1325] A couple hours in, you understand all that stuff.

[1326] Yeah, I could definitely see that.

[1327] Yeah, game's cool so far.

[1328] I shot a bunch of guys.

[1329] They animate really nicely.

[1330] That's what it's good at.

[1331] John Goodman's...

[1332] kicking some story.

[1333] He's not in it enough.

[1334] He should have been the main thread.

[1335] Then I will know to savor him when I finally play Rage.

[1336] It would have been great if he had come back later in the game to lead the movement.

[1337] So now I guess I'm doing the Rage thing.

[1338] We'll see how that goes.

[1339] Trying to catch up really quickly because there's Batman.

[1340] I got Davis X to finish up, finish up Rage, which isn't all that long, right?

[1341] And the side quests are pretty inconsequential, so you can kind of just mainline the story.

[1342] And then I got Skyrim, you know, that's going to hit.

[1343] Uncharted.

[1344] Uncharted I'm not as worried about.

[1345] That's, you know, a fixed length of time.

[1346] Skyrim is the one that I feel like.

[1347] If we're talking in context of what are we going to argue about for game of the year, which is pretty much what we're talking about here.

[1348] You can play enough Skyrim to know if it rates for you.

[1349] Vinny's also wants to play the shit out of Skyrim.

[1350] I'm also hoping it's a really enjoyable game.

[1351] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1352] It is.

[1353] And so I put down Dark Souls for a bit.

[1354] I reached a part where they were pretty much like, great, you are doing really good here.

[1355] So there's four other guys now you need to go kill.

[1356] And I was like, okay.

[1357] You're going to tell me exactly what I need to do.

[1358] I'm going to take a break.

[1359] Yeah, like where I'm at, they haven't given you really any direction at all.

[1360] Yeah, so I opened up this, I don't know, call it another act or whatever, but they were basically like, you did all this stuff that, amazing.

[1361] I didn't think you'd do it.

[1362] But hey, here's this next objective.

[1363] And so it's very clear what I need to go do.

[1364] I can put that down for a bit because I think it's going to be a lot more of the same.

[1365] I tried all these other games that have come out.

[1366] I beat the Gargoyles.

[1367] That's good.

[1368] I rang the bell.

[1369] I need to get back to that.

[1370] I rang that bell.

[1371] Brad, you're still playing?

[1372] Yeah, off and on when I have time.

[1373] I can't play it for long stretches.

[1374] People like these Matt Rorys of the world who are playing 40, 50 hours, I don't get it.

[1375] I like to play about an hour.

[1376] I like to grind, get a little progress, save.

[1377] Then if I have any frustration in that hour, I haven't.

[1378] lost that much time.

[1379] If I just get one room forward, go back, put that added to my memory of the pattern, I'm fine with that.

[1380] Because you have to memorize all that stuff.

[1381] There's so much repetition involved that it's just really hard to do the same thing five, six times in a row and then keep playing the game.

[1382] And then go and memorize a new section of the sand.

[1383] I like that game.

[1384] I like that game too.

[1385] It's treating me alright now.

[1386] Reached an understanding with Dark Souls.

[1387] Vinny, you play anything else?

[1388] No, so it was Rage and Resistance.

[1389] Rage and Resistance.

[1390] I thought it was something.

[1391] I thought I bidded up that Xbox or something, but hell if I remember.

[1392] Xbox.

[1393] Play games.

[1394] Watched Hanna.

[1395] How was it?

[1396] I haven't seen that yet.

[1397] It's all right.

[1398] Yeah.

[1399] Yeah, it's okay.

[1400] Patrick Klepek.

[1401] Hey.

[1402] How's it going?

[1403] All right.

[1404] Cool.

[1405] Played through hours of Skyrim.

[1406] Yes, you did.

[1407] Yeah.

[1408] Like timed?

[1409] Are we going to like that game?

[1410] Timed.

[1411] Yeah, you're going to like that game.

[1412] You're going to like that game a lot.

[1413] From the guy who doesn't like fantasy.

[1414] Right.

[1415] That's right.

[1416] So it takes place in space.

[1417] It's right because it's got robots.

[1418] It's like an hour with a sword and then you fight like eight dragons and then you take off.

[1419] There's an arc. Okay.

[1420] There's the authority.

[1421] You fly those dragons into space.

[1422] So I didn't really like dragon chariots.

[1423] I didn't really like Oblivion.

[1424] Why didn't you like Oblivion?

[1425] I thought the combat was really boring and the areas were monotonous.

[1426] Yeah, me and him had a conversation about this last night, and it's partially, I think, me and Vinny have similar personalities in that we have to do everything that we see in games like that.

[1427] It was literally just doing the same thing over and over again.

[1428] And when you have that mentality and you're running...

[1429] So it's a completionist attitude, but then nothing interesting to do to...

[1430] The problem is the completionist attitude makes them go and see all of the kind of inconsequential side stuff.

[1431] I think that's why it's a case where the achievement system actually works out pretty well because if you view that as completing the game, like they've got all the major faction quests and all that stuff for Oblivion are given achievements and all that stuff.

[1432] So by doing all that stuff, I felt like I saw everything that game had to offer.

[1433] Yeah, I bought Oblivion on the PC, which has no achievement.

[1434] That was at the dawn of the achievement age, really.

[1435] The way that I played Oblivion was 30 hours of going in every single cave and every single, like, elvish ruin that I found and then never playing it again.

[1436] If that had been the game, it was terrible.

[1437] It was awful.

[1438] That's a bad way to play it.

[1439] It was awful.

[1440] The game should have been complete each faction.

[1441] and, like, unite the factions or something.

[1442] Not close the Oblivion Gates.

[1443] Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1444] Because that was the most interesting stuff.

[1445] By the end of that game, I was, like, running up those stairs, like, running past enemies to get the Oblivion Gates.

[1446] And there were, like, three, they had, like, for lack of a better word, like, three tile sets for every dwarven room.

[1447] Like, three different ones.

[1448] Like, the goldish -looking one, the bluish -glowy one.

[1449] But there was never anything interesting at the end of them.

[1450] No, and they all looked exactly the same.

[1451] The Oblivion Gates stuff was so repetitive and monotonous.

[1452] And I thought the combat, the melee stuff in particular.

[1453] It was just kind of boring.

[1454] It was just like swing that sword.

[1455] The guys are just running into you.

[1456] They bounce back and forth and get on top of a rock and kill something.

[1457] Yeah, no, it felt kind of kludgy.

[1458] Yeah.

[1459] And also there were like two voice actors.

[1460] But they were good.

[1461] Yeah.

[1462] There were two of them.

[1463] All Patrick Stewart.

[1464] And again, though, like...

[1465] No, Patrick Stewart was one.

[1466] Context of the time of kind of...

[1467] That was like when you were like, God, I need something to play on my brand new Xbox 360.

[1468] That came, what, four months after launch?

[1469] And it hit Rise and Rise for a time perfectly with that.

[1470] So tell me about Skyrim now.

[1471] So, one, it's...

[1472] It's gorgeous.

[1473] Absolutely gorgeous.

[1474] So I come from the Fallout perspective.

[1475] I played basically an hour of Oblivion, and then I played an hour of Fallout 3, an hour of Fallout New Vegas.

[1476] The gameplay is really familiar if you played Fallout 1.

[1477] So they've adopted the cinematic kills from Fallout 3.

[1478] But no vats.

[1479] But no vats.

[1480] But it's like, you know, so when your last strike will sometimes trigger like a really cool animation sequence.

[1481] But it's still as awkward as it was in Fallout where it's like not quite a cool camera angle.

[1482] It just kind of like pulls out and then you're pretty sure something cool will happen.

[1483] And the mysterious stranger shows up and dumps three rounds into him too.

[1484] God, I love Mysterious Strangers.

[1485] I didn't get far enough in the combat to see if the game breaks sort of the combat meme of Oblivion and Fallout, which is you're always running backwards for your points to recharge.

[1486] Do you have, like, stamina?

[1487] You have stamina, you have magic, and...

[1488] One of the things that I didn't get to is that you have these dragon shouts, which is what you earn these powers.

[1489] You find them in the world by looking at different – like you can read dragon language or something.

[1490] I'm not totally familiar on the plot, but basically you see these words.

[1491] That gives you a power, but then you need to kill a dragon in order to – Unlock that power.

[1492] So I found a dragon shout, which would basically let me do a force push.

[1493] But I kept dying to the fucking dragon, so I never got to use that.

[1494] But basically, I can imagine that kind of making the combat a little more interesting because you could get guys away, buy yourself some time.

[1495] But yeah, you have a...

[1496] In terms of...

[1497] I found the...

[1498] I found the combat pretty interesting because the new favorite system, which is basically how you equip things.

[1499] So you have, and I played on the Xbox 360, so I'm not sure how this is going to change on the PC.

[1500] But basically the inventory system, when you go into it, you can assign favorites.

[1501] And that's a sub list of your total inventory.

[1502] And so if you like this particular spell, shield.

[1503] weapon, you know, that can be your default, but you can also add others to your favorite based on, like...

[1504] Are they sets or are they individual items?

[1505] It's not sets.

[1506] It's a full -on list, and then when you're in combat, you hit up or down, and then it pulls up a favorite.

[1507] stops combat and then you can hit quick select yeah hit left trigger right trigger to switch over to some other spell so you know i had my setup was like i had a shield and a fire spell but then when i would run out of magic i would switch to a shield because magic was different than stamina so it'd buy me some time while i'm waiting for the magic to recharge um but like the dungeon themselves seem way more interesting like so i only got to the first side dungeon but there's actual like i don't know if you believe me Were there puzzles in the actual dungeons?

[1508] Or was it just you're fighting through some dudes, collecting loot, getting to the end?

[1509] What's a puzzle?

[1510] It might have been like, got to find a key on a dude to get...

[1511] Was there stuff like that?

[1512] I can't.

[1513] I thought it was been so long.

[1514] Okay, I'll just list the puzzles here.

[1515] So there were two puzzles in the first major side dungeon that you can come to.

[1516] And one was when you pull this lever, a bunch of arrows shoot at you.

[1517] And you see a guy laying on the ground who clearly pulled that lever and then died.

[1518] And then you look up at the top and there are...

[1519] three symbols and there's a symbol missing in the middle.

[1520] Then you look over to the left and there are three levers where you can switch the symbols around.

[1521] And so then you have to look in the environment, find where that stone fell down to figure out the three statues that you have to line up.

[1522] Then it disables the arrow as you walk through.

[1523] Another one is you, so one of the side quests is you have to go find this golden, I forget what it's called, but it's like this golden.

[1524] Yes, and it doesn't really matter.

[1525] And so you come across this door, and it's got a bunch of symbols, and there's really no discerning way to figure out how you're supposed to open this.

[1526] The game lets you open up every object and look at it.

[1527] Oh, like inspect it?

[1528] So if you pull up the quest object, flip it around, it shows you the sequence, and then you have to put that sequence in, and then you move forward.

[1529] I don't think that was an oblivion in that part.

[1530] There was stuff, not like...

[1531] God.

[1532] But this is also...

[1533] These are side quests.

[1534] So this isn't mainline quests.

[1535] So this is actually making some of the stuff that you don't have to do perhaps a little more interesting than...

[1536] Has the loot.

[1537] Didn't get too much into it because I played three hours.

[1538] It's really overwhelming to start a game like that and be like, I have three hours.

[1539] What the shit am I going to do?

[1540] Better hurry, I guess.

[1541] Yeah, because do I want to do the story stuff?

[1542] Do I want to just go screw around in the world and figure out what I can break?

[1543] Can I even rush at this point or is it still so early?

[1544] I don't know how any of the systems work because they start you 45 minutes into the game.

[1545] Oh, wow.

[1546] So you didn't even see the opening?

[1547] They were skipping over the intro and basically just starting you.

[1548] where you exit this cave, kind of like you exit the vault in Fallout.

[1549] And I think this is where the game, like, that 45 minutes must have been set up and tutorial.

[1550] Right.

[1551] You can't really.

[1552] Let go.

[1553] Yeah, now it's just.

[1554] So all the stuff that teaches you how to play the game.

[1555] Here's the world.

[1556] Yeah, so I jumped in.

[1557] I figured, oh, well, you know, they're giving me, you know, but that's just giving me the save.

[1558] I'm probably, like, pre -equipped some spells and stuff like that and encounter my first wolf and, like, no, nothing's equipped.

[1559] Like, I have no armor equipped, no shields.

[1560] Like, I'm just punching this wolf with my fists.

[1561] Yeah.

[1562] On a certain level, I kind of feel for PR that has to present giant RPGs.

[1563] Like, you know, first Dragon Age was constantly plagued by, you know, here's a save that's like eight hours in and you've got full party and have fun.

[1564] Lack of context is a demo killer for games like that.

[1565] So this is kind of the best way to do it.

[1566] Here's three hours.

[1567] Make of it what you will.

[1568] We'll come over to you if you're going to do something that you shouldn't.

[1569] Shouldn't be doing it, you're going to break the game.

[1570] But, like, one of the things is the weather effects are really incredible.

[1571] So, like, when you're going up to that first side quest, which is, you know, in this cave area, the first time you come to, it's completely nice -looking, sunny day, like, totally normal.

[1572] And then as you're going up this mountain, it starts to get snowier and snowier, like, to the point where you can barely see anything in front of you.

[1573] And, like, it's a really, really damn good -looking blizzard.

[1574] It has a frame rate holding up.

[1575] perfectly fine oh great yes you're fighting through this blizzard which makes even like normal combat scenarios kind of interesting because you're trying to fight but you're also trying to fight through this blizzard and i'm not sure if it changes dynamically or not but as soon as i went down the mountain it started raining so the weather's changing pretty pretty often and it's just like the the attention to detail like to the point where i went into one of the castle areas and there's uh a map on the on one of the tables and you don't have to go look at it there's no reason for you to go look at it and there's a bunch of little markers on the map and I thought, well, that's probably just something I could steal.

[1576] So it'll probably show up as red and I shouldn't steal it.

[1577] But if you examine them, those are actually legitimate map markers that add markers to your map.

[1578] And it's just like you don't have to go look at that.

[1579] It's just there.

[1580] Like it's one little – like I imagine there would be tons of people that never, ever come across that.

[1581] But it's just kind of a testament to Bethesda having made these games for as long as they have to have these.

[1582] Just crazy, tiny details.

[1583] Were you able to check out the third -person mode at all?

[1584] Yeah, it's better.

[1585] You're not going to use it.

[1586] It's not great?

[1587] Yeah.

[1588] Okay.

[1589] I imagine that must only be there for people that...

[1590] Just want to see it.

[1591] What do I imagine with Oblivion?

[1592] They probably got a lot of people that never would have played a game like that.

[1593] When that came out, it was just you wanted something for your Xbox.

[1594] So I think the third -person is kind of just there for people who are more into maybe action games and they're used to having a...

[1595] a third person and that feels a little more natural.

[1596] It looks better.

[1597] It's way better than it was in Oblivion or Fallout, but you're not going to want to use it.

[1598] I just want to see the armor and stuff that I get on my guy.

[1599] Yeah.

[1600] I thought Morrowind was third person, but was it not?

[1601] Maybe you could scroll out.

[1602] I think that was another one where you could look at it that way, but...

[1603] Gosh, I don't know what happened.

[1604] I really love Morrowind.

[1605] I thought that game was amazing.

[1606] I don't know what changed.

[1607] Maybe I changed between Morrowind and Oblivion, but I just did not dig Oblivion as much.

[1608] So I'm hoping this is like that attention to detail, like you said, that they put the time in to flesh out this big world because Oblivion just did not feel – it was a big world.

[1609] It just felt repetitive.

[1610] Well, I mean Fallout 3's main story was – not that great, but all the other stuff around it, like the side quests, were way better than any of the mainline stuff in Fallout 3.

[1611] I'm hopeful that's going to be the same case here.

[1612] If you've liked other Bethesda games, this game looks awesome.

[1613] Do you mess around at all?

[1614] Because I know you can equip the same spell in both hands to do a better version of that spell.

[1615] Or can you weave different spells together?

[1616] I saw some of that a few months ago.

[1617] I didn't get far enough to really see any of that sort of stuff.

[1618] But the upgrade system is a combination of...

[1619] I guess, Oblivion and Fallout.

[1620] So it's not just, they've got, you're not going to be doing any sort of like tying a rubber band around your analog stick in order to jump to 299.

[1621] So like, for example, when you're blocking or doing physical attacks or anything, those are going up and you're getting rewarded as you're in combat.

[1622] But that feeds into the perk system, which is in order to unlock certain things within the skill tree for like blocking, you have to get blocking up to a certain level, like 35, 40.

[1623] So it's not like you can just dump a bunch of...

[1624] You're not dumping skill points.

[1625] I think skill points are kind of intimidating.

[1626] That's just me as a guy who hasn't played a lot of old school RPGs.

[1627] So when you get a stat screen that's like, here's 20 points, just put them somewhere.

[1628] They distilled all that too.

[1629] All into speech.

[1630] I think it's just strength, dexterity, and magic.

[1631] Yes, it's those three, and then you have perk points that go across 15, 20 different tributes.

[1632] Is there a speech one?

[1633] There's a speech one, and I was trying to go through some of them and write down some of the cool...

[1634] attributes you can like, but, like, one of the perks would be, like, convince the police to forget the crime you just committed.

[1635] And that's, like, a specific perk under the speech tree.

[1636] And you can, like, you can pay people.

[1637] Are they using speech tree?

[1638] Is that the middleware?

[1639] Generated all these great dialogues really quickly.

[1640] Yeah.

[1641] I think they went with Talk Engine for this one.

[1642] Talk Engine's a great name.

[1643] Their back -end support is just so much better.

[1644] So it is that, like, things are red, don't steal this.

[1645] Yep.

[1646] Yep, that sort of stuff.

[1647] Are there karma points or anything like that?

[1648] I don't think so.

[1649] Not that I – I didn't steal anything, so I guess I don't know.

[1650] But you can – like one of the first quests is like a really simple setup of morality where you run across this elf who has this – he's in a competing – this love triangle.

[1651] And so he's written a letter.

[1652] in the words of the other guy, to try and discredit him, and so you can either go inform the other guy, like, hey, this dude's trying to fuck you over, or you can go to the other guy and tell that guy, hey, this dude's trying to fuck you over, and you can kind of play the two sides.

[1653] Can you get the girl?

[1654] No. Oh.

[1655] Bummer.

[1656] Maybe later.

[1657] I'm pretty sure same -sex marriage is in Skyrim, so, you know.

[1658] Wait, you can get married?

[1659] Yeah.

[1660] Really?

[1661] Yeah.

[1662] Not since Phantasy Star 3.

[1663] Has video game marriage been so full feature?

[1664] So progressive.

[1665] But can I marry, like, a tiger lady?

[1666] Or a lizard man?

[1667] Interspecies marriage.

[1668] Interspecies.

[1669] Marriage is defined by a union of a human and another human.

[1670] Take your human -elf marriages and get the hell out of here.

[1671] Can I marry a tiger lady?

[1672] Jeff brings up middleware flippantly, but they've made so much noise about this being a new engine and stuff.

[1673] Does it actually feel more sound?

[1674] Does the world feel like it's put together better?

[1675] I didn't run into any of the weird glitches, but I've read other write -ups where people are walking along a line and just get stuck in a hole.

[1676] But this has come out and said this is pre -alpha build.

[1677] This is from a while ago.

[1678] But this was a stable code that was...

[1679] this branch of the game, as far as they figured writers would get, was enough.

[1680] So the game has made some improvements since then, I'm sure.

[1681] But yeah, that is the game, so shit's going to be fucked up.

[1682] I mean, that's just part of it.

[1683] It's the price you pay for the size.

[1684] Yeah, but the world looks much more polished.

[1685] It's come a long way.

[1686] It's substantially above Oblivion and Fallout 3.

[1687] Just graphically?

[1688] Yeah, yeah.

[1689] It's much more on par with what you'd expect from a more...

[1690] A game that would have a much more linear structure and more time to dedicate to assets and detail.

[1691] Skyrim.

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] Dragons.

[1694] Only playing three hours was kind of a bummer.

[1695] I tried to fight the dragon like four times and I kept dying.

[1696] And they're like, do you want to try more time?

[1697] Tell me more about the dragon.

[1698] Is he a talking dragon?

[1699] Yeah, the dragon yells at you.

[1700] Really?

[1701] Yeah, the dragon yells at you.

[1702] Is he talking in dragonese?

[1703] Or is he like, hey, I'm flying.

[1704] I'm a dragon.

[1705] Are they like the gold hoarding kind of dragons?

[1706] A smog style?

[1707] Oh, like a smog?

[1708] There's lots of different dragons.

[1709] I love dragons that talk.

[1710] Different tributes.

[1711] I love dragons that aren't just beasts.

[1712] I love it when a dragon's like, no, I can talk and I have desires for things like gold.

[1713] So you start in the world where people don't believe dragons exist.

[1714] And then dragons start appearing out of nowhere.

[1715] Oh, shit.

[1716] I think your character is called a dragonborn.

[1717] Yeah, so you have some sort of connection to that.

[1718] That's why you can read the language of the dragons, probably.

[1719] It's not like you're half dragon, but you're...

[1720] I wish I was half dragon.

[1721] How do you know you're not?

[1722] You got some dragon in you?

[1723] Would you like some?

[1724] Yeah.

[1725] What are you selling?

[1726] I'm sorry.

[1727] You start talking with a bunch of different characters about rumors about dragons, and then you go to investigate.

[1728] The first major quest is you go to investigate where it was a rumored dragon attack, and then, oh shit, there's a dragon.

[1729] The dragon confirmed.

[1730] Shoots fire, he's powerful, and he yells, I'm going to burn you.

[1731] Really?

[1732] That's weird.

[1733] Was it a red dragon?

[1734] The dragon fight that I saw back in April, it just roared.

[1735] I think it's a blue dragon.

[1736] It's just a monster.

[1737] You know what?

[1738] It sounded like the dragon.

[1739] I'm just going to say the dragon was speaking.

[1740] I'm pretty sure it was speaking.

[1741] Not like a refined British accent, though?

[1742] I don't think it was Sean Connery.

[1743] Maybe Patrick Stewart.

[1744] Elijah Wood.

[1745] It was actually Spyro.

[1746] Somebody put Spyro on the base.

[1747] It goes into Skyrim.

[1748] Did you see any of the shouts?

[1749] Yeah, so the first one is basically a force push.

[1750] But you have to kill the first dragon to unlock the ability to use that, and I kept going.

[1751] You could not kill the dragon.

[1752] You maybe could have got your speech up and talked the dragon out of it.

[1753] Oh man, that would be...

[1754] Convince the dragon to kill itself.

[1755] That's right.

[1756] And then get the Heart of the Dragon.

[1757] Chop Chop.

[1758] Yes.

[1759] Should have made my character name Chop Chop.

[1760] Chop Chop.

[1761] He's a magician.

[1762] Hey, Chop Chop.

[1763] Sorcerer.

[1764] That's right.

[1765] I'm looking forward to that game at some point.

[1766] When is it?

[1767] November 11th?

[1768] Yep.

[1769] So it's almost done.

[1770] It's got to be almost done.

[1771] Still alpha.

[1772] Still pre -alpha.

[1773] Isn't it?

[1774] Isn't it like three weeks?

[1775] And then November 12th.

[1776] Yeah.

[1777] Get that DLC.

[1778] Probably.

[1779] Horse armor was on sale a couple weeks ago.

[1780] Was it really?

[1781] Yeah, it was.

[1782] I almost bought it.

[1783] Is that important to Skyrim?

[1784] Or as stupid as it is, they should totally just put out new horse armor.

[1785] Yeah.

[1786] Do you get a horse?

[1787] I wasn't able to afford it.

[1788] It was $1 ,000 or $1 ,000 jill or whatever.

[1789] Gold.

[1790] Zenni.

[1791] There is a horse, though?

[1792] There is a horse.

[1793] Do you actually ride or fast travel?

[1794] No, you ride it.

[1795] Wow.

[1796] I think you can attack off of it, too.

[1797] Where do I need the pre -order from to get the free horse?

[1798] But shouldn't that be the pre -order bonus for all?

[1799] We came up with eight different gaudy horse armor variants, and you're going to get one.

[1800] It's too self -aware.

[1801] That would be great.

[1802] Yeah, is it too self -aware?

[1803] And I want them branded.

[1804] I want the target.

[1805] Yeah, exactly.

[1806] The cat target on the side of it.

[1807] But just actually billboard on the horse, not tongue -in -cheek or anything.

[1808] I want dynamic ads for the place that I pre -order the game from.

[1809] Advertising upcoming films.

[1810] Paranormal Activity 3 in theaters this weekend.

[1811] The multiplayer stuff?

[1812] There's straight up a subway trucker hat that you can put on Nathan Drake and run around in the multiplayer with.

[1813] Oh, wow.

[1814] Finally.

[1815] It's what's been missing.

[1816] The dragon has a giant GameStop billboard around his neck.

[1817] Power to the player.

[1818] On a gold chain.

[1819] It just says, don't trade me in.

[1820] DLC coming soon.

[1821] Please.

[1822] If you don't trade anything, you get a discount on DLC.

[1823] Patrick, last week, you, me, and Mr. Shoemaker here wheeled on over to Friday.

[1824] Friday night?

[1825] Friday night.

[1826] Wheeled on over to Double Fine.

[1827] That did happen.

[1828] That did happen.

[1829] And you came back here for the October cast after that.

[1830] That was not a good night.

[1831] Feel a little rough on Saturday?

[1832] That was the best night, but also the worst.

[1833] When I was at home, because I took off from the Double Fine thing early.

[1834] when I was at home watching the stream, and when I saw that you guys had brought a full posse with you from the Double Fight thing, I was like, oh, goddammit, I wish I was there right now.

[1835] It was pretty good.

[1836] When Karen shows up, you know it's a good, bad time.

[1837] They brought a sack of hamburgers.

[1838] Yeah, I saw the hamburger sack showed up, and everyone got real excited about that.

[1839] I ate my hamburger on camera.

[1840] Karen yelling.

[1841] Sounds about right.

[1842] That's about my recollection.

[1843] She tried to instigate a wave.

[1844] And the wave did not come to us.

[1845] Yeah, Gary, not a big wave partaker.

[1846] Gary is a real wet blanket when it comes to waves.

[1847] No, it's good to know.

[1848] No Google waves and no real waves.

[1849] Maybe that's a British thing.

[1850] Probably.

[1851] They probably don't wave so much there.

[1852] They're pretty dour people, right?

[1853] That whole Navy thing.

[1854] They just fight each other.

[1855] A wave is soft.

[1856] If you do a wave, you get glassed.

[1857] So, look out for that.

[1858] Anyway, Double Fine, they were showing off a couple of things.

[1859] Six amazing products.

[1860] So, one of those things was...

[1861] Let's count them off.

[1862] Like four of which...

[1863] Psychonauts for Mac.

[1864] Yeah.

[1865] Costume Quest for PC.

[1866] Yeah.

[1867] Which came out that night.

[1868] Yeah, they hit the launch button.

[1869] like when the event started.

[1870] Oh, did they really?

[1871] Which is sending Steam.

[1872] Did that work?

[1873] Which is sending Steam.

[1874] No. All right.

[1875] So their version of that is sending Steam an email saying, they already worked it out with them ahead of time.

[1876] Hey, we'll send you an email when our press event starts.

[1877] Yeah.

[1878] And that's when you put it live.

[1879] Oh, that's what it was.

[1880] The other one is that Valve actually has like a big red button that is connected to Steam that when they put their stuff out.

[1881] The team gathers around and they hit a big red button.

[1882] Like an actual physical real big red button.

[1883] And there's actually like a lever they pull.

[1884] I think they said there's like actual steam that comes out.

[1885] What?

[1886] And every time they put out a new product, they all gather together.

[1887] Has video of this ever been seen?

[1888] I don't think so.

[1889] That's the best part.

[1890] They keep it for themselves.

[1891] Yeah.

[1892] I need...

[1893] That's so awesome.

[1894] Does Gabe Newell select his ceremonial knife and slaughter an employee?

[1895] He cuts his own tongue, and the newest and most nubile of interns cuts their tongue off.

[1896] He stands before the assembled employees in a loincloth and takes a bite of the still -beating heart.

[1897] And cleans that knife off and puts it back on the shelf.

[1898] Never to be used again, once per game.

[1899] It's a great place to work.

[1900] As long as you don't get ritually murdered, yeah, it's great.

[1901] All right, so there's Costume Quest PC.

[1902] There's the Psychonaut stuff, Once Upon a Monster.

[1903] The Trench DLC.

[1904] I'm sorry.

[1905] Iron Brigade.

[1906] Iron Brigade DLC.

[1907] Well, it's still Trench right now.

[1908] It will be Iron Brigade shortly.

[1909] But it's only DLC for Iron Brigade.

[1910] That DLC does not exist for Trenched.

[1911] It'll be Iron Brigade before the DLC.

[1912] The title update turns it into Iron Brigade.

[1913] Those guys are being funny about not remembering the previous name of the game.

[1914] They did not say Trenched once.

[1915] Whatever it was called before.

[1916] It's funny how you can forget that.

[1917] Rise of the Martian Bear.

[1918] With actual bears.

[1919] Or an actual bear.

[1920] Russian Martian Trenches.

[1921] Yes.

[1922] That's the name of the DLC?

[1923] I feel like...

[1924] I feel like they owe us some money on some of this stuff.

[1925] So let's talk about the Iron Brigade stuff some, I guess.

[1926] That's awesome.

[1927] It looks like more Iron Brigade.

[1928] It looks like more Trenched.

[1929] All right.

[1930] Here, I will say it.

[1931] I wanted more trench.

[1932] I don't know about you guys.

[1933] Yeah, absolutely.

[1934] I absolutely wanted more.

[1935] So when they put out that patch that's going to – they've got no dates or prices for any of this stuff yet, but – The title update is really soon, and then the DLC is soon.

[1936] So that title update will – and they were saying like – Probably like a month between the two.

[1937] Yeah, I think once it gets scheduled out.

[1938] So that title update is going to change the name of the game from Trench to Iron Brigade and it will also introduce one challenge mode level.

[1939] That will probably coincide with the launch in other territories, right?

[1940] Yeah, that's supposed to be.

[1941] So when it comes out in Europe as Iron Brigade, everyone will get the patch that also introduces this challenge mode and changes the name.

[1942] And then they kind of were saying with the name, they'd like to keep it trenched.

[1943] But if they don't make an Iron Brigade, then everyone can't play together.

[1944] Right.

[1945] So it would otherwise start splitting territories in addition to they have to just ditch the trench name at this point if they want to do a worldwide brand.

[1946] They still call it your trench?

[1947] Yeah, everything else.

[1948] Like it's still the mobile trench brigade.

[1949] It's just the – and even like literally the title.

[1950] You saw it during the Big Live Live.

[1951] Like the title screen looks exactly the same except instead where it says Trenched.

[1952] Like the same font and everything.

[1953] It says Probotector.

[1954] It says Photoshop layer change.

[1955] Yeah.

[1956] Okay.

[1957] Yeah.

[1958] Pretty much.

[1959] But so then they've got a new campaign, this DLC campaign.

[1960] Do we get another 1 ,000 points?

[1961] Not 1 ,000?

[1962] No. Oh, 200, rather?

[1963] No. It'll change the name on the back end, too.

[1964] Everything will...

[1965] Oh, for that?

[1966] No, no, no. I imagine they will add points for this DLC pack.

[1967] I wonder if you'll be able to clear your system cache and then go back and play Trenched.

[1968] You should be able to, yeah.

[1969] That's usually how that stuff works.

[1970] So this is a cosmetic change for Trench that will change the title screen.

[1971] That's pretty much all you need to know.

[1972] But they're also adding the challenge mode, which was the survival update.

[1973] The title update, yeah.

[1974] Basically, yeah, horde mode.

[1975] The thing that was missing from Trench before.

[1976] And new loot.

[1977] Once you got to the end, yeah.

[1978] And in that similar style, every five waves or something, you'll get some hot new piece of loot.

[1979] Cool.

[1980] But then there's the DLC, Rise of the Martian Bear, which is coming out later.

[1981] Which is paid DLC.

[1982] Yeah, that's proper downloadable content.

[1983] New campaign that takes place primarily on Mars.

[1984] Four areas, I think.

[1985] It's exactly the size of one of the three areas from the main game.

[1986] Yeah.

[1987] Except that you're on Mars now.

[1988] Except for the first mission where you're basically fighting in the dry dock of the McKinley as it's being retrofitted to go into space.

[1989] Wait, really?

[1990] They turn the aircraft carrier into a spaceship.

[1991] They put a fat bubble dome over the flight deck of the McKinley and they shoot into space.

[1992] And there's also a crow's nest on there that also has its own tiny little dome on top of it as well.

[1993] Do you have to wear a space helmet when you're fighting on Mars?

[1994] No, Mars seems to have been terraforming.

[1995] Mars has its heir.

[1996] Cohagen gave the people their heir.

[1997] But they have resisted any and all, they say they have resisted any and all Total Recall references as that is Twisted Pixel's territory.

[1998] They actually identified Twisted Pixel as having cornered the market on Total Recall references, so they just didn't touch it.

[1999] So good on them for that.

[2000] They're just going with Ghost of Mars jokes now.

[2001] Yeah.

[2002] Yes.

[2003] You mean just Ghost of Mars?

[2004] Yeah, just exploit that comedy.

[2005] It's like the darkness.

[2006] You just find a TV and you can watch all of Ghost of Mars.

[2007] Just the whole movie is right there.

[2008] I do that.

[2009] The best part about it is that...

[2010] I know.

[2011] Poor John Carpenter.

[2012] Breaks Ice Cube out of jail.

[2013] Where's the other way around?

[2014] Does it break Natasha Hanchard out of jail?

[2015] One of them breaks the other one out of jail.

[2016] You're running out with shotguns and then credits.

[2017] Fucking great.

[2018] Sorry about it.

[2019] Vampires was the last time I got burned by a John Carpenter movie in the theaters.

[2020] Vampires was okay.

[2021] The very beginning when James, the first time they go and kill a vampire and they're using the crazy lines to yank the vampires out, that was cool.

[2022] And the part where James Woods is just cursing like crazy as he's stabbing the shit out of this one vampire.

[2023] Best part of the movie.

[2024] Like opening five minutes.

[2025] Those two movies, well, Vampire is okay.

[2026] Ghost of Mars is not okay, but there were things I liked about it.

[2027] Sure.

[2028] Like the fact that it's called Ghost of Mars.

[2029] Yeah, that's pretty much, yeah.

[2030] I'll give you that.

[2031] So, yeah, so Rise of the Martian Bear.

[2032] You left out the most important part.

[2033] Vlad is now a bear.

[2034] Yeah, Vlad has downloaded his brain into his pet bear.

[2035] Boris?

[2036] Boris.

[2037] I didn't know he had a pet bear.

[2038] Well, he didn't.

[2039] He did.

[2040] And now that his brain is in it, it has the Vlad multi -layered mustache on it.

[2041] Of course.

[2042] Bearded bear.

[2043] And it's got straight up just a TV in its head that has Vlad on it.

[2044] And you can watch Ghost of Mars on the TV.

[2045] Exactly.

[2046] That's it.

[2047] More new loot.

[2048] I only played one of the missions through there.

[2049] Do you know if stuff goes back and forth?

[2050] Yeah, you take your character in.

[2051] I would hope so.

[2052] Yeah, you should be able to.

[2053] I can't see why not.

[2054] Bring your stuff in from Mars.

[2055] Play new loot on old levels.

[2056] Yeah, probably.

[2057] Totally, totally.

[2058] I don't know.

[2059] Maybe it would be too good for that, like, horde mode.

[2060] No, it sounds like they've kind of been rebalancing some stuff.

[2061] They said that, like, by the time they got to the end, talking to Bradmure from Double Fine, he said by the time they got to the end of development on Trenched Proper that they had gotten to some kind of outlandish shit as far as the power of the weapons.

[2062] So it sounds like they might be tweaking some of that stuff and making it more reasonable.

[2063] It sounds like they were also very, like, It was good for them to have a time when they were not working on that game and then come back to it because by the end of – See, this is crazy.

[2064] By the end of Trench Development, those guys were like – You guys were right.

[2065] I was wrong.

[2066] Oh, my god.

[2067] Those guys were like – you remember how they were like, we have no idea if this is good.

[2068] We've been too close to it for too long.

[2069] Yeah, yeah.

[2070] So – We know it's a video game.

[2071] So Fresh Eyes was good for that.

[2072] It doesn't crash?

[2073] I don't know.

[2074] Not even sure of that.

[2075] Yeah, I don't know.

[2076] So, yeah, the most important part.

[2077] I kind of don't want to say it, but I know other people will because I want people to just see it for themselves organically for the first time.

[2078] Okay.

[2079] Stop there.

[2080] Stop.

[2081] I don't even know what you're talking about.

[2082] Just close the door on it.

[2083] That's it.

[2084] Don't say it.

[2085] What's the next product they were showing?

[2086] Someone else is going to say this.

[2087] Well, maybe they won't read that.

[2088] Maybe they won't read it.

[2089] Don't say it.

[2090] Don't be the guy.

[2091] Media blackout on Iron Brigade.

[2092] I don't...

[2093] Oh, man!

[2094] Yeah.

[2095] Don't say it.

[2096] Don't say it.

[2097] Somebody's going to beat you to it.

[2098] It's all right.

[2099] Don't be that guy, though.

[2100] There is something.

[2101] There's more to it.

[2102] Having only played one scenario in that game, in that DLC, I can...

[2103] Guarantee you that if you like Trenched, this is worth the price of it.

[2104] Brad, you ready to get our Trenched team back together?

[2105] How can we not talk about that?

[2106] It was you, me, and Will.

[2107] Will Smith and Gary?

[2108] And Wild Card.

[2109] Oh, right.

[2110] I forget.

[2111] By the time you guys played it, I had already completed the game, so I didn't have a reason to go back.

[2112] We rolled with David Ellis in the fourth slot for a while.

[2113] That was fun.

[2114] All capable French players.

[2115] In addition to that campaign, that DLC will also add two more challenge levels.

[2116] So you have multiple stages to go get your horde on.

[2117] Just say it.

[2118] No, we're done.

[2119] It's not that big a deal.

[2120] There's another property.

[2121] It's the biggest deal.

[2122] You know what?

[2123] We'll cover it later.

[2124] What was the other announced thing?

[2125] Double Fine Happy Action Theater.

[2126] Hat.

[2127] DFAT is what they're calling it.

[2128] So this is...

[2129] Actually, Patrick, do you want to describe this one?

[2130] It's a Kinect game.

[2131] Is it a game?

[2132] It's Kinect minigame collection.

[2133] It's Kinect minigame collection without scores or real objectives.

[2134] It is very toy -like.

[2135] No fail state.

[2136] Tim Schafer basically pitched it as, we wanted to make a game for kids and drunk people.

[2137] That's exactly what he did.

[2138] And that's exactly what he said, and that's exactly what this is.

[2139] And then we made Once Upon a Monster, and then he was like, we should make another one of those.

[2140] We had a game for drunk people, too.

[2141] Kids and drunk people.

[2142] So I talked to Tim a little bit.

[2143] I was screaming at it during the event.

[2144] I talked to him a little bit about this, and he said, you know, I was sitting next to the Once Upon a Monster guys while they were making that game, and just seeing how much frustration they had dealing with, like, With fail state issues with the game where if someone walked in front of someone else, it would fuck this up.

[2145] And he's like, I just wanted to make something that didn't have those issues.

[2146] So that if Kinect acts weird on you, it doesn't matter.

[2147] It's part of the fun.

[2148] The attraction is look at the weird stuff that you're doing on screen.

[2149] And also try to break it.

[2150] You're trying to break Kinect and bum rush the screen with a bunch of people to just see what it does.

[2151] Here's the best example of how that works.

[2152] When you were, Patrick, you were doing, there's the one minigame where it's basically all 70s style, like stars constantly flying at the screen.

[2153] Yeah, like dancing and stuff.

[2154] The fourth player while you were playing that got identified as the curtain behind you guys.

[2155] So every fourth star that flew out was like the curtain fluttering or whatever.

[2156] And it looked amazing.

[2157] Crazy.

[2158] Like it didn't break the game.

[2159] It made it better.

[2160] And there's one where it's like a...

[2161] like Space Invaders where everyone's a tiny butterfly at the bottom of the screen and enemies are flying in from the top and everyone's kind of shuffling back and forth to try and shoot stuff.

[2162] And the shooting's all happening automatically, so it's just like wherever you are standing, you know, shuffling and firing.

[2163] But of course it's impossible to not try and pretend you are the bullets.

[2164] Right, right.

[2165] And there's one where it's just like the room fills with bouncy balls and so you're just kicking and punching them around.

[2166] There's a breakout clone.

[2167] There's like a...

[2168] Hot lava.

[2169] Circus mirror, there's the hot lava.

[2170] I didn't see the hot lava stuff myself.

[2171] There was this Godzilla -style city.

[2172] Yeah, like just down the city.

[2173] The coolest one that I saw, though, was this multi -photo sequence thing.

[2174] It's usually the depth camera, yeah.

[2175] Yeah, where it would just layer one picture on top of the other on top of the other.

[2176] Everything that's the same state is the same, so it's only adding in whatever you changed.

[2177] So you get like...

[2178] Dude has like eight arms or dude is punching himself.

[2179] Dude is making out with himself.

[2180] Right, right.

[2181] A natural extension of the depth camera.

[2182] Just lots of weird dumb stuff like that.

[2183] It sounds like this is almost like the ultimate Connect Fun Labs app or something.

[2184] Yeah, totally.

[2185] It totally would fit in with that stuff except that it seems way better than most of the stuff.

[2186] Yeah, it does what that was trying to do.

[2187] And also that it's...

[2188] It just goes.

[2189] Each of these maybe lasts a couple of minutes, maybe 90 seconds.

[2190] Or in the example of the breakout one, it doesn't end until you lose.

[2191] So we were doing it for four or five minutes until Tim came out.

[2192] I was like, why are you guys still playing this?

[2193] Oh, you haven't failed yet?

[2194] So you're trying to not hit the balls.

[2195] So you have five people attempting to not get their breakout thing, paddle to hit the balls, but you just keep hitting them, and so it just kept going.

[2196] It can identify up to six?

[2197] I'm not sure.

[2198] Yeah, maybe it was four was the most.

[2199] But so it does, like, it goes through one of these things, and either there's a fail state, or it's just like, all right, that's enough time, and then just loads up the next thing.

[2200] Correct.

[2201] Just kind of Wario -wares, but not that manic.

[2202] There's more time to focus on each game, but the key is that at a party, nobody's ever going to get bored of what they're doing, because the next thing is always going to be coming up.

[2203] And because you don't have to worry about, like, oh, I'm player one, I'm player two.

[2204] You just jump in and just...

[2205] do a thing.

[2206] Like, in the Space Invaders one, like, the score is going up irrelevant of what's happening on the screen.

[2207] So if you're all missing and not hitting any enemies, score is still going up.

[2208] Was there any, like, direct control avatar stuff?

[2209] Because that's always the funnest stuff for me, where just, make your avatar hype the crowd.

[2210] No, no avatars, it's always you.

[2211] Okay.

[2212] No, but that dance floor one?

[2213] Yeah.

[2214] Unbelievable.

[2215] Which one is that?

[2216] It's just, like, it's a bunch of cutouts of all the people that are dancing, like, 2D cutouts, like, doing weird jerky animation stuff, but, like, it'll focus on one guy in the middle, like, doing a dance solo from time to time, and just, like, you have to see it.

[2217] We got a trailer up on the site that has most of the stuff in it.

[2218] I saw some of that, yeah.

[2219] The Hot Lava one is really good, too.

[2220] Yeah, that one's really good.

[2221] So, yeah, it's a downloadable game.

[2222] They don't have date or price.

[2223] That's all forthcoming still.

[2224] Sounds like it's more or less done.

[2225] Yeah, yeah, that's the impression that I got.

[2226] Happy Action Theater.

[2227] Happy Action Theater.

[2228] It's probably worth noting, if you care, that this is the first project that Tim Schafer has headed up since Brutal Legend.

[2229] Yeah.

[2230] Since they went, like, small game crazy.

[2231] And it's goofy, and I feel like it makes really good use of the Kinect tech from what I've seen.

[2232] And it understands that, listen, this technology has significant limitations, and if you try and take it too seriously, you know, it's not going to be a fun time.

[2233] So just swing your arms around.

[2234] So let's just take it as stupidly as possible so you can just jump around like an idiot in front of your TV and see funny stuff.

[2235] And I just like the idea that, like, I could just have this running, like, throw in a party, just have this running on the TV in the background.

[2236] It's like people could, like, walk up to it, do something for a while.

[2237] It's not like you have to be like, okay, everyone, we're going to play rock band now.

[2238] So everyone come over here.

[2239] We need, you know, oh, we need at least three people to play.

[2240] Oh, jump in.

[2241] It's like, no, just walk up.

[2242] do something stupid.

[2243] And also, if you're the only guy that knows how to operate the system, you're the one that has to do all the menus and, like, let me set it up for you again.

[2244] Like, here it's just, it just goes.

[2245] Sign in, don't sign out again.

[2246] Yeah.

[2247] It's just like, yeah, just let it run and it'll cycle from one thing to the next on its own, so.

[2248] Doesn't even matter if your Kinect doesn't really fit in your apartment.

[2249] Like, it's, like, it's, it's, it's regardless.

[2250] It's really cool.

[2251] Yeah.

[2252] Yeah, it's, I, I, from what I saw, I consider that much more toy than game.

[2253] It's dumb in the best way possible.

[2254] Yeah.

[2255] I think it's kind of funny that...

[2256] A team there had to seriously figure out how Connect All works for Once Upon a Monster and work out all the bugs.

[2257] And make it work with three -year -olds.

[2258] Right, and kind of figure out how this is supposed to work.

[2259] Like, fuck.

[2260] Like you were saying, walking over and being like, we're just having a really tough time.

[2261] It keeps on doing this weird thing where five of me will flick on the screen and do whatever.

[2262] That's awesome.

[2263] You think that their bug squishing for Once Upon a Monster is like, okay, no, we know how to do that accidentally.

[2264] Let's make that on purpose.

[2265] At some point, the overlap had to happen.

[2266] happen right and just one team completely frustrated with like connect breaking and the other team just be like what'd you guys do oh we broke it this time the connect is just this look at the skeleton on that that's awesome we need that we should do that do that and then one team just hating the other team I hate you guys it's like this weird lamprey that's just The lag is just terrible.

[2267] It's just like we can't get over the lag.

[2268] There's lag?

[2269] How do you enable the lag?

[2270] We want the lag.

[2271] Can you make more lag?

[2272] Yeah, can you get it?

[2273] We're too much not lag.

[2274] We need tracers on top of the lag.

[2275] Can we do that?

[2276] You're saying that the happy action theater team was like the little bird in the crocodile's mouth picking the meat out?

[2277] Yes.

[2278] It's just a QA team just like going through finding bugs and turning those into minigames.

[2279] Just one team being super excited when everything would just mess up and the other team being so like, we have a milestone coming up.

[2280] What are we going to do?

[2281] We can't get this to work.

[2282] And was that all the sixth?

[2283] The sixth one was the iOS game.

[2284] Oh, right.

[2285] The iOS game, the app that has the Psychonauts, the Psychonauts viewers got commentary.

[2286] Weirdly, Ron Gilbert programmed that.

[2287] Yeah.

[2288] In his spare time, I guess.

[2289] The first thing that he has done.

[2290] What is this?

[2291] This is the...

[2292] It's basically like all those, like the movies from Psychonauts with commentary over it by Tim and...

[2293] So it's not actually a game?

[2294] No, no, no. It's a free app.

[2295] Yeah, Ron Gerber does all sorts of Mac programming in his free time and was goofing around with iOS, and so he just did it by himself.

[2296] He's working on something else that they're not talking about yet, but he just did that.

[2297] I forgot he's kind of on board with them now.

[2298] Oh, yeah.

[2299] He's been there for about a year.

[2300] Is he actually a full -time Double Fine employee?

[2301] Yes.

[2302] Okay.

[2303] He works there.

[2304] The way that some of this stuff came together is weird, too.

[2305] Like, the Costume Quest, like, or Psychonauts for...

[2306] So Psychonauts was ported by someone at Double Fine, but then, like, Costume Quest was, like, this angel investor that's just, like, a fan that programmed it and contributed the money for this to happen.

[2307] And he listed in the credits, but it's just, like, one dude.

[2308] Oh, wait, so he actually...

[2309] Because I got the impression that they just got money from someone to develop it.

[2310] It's a dude.

[2311] And, like, Tim Schafer was, like...

[2312] linking to the guy on Twitter saying, like, here's the guy that made this happen.

[2313] Wow.

[2314] Yeah, financially, I think.

[2315] Yeah, yeah, financially.

[2316] I'm pretty sure they did the porting.

[2317] Right.

[2318] Okay.

[2319] If I'm not mistaken.

[2320] That's what I mean, is that they got the money, not that he...

[2321] But it was a fan.

[2322] Like, it wasn't like...

[2323] It was like a guy who's got some money.

[2324] They didn't go to a bank.

[2325] They didn't go to some businessman.

[2326] Okay, sure, sure.

[2327] Like...

[2328] Okay, okay.

[2329] So I think the guy actually is, in fact, a businessman on top of that.

[2330] But, yeah.

[2331] Probably.

[2332] But, yes.

[2333] He didn't.

[2334] It's not like this guy said, hey guys, here, I brought you this PC code for Costume Quest.

[2335] Go ahead and put it out.

[2336] Yeah.

[2337] Okay.

[2338] And then, yeah, Costume Quest is also like their, because they own that IP, even though THQ worked with them on that.

[2339] And I remember them saying they want to do a PC version, but THQ was like, we're not going to give you money for it.

[2340] So they found their own way to do it, and that's self -publishing.

[2341] So that's all their money.

[2342] And they're self -publishing Happy Action Theater, too, aren't they?

[2343] No, I think that's Microsoft.

[2344] That's an MS thing?

[2345] Yeah.

[2346] But yeah, Psychonauts and Costume Quests and then the app.

[2347] Those are three self -published Double Fine things.

[2348] I wonder if Stacking will follow suit.

[2349] That's Microsoft.

[2350] I don't know Stacking is THQ as well.

[2351] Was it?

[2352] Yeah.

[2353] Maybe, yeah.

[2354] So any date on the Happy Action stuff?

[2355] I think they said this year.

[2356] Oh, really?

[2357] Yeah.

[2358] There's not too much time left this year.

[2359] It's true.

[2360] So yeah, that was the Double Fine event.

[2361] Some fun stuff.

[2362] I'm curious to see more of the Happy Action Theater.

[2363] It was really cool to just have them running their own event.

[2364] Like, no external publisher there calling any shots.

[2365] It was just like, hey, we are going to bring in a keg of this home -brewed beer that we have.

[2366] Someone here made a beer.

[2367] Drink it.

[2368] You're going to hang out and play these games in our office, and it's going to be cool.

[2369] Or it's going to be sweltering.

[2370] Just like, don't walk in that direction.

[2371] Don't walk in that direction.

[2372] Otherwise, it's cool.

[2373] It was just super casual.

[2374] It was a lot of fun.

[2375] If you go down there, it's bad.

[2376] They seemed happy to be doing that over their past endeavors.

[2377] They're in a really good spot.

[2378] Yeah, it's been a rough couple years, but I think it seems like they're definitely on a path that makes all of them happy.

[2379] Upward trajectory.

[2380] Yeah.

[2381] Tim, I apologize for calling you a child.

[2382] Well, you know, it's not the first time it's happened.

[2383] Patrick, what else have you been planning, my friend?

[2384] I saw Max Payne 3 a couple weeks ago.

[2385] Okay.

[2386] And that looks like Max Payne 3.

[2387] Yeah.

[2388] How many guns can you hold?

[2389] Well, you can only hold three weapons at once now.

[2390] Okay.

[2391] So you can have two pistols and, like, a shotgun or two pistols and a sniper rifle.

[2392] Okay.

[2393] Can I hold a pistol and a shotgun?

[2394] No. Well, not at the same time.

[2395] Okay.

[2396] The game does have sequences in New York City.

[2397] Yeah.

[2398] So the demo I saw basically sounded like...

[2399] Backing up, when the game was unveiled in game form of, what, like a year and a half ago?

[2400] Yeah, something like that.

[2401] A little while ago.

[2402] It was basically, you know, all right, it's Max, and it's a new voice actor.

[2403] Like, it wasn't the guy originally.

[2404] Yeah.

[2405] His name is escaping me. Anyone remember?

[2406] Max Payne.

[2407] No, the voice actor.

[2408] Maximilian Payne.

[2409] Correct.

[2410] It was a different voice actor.

[2411] It's going to be in Brazil.

[2412] New setting, new characters.

[2413] It's bald.

[2414] And it was a very rock star.

[2415] Like, hey, we're taking this franchise.

[2416] We're putting our own imprint on it.

[2417] Kind of like they did with Red Dead Redemption was Red Dead Revolver.

[2418] They bought that off Capcom.

[2419] And fans were like, no. I don't like any of this.

[2420] I want more babies screaming.

[2421] This is not Max Payne.

[2422] Yeah, and so this tour, the first time they're really showing the game, it basically felt like an apology tour.

[2423] Maybe all this stuff was already in the game, and they just decided they wanted to show this is our rock star part and all that stuff.

[2424] Don't worry, we're going to get it in there.

[2425] But the demo starts, even as I was sitting down, they're like, so...

[2426] So what do you know about this game?

[2427] I was basically trying to figure out what my misconceptions were and trying to correct them.

[2428] And the game starts in New York, and he's got the leather jacket, and he's got the whiny, he's got the hair, he's drunk, he's taking painkillers, he's not a very happy man, he's a very broken person.

[2429] And gangsters just show up at your apartment and start shooting at you.

[2430] A Max Payne game.

[2431] Yeah, that sounds like Max Payne to me. It's got the violins, so it's still got the slow motion.

[2432] And, yeah, I mean, it's...

[2433] Comic book panels?

[2434] Comic panels have been, it's not like the stylistic drawn stuff, and now it's like in real, like the in -game graphics, it just divides them up.

[2435] And it happens more often now, so like you'll be, finish a combat sequence.

[2436] But is stuff like actually in motion in those things?

[2437] Yes.

[2438] Or, okay.

[2439] Yeah, yeah.

[2440] It's kind of a natural, like I don't think...

[2441] You couldn't do what they did in Max Payne 1 and 2 now for the cutscenes.

[2442] Especially for what Rockstar likes to do with their stories.

[2443] I think it's going to be fantastical in some sense, but Rockstar is a bit more grounded.

[2444] But it seems less, from what I've seen, and it's not that much, it seems less noir.

[2445] It seems like it has moved past the kind of very sparsely lit, kind of high contrast, dark noir tale of this detective.

[2446] So they showed me a first 15 minutes in New York, which was just to say, hey, New York is here.

[2447] And there's a big chunk of it in the game, but that's not what we want.

[2448] That's not the big shift.

[2449] Is it winter?

[2450] It's winter.

[2451] Good.

[2452] It's always winter.

[2453] So you go to Brazil, but even in Brazil, they were quick to be like, so we know the people, when they look at Brazil, they're like, hey, this is really bright.

[2454] That's not really Max Payne.

[2455] There's plenty of dark stuff.

[2456] So they didn't show me any of that, but they were very insistent.

[2457] There's going to be all the noir stuff.

[2458] It's just...

[2459] I don't know why they're not showing it.

[2460] I mean, the game was out in March, theoretically.

[2461] Because, like, visually, I mean...

[2462] When we saw that trailer, when we saw that new trailer...

[2463] Yeah, it looks like Candle Lynch 2.

[2464] I mean, a lot of it just...

[2465] It just didn't look like...

[2466] If you took away the sound, and, like, if you took away the music and the voice actor, I was like, why is this a Max Payne game?

[2467] Because bullet time isn't really, like, a unique feature anymore.

[2468] I mean, I'd argue at this point, when's the last time that a game really used...

[2469] Stranglehold.

[2470] Stranglehold.

[2471] Yeah, and that game wasn't that great.

[2472] Which was just a Max Payne clone in a lot of ways.

[2473] You mean just like acrobatic both times?

[2474] Yeah, like made that the focus of the gameplay.

[2475] So even though it's been done and it's kind of...

[2476] I think it's been long enough since the last one that it is unique again.

[2477] Yeah, the one wrinkle they've added is that when you're close to death, you'll go into a slow motion sequence, and if you take out the guy in front of you, you'll get a sliver of health back so you can keep going.

[2478] But otherwise, the slow motion stuff is kind of...

[2479] The same as it was.

[2480] I mean, you know, they've got all sorts of really interesting graphical touches.

[2481] Has it got both the, like, the jump as well as the just, like, trigger it the way that Max Payne 2 has?

[2482] Yeah, you can just be walking and do -do -do -do -do -do, or you can do the really awkward dive over.

[2483] I always jump.

[2484] Yeah, always jump.

[2485] I always jump.

[2486] I never use the just press the button.

[2487] That's no fun.

[2488] I got pretty good at diving onto couches while holding two pistols in real life.

[2489] A lot of practice.

[2490] Yeah.

[2491] Did you put on the violin music as you were?

[2492] No, I didn't need it.

[2493] It was all up here.

[2494] So it has a dive and then kind of like swing your torso around to shoot everybody?

[2495] Yeah.

[2496] Like twists?

[2497] Yep.

[2498] Yeah.

[2499] I mean, I could go through the litany of like smaller details that they were focusing on.

[2500] Like they've done some really amazing things, the animation system, like in terms of the way Max moves, like even on the ground when he's like twisting around, like each joint is moving realistically.

[2501] In broad strokes, it's Max Payne 3.

[2502] It's got a rock star flair to it, but more so than any other game, they don't seem to be trying to stray too far from...

[2503] They're putting their stamp on it, but it's not...

[2504] I still don't totally get why they had to do this and couldn't have just done a new IP.

[2505] Just because the way they presented it was a very un -rock...

[2506] They don't apologize.

[2507] This is what we're doing.

[2508] Go screw yourself.

[2509] Exactly.

[2510] And this is very much like, hey, we've talked to Remedy.

[2511] We showed them the game.

[2512] They seem to like it.

[2513] So that's cool, right?

[2514] It was just very awkward for – I think it's – well, yeah.

[2515] I mean it's hard to say why they behave that way.

[2516] But if you think about it, like for better or for worse, like Rockstar doesn't really care about its creators and its creations.

[2517] So giving that respect to the creators of Max Payne.

[2518] maybe make sense in that context.

[2519] I guess technically Rockstar was involved in Max Payne 1 and 2.

[2520] It was a take -two game, but Rockstar was the production house.

[2521] Especially by Max Payne 2, it was just Rockstar logos all over it.

[2522] One of the Hauser brothers co -wrote or wrote most of the story in this one, but they didn't really elaborate.

[2523] They also were pushing the notion that this is one of their first really...

[2524] They weren't even assigning one studio to this game.

[2525] They were saying this is...

[2526] all of the rock star divisions contributing.

[2527] bits to this like they're it's really it sounds really spread out weird across the studios um i wonder if that was the plan all along or if i mean because this game's been in development for a while i wonder if it just went real sideways with the way they were doing it like okay we had to call in everyone on this one to get it finished yeah like i yeah i almost i almost wonder if like after the weird like rejection from the fans after the first unveiling that maybe there was a attempt to pull it back a little bit or something yeah and that in order to to make that turnaround happen in the year and a half it's been i think since that's first unveiling And they were very much committed to the March date, and that's the end of the fiscal for Take -Two.

[2528] So my guess is that game is going to come out before the end of it.

[2529] I'm willing to give it a chance.

[2530] Yeah, it looks like Max Payne sound like a bad thing.

[2531] That's fine.

[2532] I'm fine with another Max Payne, and it looked fun.

[2533] That trailer, seeing him just straight up shaving his head or whatever, going through that transition, I think.

[2534] makes that way cooler than just putting out a screenshot of, here's Max Payne, and you don't recognize the guy at all.

[2535] And they kind of copped to, like, that was a bad...

[2536] Yeah, the way they revealed, you know, the way they kind of showed their hand was just poor.

[2537] They thought they were being bold, and instead they just hadn't explained, like, you know, there's like a whole, that happens hours into the game.

[2538] You're going to see why he does that, why he makes that transition.

[2539] Because when they first unveiled it, it just seemed like, oh, just like needless, like we wanted to make the character look different, so this is as different.

[2540] Because he looks like a real dude who works here, and they're not working on it, so...

[2541] Like, yeah, it almost...

[2542] But if there's, like, a character, like, plot motivation, like, kind of heart of darkness, you know, thing going on...

[2543] It's not like the opening cutscene.

[2544] Like, the opening cutscene is in New York, and there's a reason you go from New York to Brazil, and there's a reason that he eventually shaves his head and takes his darker turn.

[2545] You tell me that Max Payne feels the need to shave his head.

[2546] I'm like, oh, shit.

[2547] That can't be good.

[2548] Some bad shit's about to happen.

[2549] If anything, they all continue to happen.

[2550] The old character of Max Payne was kind of like a stagnant archetype at this point.

[2551] Totally.

[2552] Like a trench coat wearing noir detective guy.

[2553] Giving him a new arc to follow.

[2554] They made a game that has noir in the title already, so they don't need...

[2555] They're noired up.

[2556] And 2 is such that it broke the fourth wall every 20 minutes.

[2557] My favorite sequence is when the game acknowledges that it's Max Payne watching himself in a video game and acknowledging the weirdness of watching a player control him.

[2558] I think...

[2559] That game got super weird, like, in the best way possible.

[2560] And I know you didn't ask them this, but I hope there is some Address Unknown stuff in there.

[2561] Just even just a little bit, because the stuff they did in 2 with that was so fucking good.

[2562] Yeah, they did tell me...

[2563] I just wonder how much of that is Remedy.

[2564] Like, if that's a Remedy trademark.

[2565] Well, Alan Wake had that, too.

[2566] Right.

[2567] So I wonder if it would be out of place or weird for them to do anything like that.

[2568] I mean, if Remedy's signing off on it.

[2569] It is a total Remedy touch.

[2570] That's clearly one of the things they like to do.

[2571] Are there going to be entire movies I can watch in this game?

[2572] I loved it so much.

[2573] Another great opportunity for Ghost of Mars.

[2574] Let me watch all of Ghosts of Mars.

[2575] Just walk up to television.

[2576] The Housers already own the rights to it.

[2577] They bought it years ago.

[2578] It's true.

[2579] Not a lot of people know that.

[2580] It's their favorite movie.

[2581] I wish that was true.

[2582] No, they actually hate it.

[2583] They just wanted to get it so that nobody else can watch it.

[2584] The whole story of GTA 4 is basically just a retelling of Ghosts of Mars.

[2585] Not a lot of people know that.

[2586] Patrick, anything else you're playing?

[2587] Now we covered pretty much everything else.

[2588] There's a...

[2589] Cool iPhone game that people should check out called Mage Gauntlet.

[2590] It's the game that was making the rounds a while ago.

[2591] It looks like Secret of Mana.

[2592] Right.

[2593] Or Mana.

[2594] Secret of Mana.

[2595] Secret of Mana.

[2596] I call it Mana.

[2597] I always said Mana.

[2598] Yeah, it comes out next week.

[2599] Mana?

[2600] Mana?

[2601] Mana?

[2602] Mana?

[2603] Mana?

[2604] Manana?

[2605] Secret of Manana?

[2606] It comes out tomorrow?

[2607] No, next week.

[2608] Okay.

[2609] It doesn't come out Manana.

[2610] Seiken Dinsetsu, is that what you're talking about?

[2611] Well, cool.

[2612] What do you guys think about taking a break?

[2613] Yeah, whatever.

[2614] All right, we'll take a quick break, and we'll come back momentarily with more of the Giant Bombcast.

[2615] And we're back.

[2616] Jeff Gerstman.

[2617] Hello.

[2618] How's it going?

[2619] It's going great.

[2620] Want to talk about Batman any?

[2621] Yeah, okay.

[2622] Batman's out.

[2623] Batman is out.

[2624] Arkham City.

[2625] People are Batmanning it up right now.

[2626] The second Batman game for all intents and purposes.

[2627] Batman 2.

[2628] Yeah, Batman 2.

[2629] Batman Returns.

[2630] It is better than Batman 1.

[2631] You should play Batman 2.

[2632] Five stars.

[2633] Okay.

[2634] It's a really great game.

[2635] Do you want to talk at all about this?

[2636] Because you've got a review of your review.

[2637] Yeah, there's now three separate ways you can hear or read me saying stuff about Batman.

[2638] So maybe we'll keep it brief.

[2639] Sure.

[2640] One thing, I wonder how much...

[2641] The first game was amazing.

[2642] It seems like the second one is amazing too.

[2643] How much is that because Rocksteady is just doing something so different than anybody else that them just kind of doing similar things again is just totally fine?

[2644] That is a big part of it.

[2645] Kind of like Assassin's Creed kind of gets away with the same thing where it doesn't have to totally change things because it's so different than everything else.

[2646] It doesn't feel like it's getting away with anything.

[2647] Okay.

[2648] I'll say that much.

[2649] It is very similar.

[2650] The game is not dramatically different.

[2651] They have built onto the combat system in some really smart ways, more traversal stuff to make sense of the kind of larger world that you're in.

[2652] navigating.

[2653] But it's a very linear path through the main story.

[2654] The side missions are very compartmentalized off to the side.

[2655] It's not an open world.

[2656] It's not an open world in the traditional sense.

[2657] Even the seemingly random acts of political prisoners getting beat up show up on your map and it's like, here's where you go for this, here's where you go for that.

[2658] That helps them avoid political prisoners.

[2659] So the whole game takes place in Arkham City, which is a mega prison.

[2660] They've taken a section of the city, condemned it, turned it into a gigantic prison.

[2661] So in order for there to be innocent people that you have to help, someone at some point had to contrive, like, oh, well, what do we call these guys?

[2662] What's the least offensive?

[2663] They're all criminal scum, but why would Batman save these guys?

[2664] Like, well, what if the subtitles, like, and it only says it, like, in the subtitles, like, what if it said political prisoner?

[2665] Like, yeah, okay, that could be.

[2666] And there's a couple of cut scenes where you talk to these guys and they're like, I was just working on his comm system and then he threw me in here for no good reason.

[2667] Hugo Strange is running this whole thing, right?

[2668] So he's kind of corrupt from the top down.

[2669] Exactly.

[2670] So they have to make these distinctions so that the people you're saving are not bad people also.

[2671] So he's wrongfully imprisoned.

[2672] Right.

[2673] So they say.

[2674] I don't know.

[2675] They're just political prisoners.

[2676] I didn't see their trial.

[2677] Exactly, yeah.

[2678] Bus or something.

[2679] Yeah.

[2680] Who knows?

[2681] So, yeah, it is similar in a lot of ways, and I think, yeah, they do kind of get by because no one else is making a game like this.

[2682] No one else has really emulated this combat system to this extent.

[2683] Captain America tried to.

[2684] Yeah, Captain America did try to.

[2685] Captain America, like a reasonably good attempt at kind of aping some of that stuff, I guess.

[2686] But also probably shows how hard it is.

[2687] To do it as well as Rocksteady does.

[2688] Exactly, yeah.

[2689] And it's a great -looking game.

[2690] They've increased the scope of it in really cool ways.

[2691] And the story is a lot of fun.

[2692] It's kind of back -heavy.

[2693] Like not a ton of super important stuff happens at the beginning.

[2694] But once it starts all unfolding at the end.

[2695] I hear it's kind of fucked up.

[2696] It's real bang, bang, bang.

[2697] Like, oh, shit.

[2698] Oh, shit.

[2699] Oh, shit.

[2700] As these things happen.

[2701] So that's pretty cool.

[2702] But that two -hour spoiler that everybody got all incensed about.

[2703] Totally meaningless.

[2704] Totally nothing.

[2705] Like the dumbest thing ever.

[2706] Oh, the Joker stuff?

[2707] Yeah, yeah.

[2708] Like that stuff is.

[2709] resolved literally four seconds after it happens in the game.

[2710] Which is why the guy was so quick to turn the Xbox off when I saw the first part of that happen.

[2711] Yeah, yeah.

[2712] I think they kind of did themselves a disservice.

[2713] Whatever.

[2714] Maybe not.

[2715] It got everyone talking about the game.

[2716] So I guess probably mission accomplished on their part.

[2717] In one sense.

[2718] But, yeah, the game didn't need that.

[2719] The game didn't need it.

[2720] Exactly.

[2721] It comes as gimmicky for a game that is just legitimately great.

[2722] Kind of the gimmicky part, though, is the way they've handled their online pass stuff.

[2723] And so what they've done is Catwoman is only playable if you enter the code or give them $10.

[2724] And the weird part about that is it's not challenge room stuff.

[2725] You do get that as well.

[2726] But there are actually four Catwoman chapters.

[2727] set in the middle of the game, kind of one real early on, like spread throughout the game basically where you are playing as Catwoman and that stuff is kind of woven into the story.

[2728] It intersects with Batman's story in kind of meaningful ways.

[2729] It's not great if I had to pick a point of the game and say like this is the part they should have not put in.

[2730] It actually probably would be some of that Catwoman stuff because she's just a limited version of Batman.

[2731] Like she plays almost exactly the same but just has fewer options.

[2732] I've come to play as Batman.

[2733] Yeah, exactly.

[2734] Yes, you're here for Batman.

[2735] I'm not playing Catwoman Arkham City.

[2736] And it's kind of annoying because you actually have to upgrade Catwoman separately.

[2737] So if you've put all your points into upgrading Batman, as you should, and getting ballistic armor to reduce bullet damage and reduce melee damage with the other type of armor upgrade, then by the time you get to the final Catwoman chapter, you have not spent any points on her, and you're in a room full of guys with guns.

[2738] It's the same set of points that you were assigned?

[2739] Yeah.

[2740] That's so weird.

[2741] And they're not, they're cut up, they're not sequential as Catwoman, like you go bounce back and forth?

[2742] Right.

[2743] Okay, so it's like spread out throughout the game?

[2744] Yes.

[2745] So I actually had to, new game, I actually had to finish the game, and then go, so I had to basically do new game plus, start, level up a couple of times, spend those upgrade points on Catwoman, and then go back into my...

[2746] other game.

[2747] Oh, the levels are persistent regardless of where you're at in the story?

[2748] Can you also grind that stuff out in the challenge rooms?

[2749] Do you get any experience there?

[2750] I don't believe so.

[2751] So you were basically grinding Batman?

[2752] Yeah.

[2753] With Catwoman?

[2754] Play the early parts of the story again.

[2755] There's a finite amount of potential in the world to gain experience, right?

[2756] Those guys respawn.

[2757] So you could run around with Catwoman and just beat people up.

[2758] Or even with Batman and get a bunch of XP.

[2759] Yes, you could do that.

[2760] What did you say total runtime playing with Catwoman is like?

[2761] Oh, with Catwoman?

[2762] That's maybe an hour and a half or something like that.

[2763] Okay, like throughout the full game, these four sequences.

[2764] But this is the thing that you're getting the code for new in the box with the game where if you don't have that, those sequences are just gone.

[2765] They're just missing, which is crazy because it's really only kind of one scene.

[2766] I didn't see how it plays out without Catwoman, so I can't really speak to that stuff.

[2767] But I can kind of guess how it would play out.

[2768] But it's the stuff where Catwoman is basically helping Batman out of a bind.

[2769] And if you're doing the stuff leading up to that and seeing the motivations there, the story payoff is better than any of the gameplay stuff.

[2770] And that's kind of unfortunate.

[2771] And it's weird because it actually is a download, at least on 360.

[2772] It's not on the disc.

[2773] I had to then sit there and wait for 300 megs of stuff to download before I could start playing Batman, which is, like, lame.

[2774] Right.

[2775] Yeah.

[2776] That's weird.

[2777] Like, that would be the thing I would expect to be your on -disc thing.

[2778] Yeah, right?

[2779] It's weird.

[2780] It makes me question how that wound up.

[2781] All happening.

[2782] It's also because they just haven't communicated.

[2783] I think a lot of the backlash is because they haven't communicated that this was going to be an optional thing.

[2784] Instead, it was like the big reveal is like, you can play as Catwoman and all that stuff.

[2785] If they had said up front, we're going to add a Catwoman, it's going to be our online pass.

[2786] It's the bait and switch that pisses people off.

[2787] If this had been part of the message with the game for a while, putting Catwoman, weaving into the story, but it's also our online pass, and this had been...

[2788] E3, no one would care.

[2789] But it's because a week before, Catwoman's a big part of the game, and then all of a sudden, oh, by the way, it's part of our anti -use game policy.

[2790] Everyone's going to buy the new version anyway.

[2791] Because people feel burned that this is happening a week before the game comes out, and it's just, by the way, no big deal.

[2792] Also, apparently, GameStop is just printing versions of the codes and putting them in the used copies, which is like a policy they do with some games.

[2793] They must just have to work that out with the publisher.

[2794] They work that out with the publisher.

[2795] So even if you buy a used copy, I don't know how long that goes on for, but it will come with a unique code inside of a used game bot.

[2796] That is maybe one of the most fucked up things ever.

[2797] Because if the publisher is creating this system in the first place, ostensibly to stop used game sales, then turning around and cutting a deal with GameStop to be like, ah, it's totally okay.

[2798] We can't do that.

[2799] People aren't buying it used.

[2800] They must be taking a lump sum from GameStop.

[2801] GameStop is obviously paying for it and making it make sense for them.

[2802] But at some point it's like, why don't we just agree to...

[2803] do away with it.

[2804] It sounds like one of the most atrocious things I've heard come out of this industry.

[2805] I've heard a lot of atrocious things come out of this industry.

[2806] That makes you really upset.

[2807] Because that's the weird way of getting away.

[2808] You're basically paying your way out of like, this is hurting our sales in this one department.

[2809] Please stop doing this.

[2810] Okay, let's make this side room deal that's basically like...

[2811] But if the side room deal is GameStop kicks down money to publishers for their used game sales and leaves us out of it...

[2812] That's what everyone wants to happen.

[2813] It's just that GameStop says, look, we pay you...

[2814] Rather than being these weird code nonsense, just every used game sale, a portion goes to the publisher, and then we don't have to deal with the bullshit.

[2815] If they would just work it out, this is a weird way of them working it out with also having the bullshit layered on top.

[2816] Oh, the whole thing just is...

[2817] It's so funky.

[2818] It's backwards, but it's not as malevolent as you probably think it is.

[2819] The whole problem is a publisher not realizing any profit from sales of used games.

[2820] And the problem is like should they?

[2821] I understand the symptom of the disease but like basically trying to backslide this stuff into used game copies seems ridiculous to me. I don't know.

[2822] Is it my problem your games are so expensive and you charge $60 for them?

[2823] Not really.

[2824] Like that's the nature of the industry.

[2825] I have trouble feeling bad from a consumer angle, but I wish they would just figure it out behind the scenes rather than making it jump through all these hoops.

[2826] Or just jump to the endgame and go the CD key route, go the PC game route, and just like, here's your key.

[2827] If you want to play the game, enter the key.

[2828] Done.

[2829] Well, I mean, currently that's not possible on the existing consoles.

[2830] Right.

[2831] The infrastructure is not there.

[2832] Yeah.

[2833] Well, aren't online passes just CD keys?

[2834] Arguably it is.

[2835] Well, you're talking about Steam style, just straight up, you buy this game, you have it, you can play it.

[2836] You still have discs.

[2837] I'm not saying do the download part.

[2838] I am saying they should do the download part of it, but let's be reasonable.

[2839] We're not there yet.

[2840] Well, I mean, what we're talking about is divorcing a license to play the game from the physical object that is the game.

[2841] Sure.

[2842] Right.

[2843] PC owners have gotten used to this over the years.

[2844] It's just been an ongoing...

[2845] It's been the ongoing fight against piracy.

[2846] This has just evolved out of code wheels and all that stuff.

[2847] I mean, it's what is becoming the old argument about games as goods versus games as services.

[2848] Yeah.

[2849] Nobody's figured it out yet.

[2850] I think it's one of those things that makes me so annoyed because I feel like the brick -and -mortar style stores are the biggest roadblock to getting an all -digital.

[2851] I'm sure there's a lot of lobbying for them to not go all digital and distribution.

[2852] They'll be lobbying when it finally happens.

[2853] They'll be still pre -order bonuses from specific stores that get you into those brick -and -mortar stores.

[2854] And to see them basically finding this backdoor to get around this code stuff just makes me feel like, fuck, man, somebody's hands are in somebody's pockets and we just follow the money.

[2855] Direct to consumers and let's get rid of all the pre -order bonuses, these codes, whatever.

[2856] Let me buy this game.

[2857] I want to give you money.

[2858] Pre -order bonuses are not limited to physical establishments.

[2859] I mean, Amazon has its own.

[2860] It's basically where they started.

[2861] I mean, so like now they have become like an incentive to shop now that there are digital distribution places like Amazon or even just, you know, buy it online.

[2862] But it's where it started.

[2863] But they're not going to go away even when everything goes all online.

[2864] No, no, no. Because it's still an incentive to buy your game from store Y instead of store Z. And also to put the money down before the game is out.

[2865] Right.

[2866] But give me the option to just download the game digitally so that I can vote with my dollar of where I want to get this game.

[2867] And then we'll be done.

[2868] We'll dry up the need for brick -and -mortar stores.

[2869] I can go buy Guitar Hero there if I want to.

[2870] But I don't need to pre -order because it's a digital distribution model and the game might move.

[2871] The servers will be crowded.

[2872] But then we'll introduce pre -loading on them at some time.

[2873] I'm just – all these fucking vaudeville hoops and circuses to get me into a store.

[2874] Yeah.

[2875] It's – It's insane.

[2876] I mean, there is a good business reason they're still prioritizing brick -and -mortar sales.

[2877] Because of holidays, because of the mainstream.

[2878] That's where a gigantic bulk of sales occur.

[2879] There's still a meaningful number of consoles that aren't even connected to the internet.

[2880] Yeah, I'm not saying that it's a smart business decision.

[2881] My personal take on it is that it is starting to turn into a three -ring circus for trying to get people's attention.

[2882] Absolutely.

[2883] Is that a point now where just to, I mean, even if you're trying to just navigate and figure out like...

[2884] How do I get this special thing?

[2885] Because when they put out the information about it, it's like, here's all these extra Batmans we made.

[2886] They put out a guide for that.

[2887] Yeah.

[2888] One of the highest traffic stories we put up in news was Alex's write -up about where you get all the crap for Arkham City.

[2889] The fact that that's something I have to do.

[2890] It's obscene.

[2891] And from region to region.

[2892] But keep in mind, you can't use any of those skins until after you've beat the game.

[2893] Wait.

[2894] Which is another thing.

[2895] Even if you have one?

[2896] Yes.

[2897] What?

[2898] Batman skins.

[2899] Your first time through the story, you will play as Batman -ass Batman.

[2900] If you want to play as any other Batman, you are relegated to the challenge rooms or you have to beat the game first.

[2901] Wow.

[2902] And then you can pick whatever Batman you like.

[2903] That makes more sense knowing that, that they're going to sell all those as DLC after the fact.

[2904] Right.

[2905] Well, I'm glad that I did not pay for the $100 collector's edition to get my Batman.

[2906] Was that the Frank Miller one?

[2907] Something about that code burns me up.

[2908] It's something like you tell me that you're including this code so that we can stem, use sales, and then tell me that that's not actually true.

[2909] They paid us a bunch of money, so, you know.

[2910] Well, I mean, it's the same net result.

[2911] You're right.

[2912] It's absurd that we are going through this whole process.

[2913] It's absurd, but it's not offensive.

[2914] It's offensive to me. Why?

[2915] Because it's like you're introducing – you're basically saying like I'm going to give you a speeding ticket if you speed or you can just pay the cops to speed.

[2916] This is the step towards getting rid of those codes again.

[2917] I would pay the cops to speed.

[2918] Every time.

[2919] This is like the first step.

[2920] This is – towards getting rid of those things is...

[2921] It's the first step towards disarmament.

[2922] Is, okay, we introduced this thing that started devaluing the used game sales some, so now GameStop has to give them a little juice.

[2923] That's all they wanted was a little juice.

[2924] They put GameStop to the decision of, like, are they going to, you know...

[2925] pony up to make something like this happen.

[2926] Right, but it may be the first step to holding a reseller accountable, or it could just be another step in inconveniencing the consumer.

[2927] while they figure out how to both make money.

[2928] That's exactly what's happening.

[2929] They're going to inconvenience the consumer because the consumers will buy the games regardless because they want to play the game.

[2930] So yes, maybe it is a step in that direction, but it looks like to me, hey, we added another thing for the consumer to have to worry about while we figure out how to connect with each other to make money.

[2931] It's a shitty situation and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

[2932] Absolutely.

[2933] Just buy new games.

[2934] You do already.

[2935] I understand philosophically, but practically, you're going to go buy $60 Batman.

[2936] You are always going to buy $60 Batman.

[2937] Yeah, for me. Yeah.

[2938] I mean, whatever.

[2939] And used guys were going to get a cheaper price on the game because they're buying it used anyway.

[2940] Only not as cheap now, because I'm sure that whatever money GameStop is paying to Warner to make this a reality ends up...

[2941] So here's what happens...

[2942] Not necessarily because the margins on used sales are so enormous, they might be willing to take a small hit on it.

[2943] Because the games end up being about, for the first month or so, it's like $5 less.

[2944] Yeah, there's nowhere else for them to go.

[2945] They're taking the game at about $40 for the first month, then they're selling it at $55.

[2946] You can imagine whatever they're paying off to Warner...

[2947] they're still making a pretty crazy margin on those games.

[2948] And here's what happens when I buy a new Batman.

[2949] So I buy a new Batman.

[2950] I've got to figure out where I'm going to buy a new Batman from because there are seven different pre -order skins.

[2951] Now you were just going to buy it from Amazon.

[2952] I was always going to buy it from Amazon.

[2953] Yeah, because they just sent it to you.

[2954] And also Amazon gives me like my $20 for buying games from them.

[2955] I paid like, you know what, $20, way fucking better than any Batman skin.

[2956] I don't care what pre -order bonus you've got lined up.

[2957] But to prove my point, you have all these different options.

[2958] If you're going to buy a new Batman, what you're going to get with it, then I've got to open up Batman I have to enter a code in to get content because I'm a new owner that I have to put a stupid code in almost like buying a PC game Almost, but not anymore.

[2959] And then it downloads.

[2960] And then it downloads.

[2961] Whereas if the system weren't in place, I would buy the same Batman that everybody else is buying for $60, put the game in on day one, and just be ready to play.

[2962] So that is an inconvenience for the users, and I do think it's only going to get worse before it gets better, as they kind of split up and figure out how to transact these things that are slowly becoming less of an on -disc and just kind of, hey, we included it in the game, and more of a like...

[2963] Hey, we're going to sell you the game piecemeal from seven different stores.

[2964] You put the puzzle together and someday you'll have the full Batman experience.

[2965] It's just weird.

[2966] Sounds like Skylanders.

[2967] Sounds like Microtransact.

[2968] We're going to get Chop Chop.

[2969] And then Chop Chop comes with a code.

[2970] I don't know.

[2971] That part doesn't even bother me as much as somebody then being like, well, we're just going to put the codes in these games.

[2972] And it's just like...

[2973] Will you introduce a system to stop that?

[2974] Wait a minute.

[2975] This was supposed to stop you specifically from doing this.

[2976] You are the single biggest offender.

[2977] No, it doesn't apply to us.

[2978] But that's them just like – that's GameStop blinking to me. That's them going like, oh, shit.

[2979] This is actually cutting into our sales.

[2980] Like we have to do something to – but at the same time, they're staving off the inevitable.

[2981] But I have to imagine that they make a bulk deal with whomever is giving them the codes, whatever publisher it is, to be like, it is worth more to us to buy these codes, print them out, insert it, than to reduce the price of the game by X amount or to include a gift card for Xbox Live or whatever in there.

[2982] So they obviously are not making the full money off of it.

[2983] They're getting a bulk rate on some codes.

[2984] I have to imagine.

[2985] So it's not like the $10 or whatever you'd have to pay to do it.

[2986] But on the business side, everybody wins.

[2987] Maybe.

[2988] I don't know what the deal is.

[2989] Who knows?

[2990] Assumingly.

[2991] Who knows?

[2992] And I bet they have pretty good projections on how many, like what percentage of used sales they would actually get someone to buy the code.

[2993] To get with the code?

[2994] No, no, no. What the conversion rate is.

[2995] I'm saying what the conversion rate is on used sales to online passes.

[2996] Who goes and gives them the $10.

[2997] And I bet that's probably low enough.

[2998] Or maybe they're just buying those codes, they're putting them in the used box sales, and they're saying this is as good as new.

[2999] We're going to charge you the full price for it.

[3000] Well, they don't do that.

[3001] They could.

[3002] They come close.

[3003] Yeah, they're pretty close.

[3004] $5 is basically.

[3005] you're buying.

[3006] But I don't, I've seen them, especially at the rate that game prices crash these days, like off of 60 bucks.

[3007] Are they going to give me the full price for that game if I include the code when I sell back to them used?

[3008] No. Come on.

[3009] $40.

[3010] Why not?

[3011] Quit being a child.

[3012] Not being a child.

[3013] On that point of, like, you know how this works.

[3014] I do.

[3015] And I think they take advantage of people.

[3016] I think this is them continuing to take advantage of consumers.

[3017] I think Vidi has a point in that you see this play out over and over again where because gamers just want to play games, they are willing to put up with a lot of bullshit because at the end of the day, they do just want to play the games.

[3018] But that doesn't mean...

[3019] You shouldn't be incensed over how you're treated as a result of just wanting to play some games.

[3020] I think they take advantage of a disenfranchised population, which is a bunch of kids and a bunch of people who just, like Patrick said, just want to get their hands on games that don't really feel like they have a voice.

[3021] And I think they exploit that.

[3022] And I think this just seems like a really weird workaround or a really weird wrench to throw into the whole thing.

[3023] It's a fat cat.

[3024] Yes, it feels like backroom.

[3025] Yes.

[3026] It's gerrymandering.

[3027] They're moving the districts around.

[3028] They're moving the districts around to get the codes.

[3029] Follow the money.

[3030] I don't like it.

[3031] Prohibition against online passes.

[3032] Anyway, do you run the Batmobile?

[3033] No. Forget it.

[3034] Cancel my pre -runters.

[3035] Well, that is one of the pre -runters.

[3036] You play as the Batmobile.

[3037] It's a different skin.

[3038] I just want to point out that if this calculator, if this inflation calculator is to be believed...

[3039] You know what?

[3040] Actually, hang on.

[3041] I punched in 50 bucks.

[3042] Considering that the price of games has only gone up $10 in the last 25 years.

[3043] Well, I don't know about that.

[3044] I paid like $80 for a lot of N64 games.

[3045] Well, with Strider.

[3046] Excepting a few outliers, yeah.

[3047] Okay.

[3048] Star 4 was $100, but whatever.

[3049] $60 now in 1986, $29 .57.

[3050] I'm still confused.

[3051] There's a little perspective for you.

[3052] $60 might as well be $0.

[3053] I'm not saying that.

[3054] All games are free.

[3055] I'm just saying that as much as development costs have ballooned from one generation to the next, I'm shocked that prices on games have not gone up more.

[3056] Well, that's a different conversation.

[3057] I mean, whatever.

[3058] I'll pay $80 for the game.

[3059] I will not pay.

[3060] I don't want to give that money directly to GameStop.

[3061] Sure.

[3062] I mean, I think people should get paid what they deserve.

[3063] If you buy games new, you're not because the margins on new games are shit.

[3064] So even if you bought them from them, that's not what keeps them in business.

[3065] They're making next to nothing.

[3066] Oh, yeah.

[3067] I mean, whatever.

[3068] In fact, it's Super Nintendo cartridge cleaning kits that keep them in business.

[3069] You really want to take it to GameStop and buy all your games new from them.

[3070] And just drain the coffers.

[3071] No, I mean, I'm sure they make...

[3072] Go in there and say, no, I don't want the disc protection.

[3073] No, I don't want the guide.

[3074] No, I don't want to pre -order anything.

[3075] But I'm going to take up a lot of time online so that I use up your employees' time so that you can't make sales while I'm there.

[3076] You're saying we should occupy GameStop.

[3077] That's right.

[3078] Be there.

[3079] All right.

[3080] Let's move on out of this Batman.

[3081] Oh, actually, so I guess one other question I had was – Yes, it's very good.

[3082] Thanks for asking.

[3083] Yeah, is it any good?

[3084] It's great.

[3085] Just play it.

[3086] Okay.

[3087] That's fine.

[3088] Let's move on.

[3089] No, if you have a question, ask the question.

[3090] Oh, no, I was going to say the impact that this has on trophies or achievements.

[3091] Yeah, there are Catwoman -specific trophies.

[3092] Riddler trophies, I should say.

[3093] Not PlayStation trophies.

[3094] But I'm sure there are trophies slash achievements.

[3095] But then there are trophies associated with...

[3096] Collecting all of the trophies.

[3097] I'm not sure how it works if you haven't redeemed the code.

[3098] Meta trophies.

[3099] I think the Riddler trophies, I mean, because they count the Batman trophies and Catwoman trophies separately.

[3100] Oh, okay.

[3101] So it could very well be that the achievements you get are tied to the Batman stuff.

[3102] But you have not yet collected all of the Riddler.

[3103] I have not yet and will not.

[3104] Yeah.

[3105] There's a lot.

[3106] There are 400 Batman Riddler challenges to complete with Batman alone.

[3107] And there's a much easier way to get all that stuff filled in on your map, which kind of makes the riddles themselves a little less potent, a little less cool than they were the last time around.

[3108] Because it's less about you figuring out like, what does he mean when he says this?

[3109] And more like, this is the spot on the map.

[3110] I'm going to go here until I see something that looks like it's a little out of place and then take a picture of it.

[3111] Yeah, it's a lot of collecting trophies and doing kind of skillful things to get access to the trophies.

[3112] Did they change the Bat Vision detective mode stuff?

[3113] A little bit, yeah.

[3114] We had talked about that a little bit before.

[3115] The whole HUD goes away.

[3116] But basically by – Not having the Riddler stuff be as prevalent, the riddles specifically, there's less of a reason.

[3117] There's less of a need to go around and use it.

[3118] Some of the side missions, and even in the main story mode a couple of times, you go into the forensic version of it where you're scanning an area and looking for evidence.

[3119] Yeah.

[3120] And that's cool.

[3121] Following blood trails and such.

[3122] My copy comes tomorrow.

[3123] Batman.

[3124] All right.

[3125] Jeff, anything else you want to talk about?

[3126] We've covered the most important games of Skylanders and Batman.

[3127] Yeah.

[3128] That's it.

[3129] Oh, Hulk Hogan's main event?

[3130] I haven't tried it yet.

[3131] We did track down a copy and pick it up, so we will do some video of that.

[3132] And Trackmania 2 Canyon.

[3133] Move on.

[3134] Move on.

[3135] Brad Shoemaker.

[3136] Hey.

[3137] How's it going?

[3138] It's going.

[3139] It's hot.

[3140] What you been playing?

[3141] A couple three hours Uncharted 3 that I can't talk about.

[3142] Let's just move on from that then.

[3143] Are you wearing a subway hat while you do it?

[3144] Not yet.

[3145] I haven't unlocked it.

[3146] But I'm getting there.

[3147] Can I wear a fake genuine mask?

[3148] You can talk about all that multiplayer stuff.

[3149] That's true.

[3150] I did play some of the multiplayer.

[3151] Near as I can tell, that subway hat is the hardest to get accessory in that multiplayer.

[3152] I'm still not clear if that is all of the multiplayer.

[3153] It's the competitive multiplayer.

[3154] It's designed to be the full...

[3155] It is, but I'm not sure if it caps prematurely.

[3156] Because I've seen enough people at level 35 in that thing to assume the 35 is the cap, because I haven't seen anybody above that.

[3157] But I would have to imagine the retail goes higher than that.

[3158] That seems like a pretty low level cap for a retail game that's supposed to last for some time.

[3159] Anyway, we'll talk about that next week.

[3160] Review coming soon.

[3161] That might be it.

[3162] That's it?

[3163] How's your Dark Souls?

[3164] Beat Gargoyles?

[3165] Yeah, beat the Gargoyles.

[3166] How do you feel about that game?

[3167] How are your emotions about Dark Souls developing?

[3168] I'm still enjoying it.

[3169] I just, like I said, I can't play it at long stretches.

[3170] I just have to inch my way through it.

[3171] I just got through the Undead Parish.

[3172] Okay.

[3173] Yeah, I'm still there.

[3174] It's a rough game.

[3175] I played for Dance Central 2 with my girlfriend.

[3176] That was pretty fun.

[3177] Dance Central 2 is pretty good.

[3178] So I haven't had a chance to do any of the two -player, other than when I played with John Drake when he was here a while ago.

[3179] He hardly counts as a person.

[3180] He might as well be a set of curtains for all the dancing he can do.

[3181] Has that been a good experience, the two -player stuff?

[3182] It was good, except that it's almost that weird Guitar Hero issue of...

[3183] Like, the better you are at the real thing, like, the worse you might be in the game?

[3184] I'm not sure.

[3185] I mean, it's a sample size of one so far, but she's a way better dancer than I am, and yet I beat her consistently.

[3186] Don't say.

[3187] Because, yeah, go figure.

[3188] But I don't know, because maybe I know more what the Kinect is looking for.

[3189] She wanted to do the real moves and stuff.

[3190] So when a limb is glowing red, you're like, oh, okay, I need to cock the elbow out more or whatever.

[3191] Exactly.

[3192] Just like actual guitar players had issues with Guitar Hero.

[3193] I think that game's pretty good.

[3194] I don't think Just Dance 3 is particularly good, though.

[3195] Have you been doing head -to -head dance -offs?

[3196] I've been comparing the two, yeah.

[3197] Trying to, at least.

[3198] Boy, that's barely a game.

[3199] Just Dance 3.

[3200] It's just silhouettes.

[3201] It's barely tracking anything, right?

[3202] That's kind of how it's always been.

[3203] That's the thing.

[3204] It just used to do with the Wii remote and now it's a Kinect game.

[3205] It's never been about precise movements like Dance Central.

[3206] The thing is the dancers are always doing far more challenging and complicated dance routines in Just Dance because they're not animating.

[3207] They're not animating like polygonal figures.

[3208] It's just like we pointed a camera at this dancer, dressed all ridiculously, and then made them look all neon and glowy, and you have to kind of mimic their moves.

[3209] And they have like – they'll do like little kind of – Like the flash cards in Dance Central, they'll have little figures kind of scroll across the screen at the bottom and be like, here's what your next move kind of looks like.

[3210] But it doesn't have the level of granularity that Dance Central has where it's like, here is the left -hand move version of this, and then the next card is going to be, okay, and here's the right -hand move.

[3211] So you're going to shuffle, shuffle to the right, shuffle, shuffle to the left.

[3212] It's like, oh, okay, when that thing comes up, I now know what that means.

[3213] They don't give you that much direction.

[3214] Not that you need it, though.

[3215] of this weird thing where the dancing looks far more challenging.

[3216] Like, it's way harder to pull off the proper dancing, but the game doesn't really give a shit.

[3217] Like, there's...

[3218] As long as you're flailing around sort of maybe rhythmically, you're okay?

[3219] I got, like, three stars on a song sitting on my couch.

[3220] Nice.

[3221] Granted, now, there's an easy mode where...

[3222] Were you sitting on your couch rhythmically?

[3223] No, I was, like, literally not moving.

[3224] Like, I wasn't sitting on my couch and, like, trying to mimic it.

[3225] I was just sitting on my couch.

[3226] Watching it and I was getting points for it.

[3227] You mean my couch.

[3228] It's mine now.

[3229] So you're saying like if you don't care about really what's going on and you just want to do just dance or if you want the full experience of dancing, you want to go to Dance Central.

[3230] I don't know.

[3231] So for me as someone who is not a great dancer, I find the Dance Central experience far more satisfying because I feel like it is the moves.

[3232] at least on kind of the easier levels, you feel like you're actually, you're like, oh, okay, I'm actually doing this move.

[3233] I can actually, I can read that card and I know how to do that little sidestep move and you feel kind of involved in it.

[3234] You're doing enough of it that you feel like you're doing approximating a move.

[3235] You're like, you feel like I'm kind of dancing here.

[3236] I'm actually kind of doing a thing here.

[3237] Whereas in Just Dance, like not enough direction and it's motion tracking is so haphazard that's like, I don't know how to do that move, but I have no motivation to learn how to do that move because I'm still scoring decently.

[3238] There was another time where I was just like, oh, fuck these routines.

[3239] I'm just going to...

[3240] jump around and shake my arms, and did okay.

[3241] See, I've bought the just...

[3242] Because there's both the...

[3243] There's an easy mode and a normal mode, and the easy mode literally is just detecting your waist up.

[3244] It's where I do my best dance.

[3245] It's like no feet.

[3246] You can just lock your feet into place.

[3247] And even on normal, I, for the most part, would have my feet locked into place and be like, I just shift my shoulders kind of to the sides.

[3248] That's kind of how I dance anyway.

[3249] It takes it.

[3250] There's some other cool stuff actually happening in Just Dance 3.

[3251] You can record your own choreographies, as they call them, and it's able to cut your silhouette out and make you look like a just dance dude.

[3252] And it uploads it, and then other people can dance along with that.

[3253] Do you do multiplayer choreographies?

[3254] You know what?

[3255] I haven't dug into that part of it.

[3256] Maybe, because it supports up to four players at once, but it's, again, it...

[3257] As fast and loose as it is with one, I can only imagine – Just record a couple people boning and then upload the silhouettes of it.

[3258] It's like here's my dance.

[3259] That would be pretty amazing.

[3260] But it seemed like the idea of – and I'm not sure how – like if it's then like monitoring your movement and then like scoring people that are downloading and playing it based on that movement.

[3261] But the idea of being able to, like, here's a song, and here's my dance routine for it, and people can see that and play along to it.

[3262] Like, that seems like a neat idea.

[3263] It's just that it's in a game that's not good.

[3264] And, again, and also, like, soundtrack.

[3265] I really like the song selection in Just Dance 3.

[3266] It's just it needs to be in a better game.

[3267] But Dance Central 2, Dance Central -er.

[3268] Seems pretty good.

[3269] Yeah.

[3270] I like it.

[3271] It looks better.

[3272] The crew challenge stuff is cool, kind of giving a little more structure.

[3273] That's like their story mode kind of thing.

[3274] Yeah, yeah.

[3275] Dance Central, the first one was just like dance.

[3276] It was like Guitar Hero 1.

[3277] Yeah, it was very feature stripped.

[3278] This slightly more.

[3279] I feel like that's like the two -player simultaneous, which obviously is a big addition.

[3280] and the crew challenge stuff seemed like kind of the biggest.

[3281] Oh, and there's Kinect support, so you can yell at your voice support.

[3282] Yeah, voice support.

[3283] Wait a minute.

[3284] There's always been Kinect support, but yes, Kinect voice support.

[3285] In fact, when you first load it up, there's just a little note on the menu screen that says, you know, just shout dance at Kinect.

[3286] And you can just say, Kinect, dance!

[3287] And it loads stuff up.

[3288] I'm going to give the fitness mode a run.

[3289] I've heard it's not that robust.

[3290] Because they had something in the first game.

[3291] From what I've seen of it so far, it's just got, like, ten or maybe a dozen playlists.

[3292] I don't even know if the songs vary because they've got down to the second how long each one is.

[3293] Like, this one is ten minutes, twenty -one seconds long, so it's probably the same songs.

[3294] But, I mean, it tracks, you know, calories burned.

[3295] Having, like, chained playlists, like, that's good.

[3296] Yeah, like, some of them are up to, like, an hour long.

[3297] And they're even listed out for, like, you know, this one's an interval.

[3298] This one is like max cardio.

[3299] Right, right.

[3300] Yeah.

[3301] As I do every six months, I've fallen off my effort to get back in shape.

[3302] So let's see if I can get back into this.

[3303] Yeah.

[3304] It still has that.

[3305] And there's good, goofy songs in Dance Central, too, as well.

[3306] It's a good mix of, I guess, current dance music as well as the Humpty Dance.

[3307] Ultimate dance music.

[3308] I think there's some Bell DeVoe in there.

[3309] I believe you're right.

[3310] Bobby Brown.

[3311] Well, yeah, my prerogative is in there.

[3312] Definitely.

[3313] You can import Dance Central 1 stuff.

[3314] Eventually.

[3315] Can you not do it yet?

[3316] Yeah.

[3317] The game's not out yet, right?

[3318] Yeah, the game's not out yet, so the store stuff still isn't up.

[3319] It's the same thing.

[3320] You pay, I think, maybe $5 or $10.

[3321] It also comes with a points card.

[3322] All right.

[3323] It comes with 240, a code for 240 points.

[3324] Hold on.

[3325] I guess to encourage you to...

[3326] Go buy a song.

[3327] Go buy a song.

[3328] I was looking at the original game on Amazon.

[3329] That's a good idea, actually.

[3330] How's the soundtrack in the first one?

[3331] Because you need the first one, like a new copy of the first one to import, so I figured I'd just go buy the first one and pull it in.

[3332] It's good.

[3333] It's good.

[3334] It's good.

[3335] There's some good stuff in there.

[3336] Considering how much a new Gabby probably costs $400.

[3337] I was going through some Dance Central 1 also just to kind of compare and contrast those two.

[3338] Honestly, I like a lot of the DLC songs more than the stuff that was necessarily on the disc.

[3339] Maybe I'll just go for some of that.

[3340] There's some good DLC for that game.

[3341] Well, that's what I was going to make light of was that on Amazon, the first game by itself is $35, and the first game with a 240 -point card is $45.

[3342] Pay us 10 extra bucks to get this $3 voucher.

[3343] Done.

[3344] I think the first Dance Central...

[3345] I get the feeling that...

[3346] I remember really liking the soundtrack for that.

[3347] It made for good gameplay, even if they weren't always your favorite songs.

[3348] That's true.

[3349] The routines were good.

[3350] They were good songs to dance to.

[3351] Oh, and there's some good stuff in 2.

[3352] They did some of this in 1, but like...

[3353] The dance routine is incorporating stuff from the videos.

[3354] Oh, right.

[3355] In the case of Hathaway's What is Love, the Night at the Roxbury stuff.

[3356] Oh, no shit.

[3357] It's got a little head snap parts of the routine.

[3358] It's a small part, but it's one of those, if you know, it's a funny little thing.

[3359] The name is escaping me. The internet meme song, it's like the second song in the game.

[3360] Romanian pop song.

[3361] Is it actually that song, or is it the TI song that samples it?

[3362] No, it totally is that song, and it's got the YouTube guy.

[3363] It's got his motions and stuff.

[3364] Residuals.

[3365] The kid's getting paid.

[3366] The one issue I had with the dance battles, which is not the fault of the game, is that there were elbows getting knocked into heads and stuff.

[3367] Basically, we're standing as far from the Kinect as...

[3368] the living room would allow, and we still couldn't move far enough apart and both be in the frame.

[3369] Yeah, you need, yeah.

[3370] So that's not the fault of the game, but so I immediately was just like, all right, fuck it, I'm buying that thing.

[3371] I went on Amazon to buy it.

[3372] It's the Nyko Zoom.

[3373] Yeah.

[3374] And I was like, I mean, it's optics, why wouldn't that work, you know?

[3375] I'll just, whatever.

[3376] So I get on there, I get on Amazon, and out of 100 user reviews, 60 of them are one star.

[3377] And it's just ranging from like, From, like, it completely fucks up hand tracking to it only works with some games to this is fucking snake oil.

[3378] Like, people were angry about that thing.

[3379] So I was just curious.

[3380] All 60 of those people, Microsoft.

[3381] Who knows?

[3382] Have any of you guys used that thing?

[3383] I've been waiting to hear from other people.

[3384] The only word I heard was from Harmonix's John Drake, and it sounded like he liked it.

[3385] Again, soulless.

[3386] I'm saying consider the source.

[3387] I feel like they would want that thing to work.

[3388] That would make me buy more connectors because right now it just don't work.

[3389] You're right, but at the same time, if it did work, it would be Microsoft having to admit that...

[3390] We could have made this thing better.

[3391] But like I said, a lot of the people were saying that it does anything that requires finer tracking of hands and stuff.

[3392] That makes sense because it is distorting the image.

[3393] I mean, Microsoft doesn't have to admit that San Francisco apartments are really tiny and you probably shouldn't have a connection.

[3394] No, but they would have to admit that they made a thing that doesn't work in San Francisco apartments.

[3395] They already do.

[3396] They're really like eight feet, don't have a coffee table, and like, you know.

[3397] Mounted on the wall.

[3398] They kind of already admit that.

[3399] I kind of knew going into this whole thing.

[3400] How else are they going to force you to buy a second one?

[3401] Make it wider.

[3402] I just ordered another sit -on -top -of -your -TV -stand clip thing.

[3403] Because I bought the one that everyone recommended at launch, which had this thing that would go down the back of the TV and you could bolt to it and stuff, but it didn't fit my TV at all.

[3404] So it was useless.

[3405] So I bought another one that seems...

[3406] It might be a slightly more precariously positioned thing, but I at least look at it and see how it would work to keep that stupid thing on top of my TV.

[3407] So maybe I'll get some dancing in.

[3408] I still have to rearrange my living room if I want to do that stuff.

[3409] If I want to do it properly.

[3410] I'm bummed that it doesn't work.

[3411] I know, it's a shame.

[3412] There is another company bringing out an attachment.

[3413] Same concept as the Nyko, but maybe that thing works better.

[3414] They all have to work similarly, so it's all varying degrees.

[3415] I don't know if the Nyko one is badly designed or if it's just an inherent limitation of the concept, but I was curious if anybody listening to this has had a good experience with that thing and if it actually works well.

[3416] We will find out by next week.

[3417] I can guarantee you that.

[3418] Probably.

[3419] Now that you've said that.

[3420] I'll get a million emails.

[3421] Sweet.

[3422] Anything else, Brad, you want to touch on?

[3423] I think that's it.

[3424] We have burned through this podcast.

[3425] All right.

[3426] Patrick, is there any news of particular note that you want to bring up here or any stories you want to plug?

[3427] Oh, the NFL Blitz.

[3428] Yeah.

[3429] Oh, yeah.

[3430] Yeah, NFL Blitz got announced today.

[3431] With zombies.

[3432] Yeah.

[3433] Well, I mean, they had weird guest teams before, so it's not.

[3434] That's not the crux of it.

[3435] What is the game?

[3436] That was the crux of the article.

[3437] It says to me that someone who didn't play a whole lot of bullets maybe.

[3438] The hands -on article did not have a lot of hands -on in it.

[3439] You think that's more of not EA making the focus but the writer making that the focus?

[3440] Maybe.

[3441] Hard to say.

[3442] There's some footage out there that EGM has in their story.

[3443] And I pretty much muted it and kind of went to look through the footage.

[3444] It looks a lot like NFL Blitz.

[3445] It's similar animations.

[3446] A lot of the same plays are in there.

[3447] Though whoever was playing it, no jump passing in there.

[3448] And I'm worried that if they've taken out jump passing, then that game is being made by someone who doesn't understand what makes NFL Blitz great.

[3449] I'm just hoping that whoever was playing it just didn't know that's how you play that game.

[3450] So are they bringing Blitz?

[3451] Back?

[3452] Yeah, this is a new game.

[3453] Sort of like how NBA Jam was a new game.

[3454] This is a new game.

[3455] Tiburon's developing it.

[3456] This is NFL Blitz.

[3457] Like, no number, no nothing.

[3458] And it's going to be a retail game.

[3459] It's going to apparently be a retail game out January 3rd, which I don't...

[3460] You'd think they would have learned from...

[3461] NBA Jam last time around?

[3462] NBA Jam last time around.

[3463] So our running theory was that, well, people that are fans will buy it twice anyway, so why not just squeeze them out?

[3464] Well, yeah, why not get $40 out of them the first time instead of $15?

[3465] Because you could sell a disc the first time out.

[3466] And you called this one as far as release window.

[3467] You knew that once they announced it officially...

[3468] That it was going to come real quick, syndicate style.

[3469] I called that because I knew that.

[3470] But, yeah.

[3471] I thought that was just you being super perceptive.

[3472] No, no. I mean, we ran a story on this in November of 2010 saying that, hey, guess what?

[3473] EA's working on our new NFL Blitz.

[3474] They, of course, would not confirm it until today.

[3475] But, yeah, yeah.

[3476] It's a real quick turnaround from announcement to ship for whatever reason.

[3477] Wait, when is the ship?

[3478] January 3rd.

[3479] So do you feel like – I mean, do you know enough about the game to think that the content's not there for a full retail game?

[3480] It depends on what they add.

[3481] I mean, they've added something called the Blitz Gauntlet mode or something like that.

[3482] They're looking to expand in ways that are probably similar to what they did in NBA Jam.

[3483] Sounds exactly like the remix tour.

[3484] Yeah.

[3485] So wait, so retail but not 60.

[3486] No idea.

[3487] Not saying, but probably not.

[3488] I will come out and say that they will probably know better than to try to charge 60 for this game.

[3489] Okay.

[3490] Because with NBA Jam, they did charge 40 for it.

[3491] So they're not trying to do the league or anything like that?

[3492] No, it doesn't look like it.

[3493] And this game, it looks like a visually upgraded version of the old NFL Blitz, like old four -player turbo bars at the bottom versus screen codes and all that sort of stuff.

[3494] So it looks like whoever is making it is similar to what they did with NBA Jam.

[3495] They're looking to hit.

[3496] the same notes and kind of do the right thing.

[3497] A lot of the plays come right out of Blitz 99.

[3498] But, you know, and looking at it being played and looking at you see the receivers flashing so you can tell it's probably the same style of point and shoot passing that they would use in the original games.

[3499] But he doesn't jump.

[3500] I don't know.

[3501] He doesn't jump.

[3502] You're going to have to reformulate your entire Blitz strategy.

[3503] If you can't jump, they can't jump.

[3504] There's something...

[3505] How many dudes are on the field?

[3506] No, you know what?

[3507] Seven on seven.

[3508] Seven on seven.

[3509] Jump passes are a pre -order bonus.

[3510] Fuck.

[3511] But they're putting those codes in if you buy it used, so it's fine.

[3512] But only at Target.

[3513] Yeah.

[3514] So this is kind of...

[3515] I think some people thought that this game was dead because the...

[3516] The story that I wrote came out, when it did come out, Mark Turmel was still working at Tiburon, and he has since left and gone to Zynga, I believe.

[3517] So I think some people thought that the game died when he left, because he is the NFL Blitz and NBA Jam dude.

[3518] And that EA has basically just been burying these properties they're unearthing as they come out.

[3519] Did you know the new NBA Jam came out?

[3520] I wouldn't blame you if you didn't know that, because that game just kind of...

[3521] Yeah, and just to kind of...

[3522] What is it?

[3523] We're mid -October now, right?

[3524] This game's coming out in January.

[3525] I kind of like the idea of announcing a game and turning around this quickly, but you know they're not going to spend any real time promoting that game.

[3526] If they're putting it on a disc, maybe they will.

[3527] Who knows?

[3528] It's just such a weird thing.

[3529] Who's to say it'll even be fully functional like that NBA Jam?

[3530] It's kind of broken.

[3531] Yeah, it is kind of broken in some spots for sure.

[3532] I don't know.

[3533] But it looks enough like NFL Blitz that I'm very excited.

[3534] It seems like EA's attentions are elsewhere right now.

[3535] They got that MMO.

[3536] Between that MMO and that first -person shooter.

[3537] Yeah.

[3538] Obviously, this is the sports group, so that's a slightly different thing.

[3539] EA seems kind of like, it's not just like, oh, obviously these are big things for them and a lot is riding on it.

[3540] Singular focus.

[3541] They seem distracted.

[3542] They're waiting to give birth.

[3543] Like the amount of attention that I feel like I've seen for EA properties that are not those doesn't seem that focused.

[3544] Well, yeah, it was interesting going to the thing that they had in Vegas where, I mean, Battlefield was there, but it was the stuff from Gamescom mostly.

[3545] They didn't really dwell on that game very much there at all.

[3546] and it was about other stuff they had coming up, and it was weird.

[3547] It felt like Crazy World.

[3548] I'm at this EA event, and Battlefield's not really the focus, and Old Republic isn't here at all.

[3549] This is great.

[3550] I'm going to go play Need for Speed.

[3551] I'm going to go play Syndicate.

[3552] Syndicate, again, I think Syndicate looks like it's got a real shot.

[3553] It looks pretty awesome.

[3554] Mass Effect 3 played that multiplayer stuff.

[3555] What's the date?

[3556] The 18th.

[3557] Still can't talk about that.

[3558] Okay.

[3559] But all those details are out there.

[3560] So.

[3561] Go.

[3562] Yeah.

[3563] Do something.

[3564] Go read the internet.

[3565] Go read the internet, I guess, about that.

[3566] And then come back on the 27th and I'll give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

[3567] What do you think?

[3568] Thanks, Scary Larry.

[3569] Yeah.

[3570] Then we'll come back and cut some cheat codes.

[3571] Pro tips.

[3572] You want big head moves.

[3573] You want to show field goal percentage.

[3574] Hit the pass button once and then press down.

[3575] How do I get to the minus console?

[3576] There's cheat codes in what we saw in the footage front of us, though, which is awesome.

[3577] Yeah, yeah.

[3578] So I imagine that'll be, you know, traditionally that's where you would turn off computer assistants or turn on field goal percentage or big heads or any of that stuff.

[3579] You think it'll be turbo?

[3580] Two on two?

[3581] Or do you think they'll ratchet it up to three on three, four on four?

[3582] The way the HUD, the way the UI is drawn, it looks like there's room for four turbometers.

[3583] Per system?

[3584] Yeah, so two on two.

[3585] Okay, so you don't think it'll be like four in a system?

[3586] No, no, no. In fact, if they're sticking to Blitz the way Blitz has been made, you want to play a one -on -one.

[3587] You don't even want to play that game two -on -two.

[3588] Yeah, because the loose player without the ball on offense, you can kind of play receiver, but you're mostly just kind of pushing other dudes down, and it changes a lot of really weird stuff about the game.

[3589] makes it a little less skillful in a sense, I would say.

[3590] That game is not enough of a football game to really support multiple live players.

[3591] You just want to be passing to yourself.

[3592] Having two defenders out there, if you know what the plays are, it's easy enough to bust up plays when you're one person, just kind of being able to pick out what's being called and know what the formations look like.

[3593] If you have two players, you're just fucking breaking every single play as it starts.

[3594] When you did that tournament, was that one -on -one?

[3595] Yeah.

[3596] Okay.

[3597] Because when they did that tournament, it was before Blitz was a four -player game.

[3598] The first Blitz was a two -player game.

[3599] I didn't remember that.

[3600] And then for Blitz 99, they added four -player.

[3601] So which cabinet did you get?

[3602] I have 99.

[3603] So it was four -player cabinet.

[3604] So technically, by winning the tournament, I won a Blitz machine, which would have been the old one.

[3605] But then they said, like, hey.

[3606] Would you be willing to wait two months and get the new one instead?

[3607] Yeah, okay.

[3608] I guess.

[3609] And that's the one that has the N64 memory slot on it.

[3610] Oh, shit.

[3611] So I can create plays on the N64 and load them in on the controller pack.

[3612] Wow, I forgot about that.

[3613] That thing, it's got a little door that opens up.

[3614] A little mechanized thing because they want to keep it closed most of the time so people can't jam gum in it.

[3615] But apparently those things got...

[3616] gum jammed in them all the time.

[3617] You know what to say?

[3618] Cigarette butts and gum.

[3619] That's like the ultra rare version of the Neo Geo setup with the memory card slots.

[3620] Those are slightly more common.

[3621] Do you feel an itch to power that thing back up and start playing some Blitz?

[3622] Even if you're not preparing for it.

[3623] It's one of those things that I played so much of it that getting it to come back is not the hard part.

[3624] No, not that.

[3625] It's finding people that are good.

[3626] It's only as good as the people you have around the place.

[3627] You just got to put that Blitz machine on the internet.

[3628] Just plug in the ethernet to it and play somebody else with the Blitz machine.

[3629] Okay, I'll do that.

[3630] Just link it up to that grid machine and then it'll all work.

[3631] Kus was trying to get me to bring the Blitz machine in.

[3632] That thing's got to be heavy.

[3633] That screen is real big.

[3634] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3635] It's the NBA Jam cabinet, basically, but probably a little heavier.

[3636] Is it like 25?

[3637] 25.

[3638] Yeah.

[3639] Gosh.

[3640] But just with the moistness of that back bar area and all that stuff, I'm not going to bring it in to get it all beat up.

[3641] Don't bring in your blitz machine.

[3642] Make him come to your house.

[3643] That's right.

[3644] I spent a long time looking up.

[3645] arcade CRTs this weekend.

[3646] It's a dying, dying...

[3647] Wells Gardner still makes CRTs.

[3648] It's a real sad state of affairs.

[3649] You can't manufacture CRTs anymore because there's lead in the coating on the CRT to prevent the radiation from the gun.

[3650] There's just a finite number of CRTs that are available that you can purchase.

[3651] There are only going to be less CRTs from here on out.

[3652] A couple of people still make them, but apparently they're shit.

[3653] Chinese manufacturers still will actually produce...

[3654] but apparently they're really no good.

[3655] Is there a way to convert them and hook up an LCD?

[3656] You can hook up an LCD, but the resolution on it is so different that for older games...

[3657] They just don't look – they don't get the blur that a CRT would give you.

[3658] So everything is real sharp edges.

[3659] I'm fine with that.

[3660] Actually, sharp edges.

[3661] It's a tasting.

[3662] It's definitely like an analog versus digital kind of – It's just one of those like if you're at the point of having an arcade cabinet, like you want – You don't want to drop an LCD into your Defender machine or something like that.

[3663] It's just weird.

[3664] You're chasing the authentic experience.

[3665] So like, yeah, it's totally usable and livable with a – To me, it's not too far off from putting those LED lights into pinball machines.

[3666] Well, it's a little less cosmetic, I think, because the actual hard part, not to spend too much time on this...

[3667] Is to get it to blow up to the full screen?

[3668] No, it's to try and find a 4x3 LCD screen to chop in there.

[3669] So some people are actually...

[3670] Buying big enough ones where you can turn it vertically so that the width of the screen is the 4x3.

[3671] It's just really weird finding that stuff.

[3672] They actually do sell some arcade LCD screens that are 4x3 that will run in EGA and CGA and stuff like that.

[3673] But I don't really know.

[3674] And they're like $400.

[3675] So I don't really understand what's happening.

[3676] It's just sad to look at it and be like, once these go.

[3677] That's it.

[3678] You will no longer find those.

[3679] Patrick, any other news highlights you want to bring up here?

[3680] Nah.

[3681] All right.

[3682] Good, because we are out of time.

[3683] Game's out this week.

[3684] Batman's out this week.

[3685] You should probably play Batman.

[3686] Is Layton's out this week?

[3687] Layton's out this week also.

[3688] Payday.

[3689] Payday.

[3690] Payback.

[3691] Payback.

[3692] The heist.

[3693] Waste.

[3694] Ratchet & Clank.

[3695] Ratchet & Clank All for One, Rocksmith, Sims 3, Pets, Professor Layton in The Last Spectre, Power Up Heroes, Family Feud 2012.

[3696] Oh, no. Minute to Win It, Bigfoot, King of Crush.

[3697] What?

[3698] Price is Right, The Decades, Tropico 4 for 360, Skylanders, Jane's Advance, Strike Fighter.

[3699] On Xbox Live Arcade, there's Dungeon Defenders and Bejeweled 3.

[3700] as well as the Deus Ex Missing Link DLC campaign.

[3701] On PSN, there's Okabu, Rocket Birds, Hard Boiled Chicken, Payday the Heist, Dungeon Defenders, Real Steel, Beat Hazard Ultra, and Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space.

[3702] Beat Hazard's PS3?

[3703] Yeah, Beat Hazard Ultra.

[3704] Oh, interesting.

[3705] Serious Sam, did you say that?

[3706] Yeah, I didn't.

[3707] But yeah, Serious Sam, Random Encounters on Steam.

[3708] That's next week.

[3709] That's next week?

[3710] I thought it was this week.

[3711] I think it's next week.

[3712] Oh.

[3713] Okay.

[3714] And that's the...

[3715] Which one is that?

[3716] The turn -based RPG.

[3717] That's the turn -based RPG.

[3718] Of course.

[3719] I didn't know.

[3720] Sorry.

[3721] That's next week.

[3722] Yeah.

[3723] I didn't look up Steam stuff, so I didn't know either way.

[3724] I didn't know.

[3725] I gotta cut emails.

[3726] No time for emails.

[3727] What?

[3728] There's no time for emails.

[3729] One email.

[3730] All right.

[3731] The best email.

[3732] See, we don't have time for you to pick.

[3733] Don't be crazy.

[3734] This is the best email.

[3735] Well, whatever.

[3736] How would we know?

[3737] Close your eyes and touch an email.

[3738] Okay, it's going to be about Batman.

[3739] Kurt Myers in Iseland, New Jersey.

[3740] Am I saying that right?

[3741] I don't know how you spell it.

[3742] I -S -E -L -I -N?

[3743] Yes.

[3744] Sure.

[3745] Aislinn?

[3746] I thought maybe you would.

[3747] Aislinn turned it.

[3748] I don't know Aislinn.

[3749] Hey, guys.

[3750] Just wondering, do you think Batman would have sold better if they timed the launch with the new Batman movie next summer?

[3751] Not saying it won't sell well now, but it would be in a dead spot probably out of the super competitive holiday season and everyone would be swept up in Batman fever.

[3752] Not that there should ever be a time where there isn't Batman fever.

[3753] Did the movies really create a palpable sense of Batmania?

[3754] Do I think it would maybe...

[3755] I don't think so.

[3756] Would it sell one more copy than it's currently going to sell?

[3757] Maybe.

[3758] Maybe.

[3759] At this point, the Arkham brand has its own blockbuster status.

[3760] Like, Warner Brothers putting it out in mid -October is them saying, this can stand with the other big games.

[3761] It's such a different take on Batman than what Christopher Nolan's doing with it.

[3762] I mean, this is comic book Batman.

[3763] Yeah.

[3764] Straight up.

[3765] And also, if you put it on your – you're going to assume it's a movie -licensed game, which people have a bad taste for.

[3766] Right.

[3767] People have been burned in the past with those.

[3768] If anything, they had to actively work against that perception with the last game.

[3769] Right.

[3770] When it comes to Batman, I don't really want an abundance of Batman -related stuff.

[3771] So with this game every couple of years – You want a bat vacuum?

[3772] Perfect.

[3773] That's enough Batman for it.

[3774] Batman shows up.

[3775] It is probably the best form of Batman that is available.

[3776] I haven't seen any of those movies.

[3777] So it's not about volume.

[3778] It's about quality.

[3779] Yeah.

[3780] I'll take a high -quality Batman game any day of the year, but I don't really care about what they tie it into.

[3781] Isn't there some Batman Blu -ray out, though?

[3782] Oh, yeah.

[3783] There's an animated Dark Knight thing.

[3784] Gotham Knight or something.

[3785] I don't know.

[3786] Yeah.

[3787] There's some other Batman stuff out, but the Batman thing you care about is on a video game console.

[3788] And then three weeks on a PC.

[3789] There's always some kind of Batman out there.

[3790] Yeah.

[3791] Watching, watching, waiting.

[3792] I also enjoy that Will's phone calls him Batman now.

[3793] I like seeing him get really excited about that.

[3794] Yeah.

[3795] He's not Batman.

[3796] According to Siri, he is Batman.

[3797] Stupid Siri.

[3798] All right.

[3799] That's it for emails.

[3800] Thanks, everyone, who wrote in.

[3801] Mostly about Batman.

[3802] All right.

[3803] And we actually covered a good majority of those questions.

[3804] Good.

[3805] Talking about Batman, so we're pretty good.

[3806] Bombcast .jarleyquinn .com.

[3807] That wasn't one of the questions.

[3808] That's a spoiler.

[3809] Damn it, shit.

[3810] That's it for this week's episode.

[3811] Thank you guys for talking in this hot room, and thank you guys for listening.

[3812] We'll be back next Tuesday with another edition of the Giant Bombcast.