Giant Bombcast 04-05-2011

[0] Everyone, it's Tuesday, April the 5th, 2011.

[1] It's the Bobcat.

[2] What?

[3] All right, Davis.

[4] Vinnie Caravella.

[5] That's me. Jeff Gerstmann.

[6] I'm not going along with this.

[7] Stop.

[8] Brad Shoemaker.

[9] What's happening?

[10] What?

[11] Welcome back, Brad Shoemaker.

[12] Brad Shoemaker, back in the fold.

[13] Oh, man. You spent a week sitting around in your underwear and playing StarCraft.

[14] Staycation.

[15] Dude.

[16] I know this for a fact.

[17] Stack of Xbox games did not get touched.

[18] Oh, no. Did not get touched.

[19] So can I just do, hey, what you been playing, and you can say StarCraft and then move on?

[20] I did spend the whole week on the computer for whatever reason.

[21] I mean, I went to your house Monday morning, and you were already clearly in it.

[22] Was it Monday night that Alex showed?

[23] When did Alex come get that 3DS?

[24] That was like Monday night, Tuesday morning, something like that.

[25] Okay, that's right.

[26] Tuesday morning was when I came by, and you were...

[27] Tuesday morning is when you came.

[28] Yes.

[29] That's right, okay.

[30] I had showered at that point.

[31] Okay.

[32] When Alex came by Monday night, kind of unannounced, like he texted me, but I wasn't paying attention.

[33] Yeah.

[34] And I had been playing about three hours of...

[35] I was playing 2v2 StarCraft with JP over at the MLG.

[36] He was boning up for their Dallas event, but had not showered in a while.

[37] looking pretty disheveled.

[38] Had a good funk going?

[39] He just shows up at the door, banging on the door right as we are engaging the enemy in this climactic moment of the match we were in.

[40] So yeah, I had to tap out and then be really embarrassed that somebody had come to my house in the middle of this awful...

[41] Let's not talk about it.

[42] This degeneration.

[43] Let's not talk about it.

[44] So is Starcraft all the time?

[45] I played a decent amount of Warhammer Dawn of War 2.

[46] Oh, fantastic.

[47] The first one.

[48] Not Retribution.

[49] Yeah, well, they've done Retribution.

[50] They also did Chaos Rising.

[51] Yeah.

[52] What did you think?

[53] It's good.

[54] I mean, you know how it is.

[55] You played a bunch of it.

[56] I know how it is.

[57] It feels like the logical progression of Company of Heroes.

[58] All that stuff feels exactly the same.

[59] I'm so used to StarCraft now that clicking to make a guy do something and then watching him fiddle around and go through some animations before he actually goes over and does it.

[60] I'm just like, ugh!

[61] Just do it!

[62] I told you what to do.

[63] Just go over there and shoot that guy.

[64] It was an adjustment.

[65] I got to load up my gun and I got to put bullets in it.

[66] It's very kind of a...

[67] My rocket hammer.

[68] Small scale, you know, you get there's like four or five dudes, four dudes at a time.

[69] Four squads, yeah.

[70] I like that.

[71] It's neat.

[72] Cover tactics.

[73] Indeed.

[74] Suppressing fire.

[75] I've played 93 minutes of that game.

[76] That's not bad.

[77] According to your Steam stats.

[78] Yes.

[79] I love when Steam can tell me shit like that.

[80] I know, it's awesome.

[81] Yes.

[82] Steam corrected me and I was only 20 hours into Dragon Age, not 30.

[83] Good.

[84] Yeah.

[85] A lot of people were bewildered.

[86] What?

[87] How do you pursue?

[88] So now I'm 30 hours.

[89] Now you're 30 hours in.

[90] I'm only like 25 or something.

[91] You didn't play much Dragon Age 2 this weekend?

[92] I only played like five or six hours.

[93] That's a fair amount.

[94] Yeah.

[95] Anything else?

[96] Yes.

[97] Anything else going on?

[98] I did.

[99] Slam that Zojirushi 17 -ounce stainless mug down.

[100] Jesus.

[101] Well, because I want to speak with authority.

[102] Well, the only way to do it, Zojirushi in your hand.

[103] This has to stop.

[104] Now I don't have to have roommates.

[105] This is great.

[106] This is great for me. You've got to cut me in on this.

[107] Oh, yeah.

[108] Stop.

[109] Still nice and hot.

[110] Cha -ching.

[111] What am I going to do with 17 ounces of liquid?

[112] It's hot or cold?

[113] It's the perfect amount.

[114] It's ideal.

[115] Is that thing useful for a cold beverage?

[116] Yeah, absolutely.

[117] Again, 17 ounces?

[118] I've been told it's not great for...

[119] I mean, it cannot maintain carbonation of carbonated beverages, but hot or cold.

[120] There are smaller ones if you want.

[121] Yeah.

[122] No, that's fine.

[123] And they have more colors available for the smaller ones than they do for these, air quote, big ones.

[124] How would you know?

[125] Have you been shopping for Zojirushi products recently?

[126] I looked on the internet to see exactly what you guys were getting up to and to explore the line of the brand.

[127] And they do look very nice.

[128] But if I can't carry around at least 32 ounces, at least a tray deuce.

[129] You should buy two and then take them together.

[130] That's still unacceptable.

[131] That's a totally reasonable solution.

[132] I guess if I cared at all about coffee, maybe that would matter because more than 17 ounces of coffee seems like it might be a little much.

[133] Yeah, it's a lot of coffee.

[134] It's good.

[135] It's a good amount of coffee.

[136] Is there a viable way to make tea in that thing?

[137] In it?

[138] Yeah.

[139] Like steep it?

[140] Yeah, you could probably steep it.

[141] I mean, this thing is, yeah.

[142] I mean, the string would keep over the edge.

[143] All right.

[144] Or you just dump that whole motherfucker in there.

[145] All right.

[146] I drink almost no hot beverages.

[147] No. Ever.

[148] It's good for water.

[149] But so is a large, just regular plastic travel bottle that holds 32.

[150] 32 ounces.

[151] So is like an empty Taco Bell cup.

[152] You just go start using those instead.

[153] There you go.

[154] Dude, hobo man. That's pretty good, too.

[155] I get some nice plasma, Lexan, you know, it's not going to, like, get all chemical -y or whatever.

[156] It's an old antifreeze container I've got.

[157] So I spent the weekend drinking water out of an old gas can.

[158] And let me tell you.

[159] That'll keep it cold.

[160] Yeah.

[161] I don't remember anything.

[162] No, like not about the weekend.

[163] Anything.

[164] Anything.

[165] Where am I?

[166] Who are you people?

[167] For a while I forgot how to breathe.

[168] But they say that that returns normally as the kind of effect wears off.

[169] But Mass Effect the...

[170] Back to, oh, to The Arrival.

[171] The Arrival.

[172] Mass Effect 2, The Arrival, the new DLC that came out last week.

[173] That's a short piece of content.

[174] I heard some middling things about that.

[175] Yeah.

[176] Like what middle thing did you hear?

[177] Middle finger?

[178] Yeah, actually I saw a lot of middle fingers being extended at that thing.

[179] Short, buggy, and just kind of half -assed.

[180] I don't know about the buggy, but it kind of goes against everything that you really enjoy about Mass Effect 2.

[181] In what ways?

[182] Your solo.

[183] Pretty much the entire time.

[184] So there's no party banter.

[185] Not issuing a lot of commands.

[186] No. So you're just you yourself the entire time.

[187] It's extremely short and combat focused.

[188] And it would be even shorter if you didn't try and like basically there's a round wave based combat situation in which you could die in the first.

[189] gunshot and then move on with the story and be like oh man you didn't make it that sucks or you can do like all three or four waves or five waves and get the achievement for making through all the waves and that's like the longest piece of that content but does that like other than like dinging for the achievement does that actually do anything for the story no because he like it kind of like woos out same way like and then you get woken up and you're like yeah hold on and then the end of it is like guess what guess who's coming to dinner The Reapers.

[190] Is it Shepard?

[191] No. He was already there.

[192] He's hosting the dinner party.

[193] I would go to that dinner party.

[194] There's maybe one piece of story, of narrative, that they add in there that may be taken to Mass Effect 3 that would be like, okay, now I see how that was set up.

[195] But even that's, I don't know, we'll have to wait and see how that's addressed in Mass Effect 3.

[196] When you say short, like how short?

[197] Because the other pieces haven't been...

[198] I think if you really – I mean, I would say like – what would you say Shadow Broker?

[199] Like on the outside, like three hours?

[200] Tops.

[201] Tops.

[202] I think you can cruise through this in like an hour.

[203] Jeez.

[204] I've heard multiple people say under an hour.

[205] Yeah.

[206] I think you can really burn through this, especially if you're not looking around.

[207] Or I bought it.

[208] I'll probably play it.

[209] Which is a shame because Mass Effect 2 is fantastic.

[210] That's a great game.

[211] And all the DLC, or most of the DLC up to this point, has been really up to snuff.

[212] Yeah, Overlord was also fantastic.

[213] Assuming it was good.

[214] Yeah, it's kind of a shame to see this kind of...

[215] Yeah.

[216] Like, why?

[217] Just don't leave this one off.

[218] Well, it's special because those other packs came pretty tightly bundled.

[219] Like, pretty close to the game's...

[220] Well, I mean, within the year of the game's release.

[221] And within, like, a month or two of each other, there was a pretty big break.

[222] Yeah.

[223] And now we have this, although I imagine that probably has something to do with getting it on PS3 as well, which they now have to consider.

[224] It's nice to see him go back this long after the fact.

[225] I think it's cool to revisit it.

[226] I thought that at first.

[227] Well, yeah.

[228] In theory, it's cool that somebody would go back this long after and do this.

[229] I wonder if it's just some grand experiment to say, like, I wonder how long we can keep people caring about this stuff and if this is an effective way to set up a sequel.

[230] Well, it sounds like it does not provide that like momentous narrative bridge in the Mass Effect 3 that we were expecting.

[231] Yeah.

[232] And I guess it's just kind of maybe it's a victim of the way it has to be set up where you don't even have to have a clear game or you don't have to have beaten the game to see this stuff.

[233] So it has to fit into the narrative no matter where you are.

[234] Did you get any sense of how that would affect things?

[235] Because they were saying when they were here that.

[236] It would vary, but based on where you're at in the storyline.

[237] I'm trying to finish the game again and get a better ending.

[238] I'm wondering if I go do it now.

[239] There were a couple of dialogue options that were like, oh, you had stopped the collectors or whatever like that.

[240] I suspect those would be gone.

[241] Again, you're by yourself.

[242] All the party stuff is stripped out, and that's a shame.

[243] And there's no new weapons or anything like that.

[244] I think I got one upgraded for my heavy weapon stuff, but I don't know.

[245] I don't know.

[246] I don't know what to say.

[247] Not with a bang, but with a whipper.

[248] Ghost Mass Effect 2.

[249] That's a shame.

[250] There's some other stuff on the Cerberus network that is better, is what I would say.

[251] So you're very combat -focused, not a lot of good dialogue stuff?

[252] No, no, not at all.

[253] A couple of, like, a twist here or there, but, like, ain't going to knock your trousers off.

[254] So, yeah, I was back in Dragon Age.

[255] What about my short pants?

[256] They might rise a little bit, but, man. Okay.

[257] Yeah, might get your ankles wet.

[258] Like, I'm prepared.

[259] Yeah, so then more Dragon Age, and I think everything I said about that, still holding true.

[260] And that was the week, according to me. Great.

[261] Did you not start in on Back to the Future Episode 3?

[262] Oh, finish that.

[263] Okay.

[264] Don't tell me. I have not opened it up.

[265] That's a good one.

[266] But then it ends and then you're like, ah.

[267] I heard a lot of people saying like, all right, new environments like we jump over the issue of that Episode 2 had.

[268] But then in Episode 4 you're like, oh.

[269] It's going to be more of that one.

[270] It didn't get me as excited for episode three at the end.

[271] At the end of two, going into three, I was like, yeah.

[272] You were like, all right, yes, yes, yes.

[273] And at the end of three, going into four, I was like, ah.

[274] I don't know.

[275] All right, well, I'll come.

[276] By this time next week, I will finish that and we can talk more.

[277] Yeah, that's okay.

[278] It's probably the best episode so far.

[279] Aside from the first one where you're like, yeah, back to the future.

[280] But I don't think you can necessarily even like.

[281] verify the quality of the first episode.

[282] Yeah, you're just like, oh, back to the future, I'm an idiot.

[283] Like, you hear that, like, and you're just like, oh.

[284] Yeah, this one's cool.

[285] You know, the first episode of that is free for all now.

[286] Yeah, it happened last week.

[287] I did not.

[288] You can just go get that.

[289] TelltaleGames .com slash BTTG, I believe, and go get that.

[290] B -B -T -T -F.

[291] B -B -T -T -F.

[292] G?

[293] Yeah, T -G.

[294] B -T -T -F -T -G.

[295] No, I just think it's just B -T -T -F.

[296] The game.

[297] That's barely short.

[298] That's like a four -hour thing, three -hour thing.

[299] That's like a three -hour thing.

[300] For episode three?

[301] Any of them.

[302] For the whole thing.

[303] Any of them.

[304] Okay.

[305] Yeah, they're pretty short.

[306] Each one's me. Three per?

[307] I mean, that's pretty good if they're doing like five or six total.

[308] Should I play those if I kind of burned out on Sam and Max?

[309] Do you like Back to the Future much?

[310] Yeah.

[311] Okay.

[312] Do you like the Telltale style of games?

[313] Yeah.

[314] I mean, that's the thing.

[315] I have a stack of other.

[316] I never finished the Tales of Monkey Island.

[317] I never finished the last two seasons of Sam and Max.

[318] Right.

[319] Walls and Growlithe.

[320] And I bought season three of Sam and Max and didn't play any of it.

[321] Because I never finished season two.

[322] I never finished.

[323] Yeah, actually, I think the first season of Sam and Max.

[324] And there was another one.

[325] Puzzle Agent.

[326] That doesn't count.

[327] I think I've actually finished two seasons of Telltale Games.

[328] I'm at this point now where I love that they're making that stuff, but I'm not...

[329] They do take their time getting that stuff together and putting it out, but I still feel like it's more than I need.

[330] It's more adventure game than I'm looking for.

[331] Yeah, you're not wrong.

[332] Like, I definitely, I find myself, like, the reason I stopped playing is, like, I'm like, I kind of know what this next episode, like, I want to see the story stuff because that's usually pretty good.

[333] Right.

[334] And Sam and Max is always, like, there are awesome moments in it and stuff like that.

[335] But I definitely reached a point where I was like, I'm just not.

[336] I stopped staying current with Sam and Max and didn't necessarily feel bad about myself for doing so.

[337] I was like, okay, these are very funny, and I really appreciate that they're being made, but I'm okay with appreciating them from a distance now.

[338] Yeah, only tapping out at the three -hour mark is probably a good thing, because if they went any longer...

[339] Because you can bust through one of these like it's an easy single sitting of just like afternoon on the weekend.

[340] The puzzles aren't very hard.

[341] The most annoying parts are kind of like backtracking and be like, oh, I got to go talk to them.

[342] In fact, if anything, that kind of makes maybe the Back to the Future a little more appealing for someone like you because they're really softballing the puzzles.

[343] It's not as demanding in that regard, so you can kind of just cruise through them.

[344] Yeah.

[345] There was nothing demanding about most of their other stuff, I'd say.

[346] Curious to see what happens with Jurassic Park because there's a lot of ways to die in that.

[347] They're emphasizing death.

[348] The many death animations.

[349] That's going to effectively not be a telltale game from everything that I've seen about it.

[350] If you put Jeff Goldblum's hamster in the microwave and show it to him, he'll kill you.

[351] They themselves used the phrase like heavy rain when they were showing it off.

[352] Curious to see how people received that.

[353] I think I have definitely been perceiving, even outside of this room, a fair amount of telltale burnout of people being like, yeah, it's great that they're doing this, but kind of worn out for now.

[354] I don't need this volume.

[355] It's weird.

[356] It's like we've totally relived the history of adventure games, but on a much tighter scale of like, these are the greatest games anyone is making right now.

[357] it's great that I'm still making it, not for me. It's just like, you know, six months from now, is everyone going to be totally done with it again?

[358] But really not that much tighter of a time scale.

[359] Like, when did they first make that first bone game?

[360] Like, 06?

[361] But that wasn't what did it for them, though.

[362] Oh, dude, way, way longer ago than 06.

[363] I'd say 03.

[364] No, no. To the internet?

[365] Definitely not.

[366] To the internet?

[367] If you start bringing fact -checking into this podcast, you're going to ruin the whole thing.

[368] I'm saying 05, 06.

[369] Somewhere around there.

[370] But that wasn't their big stride.

[371] No, no. That was the first thing they did.

[372] 2006.

[373] Good call.

[374] Salmon Max was the thing.

[375] Yeah.

[376] Right?

[377] That's what it really took off for.

[378] No, there's the strong, bad stuff.

[379] But, I mean, that was their first.

[380] They did Bone first, and then they got the Sam and Max stuff, and that was kind of where they got their toehold.

[381] Oh, you mean like the one and two stuff?

[382] The Beelzebub?

[383] Not the...

[384] latest, latest stuff.

[385] Like the first season.

[386] He's saying like how Telltale caught on.

[387] Yeah.

[388] That was the thing.

[389] Everybody was like, oh, wow.

[390] Okay.

[391] Yeah.

[392] Well, that and CSI.

[393] See, I like it because, you know, it's like one season at a time for me. And it's like, oh, once a month, I spend three hours playing a little adventure game.

[394] And that's totally.

[395] Yeah, that's great.

[396] I don't have to like sit down and like invest 20 hours of clicking around to finish something.

[397] So I enjoy that part of it.

[398] You also don't have to spend like 60 bucks a month on the hit line.

[399] Yeah, I totally never did that.

[400] Also like the spread out timeline of that.

[401] You don't feel compelled like, fuck, I have to finish this 20 -hour game.

[402] Yeah.

[403] Now.

[404] It's like I could finish this 20 -hour game over the course of six months.

[405] Except now that I'm behind.

[406] Yeah.

[407] Now I'm sitting there with all of – well, like half of season two and all of season three.

[408] I would feel compelled to just – I'm just going to go through all these right now.

[409] That's not the way to do it.

[410] But I'm already kind of burned out on that stuff.

[411] Yeah.

[412] I mean that's – I've got – I think I'm just going to let it sit and then there will be just – someday it will be like, oh, now is the time.

[413] And I'll go back and probably restart season two and catch up that way or something.

[414] But, yep.

[415] That's reasonable.

[416] I feel you, though.

[417] I feel you.

[418] I definitely like once you start slipping and getting behind.

[419] I think it was like I think it was it was Tales of Monkey Island that once I got like two episodes behind on that, I was like, I can't.

[420] That was a good one.

[421] I can't catch up.

[422] I skipped most of those because I was already kind of burnt a little bit, burnt a little bit.

[423] And I was never the hugest Monkey Island fan to begin with.

[424] So I think I like those more than I like LeChuck.

[425] But Sam and Max hit the road.

[426] It was probably my favorite.

[427] Non -Maniac Mansion adventure game.

[428] Does that not take place in the Maniac, in the Mansioniverse?

[429] Yes.

[430] I think it does take place in the Mansioniverse.

[431] Yes, the Scummiverse.

[432] Zach McCracken on Mars.

[433] Where's my episodic Zach McCracken game?

[434] That would probably be the thing that would get me to try it all out again.

[435] They have not yet gotten all of the licenses to all LucasArts games.

[436] If someone said, like, yo, we're doing another Zack McCracken, I would be like, cool, make sure it ships with a crazy newspaper.

[437] But at the pace they're going, they'll have that next year.

[438] So look forward to that.

[439] I just wonder if anyone remember.

[440] And then don't play it and then feel really bad about it.

[441] I'll buy it.

[442] That's enough, right?

[443] Yeah, yeah.

[444] Pay for it.

[445] That's fine.

[446] You did your part.

[447] So, Vinny, other than the full episode of a game that you forgot that you played.

[448] Yeah, I know.

[449] I think that's it.

[450] What you say is really good.

[451] It's pretty good.

[452] Way to sell it.

[453] Yeah.

[454] I mean, like we just said, if you're invested in it, yeah, go check it out.

[455] Why not?

[456] If you're invested in it, you probably already bought it.

[457] Right.

[458] But like Jeff said, there's a difference between buying something and then actually having intent of playing it.

[459] Yeah, that's it.

[460] Fantastic.

[461] Episodic Fletch series.

[462] Like, you know, get into something that matters.

[463] Jeff Gershman, how was your Fletch LARP event this weekend?

[464] It went okay.

[465] We couldn't get the dog to jump on the car right, and that kind of screwed a lot of stuff up.

[466] That sucks.

[467] Yeah.

[468] I mean, we hired, like, an animal handler, like a pro.

[469] Like a pro.

[470] Like a real, yeah.

[471] And he put peanut butter on the – it just ended up – it didn't work out right.

[472] I don't know.

[473] You guys went to Denny's afterwards, so, you know.

[474] Yeah.

[475] Had a good time.

[476] Yeah, that was cool.

[477] And, you know, they've got a bunch of great food items named after awesome bands.

[478] So that was pretty cool.

[479] What's the Grand Slam named after?

[480] The Hooters.

[481] Weird.

[482] Yeah.

[483] I don't get the reference.

[484] You're not putting it together?

[485] I don't get the reference.

[486] I'll think a little harder.

[487] We'll come back.

[488] All right.

[489] No, yeah.

[490] I'm assuming.

[491] I'm assuming it's me. I'll Google it later.

[492] Jeff Gershman, what you been playing?

[493] WWE All -Stars.

[494] Yeah.

[495] Have you actually still been playing that since TNT?

[496] A little bit.

[497] A little bit.

[498] Okay.

[499] Yeah.

[500] I've kind of been sticking with that.

[501] I'm going to play it.

[502] Yeah.

[503] It's a lot of fun.

[504] But yeah.

[505] No. Since that, I haven't really played anything.

[506] What did you do this weekend?

[507] Got my taxes ready to be done.

[508] Man, I've already spent all of my tax money.

[509] Y 'all waiting this last minute shit.

[510] I just kept forgetting.

[511] I haven't even started.

[512] Yeah.

[513] Mine are not difficult to do.

[514] I have not even made the necessary IRA contribution that I need to make before I can even start the process.

[515] Isn't that over?

[516] Oh, you can do that right up until the 14th?

[517] Right up until.

[518] Jeez.

[519] I got a notice saying, hey, you can still do this if you want to.

[520] I'm like, I already did my taxes.

[521] I don't care.

[522] I've been fiddling around with a few things here and there.

[523] Like, was it Stranya?

[524] One of the last week's Xbox Live Arcade releases.

[525] Oh, yeah.

[526] It's something, something Stranya.

[527] No, it's like Stranya colon something, something.

[528] Yeah.

[529] One or the other.

[530] It's a...

[531] But it was originally just Stranya.

[532] Yeah.

[533] It's a shooter.

[534] You shoot things.

[535] You can arm three different types of weapons, and then two of them are activated at any given time.

[536] So that...

[537] Sets up some weapon combo type stuff where it's like, all right, one laser and one spread gun out.

[538] And then I picked up another spread gun and I used the right part of my body to collect it.

[539] So it's powering up the spread gun instead of replacing the laser with another spread gun.

[540] A spread gun?

[541] Spread gun.

[542] I don't know.

[543] Would you call it bullet hell?

[544] No, I don't know.

[545] Maybe it gets a little hellish later on, but it didn't seem incredibly tough.

[546] But I also played it for about seven minutes.

[547] Played some Russian Attack, Expatriot, primarily for the quick look.

[548] That game's not great.

[549] But, you know, there's a quick look at that up.

[550] There's a front page promotional item.

[551] There is.

[552] I saw you slide down a ladder into a pit of acid.

[553] Yeah, that was pretty sweet.

[554] That seems like a porch or ladder choice.

[555] No, but I've been – we did a lot of quick looks last week.

[556] I played stuff for those but haven't touched anything else outside of that really.

[557] We did a lot of quick looks last week.

[558] I played some Trackmania over the weekend.

[559] Yeah, you got that PC up and running.

[560] Yeah.

[561] No, I actually spent some time figuring out.

[562] I have to RMA some RAM in my new machine.

[563] Oh, is that what the issue is?

[564] Did you run in memtest 86?

[565] No, I just.

[566] Well, that's your fucking problem right there.

[567] That's probably.

[568] That is the beginning and end of diagnosing problems with RAM.

[569] No, instead I pulled out RAM, swapped into different slots.

[570] Dude, what are you doing?

[571] Did all this other stuff.

[572] Oh.

[573] And eventually knocked it down to, it's got to be this one because it's not the motherboard because.

[574] The problem still happens if I put it in the other memory slots and blah, blah, blah.

[575] Anyway, so.

[576] You download the CD image, or I guess at this point it's probably just it goes on the USB stick.

[577] I did start looking into memory testing.

[578] Reboot the machine.

[579] Let it run overnight.

[580] And if it says that there are more than zero errors.

[581] When you get up in the morning, you have a bad piece, and it even tells you which one is bad.

[582] I don't understand why it takes so long still to run that.

[583] I don't know.

[584] Hours and hours to test memory.

[585] That memory got big.

[586] I guess.

[587] You had to do it overnight when it was 8 megs, and now you have to do it when it's 8 gigs.

[588] It's testing every single bit, right?

[589] Instead, I was just running Call of Duty Black Ops.

[590] That and Crisis 2, you were in a lot.

[591] That was exactly what I was doing.

[592] Taxing the machine.

[593] Just running something.

[594] Like, Crysis 2 would last for a while before it would crash.

[595] Black Ops apparently must hog more RAM or get up into the bad bits or whatever the hell it does because it would just hard blue.

[596] Like, Crysis 2 crashed gracefully to desktop.

[597] Black Ops just blue screens.

[598] Really?

[599] It's just like, fuck this!

[600] Oh, it's 00XF555.

[601] That's a shame.

[602] Ah, whatever.

[603] I don't know.

[604] I hate sending stuff.

[605] I'm lazy.

[606] So, yeah.

[607] So now it's like, am I going to RMA this RAM or am I going to just buy more RAM?

[608] Dude, come on.

[609] I think what I'm going to do is both because I want 16 gigs in that machine for what I'm doing with it.

[610] Oh, wait.

[611] You do like audio.

[612] You need to load a bunch of patches or whatever.

[613] Plugins and stuff.

[614] This is not just for games.

[615] Trackmania.

[616] It's a computer.

[617] You can do all sorts of shit.

[618] Right now, because one of those sticks is bad, it's got four in it, so I might just buy two sticks, slap one of them in there now, so I go to eight, then RMA the bad one, and when I get that back, then I'll put in the other eight.

[619] I don't know.

[620] Yeah.

[621] PCs.

[622] Yeah, so I don't know.

[623] I did that.

[624] As a part of that, I played a little bit of Black Ops, which is still that.

[625] And played some Crysis 2, which...

[626] Did they get the multiplayer working in that yet?

[627] I hear it is full of people hacking.

[628] Yeah, I heard even the single -player trainers would work in multiplayer or something to that effect.

[629] I heard that there were all kinds of people doing bad stuff.

[630] I loaded into a game and no one was visible.

[631] It was a bunch of floating guns running around.

[632] And that looked cool, but made it very hard to see people.

[633] Did you have to use the heat signature effect the entire time?

[634] Oh, maybe that would have worked.

[635] I don't know.

[636] That sucks.

[637] But it was just floating guns.

[638] Yeah.

[639] Which was really silly.

[640] That'll save your RAM.

[641] That's even if you can get into a game at all, right?

[642] Is that still problematic?

[643] That's not a problem anymore.

[644] It seems like they've at least figured that crap out.

[645] Did it run way better since it didn't have to render a bunch of models?

[646] It already runs.

[647] Pretty much perfectly.

[648] It's not going to run more perfect than perfect.

[649] I'm working on high -res texture pack for Crysis 2.

[650] Crysis 2.

[651] Complete, perfect mod.

[652] That's right.

[653] Well, I played some games.

[654] Did you?

[655] I did.

[656] What did you play?

[657] Well, I left my Xbox 360 memory stick here over the weekend.

[658] Oh, in my computer.

[659] In your computer.

[660] Yeah.

[661] From Friday.

[662] So I didn't have...

[663] What are you, hacking achievements?

[664] So I didn't have...

[665] I used it for the We Dare video on Friday.

[666] Anyway.

[667] Didn't have, so basically no Xbox this weekend, so I decided to...

[668] Did you just recover your profile?

[669] What?

[670] Why didn't you just recover your profile?

[671] My profile's gotten big, y 'all.

[672] It can't be that big.

[673] And it's getting bigger.

[674] So prohibitively big you can't recover it?

[675] No, like it takes hours to recover it.

[676] Really?

[677] Yeah.

[678] What?

[679] Yeah.

[680] That's not possible.

[681] Mine is like 70 megs.

[682] Well, I mean, yeah, if it was just transferring at speed, but it takes longer than that.

[683] I don't know why.

[684] It wants to test your memory.

[685] Let's complain at Microsoft instead of me, the guy who had to wait several hours for his profile to recover.

[686] Will Smith said his profile is like 150 meg now, and he still has recovered it.

[687] Oh, no. I mean, I went and started that process.

[688] I don't know.

[689] Something's messed up there.

[690] Well, the first time I did it, it took a really long time and then actually errored out.

[691] So my profile was appearing on the system, but I couldn't connect to Xbox Live.

[692] That's cool.

[693] So I'm like, that's no good.

[694] Like every time I would try and go and hit the connect to Xbox Live for like a split second, I would see like an error message.

[695] But then that would get covered up by the connecting to Xbox Live message and it would just sit there and spin.

[696] So I tried recovering again, and it was taking forever.

[697] So I'm like, all right, PC games, let's go.

[698] You told it to sit and spin.

[699] Yeah.

[700] Kick rocks.

[701] Yeah, I told Kick Rocks, motherfucker.

[702] So what did you play on the PC?

[703] So I played a little Dirt 2, a little Codemasters Dirt 2, Colin McRae.

[704] That game's pretty good, y 'all.

[705] I hear that's pretty good.

[706] I was thinking about trying that.

[707] Like two years of people saying, yeah, Dirt 2's pretty good.

[708] I went and played it, and it's pretty good.

[709] It's a fun racing game.

[710] Here it looks nice.

[711] Yeah, and it looks fucking great on the PC.

[712] Yeah.

[713] Like, my PC is pretty old at this point, but the video card is pretty kicking.

[714] And, yeah, it ran nicely.

[715] What kind of card you got in there?

[716] Is that a Zojirushi?

[717] God damn it.

[718] No, it's the...

[719] It stays out all day.

[720] 460?

[721] 460?

[722] 460 is good.

[723] Yeah.

[724] I have one of those.

[725] Yeah, so with that card, it seems to run pretty nicely, and it's a fun little rally racing game.

[726] Good -looking models, kind of good -looking water.

[727] That card will run Crysis, I can attest, because I played some Crysis.

[728] I didn't really want to play any Crysis.

[729] Like the original?

[730] Yeah.

[731] The original?

[732] I actually uninstalled Crysis this weekend, yeah.

[733] I was making room.

[734] Still have the discs.

[735] I haven't played Crysis 2 yet, because in addition to all the cheating and multiplayer issues...

[736] You heard about this nano catalyst bug on the PC?

[737] No. That's like the currency, right?

[738] Isn't that what you use to buy upgrades with?

[739] Yeah.

[740] Apparently that'll just zero out randomly on the PC.

[741] That's cool.

[742] Awesome.

[743] Like nothing you can do about it because of the way it handles saves.

[744] You know, you can't do a bunch of quick saves or whatever.

[745] So just like you'll lose all of your money basically.

[746] Great.

[747] So I haven't touched Crysis too.

[748] Yeah, that's pretty sweet.

[749] But when my PC started crashing randomly last week, I also fired up Crysis.

[750] to try to stress it.

[751] Did you check mem tests?

[752] And then found myself playing a bunch of Crysis after that.

[753] No, I resolved my issue.

[754] Anyway.

[755] What else did you play on the PC?

[756] Oh, that was actually it because that took up a fair amount of my time.

[757] I went through all the first level challenges, the races and whatnot that they have in there.

[758] Although I reached a weird spot, so the game's kind of split up into three different brackets or whatever.

[759] and three different leagues.

[760] So I finished up all the first league stuff, and then once you get to the second league, it's like, hey, to make any of the cars that you've purchased previously up to spec for this league, you've got to pay us $75 ,000 per car to upgrade them, which is not out of line for the price of stuff in that game.

[761] But I had just previously spent a bunch of money on...

[762] So I got to that point, and it's like, I have 70 ,000.

[763] You want me to have 75 ,000?

[764] But I've already kind of done all the races in this previous – I think I can redo races, so I don't think I'm actually stuck.

[765] But it was definitely like the – well, I don't really want to go and redo an event already, so – Going to take a break.

[766] I'm going to take a little break here and play some Nintendogs and cats on my 3DS.

[767] What's up?

[768] You guys want to know about Yorkies?

[769] They're not very good at playing at fetching frisbees.

[770] Is that the Yorkie edition?

[771] No. You got Toy Poodle?

[772] It's the French Bulldog edition.

[773] French Bulldog.

[774] All right.

[775] How are they catching a frisbee?

[776] I don't have one of those yet.

[777] I only have one dog.

[778] How do you get them?

[779] You go to the kennel and buy them.

[780] And they're money?

[781] Yeah.

[782] How do you get money?

[783] By competing in competitions.

[784] Okay.

[785] Like a fight?

[786] Yeah.

[787] Yeah.

[788] There's pit fighting for your dogs.

[789] No, there's three different kinds of competition.

[790] There's the disc catch competition, frisbee competition.

[791] There's the lure chase competition.

[792] Is that new?

[793] I think so.

[794] I actually did a little bit of comparison to the original Nintendogs and was a little bit surprised at...

[795] how much that is exactly that fucking game.

[796] Like, tech is noticeably better.

[797] Like, I was actually, I totally forgot that the original Nintendogs didn't render the entire room at once.

[798] Like, there was basically just, like, I don't know, let's call it a five to six foot kind of space.

[799] Well, there was just this space around the dog, and wherever the dog would go, that space would follow him.

[800] So, like, you could see, like, occasionally, like, oh, there's a wall near him, because he's standing near the wall in this room.

[801] And it made me much more appreciative of what Okamiden accomplished.

[802] Like, well, Okamiden's able to do an actual fucking full -on 3D world here.

[803] So it's Nintendogs and cats and room?

[804] Yeah, plus you get a full room.

[805] That's pretty good deal.

[806] It's crazy.

[807] What kind of room?

[808] Did you get the bathroom one?

[809] No, I just got the modern room.

[810] I haven't upgraded.

[811] You can buy new rooms.

[812] Can you really buy any rooms?

[813] I don't think you can attach them to that room.

[814] You buy furniture for your room, place the furniture in different spots.

[815] I got a dog bed.

[816] It's chilling in the corner.

[817] You can buy a couch.

[818] My Yorkie Sarge likes kicking it on his dog bed.

[819] I'm sorry, her dog bed.

[820] I have a lady Yorkie.

[821] I don't care about your rooms.

[822] I don't care about your furniture.

[823] I want to hear about your cats.

[824] I have no cats yet.

[825] I want to buy a tabby, but they're like $800.

[826] So you don't just get a cat like you get a dog?

[827] What kind of precedent is that setting for little kids?

[828] Yeah, they don't give you a cat right out of the gate.

[829] You've got to learn with the dog.

[830] My understanding is the mechanics with a cat are completely different.

[831] And you can't go to the pound and just pick up a cat that's going to be put to sleep because of overcrowding or something.

[832] You've got to buy.

[833] You've got to go buy a designer pet.

[834] Man, what kind of lesson is that teaching?

[835] That's terrible.

[836] Cat farms.

[837] It's also not a real dog or cat.

[838] Can you also give up?

[839] So really, it's the best of any possible worlds.

[840] Can you give up your cat once it gets too old because it's not cute anymore?

[841] Well, for one thing, my dog has not aged any.

[842] I don't believe that they do.

[843] It is a designer dog.

[844] They don't grow up?

[845] No, they are puppies.

[846] Wow.

[847] That's pretty much ideal.

[848] Forever.

[849] All right.

[850] Forever puppies.

[851] Yeah, because I busted out Nintendogs and I had an old save on that.

[852] Man, I bet that dog was pissed.

[853] Where the fuck?

[854] Where have you been?

[855] I think it was hopping with fleas.

[856] Yeah, this is pretty much everything that you can do in Nintendogs, you can do in Nintendogs and cats.

[857] I was just a little disappointed.

[858] You can take your dog for a walk.

[859] And in the original Nintendogs, you had to draw the route for your...

[860] for the walk through the neighborhood.

[861] And it showed where the other dogs are.

[862] And they had stamina, and there's a dog here, and you can run him past Gild.

[863] It's like, if I go by that dog and sniff his butt, I recover five stamina, and then I can make it to the fire hydrant.

[864] But the whole pooping on the street, all that stuff's the same in the walk.

[865] But they took out the routing stuff, but now it's played from behind the back.

[866] So it's actually like full 3D.

[867] You see down the street.

[868] So you'll see stuff coming up, and you don't have to try and guide your dog towards like, oh, there's a present, and you can pick that up and get stuff.

[869] Or, hey, there's that dog.

[870] Or there will be alternate routes like, okay, you're on Main Street, but if you go right here, then you'll go downtown.

[871] If you go left here, you'll go into the mountains.

[872] Do you actually go to the bathroom?

[873] Yeah, yeah.

[874] You have to pick up dog shit.

[875] Really?

[876] Yeah.

[877] With like a plastic bag or something?

[878] Paper bag.

[879] You touch it with a stylus, and then a little paper bag shows up, and then the poop falls into it.

[880] You don't put poop in a paper bag.

[881] That's no good.

[882] You're trying to be more environmentally friendly.

[883] You then fling the bag at someone's house.

[884] And then light it on fire.

[885] Yeah.

[886] Yeah, it's all part of the system.

[887] That's the other minigame?

[888] That's the other minigame.

[889] I'm curious.

[890] High five your dog?

[891] Yeah!

[892] I'm curious how they handle all the display of what's going on.

[893] Because, I mean, the first one...

[894] It actually works really well.

[895] You're right to wonder about that.

[896] It's a very tactile game.

[897] So, like, you know, the original Nintendogs was all about, like, literally kind of rubbing the dog with the stylus and stuff like that.

[898] And you do all the same, like, trick training stuff.

[899] In fact, it seems like it has exactly the same, like, set of tricks.

[900] Right.

[901] The only difference being that the good screen is not the touchscreen.

[902] Right.

[903] So what they do is they put a silhouette for all objects that you will interact with on the lower screen.

[904] So silhouette for the dog, silhouette for whatever they're holding in their mouth.

[905] Okay.

[906] And then that's mirrored on the top screen in 3D.

[907] Okay.

[908] And the first time you touch anything, a little hand appears on the upper screen to kind of show, like, this is where you're touching.

[909] So other than initial contact, you don't even need to look at the lower screen.

[910] That's pretty smart.

[911] Because then you can just kind of intuitively, like, all right, if it's here, I move it a little bit this way, then it's going to rub over here or whatever you need it to do.

[912] So, yeah, it works relatively well for that stuff.

[913] Does it recognize you that there's some, like, facial recognition stuff they talked about when I saw it a while ago?

[914] No. The voice stuff works a lot better.

[915] Like, the voice stuff in the original Nintendogs was, like, tap, and it will be listening for this amount of time.

[916] Then you say a command or, like, the dog's name into it, and then it registers, and then it comes to you.

[917] Very, like, deliberate, specific process.

[918] This you can just, like, shout at the dog.

[919] And get it to do stuff.

[920] Or if you don't want to do that, if you are on the bus and you don't want to sound like a fucking lunatic yelling at your computer dog, you can just tap on the screen on them to get them to come to you.

[921] It is a pet simulator.

[922] Yeah.

[923] But it's also, I don't know, it's super limited.

[924] There's just not a lot to that game.

[925] And especially the way it's measured out.

[926] So there's three competitions you can do.

[927] There's the two that I said, and then there's also an obedience competition, which actually uses the AR cards.

[928] So you bust out the AR cards, at least in the first level of it, which I just finished up.

[929] You're actually shouting commands at the dog and looking at them standing on your AR card.

[930] That's cute.

[931] While you do it.

[932] Yeah.

[933] The AR card stuff is neat.

[934] Yeah.

[935] That's novel.

[936] Is there any StreetPass stuff?

[937] I think there is.

[938] I turned something on.

[939] I haven't seen any fruits of that yet, so I'm not sure what it does.

[940] Okay.

[941] Other than make me weird about my 3DS.

[942] Carry it everywhere.

[943] Fucking StreetPass.

[944] It's the worst.

[945] Run the battery down constantly.

[946] Well, I'm not really concerned with running the battery down constantly because I'm no longer playing games on the 3DS.

[947] I'm merely carrying it around to see if anyone else has one.

[948] Just fishing for other people to have a 3DS?

[949] Yeah.

[950] I'm left with no desire to play any of those games that are out.

[951] What was that noise?

[952] Sorry.

[953] Is that the pets?

[954] Is that the Nintendog?

[955] And I just keep street passing with Ryan and Brad, who the 3DS has been sitting on my desk in the charger.

[956] So you've been getting like a token street pass every day?

[957] Yeah.

[958] I'm getting two every day from you guys.

[959] And that's it.

[960] But I keep getting randoms.

[961] Do you?

[962] Yeah.

[963] Where?

[964] I don't know.

[965] So it doesn't give you any kind of geographical data?

[966] No, it'll tell you when you got it.

[967] Right.

[968] So you get people's names?

[969] Oh, well, what time are you getting it?

[970] Do you know?

[971] Can you deduce by that?

[972] I would have to go back and look in here.

[973] What town you are in when it's happening.

[974] You have to drive by the same spot.

[975] Let me back out of here and see if I can deduce where I got Racer Girl from.

[976] I'm wondering if maybe having this in the same pocket as my phone is somehow causing interference that is reducing its range or something like that.

[977] Or if you're just getting it.

[978] When you're going from your house to mine, which is one of the few parts of the day where I'm not sitting next to you in a car while we were going somewhere.

[979] It doesn't look like it keeps that data.

[980] I don't know.

[981] Racer Girl sounds like a plant to me. I got a guy, AJ.

[982] He was from Utah.

[983] AJ, I'll believe.

[984] I'll buy that.

[985] He looked a lot like Jeff, actually.

[986] Damn it.

[987] So I asked Jeff.

[988] I'm like, did you change?

[989] Did you make a new me try to game the system?

[990] Because this one looks an awful lot like you.

[991] Yeah, it looks like it doesn't keep that data that long.

[992] Oh, well.

[993] I have no way of knowing, unfortunately.

[994] But, yeah, this Street Path shit is awesome.

[995] Oh, yeah?

[996] It is ridiculous.

[997] Yeah.

[998] You know, we'll see how long the spell lasts.

[999] It's only awesome because it's so rare.

[1000] It's very clever.

[1001] You think you would like it less if it happened more often?

[1002] Well, it wouldn't be such an event.

[1003] Yeah, I wouldn't care.

[1004] I'd be like, oh, ran into some more random memes.

[1005] But you also don't care because it's not happening enough.

[1006] Yeah.

[1007] So what's the sweet spot?

[1008] I want to have it happen once, and then I'll be done.

[1009] He hasn't had any of the experience yet.

[1010] I was thinking about WonderCon was in San Francisco this last weekend, and I knew that that would be a fucking...

[1011] Trove of fucking street passes.

[1012] Think of all the puzzle pieces and ghosts I can slay.

[1013] I went right by WonderCon.

[1014] I wish I had a 3DS with me. Save it for PAX.

[1015] Just go to the beanbag room.

[1016] Just stick your 3DS in a beanbag at PAX.

[1017] Walk away.

[1018] I'm going to duct tape this to the underside of this desk.

[1019] If they were smart, they would have street pass lockers at PAX.

[1020] You just go and rent a locker and put your 3DS in it, and then everyone else puts their 3DS in it, and then they just hang out in street pass for the whole day.

[1021] Trade Ridge Racer ghosts or whatever the hell people are into.

[1022] See, but I think you'd get more just throwing it in your pocket and hoofing it around all day.

[1023] Maybe.

[1024] I don't know.

[1025] Maybe if you stayed in one spot, everybody would pass by you.

[1026] It's like when you're lost, you're supposed to stay in one spot and they'll find you.

[1027] If you keep moving around, you might see the same person twice.

[1028] It's an experiment.

[1029] We'll see.

[1030] No, I want to do some experimenting with this because I want to know if it's possible that I'm getting these on the road.

[1031] In a car.

[1032] Yeah, in a car.

[1033] If, like, on the freeway, if both the – well, there's two factors, right?

[1034] There's distance, and so there's proximity, and there's time.

[1035] Oh, like time.

[1036] Proximity and duration.

[1037] Like how frequently does it pull – how often does it reach out looking for 3DSs?

[1038] Right.

[1039] And how close do you need to be for it to register?

[1040] And how long do you need to be there for it to work?

[1041] And what's the penetration through a car and your pocket and is your phone messing up?

[1042] Right.

[1043] Like how much does that stuff affect it?

[1044] Like, well, first test is obviously a line of sight.

[1045] Like you just do.

[1046] Oh, Nintendo voodoo.

[1047] I don't know.

[1048] You guys are.

[1049] It's not magic.

[1050] It's just technology and we're going to figure it out.

[1051] I'm going to know exactly.

[1052] Well, because then I'll know if I'm wasting my time by having it on in the car or whatever.

[1053] You're going to get like one of those things for your window.

[1054] But I'll still have to see.

[1055] But they got hooks for everything because they got those fucking coins, the currency.

[1056] It's so easy to get your 10 coins a day, though, that it's like.

[1057] If you like sit there and deliberately shake it.

[1058] No, I'm just I keep mine in my pocket.

[1059] Right.

[1060] And you keep it on in your pocket.

[1061] I could keep it on in my backpack and probably get most of them on a daily basis, even though my backpack is not moving for most of the day.

[1062] I mean, well, my greater point is that you keep it on.

[1063] If you don't want to keep StreetPass on, there's another thing for you to – Sure.

[1064] But also there's nothing good to spend those coins on anymore or yet.

[1065] You get bumper stickers for your car and like – StreetPass me. Yeah.

[1066] All right.

[1067] If you can read this, you should be StreetPassing.

[1068] I'm just going to change my license plate.

[1069] I'm just going to get a vanity plate.

[1070] StreetPass.

[1071] StreetPass me. M -I -I.

[1072] S -T -R -T -P -S -S.

[1073] Yep.

[1074] I can't wait until somebody holds up a DSD, some stranger in a car.

[1075] Like, huh?

[1076] You're like, yeah!

[1077] Jeff and I have taken to waving them around in the air in the car.

[1078] Like you just don't care.

[1079] Well, I know we do care.

[1080] Oh, you really care.

[1081] Yeah, we really want to start firing them into the air.

[1082] I might get one when everything actually comes online.

[1083] Hey, you know what?

[1084] When games come out for it, I recommend one.

[1085] I filled out the survey on Club Nintendo that you get after entering your serial number for the 3DS.

[1086] And so did I. And it asks you, you know, what features are you most excited about with 3DS?

[1087] What feature led to you getting a 3DS?

[1088] So I just checked eShop for both and nothing else.

[1089] Did you change your favorite game to eShop?

[1090] No, I think I changed my friends list motto to eShop.

[1091] Okay, okay.

[1092] Yeah, I saw eShop somewhere associated with your name, and it shows up in a way that made it look like you were in the eShop.

[1093] I was like, wait, what?

[1094] They're giving Jeff fucking advanced access to the eShop?

[1095] Beta access to the eShop.

[1096] Setting up a booth in the eShop.

[1097] Kid, call me. Come on, man. Selling sunglasses.

[1098] Set a brother up.

[1099] A little eShopping.

[1100] Yo, it's like Xevious like you've never seen before.

[1101] In 3D?

[1102] No, for the Game Gear.

[1103] Oh, okay.

[1104] Yeah, so I'm not impressed or necessarily disappointed with Nintendogs and cats.

[1105] Like there are ways that it is technologically a clear improvement on the original.

[1106] But you can only do each of those competitions twice a day.

[1107] Like they put a hard throttle on pretty much just like how much stuff you can do.

[1108] So you can only – Realistically, most days, maybe spend a half hour with it.

[1109] Wow.

[1110] And have it be fruitful.

[1111] You can only teach three tricks to your pet per day.

[1112] Each of those competitions twice.

[1113] You could go on a walk fucking a million times if you wanted to, but then you're just farming for stuff.

[1114] It has your 3D eyes on that thing.

[1115] The first night that I was playing it when I was like spending a lot more – like spending maybe 90 minutes with a couple hours with it because I was just being introduced to all the systems and mechanics and adopting my pet and whatnot.

[1116] After looking at that for maybe 90 minutes and then looking up at my computer monitor, like the world around me was fine, but my computer monitor looked weird.

[1117] Totally had that experience.

[1118] Same with the phone, like looking at your phone after you play that thing.

[1119] Yeah.

[1120] Oh, I don't know.

[1121] It's weird.

[1122] I'm definitely like – although it's really weird.

[1123] It's not like there's – it's not like a full 3D in that game is uncomfortable for me like as a rule.

[1124] But I will totally like while I'm playing, just like as the mood strikes me, it's like this is too 3D.

[1125] I need to – jump this down or have it be completely flat sometimes or just have a little bit on it.

[1126] Like, I have not definitively decided, like, okay, this is how much 3D I can tolerate in the interface.

[1127] This is how much I can do for these games.

[1128] It's like I'm still just...

[1129] It's very situational.

[1130] I think every game is different.

[1131] Yeah.

[1132] Well, I mean, even within one game, it's like, okay, you're going to switch perspectives on me. All right, this looks too weird.

[1133] The only issue that I have with the 3D is that it creates, like...

[1134] Like an additional layer of aliasing.

[1135] Yeah.

[1136] Which like when it's displaying really like big objects, it's not a problem.

[1137] But like when it's trying to do stuff off in the distance, like the little tiny things, like there are definitely times where an object is almost defined by the fact that, oh, I can see this big jaggy edge along the side of it or through it, I guess.

[1138] Aren't games inherently lower resolution when they're in 3D, though?

[1139] Isn't that how that works?

[1140] Yeah, I think so.

[1141] Doesn't each field or whatever only get half the lines in the screen?

[1142] I think that's the case.

[1143] Isn't that how it works?

[1144] I think that's it.

[1145] It feels like it.

[1146] You can feel the difference when you switch from 2D to full 3D like that.

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] That's all I have to say about it.

[1149] Yes?

[1150] How are you guys doing?

[1151] I'm doing all right.

[1152] How are you?

[1153] So I played through Dragon Age 2.

[1154] About Dragon Age 2.

[1155] There's something else I can't remember.

[1156] Was it Back to the Future?

[1157] Oh, yeah.

[1158] So I played through all Back to the Future.

[1159] Third episode.

[1160] It's a good one.

[1161] It's a good one.

[1162] Did you guys play adventure games?

[1163] Great.

[1164] Not anymore.

[1165] Fantastic.

[1166] Let's move on to news, gentlemen.

[1167] Episode 3, Back to the Future, out now.

[1168] And that's it for news.

[1169] Anything happen last week?

[1170] Yeah, all sorts of shit happened.

[1171] Do you want to hear about it?

[1172] Yes, because I was doing my best not to pay attention.

[1173] Rockstar tweeted out some Max Payne 3 screenshots like that's a game like they're going to put it out in stores and boxes.

[1174] That's not a game.

[1175] One of them, Max Payne has all his hair.

[1176] The other one, he's bald and he's wearing the Hawaiian shirt kind of like you saw him before in earlier Max Payne 3.

[1177] Is it talking like that game is going to come out this year still?

[1178] I thought that was, yeah, the last earnings call thing they said was something about this year.

[1179] But who knows?

[1180] I'm sure they'll probably start talking about it directly after L .A. Noire ships.

[1181] Good call.

[1182] Seems very probable.

[1183] What's this that I hear about Microsoft testing out a new Xbox 360 disc format?

[1184] Yeah, they started looking for...

[1185] people to sign up for a new preview program, which filled up pretty quickly because they were offering people free copies of Halo Reach as a result.

[1186] And all they've really said is that they're testing out a new disk format.

[1187] And they haven't really come forward and officially said what that means, but there's been some stuff out online and, you know, some...

[1188] some rumors about what it is.

[1189] And so I don't know if you know this, but with current Xbox 360 discs...

[1190] I knew this, but please keep going.

[1191] They devote something like a gig or some significant portion of it to a DVD video partition where they store firmware updates and a lot of security stuff for anti -piracy.

[1192] I think it's more than that because the max size is 6 .8.

[1193] If you ever install 360 games, you'll never get one with a bigger install than 6 .8 games.

[1194] Right, yeah.

[1195] So there's a chunk of space devoted to...

[1196] It's a lot of the disc.

[1197] devoted to this other stuff.

[1198] So the thinking is then that they're reducing that size to give more space to developers so that they can hold more on the disks for games.

[1199] They're not necessarily trying to do some sort of fucking crazy GD -ROM business or anything here.

[1200] It's more just like optimizing their system level stuff.

[1201] Well, I guess as a part of this, by changing the format, the other theory out there...

[1202] And again, it's unofficial, so it's kind of hard to know for sure.

[1203] But the other theory is that these disks would also be unburnable on consumer -grade hardware.

[1204] Interesting.

[1205] Because they would hold more than they're supposed to, hold more data than theoretically would be possible to burn with a consumer -grade drive.

[1206] I don't know anything about how that stuff works for now.

[1207] So it's hard to really say.

[1208] But, yeah, it sounds like that they are scrapping their current anti -piracy stuff and upgrading it with some new ideas and some new concepts there.

[1209] And simultaneously games will be able to hold more – or game discs will have more room for data on them rather.

[1210] And that – makes sense when you consider they're actually giving out a game disc along with this.

[1211] It would make sense that they would send out something to kind of test that format out.

[1212] Yeah, I was wondering if this release of Reach is...

[1213] Yeah, you'll probably get some weird version of Reach.

[1214] Like mastered with that new process or whatever.

[1215] Do you think that this is like a step into the future for the 360?

[1216] Do you think like thinking next generation for Microsoft?

[1217] I really don't.

[1218] Like this is...

[1219] When I first heard about this, I thought like this would be a little more significant, but...

[1220] Somehow kids winding up with a Blu -ray.

[1221] They cannot not have Blu -ray next time around.

[1222] I had a long talk with Will Smith about this.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] And he made a pretty convincing argument for Welcome to Earth HD DVD.

[1225] Yeah.

[1226] Because it sounded crazy to me until he reminded me that you can actually make those things in existing DVD plants.

[1227] Right.

[1228] And that sounds a lot less crazy when you understand that fact.

[1229] Yeah, okay, so they will not go to the next generation without coming out with a disc that can hold a whole hell of a lot more than the one gig or whatever, the 12 % that they're going to add in this new format.

[1230] It will not be DVD is what you're saying.

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] I think Blu -ray makes a lot of sense.

[1233] If they want to keep going down this entertainment road, even with their streaming video dreams, like you got to...

[1234] You've got to have support for everything, I think.

[1235] You've got to suck it up and pay the rights.

[1236] You've got to pay the licensing fee.

[1237] I agree with you, but it seems like they could see it as a pretty bitter pill swallow that that is Sony's format.

[1238] I totally agree, but I think it would be crazy for them to not be there.

[1239] Blu -ray is enough of a thing now.

[1240] They just need to bite the bullet.

[1241] And they need the storage space.

[1242] HD, DVD would probably do it, but why not just go all the way out?

[1243] Get better cut scenes into games.

[1244] If you look at cut scenes on Xbox games, sometimes they look like total trash compared to their PS3 counterparts.

[1245] Cartridges.

[1246] There you go.

[1247] That's the future.

[1248] Just ship an SSD with games already installed in it for everything, and you just plug it right in.

[1249] Yeah.

[1250] Whatever, thumb drives.

[1251] That shit's cheap.

[1252] Yeah, SSDs, though.

[1253] You get a 16 -gig thumb drive.

[1254] I'm beginning to be of the mind that if the next generation of consoles doesn't have an SSD built in.

[1255] that they're fucking up.

[1256] I don't think they can do that.

[1257] I think that's going to be a real bottleneck.

[1258] I think the SSD is the storage solution for the consoles after next.

[1259] You think?

[1260] Yeah, it's too soon.

[1261] It's too expensive.

[1262] It would add too much to the manufacturing cost.

[1263] They're still charging way too much for just a regular hard drive.

[1264] You need volume at this point more than you need that access speed.

[1265] I do think a game on a thumb drive is awesome.

[1266] Let's do this.

[1267] I mean, the drives in current consoles.

[1268] It's like, here's a thumb drive.

[1269] It's got Halo on it.

[1270] Fantastic.

[1271] Those are 5 ,400 RPM drives in current consoles.

[1272] Right.

[1273] So even going to like 7 ,200 from there and like say it's a terabyte drive or something, like that's way more appealing and cheaper than an SSD.

[1274] I guess, man. But, you know, if you start getting into, you know, obviously games are streaming more and more.

[1275] into the environment as you play.

[1276] And if you just look at the bottlenecks, the hard drive, or even just reading off the disk.

[1277] Like art assets and everything are going to be much bigger in terms of file size.

[1278] So just in terms of getting that stuff onto the screen as quickly as possible, SSD is the best way to do that.

[1279] It's just a matter of like...

[1280] whether they're willing to spend that money or not.

[1281] There's some flash memory in there that's just built in that's a couple of gigs that they can bounce stuff to, like RAM almost.

[1282] It's got maybe the boot -up stuff on it.

[1283] That's how a lot of people use their SSDs.

[1284] It's not their storage device.

[1285] It's like a small handful of data is kept there for quick access.

[1286] All your system files or whatever.

[1287] Pretty much your OS and your swap file.

[1288] And then everything else is off -site.

[1289] So maybe you have a small SSD for that purpose, just internally, not even something a user can be concerned with.

[1290] It's another layer of RAM in a way.

[1291] I just think they obviously need to get to a point where they're not selling systems that have no storage in them.

[1292] They need to unify that because that's one of the things that...

[1293] is now kind of holding back the 360.

[1294] Just get on the cloud.

[1295] There's this notion of like, yeah, you got to, yeah, well, I wonder if that would ever work.

[1296] Like, you know, instant streaming looks all right.

[1297] It's not perfect, but it's better than some of the compressed -ass cut scenes I've seen coming off of discs.

[1298] Yeah, for sure.

[1299] I wonder, you know.

[1300] if the bandwidth costs of doing that are a little too crazy, where it's just like, you need to be connected to the internet if you want to see the good cut scenes.

[1301] We've got crappy ones on the disc, and those are the ones we could fit, but hey.

[1302] I see these HD fucking, I watched Dune this weekend on Blu -ray.

[1303] That's a weird movie.

[1304] That movie is so goddamn weird.

[1305] It's been years since I had seen that movie, and I'd forgotten how just everything, top to bottom.

[1306] It's absolutely nuts.

[1307] But most modern Blu -rays have that BD Live shit built into them where they're streaming to you current trailers for shit.

[1308] Right.

[1309] That they're just grabbing off of the internet somewhere.

[1310] And that's all crisp, super high res. Again, obviously, they're using some sort of crazy compression algorithms.

[1311] But as long as you're not Canadian.

[1312] Or I guess Australian, you know, go nuts.

[1313] And then they can just change the cutscene whenever they want.

[1314] You play it again in a year and it's totally different.

[1315] Exactly.

[1316] That's how all the MMOs will be done.

[1317] Yeah.

[1318] In fact, you'll just be connecting to streaming servers for all the voice work too.

[1319] So they can, you know, if they have to change a quest.

[1320] That's right.

[1321] Someone constantly in a booth.

[1322] I'm doing this live, everybody.

[1323] How you doing?

[1324] This is Chris Cashman doing voices for every game.

[1325] Send me a Jedi.

[1326] Finally.

[1327] Is that good?

[1328] Is that a good take?

[1329] You're live.

[1330] Hey.

[1331] All right.

[1332] Five holocrons.

[1333] Finish him.

[1334] You brought me these.

[1335] How did you find this?

[1336] I've been looking for these.

[1337] Thank you.

[1338] No, see, that way he could actually know what the thing was like.

[1339] What am I saying?

[1340] Gem crests.

[1341] Ah, my gem crests.

[1342] I've been looking for...

[1343] Hey, y 'all remember Mega Man Universe?

[1344] That crazy...

[1345] I'm already trying to forget.

[1346] Well, Capcom's making it easier by canceling it.

[1347] And saying that they're not going to put it out.

[1348] So you don't have to worry about that Mega Man game anymore.

[1349] MMUs.

[1350] Although...

[1351] I guess we were talking about Resident Evil last week.

[1352] Yep.

[1353] And there's that Street Fighter thing.

[1354] Yeah.

[1355] What else does fucking Capcom have?

[1356] Devil May Cry.

[1357] Oh, right, right.

[1358] And I think that's it.

[1359] Street Fighter vs. Tekken.

[1360] The arcade edition stuff.

[1361] Yeah, that stuff's announced.

[1362] The two 3DS Resident Evil games.

[1363] That Resident Evil...

[1364] Slant 6 game.

[1365] Right.

[1366] Is that the Raccoon City?

[1367] Yeah.

[1368] Did that happen?

[1369] Yeah.

[1370] That is happening.

[1371] Also that happened.

[1372] Okay.

[1373] Yeah, that happened on last week's show.

[1374] But then Universe unhappened.

[1375] Yeah.

[1376] So they're back down to like...

[1377] I wonder, you know, if you go back and watch the trailer for Universe that we put up on the site, the very first one, like Inafune's in it describing the game.

[1378] Yeah, and he's gone.

[1379] Yeah.

[1380] He's been gone for a few months.

[1381] So I wonder if it has...

[1382] I wonder how much this has to do with the quality of that game and how much of it has to do with like, that's his game and he's not here and we don't care.

[1383] It just spiraled into oblivion after he left.

[1384] I imagine one could easily lead to the other.

[1385] Yeah.

[1386] Also.

[1387] Maybe.

[1388] It's like, all right, I just inherited this stupid project from this other idiot.

[1389] I don't care.

[1390] So I would rather work on this other thing.

[1391] So a couple of months, it turns into shit.

[1392] That was such a weird project anyway.

[1393] Yeah.

[1394] I don't even know what to think of it.

[1395] I feel like they never did a great job of explaining what exactly it was.

[1396] Well, yeah, I thought they were always being very deliberately kind of cagey about.

[1397] what this game is supposed to be but it sounded like it had potential at least but it also seems like the sort of thing that could just as easily not come together in any meaningful way and be like oh god we gotta get rid of this thing because we're not sure what it is either but I don't know well now you'll never know yeah no one will know yeah Sony Online Entertainment cuts a bunch of people and finally cancels the agency.

[1398] You didn't talk about this last week?

[1399] No, again, this happened after the podcast last week.

[1400] Remember the agency?

[1401] I've been saying for a long time, hey, did they cancel the agency yet?

[1402] I can't believe I was not here the day they announced the cancellation of the agency.

[1403] Yes.

[1404] I believed in what I saw at the agency.

[1405] I was like, this seems fun.

[1406] This is a crazy thing for an MMO.

[1407] This is doing something interesting with the format.

[1408] So I was like, yeah, into it.

[1409] Let's give it a shot.

[1410] And then you'd look over.

[1411] You'd see DC Universe next to you at a booth or something.

[1412] And then you'd see the agency.

[1413] Cut to a year later, and you'd see DC Universe Online and the agency.

[1414] Yeah, they're like, okay.

[1415] Cut to a year later, you'd see Free Realms and DC Universe Online and the agency.

[1416] What happened to the agency?

[1417] Or you wouldn't see the agency.

[1418] You would see some vague art for the agency as part of the booth.

[1419] And you're like, agency?

[1420] Oh, yeah, we're still making that.

[1421] And then cut to a year later, well, DC Universe is here.

[1422] What happened to the agency?

[1423] I haven't heard anyone talking about the agency.

[1424] As recently as last E3, they were swearing that the agency was a game and would come out.

[1425] And so that's gone?

[1426] I've seen it played.

[1427] Oh, yeah.

[1428] Four years ago.

[1429] It was playable at E3 last year in the SOE booth.

[1430] I agree.

[1431] It looked kind of fun.

[1432] It was not really MMO, but a persistent world.

[1433] It was heavily instanced, yeah, but very...

[1434] You know, action game -looking missions, some cool -looking shit.

[1435] How hard a decision is that to make as the executive or the suit who decides to can that game after how many years and how many millions?

[1436] Also, keep in mind, they laid off like 200 people.

[1437] 205 announced positions lost, so that's all related to that game?

[1438] No, this was a company across multiple locations.

[1439] Three studios, Seattle, Denver, and Tucson.

[1440] And it was primarily coming out of Seattle.

[1441] Also, all of those studios are now shuttered.

[1442] Really?

[1443] Yeah.

[1444] So they fired 203 people and closed three studios.

[1445] 205 people.

[1446] They also said that the Planetside sequel is still on for some time this year, which I guess had previously been early this year or the first half of this year or something like that.

[1447] But they haven't even given that a name yet.

[1448] And if you look at our page for it, it's like, here's a picture of a tank.

[1449] I don't know, man. It seems like kind of rough times for SOE these days.

[1450] I will be first one.

[1451] Well, I will be among the first.

[1452] I will be in the line.

[1453] You will be carelessly waving a fistful of money somewhere saying, like, let's play some Planetside 2.

[1454] Upgrading your PC again because it's no longer fast enough to run Planetside at full speed.

[1455] No, it's coming out the end of this year.

[1456] They said you're still going to need a new PC.

[1457] Oh, come on.

[1458] Also, it's not coming out the end of this year.

[1459] Yeah, is Planetside going to come out?

[1460] That's maybe the bigger question is do you think Planetside next will ever become a real product?

[1461] Is that what they're actually calling it?

[1462] That's not their official name, but they refer to it as.

[1463] Yeah, they're even using that phrase at all.

[1464] Yeah, it's dumb.

[1465] Man, 200 people.

[1466] 200, 205.

[1467] Condolences to those people.

[1468] Pour one out for those out of jobs.

[1469] Especially just to put that much work for that many years into that project.

[1470] I can't even imagine.

[1471] Can you even imagine?

[1472] No. Do you think the people in that position see it coming where they're like, man, we've been kind of spinning our wheels on this project for a really long time?

[1473] I bet there are a lot of meetings that you think is the last meeting and then it's not.

[1474] You know what?

[1475] I think there's probably like a small upper level group that has that feeling.

[1476] I imagine when you're in it like that.

[1477] It's kind of hard to – Like if you're an artist or a modeler or programmer or whatever, you've got a stack of to -do things on your desk.

[1478] I don't know.

[1479] Foot high.

[1480] I think it's like you get together and they lay off a group or like a couple of people.

[1481] Like we're doing some cutbacks and like we're still going strong and whatever.

[1482] And like, whew, man, that sucked.

[1483] And then like by the fourth one, you just – you know it's coming.

[1484] Potentially.

[1485] I don't know like if there – like have there been significant layoffs.

[1486] Or maybe just people rolling out of there on their own.

[1487] Just like, all right, guys, I got this other job making free -to -play Chinese MMOs somewhere.

[1488] They hired me to go work on The Old Republic, so I'm going to wheel across town here.

[1489] Go work at one of the other 19 Austin -based MMO developers.

[1490] Do you ever think, like, instead of canceling, that you just...

[1491] Maybe they recycle some of that stuff, but just put it out for two bucks.

[1492] It kind of barely works.

[1493] There's a couple of levels you could play, but maybe we'll make some money back on it.

[1494] I think if it's something like an MMO that requires a server and all that stuff, it's probably not worth it.

[1495] Administration and upkeep and just customer support and service.

[1496] Not even.

[1497] Releasing the proprietary means to run an MMO server.

[1498] Probably not the best of ideas.

[1499] I don't know.

[1500] It just seems like such a shame that all that stuff...

[1501] Well, SOE clearly needs to try something else.

[1502] Although I guess DC Universe is doing okay for them so far.

[1503] Maybe they're going to put those people...

[1504] They're going to rehire them on Galaxies.

[1505] And they're going to get ready and they're going to sneak attack with a new Galaxies hat on.

[1506] The day before Old Republic comes out.

[1507] Totally reinvents the game again to be Old Republic.

[1508] We made our game their game.

[1509] Fuck them.

[1510] Here's a 50 gigabyte patch containing voice files for every quest in the game.

[1511] Right.

[1512] Star Wars Old Galaxies.

[1513] We gave Mark Hamill $100 and a hot meal.

[1514] He did all the voices for all the characters.

[1515] He could.

[1516] He was an accomplished voice actor.

[1517] Indeed.

[1518] Yeah, he's way more than a hot meal.

[1519] Yeah.

[1520] He's at least like a hot meal in a warm bed.

[1521] I bet he does well for himself.

[1522] Hot meal, warm bed, and inoculation shot.

[1523] Glossy.

[1524] I would love that.

[1525] I would love to see SOE.

[1526] They have to have some sort of counter -programming shit planned for around the launch.

[1527] Well, it's weird because are they direct competitors?

[1528] Are they part of the family?

[1529] They're all licensed to the same company.

[1530] Yeah, it's kind of weird.

[1531] But they don't make a nickel.

[1532] I don't think they're going to make a nickel off of any old Republic stuff.

[1533] I just wonder how many nickels they're pulling in off of Galaxies at this point.

[1534] I wonder at what point do they shut that down.

[1535] Right, like how much that has just been like, okay, we made the game.

[1536] Well, whatever.

[1537] We will check in with the Galaxy servers.

[1538] Yeah.

[1539] Honestly, all this Old Republic talk of late makes me more interested in Galaxies than it does make me interested in playing Old Republic.

[1540] Yep.

[1541] And I know that Galaxies is a bad game.

[1542] Yeah, expectations are already properly set.

[1543] Interpret that as you will.

[1544] You don't have people sitting there going like, we're launching the MMO of a generation.

[1545] It's the best game ever.

[1546] I just want to be around on a Galaxy server when Old Republic launches.

[1547] Like some weird holdout.

[1548] crew that's on there be like I ain't jumping ship alright I want to know your thoughts so from day before to we have to come out and say that we're doing this now so that we have said that we are doing it so that someone else doesn't actually go do it we are going to live stream galaxies the day before Old Republic comes out yeah I think we should have a dueling live stream the day of.

[1549] Okay, so it's going to also be a very long live stream.

[1550] Because I kind of want to live stream during the launch.

[1551] We are going to watch the population drop on galaxies.

[1552] See, but that's my question.

[1553] Do you think it drops or do you think it goes up?

[1554] Do you think people thinking about Star Wars MMOs go...

[1555] Well, that's the thing.

[1556] Does it go up in the weeks?

[1557] In the week before and then immediately go to zero as soon as the Tor servers go up?

[1558] Or does it drop 30 days after it starts going up?

[1559] Or do you influence people playing Galaxies by doing a live stream of Galaxies and then everybody who has a free account or something is just going to come join you?

[1560] We say we're throwing off the math in this just by talking about it here?

[1561] Damn, it's fucking science.

[1562] You cannot interact with an object without affecting it.

[1563] You can stage a protest in galaxies or something like that.

[1564] You can even make signs.

[1565] I don't know.

[1566] But I need one of you to start playing galaxies so we have a high -level character.

[1567] Because I do believe that one of us is named Pasquale.

[1568] Yeah.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] I wonder if that would potentially uptick.

[1571] I could totally see.

[1572] Just around launch.

[1573] It's clearly not a long -term benefit for them.

[1574] Just one dude.

[1575] If there's enough people who are like, oh, I used to have a fucking Galaxy's account.

[1576] I wonder what that even looks like right now.

[1577] Imagine somebody at an SOE office, almost like a SETI office, just kind of sitting there, just kind of reading a book, glasses on, just like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

[1578] People are connected to the server.

[1579] Johnson, get in here right now.

[1580] What?

[1581] Dude, there's at least five people jumping on the server right now.

[1582] What the hell?

[1583] They outnumber us.

[1584] We're screwed.

[1585] You're not going to believe what I'm seeing here.

[1586] That's right.

[1587] Burying the needle.

[1588] Give me the president.

[1589] Anyway, that'll be fine.

[1590] We're going to have a press conference.

[1591] When does that happen?

[1592] What's the date on the launch?

[1593] Oh, Star Wars The Old Republic.

[1594] It's available in stores.

[1595] Okay.

[1596] We'll be there.

[1597] Look for it.

[1598] Yep.

[1599] It's available at...

[1600] Is that multiplayer?

[1601] Fully voiced.

[1602] Fully.

[1603] BioWare.

[1604] There you go.

[1605] BioWare.

[1606] Austin.

[1607] BioWare.

[1608] Austin.

[1609] BioWare.

[1610] I mean, didn't most of the people who work on Galaxies go work on Old Republic anyway?

[1611] Yeah, Bioware Austin is basically former SOE employees.

[1612] All right.

[1613] Plus, I imagine that's probably about to be a bunch more former SOE employees.

[1614] And Seasoft down there, too.

[1615] Yeah.

[1616] I think they just swap them around down there.

[1617] I think it's just like you just move from one MMO developer.

[1618] It's an MMO town.

[1619] Yeah.

[1620] MMOs and barbecue.

[1621] That's what they get.

[1622] You get South By.

[1623] You get MMOs.

[1624] Fucking amazing brisket.

[1625] Get some brisket.

[1626] That sounds all right.

[1627] Some brisket?

[1628] The brisket's sounding like the most exciting part of this whole thing.

[1629] You can go get some brisket.

[1630] All right.

[1631] I know a place what got brisket.

[1632] All right.

[1633] Although I'm more of a pork ribs kind of guy.

[1634] I'll go either.

[1635] How do you feel about some pulled pork?

[1636] Great.

[1637] When it comes to barbecue, I tend to go pork over beef.

[1638] Yeah.

[1639] Are you going to have a barbecue?

[1640] You should have a barbecue at your place.

[1641] Remember you had that barbecue at your old place?

[1642] Yeah.

[1643] That was fun.

[1644] Yeah.

[1645] I haven't had a barbecue in a while.

[1646] You want to come to Oregon?

[1647] I have a new grill.

[1648] Just do it.

[1649] So I have two grills now.

[1650] It's way bigger.

[1651] Let's bring the streaming gear.

[1652] We'll do some galaxies from the barbecue pit.

[1653] It's going to be our Star Wars Summer Jam.

[1654] It's going to be dope.

[1655] Two tickets to Star Wars Summer Jam.

[1656] Get on the line now.

[1657] Call it 97.

[1658] So as I mentioned earlier, WonderCon, kind of a sister to the San Diego Comic -Con organized by the same governing party, happened in San Francisco.

[1659] Our sister site, Comic Vine, was there.

[1660] Ooh.

[1661] Killing it.

[1662] Sister on sister.

[1663] And they – They had a crazy party here at the – Two crazy parties.

[1664] Oh, did they do multiple nights?

[1665] There was a Saturday party.

[1666] Oh, Jesus.

[1667] It sounded like the Friday night party was the party to be at if you like getting way too drunk and then being kicked out of parties.

[1668] I love that.

[1669] You know, we work in an industry that knows a thing or two about open bars.

[1670] Yeah.

[1671] I don't think that really happens in the comic book industry.

[1672] You don't?

[1673] So I don't think they know how to approach the right way to sidle up to an open bar, which I think everyone has to make that mistake sometime in their life.

[1674] I think it's a hard lesson to learn.

[1675] But you remember it.

[1676] Hard is the only way to learn it because you will remember it.

[1677] But, yeah, I definitely – talking to some folks afterwards.

[1678] Talking to one of the bartenders, in fact, afterwards.

[1679] And she was like, yeah, we could kind of tell that these kids didn't know what they were doing at an open bar.

[1680] So we were pouring them very standard, if not lighter.

[1681] Yeah.

[1682] Just to make sure that they're not – I feel like an open bar mistake is going for shots.

[1683] Oh, yes.

[1684] Yeah.

[1685] That is like open bar mistake number one.

[1686] Especially later on.

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] Oh, yeah.

[1689] That's always when you make that mistake.

[1690] That's the first one.

[1691] That's the first one.

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] That's your first lesson is, yeah.

[1694] Another round of shots.

[1695] Like, no, no, no, no. Don't do shots.

[1696] I don't care how sweet they are.

[1697] I don't care how much you can't taste the liquor.

[1698] Don't do rounds of shots.

[1699] You don't have to pay for them.

[1700] Just like, 17 shots.

[1701] Do you want or want?

[1702] I'll just drink yours.

[1703] You have to learn that by the end of college, right?

[1704] Like, how to say no to a shot.

[1705] I probably learned a first or second job.

[1706] Can't really jump out into the adult world not knowing.

[1707] First or second, this company just went out of business, Josh.

[1708] Point one, we were talking about video games and comic books.

[1709] I don't think we're really talking about the adult world.

[1710] Sure.

[1711] Yeah, but the shots, because they'll sneak up.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] But I hear, you know.

[1714] All the names of the comic book industry were at the Comic Vine Park.

[1715] I was kicking.

[1716] I stayed for a while.

[1717] I heard it was packed and Joe Caseta, editor -in -chief at Marvel, was here.

[1718] So that's kind of a big deal.

[1719] I think I left when somebody was trying to get the Jaws machine working.

[1720] I think he's like head of development now or something even crazier.

[1721] I was like, I don't want to watch somebody.

[1722] I heard people getting excited about the NBA Jam too.

[1723] There was a little competition going on.

[1724] Yeah.

[1725] Anyway, during WonderCon...

[1726] Somebody graffitied our bathroom wall.

[1727] I heard about that, too.

[1728] Yeah.

[1729] So has the seal been broken there?

[1730] Can we all just start drawing on the walls now?

[1731] No. I don't think they're very happy.

[1732] No, Melissa's pretty pissed.

[1733] In the new bathroom?

[1734] The new bathroom.

[1735] What?

[1736] Savages.

[1737] There was a suggestion at one point, because the walls were all just white, featureless white walls in there.

[1738] People were saying, oh, everybody will just come and write their names on the wall.

[1739] Yeah, I think we talked about that.

[1740] Don't do that.

[1741] Someone tested out the theory.

[1742] Turns out that's not what we're going to do with it.

[1743] Wow, that sucks.

[1744] Did they write their name?

[1745] I don't know.

[1746] They got up.

[1747] That's right.

[1748] They had to go down to get up.

[1749] Activision announced a new Spider -Man game.

[1750] That's a lot of build -up.

[1751] That's what was written up.

[1752] Yeah, that's what was written on the wall.

[1753] Oh, Spider -Man, that's cool.

[1754] Spider -Man.

[1755] Spider -Man Edge of Time.

[1756] You'll play as two Spider -Men and you'll go jump back and forth between time periods.

[1757] That is half the Spider -Men you played in the last Spider -Man game.

[1758] Sell me on this.

[1759] Yeah, but one of those Spider -Men was like...

[1760] The same.

[1761] Only...

[1762] Yeah.

[1763] Really, it was three Spider -Men.

[1764] Okay.

[1765] That's still more Spider -Men.

[1766] Who's working on that?

[1767] B and Oxygen.

[1768] Okay.

[1769] Still.

[1770] They are now...

[1771] The Spider -Man team?

[1772] They are now the Spider -Man team because they have all those Spider -Man art assets.

[1773] This is another like off year, no movie year.

[1774] Sort of one -off.

[1775] Yeah, yeah.

[1776] Like one -off kind of self -contained projects.

[1777] Yep.

[1778] Sounds like Sonic CD.

[1779] Yeah, I mean, it's basically that of like, you know, you'll do something in one time period and it'll affect the other.

[1780] Like, you know.

[1781] It's amazing and it's 2099, right?

[1782] Amazing Spider -Man 2099, Spider -Man 2099 are the two versions that are in the game.

[1783] And, you know, you'll play as amazing and I guess it's like picture -in -picture style.

[1784] Tony from Comic -Con Fine actually saw it.

[1785] during WonderCon and said that, yeah, it's like, okay, there's this giant robot in the future that Spider -Man 2099 has to fight, but then in the past, Amazing Spider -Man goes and fucks it up and stops production of this giant robot so the giant robot doesn't exist, but instead that company made a bunch of tiny robots.

[1786] Oh, Spider -Man.

[1787] That still seems like, I mean, when does Amazing take place?

[1788] Now.

[1789] So it's like you're telling me that in the 80s, in the...

[1790] Lots of decades passing.

[1791] That robot is still the thing in 2099.

[1792] They haven't replaced it with something even more devastating.

[1793] I don't think anyone's saying that.

[1794] I think he's saying that robot could still last that long.

[1795] But why would someone be using it for evil that far in the future?

[1796] It's probably still pretty good for evil using it.

[1797] Break it out in a museum at that point.

[1798] It's like an airliner.

[1799] $20, $30 million in one of those things.

[1800] I don't know.

[1801] You see the roof fly off of that plane recently?

[1802] They don't last.

[1803] Yeah, you know.

[1804] Keep that thing around for a while.

[1805] Get your money's worth.

[1806] Jet Fighters.

[1807] They've been using the same designs for those for a while.

[1808] All right.

[1809] All right.

[1810] I'm with Jeff on this one.

[1811] Maybe it's someone's antique.

[1812] Yeah.

[1813] I think the bigger question is what the hell is Spider -Man doing 99 years later?

[1814] Well, it's a totally different dude.

[1815] Yeah.

[1816] Oh, really?

[1817] It's not Peter Parker?

[1818] No, no, no. Spider -Man 2099 is a completely different character, different guy, different everything.

[1819] He got spider powers?

[1820] Kind of.

[1821] They're different.

[1822] He's a lot more acrobatic.

[1823] Yeah.

[1824] He's a different dude.

[1825] Yeah.

[1826] Yeah.

[1827] Part of the whole 2099 initiative from the early 90s, back when 2099 sounded way more futuristic.

[1828] And they made a bunch of just really bad fucking comic books out of it too.

[1829] Like there hasn't been a dedicated Spider -Man 2099 comic book in like 10 years.

[1830] Was Spider -Man 2099 like the one that was good and that's why they keep going back to it?

[1831] I think it was just the one that was recognizable.

[1832] Because they did like a Doom 2099.

[1833] So like Doctor Doom.

[1834] They did like a Hulk 2099.

[1835] Is it just taking place over a really long year?

[1836] I mean time doesn't pass in the Marvel Universe.

[1837] So it's always 2099?

[1838] Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah.

[1839] I thought Peter Parker got married and stuff, didn't he?

[1840] Yeah, I think in this game Peter Parker dies at the open or something and is somehow, that's how they are somehow doing this whole you're talking to both times thing.

[1841] It's some kind of weird dead before your time.

[1842] It's magic.

[1843] Something's magic.

[1844] Millennium.

[1845] Madame Web getting back into it.

[1846] Is Madame Web in this one too?

[1847] No, I don't know, maybe.

[1848] I'm guessing.

[1849] Spitballing here.

[1850] Some comic book bullshit happened and then there's two Spider -Men.

[1851] What else do you need?

[1852] I would rather see what they should have done for the last one is had all four of those guys swap times.

[1853] Honestly, what I played of Shattered Dimensions, I wish that they had pursued more of the noir Spider -Man stuff.

[1854] That was the one that seemed kind of cool.

[1855] It was the most interesting to me. It was the least Spider -Man -y, I guess.

[1856] Spider -Man -y.

[1857] Space player.

[1858] Spider -Man -well.

[1859] Spider -Man -y.

[1860] Oh, let's see.

[1861] There was a Ghost Rider 2099, a Hulk 2099.

[1862] Punisher 2099.

[1863] 2099 version of the X -Men.

[1864] Is Punisher 2099 just Punisher but he's got laser guns?

[1865] I don't know.

[1866] Jake Gallows was the dude's name.

[1867] Yeah, he's Punisher but he's got lasers.

[1868] Great.

[1869] And a very stupid looking costume.

[1870] Great.

[1871] God, I forgot how dumb this stuff was.

[1872] 93.

[1873] Man, early 90s.

[1874] Not a great time.

[1875] For comic books?

[1876] Yeah, some will argue with me on that, but they're wrong.

[1877] Is that when Spawn came out?

[1878] Yeah.

[1879] Okay.

[1880] Yeah, Image started in the early 90s.

[1881] It's like Vertigo as well.

[1882] I thought people liked Image.

[1883] You know, I think it has kind of – people loved it at the time, and then you realized, wait, this is destroying comic books as we know it.

[1884] But then I think they've ended up redeeming themselves by doing – because they do a lot of non -hero fare now.

[1885] Like they still have a lot of – like Spawn is still a thing and they still have – Wow, really?

[1886] Yeah, basic hero books.

[1887] But they do a lot of other – There's new Spawn material being generated?

[1888] Constantly.

[1889] That is kind of disgusting.

[1890] Well, you know, they keep making Spider -Man fucking comic books too.

[1891] Spider -Man seems timeless, whereas Spawn seems like something that couldn't survive outside of the early 90s very well.

[1892] Apparently it keeps cracking.

[1893] I imagine they probably still sell a shitload of action figures and stuff too.

[1894] Someone's got to buy a lot of...

[1895] Someone's out there buying a statue of the crow right now too.

[1896] I guess it makes sense.

[1897] And they keep trying to make new crow shit too.

[1898] Spider -Man Edge of Time.

[1899] Beanox is making it.

[1900] Play as two Spider -Men.

[1901] Look for it.

[1902] Probably this holiday season.

[1903] If I had to guess.

[1904] Avalanche Studios developers of Just Cause 2 announced Renegade Ops.

[1905] What's that?

[1906] Downloadable vehicular combat game using Just Cause 2 technology.

[1907] I guess co -publishing or publishing along with Sega.

[1908] Renegade Ops, not a very good name.

[1909] Not very descriptive.

[1910] Yeah, yeah.

[1911] You play as a car?

[1912] I would not have guessed car combat.

[1913] That's one step up from putting the word storm in your title.

[1914] Bandit storm.

[1915] Renegade storm.

[1916] Renegade ops storm.

[1917] Storm ops.

[1918] Renegade ops colon storm.

[1919] Dark storm.

[1920] Reckoning.

[1921] Reloaded.

[1922] So this is downloadable?

[1923] Yeah, it's going to be a downloadable thing.

[1924] And did I understand dual joystick?

[1925] That was what I was led to believe.

[1926] It's like a strange transition.

[1927] Cars go into stunt position on themselves.

[1928] I mean, there's definitely some great technology in that engine, like stuff blowing up.

[1929] This car is going to bump and jump style land on this other car, and then you're going to edge your car to the edge of that car to jump over to another car.

[1930] Okay, and grappling hook and slingshot off.

[1931] That'd be pretty awesome.

[1932] Tell me it's like that.

[1933] They specifically reference, oddly, Shadow Complex as being a big inspiration in the idea of trying to take old idea and make it new.

[1934] Not necessarily in that you're going to go back to previous arenas and curl your car up into a ball.

[1935] Or this car that has to make it through this complex by sneaking around and shooting dudes.

[1936] Dark, also.

[1937] You can get a gold.

[1938] Grappling hook.

[1939] Dark shadow complex.

[1940] I love it.

[1941] Yeah, I'm with you, Brett.

[1942] It seems like an odd application of the tech.

[1943] Yeah, I mean, Just Cause 2 was pretty well refined in a lot of ways, and I thought it did pretty well.

[1944] Yeah.

[1945] This doesn't mean they're not going to eventually do a Just Cause 3.

[1946] Maybe they're doing this and, you know, not instead of.

[1947] Yeah.

[1948] Everyone likes downloadable games.

[1949] Yeah, I got no problem with it.

[1950] I just hope that there's, you know.

[1951] Another just cause somewhere.

[1952] Yeah.

[1953] Yeah.

[1954] I don't think this precludes any of that for sure.

[1955] Speaking of downloadable games, you guys.

[1956] Hey.

[1957] Is that out in the summer?

[1958] They're looking for a summer window.

[1959] We're not talking about that right now.

[1960] Renegade Ops.

[1961] We're not talking about that right now.

[1962] That sounds like summer.

[1963] Don't have platforms yet.

[1964] Summer?

[1965] We're thinking about summer.

[1966] We're thinking about summer.

[1967] It's available later this year.

[1968] Oh, okay.

[1969] It's the other option.

[1970] It's either.

[1971] Yeah.

[1972] There are three times that you can put out a game.

[1973] You can put it out in summer.

[1974] Uh -huh.

[1975] You can put it out holiday.

[1976] Okay.

[1977] Or you can put it out later this year.

[1978] Great.

[1979] That's it.

[1980] Those are three times.

[1981] No one says their game is coming out early in a year.

[1982] It just ends up getting delayed out of.

[1983] Right.

[1984] Later this year.

[1985] Yeah.

[1986] Exactly.

[1987] All right.

[1988] Moving on.

[1989] We're pushing it past holiday.

[1990] You were saying something else about downloadable games.

[1991] I was.

[1992] Majesco.

[1993] Who?

[1994] Majesco.

[1995] Come on.

[1996] Majesco.

[1997] Are we talking about PS2 and Xbox games now?

[1998] Remember when they made all of those Game Boy videos, SpongeBob SquarePants?

[1999] Oh, was that them?

[2000] That was how they made all of their money.

[2001] Great.

[2002] That's right.

[2003] They made a shit ton of money making kids' TV shows available on GBA carts.

[2004] Oh, God.

[2005] What was the last game they published that was a third -person shooter?

[2006] Majesco?

[2007] Yeah.

[2008] Well, they've kicked around.

[2009] Advent Rising.

[2010] Advent Rising was like one of – it's like Advent Rising and – sorry to say it, but Psychonauts were like – kind of like, all right, we're rolling it up.

[2011] We're going to make a video game.

[2012] We're taking all this GBA money that we've got and we're going to become a respectable -ass game.

[2013] And it's going to be awesome.

[2014] And we're going to put real money into everything.

[2015] And we've got Orson Scott Card making crazy Mormonistic sci -fi stories for our games.

[2016] That was a Donald Buster joint.

[2017] Yep.

[2018] Oh, it was.

[2019] That was a chair joint.

[2020] That was.

[2021] Oh, no. Yeah, it was before chair.

[2022] I forget what their old company was called.

[2023] They got this ex -Lucasarts guy, Timmy Schaaf.

[2024] He's going to make a game.

[2025] Yeah, we picked this up after Microsoft couldn't figure out what to do with it.

[2026] He seems real talented.

[2027] We're going to do this thing.

[2028] Okay, what else did they make back then?

[2029] And then it all went bad.

[2030] What was the other thing that they – what was their other – what was the third pillar of Majesco's – The third pillar of the Majesco Tower of Power would be Blood Rain.

[2031] the sexy female vampire who fights Nazis.

[2032] That is a very short pillar.

[2033] And makes Uwe Boll money.

[2034] So they're going to make a new Blood Rain game and it's going to be downloadable.

[2035] Three?

[2036] We'll call this the third one, yeah.

[2037] They call it the third one, but the title is not Blood Rain 3.

[2038] It's Blood Rain Betrayal.

[2039] Blood Rain Storm.

[2040] Betrayal Storm.

[2041] It's a storm of betrayal.

[2042] Dark betrayal storm.

[2043] It's rain right in her name.

[2044] She knows the thing to her about storms.

[2045] Sexy storms.

[2046] Storm rain.

[2047] And there were two Blood Rain movies, right?

[2048] There were two.

[2049] No, there were three.

[2050] Apparently one came out recently.

[2051] Blood Rain Reckoning.

[2052] Direct video.

[2053] All of them.

[2054] Really?

[2055] No, the first one was theatrical.

[2056] So the first one, let me tell you a little story about the first Blood Rain movie.

[2057] Let's hear it.

[2058] They actually shipped out prints of that movie to theaters that did not request it so that they could tell people that this movie was showing in thousands of theaters across the nation.

[2059] Was that part of the German tax loophole with which the movie was made?

[2060] I think it was just part of the batshit crazy distributor that Uwe Boll had rigged up for the release of this film.

[2061] I know this because ex -girlfriend worked at a theater and had this delivered and eventually it got sent back, but I came...

[2062] I will say dangerously close to stealing that print.

[2063] You didn't even clip some scenes from it?

[2064] Just spool it out and just snip it in the middle and tape it back together?

[2065] It's hard to spool this out.

[2066] Movie prints are huge.

[2067] It's a lengthy process.

[2068] It seems like it would just be a big pain in the ass to move that thing around.

[2069] You'd have to build it up on a platter and cut it there.

[2070] And it was at the Tiburon Playhouse, so they don't have a lot of extra space there.

[2071] It's a pretty small projection room.

[2072] Well...

[2073] So I will say the silver lining in this whole story is WayForward is working on this game.

[2074] Okay.

[2075] Yeah.

[2076] Which is they made the Boy and His Blob remake that you love so damn much, Vinny.

[2077] Hopefully his blood rain will be pushed up to hug and then bite your neck.

[2078] And they made Contra 4.

[2079] They made Contra 4.

[2080] That's right.

[2081] Shantae.

[2082] Oh, yeah.

[2083] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2084] People fucking love some Shantae.

[2085] Unironically, people love Shantae.

[2086] I haven't seen it or played it, but before you think, they're just making fun.

[2087] I've seen it, and it looks like, I remember at the time, it looked really, I was like, wow, this is amazingly animated and a pretty sharp platformer.

[2088] So this is still Majesco?

[2089] This is still Majesco.

[2090] Wow.

[2091] Still kicking around.

[2092] Wow.

[2093] And bringing back their old title, so who knows, maybe the second chapter of the, what was it called again?

[2094] RBI baseball.

[2095] Advent.

[2096] Advent Rising.

[2097] Advent Rising.

[2098] Yes.

[2099] And get back to that million dollar giveaway or whatever.

[2100] That was that game, wasn't it?

[2101] I think so, yeah.

[2102] But that was supposed to be just the first chapter in a trilogy.

[2103] Yeah, it's true.

[2104] That was the early heady days of pre -built trilogies.

[2105] Wait, Shadow Complex wasn't really just the second part.

[2106] It was not Advent Rising 2.

[2107] Oh, man. There's definitely a lot of design aesthetics, as far as characters go, shared between Advent Rising and...

[2108] It's also Orson, isn't it?

[2109] Yeah, I believe so.

[2110] Very loosely, yeah.

[2111] Whatever, it's set in that universe that all those books are.

[2112] There's only one book and also not really.

[2113] I mean, I get that he's like, the goings -on in that facility are, in that complex, are very.

[2114] Shadowy.

[2115] Whatever.

[2116] Reckoning.

[2117] Storm.

[2118] Reloaded.

[2119] And finally, GameStop buying some shit, specifically Stardock's Impulse, their digital distribution platform.

[2120] Yeah, I brought it to them, and they said they only wanted to give me, like, $45 for it.

[2121] They said it was all used.

[2122] I'm like, come on.

[2123] They just said, like, the best I could do is, like, $60 for credit.

[2124] Is it open?

[2125] If it's open, it's used.

[2126] Like, come on.

[2127] He put it on an edge card for you.

[2128] Put you on an edge card.

[2129] And Spawn Labs, which I had never heard of before reading it on the page today.

[2130] And I guess they make an OnLive -style service.

[2131] Wow.

[2132] So OnLive that you haven't heard of.

[2133] That's not even Gaikai.

[2134] Compelling.

[2135] What is that?

[2136] That's the other OnLive that David Perry is affiliated with.

[2137] He's still around?

[2138] Yeah.

[2139] All right.

[2140] Steve Perry.

[2141] Yeah.

[2142] I mean, I hope they don't get in there.

[2143] Steve Perry, the lead singer of Journey.

[2144] Yeah.

[2145] That's fun.

[2146] Working on sweet news streaming.

[2147] Yeah.

[2148] That's the story.

[2149] They're buying up a – Some digital – Yeah.

[2150] Yeah.

[2151] Several different digitally oriented platforms kind of at least acknowledging in a way that, hey – They got to get their toe into everything just in case.

[2152] These physical stores aren't necessarily – That's good business.

[2153] Get your feet wet out there.

[2154] Diversify.

[2155] Figure out what's going on.

[2156] We got a little something something.

[2157] That's right.

[2158] I'm just glad I never bought anything through Impulse.

[2159] You've got to liquidate your motherfucking revenues.

[2160] That would suck.

[2161] Having to deal with GameStop.

[2162] Well, I mean, previously you're dealing with Stardock.

[2163] Yeah, which is fine.

[2164] A little indie publisher, you know, maker of niche titles that...

[2165] win a lot of hearts and minds.

[2166] Wait, well then who is it that makes the PC security software that everyone hates?

[2167] Starforce.

[2168] Is it Starforce?

[2169] Oh yeah, that's it completely.

[2170] Wasn't there a game named Stardock as well?

[2171] I always get those confused.

[2172] I always thought that tiny feel -good game publisher was also the ones that make...

[2173] No. That PC game copy software that everyone fucking hates so badly.

[2174] Stardog does make a lot of weird Windows customization and productivity stuff.

[2175] Okay.

[2176] They make...

[2177] What's that?

[2178] They make ObjectDoc?

[2179] Does that sound...

[2180] They might, yeah.

[2181] But no...

[2182] They make some stuff.

[2183] No game copy protection.

[2184] They're not window blinds, are they?

[2185] I don't know if they are window blinds.

[2186] They make a lot of weird stuff like that.

[2187] Okay.

[2188] And they even use Impulse to distribute it.

[2189] Or did.

[2190] No. And they make stuff like...

[2191] You know, Elemental and...

[2192] Yeah, I wonder, like, Demigod.

[2193] I wonder if you could start tying this back to, like, the launch of Demigod and how all that stuff happened to them having to sell Impulse or if just the money was right.

[2194] Oh, that's right.

[2195] Demigod had zero copy protection.

[2196] That was the whole thing.

[2197] Yeah, yeah.

[2198] Stardox games don't have anything like that.

[2199] They launch them on trust.

[2200] Starforce, that's the thing?

[2201] Starforce is a completely different thing.

[2202] It's like a DRM package.

[2203] Yeah.

[2204] It's like a secure ROM.

[2205] I don't know.

[2206] Elemental, obviously, was the...

[2207] Most calamitous event, I would think, in their history.

[2208] Yeah, I wonder if you started tracing lines back and all that, if you could tie this to that somehow.

[2209] Or if GameStop just said, we want to get in this space and we have a whole bunch of money, let's do this.

[2210] Well, there's a Brad Wardell quote in there about Impulse being the greatest revenue stream for the company or something to that effect.

[2211] If I read that correctly, he made it sound like he didn't really want to be in that business.

[2212] Like he didn't want to be in the distribution business.

[2213] He wanted to be in the making games business.

[2214] Cool.

[2215] So he decided to – that's what I got out of it.

[2216] Yeah.

[2217] What's the game?

[2218] What's the Stardock – Stard something game?

[2219] What's the – Star, Storm?

[2220] Stardock, Star.

[2221] Star Force.

[2222] Star Fox.

[2223] Space Station.

[2224] Star Marine.

[2225] Star Space Station.

[2226] Silicon Valley.

[2227] Doc.

[2228] Storm.

[2229] Dot com.

[2230] I'll look it up later.

[2231] No, I won't know.

[2232] Let's puzzle this out.

[2233] Come on.

[2234] I thought it was like Startopia.

[2235] Startopia.

[2236] Yeah.

[2237] Startopia.

[2238] Yeah.

[2239] Okay.

[2240] For the NES.

[2241] Was it for the NES?

[2242] Startropics.

[2243] That's Startropics.

[2244] No, it was Startopia.

[2245] What is Startopia?

[2246] Startopia is something.

[2247] Yeah, it's a game.

[2248] What is it?

[2249] It's like a PC game.

[2250] Yeah.

[2251] Yeah, I think so.

[2252] Like for personal computers?

[2253] Sure.

[2254] Yeah.

[2255] It's like a spreadsheet.

[2256] Stardock?

[2257] I don't know.

[2258] I don't think that's true.

[2259] Well, that star in it must be the same.

[2260] Good point.

[2261] Startopia.

[2262] You're right.

[2263] Fact -checking is going to end this podcast.

[2264] Are you typing Startopia?

[2265] I may have already typed Startopia.

[2266] There's not a game called Startop.

[2267] It's something else.

[2268] It's something else.

[2269] It's like Startopia.

[2270] Try that.

[2271] No, Startopia is a game.

[2272] Yeah.

[2273] It's got a really bad cover.

[2274] It does have a really bad cover.

[2275] I remember this game from fucking the early dots.

[2276] Yep.

[2277] June 19th, 2001.

[2278] Startopia from Eidos.

[2279] It kind of looks like Spore before Spore.

[2280] Really bad cover.

[2281] Like a lot of...

[2282] It's a really bad cover.

[2283] Muckyfoot.

[2284] Oh, okay.

[2285] Yeah.

[2286] They've got a Dark Spore beta up and running on Steam.

[2287] Yeah, I kind of wanted to check that out.

[2288] I heard good things.

[2289] It's been up and running for a while, and I've been hearing people saying that they don't hate it.

[2290] It sounds extremely Diablo -esque, which could be worse.

[2291] Yeah, it always kind of looked like that.

[2292] But then also people were saying something about hats, as though there's maybe a...

[2293] Hmm.

[2294] There's definitely loot.

[2295] A TF2 hat.

[2296] I mean, there is a significant, in fact, a central loot component, as I understand it.

[2297] Yeah.

[2298] But I mean, like, there may be, like, hats for TF2, and people wouldn't fucking do anything for TF2 hats.

[2299] You straight up get an exclusive TF2 hat for playing this beta.

[2300] Oh, yeah.

[2301] Then I think that's been the basis for everyone loving this beta.

[2302] I wonder how much Valve makes on those deals.

[2303] The hat deals?

[2304] Yeah.

[2305] please attach a TF2 hat to our product so people play our product.

[2306] I wonder how they decide it.

[2307] I wonder if it's an internal initiative.

[2308] They did this potato sack deal with a bunch of indie games, and then they added potatoes to all these games that didn't have them previously.

[2309] Like Super Meat Boy had a Super Potato Boy character.

[2310] They had a potato hat for TF2 if you bought it also, even though that wasn't part of the deal.

[2311] But it was like 13 indie games for $40 or something.

[2312] Oh, Valve.

[2313] I always imagine it was like...

[2314] two guys working there.

[2315] It's like, I don't know.

[2316] We just kind of make weird deals and pretend that we're making a game once in a while.

[2317] It's just Gabe and then Eric and Chet just going like, I don't know.

[2318] I don't know.

[2319] What does he want?

[2320] Send it at a press release.

[2321] Tell him Half -Life 3 is coming.

[2322] He said he wanted a potato hat.

[2323] I'm like, all right.

[2324] Doug Lombardi just doesn't even exist.

[2325] It's not even a real dude.

[2326] That's just an email address.

[2327] That's all that is.

[2328] He's not a man. He's an idea.

[2329] He has finally transcended it and become fully email -based.

[2330] He lives in the community.

[2331] Don't close Outlook!

[2332] Oh, God!

[2333] You just killed Doug!

[2334] Oh, no!

[2335] You fiend!

[2336] The way that they were getting the word out on this thing, I didn't observe this directly.

[2337] This is secondhand from the message board, but apparently the beta was just showing up in your list of games and it's owned.

[2338] They've done that on free weekends and stuff before.

[2339] I got a press release or a message from PR saying, hey, we're doing this beta and it's just going to show up in your Steam list.

[2340] It's like, hey, check your list of games.

[2341] It'll be in there.

[2342] Yeah, a bunch of stuff.

[2343] But also when you log into Steam, it was always the first thing that was coming at you.

[2344] Like, hey, the beta is now available and you can buy a four -pack of it for – I think right now it's even still doing it.

[2345] But like – TF2 betas, I think Counter -Strike betas have totally shown up in my list, little promotional bonuses.

[2346] The annoying thing they used to do for us as people who are looking at the data that they put out is they used to add games to your game list, even if you hadn't played them before, if they did a free weekend for them.

[2347] So they did it like, here's Data Feet Source free weekend, and all of a sudden every one of the profiles on our site that is linked to Steam would suddenly have that game show up with no achievements.

[2348] And they corrected that.

[2349] Even retroactively, I think.

[2350] Crapping up our data.

[2351] Yeah.

[2352] Surprising.

[2353] It seems Valve is pretty vigilant about their data.

[2354] It's just one of those things that they probably didn't think about.

[2355] I don't think it was malicious.

[2356] Well, they fixed it after the fact, so good on them.

[2357] All hail Steam, all hail Valve.

[2358] Right.

[2359] I don't think we're allowed to say otherwise.

[2360] Or else they will actually keep us from covering PC games.

[2361] They will actually shut us down.

[2362] They will stop sending the hats.

[2363] They will cut off the hats.

[2364] We need the hats.

[2365] They will cut off the hats.

[2366] Don't make them cut off the hats.

[2367] Do what they want.

[2368] The hard drive on Doug Lombardi is spinning up right now.

[2369] You see a shot of a keyboard and the keys just start clicking themselves.

[2370] Hat deactivation protocol.

[2371] Activate.

[2372] No, we need the hats.

[2373] I unplugged them.

[2374] They turned off our old hats, too.

[2375] No hats at all.

[2376] Damn it.

[2377] What about my vintage weapons that I got the hard way?

[2378] No, those are gone, too.

[2379] No hats, no weapons.

[2380] That's it for news, y 'all.

[2381] Let's talk about some new releases for this week.

[2382] It's April.

[2383] There are no new releases.

[2384] Yay!

[2385] That's not true.

[2386] There are a couple new releases.

[2387] Carnival – well, not really though.

[2388] Wait, but it's April.

[2389] You can't say it's April.

[2390] You can say it's early April because April is going to have some – You can say it's the first week.

[2391] Oh, you're right.

[2392] You can say it's the first week of the second quarter.

[2393] That makes way more sense.

[2394] All right.

[2395] I just – I didn't want to get all fucking inside baseball immediately.

[2396] But yes.

[2397] The quarter just ended, which is why last week we posted 11 quick looks because everyone has to rush out their games before the end of the quarter to make their numbers.

[2398] But that means at the beginning of the quarter there are no new games worth really mentioning or talking about.

[2399] Carnival Games, Monkey See, Monkey Do for Xbox 360 Kinect.

[2400] Carnival Games.

[2401] More Kinect bangers.

[2402] Bringing you shiftless, half -hearted.

[2403] Minigame collections since 2006.

[2404] A lot of radio -friendly unit shifters.

[2405] And basically you can put this other game in the exact same bucket as Carnival Games, Monkey See, Monkey Do.

[2406] Karaoke Glee Volume 2 for the Nintendo Wii.

[2407] Volume 2.

[2408] Volume 2.

[2409] I didn't even realize the volume 1 shipped.

[2410] They are on, like, volume 6 of the, like, CD compilations from that fucking show that they put out.

[2411] All I know is that it's always, like, number 1 and 2 on the iTunes charts.

[2412] It's the new, now that's what I call music.

[2413] Right.

[2414] Basically.

[2415] It's the new Kidz Bop.

[2416] Except that, yeah, yeah.

[2417] Except that they actually have people re -sing it.

[2418] It's the new Hot Dance 98.

[2419] It is the new Hot Dance 98.

[2420] I should bring that in sometime.

[2421] Blow your guys' minds.

[2422] Some real music.

[2423] Some real music.

[2424] Some real shit.

[2425] Best version of Block Rock and Beats you may ever hear.

[2426] I'm sorry, the only version of Block Rock and Beats.

[2427] The Chemical Who.

[2428] I'm unfamiliar with them.

[2429] What is it?

[2430] Hot Dance 98.

[2431] Shitty, like, current hits.

[2432] Pop hits comp that I bought at Walmart for like a dollar in – Unlicensed?

[2433] In 1998.

[2434] No, licensed, but licensed as covers.

[2435] Yeah.

[2436] So they're not paying performance royalties.

[2437] And songs that are easy to cover like the Chemical Brothers block rocking beats.

[2438] Which is like – all of it sounds fine.

[2439] All of it sounds like maybe it was generated by like a Gravis Ultra – like a Gus Max.

[2440] But then the part where it gets to the vocals is where it breaks because it's just like they can't – They can't use that sample, so they've got to do it themselves.

[2441] They've got to record it themselves.

[2442] So you just have this guy going, I fell out of the car.

[2443] You did.

[2444] You fell out of my car.

[2445] I fell out of his car in the Walmart parking lot listening to that.

[2446] He actually – this is not for the effect of the story.

[2447] Is this from 98?

[2448] Yeah, this is in 98.

[2449] He was laughing so goddamn hard he fell out of the car.

[2450] Yeah, it's something magic.

[2451] I'll have to play that for you guys sometime.

[2452] Anyway, Karyuki Glee, Volume 2, available now for the Nintendo Wii.

[2453] Getting ready to fall out of your car.

[2454] For Xbox Live Arcade this week, you've got Dishwasher Vampire Smile.

[2455] We've got a quick look of that up on the site.

[2456] Also coming out this week, first DLC.

[2457] I assume first.

[2458] Well, it is first, but I assume there will be more to follow.

[2459] First DLC for stacking.

[2460] Double Fine's stacking.

[2461] I think it's first and only.

[2462] Is it first and only?

[2463] Yeah, they've only been doing one for the previous stuff.

[2464] Costume Quest only had the one.

[2465] That's true.

[2466] But that was...

[2467] One yet.

[2468] I mean, there could be more Costume Quest.

[2469] Yeah, probably not.

[2470] Double Fine's only so big.

[2471] But there also hasn't been a good holiday since then, and you kind of need that for Costume Quest.

[2472] True.

[2473] Fourth of July.

[2474] Fourth of July.

[2475] Yeah, I would totally play a Fourth of July pack.

[2476] They've got more downloadable games to make.

[2477] Dude, if you're armed with fireworks...

[2478] Oh, I'm not disputing.

[2479] The entertainment value.

[2480] Uncle Sam.

[2481] Of the 4th of July.

[2482] They already had the Statue of Liberty.

[2483] Giant team up with giant robot Abe Lincoln and Uncle Sam, who was also Godzilla.

[2484] I mean, they had the french fry spider.

[2485] They need to integrate hot dogs and some...

[2486] Was Abe Lincoln not in there?

[2487] Hot dog caterpillar done.

[2488] I went to a bar over the weekend.

[2489] Check, please.

[2490] Yeah.

[2491] That had not just free popcorn.

[2492] Okay.

[2493] But free hot dogs.

[2494] What?

[2495] Where is it?

[2496] Full on roller machine.

[2497] Give me the address of this place.

[2498] There was nobody in there.

[2499] And like full fixings.

[2500] Like a whole little bar of onions and sauerkraut and jalapenos.

[2501] Quit beating around the bush, man. Where is this?

[2502] Mustard and ketchup.

[2503] No, don't say it.

[2504] Don't say it out loud.

[2505] Slip me a note.

[2506] I'll tell you later.

[2507] Oh.

[2508] It's not.

[2509] It's here?

[2510] It's not even that far from here.

[2511] It's here?

[2512] It's in the city.

[2513] It's in this city?

[2514] Yes.

[2515] God damn it.

[2516] Full on popcorn machine, but also like real roller.

[2517] Self -server.

[2518] Yeah, so you walk right up.

[2519] You don't even have to ask somebody?

[2520] You grab the tongs.

[2521] No, it's just sitting there.

[2522] You grab the tongs.

[2523] Man. I think it would be a good form if you were to buy a drink at the bar before you ate a hot dog.

[2524] I can do that.

[2525] Other than that, if you're willing to serve the decor of the bar.

[2526] Diet Coke, please.

[2527] Can you get a water?

[2528] Diet Coke, please.

[2529] We were in there drinking beer anyway.

[2530] Wow.

[2531] Then, hey, hot dogs.

[2532] Almost as good as nachos.

[2533] Better.

[2534] And they were big, like jumbo -sized hot dogs.

[2535] Where do I get free nachos?

[2536] I don't know.

[2537] You got a bar?

[2538] You got a place?

[2539] I don't know that yet.

[2540] I want to open a nacho bar.

[2541] All the fixings.

[2542] We got the steam tray for that.

[2543] It's true.

[2544] We need more pots, though.

[2545] What?

[2546] What?

[2547] There are three pots.

[2548] Yeah.

[2549] No, I want like a full -fledged nacho bar.

[2550] I don't want just like your basics.

[2551] Cheese, cheese, and cheese.

[2552] Yeah, because I was going to say we had three pots full of cheese.

[2553] How many more do you want?

[2554] No, no, not just more cheese.

[2555] I'm saying like different stuff.

[2556] Chili.

[2557] Do some chili in one of those.

[2558] Yes, chili in one of those.

[2559] Maybe you want a couple of different kinds of chili.

[2560] Maybe you want a couple of different kinds of cheese.

[2561] Be able to mix it up.

[2562] Chili with beans, chili without beans.

[2563] Yeah, some people don't like beans.

[2564] They're jerks.

[2565] Jalapenos.

[2566] I like jalapenos.

[2567] Coming out on PlayStation Network this week, Star Drone.

[2568] That's not the game you were thinking.

[2569] That's the DRM, right?

[2570] Yeah, Star Drone is the name of the DRM.

[2571] No, this is PlayStation.

[2572] It installs a rootkit on your PlayStation 3 and ruins the drive.

[2573] Don't.

[2574] It's a PlayStation Move -based game that involves physics and.

[2575] pinball -like action.

[2576] I saw some shots of this and thought it looked kind of neat.

[2577] We have it.

[2578] We'll be taking a look at it later this week.

[2579] Great.

[2580] Also out this week, Red Faction Battlegrounds.

[2581] This is the downloadable kind of pre.

[2582] Oh, man, that's out this week.

[2583] So PlayStation's listing it.

[2584] I have not heard one way or the other if it is making it to Xbox Live Arcade this week, though it seems like usually these things, they...

[2585] Is that the pre -order bonus?

[2586] Yeah.

[2587] Okay.

[2588] Or you can just buy it, right?

[2589] Or you can just straight up buy it.

[2590] Is that like Dead Space Ignition style some other kind of game?

[2591] Yeah.

[2592] It's not.

[2593] This is a top -down.

[2594] Red Faction Battlegrounds is a fast -paced, multiplayer -focused vehicular combat game.

[2595] So it's not a Dead Rising K -Zero style, like tiny slice of the real game?

[2596] No, unfortunately, after we saw Armageddon, I am with you on being pumped to get at some of that stuff.

[2597] Like, just put me in a featureless room with those weapons.

[2598] No, you need a room that is covered in shit that you can then blow up.

[2599] But, I mean, you could shove a tech demo out the door based on that game.

[2600] That would sell it.

[2601] That one level that we saw that we have the Quick Look EX of.

[2602] Yeah, that basically was a tech demo.

[2603] Yeah.

[2604] Sell that as a pre -order bonus or, you know, for five bucks as a downloadable thing.

[2605] Stop giving them ideas.

[2606] No, I would give them five bucks for it because it would be good.

[2607] Dude, I think K -Zero was...

[2608] Yeah, yeah.

[2609] In case you're arguably better than the rest of the Dead Rising experience.

[2610] But that model even, the way they implemented that was very respectable.

[2611] You could feel good about paying $5 for that game.

[2612] Yeah, yeah.

[2613] You're right.

[2614] It was new content.

[2615] If they did something like that again, then that would be really cool.

[2616] So, yeah, I'm going to make an educated guess here that that will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade this week as well, but I do not have confirmation either way because there's no good, reasonable, reliable way to find out information on downloadable games.

[2617] Oh, God.

[2618] Vinny, what's up?

[2619] I was going to say there was just a thing about it being the pre -order bonus.

[2620] I wonder if it's said in there.

[2621] If it's available now?

[2622] Yeah.

[2623] Would you pre -order it?

[2624] No, but it was a press release or something.

[2625] I might go pre -order it if that's the bonus.

[2626] I'm going to go check it out.

[2627] I'm probably going to buy that game anyway.

[2628] It looks all right.

[2629] It looks pretty cool.

[2630] Where are you going, dude?

[2631] Just opening the door.

[2632] Oh.

[2633] Yeah, that's new releases.

[2634] Let's talk emails.

[2635] Let's talk turkey.

[2636] Who wants to?

[2637] I want to talk about emails.

[2638] About what?

[2639] About what?

[2640] Emails.

[2641] First email comes in from Edgar in San Diego, California.

[2642] Hello, Giant Bomb Castrati.

[2643] Brad was saying that when you hold the select button on the 3DS before launching a DS game, it will be displayed with a one -to -one resolution, and the bottom screen becomes too small to use with a stylus.

[2644] I tried this, and the screen does indeed become smaller, but I did not feel it was unusable.

[2645] As he had mentioned, could it be different games displayed at different resolutions?

[2646] I was playing Puzzle Quest.

[2647] Yes, the first Puzzle Quest.

[2648] I didn't say it was unusable.

[2649] I just said it was a reduced surface area with which to use the file.

[2650] I'm pretty sure you threw out the word unusable at some point.

[2651] I am quite sure I did not.

[2652] I forget everything that happens in this room immediately as we finish it.

[2653] No, I think this was during the live show.

[2654] Okay.

[2655] No, I don't think that.

[2656] I don't believe in either venue I'd use.

[2657] any such absolute...

[2658] Well, either way, that's going to be something that's going to be different for different people.

[2659] And different games.

[2660] How they feel about that stuff.

[2661] And different games require different amounts of precision when you're playing with stylus.

[2662] And I mean, honestly, for me, there is that option to shrink the screen, but I find in all of the games that I've played on, in all of the DS games that I've played on the 3DS, I have found the interpolation stuff completely inoffensive.

[2663] It's not terrible.

[2664] You can see it.

[2665] Well, if you hold one up to the other, you can totally see it, but I never felt like any assets were being overly obscured.

[2666] I could always read the text.

[2667] Yeah, it's certainly playable.

[2668] All things considered.

[2669] It just doesn't look quite as nice.

[2670] No, not if you have a DSi.

[2671] But not good enough that if I have a 3DS, I'm going to continue carrying around a DSi.

[2672] Yeah.

[2673] I'm not going to double my DS payload.

[2674] with me for that.

[2675] Four screens, dude.

[2676] I gotta go.

[2677] So there you go.

[2678] Here's your email.

[2679] Should I read an email about Clayfighter?

[2680] Which one?

[2681] Is it from a Clayfighter?

[2682] 63 and a third.

[2683] It is from a guy named Clay.

[2684] Is he a fighter?

[2685] Does this have nothing to do with Clayfighter?

[2686] It happens to be that his name is Clayfighter.

[2687] No, his name is Nick something.

[2688] He's from somewhere in Indiana.

[2689] Unpronounceable words.

[2690] Goodness gracious.

[2691] Dear Bobcast, recently dug out my old SNES and played some good old -fashioned clay fighter.

[2692] I gravitated towards my usual characters of blob and blue suede goo while reliving this atrocious game, but had a good time just messing around for a few hours.

[2693] So my question is, what are some not good fighters or even games from that era that you hold dear, even though they may not have been good games?

[2694] Firepower 2000.

[2695] What's that?

[2696] It's a shooter.

[2697] It would be like a tank or a jeep.

[2698] He said fighting games, right?

[2699] He said fighting or just anything from that era.

[2700] Anything from the old SNES days.

[2701] I don't know.

[2702] A lot of people seem to like that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tournament fighters, but I never really thought it was a very good game.

[2703] I didn't play that.

[2704] Clay Fighter was kind of crappy, but Icky Bod Clay was all right.

[2705] The names really are what kind of stick in your mind.

[2706] I knew a woman who worked on the California, I think she masterminded the California Raisins ad campaign from the 80s.

[2707] Creepy.

[2708] And it was the same animation studio that did all the Clay Fighters stuff.

[2709] So she was telling me about crazy Clay Fighters shit before that came out.

[2710] What are our feelings on Blackthorn?

[2711] Oh, dude, I love that game.

[2712] Blackthorn?

[2713] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2714] Great game, dude.

[2715] You could shoot the shotgun backwards.

[2716] Yeah.

[2717] How good was that?

[2718] Is that your entry?

[2719] Apparently it's not bad.

[2720] No, it's not bad, so it can't be my entry.

[2721] Seventh Saga, did you guys ever play that?

[2722] I don't know.

[2723] It's a bad RPG.

[2724] Yeah, it's a sort of second cut -rate RPG, right?

[2725] It was a terrible game, but I always thought it was pretty neat in Time Killers that you could cut off limbs before the end of the match.

[2726] Yeah.

[2727] I was like, dude, you can't maim or kill.

[2728] That was a really good bullet point for a really terrible game.

[2729] Then like Bloodstorm, which is kind of like the sequel or like from the same dudes, Strata.

[2730] That was really good video game names.

[2731] It was like in the full height of Mortal Kombat, ripping often.

[2732] So it had like 9 ,000 fatalities or something stupid.

[2733] It was like any button combo you could hit would do something dumb.

[2734] That was the game that Johnny Cage or Daniel Dan Pesina did ads for.

[2735] Didn't also unpack too, right?

[2736] Two of them were.

[2737] That era represents one of my significant blind spots.

[2738] I was not playing a ton of games in the late 90s or in the mid 90s.

[2739] I guess technically that chunk there.

[2740] So I don't know.

[2741] Terminal velocity for the PC.

[2742] That was pretty good.

[2743] I love that game.

[2744] Yeah.

[2745] I remember thinking people who were playing Descent were crazy.

[2746] Oh, don't even...

[2747] Descent's awesome.

[2748] It's so confusing.

[2749] Descent?

[2750] Yeah.

[2751] Descent 2?

[2752] Descent 2 was less confusing.

[2753] They got better, and Descent 3 was...

[2754] By the time you got to Descent 3, there's like a little orb that'd be like, here's where you need to go.

[2755] Come on, come this way.

[2756] Come over here.

[2757] I'm going to shoot this flare at this door, because you need to come up here and do this with your real guns.

[2758] Yeah.

[2759] Exactly.

[2760] Next email comes from Adam in Aurora, Colorado.

[2761] Hey, guys.

[2762] I know this has probably been answered before, but I was just wondering, will the rise of DLC in games and downloadable games become a more mainstream thing?

[2763] I'm sorry.

[2764] With the rise of DLC in games and downloadable games becoming a more mainstream thing, do you think that we will be able to transfer all that content to new consoles whenever they are released?

[2765] I know this concept has been discussed, but I feel like kind of the 3DS.

[2766] This is the first wave of that.

[2767] Like, this is potentially setting a tone.

[2768] Maybe.

[2769] I mean, because this is the first time that we've had that cross -generational thing where DLC was significant.

[2770] You're right, but...

[2771] Like, there was some DLC on the original Xbox.

[2772] Backwards compatibility has been a key trait of Nintendo's handheld strategy, though.

[2773] Whereas it's a much...

[2774] more technically challenging to implement on a console than on a handheld of that caliber.

[2775] Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily guaranteed that...

[2776] the next PlayStation or the next Xbox will significantly run.

[2777] I bet it'll happen the same way it happened this time, where early generation, yeah, it'll be either select titles or it'll be something they mention as a bullet point because there'll be people making that transition that need to hear that.

[2778] They go, oh, I don't know.

[2779] I mean, like parents need to go like, oh, those damn games I bought don't work anymore.

[2780] I don't know.

[2781] Xbox 2 360 was weird because they went from NVIDIA to ATI.

[2782] Right.

[2783] PS2 to 3 was weird because I think PS2 was basically all custom hardware.

[2784] Right.

[2785] And then they went to an NVIDIA slash, like, crazy cell architecture.

[2786] But, like, 360 to the next Xbox, if they stick with ATI, they stick with a similar, like, PowerPC architecture, they're still doing DirectX.

[2787] Like, they still got that API layer there.

[2788] You could maybe see it happening.

[2789] I don't know.

[2790] All that said, I bet Microsoft could argue.

[2791] convincingly that they have no responsibility to let you play any of that stuff on their next console.

[2792] Yep.

[2793] They could very easily just say, you know, we fulfilled the transaction.

[2794] You're not wrong on a legal level, but if Nintendo does it now and does it very nicely...

[2795] that, like, even if it's fucking harder and more expensive on a console, it creates an expectation.

[2796] Right.

[2797] Oh, yeah.

[2798] And if suddenly, like, right out the box, you are not meeting expectations, like, that's not the best thing.

[2799] And you're probably both right about, like, by the time that shit comes out, that sort of backwards compatibility won't be such a big deal.

[2800] But, you know, I have...

[2801] A lot of money has been tied up into various downloadable games.

[2802] Well, forget about downloadable games.

[2803] I mean, I've got actual retail games that don't run on my PlayStation 3.

[2804] This is true.

[2805] You know?

[2806] Like, what's different?

[2807] Like, yeah, it'd be nice, but...

[2808] I don't think there's any expectation.

[2809] I think part of it is the creation of the persistence that Microsoft has built into everything with achievements.

[2810] I think all that stuff, all the profile level stuff will carry over, but the ability to play those games, that would be great.

[2811] They should do it.

[2812] I would go as far as to say it's the right thing to do.

[2813] You would do right by your customer base by allowing them to do that.

[2814] But they would have done right by their...

[2815] customer base by making the xbox compatibility better on xbox 360 but they eventually got to that point where they they probably ran the numbers and said like you know what no one actually cares but well they cared about specific games and to that point you're probably right like if you support rock band i'll probably be happy because i've spent way too much fucking money on on rock band songs so i want that stuff to keep going on this next system but i think that's also something that could be up to, especially in the case of something like Rock Band, would be up to the individual developers.

[2816] That's a great point.

[2817] When Harmonix does a Rock Band for the next, yeah, that is tricky, I guess.

[2818] The licensing could be weird.

[2819] But then also, you'd think it's going to be to everyone's benefit if day one of new Xbox, there is a store full of stuff that even if we don't have a bunch of new shit for you to go and download.

[2820] Right, they're saying, like, we're launching with 40 ,000 titles.

[2821] Yeah, exactly.

[2822] all this DLC content that we built up, you know, this library of stuff that we built up for the last system, bam, slot it right into the new one.

[2823] Yeah.

[2824] I mean, it's a really powerful selling point, but if it's also the sort of thing that can hold back the, you know, if they're like hamstringing the platform to make sure that they can tie it back into the old stuff, like, you know, I would rather sacrifice the old stuff in favor of brand new technology and crazy business in favor of more connect.

[2825] Yes.

[2826] Kinect built into the console itself.

[2827] Just wherever you put it, it just finds you.

[2828] We got rid of the controllers.

[2829] You are the controller.

[2830] That's right.

[2831] And also, do you really want them to spend all their time making all these controller -based games play without a controller?

[2832] No. Emulating the Xbox 360 controller on Kinect 2?

[2833] What did you guys think of the...

[2834] Form an X with your body to push the X button?

[2835] The Blizzard April Fools.

[2836] You know, I didn't actually even see it.

[2837] I mean, I heard about what it was.

[2838] Starcraft on Kinect.

[2839] Yeah, it was just kind of like the same as the Gmail joke, right?

[2840] It was just like we made gesture -based.

[2841] I didn't see that one.

[2842] Yeah, it was Gmail motion.

[2843] That's not funny, man. Someone lied and then said, April Fools!

[2844] I thought, well, you'd have to watch the video.

[2845] I just don't think it's funny because that's a serious problem.

[2846] Conceptually, it's not.

[2847] Oh, I agree with you.

[2848] I agree with you.

[2849] It's a problem.

[2850] It's going to be really sad when those next consoles all come with cameras packed in.

[2851] Right, and it's going to be even sad when StarCraft is actually on connect at some point.

[2852] And you're like, God damn, this was a joke at one point.

[2853] They actually, their other joke was they just put out fake patch notes for StarCraft 2 that were actually really fucking funny.

[2854] Oh, cool.

[2855] There was a lot of really good stuff in there, such as like, fixed a bug where Terrans were able to lose a game.

[2856] Or...

[2857] Someone was saying something about there being a Super Mario Brothers, like, hot fix patch gag out there.

[2858] The idea of the minus worlds being patched out.

[2859] Yeah, I don't know.

[2860] Neighbor fools.

[2861] Next email comes in from Johnny in Manchester, England.

[2862] Hey, Bomb Squad.

[2863] In last week's Bombcast, you guys were talking about how Peace and Need for Speed music was featured in Mass Effect 2.

[2864] I mainly just wanted to point out that WWE All -Stars uses the Red Alert 3 Hellmarch music track as menu music for the Path of Champions.

[2865] That is a way weirder...

[2866] crossover like cross publisher at that point we'd have to like go listen to that one -to -one and make sure because i did listen to that and it does sound vaguely hell marchian but i did not do a one -to -one on it um yeah but i did i did hear that that sounds too crazy to to even believe but I don't remember what it sounded like in Red Alert.

[2867] But also, my first thought was, well, it's cross -published.

[2868] That couldn't happen.

[2869] I thought, wait, these are probably just like we were talking about, libraries of animation.

[2870] There's probably libraries of— But I always thought that the whole Hellmarch thing was something that they came up with for Command & Conquer and was a signature theme of Command & Conquer and not something that they just pulled out of some library.

[2871] I would have to agree with that.

[2872] Yeah, I wonder if it's just something that's, like, really stylistically.

[2873] Allow me to refer you to Command & Conquer 4.

[2874] Well, that's, you know.

[2875] But I'm pretty sure they sold that soundtrack.

[2876] Like, they couldn't be public domain.

[2877] They could license it for sale if they wanted to.

[2878] That'd be a weird license.

[2879] Resell royalty -free music.

[2880] That'd be a little weird.

[2881] For the right price, anything's possible.

[2882] That's true.

[2883] Next email comes in from Ed in North Sydney, Australia.

[2884] I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about the start screen.

[2885] I think this aging fossil needs to be admitted to a – I can't even say that word – to elder care.

[2886] What I don't like is having – I changed it.

[2887] I don't care.

[2888] What I don't like is having to actually press start as any key should suffice.

[2889] I've actually been seeing that more lately.

[2890] I think last week I saw – Push any key?

[2891] No, several games where it says push start and it's like, all right, I want to push A. And it's like, no, push start.

[2892] Oh, okay, you actually want me to push start.

[2893] They want to make sure you're paying attention.

[2894] They want to make sure you're on.

[2895] I don't know why Dragon Age 2 has a...

[2896] Flash and push any key to get into the menu.

[2897] And maybe it's a console thing or something.

[2898] But like on the PC, it goes through its logo thing and then just hits a screen that says push any key.

[2899] Crisis 2 does that.

[2900] He also complains here.

[2901] What's going on in the background?

[2902] Having to watch Havoc and eight other middleware software things.

[2903] But all of these things are not.

[2904] To answer your question, these are not necessarily the demands or the desires of the developers or the publishers.

[2905] This is stuff that console owners like Microsoft and Sony are saying.

[2906] Yeah, no, you need to have a start screen.

[2907] It's one of the standard features you need to have.

[2908] Well, we had this question a while back.

[2909] Dan Teesdale wrote in.

[2910] Was that who it was?

[2911] Yeah.

[2912] And they basically told us all the setup stuff you can do behind the scenes.

[2913] Yeah, it's like you need to have like.

[2914] You know, who is logged in.

[2915] Like, it has to adjust.

[2916] That has to be the screen where it determines, like, what accounts are signed in, what says it's going to load, and all that stuff.

[2917] You need to be able to back out to that neutral state.

[2918] And Daniel Warren writes in to say that Mixamo is apparently the name of a motion capture library based in San Francisco.

[2919] That's exactly the thing that we were talking about.

[2920] Are they hiring?

[2921] They need to put on a ball suit?

[2922] You go to Mixamo .com.

[2923] I guess they were supplying Telltale.

[2924] Did they do the motion capture data for Maximo?

[2925] That's where they came up with the name.

[2926] Man, that's the studio in which the Mighty Blow was first formed.

[2927] I guess they're working on the Jurassic Park game, as you mentioned earlier.

[2928] Or providing mocap data.

[2929] I don't know that necessarily working on counts here.

[2930] Miximo.

[2931] Next email comes in from Adam Lukowski.

[2932] I don't know where he's coming from.

[2933] Adam Lukowski writes in and says, Hey, Bombcast.

[2934] Last week we were talking a bunch about old Mario games and how, Brad, this is for you, and how Super Mario Sunshine is now an old Mario game.

[2935] So keep up.

[2936] Hey, Bombcast.

[2937] No. No, it's fact.

[2938] I'm sorry.

[2939] I'm sorry.

[2940] Wait.

[2941] We can't do anything about it.

[2942] The fact that it's old?

[2943] Yeah.

[2944] Oh, I'm not denying that.

[2945] But it is now someone's first Mario game.

[2946] It is now someone's favorite Mario game.

[2947] You told me to keep up.

[2948] I thought you meant go play Mario Sunshine.

[2949] Oh, no, no, no, no. That's what I was saying no to.

[2950] Violently shaking my head here.

[2951] I would never say that.

[2952] I've never played it.

[2953] I would never say that to you.

[2954] Guys, it's a great game.

[2955] I respect you too much.

[2956] Okay.

[2957] Never say that.

[2958] All right.

[2959] I did buy it.

[2960] I just never played it.

[2961] Oh, wait.

[2962] It's good?

[2963] All right.

[2964] Well, never mind.

[2965] No, this comes in from Adam Lukowski in Manitoba.

[2966] You said you would be sad the day that someone said, remember old school Mario and showed you a copy of Super Mario Sunshine, claiming it was part of their childhood.

[2967] Funny story, when Sunshine came out, I was about nine.

[2968] So it was one favorite game back when I was a kid.

[2969] I had both SNES and N64 and played a lot of Mario games, so it was not my first Mario game.

[2970] With that said, I personally still enjoy Mario Sunshine even today as I have played it recently.

[2971] So my question is, why the hell?

[2972] hate for Super Mario Sunshine.

[2973] I am aware that it is not as good as the others, but there's no reason to hate a game.

[2974] Yes, it is.

[2975] It not being good is exactly why.

[2976] That game is not bad.

[2977] It has some messed up levels where the camera becomes incredibly annoying.

[2978] That game does not have the fit and finish, the level of high playability that all of the Mario games on either side of it really had.

[2979] Yeah.

[2980] It was like, this is a 3D platformer.

[2981] And if you remember, the game before that was, here is the idea of 3D platformers.

[2982] And then the one to follow that is, it's an okay one.

[2983] That's a hard, hard drop.

[2984] It looked really nice.

[2985] Yeah, you're right.

[2986] You're right.

[2987] At the time, it was still...

[2988] Pretty cool, even though that was the game I had to play with my office door shut because of all the swearing.

[2989] That was a really singularly damning way to sum up that game.

[2990] Like, to call a Mario game just a platformer.

[2991] Yeah.

[2992] That's all I need to hear.

[2993] If you're telling me it is just another run -of -the -mill 3D platformer of that era.

[2994] Well, you had the water pack.

[2995] I mean, it had mechanics in it that weren't necessarily super run -of -the -mill.

[2996] It did, but they also weren't super Mario.

[2997] I'm talking about a term of quality.

[2998] Yeah, you're right.

[2999] They were not necessarily.

[3000] You're making it sound like it was a good play.

[3001] Thank you.

[3002] I felt good about that.

[3003] I caught that.

[3004] Yeah, actually, for me personally, that was a big part of what turned me off to Sunshine was the fact that, like, okay, the backpack, the flood thing is kind of cool, but, like, this game isn't recognizable to me really as a Mario game.

[3005] I don't think Mario is not like pizza or sex in that even when it's bad, it's still, you know?

[3006] Yep.

[3007] You know what I mean?

[3008] I can hear you.

[3009] Like, bad Mario is just bad.

[3010] Yeah.

[3011] What's some other bad Mario?

[3012] So Mario.

[3013] I mean, let's discount.

[3014] Mario is missing.

[3015] Is missing.

[3016] Damn it.

[3017] That's not Mario again.

[3018] It's a Luigi game.

[3019] It's like saying Luigi's Mansion.

[3020] So Luigi's Mansion also.

[3021] Damn it.

[3022] Also Luigi's Mansion, for whatever reason, I actually remember in an oddly fondly way.

[3023] Weird.

[3024] Do you count any of his sports stuff as Mario games?

[3025] Or is he just got to pay the bills?

[3026] Yeah, I guess those count, sure.

[3027] I mean, the Mario Party games.

[3028] All right, then, all those.

[3029] Pretty awful, too.

[3030] All the Mario Party games, all of the Mario sports games.

[3031] Wasn't one of the Super Mario lands not so good?

[3032] The first one was like five minutes.

[3033] The first one was great, though.

[3034] I love the first one.

[3035] It's got that airplane in it.

[3036] Yeah.

[3037] The third one was when Wario got introduced.

[3038] Yeah, maybe that's what it was.

[3039] No, the second one was six golden coins.

[3040] That was really good.

[3041] Okay, no, then that one was, the second one was the Wario one then.

[3042] That one was really good.

[3043] The third one was when you played as Wario, wasn't it?

[3044] Yes.

[3045] It was like Super Mario Land 3 colon Yo, it's Wario.

[3046] Yo, I'm Wario.

[3047] So that's not a Wario game.

[3048] Wario apostrophe M. Storm.

[3049] Wario Storm.

[3050] Something like that.

[3051] Wasn't it?

[3052] I'm not going to look it up.

[3053] Come on.

[3054] I'm not going to look it up.

[3055] Fact check.

[3056] No. No fact checking.

[3057] Maybe.

[3058] Who could say?

[3059] No. Someone will email us and we'll find out next week.

[3060] Next email and...

[3061] What's up?

[3062] Nothing.

[3063] Next email and last email comes in from Scott Lumsden.

[3064] Dear Bombcast Crew, my name is Scott Lumsden from Kalamazoo, Missouri.

[3065] And I have a question concerning deals on video games.

[3066] Deals!

[3067] How about some steals?

[3068] What's the deals?

[3069] How about some steals and some deals?

[3070] You got steals and deals?

[3071] What then?

[3072] Amazon just recently had a deal for Dragon Age 2, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, and Dead Space 2, all for $39 .99.

[3073] I'm sure he means a piece.

[3074] Each brand spanking new.

[3075] However, while I immediately took advantage of these amazing discounts, I felt guilty when I received them in the mail.

[3076] My guilt stemmed from my feeling that I had somehow taken money away from the hardworking men and women at these game studios and publishing companies.

[3077] I have two questions I pose to you.

[3078] One, should I feel guilty for having received these games at a discounted rate?

[3079] Two, who ultimately lost money in this transaction?

[3080] Amazon Publishers.

[3081] Some other third party.

[3082] Thanks again and keep up the fantastic.

[3083] Sex.

[3084] Nah, I think the publishers are getting the same amount of money regardless.

[3085] I believe this is a promotional deal happening through Amazon.

[3086] Right.

[3087] Because you never see this, like, you see this constantly on Amazon.

[3088] Yeah.

[3089] But you don't see this, like, across, like, Best Buy isn't suddenly selling all these games for $40.

[3090] And Amazon isn't exactly doing it for long periods of time.

[3091] It's usually, like, a day, a couple of days.

[3092] Sometimes a couple of hours.

[3093] Yeah.

[3094] Yeah, sometimes even shorter than that.

[3095] Yeah, Amazon knows that they can sell you one game and then be like, oh, you need like five more bucks to get shipping.

[3096] Or you scroll down a few pixels and it's customers who viewed this item also bought these six other games.

[3097] Sometimes the price cuts are across the board.

[3098] Guess what one of the suggested items for Zojirushi coffee mug buyers is?

[3099] What?

[3100] Pre -order for Duke Nukem Forever?

[3101] What does Duke Nukem put in?

[3102] We did that.

[3103] Vinny.

[3104] We did that.

[3105] Why is that?

[3106] We did that.

[3107] Why?

[3108] Who's pre -ordering?

[3109] We did that.

[3110] That was us.

[3111] That's our fault.

[3112] Oh.

[3113] Gross.

[3114] What does Duke Nukem put in his Zojirushi?

[3115] Write in.

[3116] Let us know.

[3117] I don't want to know.

[3118] You don't want to know?

[3119] He's sipping out of his Zojirushi.

[3120] He fills it full of hot rice.

[3121] If you know what I mean.

[3122] Ew.

[3123] Because I think I do.

[3124] Yeah, yeah.

[3125] So Amazon taking the hit on the promotional front end for these games.

[3126] But sometimes it is across the board.

[3127] Like the Hot Pursuit stuff, that was like a cross.

[3128] Every set was selling that thing for $49 or $39.

[3129] I don't think at retail it went down that fast.

[3130] I think on like Best Buy and stuff it did go down.

[3131] Because I remember being like – I think you go to a Best Buy right now, you're going to pay $60 for that game.

[3132] Maybe.

[3133] So that's the thing is that these are not – permanent price it's not like oh god we're not moving copies of these games we need to drop the price immediately i bet that it is partially fueled by that though um well yeah i mean it's probably like it's probably it seems like it's a very calculated carefully crafted thing where it's like i don't think it's i don't think it's that panic right is my point it's probably more that they kind of have a good trajectory they they know how the line works for sales in the second week and third week.

[3134] They can look at first week sales of a game and figure out what it's going to do after that.

[3135] Alright, we still have all these crates of this game.

[3136] And then they can look in the warehouse and go like, oh dude, we got too many of these.

[3137] It's going to take us a year to clear these out.

[3138] So let's burn off some of these with a deal.

[3139] Clear up some room.

[3140] Enslaved was the best current -ish example of that phenomenon because it's a game that we knew didn't sell very well and that we observed to be falling in price pretty consistently.

[3141] And I bet that this also partially reflects that there is some misinformation or something going on in the retail buyer -publisher relationship, that retailers are ending up buying more copies than they should or something like that.

[3142] And that seems problematic, that there's too much stuff entering into the channel that is never going to make it out unless they blow it out.

[3143] But those were all three of those were EA games, right, you said?

[3144] And then Need for Speed was also EA.

[3145] It seems like it's been happening with EA stuff.

[3146] Assassin's Creed Brotherhood got the exact same thing, so Ubisoft titles are not immune to it either.

[3147] Maybe it was just that EA was shipping a bunch of stuff in a row like that.

[3148] If you're Amazon, you're also buying copies of these games in such crazy bulk that I imagine selling $40 copies for a day is not...

[3149] You are still making money on those $40 copies if I had to guess.

[3150] You think they get the bulk rate or something?

[3151] They're not paying $59 .99 for those copies of – Need for speed.

[3152] Or maybe they make it up a lost leader style as well.

[3153] We got people buying stuff from Amazon and this many more people signed up for Prime as a result of other promotional stuff and this many people bought something else that maybe they wouldn't have bought otherwise.

[3154] Those Amazon guys are smart.

[3155] They got a lot of math.

[3156] I envision that there is just cold fucking math behind all of this and that it's probably working out pretty well for them.

[3157] Five bucks when I buy Portal 2 or something from them.

[3158] Here, take some money.

[3159] Okay.

[3160] Here's like nine bucks.

[3161] I don't trust you.

[3162] Here's like nine bucks for the streaming video stuff.

[3163] Here's five gigs of free space.

[3164] I don't know.

[3165] What are you trying to do?

[3166] Do you want to source some MP3s in the cloud or whatever?

[3167] Or just whatever in the cloud.

[3168] Yeah.

[3169] Whatever you got.

[3170] I was simultaneously watching the golden child on my Amazon account while uploading a bunch of music to the cloud.

[3171] Making full use.

[3172] Man. You're in the cloud?

[3173] I'm fucking all up in the cloud.

[3174] Gross.

[3175] I've got like two gigs of stuff up in the cloud.

[3176] Really?

[3177] Yeah.

[3178] In an Amazon cloud?

[3179] Yeah.

[3180] Look out for when the storm comes.

[3181] I can't wait.

[3182] I love that they're being flagrant towards the RIAA and being like, we don't have to license anything.

[3183] Fuck you.

[3184] Yeah.

[3185] Who cares?

[3186] Dropbox does it.

[3187] Everyone does it.

[3188] Yeah.

[3189] This is clearly not a thing.

[3190] But they've gone so far as to make a player for it.

[3191] Right.

[3192] Oh, so you can put your music up in the cloud and then stream it?

[3193] Yeah, I could go to a web browser on the Amazon website and all my music that's on there.

[3194] How much space do you?

[3195] Five gigs to start, and then if you buy music, that expands.

[3196] Wait, is this part of Prime?

[3197] No, this is part of Amazon.

[3198] Wait.

[3199] This happened while you were out also.

[3200] Dude.

[3201] It's not game -related, so I didn't bring it up, but yeah, this happened also.

[3202] I don't know what you're talking about either.

[3203] So all Amazon accounts have a cloud drive attached to it.

[3204] You can upload whatever to it.

[3205] Oh, not just music?

[3206] No, whatever.

[3207] Do you host images or whatever you want?

[3208] You can sideload MP3s that you buy from their store to your cloud drive.

[3209] Like when you purchase them?

[3210] Yeah, so you're not even downloading it and re -uploading.

[3211] It's just...

[3212] going over there.

[3213] Amazon does all sorts of crazy...

[3214] We use Amazon.

[3215] There's all sorts of...

[3216] Where is this server bank in underground?

[3217] It's everywhere.

[3218] They bought every abandoned missile silo in the Midwest.

[3219] It's in the cloud.

[3220] But it's gotta be somewhere.

[3221] No, it's all sorts of somewheres.

[3222] I am uploading terabytes of information to Amazon daily.

[3223] Where's it going?

[3224] They're building a cloud.

[3225] Is there like a little bit on your computer, a little bit on my computer as well?

[3226] No. All of it is on all computers.

[3227] Yes, Vinny.

[3228] Amazon is in all of us.

[3229] It's amazing.

[3230] I don't – Because I look at my desk and I see 32 hard drives sitting underneath there.

[3231] Man, that's a lot of space.

[3232] And then I upload all that to Amazon.

[3233] They have all that and then everybody else's stuff.

[3234] Not only that, but it's redundant.

[3235] Have you started uploading all those backups?

[3236] Are we going to get rid of our on -site backups as a result?

[3237] Well, half of it because I'm still going to back it up because I don't trust the cloud.

[3238] I don't want Sky Pirates to take my stuff.

[3239] Don't we pay them money so we can trust the integrity of the data?

[3240] Kind of.

[3241] So why do you still need hard drives?

[3242] Well, because if you have to download all that stuff, it's not worth my time.

[3243] I'll tell you this.

[3244] Because the office burns down.

[3245] So we don't have to keep buying more hard drives.

[3246] But he's saying he still is going to keep.

[3247] He's going to keep looping through the hard drives that we have.

[3248] So basically I have one half.

[3249] So basically right now I dupe every hard drive in case one hard drive fails.

[3250] Wow.

[3251] So if one hard drive fails now, I can re -download that hard drive.

[3252] I mean, I'm saying I trust Amazon more than I trust fucking Western Digital.

[3253] So do I. But downloading that will take a week.

[3254] Right.

[3255] So plugging a hard drive into a dock is still way faster.

[3256] I should get rid of all the old stuff.

[3257] People want the Persona 4 Endurance run in HD and it's going to happen someday.

[3258] It's ridiculous.

[3259] Except it'll never happen because the game wasn't in HD.

[3260] But we could fake it.

[3261] I'm cutting this part out as to remove that expectation.

[3262] Why?

[3263] No, it'll happen.

[3264] No, yeah, there will be new files for those.

[3265] If people want to know why it's taking so long to get the back catalog in HD, because it takes like almost a month to upload a terabyte of information to Amazon.

[3266] There was another option of like mail them the hard drives, but then what if those hard drives, you know, I trust Western Digital and Amazon more than I trust the fucking UPS or any.

[3267] Like some dude sitting there loading stuff onto the cloud.

[3268] Yeah.

[3269] Fly it up to the clouds.

[3270] He's eating Fritos as he's doing it, and just Frito dust is getting in the hard way.

[3271] This one doesn't read.

[3272] It's broken.

[3273] What do you think Vinny's doing?

[3274] It's corn chips.

[3275] Fritos.

[3276] It's like a Tostito.

[3277] It's like a tortilla kind of corn.

[3278] It's still corn chips.

[3279] Stone ground corn.

[3280] It's an undusted corn chip.

[3281] Yeah, it's not dusted with chili cheese dust.

[3282] Well, you didn't.

[3283] Tapatio dust.

[3284] They got Tapatio chips now.

[3285] You didn't specify that they were dusted.

[3286] Wait, what?

[3287] Yeah, there's Tapatio Fritos now.

[3288] No, they're Doritos.

[3289] There's also Fritos.

[3290] Oh, really?

[3291] Yeah.

[3292] Yeah, I bought it back.

[3293] I want some Cholula.

[3294] Very, very disappointing.

[3295] Really?

[3296] They were just hot Doritos.

[3297] Get back to me when there is a Cholula Frito.

[3298] I want somebody to take a picture of the cloud.

[3299] If you're listening right now, do it.

[3300] Send it right now.

[3301] You want to see what EC2 looks like?

[3302] Yes.

[3303] I hope it's one place.

[3304] It's not.

[3305] I happen to know personally that there's all sorts of clouds.

[3306] There's clouds all over the place.

[3307] I want Amazon to build a space elevator.

[3308] Whatever.

[3309] You know that, too.

[3310] And then store all their rack mounts.

[3311] But they all must be huge.

[3312] You know that specifically because we can't edit files because of that.

[3313] Because they get mirrored to nine.

[3314] Because it's mirrored.

[3315] I know it propagates, but all those places must be huge.

[3316] There's a lot of hard drives.

[3317] Yeah.

[3318] They have as many as the other one.

[3319] Really?

[3320] They would have to if they're going to be mirrors.

[3321] I don't know how this all works.

[3322] It's what a mirror does.

[3323] Well, there's different.

[3324] There's the mirror stuff.

[3325] There's the edge stuff that's the mirrored stuff.

[3326] But then there's the.

[3327] Okay, so not necessarily all of them.

[3328] So how many terabytes or petabytes would you say like one station is?

[3329] All of them.

[3330] All of the petabytes.

[3331] All of the petabytes.

[3332] All of the petabytes.

[3333] Somebody who works at a data center, write in.

[3334] I want to hear.

[3335] We want to hear about this stuff.

[3336] It must be just noisy.

[3337] Yeah.

[3338] I bet it's noisy but also super quiet.

[3339] Just put them in touch with me. I want to hear about the numbers.

[3340] I bet it's just the loudest white noise you've ever heard.

[3341] You think they're just hard drives?

[3342] Like two terabyte hard drives?

[3343] It's rack mounted everything.

[3344] Yeah, it's just like rows and rows.

[3345] It's a warehouse full of racks.

[3346] Yeah, but they're platters that look like pizzas.

[3347] Yeah, that's kept super cold.

[3348] Yeah, but it's like 50 degrees in there.

[3349] That's right.

[3350] They're writing.

[3351] They've got Laserdisc burners working overtime.

[3352] It's all holographic storage.

[3353] Of course.

[3354] I would love if it's just one giant platter spinning underground.

[3355] It actually spins at about 40 RPM because it's so big, but data density is great on it.

[3356] It's great.

[3357] Sometimes I jog on it when I need the exercise and stuff, so if your website's coming up a little slow.

[3358] They just tell you it's unlimited, but it can't be.

[3359] That's not real.

[3360] It's got to be physical somewhere.

[3361] You're saying there has to be a limit?

[3362] It's unlimited in that they are adding to it.

[3363] There's someone going in there and unwrapping fucking hard drives and plugging them into some rack.

[3364] Like, all right, well, we know that we need to.

[3365] Just constantly.

[3366] Day in, day out.

[3367] That's all his job is.

[3368] It's just plugging.

[3369] Rack 782 is full.

[3370] We need to spin up.

[3371] Like, he's just staying ahead.

[3372] Here's, like, on my left hand.

[3373] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[3374] It's like half a mile down the row from him that they're actually up to.

[3375] But it's like, I know I got to stay ahead.

[3376] I know I got to stay ahead.

[3377] If I don't keep up with this, we are fucked.

[3378] And, like, hard drive 10.

[3379] And my counterpart.

[3380] Houston is doing the same thing.

[3381] Because that hard drive is failing over there.

[3382] We don't replace it.

[3383] We just let him die.

[3384] Just keep going.

[3385] And he's going to loop back around and start replacing hard drive 1 through 10.

[3386] They're all on segues just rolling new hard drives out to the broken ones.

[3387] It's crazy.

[3388] It must be crazy.

[3389] We'll go visit an Amazon data center sometime.

[3390] Are we going to find our hard drive?

[3391] Yeah.

[3392] That's mine.

[3393] It's like, that's us.

[3394] That's where Giant Bob lives.

[3395] Don't touch it.

[3396] Don't touch it.

[3397] That's it for emails.

[3398] Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

[3399] Bombcast at GiantBob .com.

[3400] That's going to do it for our show this week.

[3401] Thank you, gentlemen.

[3402] Brad, good to have you back.

[3403] I don't feel good.

[3404] I think I'm allergic to work.

[3405] We're just going to bring Jared back in.

[3406] I've got to go.

[3407] Everyone loved him last week.

[3408] And congratulations to him and everyone on Fight for Relief.

[3409] It sounds like it was a slamming, smashing success.

[3410] Yeah.

[3411] I heard like five grand in cash at the event and like 30K, like some crazy, crazy numbers.

[3412] That sounded like the handoff between the two locations went well.

[3413] So the tech worked out too.

[3414] Oh, yeah?

[3415] Good, good.

[3416] Their crazy live stream handoff from Union City to Irvine.

[3417] Excellent.

[3418] I thought you meant the cash handoff.

[3419] Oh, no. Wow.

[3420] No, I meant like the handoff like when we handed off from San Francisco to Boston and back again during PAX.

[3421] Ah, yes, yes.

[3422] But, yeah, I understand it was a huge turnout as far as the contributions go.

[3423] So I hope that maybe we funneled a couple folks over there.

[3424] And, yeah, congratulations to all of them and to Japan, I guess.

[3425] Right?

[3426] Yeah.

[3427] That's going to do it for this week's episode of the Giant Bobcast.

[3428] Thanks for listening.

[3429] We'll be back next Tuesday with another edition of the Giant Bobcast.