Giant Bombcast 02-01-2011

[0] It is Tuesday, February the 1st, 2011, and you are listening to The Giant Bombcast.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis, back in the studio somehow.

[2] Puddle of Ryan Davis.

[3] Barely here, but here nonetheless.

[4] Yeah, it's been a rough couple of weeks, but I'm back.

[5] Vinny Caravella.

[6] Welcome back.

[7] I miss you.

[8] Thank you for welcoming me back.

[9] Jeff, thanks for insisting on me coming back.

[10] Good to see you.

[11] Brad Shoemaker, how the hell are you?

[12] Doing all right.

[13] Fantastic.

[14] Feeling well.

[15] Good.

[16] I feel hearty and hail.

[17] I got up this morning at 6 o 'clock.

[18] I worked out before work.

[19] I am raring to go.

[20] Fantastic.

[21] Let's talk about video games.

[22] First topic.

[23] Video games.

[24] Video games.

[25] Discuss.

[26] They're pretty cool.

[27] What do you guys think about that shit, huh?

[28] It's over.

[29] Show's over.

[30] Pack it up.

[31] You're right.

[32] We're beyond video games.

[33] They were better before.

[34] Remember back then?

[35] Yeah.

[36] Back before now.

[37] When everything was cool?

[38] Yeah.

[39] It was really cool.

[40] Just so much better than it is now.

[41] When it was new?

[42] Man. I can't believe what they're doing to them now.

[43] Yeah.

[44] It's just, I mean, that's what happens.

[45] You get something that the kids like that's independent and fun.

[46] I just don't even understand who it's for anymore.

[47] It's just like, why?

[48] Why would they even do that?

[49] Breakfast cereals.

[50] Yeah.

[51] Like a chip commercial?

[52] Like, come on.

[53] Give me a break.

[54] I like chips.

[55] Yeah, you know, you would, I guess, is what I'm saying.

[56] I'm back on board.

[57] Video games.

[58] Awesome.

[59] Vinny, have you been playing any video games recently?

[60] Not really.

[61] The only thing I jumped back into for a little bit was Dead Rising 2.

[62] The actual real, the full game?

[63] Yeah, because I don't know why.

[64] I just want to finish it.

[65] And so I bought those skill packs.

[66] I know.

[67] You paid real money for cheat codes?

[68] I did.

[69] You were feeding the beast.

[70] I know.

[71] Part of the problem here.

[72] I know.

[73] I know.

[74] I didn't feel good about it, but I want to make it through that game.

[75] And I think I turned a corner, and now the game seems to be flowing at kind of a regular pace, and I'm becoming less frustrated with it.

[76] After about 15 hours of pure hatred?

[77] After just being like, yeah, just kind of knocking my head against the wall, being like, what?

[78] Yep.

[79] Why would people do this?

[80] And then starting over and being like, this time will be all right, because now I'm starting over.

[81] And then kind of having the same problem.

[82] I feel like that's one of the few games where I would be tempted to...

[83] to just pay for the, the easy route of just like, just, but what do those get you?

[84] I mean, are the items and the stuff that are the bonuses that you get like worthwhile?

[85] Uh, so like the ninja outfit, um, and you can mix and match different pieces cause they come with like headgear and stuff like that.

[86] So the ninja outfit, uh, apparently makes you.

[87] uh, a little more invisible to the zombies.

[88] So they won't gang up on you.

[89] It seems to be actually be working.

[90] So I can walk through a crowd of zombies without getting grabbed from behind.

[91] That makes it more fun.

[92] Especially when I'm just trying to blow through like the crowded doors, you know, when you go to the doorway and everybody has, you have to wait for everybody to catch up with you.

[93] Uh, and then you have to turn the camera around to make sure they're there.

[94] And like, where the hell is this other guy?

[95] I can't see.

[96] Cause his icon is over the other person, but it's, you have a little door icon on his thing.

[97] So it works well there because they don't kind of gang up on you.

[98] So that one's cool.

[99] The sports fan one lets you drink alcohol as much as you want without getting sick.

[100] So you can use alcohol as a health.

[101] Pickups whenever you want.

[102] So that's cool because there are a couple of boss fights that happen near, like, wine shops.

[103] So you just kind of can walk into the wine shop and fight the dude kind of in there and just keep drinking alcohol.

[104] Also makes, I think, food recovery a little more efficient.

[105] There's a military getup, which supposedly makes all the firearms more powerful for you.

[106] I don't really use them that much, so I'm not 100 % sure.

[107] And they all give you new animations as well.

[108] So like when you've got the gun, he kind of does a little Predator style, kind of like one -handed kind of shooting.

[109] I don't know if that plays on the radio.

[110] Yeah, no, you're going – Oh.

[111] Leans back, elbow on the hip.

[112] Oh, like in that one movie.

[113] Yeah, like in that shooting movie.

[114] And the ninja one gives you a couple more animations when you have a sword.

[115] Like someone's doing the sprinkler.

[116] How big were these downloads?

[117] So basically he just sits on the tip of the gun and goes, hee -hee -hee, rubs his butt while it's firing.

[118] I want to know how big these downloads were.

[119] I don't know.

[120] Were they all 108 kilobytes by any chance?

[121] I don't know.

[122] I have no idea.

[123] Instantaneous.

[124] So small.

[125] But they're just costumes.

[126] Yeah, I'm just getting at it.

[127] Are they on the disc or not?

[128] There's also a psychopath one, which supposedly makes the psychopath weapons a little more powerful when you use them and gives you new animations as well.

[129] I don't know.

[130] Placebo effect.

[131] It's working.

[132] I'm making my way through that game.

[133] I will be done with Dead Rising 2.

[134] It'll go back on my shelf.

[135] I'll play Case West and I will move on with my life.

[136] Just envision that the game costs $75 to begin with.

[137] That's right.

[138] The cost of getting in.

[139] They were like $2 a piece.

[140] They're pretty cheap.

[141] I thought they were $5.

[142] Less.

[143] They were pretty cheap.

[144] But I guess they all came with the super edition or whatever, the bonus collector's edition.

[145] I think one of them comes with the collector's edition.

[146] Or you pre -order to get access to one or something like that.

[147] But everybody's 100 % right.

[148] In Dead Rising 1, there would have been stuff that you would have unlocked by killing a billion zombies.

[149] And it's a shame that those kind of incentives to do the crazy stuff are not in the game.

[150] Yeah.

[151] Anyway, enough Dead Rising 2 talk.

[152] I played Leighton over...

[153] But that's still not what's busted with that game.

[154] No. That's not...

[155] If they addressed that, it's like, oh, I think it's cool.

[156] But a little more carrot on a stick would have been nice to make you suffer through some of that stuff.

[157] I read recently, I wasn't aware of this, that the Dead Rising games are made by the Breath of Fire people.

[158] I don't know if that was common knowledge or not, but that kind of makes me understand why that game is the way it is now.

[159] Like, oh, yeah, you would make a game that's totally sadistic and mean.

[160] I just really, again, get on my soapbox.

[161] Here's my platform.

[162] You should be able to point dudes at that vent and waypoint it and say, go there.

[163] And they climb in the vent and you get your experience and walk away.

[164] Again, I will reiterate Playcase West because that's how that is.

[165] You should be able to do that.

[166] And also the upgrades, the weapon manufacturing stuff, the combo weapon system is just.

[167] Yeah.

[168] I need to do something.

[169] Leighton.

[170] Been going through Leighton through time.

[171] Back to Leighton.

[172] I'm waiting.

[173] I still have hope for that series.

[174] I'm not going to give up on it yet.

[175] Flew you twice.

[176] Yeah.

[177] Well, I'll get that.

[178] All right.

[179] Leighton.

[180] Leighton.

[181] It's cool.

[182] Just the new one.

[183] Well, there's a new new one coming out, right?

[184] There's one on the...

[185] There's like a zillion of them out in Japan.

[186] Right.

[187] But I would assume it's the one that's already out.

[188] Unland Future, yeah.

[189] Not the one that's still forthcoming.

[190] There's always a new one.

[191] Unland Future, enjoying that.

[192] That's very late in me. Future Luke and all that kind of craziness.

[193] Hopefully done with that soon.

[194] And then, yeah, that's pretty much it.

[195] I've been kind of waiting to jump in on Dead Space 2.

[196] Still just juggling which version I want before I commit.

[197] You wrapped up the first one?

[198] Dead Space?

[199] Yeah.

[200] Yeah, when that came out.

[201] You were an early convert on that one.

[202] Oh, yeah.

[203] I didn't need to be converted.

[204] That's a great game.

[205] You were already touched by the marker.

[206] Fantastic game.

[207] Yeah, I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of the Dead Space fiction.

[208] Oh, God.

[209] Like some others.

[210] Let's not get started.

[211] But I assume I will by the time I get into Dead Space 2.

[212] We had those novels in here.

[213] I know.

[214] You should have peeked at one of those.

[215] I've got a copy.

[216] Dino was talking like it wasn't bad.

[217] The new movie?

[218] Oh, the novel.

[219] The novel.

[220] Some people have said the novel's pretty good.

[221] Others have said it's terribly written, so I don't know who to believe on that one.

[222] It's a video game book, so.

[223] Sure, sure.

[224] I hear the new movie, not very good at all.

[225] Don't act all surprised or anything, but.

[226] I saw the first one.

[227] I think it's really weird that they're doing all that stuff.

[228] Really?

[229] I mean, it's nothing new.

[230] They did it all for the first Dead Space.

[231] I thought it was weird when they did it there, too.

[232] Like, hey, we got this new franchise, and it's already being spun out into this kind of transmedia nonsense before they have established that the game is good.

[233] Well, the game did turn out to be good.

[234] The game did turn out to be good, but I don't...

[235] Then again, they also did a DVD for Dante's Inferno.

[236] Yeah.

[237] I just, to add, I don't think that the fiction in Dead Space warrants...

[238] that level of exploration.

[239] There's more to it than you probably think.

[240] There's a little more to it than the game lets on, but I don't necessarily want to know that much more about it, I guess.

[241] The stuff that happens after the credits in Dead Space 2 is all I really need to know about the state of the world in Dead Space 2.

[242] That's crazy.

[243] It's what they have.

[244] I guess, yeah.

[245] It's EA's Halo.

[246] They tried several new...

[247] EA -Lo?

[248] Right, I'm turning off your microphone.

[249] Come on.

[250] I also played EA -Lo.

[251] Yeah, how was that?

[252] It's all right.

[253] It's okay.

[254] It's like EA's Halo.

[255] Oh, that makes sense.

[256] I mean, I get kind of, yeah, like comparing it to Halo in that regard.

[257] I don't know, it makes sense to me that they would do...

[258] I could see why they would try, but I just, I don't know.

[259] Doing it alongside the first game, I thought, was maybe a little...

[260] Presumptuous.

[261] Presumptuous, yes, is the word.

[262] You know, whatever.

[263] If they're taking the time to build out a fiction, if there's a Dead Space Bible.

[264] They also tried that with Mirror's Edge at the same time.

[265] It was just that this is the one that stuck.

[266] They did all sorts of weird shit.

[267] Like a movie and stuff?

[268] Or a comic book?

[269] There was another game.

[270] There was a motion comic or something?

[271] Yeah, I don't know.

[272] They didn't do the full, like, direct -to -DVD.

[273] Dead Space is spread thin.

[274] There's a novel.

[275] There are two movies.

[276] There is at least one comic book.

[277] Aren't there two novels now?

[278] I believe there's only one.

[279] I'll eat up all the Mass Effect stuff they want to throw out.

[280] Yeah, you would.

[281] I don't think there's been any kind of animated movie or anything.

[282] Books and stuff.

[283] Not yet.

[284] But that is a pretty damn big universe.

[285] So that's my game playing.

[286] Fantastic.

[287] Jeff Gerstman.

[288] Yeah.

[289] What's up?

[290] Not much, dude.

[291] You play anything?

[292] Yeah, I played all the way through Dead Space 2 over the weekend.

[293] And it's really good.

[294] Really?

[295] Really good.

[296] Go on.

[297] That game, you should probably play it.

[298] And it's one of those things that I ended up playing it on the easiest difficulty setting because I'm not much of an ammo management...

[299] survival horror type person.

[300] Is this game survival horror?

[301] I've been wrestling with that question.

[302] I don't think it's horror at all.

[303] That's a separate question.

[304] It's horror, it is not scary.

[305] There's nothing frightening about it.

[306] Well, we're getting off topic here.

[307] When I say is it survival horror, do you even still consider it that brand of slowly backing away from the enemies and managing all your ammo very intensely?

[308] Like Resident Evil -style survival horror.

[309] I don't think the first one is even that.

[310] If it is or isn't, it's definitely more than this one.

[311] This is definitely skewing even more towards it.

[312] The first one was definitely an inventory management game.

[313] There were multiple occasions where I was like, okay, I have to drive.

[314] something to pick up something else, and isn't it kind of dumb that I'm doing this?

[315] I understand they want to put a constraint on it so you don't have infinite ammo, but they should have just said, like, you can only carry 125 plasma cutter shots until you buy this upgrade and have it just be out of your inventory entirely or something.

[316] That was not a meaningful part of the game for me. And it was kind of more of a chore than anything else.

[317] But I would say that because I don't like survival horror games.

[318] That's so you.

[319] I remember the first one that being an issue I had.

[320] So playing it on the easiest setting, I had ammo coming out of my ass.

[321] It almost made it too much of a problem because I was mowing things down with ammo to spare.

[322] So I spent more time going like...

[323] I have to drop these 25 plasma cutter shots so I can pick up the schematic for this, and I get this ruby conductor, so I have to drop.

[324] I don't want to pick up these javelin shots because the javelin gun is dumb.

[325] I totally get where you're coming from, but I found myself to always have at least one thing that I didn't give a shit about.

[326] Like, oh, I've got eight stasis modules, and I never need them.

[327] Yeah, exactly.

[328] I just stopped picking up stasis modules at some point because I never needed them.

[329] I think I probably only used stasis like four times over the course of the game.

[330] At all?

[331] Playing on easy?

[332] Use the stasis modules or use stasis?

[333] Stasis.

[334] Oh, wow.

[335] Jeez.

[336] When dudes come at you, instead of hitting them with the thing that slows them down, just hit them with the thing that kills them instead.

[337] When they take five extra shots, then you need to slow them down long enough to deliver all those shots.

[338] I slow them down by cutting off their goddamn legs with a line gun.

[339] Sure.

[340] I mean, on easy, that works because it's one shot.

[341] But on harder difficulties, you don't have that luxury.

[342] Yeah.

[343] So it made it more action -y, and I had a great time with it.

[344] So I think for people out there that are kind of scared away from it.

[345] for the reasons of they don't want to back away from things while slowly taking shots at it.

[346] You don't have to do that.

[347] I actually just started playing the first Dead Space over the weekend a little bit.

[348] I don't find that game to have.

[349] It's not that game.

[350] It is not a slowly back away.

[351] There's management for the inventory stuff, but it's not like...

[352] I'm never wanting for stuff.

[353] It's always, I have too much stuff.

[354] Which I feel like survival horror is defined by a lack of stuff.

[355] Like, it's always like, I'm short.

[356] I only have a few bullets left.

[357] I'm like, I have too many bullets for too many guns.

[358] That's my problem.

[359] And I'm just playing on, like, the normal difficulty.

[360] I think my biggest problem was having too much stuff for the guns I didn't want to use.

[361] Yeah.

[362] Like, you only come across like bad ammo.

[363] Yeah, like, you only get drops for the stuff you're carrying.

[364] But I feel like there's...

[365] Well, occasionally.

[366] Once in a while, you get something else.

[367] There are...

[368] At least, again, I'm finding in the first game, I'm not that far into it, but I'm finding that there's constantly stores for me to cash in stuff that I don't want and buy the shit that I do want.

[369] I have a ton of money, so I can always buy new guns, new upgrades.

[370] Like, I just...

[371] Yeah, it doesn't have that survival edge, which I think kind of defines that genre.

[372] It's a fucking shooter.

[373] It's a third -person...

[374] Action game.

[375] Sure.

[376] It's really good.

[377] And also, I mean, the other reason why I wanted to play on that easy setting is because hearing that they got the new game plus stuff right, I figured, well, I'll just play it through like this and then second playthrough if I want to go to normal or higher or something like that, then I can go in there with the kind of second round suits and all that.

[378] So, Brad, you try on hardcore now?

[379] No, man, I'm debating now.

[380] I'm sure you guys have all seen that truly incredible...

[381] hardcore ending unlock.

[382] Yes.

[383] The foam gun thing.

[384] Have you seen that?

[385] Yeah, so is that just like super powerful?

[386] Yeah, it's like, it's weird because it has no crosshair, so I guess the aiming might be a little kind of uncertain.

[387] But it didn't seem like a one -hit kill, is it?

[388] It pretty damn nearly one -shots everything from what I heard.

[389] But at that point, too, like if you've beat it on hardcore.

[390] So that's the thing.

[391] I mean, there are, you know, if you're going for achievements trophies, it's beat the game at all, beat the game on Zealot, which is the hardest mode you can, new game plus.

[392] And then beat Hardcore, which you can't.

[393] So the question now is, do you suffer through Hardcore and get that thing, and then just blaze through Zealot with that and just kill everything in your path without stopping?

[394] Oh, do they not stack?

[395] The achievements?

[396] No. Wait, not from Zealot on down?

[397] I would hope that if you beat it on Hardcore, it would just say like, yeah, alright.

[398] No, it doesn't.

[399] It is confirmed to not do that.

[400] But don't you have to unlock Hardcore by beating it on Zealot?

[401] No, you're going to unlock Hardcore by beating the game, period.

[402] So I have unlocked Hardcore.

[403] So I had planned, like you said, I got all my stuff on normal.

[404] I was going to go back through Zealot with those unlocks.

[405] At that point, I will have played through the game like four fucking times.

[406] I'll know where everything is.

[407] Then I will try Hardcore at that point.

[408] Now it's like if you leap to hardcore now, then Zealot is a breeze.

[409] You just grit your teeth, go through hardcore, and get that foam gun.

[410] Then, yeah, you will just dominate everything.

[411] And you're sure that comes into Zealot?

[412] Yeah.

[413] Okay.

[414] That is on your save?

[415] Yeah, people are definitely talking about that.

[416] I don't know.

[417] We'll see.

[418] That remains to be seen.

[419] There's a moratorium on Dead Space in my house for the moment.

[420] I played too much of that for about two weeks.

[421] It was time to take a break.

[422] Yo, that thing that happens at the end of that game is crazy.

[423] There are multiple crazy things at the end of that game, but I know which one you're talking about.

[424] There are a lot of crazy things in that game.

[425] But there's one in particular.

[426] It's worth seeing.

[427] Like I said, there are people out there that I think are scared that think that this might not be their kind of game because people have labeled it as survival horror for better or for worse.

[428] You're right.

[429] It's not that game.

[430] But it is pretty effed up.

[431] It gets pretty effed.

[432] Yes, a lot of effed up things happen, but like I said, I didn't find any real parts of it scary or anything like that.

[433] This notion of being too scared to play it and stuff like that, come on.

[434] A lot of it just comes down to how prone to being startled you are by stuff.

[435] It's moody.

[436] And they go for the jump scares.

[437] That's all it is, really.

[438] And, you know, if you know when, like, okay, this will be when a jump scare will happen.

[439] It does get kind of predictable, you know?

[440] Like, you hear those, like, those discordant strings start kicking in the background.

[441] And, like, everything gets dark.

[442] And then you see, oh, there's a vent on the wall.

[443] I wonder if something will come out of that.

[444] I do not count being startled by a jump scare as being scared.

[445] Really?

[446] Yeah.

[447] It's too easy.

[448] It's too much of a – you can manipulate that way too much.

[449] You can just do it.

[450] It doesn't take any work really to make something really quiet and then have something loud and jump in your face.

[451] Yeah, that's totally what it is.

[452] It's just breaking tension basically.

[453] It's like you build a bunch of tension and then you just kind of make it explode.

[454] Now amnesia.

[455] I mean that's more of a like a deeper kind of psychological thing, right?

[456] Yes.

[457] Doesn't that get in your head?

[458] Like stressed, like super stressed and kind of freaked out.

[459] That's literally the only game I've ever kind of been like, wow, this is actually kind of messing me up.

[460] You don't actually see a bunch of monsters in that very often, right?

[461] You don't have to see it to be scary.

[462] Well, that's what I'm saying.

[463] It's kind of a less is more approach, is it not?

[464] Yeah.

[465] No, it's really good.

[466] There's this one water sequence which was literally just freaking me out.

[467] Like, really.

[468] I don't know.

[469] It's cool.

[470] It's scary.

[471] I've lost count of the number of people I've seen saying that's the scariest game they've ever played, so I don't.

[472] I don't know what to think of that.

[473] Yeah, which might ruin it for people.

[474] If you're like going in being like, well, I'm not scared of this.

[475] Well, that wasn't that scary.

[476] Then you're probably, it's ruined already.

[477] Like with the expectation that you should be scared by it, then that's probably, you're on guard already, right?

[478] I don't know.

[479] Dead Space 2 is just fun because you get to shoot a bunch of shit.

[480] And it's gross.

[481] It seems like there's a lot of gross stuff which isn't necessarily scary.

[482] There are babies that explode when you shoot them.

[483] Right.

[484] Disturbing is not analogous with scary and gross is not analogous with scary.

[485] Because when we did that quick look or even the...

[486] Even the TNT.

[487] There was disturbing stuff in it.

[488] There was that woman who's calling in the mutant baby child.

[489] That was kind of disturbing.

[490] Gross.

[491] Jeff, anything else?

[492] I've been playing some Bionic Commander Rearmed 2.

[493] As featured on the Wish Media Happy Hour last week.

[494] Yeah, we had Capcom come in with that and then played a little more of that.

[495] That seems very good.

[496] That seems like a proper sequel to the previous game.

[497] They've done some cool stuff to modernize it.

[498] It doesn't feel like a remake of an 8 -bit game quite so much anymore.

[499] They're kind of moving beyond that in some kind of cool ways with additional weapons and mustaches.

[500] I had a question that I don't know if it got answered during the happy hour, but...

[501] They're showing off all the co -op stuff.

[502] Yeah.

[503] Do they explain who that other dude is?

[504] I think if you do...

[505] They had some nickname for him, but I don't think it's...

[506] I think it's just other Rad Spencer.

[507] Okay.

[508] Another color.

[509] Not necessarily like there's a story reason for...

[510] Yeah, I don't think that they...

[511] The second Bionic Man. But the game opens with, I mean, the whole squad, including the lady with the Bionic legs that appears in the...

[512] In 2008, Bionic Commando retail release called Bionic Commando.

[513] Bionic Commando 3D.

[514] Yeah.

[515] Bionic Commando 64.

[516] Dreadlock.

[517] Bionic Commando Radiation Edition.

[518] Yeah.

[519] So it is still kind of tied to that fiction.

[520] It kind of takes place before that game.

[521] Well, that's Ken. Come on.

[522] Yeah.

[523] I mean, yeah.

[524] The game was called Bionic Commando.

[525] Someone lives in her legs.

[526] Someone lives in the old man's bionic eye or whatever it was that he had.

[527] The sniper.

[528] That was a guy, right?

[529] Sniper guy.

[530] How much of a game changer is jumping?

[531] It's not the biggest game changing thing that happens in.

[532] in Rearm 2.

[533] Does it lessen the utility of the arm?

[534] No, not at all.

[535] You still need to be frantically grabbing for anything to hold on to?

[536] Yeah, but the change is that if you behave frantically, you're going to die every time.

[537] Because...

[538] you can't just hammer on the arm button because it attaches and detaches.

[539] So if you just are mashing out going, oh god, oh god, oh god, as you're falling, you will attach and detach and die, and it's the worst thing ever.

[540] Yeah, they made a lot of changes to the controls that are going to be frustrating at first, I think, for people that played a lot of the previous game.

[541] But it's still more based on swinging than jump platforming kind of stuff.

[542] Yeah, definitely.

[543] There are plenty of...

[544] Gaps that you will not be able to jump over.

[545] You have to swing across.

[546] And shortcuts and stuff that are all swinging and everything like that.

[547] Like jumping is just a nice utility thing to get over barrels without having to swing over them.

[548] Because that's silly.

[549] And they did build the game so that you don't have to jump.

[550] If you don't want to.

[551] Right.

[552] You can get through that game.

[553] Yeah, you can get through that game without jumping.

[554] And once you beat it once, you'll unlock retro mode, which actually lets you disable jumping if you want to do that.

[555] But yeah, jumping is fine.

[556] It makes sense.

[557] Nobody's like super up in arms about its inclusion.

[558] I haven't seen anybody.

[559] Up in bionic arms.

[560] Yeah, it is one of the things.

[561] Any curious anywhere going crazy about this.

[562] Absolutely, yeah.

[563] As soon as they announced it, there were some people that were just like, whatever, it was defined by you not being able to jump.

[564] Yeah, it was, but not really.

[565] It's defined by you swinging and swinging and swinging and swinging.

[566] And the levels have been built with that in mind.

[567] It's not just some, you're not going to go through a level without using the arm.

[568] Jumping on turtles and, you know, Goombas.

[569] Right.

[570] They have like the death from above.

[571] Like you can kind of scream down and land on stuff.

[572] When you fall from a height.

[573] Basically a ground pound.

[574] Yeah.

[575] Which was in the 2008 Biocommando.

[576] Super Biocommando.

[577] Super.

[578] Yes.

[579] Mega.

[580] Biocommando color.

[581] Ghost in the R. The Wily Wars.

[582] I like the Wily Wars.

[583] It's really hard to.

[584] It's really hard to work that game into a conversation because of the way that everything's been named.

[585] Oh, you mean the Bionic Commando.

[586] Yeah, but that game seems really cool.

[587] Granted, I've only played like two or three levels of it so far.

[588] That's out this week.

[589] That's out tomorrow.

[590] That is out.

[591] Yeah, that's out PlayStation Network.

[592] Right now -ish.

[593] And Xbox Live tomorrow.

[594] PC release of this one?

[595] No. Nothing?

[596] No plans from what they're saying so far.

[597] Soundtrack release?

[598] Yeah, yeah.

[599] So my only question that matters.

[600] Yeah.

[601] The only question that matters.

[602] He's the same guy's back.

[603] They're talking about it.

[604] Yeah, Simon Vickland is involved.

[605] I might just buy the soundtrack.

[606] Yeah.

[607] And forget the game.

[608] Yeah, they said that during the happy hour that he's involved.

[609] Sounds like Modern Commando, what I've heard of it.

[610] It sounds like.

[611] Yeah, yeah.

[612] The soundtrack is definitely.

[613] In that same vein.

[614] If you like the rearmed soundtrack.

[615] Which it did.

[616] You may like this one.

[617] All right.

[618] You may enjoy what this one has to offer.

[619] Yeah, I think they did a really good job of modernizing it.

[620] It seems pretty cool.

[621] So hoping that it stays on that course.

[622] I hope that achievements are less fucked than they were.

[623] I think you'll have 60 points by the time you finish the game now.

[624] Instead of 20.

[625] So brutal.

[626] And none for beating it.

[627] It was some kind of crazy.

[628] It was a lot of level -specific crazy challenges.

[629] Like, don't touch the floor.

[630] Conditional stuff.

[631] Don't get hit by any slimes on this entire level.

[632] And the nature of how they do trophies and achievements for...

[633] downloadable games means they can't give any one achievement that many points.

[634] So beating the game without jumping is like 10 points.

[635] Right.

[636] They could.

[637] Well, yeah, they could just make that 80 and then not have the rest of it be 5.

[638] Limbo had like a 100 -point achievement for finishing the game and then like a bunch of 5 -point achievements.

[639] But they also have a bunch of other ones in there that are also brutal.

[640] So it's, you know.

[641] Man. As long as there's a chance I'll get a better percentage of them because the first one was just, yeah.

[642] I didn't even finish that game, did you?

[643] Too rough, no. Rearmed got very hard at the end.

[644] The last couple of sequences were really messed up.

[645] I don't know.

[646] I persevered and made it through.

[647] I think I had to finish it twice.

[648] I think I finished it once on PS3, once on 360.

[649] I was thinking about going through it again, but then I was like, I'm not going to get...

[650] Because you had to get all the guns and collectibles.

[651] And there's the room you can only get into if you're playing co -op.

[652] There's co -op specific achievements in this game as well.

[653] But from what I saw, there's a quick lookup on the set, and it still has a kind of cool -looking 3D game that has been locked in a 2D perspective.

[654] So when stuff goes crazy in 3D, it really jumps out.

[655] You're like, oh, man, all the barrels are falling off that boat.

[656] There's a war going on on that island behind us and all that stuff.

[657] And that's all first -level stuff.

[658] It's got a unique look to it.

[659] It's like a really kind of over -bright, over -saturated, a lot of light -bloomy -looking stuff.

[660] Like heavy animation.

[661] It looks good.

[662] And I think that's pretty much all.

[663] I played a little Mind Jack.

[664] Yeah?

[665] Yeah.

[666] I feel like that game needs a colon.

[667] Like Mind Jack the Dreamweaver.

[668] What a Mind colon Jack.

[669] I like that.

[670] It could be Mind Jack the Wanderer.

[671] You are a wanderer when you're in ghost form.

[672] That game is not good.

[673] It's not a very good game.

[674] No. It's not.

[675] There are some ideas in that game.

[676] Yeah.

[677] That just aren't.

[678] Like the idea of being able to just go and take over other dudes and kind of recruit enemy troops to be on your side.

[679] Like Messiah.

[680] Yeah, like that or Avenging Spirit.

[681] Like neat ideas, but it's just not good enough as a third -person shooter.

[682] Geist?

[683] Cover -based third -person shooters, like standards are too high, and so the way that game is janky, it's hard to forgive.

[684] Maybe those key ideas will be like the...

[685] This will be the kill switch to somebody else's Gears of War at some point.

[686] Somebody will take these ideas.

[687] I don't know that these ideas are clutch enough to...

[688] I think it's a good way...

[689] Look at the way that you have people saying...

[690] Like EA saying that they never want to ship a game with no multiplayer.

[691] Like what if Dead Space 2, what if there were one or two people that were just jumping into...

[692] the enemies and making it a tougher experience along the way.

[693] Antagonistic multiplayer is kind of an interesting concept.

[694] Left 4 Dead did that.

[695] That's kind of the thing in...

[696] Oh, jeez.

[697] Help me out here.

[698] Hold on.

[699] Give me a second.

[700] Talk amongst yourselves.

[701] Left 4 Dead 2.

[702] Left 4 Dead 0?

[703] Nope.

[704] PS3...

[705] Flower.

[706] Everybody hated that we weren't playing it well.

[707] What?

[708] Demon's Souls.

[709] Demon's Souls.

[710] Yeah.

[711] It was kind of a thing in there.

[712] Which I still am going to go back in and play that game.

[713] And I'm actually really curious to see what the hell is going on online now.

[714] Because that game could be impossible if nobody's playing.

[715] They just announced a new one, so you better get going.

[716] Oh, really?

[717] Dark Souls?

[718] Dark Souls.

[719] So that game did a lot of that single -player, multiplayer, seamless experience.

[720] And that was really cool.

[721] I think the thing you run into, though, is you get people that are frustrated.

[722] So when I was playing Mind Jack, I was just starting, and then three people with levels in the 30s joined my game.

[723] And I was near the end of a round and managed to get out alive.

[724] And then immediately after that, they just...

[725] tore me down like three times in a row.

[726] And I was like, I have a way to solve this.

[727] And it's called close down the game and play it offline and play it like a single player game is supposed to be played.

[728] So I think you're going to run into situations where people just respond to it by going like, dude, this is messed up.

[729] Like you're holding me back.

[730] Well, that's just a balance problem.

[731] That's them like giving more experienced players too much of an advantage.

[732] The idea of live opponents taking over the enemies like that is really interesting.

[733] But the flow of it is just fucked.

[734] Because if you are on the opposing side and you win, guess what?

[735] You're going to play that same level over again.

[736] Congratulations.

[737] You've impeded their progress.

[738] Best case scenario for you.

[739] So it's more than just a balance.

[740] It's a structure issue.

[741] They should try to jump you into someone else's game and you win.

[742] If you're holding someone off, you should basically.

[743] And that's sort of what APB...

[744] kind of did with the way it matched players is it would be a situation where if you were if you had been playing a really long time and were awesome like level five wanted ranking it would send like four players up against you instead of one um and and so they were trying to balance it out that way and matching up players in different in different ways so it was never like all right you stopped them now stop them again like like that right that's a that's a bad reward uh for for doing a good job so I don't know.

[745] It seemed like, you know, experience and achievements or trophies were the reason for you to keep playing as, you know, antagonistically in Mindjack.

[746] Yeah, there's stuff like, yeah, absolutely.

[747] There's like win 500 times.

[748] So I haven't seen much of Mindjack.

[749] I think I was at when you guys were taking a look at it.

[750] Does it put player names up above?

[751] Yeah.

[752] So it calls out.

[753] Yeah, so you know which ones are dudes.

[754] Do you think it would be better if it didn't?

[755] No, you'd know.

[756] Okay.

[757] The ones that are so much better.

[758] Yeah, exactly.

[759] The ones that look like they are controlled by people and are actually shooting you.

[760] Edging out behind corners.

[761] Yeah.

[762] There's also some rotten fucking AI in that game.

[763] Yeah.

[764] Like the way they behave when you run up at them.

[765] is just ridiculous.

[766] Like, back away and come close again.

[767] Like, what?

[768] They're not quite sure what to do.

[769] Running in circles in open space.

[770] Yeah, but it would be fun to kind of try and, like, role -play a bad AI kind of in the game.

[771] Plus the whole Assassin's Creed thing, you know?

[772] In a good game, that would be fun.

[773] Yeah.

[774] Okay.

[775] Agreed.

[776] Anyway.

[777] So feel plus did not feel...

[778] That game feels pretty minus to me. And the...

[779] Someone said that it reminded them heavily of Winback.

[780] Yep.

[781] Like, aesthetically.

[782] Just the stiff models and the color scheme.

[783] Yeah, absolutely.

[784] Yeah, it looks so generic.

[785] Just like that steel blue, like, diluted...

[786] Cyberspace future!

[787] Right, it's like, Deus Ex, but without any depth or interestingness.

[788] Just bad voice acting.

[789] Hey, we got apes.

[790] And all the fonts on all the, like...

[791] Glass shields and weird stuff.

[792] Just like real generic.

[793] Just like weird looking Japanese vision of the future.

[794] Yeah.

[795] Of the cyber future.

[796] Yeah.

[797] Sass talking protagonists.

[798] Yeah.

[799] Yeah.

[800] Brad Shoemaker.

[801] Don't you sass me. I'd sass whoever I want.

[802] I can't stop it from sassing you.

[803] Try it.

[804] Stop.

[805] What you been playing?

[806] Yeah, bud.

[807] I played a truckload of video games.

[808] Fucking tell me about it.

[809] Actual.

[810] Since you asked.

[811] Literally played a truckload.

[812] Yes, truckload actual.

[813] That's a pretty good game.

[814] Whiskey Axle.

[815] Where to begin?

[816] I played enough of Magicka on the PC to know that I want to play more Magicka, but that's about it.

[817] Is it This Generation's Gauntlet?

[818] No. I don't know where that came from.

[819] This is nothing like that.

[820] Is it a new IP?

[821] How is Magica not something that has not been registered as a trademark before?

[822] God, I feel like that game comes out every two years.

[823] That's crazy, right?

[824] I think there are games with the word Magica in the title.

[825] Magica Online.

[826] Sure.

[827] Age of Magica.

[828] World of Magica.

[829] I can't think of one right now, but anyway.

[830] The reason I didn't play more of it is because as of the weekend, that game was pretty buggy.

[831] Still?

[832] Because I'd heard earlier that it was messed up.

[833] Sounds like a patch may be out now.

[834] We need to go investigate because we should do a video because that game's cool.

[835] So briefly, what do you do in Magic?

[836] I only got about 10 -15 minutes into it.

[837] I was having a lot of scrolling issues and stuff.

[838] It's overhead, but you click around to move your guy like Diablo.

[839] Basically, the focus of the game is you're a little wizard.

[840] It's really tongue -in -cheek.

[841] It's got a pretty cheeky sense of humor.

[842] Oh, weird.

[843] I wouldn't have expected that from that game.

[844] I have not looked super closely at that game, but it looked like...

[845] Check it out.

[846] It looked like some Eastern Bloc business to me. It's not from the Eastern Bloc.

[847] I think it's Scandinavian, maybe.

[848] It's pretty silly.

[849] Watch the opening narration, you'll see what I'm talking about.

[850] Everything I looked at, just screenshots, stuff like that.

[851] This kind of looks like a bad...

[852] PC RPG.

[853] The art is not great, but it's so high concept.

[854] I'm sorry you were...

[855] Well, I'm just like...

[856] So overhead, kind of like...

[857] Yeah, so you move a cursor around with a mouse.

[858] I guess you can play with a gamepad, but people are saying it's kind of hard because there's a lot going on.

[859] So basically, you're a wizard.

[860] This is just me having played through part of the tutorial, but you're a wizard and you have like eight different disciplines of magic at your disposal.

[861] There's like arcane, ice, water, fire, earth, whatever.

[862] They all have different properties.

[863] Earth is a projectile, so it flies across the screen.

[864] Fire is spray, quote -unquote, so it just fans out in front of you.

[865] And you have a spell bar where you can drop all these different magics into the same bar and then click a button to combine them into something.

[866] So Earth being a projectile and fire being a fire effect makes a fireball.

[867] Just a real basic example.

[868] And they claim there are, like, thousands, literally.

[869] They literally say there are thousands of spell combinations.

[870] Can you only combine two, or can you go higher than that?

[871] So I could combine earth, wind, and fire?

[872] You totally could do that.

[873] What about heart?

[874] Totally.

[875] There is no heart.

[876] Cut!

[877] A lot of them are, like, so, like, stuff like that.

[878] Like, the fireball is intuitive, right?

[879] Like, you'd think, all right, that stuff would go together and probably make a fireball.

[880] But it seems like there are some arbitrary combinations.

[881] Like, one of them was, like, I think it was, like, arcane, earth, and...

[882] I don't know, lightning or something makes haste.

[883] And does that make you like...

[884] And they just tell you straight up.

[885] They're like, put these three things together to get haste.

[886] Oh, it's like in the tutorial.

[887] Yeah, yeah.

[888] So it seems like you might, I don't know, like find spell books or something to instruct you on some of those.

[889] And then batch files.

[890] Are you picking up loot and like the whole Diablo experience?

[891] I didn't get that far in.

[892] I was having issues.

[893] I wanted to wait for this patch and play it properly.

[894] And multiplayer?

[895] There is co -op, yeah.

[896] I like the wizard design in that game because it's just a robe.

[897] There's no face.

[898] Even if you're looking at it front on, there's this big black hole where the face should be.

[899] Oh, wow.

[900] Except not even any eyes peeking out.

[901] It's just these dudes go around all day with no face.

[902] Nice.

[903] So like loom.

[904] Kind of, yeah.

[905] A little bit like that.

[906] So the point is you pick your robe color when you start out, and it's got online co -op, so everybody is just like a different colored wizard running around in your game.

[907] I like it.

[908] How many dudes in a co -op match?

[909] It looked like maybe four.

[910] It is gauntlet.

[911] But they're all wizards.

[912] I would be the Valkyrie.

[913] There's no non -wizard class.

[914] There's no elf to my knowledge.

[915] Wizard needs food, too.

[916] Yeah, that's true.

[917] It's not fucking magica and swartica.

[918] It's just magica.

[919] Boica.

[920] Yeah.

[921] But it seems pretty...

[922] Boa constrictor.

[923] Yeah?

[924] Yeah.

[925] All right.

[926] It's my snake game.

[927] It seems pretty puzzle -focused, like environmental puzzles.

[928] Like, there's a part where you have to cross some water, and so you have to put together, like...

[929] Water and cold makes an ice spray, basically, and then you just make that, kind of fan it out with the mouse over the water.

[930] And it freezes just the parts of the water that you touch with that spell.

[931] So it seems like there's a lot of dynamic stuff you can do with the spell combinations.

[932] Maybe a little Trine -y.

[933] Yeah, I was going to say, sounds like Trine and Torx Light.

[934] Torx Light?

[935] Torchlight.

[936] Kind of?

[937] I was going to say Torchwood.

[938] No. Something.

[939] Bummer.

[940] TV show.

[941] Yeah.

[942] I wish it were Torchwood.

[943] Anyway, that's all I know about that game.

[944] It sounds like they may have fixed it, but we will investigate.

[945] Yeah, I want to look at that some more.

[946] And that's a Steam game?

[947] It's on Steam.

[948] It's only $10, so it seems like people are digging it.

[949] It's only $10 to wait for the patch.

[950] Pretty much.

[951] They put out a press release last week when it came out.

[952] It was like, Magic of Cells.

[953] Tons of copies on Steam.

[954] It's like 30 ,000.

[955] 30 ,000 copies on Steam, also developers patching issues.

[956] That was part of the headline in the press release.

[957] We sold a lot, and we're really sorry about that.

[958] But it's pretty neat.

[959] Continuing to dive into your truck.

[960] Yeah, what else is in the truck?

[961] Games.

[962] Game truck.

[963] We should drive one of those.

[964] We should get that driving across the country.

[965] Blizzard announced back at BlizzCon that they were making a bunch of custom maps for StarCraft II that were going to rip off other games.

[966] Basically.

[967] Yes.

[968] They put those out.

[969] I only played one of them because I couldn't get past that one because it's pretty awesome.

[970] So this is kind of like their little big planet -ing with the map editor.

[971] I think what it is is them saying, hey, look, you can make other games with our editor, and you should start doing that before we launch our marketplace where we start charging for that stuff.

[972] Maybe.

[973] So these are like scenarios?

[974] Let's see if that happens.

[975] Anyway, yeah, there's a lot you can do with that editor.

[976] The one I've been playing is Starjeweled.

[977] which you might guess involves some matching of three.

[978] Do I match three Zerglings, or what is being matched?

[979] It's basically like match three meets tower defense.

[980] On the right, you've just got a big grid of gems.

[981] It's just gems.

[982] You're not matching marines or nothing.

[983] Does one of them represent Vespine Gas?

[984] No. No, you just match three.

[985] Just make that up yourself.

[986] I could use some more of that.

[987] You could do that.

[988] Just say.

[989] You can make it.

[990] For Iyer.

[991] Okay.

[992] No, that's Iyer Chef.

[993] That's another.

[994] There is a top chef.

[995] Is there a higher chef?

[996] I guess my question is how much unlike StarCraft 2 is this stuff?

[997] This one...

[998] Like, how far off from those mechanics?

[999] This one, I mean, you're not moving units, you're not doing nothing with that stuff.

[1000] Like, all you are doing, literally, is matching three in this.

[1001] So basically, it's like tower defense, kind of, where you've got a stream of marines coming from your base constantly, and so do they, and they're just clashing in the middle, kind of Dota style.

[1002] Basically, you generate energy by matching three, and then you can spawn a bunch of better units at your leisure.

[1003] When you get enough energy.

[1004] Interesting.

[1005] And they're all units from the campaign and the multiplayer.

[1006] That sounds cool.

[1007] That sounds like a good combination.

[1008] And it's required two -on -two.

[1009] You can't play it by yourself, so you've always got a teammate.

[1010] Can it be AI?

[1011] No, but there's so many people playing it that you'll wait about five seconds to get into a game for this.

[1012] But definitely better with voice chat and a teammate who knows what they're doing.

[1013] Because the units have the same balance affinity as they do in the actual multiplayer.

[1014] So it's like if you see they have a bunch of roaches, you're going to want to spit a bunch of immortals out.

[1015] So it kind of helps to have a background.

[1016] So are they already starting three gem?

[1017] Yeah, right.

[1018] Actually, yeah, I ran into a team the other day that was just spamming Roach, Colossus, and that seemed to be dominating everything.

[1019] So not very balanced so far, it seems like.

[1020] It's a lot of fun, though.

[1021] It's goofy fun because you're just frantically matching as fast as you can.

[1022] How much money can you win per month playing?

[1023] Star Jewels.

[1024] I'm waiting for them to launch the global Star Jewels League.

[1025] And you get code S. Don't wait.

[1026] Just be proactive about it.

[1027] Start your own.

[1028] I seriously hope they make a ladder for this.

[1029] Week one of the Star Jewels ladder turning starts now.

[1030] It's got the same problem that Dota had in Warcraft 3 where it's like you jump in and it's a lot of fun and then you exit out and there's nothing.

[1031] There's no record that you ever played that game.

[1032] No experience points going up.

[1033] No persistence whatsoever.

[1034] That's kind of a bummer.

[1035] So how many of these maps are available now?

[1036] There's two more came out.

[1037] There's Irish Chef, which I'm guessing is some kind of take on Cooking Mama.

[1038] I don't know.

[1039] I didn't even bother.

[1040] I didn't even bother.

[1041] We will.

[1042] We should go look at all that stuff.

[1043] And the other one is called Left to Die, which is just a co -op version of that mission from the campaign where you have to hold out at night.

[1044] There's that day -night cycle.

[1045] Oh, okay.

[1046] And you're in the middle of the map with all the zombie things coming in.

[1047] So you probably can figure out what that's like.

[1048] The fourth one is their Dota thing.

[1049] Blizzard Dota or whatever they're calling it.

[1050] That has not come out yet.

[1051] Space Dota.

[1052] But we'll see what they do with that.

[1053] That was pretty fun.

[1054] Well, again, we'll look at that stuff more in depth.

[1055] We should do that.

[1056] Games, Brad.

[1057] Oh, man. God, what else is there?

[1058] How many games you got?

[1059] I bought Hydrophobia yesterday because it was five bucks.

[1060] Right.

[1061] And they put out that huge update that supposedly fixed the game.

[1062] Or at least dramatically changed huge sections of it.

[1063] I don't know what that game was like before.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] I'm kind of afraid to find out.

[1066] Because it's still not that great.

[1067] It's still not that great, dude.

[1068] I fired it up last night.

[1069] I didn't make it to the part where you shoot people.

[1070] So, I don't know.

[1071] That game was poor.

[1072] I don't know.

[1073] When it first came out.

[1074] But forget that.

[1075] Let's talk about Assassin's Creed.

[1076] What?

[1077] All right.

[1078] So, Brad, you've been playing the...

[1079] You've stuck to your plan.

[1080] My vision quest has begun.

[1081] Playing through all of the Assassin's Creed.

[1082] Catch up.

[1083] I was so jealous of you guys.

[1084] Over here not playing Assassin's Creed 1.

[1085] No, no. Well, I mean, having played the newer and better ones.

[1086] Yeah.

[1087] Yeah, I had my save kicking around for that first game.

[1088] I was like, I've just got to suck it up and finish this.

[1089] So how far into it were you when you first...

[1090] Three assassinations out of like the nine, I think it is.

[1091] Okay.

[1092] I think there's nine for the story.

[1093] Correct me if I'm wrong.

[1094] That sounds right.

[1095] Where are you now?

[1096] I had three done when I came back to it with my save file from November 2007.

[1097] Nice.

[1098] I think I've done six or seven now, so I've got, like, two left or something.

[1099] I'm definitely getting close to the end.

[1100] Just kill those dudes.

[1101] I'm just flying through it.

[1102] I'm just, like, doing the minimum of investigations and basically just getting it out of the way because I want to see what happens.

[1103] I forgot just how much structurally different.

[1104] Oh, totally.

[1105] From the first one to the second one.

[1106] Dude, that's what I need to hear, please.

[1107] That whole, like, assassination thing, like, not even.

[1108] Really?

[1109] You're not really going after these set -named dudes the same way.

[1110] Because it's almost a little crack -a -down -ish in the first one where it's just like, here's this list of people you've got to kill, now go do it.

[1111] Yeah.

[1112] It's not like that at all.

[1113] The second one I was telling you this morning, maybe you guys can back this up, it's a little more like each assassination is more like a plot point that takes you into the next story thing.

[1114] And it also is opening up things mechanically.

[1115] Right.

[1116] Like each time it's like, okay, now I have these new, I don't know.

[1117] comrades that I can call on or it's like you know you kill this guy and it like changes the story a little bit and you're like okay now I know now there's reason why we need to go do this other thing instead of just like kill these nine dudes and then you know stop you know do these filler things in between the missions that's my question is it still a proper open world game in the sense that there's stuff to do in between like the plot assassinations absolutely Jeff just got assassinated That was scary.

[1118] Wow.

[1119] Survival horror in this room, Jeff.

[1120] A piece of baffling just fell off the ceiling on Jeff's head.

[1121] And I'll have you know it was really quiet.

[1122] There's no echo.

[1123] Nope.

[1124] Couldn't hear it.

[1125] Now we know.

[1126] Stealth killed.

[1127] Not easily startled.

[1128] Jeff just got stealth killed.

[1129] So I bought the original Assassin's Creed.

[1130] I brought one, two, and Brotherhood for my dad for Christmas.

[1131] I can't believe he did that.

[1132] That is a tall order for a dad.

[1133] And he jumped in, and I...

[1134] After watching it for a bit, I was like, listen, man, if you get bored of this.

[1135] You sass your dad that way.

[1136] You should just put this one down and jump into two because I could see already that I would not want to jump back in and play this.

[1137] And I talked to him on the phone about a week ago and he's like, yeah, you know, it's like you get in the hole with the guy and the guy's like, you should go, you know, go kill this guy there.

[1138] And then there's like the woman's outside and she's like, don't cut off my hand.

[1139] And like every time I save a guy, he's like, you know, I wish my son were more like you.

[1140] Like, what does he do if he doesn't do anything for you?

[1141] And I was like, you know, you should just move on.

[1142] You will like that one so much more.

[1143] It is the first one looking at even the bars and stuff like you have to fill up the sink bar or whatever on the first one by doing things.

[1144] Yeah.

[1145] Wait, even that's gone?

[1146] Yeah.

[1147] Really?

[1148] Yeah, you don't have to meet minimal requirements.

[1149] You lose sync by taking damage and killing civilians and stuff like that, but it's not...

[1150] You don't have to do all these prerequisites to get...

[1151] Yeah, that's the repetitive thing about this one.

[1152] You have to do like...

[1153] There's interrogations, pickpocketing, eavesdropping.

[1154] Races or whatever.

[1155] I think that's it.

[1156] But these are the prerequisites for these story beats.

[1157] You have to do a minimum number of these awful, repetitive things.

[1158] And they're all the same.

[1159] It's so much different.

[1160] For the PC version of it, they added one more thing.

[1161] And people were like, oh, finally!

[1162] But it's one more thing.

[1163] It's not enough variety or two more things or something like that.

[1164] It was silly.

[1165] That's what I wanted to ask about before the ceiling attacked you.

[1166] Is there proper stuff in between the plot assassinations in the next two?

[1167] If I remember correctly.

[1168] Just open world side mission style stuff to do.

[1169] And it's fun.

[1170] And it's fun.

[1171] There's almost too much stuff.

[1172] It's the exact opposite of the first one.

[1173] Even going into the second one, it's like there's a billion side things to be done.

[1174] Because if they took the framework of this first game, I know this is all redundant because everybody else played this stuff two years ago, but if they took that framework and made a good game out of it, it's the best thing.

[1175] Yeah, pretty much.

[1176] It's like...

[1177] The first game reminds me of Saints Row, where it's like you have to go do a bunch of side shit before I let you do it.

[1178] And it's my big problem with Saints Row is that I don't like doing most of that side stuff.

[1179] Yeah, man. You get to find glyphs in the second one, which are cool.

[1180] You get the secret hidden message.

[1181] Are there anything like agility orbs?

[1182] No. But you get this crazy little unlock message.

[1183] All right.

[1184] They definitely explore the fiction a lot more in the second one.

[1185] Maybe to its detriment, they kind of go off the rails a little bit.

[1186] I think they go off the rails in a really interesting way.

[1187] That's fine with me, because so far in this one, you see Desmond long enough for him to get off the table and say three lines, and then he gets back on.

[1188] Kind of the problem with the first game that I think the second and Brotherhood both address is that both...

[1189] Like, in and out of the Animus, like, your character is kind of a pawn.

[1190] Like, there's no...

[1191] Like, when you get to Ezio, it's like he kind of has his own agenda and is doing stuff on his own.

[1192] It's not just, like, someone else saying, go do this stuff.

[1193] Okay.

[1194] Which, you know, you get that in the first game on both sides, and I feel like that opens things up.

[1195] I mean, it just makes for a better storytelling and a better overall experience.

[1196] I hope they...

[1197] And it looks so much better.

[1198] Really?

[1199] The environments are so much bigger and more detailed.

[1200] This actually, to its credit, it visually holds up pretty well.

[1201] It still looks nice.

[1202] The expanses are expansive.

[1203] They do better things with the handholds and stuff in the second one.

[1204] Dude.

[1205] That stuff looks so much better.

[1206] But does it play better?

[1207] Because fuck.

[1208] I think it does.

[1209] There's so much of this game misinterpreting which direction you want him to jump or how he's supposed to climb.

[1210] It is better.

[1211] It is better.

[1212] Like you're trying to run from the guards and he like wall runs straight up the wall vertically and then jumps right back down.

[1213] I can't tell if it's better or you just get more used to it.

[1214] It's both.

[1215] It's definitely both.

[1216] It does get better, but then you also know after playing fucking 20 hours or whatever of like, okay, this is what happens when I do it this way.

[1217] I felt like after the first one, though, I had much less instances of me screaming at the controller for making me go the wrong way.

[1218] That's good to hear.

[1219] I need to hear that.

[1220] I need something to keep me going.

[1221] It's definitely worth making it through the first one to pick up some of the narrative bits.

[1222] Yeah, that's what I wanted to see.

[1223] They reference it a lot.

[1224] I've heard enough about this war between the Templars and Assassins or whatever.

[1225] I want to see how that stuff went down.

[1226] I need to know.

[1227] Plus, playing games back -to -back like this really lets you highlight and appreciate how much better they got.

[1228] It's a lot of game to play, man. Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood.

[1229] Assuming if there's another one this year, I should say.

[1230] It's a lot of feathers.

[1231] I've still got like 11 months.

[1232] I'll get there.

[1233] And they're talking like, yep, they pretty much said they're going to do another one this year, right?

[1234] Have they said that?

[1235] Is that for sure?

[1236] I want to say that they did.

[1237] Now I've got a deadline then.

[1238] Really?

[1239] I don't know.

[1240] Okay.

[1241] Maybe they didn't.

[1242] Maybe just Fever Dream over here.

[1243] That's a lot of Assassin's Creed.

[1244] Indeed.

[1245] And then you'll finally get to play the multiplayer once everyone's completely done with it.

[1246] As soon as nobody is playing it.

[1247] Anything else, Bradley?

[1248] I think that's it.

[1249] I can't think of anything else.

[1250] All right.

[1251] Yeah, I've been playing Sweating Through Sheets and...

[1252] It's a hot game.

[1253] It is.

[1254] I'm pretty good at it.

[1255] I've gotten pretty good.

[1256] Oh, last week I went and saw Pokemon Black and White.

[1257] Or I think I just saw White.

[1258] I don't think I actually saw Black.

[1259] Racist.

[1260] It's the one they had.

[1261] It's the one they were showing.

[1262] What neighborhood are you in?

[1263] I don't know.

[1264] How is it?

[1265] Is it Pokemon?

[1266] Yes, it is Pokemon.

[1267] Professor Maple?

[1268] Birch.

[1269] No, it's a lady professor.

[1270] What?

[1271] It's a lady professor this time.

[1272] Professor Fur.

[1273] Oh, I forget the name.

[1274] I forget just about everything about it.

[1275] But it's Pokemon.

[1276] The first time you play it, all new Pokemon.

[1277] They have each new, true new Pokemon game.

[1278] They introduce a whole bunch of new Pokemon to the mix, but you still fight fucking Pidgeys and Squirtles.

[1279] I'll tell you what you told me. And Chikoritas and Squirtles over and over again.

[1280] And Mewtwo.

[1281] In this one, on your first playthrough, you will not see a single Pokemon that has appeared in past games.

[1282] They have wiped the slate clean.

[1283] Well, it's just after your first playthrough, then...

[1284] Everybody comes back.

[1285] Everyone unlocks.

[1286] And then you can also start...

[1287] I can't remember the ordering on it, but you can import Pokemon from previous DS Pokemon games from SoulSilver and HeartGold and Diamond and Pearl.

[1288] There's, like, video chat in it.

[1289] If you've got the DSi and you've got the camera, you can video chat with someone else and send little voice clips to them.

[1290] God, what kind of friend code lockdown is that on?

[1291] You can do stuff like, well, it is friend code based, but you can do an in -person.

[1292] It has IR built into it, so you can just point your DSs at each other and be like, okay, we're friends now.

[1293] So you don't actually have to exchange the number.

[1294] But then video chat.

[1295] Now you drive back across town and we'll video chat.

[1296] Right.

[1297] Or just video chat right now.

[1298] I can't look at you.

[1299] This is only real if I see it through the DS.

[1300] They've done some smart stuff with that, trying to streamline some of the friend code stuff while still abiding by fucking friend codes.

[1301] Yeah, that does seem smart.

[1302] It looks better.

[1303] When you're in battle, all the Pokemon are animated now.

[1304] And they're 3D, right?

[1305] They're sprites.

[1306] They are sprites, but they exist in a 3D.

[1307] They move around in a 3D space, kind of.

[1308] It used to be that they weren't animated at all.

[1309] They would just shake.

[1310] What about the Pokewalker?

[1311] There is no Pokewalker support.

[1312] I hate this game.

[1313] It was one of my big questions, and I lamented it as well.

[1314] There will be shinies, though.

[1315] And three -on -three?

[1316] Three -on -three.

[1317] Wow.

[1318] Three -way Pokemon battle.

[1319] So there's a crazy thing.

[1320] Terry, Kyo.

[1321] There's like a...

[1322] Like, strategy RPG style where your positioning of your three Pokemon will determine which of the opposing Pokemon their attacks will affect.

[1323] So there's, like, front row, back row?

[1324] Not front row, back row, because, I mean, there's just the front row, but it's, like, if you're in the middle, you can attack all three.

[1325] If you're on the left, you can only attack the left in the middle.

[1326] Can you shuffle mid -battle?

[1327] I don't think so.

[1328] Dangerous.

[1329] Well, I mean, I think you can still deploy, because you can have up to six Pokemon in ball form, and you can still bust those out.

[1330] as such.

[1331] They've kind of stepped up the polygonal stuff.

[1332] Like the cities?

[1333] Yeah, I mean, with Diamond and Pearl, they did, like, you had actual little polygonal houses in the little villages that you went to, but now it's more urban areas, and they have four specific urban areas.

[1334] Like, you'll be in, like, these city centers where there are skyscrapers, and so the camera angle will move a little bit more dynamically to accent that, rather than kind of just the flat presentation that you usually get.

[1335] There's a cool sequence they showed where the trainer was riding a bike across this giant suspension bridge and the camera's panning around all cool.

[1336] It looks slick.

[1337] So is your dude 3D as well?

[1338] He's a polygon?

[1339] No, he's a sprite.

[1340] No, all the dudes, everyone, all the people are still little sprites.

[1341] Yeah, there's a ton of other crazy shit.

[1342] They've done a lot better of surfacing.

[1343] I don't know if you guys played the last Pokemon games that much, but, like, all of the online stuff, you had to play, like, four hours of that game before you even got to the park where you could unlock stuff.

[1344] This is, like, bottom screen from the word go.

[1345] You have this thing called, like, the sea gear or something that lets you just automatically jump into all the connectivity stuff.

[1346] So surfacing that stuff a lot more intelligently.

[1347] And they're...

[1348] expanding on the differences between the two versions more than just, like, exclusive Pokemon for each one.

[1349] There's now different zones that will actually be only available in one version or the other.

[1350] And even those, like, they take up the same space in the world, but they will be dramatically different depending on which version you're playing.

[1351] This is malicious.

[1352] This is evil.

[1353] But you're going to want the black version because, like, that town looks like Tron in the black version.

[1354] What does it look like in the white version?

[1355] It's like a castle.

[1356] It looks way cooler than the black version, basically.

[1357] So you will get the black version.

[1358] And if you have the black version and I have the white version, can I go into Tron World on yours or something?

[1359] Can I see the other version stuff?

[1360] You got it?

[1361] I don't know.

[1362] Oh, man. I don't know about that.

[1363] I mean, there's still the trading.

[1364] Yeah.

[1365] That stuff still works.

[1366] They still have the marketplace stuff.

[1367] So you will still catch them all.

[1368] Eventually, yeah.

[1369] And there's still a thing with like Japanese named versus English named for the marketplace stuff.

[1370] So you can deliberately go and have Japanese named coughing or whatever.

[1371] If you so want.

[1372] If you just want to have a bunch of crazy Japanese text in your game.

[1373] It looks good.

[1374] It looks like some Pokemon.

[1375] I wonder if you import the old Pokemon if they animate or if they'll just be.

[1376] They had to redraw everything.

[1377] Every single Pokemon?

[1378] Every single Pokemon.

[1379] That's like 450 or 500.

[1380] How much dancing around on screen are we talking about?

[1381] Like, just some legs wiggling?

[1382] I don't know.

[1383] I can't really speak.

[1384] When they get hit, their head's getting knocked to the side, and they're spitting out.

[1385] Is it like a frame?

[1386] It's not anime.

[1387] I mean, no. It's still a 16 -bit game, basically.

[1388] All right.

[1389] Sorry.

[1390] You were going to say, I don't want to get you off track here.

[1391] So they have kind of the sleep mode, the inactive.

[1392] type stuff.

[1393] Street pass!

[1394] Yeah, stuff like that.

[1395] Tag mode, I guess.

[1396] Yeah, tag mode, whatever they want to call it.

[1397] But they have, like, weird polling stuff.

[1398] That's, like, you know the everybody votes channel on the Wii?

[1399] Uh -huh, yeah.

[1400] Like, stuff that's kind of like that, but related to the sleep mode.

[1401] There's, yeah, there's just weird connectivity shit that they've packed into this.

[1402] Do you have to walk by some Nintendo Wi -Fi spot?

[1403] Oh, they will have, like, you'll be able to get...

[1404] There will be location -specific Pokemon to be had and things of that nature.

[1405] So they can set up hotspots at a GameStop or something.

[1406] McDonald's.

[1407] I guess when they do that stuff, they actually produce a cartridge and send it out to retail locations.

[1408] When they say, like, come here this week to get this Pokemon, come back the next week, get another one.

[1409] When I worked at Toys R Us, Pokemon Yellow had just come out.

[1410] They had a thing like on a specific like a fucking weekday of come down to the Toys R Us and we'll be giving out like Mew2s.

[1411] Right.

[1412] And so they like Nintendo sent us a cart that had like 99 Mew2s on it or something.

[1413] But it was like a regular cart?

[1414] No, it was like a crazy.

[1415] Okay, yeah, yeah.

[1416] It was some weird jacked up non -retail.

[1417] Yeah, so they still produce those, and I guess those jacked up non -retail things always end up leaking out.

[1418] So it's like if you get one of these, you can just set your DS to a specific date, and it'll give out that Pokemon as many times as you want and stuff like that.

[1419] So it's weird collector's items.

[1420] It'd be kind of cool to get a hold of one of those.

[1421] You just become a Mewtwo dispenser.

[1422] Right.

[1423] I'll set up my own hotspot.

[1424] All I remember from that experience was a lot of moms bringing in their kids' Game Boys and Pokemons, and I remember one didn't have any room, so I had to delete one of their Pokemon to put the Mewtwo on it, and then the mom came back later with a sobbing child, because I had apparently deleted her favorite Pokemon.

[1425] And there was fucking no...

[1426] Well, I'm standing there, and I'm like, I've got a huge line of people.

[1427] It's like, I gotta...

[1428] Either I say, no, you can't have this, or I just...

[1429] delete something and keep it going.

[1430] And apparently, apparently I ruined, I ruined that child's Pokemon experience.

[1431] That's that answer.

[1432] So if you were that child and listening right in, I want to know how life has turned out for you.

[1433] Um, yeah, I, I think, you know, how many box cutters did you leave that, uh, two, two box cutters at the beginning of my, my box cutter collection.

[1434] I still have the, The vest somewhere.

[1435] When's this out?

[1436] Box cutters?

[1437] Fucking soon.

[1438] They're available now.

[1439] Fucking real soon.

[1440] Is it like March or something?

[1441] Like March.

[1442] So it's a 3DS launch?

[1443] 3DS.

[1444] Yeah, it just seems like the timing is a little strange.

[1445] No, you put this out on the system that everyone has.

[1446] Yeah, sure.

[1447] And it'll still work on a 3DS.

[1448] Yeah, but if you just bought your kid the new Pokemon a couple weeks ago, you're not going to feel very compelled to also buy them the new DS.

[1449] It's like, ah, they got something to keep them busy for a while.

[1450] I don't know that there are a ton of games at launch that you would buy for a kid anyway.

[1451] Isn't that dinosaurs game?

[1452] Yeah, maybe they're not targeting 3S.

[1453] Do kids love Nintendogs?

[1454] I don't know who else would play it.

[1455] Star Wars, Clone Wars, 3D.

[1456] Moms.

[1457] Nintendogs seems like one of those like, I'm a businessman and I live in the big city of Japan and I've never even seen a dog, but I got my virtual dog.

[1458] It also seems like something has happened to me. I'm laid up in a hospital bed.

[1459] I bought you a DS and Nintendogs.

[1460] Sorry, this sucks.

[1461] We'll come visit every day.

[1462] Software, I think, is a little bit irrelevant for the 3DS launch.

[1463] Yeah.

[1464] They will sell enough of those regardless of what fucking games they have.

[1465] Probably.

[1466] Out the gate.

[1467] They'll get there eventually with the games, probably.

[1468] Someday.

[1469] We just wait for the next.

[1470] You think it's a black, white, and whatever.

[1471] Shale.

[1472] Gray.

[1473] What else is there to go at this point?

[1474] With Pokemon?

[1475] How much more diametrically opposed did you get than black and white?

[1476] Did they do Alpha and Omega?

[1477] Oh.

[1478] Hmm.

[1479] There you go.

[1480] Somebody get me on the phone with Reggie.

[1481] Yeah.

[1482] With Game Freaks.

[1483] Those are the guys doing Pokemon games?

[1484] Yeah, Game Freak.

[1485] Game Freak.

[1486] Is that owned by Nintendo?

[1487] The Pokemon Company.

[1488] Second party?

[1489] The Pokemon Company is like a weird spin -out or something.

[1490] Yeah, they have their own domain.

[1491] Like Treehouse didn't do localization on this.

[1492] Really?

[1493] Like some other, like the Pokemon company has their own localization team or something at this point.

[1494] Those guys must be printing money.

[1495] Yeah, I guess so.

[1496] Yeah, that stuff still seems to do well.

[1497] There are always kids who like video games.

[1498] See, on YouTube there's always some kind of Pokemon video.

[1499] Hey, you should watch this.

[1500] Watch this.

[1501] Someone losing it.

[1502] About Pokemon.

[1503] Yeah.

[1504] You know, it's still, that formulized thing still plays, and I think they're doing some smart stuff with the connectivity.

[1505] And if it's, you know, it's the Mario Kart argument of, you know, your first one is always your favorite.

[1506] And even though, you know, you've grown up since you played the last Pokemon game, but there's still a fresh batch of kids for whom this will be, you know, my first RPG.

[1507] And that...

[1508] That still fucking works.

[1509] It still has the cute little monsters in it and easy -to -digest storyline, and you just go.

[1510] I love how Nintendo has the balls to stick with it while everybody else is pretty much bowed out, like all the Digimons and everybody else is just kind of like, we're done, we're done, we're done.

[1511] I think that stuff still exists somewhere, though, doesn't it?

[1512] I don't know.

[1513] Oh, the other mons?

[1514] There was just a Yu -Gi -Oh game out, like a downloadable Yu -Gi -Oh card battling game on Xbox Live Arcade.

[1515] One of the tops last year.

[1516] Really?

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] Are they still doing, like, after -school cartoons and stuff?

[1519] I don't know.

[1520] I mean, even, like, Mega Man Battle Network kind of turned into that.

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] Like, it was basically that kind of game.

[1523] Yeah, you collect the chips and the DVDs.

[1524] I guess they haven't put one of those out in a little while, but they're probably still around somewhere.

[1525] I will collect my thoughts about this better later in the week and present something about Pokemon Black and White, but...

[1526] Professor Ivy.

[1527] Is Ash still in it?

[1528] I don't think Ash has been in one of those games for...

[1529] I don't think he was ever.

[1530] He was never really in the RPGs.

[1531] Team Plasma.

[1532] I'm updating myself here.

[1533] Really?

[1534] Team Plasma.

[1535] is the evil team this time.

[1536] And they're trying to liberate, or at least they're operating under the guise that they think that Pokeballs and trainers are wrong, and that's not the natural state for Pokemon, and they should be...

[1537] Yeah, philosophical turmoil.

[1538] When they first pitched that to me, I'm like, I might agree with Team Plasma.

[1539] You know there's something evil going on, though.

[1540] They're using Pokemon for...

[1541] They just want all the Pokemon for themselves.

[1542] They're disingenuous about their...

[1543] Something.

[1544] About their righteousness.

[1545] Pokemon blood fuels our dark machine!

[1546] And we want to hunt them in the wild.

[1547] It might just...

[1548] Did you have a bully?

[1549] Did you...

[1550] Is there your rival when you started off?

[1551] I think more companion.

[1552] Oh, really?

[1553] Yeah, yeah.

[1554] There are some set companion characters that...

[1555] It may turn into that.

[1556] It may turn into kind of the...

[1557] He's your buddy, but you're competitive against each other.

[1558] Did you get to play some?

[1559] Like from the beginning?

[1560] No. Okay.

[1561] No. We were kind of just jumping around.

[1562] It was more just to show features because, yeah, they did also say that, yeah, you know, beginning of this game is going to be.

[1563] Pick your Pokemon.

[1564] Yeah.

[1565] But it will be no Pokemon that you know of, although it will probably hit at least as far as, you know, like elemental stuff.

[1566] Like it will still hit those same notes, but it will be no Chimchar this time.

[1567] Got to beat the game and then rush to Geodude.

[1568] That's right.

[1569] That's pretty much...

[1570] I don't know.

[1571] I played a little bit of Dead Space, the first Dead Space.

[1572] You gonna finish that?

[1573] Huh?

[1574] You gonna finish that?

[1575] Maybe.

[1576] I hope so.

[1577] I'm in the same boat with you for Assassin's Creed where I'm locked in.

[1578] Yeah, but that's a way better game.

[1579] I'm gonna finish...

[1580] Yeah, so it's not a chore.

[1581] Well, if you critical path Assassin's Creed, it's not that long.

[1582] I have a sealed copy of Dead Space 2 that I'm not going to...

[1583] jump into until I finish.

[1584] I did not go back.

[1585] I didn't finish the original Dead Space.

[1586] Did you watch that previously on?

[1587] I did.

[1588] Was that effective for you?

[1589] Yeah, I was good enough.

[1590] Someone who didn't play the first game.

[1591] The Marker.

[1592] The Marker.

[1593] Yeah.

[1594] And when they say that the name of their religion is something -tologists, you go like, oh, they're crazy.

[1595] Okay, great.

[1596] That reads.

[1597] So, whatever.

[1598] Yeah, I feel like enough of that stuff has been telegraphed to me through...

[1599] I don't know, like the Wii game and even just like looking at that stuff in passing.

[1600] The only thing that was nice, I don't know if they actually did explain it in the first game, but you do encounter it in the second game where they basically describe what the Unitologists believe in.

[1601] I think that's in the first game.

[1602] To some extent.

[1603] It was nice to get that.

[1604] Here's their side of what they think.

[1605] Are you talking about that museum exhibit?

[1606] Press the button to hear the recording.

[1607] They don't go that deep into it in the first one.

[1608] I thought that stuff was kind of cool.

[1609] Backstory on crazy culture.

[1610] Not that crazy.

[1611] They're pretty crazy.

[1612] They have some money though, right?

[1613] Did they send out the ships in the first one?

[1614] They funded that mission.

[1615] Like the planet Kraken mission?

[1616] Yeah.

[1617] Yeah.

[1618] Like, I guess, can we say that?

[1619] He didn't even finish that game.

[1620] Oh, I think that's...

[1621] Is it just out there?

[1622] There's a marker.

[1623] No, I've already heard.

[1624] They're already talking about it.

[1625] I'm on chapter three, I think, out of 12.

[1626] Yeah, because the crew is all...

[1627] Yeah, like certain higher -ups.

[1628] They have infiltrated every level of society.

[1629] You had an interesting question.

[1630] Did you look it up on Wikipedia?

[1631] Multiple people on Twitter have already answered that for me. What's the answer?

[1632] Where did the bat things come from?

[1633] Yeah, what's the...

[1634] Chicken and egg of the Necromorph.

[1635] So I guess that new movie answers all that stuff.

[1636] Like they run down the dead space ecosystem of Necromorphs.

[1637] I believe if dead bodies are within the sphere of influence of the marker, the dead space, if you will, then they reanimate automatically.

[1638] Like they turn into Necromorphs just by being near it.

[1639] Okay.

[1640] And some of them will turn into those bat.

[1641] Like, infectors, I guess they're called.

[1642] And then those can spread out.

[1643] Those things just go all over the place, like turning every corpse they find into more necromorphs.

[1644] I'll buy it.

[1645] So, yeah, that's how that works.

[1646] Yeah, that game's pretty good.

[1647] It's quite good.

[1648] It's definitely a lot slower.

[1649] Make me want to play...

[1650] It'll be interesting to hear that.

[1651] And it's funny, because I don't find it to be...

[1652] Like, it is slower than your average third -person shooter, but I don't find it to be...

[1653] I don't know, too methodical.

[1654] It's not slow in an absolute sense.

[1655] It doesn't drag or anything.

[1656] No, absolutely not.

[1657] It's just that if you...

[1658] I want to hear your impressions of 2 after playing 1 because I played through 2 and then went back to 1.

[1659] Yeah.

[1660] And just everything about it moves slower.

[1661] Like, even down to, like, you know, you walk up to an item, you get the little hollow pop -up of what it is.

[1662] Yeah.

[1663] Like, even stuff like that takes longer to happen, basically.

[1664] Like, everything about it.

[1665] Like, the stomping is slower.

[1666] The reloading is slower.

[1667] It's just...

[1668] They expedited everything and made it more of an action.

[1669] Maybe that...

[1670] I don't know.

[1671] The first game, I've enjoyed it for what I played of it and then got to a point where I feel like I've done everything it's going to ask me to do and it's just going to repeat this.

[1672] I kind of got to a point where I felt done with it.

[1673] Yeah.

[1674] I mean, you eventually go down to the planet.

[1675] Right, yeah.

[1676] It changes a little bit, but like I said in the review, that ship is that ship.

[1677] Every deck kind of looks like every other deck.

[1678] Yeah, so it eventually just...

[1679] I got to a point where I just didn't feel compelled to continue playing it.

[1680] I was just like, okay, I got the weird level 5 suit that kind of breaks the game early on, and I'm going to run around looking like this for the rest of the game.

[1681] Did you get that thing?

[1682] I think it's called the Elite Suit.

[1683] No. I think they took them down.

[1684] Oh, that's right.

[1685] They were only up for like the first month after it came out.

[1686] That might be for the best because that was almost kind of game -breaking.

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] So I look like an Xbox 360 running around.

[1689] Or on the PS3, you looked like a PlayStation 3.

[1690] Wasn't that like a pre -order bonus only?

[1691] I don't think it was pre -order.

[1692] I think it was like buy a new copy and put the code in, if I'm not mistaken.

[1693] Something like that.

[1694] All it was was a suit with a full inventory that you got right up front, basically.

[1695] Yeah, so far, I don't feel like the inventory is too restricting.

[1696] It's all right.

[1697] It's not a big deal.

[1698] Yeah.

[1699] Yeah, like I kind of associate that survival horror idea with all of those systems being super punishing, like on purpose.

[1700] And I just don't get that.

[1701] It's no Resident Evil 4 where you're like playing Tetris with all your items and rotating them to try to fit them all in your backpack or whatever.

[1702] So it's not that big a deal.

[1703] And that's it.

[1704] That's what I've got.

[1705] It was good.

[1706] Want to talk about news?

[1707] You guys want to talk about...

[1708] Jeff, you want to talk some more about the NGP?

[1709] I could.

[1710] I don't know.

[1711] I don't know what there is to say.

[1712] Is there more?

[1713] Is there new name?

[1714] I mean, well, they announced it.

[1715] I mean, last week we were talking about here's what we think it is.

[1716] Oh, is this what we – okay.

[1717] And they have since said, yep, you're 90 % right.

[1718] That's the thing.

[1719] What was the one thing that you were – The depth camera thing.

[1720] The infrared somehow.

[1721] That one of the cameras was somehow special.

[1722] So it does have a camera on the back.

[1723] It does have two cameras.

[1724] On the back?

[1725] One face in each way.

[1726] But, yeah, they have not said anything about the cameras being special.

[1727] So go figure.

[1728] One guy saying something that could not be corroborated somewhere else turned out to be not true.

[1729] But the rest of it, yeah.

[1730] Well, Capacitant, the touch pads on the back.

[1731] Curious to see what happens with that.

[1732] That's kind of a novel thing.

[1733] Well, they showed with Little Deviants, you'll be able to poke the back and it'll kind of poke the world up from under your dudes.

[1734] So they're kind of showing that.

[1735] In Uncharted, you will climb vines.

[1736] So that Little Deviants thing.

[1737] With the back.

[1738] That doesn't sound so good.

[1739] But that Little Deviants thing sounds like the first truly unique and interesting use of that thing.

[1740] Right, yeah.

[1741] I suspect there'll be a bunch of rhythm games that use that.

[1742] And of course, at the press conference they had in Japan, the PlayStation meeting, they rolled out...

[1743] kind of a pretty good murderer's row of developers from both sides.

[1744] I did see that list.

[1745] Well, yeah, the list is one thing, but even just the people that were there saying, yeah, we're doing stuff, like Kojima was on stage.

[1746] That's kind of what's scary about it to me. It is all big names, and it's all just stuff that you'd probably rather play on TV, just like with the first one.

[1747] I mean, the first one had a great, like Kojima was out there on the first PSP, or the precursor to the NGP.

[1748] I think we just call it PSP2 until they figure it out.

[1749] P2P.

[1750] I feel like more got said.

[1751] There was more information in what they weren't saying in the not announcing a price and not having a finalized name for it.

[1752] $7 ,000.

[1753] Yeah, not announcing a name just says to me that they're keeping their options open.

[1754] They're like, you know.

[1755] Waiting for trademarks to make it through.

[1756] Like they're running some kind of Q rating or something.

[1757] What do people think about the PSP?

[1758] If we're going to come out and say we're doing the PSP 2, would people go like, yay?

[1759] Or would they go like, ugh?

[1760] I don't know about Sony's recent branding efforts, such as the bloggy.

[1761] Or what's that new movie service they launched?

[1762] Curiosity with a Q and stuff like that.

[1763] Is that a movie service or a music service?

[1764] I don't know.

[1765] It's some kind of download or something or other.

[1766] I don't know.

[1767] Losing faith in their ability to name things.

[1768] It's a handsome -looking little portable.

[1769] Yeah, yeah.

[1770] Other than it doesn't really matter because you'll never actually look at the thing, but the pad on the back looks terrible.

[1771] Like the webbing?

[1772] I love it.

[1773] All the grid of symbols on it?

[1774] I love it.

[1775] That's cool.

[1776] I love it.

[1777] It's actually the only thing about that design that I like.

[1778] But the rest of it looks so slick and minimal and Spartan, and then all of a sudden there's this explosion of...

[1779] stuff on the bag.

[1780] I'm a little worried that the analog sticks, like the profile on the thing, like they might stick up and catch on sliding it into bags or pockets, but...

[1781] I don't think they stick out.

[1782] I think that they're recessed in far enough.

[1783] No, it sounds like they kind of do.

[1784] I mean, I'm not saying they stick out enough to be a problem, but I listened to the 84 podcast.

[1785] A bunch of those guys went and played that thing.

[1786] And it sounds like those things are actual sticks, if I'm not mistaken.

[1787] Yeah, they're not discs.

[1788] They have tilt to them.

[1789] They rotate around an axis.

[1790] So that's a scary thing, right?

[1791] It's something that I think we probably have pined for, right, is dual analog sticks in a lot of those games.

[1792] But now that you have them, does that mean you just take...

[1793] All the design elements from the big brother consoles.

[1794] And then you just use those kind of bumped out areas on the back to do your second triggers.

[1795] Yeah.

[1796] And now are you just porting stuff over and not putting any design effort into making a unique experience on the Neo?

[1797] Geo platform.

[1798] I think that my impression is that's kind of the pitch of this thing is that you can bring your console games straight over.

[1799] Exactly.

[1800] That's kind of what they've been saying.

[1801] Hey, we spent two weeks making Metal Gear Solid 4 run on this thing, but it only runs at 20 frames a second, so imagine if we optimize.

[1802] If I can bring my platform games right over without having to buy another copy, I'm on board.

[1803] If all my PS3 copies come with a portable version for free, hey, come on.

[1804] I will admit I lifted this from the A4 podcast, but they were saying like...

[1805] Like, in a Japanese context, what if the next Dragon Quest came out for PS3 and this thing?

[1806] And you could, like, your save was in the cloud over 3G, and you could, like, level on the train.

[1807] and then take it back to the console, that could be freaking awesome.

[1808] As long as you're not charging for both and also not charging for some service that I have to access my save.

[1809] But it won't.

[1810] Well, there's already talk that you will have to buy a second copy of it.

[1811] The saves won't transfer.

[1812] It'll probably be some kind of PlayStation Plus service.

[1813] Yeah, well, there's already talk out there that...

[1814] Firmware 360 on the PlayStation 3 will have cloud saving for PlayStation Plus.

[1815] That'll be the thing that gets me to subscribe to PlayStation Plus.

[1816] I would totally sign up for that.

[1817] And I think that that's almost a service that only makes sense for people in our line of work who have to bring saves across, let's see, four different PlayStation 3s.

[1818] There's still no way on the PS3 to copy all for all of the games saved.

[1819] Also, my PS3 broke.

[1820] Nice.

[1821] Great.

[1822] Yeah.

[1823] What happened?

[1824] You should get a portable one.

[1825] Me and you have the same one, so I'm like...

[1826] I have the same one as well.

[1827] I try and turn it on, and then it beeps, and then I get the three beeps, and then the red light just flashes.

[1828] Yikes.

[1829] Did you hit it with a hammer?

[1830] Yep.

[1831] And that didn't work?

[1832] No. It's time to get slim.

[1833] I plugged it in and unplugged it.

[1834] Yeah, I'm well out of warranty, so it's like $130 to have...

[1835] Give it to Will.