Giant Bombcast 08-10-2010

[0] It's Tuesday, August the 10th, 2010.

[1] You're listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[2] The Giant Frady Pants of Spiders cast.

[3] We should call it instead.

[4] Oh, if you're such a big man, why don't you get up and kill it?

[5] Because you guys are all...

[6] If you're such a big man, why don't you just eat it?

[7] Because I already had lunch.

[8] What?

[9] If you're such a big man, why don't you take it in your hand?

[10] Why don't you just go put it and then take off your shirt and then put it on your chest?

[11] Yeah, or just put it in your hand and then drop it in your pants.

[12] No, we're not stopping the recording of this podcast.

[13] Exactly.

[14] Talk us through it.

[15] Paint a word picture.

[16] It's a lot more fun to paint the weird picture of you guys cringing and mincing like little ladies with your fanciest tea dresses on at the sight of a spider that's a good 10 feet away from you.

[17] Easy for you to say being the guy sitting farthest from it.

[18] And it's not 10 feet away.

[19] It's like 100 feet away because that spider is like 10 feet wide.

[20] That spider has to go through all of us before it gets to you.

[21] It's got a direct line of sight to all of us.

[22] It's already gone through me. And really I'm closer to it than you are.

[23] That's not true.

[24] Go get a tape measure.

[25] Don't touch it.

[26] You're just in biting trouble.

[27] We'll use the Kuntz measuring system.

[28] Can he reach it from the table?

[29] I'd say it's about 1 .75 Kuntzes from here.

[30] Sure.

[31] No, because Kuntz would never touch it, so it's zero Kuntzes.

[32] No, because Kuntz is a smart man. Coons might be already dead.

[33] Because of that spider?

[34] It might have gone through.

[35] The spider does not care about anything that's going on in this room.

[36] I did notice that Dave is not sitting out there.

[37] He's not here today.

[38] He's not here.

[39] Did you look on the ceiling?

[40] Why is he not here?

[41] Because he released a bunch of spiders that escaped.

[42] Oh, because the spider ate him.

[43] No, he's been gone since Friday.

[44] No, are you going to open the closet?

[45] That's when the spider ate him.

[46] No, he's in Virginia.

[47] He's on the East Coast.

[48] That's what the spider wants you to take.

[49] He's in the Beltway.

[50] Well, if the spider is clever enough to create...

[51] dummy twitter messages from dave snyder then you know what we're running we're fucked we're fucked no matter what we do we're fucked we should capture that spider and harness its power it didn't actually create dummy twitter we can't even do that it's just it's just spoofed a call to dave you should come out here you should come out to virginia i've got something for you uh i believe it's not virginia i believe it is the beltway is that how the washington dc area I don't know.

[52] Maybe he's in Virginia.

[53] It's a political spider.

[54] That's all.

[55] Jeff, I'm sure you're with me here.

[56] K Street.

[57] Anything.

[58] The whole eastern seaboard or the distance between things makes no sense to me. I've driven around the Beltway a bunch of times.

[59] Rhode Island could be two miles from Boston or it could be a thousand.

[60] I went to LA and back in a car this weekend.

[61] California born and bred here.

[62] We're used to one state being huge.

[63] I can travel thousands of miles and never leave a state.

[64] Yeah, I know.

[65] For my parents' house, I can get to Tennessee and South Carolina within an hour.

[66] Yeah, that's crazy.

[67] I left my house at midnight on Friday night and we left for LA at like 2 .30.

[68] Jon Favreau come over and was like, dude!

[69] What's up, man?

[70] And then we got back pretty much at midnight 24 hours later.

[71] There's a lot of driving.

[72] What happened?

[73] You put on your zoo suit and hang out with some beautiful babies.

[74] Yeah, pretty much.

[75] And it was money.

[76] Yeah.

[77] What happened?

[78] I had to go down there.

[79] Oh.

[80] Down there with a friend.

[81] All right.

[82] Help her pick some stuff up.

[83] And then come right back.

[84] Get the hell out of LA.

[85] We were in LA for, let's say, about 20 minutes.

[86] Really?

[87] We were stopped at our destination for about 20 minutes.

[88] Wow.

[89] Yeah.

[90] That's a lot of driving.

[91] Pick up a trailer and then drive it back up.

[92] Did you check the trailer for spiders?

[93] No, there were no spiders.

[94] You might have brought back L .A. spiders.

[95] Maybe the worst motel room I've ever been in.

[96] That's saying a lot.

[97] There was a wet spot on the floor.

[98] Like a fresh wet spot?

[99] Yeah, they only had smoking rooms available because it was like 5 in the morning when we decided to stop.

[100] Man, this trip sounds real weird.

[101] Have you ever gotten in your car and seen cobwebs in the car?

[102] Yeah.

[103] Sure.

[104] My car's got them all over.

[105] So you know the spiders live in there, but you don't see the spiders.

[106] I actually have a lot of cobwebs at my house.

[107] I maybe have too many spiders.

[108] I have a lot of cobwebs.

[109] You're in league with the spiders?

[110] I believe in a healthy spider population because I also have a lot of bugs, and so I'd rather have spiders than the bugs.

[111] Because at least the spiders are doing something.

[112] Spiders are bugs.

[113] But they're killing other bugs, and I like that.

[114] I like that about spiders.

[115] So you let them kill the other bugs, and then you kill them.

[116] And then they crawl into your bed and bite you.

[117] Then they take your car out and shit cobwebs all over it while they're joyriding.

[118] Oh, and then they get in your ear, and you feel them crawling around in there.

[119] And then they eggs your ear, and you've got baby spiders in your ear.

[120] I've had an earache for the last three days.

[121] Think about it.

[122] Something you're just going to open up.

[123] Maybe that hotel.

[124] That baby spider.

[125] That Motel 6 definitely could have baby spiders.

[126] Where were you?

[127] Kiliman City?

[128] Santanella.

[129] Oh, shit.

[130] Don't stay overnight in Santa Nella, man. It was five in the morning.

[131] Fuck that.

[132] Sleep in the bed of the truck.

[133] Sleep in the fucking trailer that you guys just picked up.

[134] No, that was on our way down.

[135] Oh, okay.

[136] It probably...

[137] The sheets...

[138] When you check into a room, the sheets are not supposed to be damp, right?

[139] Like, that's not...

[140] Oh, they're just freshly washed.

[141] Yeah, yeah.

[142] It was...

[143] Did you take them off?

[144] It was a smoking room, and it seemed like someone had been freebasing mold in there or something.

[145] This is the dichotomy for me. It felt like I was in a band again, basically.

[146] You were unafraid to go into the worst Motel 6, but spider in the room.

[147] Look out.

[148] I've had spider bites before, and they're unpleasant.

[149] It's true.

[150] Well, I'm glad that you made it home safe, Jeff, from your international travels.

[151] My whirlwind tour.

[152] Whirlwind tour of the Southland.

[153] Just doing an E3 run, just prepping.

[154] How fast can I make it?

[155] Yeah, exactly.

[156] Got a new route.

[157] Real fast.

[158] We're going midnight.

[159] It's way better.

[160] I had to run later and clean something.

[161] I don't know if I'm down in L .A. I fell off my car keys there, so we had to drive.

[162] To L .A. I didn't, though, because I drove, which is weird, right?

[163] You think I would have noticed that?

[164] I figured that out until I got there.

[165] I had to take apart this room.

[166] It seemed like it was dirty, and it wasn't dirty, so I cleaned it.

[167] Oh, man, you could have picked up my hot cold pack.

[168] Do we still have that place?

[169] What?

[170] No, no, that was months and months ago.

[171] For June, we had that place.

[172] Yeah, yeah.

[173] There's probably still people.

[174] It's probably still there.

[175] I bet it's still in the freezer.

[176] I bet it's still in the freezer.

[177] There was a lot of stuff in that freezer from well before our arrival.

[178] Someone found it, actually, and pulled it out and said, this would, like, cool down the smoke.

[179] You'd be like, I'm going to put it in here.

[180] Cut it open and put it into the bong, man. Oh, I hope they did that.

[181] Vinny.

[182] I'll talk about it now.

[183] Vinny, have you been playing any games?

[184] Dude, I've been playing StarCraft.

[185] What?

[186] I don't want to talk about StarCraft anymore.

[187] But I've been playing the Zerg campaign in StarCraft.

[188] Ask him how.

[189] How did I play it?

[190] Because it was StarCraft, motherfucker.

[191] How is the Zerg campaign treating you?

[192] It's okay.

[193] Want me to go into detail?

[194] No. Because you play as a big bug.

[195] So it was horrible.

[196] Some sort of great big smart bug.

[197] Damn it, Johnny.

[198] Is it a spider?

[199] Damn bugs.

[200] I don't think it's moved in the last.

[201] It's pondering.

[202] That's why spiders are so damn creepy because what's it doing?

[203] Sleeping.

[204] Spiders don't sleep.

[205] They don't have eyelids.

[206] They can't sleep.

[207] How do you know?

[208] That thing is my best friend's spider.

[209] You've not gotten close enough to it.

[210] It's not on the creep, though, so it'll move way slower.

[211] It's going to move at half speed up there.

[212] Yeah, but it makes its own creep.

[213] So I hadn't seen you on my Battle .net friends list since the game came out.

[214] Starcraft stole me from Starcraft 2.

[215] So you started playing Starcraft 1 and now you can't stop playing Starcraft 1?

[216] Yeah, totally.

[217] And so I made it through the Charon and Zerg campaign.

[218] remembered suddenly as i was out on saturday night oh dude there's a bunch of cheats for starcraft yeah and then so now i'm pretty much through with the protest yeah so there's cheats for starcraft too as well oh they're really yeah showing the money and those out oh yeah yeah there's tons of just type them in codes they disable the achievements yeah figures that uh sure whatever uh it's reasonable yeah so i'm really excited because uh so i've i've invested many hours into starcraft because it's a long game there's you know all right 10 missions per faction and until i got to the prodos i was really playing them they were taking about a half hour to an hour uh so maybe 20 hours into starcraft and so i'm really excited now to finish that up go through brood work because i don't think i ever finished that back in the day yeah there's a lot of stuff in starcraft i didn't remember which i'm really happy to see again like oh yeah i didn't know that happens in this Uh, cause all I remember from Starcraft and moratoriums over, you know, Tazer drives his ship into the hive and then blows up.

[219] Yeah.

[220] The overmind.

[221] So I'm super psyched cause I've gotten used to the graphics in Starcraft now.

[222] Like, like for me, it might as well be 1998 or whatever.

[223] And like, that's just the resolution.

[224] Everything is, this is how it works.

[225] So.

[226] This is video games, dog.

[227] I've stayed away from even looking at StarCraft II stuff so I can boot it up and be like, wow.

[228] Wow.

[229] 1999 is incredible.

[230] Holy crap.

[231] It's 3D.

[232] The color of the pylons emit light.

[233] That's crazy.

[234] And all the improvements.

[235] The biggest one I am looking forward to is being able to select more than like 12 units at once.

[236] So have you played any of the Starcraft 2 yet?

[237] I did.

[238] I played about three missions, but it was so long ago.

[239] What are we talking about?

[240] Starcraft 2?

[241] When did that come out?

[242] So you basically didn't play far enough to where it gets good.

[243] No. You basically got the whole game.

[244] I opened up, I think, the cantina, and then I stopped because Starcraft stopped me from playing Starcraft 2.

[245] How long would you say the...

[246] Starcraft 1?

[247] Starcraft 1, single player campaign.

[248] Well, you know, it really depends on how you play.

[249] And since I play super slowly, let's just say 30 hours.

[250] Okay.

[251] But you could probably tear through it if you're really good and like eat or something like that.

[252] Like I build up like super huge forces and I'm not very tactical, so I just...

[253] like crash against the rocks with my huge force and then be like way too many do's and then use them against the wrong unit and like oh I took out one of them let's build up another hundred yeah like alright so you like to play strategy without strategy I've gotten better yeah so towards the end it was very very rewarding for me hmm I use shortcut keys so how many stars do you give Starcraft how many how many crafts would I Starcraft yeah craft StarCraft the first one is like easily five stars.

[254] Yeah.

[255] Like literally I'm enjoying it as much as I probably will StarCraft 2 I assume like today which is saying a lot 12 years later.

[256] Yeah.

[257] That game is pretty good.

[258] The stupid missions are stupid still.

[259] There's a lot of stupid missions.

[260] The ones where you're like I'm two units.

[261] Now go through this ship.

[262] The ones with no base building.

[263] The ones like that in StarCraft 2 were actually done really well.

[264] Those are some of the best missions in the game.

[265] They're done.

[266] much more effectively than any other RTS game.

[267] Makes me even more excited to get into that game.

[268] Those are...

[269] People in the know call those installation missions.

[270] Sure.

[271] Installation missions suck.

[272] And I'm also really curious...

[273] They are the escort missions of RTS.

[274] They used to be.

[275] Until this game.

[276] Yeah.

[277] And now they're effing awesome.

[278] I'm really curious to see how they'll do the Zerg campaign in Starcraft 2.

[279] You say that now.

[280] Like, finish the game first.

[281] Man, none of you guys have finished it.

[282] Man, how have you?

[283] God damn it.

[284] So they have the cerebrates speaking back and forth to you in StarCraft.

[285] Cerebrates?

[286] Cerebrates.

[287] Yeah, they're like the little lieutenants, basically.

[288] They're tough to tell because there's eight colors.

[289] They're basically little talking fleshy potatoes.

[290] Yeah.

[291] Like lumps of flesh talking to each other.

[292] And then the overmind is an eyeball, right?

[293] So it's like those things just talk to you with their done -up voice.

[294] You know, in StarCraft...

[295] One, all the exposition from that stuff took place on those stupid little monitors, those little television monitors.

[296] So I don't know.

[297] And all the cut scenes when you're watching the Zerg have no VO at all because they're just Zerg ships flying around.

[298] I'm going to guess they're trying to evoke that you're getting the essence of the hive mind or whatever.

[299] You're seeing these images happening from around.

[300] So when you get to walk around in the Zerg campaign, what's that going to be like?

[301] I think they said that the two other games, out -of -mission stuff isn't necessarily going to be like that at all.

[302] What they refer to as the metagame, they have said, is going to be super different.

[303] No, really?

[304] There's some rumor going around that the Zerg one's going to be more...

[305] Hang up this microphone, I would.

[306] People have basically been mining quotes from interviews and have somehow determined that the Zerg one is going to be like an RPG somehow.

[307] I have no idea.

[308] Nah, who knows?

[309] You guys should finish this campaign so we can actually...

[310] I am on the mission where I'm like maybe 16 missions in or something like that where fire burns from left to right across the map.

[311] And that's the first one I lost because I was playing super fucking sloppy and deserved to lose.

[312] Yeah, you gotta move your buildings in that one.

[313] I was moving them, but I was moving them...

[314] I don't know, I just wasn't pumping out enough units, so at the end I was basically just like couldn't generate enough units to get to the thing in time.

[315] And it was...

[316] right down to the wire and I lost and I was super pissed and said, I'm never going to play this game again.

[317] Does it auto -save during the missions?

[318] Are there checkpoints in StarCraft 2 for objectives?

[319] Yes, it does, yeah.

[320] But I will probably start that mission from scratch because if I just start playing the right way from the beginning and I actually care about...

[321] Way more prepared for that.

[322] I build stuff properly, it won't be an issue.

[323] That's the experience I started having on hard where I had to play through the whole thing and fail to figure out what to do from the beginning to actually beat it.

[324] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[325] It was required.

[326] It's kind of like StarCraft 1.

[327] There was definitely...

[328] a lot of missions like that I've been going through.

[329] I'm like, oh, okay, now I know where all the bases are.

[330] I know what kind of units you're going to throw at me. I can build appropriately to prepare for those rushes and whatever they're going to do.

[331] I wasn't building any base defense because I figured I'm just going to have to lift off and leave it there anyway.

[332] So anytime they would attack my base, I would just take the forces back there and deal with it instead of having those forces continue to press forward.

[333] Just lazy play.

[334] You've got to be real aggressive on that mission about clearing their bases so you can take the minerals.

[335] Starcraft, so yeah.

[336] I just want to hear what you guys think the Zerg game will be after you see what happens at the end of this game.

[337] Kerrigan, Strip Poker, Touchmaster, 800?

[338] Thousand.

[339] But her name won't be Kerrigan, it'll be like Kegren again.

[340] And she'll be the Queen of Blades.

[341] Three of a kind.

[342] It'll be Stephanie.

[343] What is it?

[344] Setfany.

[345] Setfany was her name.

[346] I believe it was how it was spelled.

[347] Setfany.

[348] So about 30 missions away and about 800 books from starting StarCraft 2.

[349] I'm not going to read.

[350] You've got to read all the fiction first.

[351] Holy Christ.

[352] I looked it up because I was going to.

[353] Were there a lot of StarCraft books?

[354] I was going to start playing them on books on tape during the missions.

[355] Because I just turned the music off and play my own music, which is a way better way to play that game than music gets boring after a while.

[356] I was like, I might as well be listening to StarCraft while I'm playing these.

[357] And I looked it up.

[358] First of all, there are no audiobooks.

[359] Second of all, there's like 10, 15 StarCraft books out there.

[360] You're never going to play StarCraft 2.

[361] No, I'm just going to skip the books.

[362] I've got one of them if you want it.

[363] At some point, it just becomes too much.

[364] I don't care that much.

[365] I don't want that much backstory.

[366] If there were like three events that's going to happen here will matter.

[367] You don't want to read the epic tale of the Heaven's Devils?

[368] Well, there's like the Queen of Blades books.

[369] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[370] But they're all written by different authors too.

[371] I don't know.

[372] At some point, it just becomes like...

[373] I see that you're just making money now from this, and this isn't really about telling the story.

[374] You should just play Sarker.

[375] I will.

[376] It's weird.

[377] I mean, they actually trivialized the events of Brood War.

[378] It's almost like it doesn't matter.

[379] Stuff happens, but not...

[380] They introduce medics.

[381] That history lesson that they give you during the install of StarCraft 2 stops at the end of StarCraft.

[382] In the manual, if you read the manual, it's way more detailed.

[383] We've had this conversation before.

[384] This exact conversation has already happened.

[385] We've now come around full circle.

[386] No more talking about StarCraft.

[387] What?

[388] That is the only game that matters that's out right now.

[389] How much multiplayer have you played?

[390] How many matches have you played at this point?

[391] I stopped playing league matches because I'm trying to learn Zerg now.

[392] So I'm basically playing unranked free -for -alls, which is a fucking shit show.

[393] Like, free -for -all is basically you get rushed in the first 90 seconds or...

[394] You turtle for 20 minutes, and you randomly see messages pop up as players get, like, beaten.

[395] Oh, yeah.

[396] It's just whether they find you or not.

[397] Yeah, yeah.

[398] So, like, you either get attacked first or last, and that's a super weird dynamic.

[399] But it's good for women.

[400] Can you build the alliance stuff in there?

[401] Can you, like, form just kind of alliances?

[402] Oh, I didn't even try.

[403] I'm sure you could.

[404] Oh, man. There's also a lot of very bad manners in Free For All.

[405] Oh, I'm sure.

[406] A lot of racial epithets flying around and stuff.

[407] Have fun.

[408] It's pretty rough.

[409] I'm just glad you're playing StarCraft because you are in a great position to appreciate everything that's better.

[410] Yeah, I can't wait.

[411] I'm really excited now.

[412] Way more than before I started playing StarCraft 1 because now it's going to turn my world upside down.

[413] You know what's always good for games?

[414] It's heightened expectations.

[415] Sure.

[416] That always pays off.

[417] Get really, really excited for something before you play it, and then you play it, and then it always meets and exceeds your expectations.

[418] Every single game ever made always does that.

[419] So it's my advice to you.

[420] Sure.

[421] Do exactly what you're doing.

[422] Okay.

[423] And then I'll just play Diablo for the hell of a day.

[424] I played some Mod Nation Racers just kind of randomly.

[425] They patched it recently.

[426] Could have fooled me. Yeah.

[427] Did they not fix the load times?

[428] They claimed that they did.

[429] Did they patch it since our TNT, right?

[430] Yeah.

[431] So maybe there was like a billion patches that were going on on my PlayStation because this is the first game I've also put in my PlayStation in about a month.

[432] You could have just said because it's on my PlayStation.

[433] Well, so like at some point I literally thought it was patching back and forth.

[434] Like it's going from like version 1 .03 to 1 .0.

[435] .02 back to one point.

[436] Because it was just like patch after patch.

[437] I was like, is this fucking up?

[438] Like, am I just like patching?

[439] Are you in like a patch loop?

[440] Yeah, like a horrible patch loop.

[441] And eventually it stopped like after about an hour.

[442] So it was terrible.

[443] It's patching the firmware, then it's patching the store version, then it's patching the actual game, then it's patching the games online, and then it's just like all these different revisions of points.

[444] It has to download patches and install patches, and those are two separate progress bars.

[445] It was a big bummer.

[446] I sat down and I was going to show my wife, and then she just left after a while.

[447] Pretty cool, right?

[448] I'm going to watch True Blood.

[449] Bye.

[450] All right.

[451] I win.

[452] Shit.

[453] You win because you don't have to watch True Blood.

[454] That game is really fun, except for the really long load.

[455] Maybe it's not as long as it was during TNT.

[456] It is a little faster.

[457] Some people said they're longer in some cases.

[458] Great.

[459] And some other people said they're shorter.

[460] Shit, we fucked up.

[461] It seems like most people are reporting they're shorter, but it's still over a minute to get in a race.

[462] It's pretty long.

[463] 30 % of infinity is still infinity.

[464] Is that what they said?

[465] 30 % improvement?

[466] 50 % improvement?

[467] Yeah, I think so.

[468] Okay.

[469] But that game is, like, when you're in the game, it's fun.

[470] And I like the kart racing.

[471] So, there's that.

[472] I should put that on the back of the box.

[473] I like the kart racing.

[474] And I think that's about it.

[475] It was really a StarCraft weekend for me. Oh, dude.

[476] Starcraft?

[477] What?

[478] Tell me. What's that about?

[479] What tier are you in?

[480] Platinum.

[481] Okay.

[482] So now you're playing unranked.

[483] I'm afraid to take my Zerg game into the league.

[484] I don't want to sully my record.

[485] Will you eventually drop out of Platinum if you don't play?

[486] Does it work like that?

[487] Or you just get at the bottom of Platinum?

[488] I really wondered about that.

[489] So when I placed into Platinum, I came in at number four in my division.

[490] And I woke up the next morning.

[491] I was number 22.

[492] I guess if there's kind of a relative scale, I guess if everybody starts getting better win ratios than you, you push down.

[493] I guess it's possible that you could get pushed in the lower league.

[494] I mean, it makes sense.

[495] Like, you don't want someone, like, front in Diamond League.

[496] Yeah.

[497] And then just sitting there.

[498] That just never plays.

[499] Yeah.

[500] I think I'm still at number 16 on the Ultimate MK3 leaderboards on Xbox 360.

[501] I mean, they would get pushed to the bottom of their league.

[502] Like, they would end up at the bottom of Diamond.

[503] But the question is, would they then drop in the platform?

[504] Oh, no, I get that.

[505] I'm saying, like, even if they're at the bottom of Diamond League, they're still repping Diamond, even though they haven't been maintaining themselves.

[506] And, like, the Diamond League has gotten better.

[507] In theory, all of these leagues are going to get better and better over time.

[508] Yeah, that's absolutely happening.

[509] Especially if they patch stuff and make changes to it.

[510] Sure, sure.

[511] If there's balance changes that happen.

[512] I mean, yeah, as evidenced by me dropping like 15 spots in a night.

[513] Yeah.

[514] Like it definitely happens.

[515] Sounds like a bad gambling night.

[516] Drop 15 large.

[517] I mean, I think the rankings are in serious.

[518] 15 stacks.

[519] They're in serious flux right now because people are still placing into the leagues.

[520] So the game is still new.

[521] Yeah, it's probably going to take at least another month before everything kind of equalizes.

[522] So I am too proud to...

[523] Beg.

[524] F up, yes.

[525] I ain't too proud to play Zerg.

[526] Wait, I am too proud to play Zerg.

[527] Online competitive.

[528] In the ranking, yeah.

[529] I'm not going to risk silly my record with a race that I'm not so good with.

[530] Ain't Matt Kessler, all right.

[531] I'm surprised that they don't have separate ladders per race.

[532] Yeah, some people have asked for that, but I don't know.

[533] Integration, man. It's not about separate ladders.

[534] Separate but equal.

[535] Their own drinking fountain.

[536] Actually, that's not a bad idea because if you've ever seen a Zerg, you drink from the fountain.

[537] Don't get me wrong.

[538] You know, some Zerg.

[539] You're one of the good ones.

[540] You're one of the good ones is what I'm saying.

[541] You're a good Zerg.

[542] Pull it away.

[543] You're pulling away towards the spider.

[544] Spider, man, it's moved.

[545] It repositioned itself.

[546] After I yelled, spider!

[547] What?

[548] Huh?

[549] What's up?

[550] What did you guys need?

[551] I was sleeping.

[552] Planning your demise.

[553] I mean, take a nap.

[554] Spider, go get me something to drink.

[555] Oh, turn a fire hose on that thing.

[556] Worse intern than Kessler.

[557] Or a can of air.

[558] Oh, yeah.

[559] Kessler has been playing.

[560] Not even moving.

[561] Kessler's playing an embarrassing amount of StarCraft.

[562] Yeah, he's a darty.

[563] He just got into silver.

[564] He's played like 150 matches or something, right?

[565] 160 -something last I checked yesterday.

[566] But.

[567] I guess the system works because he is at literally almost a one -to -one win -loss ratio.

[568] He was like 160 games played and like 82 -1 or something.

[569] This is also our last week of Kessler.

[570] It's true.

[571] We're almost out of intern.

[572] Just wear him down a little bit more to the nub.

[573] I'll miss him.

[574] We'll need a new one soon.

[575] Is there something else video game related?

[576] Just an anecdote more than what I play.

[577] You were there for this, Ryan.

[578] I opened up my joust cabinet to put in that power supply as easy as I thought it was going to be and said, nope.

[579] Nope.

[580] I can't do this.

[581] Then started bringing up schematics.

[582] I was going to say this morning at your desk you had...

[583] You had a voltmeter and...

[584] It was so easy.

[585] Some sort of electrical schematics up on your screen.

[586] On the five -step instructions they provided.

[587] Just five steps.

[588] Just five easy steps.

[589] All five of the steps, solder something.

[590] It's super easy.

[591] Put this pin on, do this, and then the last step is where I got muddled up.

[592] There are two AC leads that come out of the power supply that you need to tap into existing AC leads in the cabinet.

[593] So you need to find the AC leads that are going to the monitor or coming out of the transformer or whatever.

[594] And that's when I was like, dude, I don't know.

[595] I thought it would be super easy.

[596] Like, I'll just follow the AC leads that go to the monitor.

[597] That Joust cabinet is probably 20 years old.

[598] Everything is brown and coated with it.

[599] It's closer to 30.

[600] So, yeah, it's just like I'm kind of gross in there, but there's like a billion wires on the back of the monitor.

[601] You should be careful with that stuff.

[602] That's not something to trifle with.

[603] The only thing I'm worried about is...

[604] touching the capacitor on the burner.

[605] Yeah, exactly.

[606] I mean, that stuff holds a charge for a while.

[607] So the machine's been off for about two weeks, two and a half weeks.

[608] I don't know how long it takes to discharge.

[609] I'm not too worried about that.

[610] I am more worried about electricating myself and also breaking the machine.

[611] So we'll figure it out.

[612] I don't know.

[613] Maybe next week I'll have better news.

[614] Just start tapping those things into everything.

[615] I hope it works.

[616] Did you contact Guy?

[617] I didn't contact Guy, but I will.

[618] Maybe.

[619] You should reach out to Guy.

[620] I might clean it first.

[621] Okay.

[622] That might be my next step before I do that.

[623] There's a lot of dust.

[624] Just say cleaning it sounds like a great way to break it.

[625] Oh, you mean just rubbing alcohol on everything?

[626] Well, I mean anything that you would think to do to break it or to clean it seems like it would also be a perfect way to...

[627] I was just going to put it in the dishwasher.

[628] Take the boards out and put them in the dishwasher.

[629] As long as you let it dry completely, it's totally safe.

[630] Yeah, it'll totally work.

[631] Great idea.

[632] Don't put any soap in there and just run it.

[633] There's my story.

[634] Excellent.

[635] Well, I wish you better luck in the future with your old -ass arcade machine.

[636] It's been fun so far.

[637] Learn a lot.

[638] I like learning.

[639] Schematics.

[640] Schematics.

[641] Hand -drawn schematics.

[642] Schemos.

[643] What?

[644] Jeff, did you play anything else?

[645] Worth talking about here.

[646] No, Friday I played some StarCraft 2.

[647] How's that?

[648] What's that about?

[649] That's pretty good.

[650] This is like space, but like space bugs.

[651] All right, Brad, space nobility.

[652] Bradley.

[653] Hi.

[654] Brad, how's it going?

[655] Pretty good.

[656] I'm not going to talk to you about StarCraft.

[657] I'm going to talk to you about some other stuff.

[658] How about if you and I talk to each other about the same thing, that same thing being Metroid Other M. Oh, God, yeah.

[659] Which we went to Nintendo last week.

[660] Yeah, we can talk about it.

[661] We can talk to each other.

[662] I want to hear, too.

[663] Man, this is for you.

[664] This is for the two people that were there.

[665] I forgot to think about that game before.

[666] I played that game before.

[667] Can I sort of talk about it?

[668] Sure.

[669] You saw some of the same stuff that we did.

[670] I'm the Other M. Can I talk about it?

[671] I don't know what the M stands for for you.

[672] It stands for Vinny.

[673] Okay.

[674] That is another kind of M, I will say.

[675] It's clearly not an M. That's some kind of M. The other M. It's like a half an M, but upside down.

[676] Yeah, it's like parts of an M. It's like some other M. An M by any other name.

[677] See the alphabet right there.

[678] Other M. OP.

[679] Hey, M, who's that?

[680] That's the other M. Other M. Yeah, it's not the M. It's an M!

[681] We need a double M. That needs to be the 27th letter.

[682] M double M. So what happened with the other M?

[683] Who is the other M?

[684] Break this mystery.

[685] Metroid.

[686] No, but who's the other M?

[687] Metroid.

[688] Marvin.

[689] Mother Brain.

[690] I don't know.

[691] Do you think there will actually be Metroids in this game?

[692] I do.

[693] I mean, there have been entire Metroid games without Metroids.

[694] I know.

[695] Just the Primes, right?

[696] Well, yeah.

[697] I think...

[698] Prime 2 had no Metroids, if I remember.

[699] Are you sure?

[700] I'm almost positive.

[701] I see people typing emails already.

[702] They probably are.

[703] They always are.

[704] But I see that in my head constantly.

[705] It's been a while.

[706] As we talk here, I can see someone clackety -clack -clack -clack.

[707] You guys don't know what you're talking about.

[708] Actually, our correction emails are very gracious.

[709] That's good.

[710] It's the correction comments that are very gentle.

[711] These garrulous pricks.

[712] No one speaks that eloquently in our comments.

[713] Yeah, well.

[714] So, yeah, Jeff, you had seen Metroid Other M before we did.

[715] I played, like, maybe the first half hour.

[716] And you kind of struggled with describing it to us.

[717] Yeah.

[718] And after seeing it and playing some of it, I totally get why.

[719] It's a weird fucking game.

[720] Is there a map screen and a subscreen and stuff in that game?

[721] Okay, because when I played it, that stuff wasn't in.

[722] Well, I mean, there was the mini -map.

[723] Not all of it was in.

[724] There was a mini -map.

[725] There was a total, like, pause map.

[726] You can go to a map screen and scroll around.

[727] And it even marks hidden items on that map.

[728] But you don't even need that much, it seemed like.

[729] It seemed like that game was very much about pointing you in the direction of, here is the next objective.

[730] As of about an hour into the game, yeah.

[731] I'm hoping that it opens up more than that, because Metroid is a lot about exploration.

[732] I don't think that's the game.

[733] I don't know.

[734] It very well may not be.

[735] I think that's not against it if it's not.

[736] No, no. The thing is, I don't think this is...

[737] Like, other than some of the weapon systems that they've put into place and kind of the fiction that they're using.

[738] This bears very little resemblance to a traditional Metroid game.

[739] I don't think that's a bad thing.

[740] That's not the kind of game that Team Ninja, the developer, makes.

[741] So I think you bring those guys on because you want a specific kind of character action.

[742] And it does have that.

[743] Absolutely.

[744] In fact, although there are, I think even you pointed out, there were points like once you started triangle jumping up narrow.

[745] It's weird to hear you say that because I got no sense that this was like any kind of Team Ninja game when I played it.

[746] Really?

[747] Yeah.

[748] Was there a heavy melee component to it?

[749] Just character movement.

[750] Not as such.

[751] There is something methodical to Metroid for me. And I got none of that out of...

[752] what i saw of other m well the the character action feel came from the crowd control that's inherent in a lot of the combat like there are a lot of cases where you're fighting like six or eight enemies at one time and it's like you either want to get distance and like auto aim at them or go to first person and then you can shoot a missile which does uh splash damage so you can kill multiple enemies at once or if you get right up on them you can do like a kind of scripted kill move what like so the side hoppers like the two -legged hoppy things yeah um the one for those i assume they're different for every enemy because they're it's like a canned animation that goes into Like, you literally, like, jump onto the back of this thing and, like, put your gun right up against its head and just shoot it.

[753] What?

[754] Yeah, so it's a lot of up -close, like, you know, scripted combat moves like you'd see in a game.

[755] How did the, like, when you're shooting from a distance, it still auto -aims at the stuff in front of you, right?

[756] Yeah.

[757] Holy shit.

[758] I'm moved.

[759] It's on the ceiling now.

[760] Oh, my God.

[761] You're a bunch of fucking pussies.

[762] Unbelievable.

[763] Unbelievable.

[764] This is about 80 % affectation, if you didn't.

[765] It is unbelievable.

[766] This is 0 % affectation.

[767] Great.

[768] All right.

[769] What were we talking about?

[770] I don't know.

[771] Talking about.

[772] I'm not really sure.

[773] Oh, the auto aim when I saw it.

[774] If there were like eight of those little guys in front of you and you pounded on the button, it would shoot them all.

[775] It would, yeah.

[776] But there was no change in the animation, so the beams were just coming out of the gun at different angles and it looked kind of...

[777] Well, you're talking about the way she holds her arm.

[778] Yeah, like she just held her arm out and didn't aim at them with the arm.

[779] Just the beams came out of the gun.

[780] I can't remember if it was like that or not.

[781] No, I don't think it was.

[782] It didn't look weird that way.

[783] It didn't leap out.

[784] It's oddly.

[785] Okay, good.

[786] Because that was one of the things looking at it was like, dude.

[787] this game can't be done.

[788] And it is in fact not done.

[789] And there are also dodge moves.

[790] There is like a real specific timing based when they're about to hit you if you hit the right direction.

[791] But I mean, what's weird about that, can you mash the dodge button to stay safe forever?

[792] It's not a dodge button.

[793] Or whatever it was.

[794] Yes, I was dodging a lot.

[795] You can.

[796] I did that.

[797] Yeah, your timing is good.

[798] You can, but it's not just a button mash on.

[799] Well, what was the command to do it?

[800] No, it's just one of the direction buttons, and you can totally mash.

[801] Oh, yeah.

[802] I was matching like crazy.

[803] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[804] Just roll around or something?

[805] Well, you get like a little green flash when you do it successfully, and it kind of slows down for like half a beat.

[806] She just like flips out of the way.

[807] She just kind of, yeah.

[808] Oh.

[809] Basically, if you tap on the D -pad repeatedly, you'll dodge just about everything.

[810] Otherwise, you have to hold to move in any direction.

[811] But if you're constantly tapping, you're in close quarters.

[812] And this is outside of the third -person view?

[813] Yeah, you're almost always in the third -person view.

[814] The weirdest part about this game is that if you want to go into first -person view, you straight up...

[815] Like hold the Wii Remote towards the TV like it's pointed at.

[816] Which is kind of weird and awkward because you're holding it like an NES controller.

[817] So the right hand that would be going up to the trigger, the B button, is like on the very end of the controller.

[818] So when you flip it vertically, you're holding it by the tail end of the controller, not like...

[819] You're not choked up on it with your hand up around the trigger.

[820] Does that stuff have to happen really quickly?

[821] It's pretty quick.

[822] But it seems like that's the design.

[823] They don't want to make it so easy for you to go into first -person mode because you are extremely powerful in first -person mode.

[824] But you also don't move.

[825] It's a risk -reward system.

[826] You want to get far enough away for it to work.

[827] It's still...

[828] freaking awkward.

[829] It's still a weird decision to make.

[830] And then also like the holding the remote vertically to refill missiles.

[831] What happens during that?

[832] You just start stationary.

[833] Yeah.

[834] Between all that stuff and just the way that you're using a D -pad so you only have like eight -way movement.

[835] Yeah.

[836] Analog control would be really welcome in the character.

[837] There's some really janky looking stuff about that game.

[838] Is it motion plus enabled?

[839] Nope.

[840] Hell no. It's not even a nunchuck enabled.

[841] Yeah, why would it need that?

[842] I thought maybe the fidelity of the cursor on the screen.

[843] Nah.

[844] It's not necessary.

[845] I mean, the aiming felt fine to me. I don't know what...

[846] I got one.

[847] I want to use it for something.

[848] Yeah.

[849] Yo, you got Wii Sports Resort?

[850] Yeah.

[851] You want to play some of that?

[852] You have the first and last game that we'll ever need.

[853] Zelda.

[854] Yeah.

[855] Skyward Sword.

[856] Whatever.

[857] The game's going to be good.

[858] First and last.

[859] I want you to just, you know...

[860] Go brush all the dust off your Wii Speak because I'm sure there's a ton of Wii Speak compatible games coming out.

[861] First and last.

[862] There are a lot of Metroid -esque elements to this game besides the combat.

[863] Some of the corridors or that vertical shaft early on I thought looked pretty good.

[864] You do totally roll up into a ball and go in little tunnels.

[865] Those look exactly like Metroid Prime to my memory.

[866] Just real super close up.

[867] The ball practically filling the screen just rapidly rolling along.

[868] Does it get any sense for what the story is or it doesn't matter?

[869] It's after Super Metroid.

[870] Yeah, before Metroid Fusion, I want to say.

[871] Oh, really?

[872] Between those two.

[873] We saw that cut scene where it's like Samus is the space baby.

[874] What?

[875] It's like infant Samus floating in space.

[876] They basically remake the end of Super Metroid, but then there's...

[877] Yeah, all in CG kind of as the opening of this.

[878] Samus is the space baby?

[879] I thought the space baby was something.

[880] Which one else?

[881] It looks sort of like the 2001 Star Child.

[882] Right.

[883] Baby Samus in fetal position, like floating in space.

[884] And then it opens up on her eyes, and she's there in the fight with another brain.

[885] She's back in the moment.

[886] Yeah, yeah.

[887] And then baby Metroid.

[888] Maybe you're getting confused because she refers to the baby as the baby Metroid.

[889] She keeps talking about, yeah, the baby and not seeing the baby again.

[890] You were not effing around when you said that there were some issues with the voice acting in that game, Jeff.

[891] Yeah.

[892] She's pretty flat.

[893] Some of that stuff is some straight out of Japan anime special.

[894] It's like some anime voiceovers.

[895] Yeah, I don't know.

[896] Well, yeah, a little flat.

[897] I didn't think the other characters were terrible, but she's...

[898] They should have just got the guy that said, the last Metroid is in captivity.

[899] The galaxy is at peace.

[900] Yeah, I don't know.

[901] I don't have, like, a deep personal relationship with Metroid.

[902] So, like, I just kind of saw, like, oh, this is, I don't know, an okay -looking kind of odd little, you know, third -person character action game.

[903] It is a strange melange.

[904] With some Metroid stuff on it.

[905] So this is pretty, like, dark Samus stuff.

[906] Oh, yeah.

[907] That's all Prime.

[908] That's all after.

[909] Prime stuff was before.

[910] Prime stuff was before?

[911] Prime stuff was all before.

[912] Or is it not?

[913] I don't know.

[914] I thought that's why it was called the Metroid Prime.

[915] Like, impossible.

[916] It was like the Prime story.

[917] I cannot help you about the Metroid timeline.

[918] All right.

[919] Yeah.

[920] I don't know.

[921] It's kind of like Zelda.

[922] Like, is there a timeline?

[923] I think there actually is.

[924] Metroid there is totally.

[925] I mean, there's supposed to be, yeah, but it's all kind of like, yeah.

[926] Maybe there will be a mother brand.

[927] I don't know.

[928] I mean, I found, like, what?

[929] Two missile upgrades?

[930] Three in that demo?

[931] Yeah, you found some.

[932] Did I get an energy tank?

[933] I think you just got missile tanks.

[934] So, I mean, there's definitely items to find.

[935] They're kind of hidden.

[936] But at the same time, I felt like the ones that were in that early area were kind of obvious.

[937] They were just sort of there to see.

[938] So did you guys play from kind of the beginning?

[939] No, they were going to save about like 45 minutes in.

[940] Yeah, they said, did you see the part where the guy's like, I will not give you clearance to use the power bombs just yet.

[941] No, but they spelled that out for us.

[942] They talked to us about how like, yeah, you'll have some stuff that they're going to...

[943] Oh, like meeting out the power bombs.

[944] So no abilities in this game.

[945] You're working for some space government.

[946] When you're doing the tutorial, you use a power bomb during the tutorial.

[947] Oh, okay.

[948] Space government's basically saying, hey, you're working for us, so you can only bust out the crazy shit when we say it's okay.

[949] But she's got it.

[950] She's got it.

[951] She's got it all in the suit.

[952] She's just not using it.

[953] And she could die without using it.

[954] That's right.

[955] Brad almost did.

[956] That was close.

[957] Yeah, I mean, it was like a mini boss fight that involved going to first person a lot.

[958] Yeah, the boss fight I was in was like that, too.

[959] It was a lot of getting distance so you could go to first person and lock onto a weak spot.

[960] Yeah, it just felt...

[961] Yeah, that stuff didn't feel good.

[962] When you're a first person, you see a reflection in the glass.

[963] That's like the Citizen Kane video.

[964] Citizen Kane, baby.

[965] Welcome to my porn.

[966] Not only did your wordplay not work, but also you don't see the...

[967] Check my pants.

[968] There's a spider in there.

[969] That's what you want to call it.

[970] He's gone now.

[971] You guys are fucked now.

[972] I actually want to leave this room now.

[973] Oh, I see it.

[974] I think he was not as grippy as he thought he was.

[975] We have another 30 minutes of podcast.

[976] Oh, dude, it's on the floor.

[977] Now we could kill it.

[978] Yeah, he just fell off the ceiling.

[979] He didn't fall off.

[980] He landed.

[981] Play it cool.

[982] He was laughing so hard at my Citizen Kane joke.

[983] He just fell right off.

[984] Spiders can smell fear.

[985] This is going to be like a 45 -minute podcast because of you assholes and your spider.

[986] Your pet spider.

[987] That's so good.

[988] Sweet.

[989] Then I can go play Monday Night Combat.

[990] Tell me about that.

[991] Wait, when is the date on the Metroid?

[992] Oh, yeah, we can.

[993] We got it.

[994] Oh, can we talk about it?

[995] When's Metroid coming out?

[996] At the end of the month.

[997] 31st?

[998] September, August something.

[999] No, it's early September.

[1000] It's like September.

[1001] Oh, it's end of August.

[1002] Do they push it back again?

[1003] No, no, no. I'm saying it's that weekend, though.

[1004] So I think it's the 31st.

[1005] It's the Sunday.

[1006] I think 31st is a Tuesday.

[1007] Well, whatever.

[1008] I think it's like the 29th.

[1009] End of the month.

[1010] Ask the internet, folks at home.

[1011] Or look at JanetBomb .com.

[1012] That's what I said.

[1013] That's soon.

[1014] So what happened with Monday Night Combat?

[1015] We got it.

[1016] What is it all about?

[1017] We played it on Monday night.

[1018] Monday day?

[1019] Actually, yeah.

[1020] I'm totally going to go home and play that game on Monday night.

[1021] It's the only night you can play?

[1022] Servers are only open?

[1023] There's definitely some kind of special thing to play on Mondays.

[1024] Double XP on Mondays?

[1025] Yeah.

[1026] That would be great.

[1027] Is there XP?

[1028] I'm guessing.

[1029] There is persistent ranking.

[1030] No, no, no. There is persistent profile level ranking as well.

[1031] What do you do?

[1032] What's the combat?

[1033] After the sun goes down.

[1034] I only put about 20 minutes into it, and Jeff, I think you played it for like 5 or 10.

[1035] Yeah, yeah.

[1036] So I don't know a ton here, but the core conceit seems to be Team Fortress 2 meets Defense of the Ancients.

[1037] Third person, though?

[1038] It's third person.

[1039] It's six on six.

[1040] I don't know enough about Dota to make that comparison.

[1041] It just seemed like third person tower defense in a way.

[1042] Except you can shoot also.

[1043] Dota grew out of tower defense, so that makes sense.

[1044] I mean...

[1045] The way it's like Dota is that there are creep waves for each team, like meeting in the middle, fighting, and the robots in this case.

[1046] Like the human players are humans and the AI creeps are robots.

[1047] Is there a co -op element to it then?

[1048] Yeah, it's team -based.

[1049] Well, there's also a one team versus AI mode and a two teams mode.

[1050] That's true.

[1051] But even in the two team modes, there's still that creep.

[1052] Yeah, because just like in Dota, the creeps are essentially fodder for you to level up your character with.

[1053] Like you're killing those things and getting money.

[1054] in this case, and you can spend that on...

[1055] Like Dota, pretty much.

[1056] You can use it to buy and upgrade turrets around the level.

[1057] So that's one of the things...

[1058] Tower defense -y kind of stuff.

[1059] One of the things I'm kind of concerned about is that you have one wallet, and you can either spend that money on your personal upgrades, or you can spend it on team defenses like the turrets.

[1060] Right.

[1061] So I'm afraid everybody...

[1062] It seems like most games that are like that, everybody just upgrades themselves.

[1063] They don't want to put their resources.

[1064] But also, it seems like, I mean, you basically have four stats to upgrade, and they only go from level one to level three.

[1065] That's true, yeah.

[1066] So it seems like you'll max yourself out pretty early on if you do play that way.

[1067] But, I mean, there's six classes.

[1068] They all have different special abilities.

[1069] There's a healer.

[1070] Four kinds of turrets.

[1071] Yeah, there is.

[1072] I mean, this class is actually just called support, which is kind of weird.

[1073] There's like support, there's assault, there's a sniper, an assassin.

[1074] There is a heavy.

[1075] I don't think he's called.

[1076] I think he's called a tank.

[1077] Oh.

[1078] Tank and Gunner, I think, are the other two.

[1079] I have to say that when you said...

[1080] I've become so used to hearing Dota that it took me a second.

[1081] When you said defense, I'm like, Defense of the Ancients, what the fuck?

[1082] Oh, Dota, okay.

[1083] It was like the screenshot or whatever that came out of Valve of Defense of the Ancients that made me realize that that's what that stood for, like last week.

[1084] Oh, really?

[1085] I've heard that before, but I don't know that I was consciously...

[1086] So used to Dota.

[1087] What is the screenshot?

[1088] From IceFrog working on...

[1089] whatever dota on source engine or whatever the hell something like that yeah geez yeah um but uh i only played one match online uh it seems super hectic like it's just tons of stuff flying at you all the time i mean maybe that's kind of like the whole thing is set against like you know weird future game show so it's kind of like the grid yeah there's an announcer it's in an arena there's like smash tv there's advertiser Not quite that dire, though.

[1090] Not as dystopian.

[1091] Not as biting.

[1092] It's more just like, hey, he's killing the robots.

[1093] Yeah, it's just kind of whatever.

[1094] Are you going to ask something about a tutorial or something?

[1095] No. I assumed.

[1096] Are you going to ask about that?

[1097] No, I was just going to say about the Defense of the Ancients and Dota thing.

[1098] Yeah.

[1099] I was going to ask about some sort of single -player thing.

[1100] Yes, you can play.

[1101] Oh, where is it?

[1102] Let's go right out of here, man. Do it.

[1103] Oh my god.

[1104] And then the fun's over.

[1105] There's a spot on the bottom of your shoe.

[1106] How do you know he's dead?

[1107] First rule about killing monsters, man. You gotta make sure he's dead.

[1108] Moving on.

[1109] Now you're gonna look back there and it's gonna be like Michael Myers and he's just gone.

[1110] I did watch Nightmare on Elm Street.

[1111] The original?

[1112] The first one.

[1113] The tiny little machete.

[1114] The actual Wes Craven original.

[1115] Vinny has some thoughts about the original Nightmare on Elm Street before.

[1116] I've never seen any of those movies.

[1117] The first one's not bad.

[1118] The second one's a little cheesy.

[1119] I don't know.

[1120] I mean, maybe the practical effects are not so great.

[1121] Are you talking about Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street?

[1122] Nightmare on Elm Street.

[1123] Yeah.

[1124] I know, Vinny, you have your specific love of mom getting snatched at the end.

[1125] Oh, through the door?

[1126] Through the door.

[1127] Oh, that was, dude, how did they pull that off?

[1128] If you watch it in slow -mo, you'll see.

[1129] Oh, really?

[1130] It's like a really bad man. It's very hilarious to watch that scene frame by frame.

[1131] Watch Alex do his retrospective on Nightmare on Elm Street.

[1132] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1133] On Screen .com.

[1134] That's right, he did that.

[1135] That was one of the first things Screen .com did was the Nightmare on Elm Street.

[1136] Yeah, that's right.

[1137] Well, I was really disappointed that only that one is on Netflix streaming.

[1138] In HD, too.

[1139] Just the first one.

[1140] The first one and New Nightmare.

[1141] New Nightmare.

[1142] I thought about watching that, but it sounds super different, though.

[1143] It is, but it's pretty good.

[1144] It's interesting.

[1145] There's no real important continuity there, right?

[1146] No, but it's kind of like it's Wes Craven's step.

[1147] It's how he made Scream, basically.

[1148] Right, right, right.

[1149] It's almost like sort of meta horror.

[1150] Oh, it's super meta.

[1151] Like it's about making a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie, except now Freddy has become real.

[1152] Oh, no. Yeah, dude, it's not fucking Lord of the Rings.

[1153] You don't need to worry about continuity from one film to the next.

[1154] I heard Nancy pops up like three more times.

[1155] A bunch of teens get murdered in their sleep.

[1156] That is every single one.

[1157] It's a little more contiguous.

[1158] But you don't need it.

[1159] You really don't need it.

[1160] I almost want to make it into like a vision quest or just watch them all in order.

[1161] Sure.

[1162] Dude, I got them.

[1163] Oh, yeah?

[1164] Well, we did that series.

[1165] How do you think we did that?

[1166] Oh, okay.

[1167] You're just like Netflix or something.

[1168] I don't know.

[1169] No, no. I had to capture all that stuff.

[1170] It's 57 ,000 movies.

[1171] Maybe I'll swing by.

[1172] Borrow a couple discs.

[1173] I don't like them.

[1174] No?

[1175] They creep me out.

[1176] Oh, I did.

[1177] They're gross.

[1178] You don't like the bed blood fountain?

[1179] That's so great.

[1180] I knew that was coming.

[1181] That was the one scene I had seen.

[1182] But it's so good.

[1183] It's so iconic, you know, it's hard to miss. But they go through the whole Dream Warriors part.

[1184] That whole section of the series is terrible.

[1185] Really?

[1186] Was Dream Warriors, Dream Child.

[1187] No, it was Dream Warriors, Dream Master, Dream Child.

[1188] I was always under the impression that 4 was like the best one.

[1189] No, 3.

[1190] Dream Warrior.

[1191] That's the one with it.

[1192] Dream Warriors is the best one.

[1193] Best soundtrack.

[1194] Dream Warriors.

[1195] It's the most like a action.

[1196] It's more of an action movie than it is a horror movie.

[1197] Really?

[1198] It's kind of like Alien to Aliens where it's like, all right, we're pulling together a fucking posse and doing this.

[1199] That sounds pretty awesome.

[1200] The Dream Warriors, they get their special superpowers when they're in the...

[1201] Nightmare Land.

[1202] But they last like a second.

[1203] Yeah, they still all get fucking smoked.

[1204] Are there any notable future stars in that movie?

[1205] Like the Johnny Depp in the first one?

[1206] Introducing Johnny Depp.

[1207] Roseanne Arquette?

[1208] Or Patricia Arquette?

[1209] There's always the confusion.

[1210] There's an Arquette.

[1211] I can't remember which one.

[1212] But is she...

[1213] She's in three.

[1214] She's the girl in three.

[1215] I thought she was in four.

[1216] No, I think she's the main girl in three.

[1217] Again, the angry emails.

[1218] She's the one who can bring the warriors into her dream, like assemble them all.

[1219] Yeah, that's three.

[1220] Okay.

[1221] Because she's also, they replaced her, I think, with some other woman.

[1222] As the dream master.

[1223] I don't know.

[1224] And then somebody has a baby, and then there's like Freddy Krueger in the womb.

[1225] Oh, maybe I won't watch all of these.

[1226] Anyway, yeah, there's a single -player mode.

[1227] Is that the...

[1228] There's Crossfire and there's Blitz.

[1229] And Crossfire is the there are two teams of humans and in Blitz there's only one team of humans.

[1230] I thought Blitz was the two teams.

[1231] No, because there's also local Blitz which is just where it's you against AI.

[1232] So yeah, the single team one is essentially tower defense.

[1233] It's just...

[1234] waves of creeps coming at you and you build a bunch of towers.

[1235] Except you are a guy and you can shoot.

[1236] Yeah, you can shoot yourself.

[1237] How do you tell, say I'm on a team of six, how do I tell what everybody's doing so I don't place a tower right next to you?

[1238] You don't place towers.

[1239] There's just spots on the map that you can run up and spend money to activate the node or not.

[1240] It seems like it could be really cool.

[1241] It's got a good visual style.

[1242] It's going to require, I mean, if that game gains a foothold.

[1243] and, you know, is played online, I think it could do okay.

[1244] Seems neat.

[1245] Seems neat at least.

[1246] Is this the end of the Summer of Arcade?

[1247] No, next we have Lara Croft in the Guardian of Light.

[1248] That's the last one.

[1249] That's the final entry.

[1250] But this, yeah, tentatively this seems cool.

[1251] With no online co -op.

[1252] What?

[1253] In Lara Croft.

[1254] Lara Croft is launching without it.

[1255] They're going to say they'll have it patched in by the time it comes to PC and PS3.

[1256] uh, in the end of September.

[1257] It doesn't seem right at all.

[1258] Bummer for Microsoft.

[1259] Yeah.

[1260] The whole exclusivity period is kind of like, like, here you go.

[1261] Here's like not the version of the game you want to play.

[1262] And by the time you add that patch, everyone will be done with it.

[1263] It's too bad because that game seemed real neat.

[1264] Every time they showed it, they in fact showed it running on like two screens.

[1265] So it's like, I wonder how hard that code is.

[1266] I don't know.

[1267] That's weird.

[1268] Like, wouldn't that be like the, At the top of the to -do list for that game?

[1269] You'd think.

[1270] The whole thing is a co -op focused game.

[1271] I just wonder how that came to be.

[1272] I don't know.

[1273] I bet there's a story there somewhere.

[1274] A story that no one can tell.

[1275] Not at least for another.

[1276] 15 years.

[1277] Dead Spider's kind of bummed me out.

[1278] There's going to be some great video game industry tell -all books.

[1279] Oh, man. How long do we have to wait, though?

[1280] You're kind of seeing some of the books about the early Atari era.

[1281] So it's when people no longer want to get a job in the industry.

[1282] Right, yeah.

[1283] When people aren't looking for work and none of the people they're writing stories about have jobs anymore.

[1284] Then you'll have this flurry of 15.

[1285] Inside Rockstar.

[1286] Tell me how many developers could you name off the top of your head that you would totally read a tell -all book about?

[1287] Like there's got to be a ton.

[1288] It's definitely at least six, seven, eight.

[1289] It's got to be at least a dozen probably.

[1290] What is that tissue you have?

[1291] What are you using that thing for?

[1292] It's on the floor.

[1293] Give me a minute.

[1294] I wiped the spider guts off my shoe with it.

[1295] I don't know if you want to touch it.

[1296] I'm just going to use it to pick up that boy over here.

[1297] I'll clean it up.

[1298] Don't worry.

[1299] It's bumming.

[1300] It's taking Vinny's focus even further than live spider would have.

[1301] I'll pick it up with your mucus.

[1302] Do you see the chaos that you have wrought?

[1303] Bedlam.

[1304] It's got spider guts all over it.

[1305] I'll be right back.

[1306] I got to clean up a mess.

[1307] Are we just going to take a spider break?

[1308] No. No spider breaks.

[1309] Why is it so wet?

[1310] It had a hard -boiled egg in it before that.

[1311] So that thing smells like egg and dead spider.

[1312] Yeah, because I...

[1313] All right, Vinny.

[1314] While he's walking out, I'll talk about a game.

[1315] Okay.

[1316] I have been getting my strategy needs filled elsewhere while y 'all have been playing lots of StarCraft.

[1317] Well, not by choice.

[1318] I keep getting games.

[1319] from companies.

[1320] They keep sending them to me, like, here, you should look at these.

[1321] All right, I'll check out Civilization V, which I did for a good 16 hours, and we have a kick -ass retrospective video up on the site now, kind of showing off some Civ IV and some Civ Rev, and so, yeah, played a whole bunch of Civ V. It's real good.

[1322] They've taken kind of the complexity of Civ IV and the accessibility of Civilization Revolution, their console game, and made it go into one thing, so it's like it has all the depth that crazy civ kids want but it's like real easy to approach also and they've added stuff like city states which are like non um like non -civilization basically there's there's oh and you can like you can ally with them ally with them you can eventually take them over or you know there's there's kind of other tactical and strategic considerations with the city states um they're still barbarians which you can just go and fuck up because they're barbarians Better do they know.

[1323] Can't the barbarians get like battleships now?

[1324] Barbarians can get ships.

[1325] They can get ships.

[1326] Nuclear technology.

[1327] I've never seen...

[1328] You know what?

[1329] I haven't seen anyone with nuclear technology yet.

[1330] So far I've actually kind of been at the top of my combat military food chain.

[1331] Doesn't it remove their barbarian status when they develop technology?

[1332] You could be barbaric and still have technology.

[1333] I suppose.

[1334] I don't know.

[1335] Splitting hairs at that point.

[1336] All right.

[1337] you know, he's in a greater consideration of, like, why does one country have, like, railroads but still fights with spears?

[1338] Yeah.

[1339] Weird.

[1340] Yeah, the anachronisms of civilization are alive and well in Civ V. Like, none of that stuff has gone away.

[1341] Don't you also have, like, George Washington facing off against Cleopatra?

[1342] Oh, yeah, and George Washington lives for 6 ,000 years.

[1343] No, that's accurate.

[1344] If you want to meet him, we can go after this.

[1345] How are you finding hexes?

[1346] Absolutely no different.

[1347] Absolutely no different.

[1348] I'm sure that people who are big on – you could move diagonally before.

[1349] So – Oh.

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] So – Fewer sides now, right?

[1352] We're trying to – Yeah.

[1353] Because you had eight before, right?

[1354] Including the diagonals on the square, right?

[1355] If you can go to the sides and the points of a square.

[1356] Yeah.

[1357] And the hex has six, right?

[1358] Yeah.

[1359] So now there are fewer places you can move, right?

[1360] I think they were describing it as like, this helps make the terrain look more realistic and seem better, too.

[1361] Well, they don't expose the grid, right?

[1362] They don't expose the hexes.

[1363] At least when I was watching you play.

[1364] Not like you can.

[1365] and there is a tactical view that you can go into to fully expose the hexes.

[1366] Put the overlay on it?

[1367] No, it changes the map completely.

[1368] You actually see the world in a completely different perspective when you're in the tactical map, which is more for judging what resources are going to be on what hexes.

[1369] Again, I'm sure there are other good high -level strategic reasons for going to hexes, but nothing has leapt out at me. As being a big...

[1370] I'm glad to see you're getting way into it.

[1371] A big difference.

[1372] Man. No, it's brutal.

[1373] It's brutal how...

[1374] It's the anti -StarCraft.

[1375] And, you know, StarCraft has super short missions that you bust through.

[1376] Especially...

[1377] Civ V is, why don't you sit down for eight hours?

[1378] Yeah, it's crazy.

[1379] And, you know, not do anything else.

[1380] It's crazy.

[1381] At high levels of StarCraft play, matches can be less than ten minutes.

[1382] And you're sitting there for, like, an entire night.

[1383] Like, you're having to split matches up across days.

[1384] Like...

[1385] And enjoying it.

[1386] It's crazy.

[1387] Enjoying it thoroughly.

[1388] It's still very, very fun, but yeah, it's a completely different type of thing.

[1389] And it just seems like they've gotten a lot smarter with the way the UI stuff works.

[1390] Things are more intuitive.

[1391] They're better about having your advisors give you useful information and kind of guiding you in one direction or another.

[1392] I will say watching just the brief thing we did.

[1393] Yeah.

[1394] The animation seemed way snappier.

[1395] I don't know if it's just me, but between Civ 4 and Civ 5, skipping over Civ Rev because I didn't play much of that.

[1396] Yeah.

[1397] Like when you kill a guy, they look really dramatic.

[1398] When the cannons fire off your ship, it's punchy.

[1399] It doesn't have that meandering quality that Civ IV had.

[1400] No, there's definitely some pop to the action that seemed like they wanted to make it a little more visually interesting.

[1401] Yeah, a little visceral.

[1402] Than maybe Civ IV was.

[1403] I will say this.

[1404] I ended up playing a whole bunch of Civ Rev over the weekend.

[1405] And again, after playing a bunch of Civ V and before Civ Rev but not having...

[1406] really played any civilization at all, was blown away by how much they had to just strip out for Civ Rev. I remember thinking, oh, this is a pretty good strategy experience.

[1407] It's pretty deep.

[1408] When you see real Civ, you're like, oh, dude, this is pansies.

[1409] Civ Rev is for children sipping on your teacups afraid of spiders and moppets.

[1410] That's right.

[1411] The rest of the boys are coming.

[1412] The spiders are descending.

[1413] God, look how many.

[1414] Everyone's looking in the corners all paranoid.

[1415] They could just come out of the air vent.

[1416] What if they're just painted?

[1417] Come pouring out of there.

[1418] Look how many points of ingress there are in this room.

[1419] They're all just painted white and they're actually just all on the walls right now.

[1420] They can come through that vent.

[1421] They can come through where the wire goes on the wall.

[1422] They've got a wall off this room.

[1423] I still played a whole shitload of Civ Rev over the weekend.

[1424] Drop two supply depots and a rack on your ramp so the spiders can't get in here.

[1425] Wait, Civ Rev?

[1426] Why would you do that?

[1427] I still played a bunch of Civ Rev. But, you know, it's still good, but the impression that left on me is that, man, they have gotten excellent at explaining the basics of this game with Civ V. Because, you know, I didn't know anything about a lot of the elements there, but...

[1428] I was still able to just pick it up immediately and didn't feel like, oh, this is all new.

[1429] I almost felt like, oh, yeah, I remember all this from Civ Rev. And I went and played Civ Rev. I'm like, that's not in there at all.

[1430] Well, that's good.

[1431] I mean, it seems like they need to bring new players to Civ to justify keeping it as a PC -focused franchise.

[1432] Absolutely.

[1433] And the point that they made to me during one of my sessions with that game was that the folks at 2K, actually some of the folks at Firaxis, They have the same UI guy that worked on CivRev working on Civ5, and they said that they learned a lot.

[1434] Even to bring back to the PC version, they learned a lot about good UI from making CivRev just because of the limitations of how much can you show on screen.

[1435] You have to make what you're showing on screen count.

[1436] And yeah, I think Civ5 is definitely even more intuitively.

[1437] and intelligently designed than Civ Rev was.

[1438] It's nice to see in light of the existence of Civ Rev on consoles and then last week's discussion about Battlefield 3.

[1439] Seeing this is still like, yes, this is a PC franchise.

[1440] What's genius is that they say, okay, yes, this is a PC franchise, but just because we have every key available and we have the maximum resolution available doesn't mean that we need to clutter up everything with bullshit.

[1441] You can make a PC game...

[1442] that takes advantage of being on a PC, but is still approachable.

[1443] And I think that's the, that's a hard balance to find.

[1444] And, and I feel like those for, especially with a strategy game, such as, because there's a dude, there's so much going on in that goddamn game.

[1445] It is so complicated.

[1446] Get gunpowder, win game.

[1447] So complicated.

[1448] Nice with everybody.

[1449] Build some art. That's more, I'm a culture guy.

[1450] I definitely prefer playing to culture.

[1451] I love, I don't, I don't like playing to shooting dudes because I can't win that game.

[1452] Well, you know what?

[1453] I don't actually like playing shooting military victory, but I definitely like getting the guns first and then bullying people around a bit.

[1454] Oh, I like having it just be like, just don't mess.

[1455] I'm going to do other stuff, and you can do whatever you want with those other guys.

[1456] You guys want to see some culture?

[1457] I made this statue out of guns.

[1458] This is gun lamp.

[1459] This is giant scorpion.

[1460] Guns.

[1461] I like to call it...

[1462] Gun Scorpion.

[1463] What do you think of it?

[1464] What do you think of that name?

[1465] Do you think maybe you should pay a tribute by giving me control of your country?

[1466] It is a pretty good piece of culture.

[1467] I have two copies of Civ IV.

[1468] I have the physical and then I put it on Steam when they were doing Steam stuff.

[1469] But never really made it through Civ IV mostly because it was very similar to my experiences with 1, 2, and 3.

[1470] But I will buy Civ V, I'm sure.

[1471] From what I've seen, like I said, the animations really look peppier.

[1472] It looks good.

[1473] It's a good -looking game.

[1474] All the arrows and stuff?

[1475] Like the bombardment arrows?

[1476] Oh, sure, sure.

[1477] Just the effects on that stuff.

[1478] Yeah, it looked really nice.

[1479] Yeah, they've made a good -looking game.

[1480] I think Firaxis has definitely gotten by on being...

[1481] Clouds instead of Fog of War.

[1482] Well, just being, you know, we're kind of a niche...

[1483] PC developer, our audience will put up with weird interface stuff and kind of not the best looking graphics.

[1484] But 2010, y 'all.

[1485] If it's good enough for Sid Meier, it's good enough for you punk asses.

[1486] Did you watch the intro movie yet?

[1487] No. Oh, what's wrong with you?

[1488] What?

[1489] Because I've had my fill of world music.

[1490] I haven't seen that.

[1491] There's one thing that advantage Civ 5 is Civ 4 has a bunch of just world ass world music.

[1492] Yeah.

[1493] Which Vinny does actually a pretty good approximation.

[1494] Keep going.

[1495] But I haven't seen it yet.

[1496] And then I just love the intros of Civ games because they always go through like all the ages, you know, like one dude.

[1497] It's very like, you know, 2001, like dude throwing the bone up in the air.

[1498] Here's a caveman painting in a cave and then he's in Congress.

[1499] Yeah, I love that stuff.

[1500] And then there's a battleship.

[1501] That sounds about right.

[1502] And then Egypt.

[1503] That's what it says in the textbooks.

[1504] Did you wind up doing anything with...

[1505] Oh, there is no multiplayer.

[1506] There was no multiplayer in the build that I had.

[1507] I'm really curious because I've heard mixed things about it.

[1508] That game is still mad in development too.

[1509] It's got a couple months off and they were saying things like, don't show anything from the tech tree because all that shit might change.

[1510] And what year does it...

[1511] What's their end year?

[1512] 2050 is when you are appraised on...

[1513] How well you did.

[1514] Either at that point you've won through...

[1515] you know cultural economic right or military means so otherwise this could go on forever or well it can you can allow it it's just that at 2050 it says okay here's how we decide if you have won or lost depending on what you've what you've accomplished by this year there's no way to arbitrarily push out the end date no but you can keep playing after that right you just don't get in the final in the final version you will be able to in the version that i have it stops at 2050 and it's like all right i don't know either winner lost i bet you I bet you still stopped getting scored at 25th.

[1516] Yeah, but I'm saying I literally could not play anymore in the version that I have.

[1517] Just not playing for keeps anymore.

[1518] Yep.

[1519] After that, it's just for funsies.

[1520] But yeah, also, I don't know if that's not happening anymore.

[1521] But yeah, Sivrev was free on the iPhone over the weekend.

[1522] How about your other strategy for it?

[1523] Bruise!

[1524] Bruise!

[1525] Which stands for High Altitude Warfare Experimental Squadron 2.

[1526] Two.

[1527] I don't know off the top of my head what R -U -S -E is used for.

[1528] R -U -S -E?

[1529] Am I?

[1530] R -U -S -E?

[1531] I'm so S -E -ing right now.

[1532] But yeah, so a lot of the games kind of, it seems like at least the visual hook is, yo, you zoom in real close, it looks real, but when you zoom out, it's like they're just weird markers on some big old map.

[1533] But I don't think they accomplished that entirely.

[1534] But they also have crazy cut scenes.

[1535] You can also employ trickery.

[1536] Yes, you can also have a ruse, activate a ruse.

[1537] It looked to me like they pull off both of those views.

[1538] It's just that neither one is very useful to you.

[1539] I don't know.

[1540] I think that if you go down to...

[1541] Zoom all the way in, it looks pretty janky.

[1542] Well, not only does it all look great, but you can't see what's going on.

[1543] Yeah, it's not tactically useful, nor is it even just like, hey, this looks cool when I zoom all the way in.

[1544] Kind of, like I said before, like World in Conflict vibe.

[1545] I don't know where you get that.

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] I don't know.

[1548] Who plays an RTS game way in?

[1549] No, no. The thing is I found about halfway between all the way in and all the way out was about where I was most comfortable and most useful playing.

[1550] You don't need to see the edges of the table.

[1551] No, no. So, yeah, I've only got through a few early missions, but that is a defining characteristic.

[1552] The story, surprisingly, kind of following this guy.

[1553] Jonathan Ruse.

[1554] Johnny Roos.

[1555] No. Jay Roos.

[1556] Jeffrey Roos.

[1557] Joe Sheridan?

[1558] Joe Sheridan, who you are introduced to as General Joe Sheridan, but then you do some flashback stuff.

[1559] General Joe.

[1560] So it's surprisingly, like, about this one dude who's kind of a compelling character, and you're like, I would like to know more about this.

[1561] This General Joe.

[1562] Come over to my table and I'll show you.

[1563] This guy that likes to smoke a lot.

[1564] It's kind of cool they actually break into the missions with these little cinematic interludes.

[1565] In the middle of missions they'll have little cinematic things and they'll push little pre -rendered bits of here's a bunch of tanks coming or here are planes flying.

[1566] Like a little panel.

[1567] A little panel slide onto the screen obscuring your view of the action.

[1568] So you played on the PC and a little bit on the console.

[1569] Very briefly on the 360 version.

[1570] and then a code showed up for the PC version.

[1571] I said, I will play that one instead because the three -fixer version, it's not.

[1572] No, it's hot.

[1573] It's not so great.

[1574] Yeah, it looked like a PC game to me. Well, you know, it's not done.

[1575] Sure.

[1576] Neither is done, for sure, although they're coming out very soon.

[1577] Ruse.

[1578] But, yeah, odd little.

[1579] We have a quick look up on the site of the PC version.

[1580] Check that out and look at it for yourself.

[1581] We also have a quick look up for Sonic Free Riders, which came by last week.

[1582] Hey, congratulations to everybody.

[1583] First time we had to move the couch up on the wall.

[1584] First of many.

[1585] Another mark on the old headboard.

[1586] That's right.

[1587] Notch it up.

[1588] Yeah.

[1589] Connect.

[1590] We put it in that room and it worked.

[1591] Dot, dot, dot.

[1592] The best part, I will say this, the game wasn't great.

[1593] I didn't feel like it was super responsive.

[1594] You're just pissed off because I jumped better than you.

[1595] Did you like it?

[1596] No. Okay.

[1597] I don't know.

[1598] Whatever.

[1599] It seemed responsive enough for that kind of game.

[1600] Yeah, I mean, does it do what it's trying to do?

[1601] Seems like it.

[1602] I like that the power -ups require different motions.

[1603] I thought that was kind of cool, where it's like there's one that's a squid.

[1604] There's a soda can that you collect it, and then you have to make a shaking motion, and that makes it bigger, and then you jump on it like a rocket, and it opens and flies off.

[1605] It's like a bowling ball that you have to bowl, like a bowling ball.

[1606] That seemed kind of clever.

[1607] I guess, I mean, to be fair to Kinect, if I told you guys that there was a kart racer style game coming with Sonic the Hedgehog on the hoverboard, regardless of Kinect, if you played it with a controller, you probably wouldn't get too excited.

[1608] No. All right.

[1609] That's fair.

[1610] Okay.

[1611] That's absolutely fair.

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] The coolest part of that appointment, though, was they were showing us the Kinect debug menus.

[1614] That shit is bananas.

[1615] The stuff that you can see in there.

[1616] Holy crap.

[1617] That's a game.

[1618] That's where you see, you're like, oh, okay, there's the future.

[1619] It's in there.

[1620] Yeah.

[1621] I'm too close.

[1622] Like being able to like interpolate the 3D space and fly around in the interpolated 3D space.

[1623] But then the back half of you that it can't see is just like this one.

[1624] It's just the front half.

[1625] It spins around and then, you know, rock band is taking place back there.

[1626] It's like those ads.

[1627] That's where they got the whole idea for that.

[1628] Yeah, it's like real -time Comanche.

[1629] It's real weird.

[1630] Actually, I really liked seeing that, like the bone overlay on you guys.

[1631] Oh, yeah.

[1632] Your hips were in like your shoulders.

[1633] Yeah, those were a little high.

[1634] Push them down.

[1635] Bam.

[1636] I bet we weren't supposed to see that stuff.

[1637] No. Well, there's going to have to be some kind of calibration program with the Kinect considering how far back and profile stuff I think.

[1638] We were using that to like, okay, this is a safe distance.

[1639] Because you were turning red or blue based on how.

[1640] I imagine they'll make some much prettier and consumer -friendly version of that stuff.

[1641] You're not going to be able to do any of that stuff.

[1642] It's way too crazy.

[1643] So, I mean, I'll be frank.

[1644] You had to be pretty damn far away from that thing.

[1645] Yeah.

[1646] I have now very serious and frank concerns about the size of people's living rooms.

[1647] Like I can probably pull it off.

[1648] I can't.

[1649] So I took back one of my bedrooms over the weekend.

[1650] Yes.

[1651] Roommate going back and turning that into a home office.

[1652] And I specifically was thinking like, oh, well, you know, my living room is not necessarily set up to play Connect stuff.

[1653] My bedroom is definitely not.

[1654] So this room.

[1655] should be able to handle that.

[1656] If we're going to cover these games for the year or so that people make Kinect games, then...

[1657] Ouch.

[1658] Well, what do you think?

[1659] Then we need that.

[1660] And I started like, after having it in here, now I'm looking at that room going like, man, I don't know.

[1661] 15 feet?

[1662] What did you say?

[1663] 13, I think they said, was ideal.

[1664] I think I said that because I had read that somewhere.

[1665] Oh, okay.

[1666] We should probably measure that room and figure out from where we had the sensor, which was pretty much pushed up against the bottom of that TV to the back to the wall.

[1667] I mean, it's not like a giant room.

[1668] No, it is not.

[1669] But it's not that it's...

[1670] That is a reasonable living room sized room for a lot of people's houses that I've been in.

[1671] I guess maybe maybe we should like apartments.

[1672] Yeah.

[1673] Apartments.

[1674] You're screwed.

[1675] Sorry.

[1676] Or kids bedrooms or something.

[1677] You know, this needs to be in the big family room space for sure.

[1678] And connect huge in the suburbs.

[1679] Yeah.

[1680] Not so much.

[1681] It definitely seems like, yeah, it was it was designed for big suburban houses.

[1682] Yeah.

[1683] Like if I move the couch out of the way of my living room and got like a better TV out there or something, it would be perfect.

[1684] Sure.

[1685] I mean, I don't know if it's fair to judge all Kinect games by this.

[1686] I mean, it seemed like a Kinect thing, not the game itself.

[1687] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1688] Because that was in the debug stuff telling you how far.

[1689] So I'm just assuming that's how far all the games want you to be.

[1690] Far.

[1691] And I can't do it.

[1692] Literally, I just do not have the space in my apartment at all.

[1693] Like, I'd have to, like, go in the hallway from my apartment building.

[1694] I mean, I didn't have space for, like, iToy games.

[1695] So I can't scan the background.

[1696] This is more than that.

[1697] That's kind of a bummer.

[1698] I'm not moving my couch on its side in my living room.

[1699] Barely be bothered to do it here at work.

[1700] Hey, don't like it?

[1701] Don't play Kinect.

[1702] Don't like moving couches?

[1703] Don't eat.

[1704] Anyway, that was my concern.

[1705] The game is the game.

[1706] But it was more the Kinect stuff that I was like, this is true.

[1707] This is a thing now.

[1708] It was motorized.

[1709] It moved.

[1710] It moves up and down.

[1711] That is confirmed that it does actually have motors.

[1712] Up and down.

[1713] Not left and right.

[1714] Really?

[1715] Yeah, right?

[1716] Weird.

[1717] I don't know how the left and right tracking works.

[1718] It must just be it has a really wide view.

[1719] It is really wide, actually.

[1720] The camera is actually pretty nice.

[1721] That voice chat demo at E3, it was panning left and right.

[1722] That's probably like...

[1723] Zooming in and scanning.

[1724] That's what I'm saying.

[1725] If it's got a super wide field of view, it only has to show you part of that at a time.

[1726] It can just go back and forth.

[1727] It could also be not motorized on the base, but maybe the lens could move.

[1728] I don't know the internals, but it is wide angle for sure.

[1729] It's a nice wide angle lens on that thing.

[1730] I would use that.

[1731] It catches a lot of the room there.

[1732] Dude, it's good to buy a bunch of Kinex and use them for other purposes.

[1733] Well, our camera couldn't get that wide.

[1734] Once this whole venture goes tits up, you can get Kinex cameras for like a dollar.

[1735] Man, actually.

[1736] Like a new QCat.

[1737] Yeah.

[1738] It's like, oh, we can hack payphones with the island.

[1739] I need infrared cameras in bulk.

[1740] I mean, imagine what people are going to probably figure out to do with that thing if you get to a PC.

[1741] I don't know.

[1742] Make the distance.

[1743] Like, I mean, seriously, pretty much every USB and Bluetooth device there is does weird stuff on PCs thanks to crazy people.

[1744] Think somebody will...

[1745] And their ingenuity.

[1746] Let you control a Wii with it at some point?

[1747] No. Wii games on a PC, maybe.

[1748] Don't be crazy.

[1749] Maybe.

[1750] It's happened already.

[1751] And I also played...

[1752] I finished Limbo, and that's pretty good.

[1753] That's a good game.

[1754] It is pretty good.

[1755] Buy that.

[1756] I rather like it.

[1757] Buy it.

[1758] I recommend that you play it.

[1759] Yes.

[1760] For sure.

[1761] All right, let's move on to some news.

[1762] Wait, I played StarCraft 2.

[1763] What's that about?

[1764] StarCraft.

[1765] Giant spiders.

[1766] Fuck.

[1767] How do you craft a star?

[1768] That doesn't make any damn sense.

[1769] You do want to play Zerg, Jeff, by the way.

[1770] If you play multiplayer.

[1771] Yeah, okay.

[1772] Being the guy who doesn't want to micromanage, you just want to make tons of units and crush the opposition, that's...

[1773] Micromanaging.

[1774] Macromanaging.

[1775] So, Jeff, I feel like you and I have talked about this topic at length, but I don't remember if we talked about this at all on the podcast.

[1776] The NBA Jam on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 situation.

[1777] Yeah.

[1778] So this is a game, NBA Jam, you know the new NBA Jam.

[1779] Bradley, you're familiar with it?

[1780] Bringing it back?

[1781] Sure.

[1782] Just nod knowingly, you've got to say something.

[1783] Thank you.

[1784] It had only been announced for Wii, but then there's been hinting at and rumoring about...

[1785] It's like someone put it on their LinkedIn profile and then the ESRB rated it for PlayStation 3.

[1786] The German rating board put something weird out and whatever.

[1787] So EA has come out and said, hey, we're going to make NBA Jam for 360 and PS3.

[1788] But there's a catch.

[1789] What?

[1790] We're only going to be selling it as a bonus for NBA Elite, which is the freshly rebranded NBA Live, their kind of main...

[1791] proper basketball game.

[1792] What if I just want NBA Jam?

[1793] Get a Wii.

[1794] Get a Wii.

[1795] Which you may want to do anyways because there's the whole remix tour.

[1796] Yeah, this version that they're going to put out is a download.

[1797] It'll still be like a download code in the box with NBA Elite, I guess.

[1798] And it's going to contain the kind of classic NBA Jam modes, but it's not going to have the remix tour.

[1799] which is where all the boss fights and, like, you know, they're calling it 20 hours of content.

[1800] So no teleporting Magic Johnson.

[1801] Yeah, no. I don't think they'll get a teleporting Magic Johnson on 360 and PS3.

[1802] At least not in this version of NBA Jam for 360 PS3.

[1803] Yeah, and they said we're not selling NBA Jam on 360 and PS3.

[1804] They said that?

[1805] Yeah, but yeah.

[1806] Right, because the fact that it's not on a disc means that it's already up there and in the marketplace.

[1807] All they have to do is just turn it on for sale.

[1808] I really think they don't know what to do with that game because it is such a weird...

[1809] I mean, because this is the quandary that killed Midway.

[1810] That transitioning of this arcade game to consoles.

[1811] and figuring out a way to make that work.

[1812] They can get away with it once, but, you know, if someone's sitting there thinking, like, we make NBA Jam every year, it's like, no, you're, no, no, you cannot.

[1813] So you've been playing on, like, the screen at halftime, like, you know, in Blades of Steel where you get to play, like, whatever it was.

[1814] Yeah.

[1815] And it's, I don't know, it's weird.

[1816] That whole thing is just so, like, I get why, you know, like, NBA Jam ended up winning awards at E3 and stuff like that.

[1817] So it's way more exciting for a lot of people than, their real basketball game.

[1818] But if they're only selling like this kind of like, yeah, this like half version of the game.

[1819] It's like a demo version.

[1820] Like it doesn't have the, it's like you can get some of the gameplay, but it doesn't have the main thing.

[1821] But it has like, but I mean, it does have the main thing because the main thing is dude, it's NBA Jam and it'll have online support, which they still haven't confirmed for the Wii version of the game.

[1822] Right.

[1823] But they are working on it.

[1824] Yeah, it's, it's, it's what justifies it being a disc -based game on the Wii.

[1825] is that is that remix yeah absolutely so you know it's like could you put that out on 360 and ps3 and charge 60 for it instead of the 50 they'll charge on wii and have it work like i don't know i don't know but i bet you could after you could wait until after nba elite 11 has sold its you know what it's going to sell to the people that care about real basketball games and then say oh and we're putting this out for 15 bucks now that all this time has passed and we have milked uh Those of you that are super into NBA Jam but don't have a Wii, we have tricked you all into buying NBA Elite 11.

[1826] Do you think those people are out there, though?

[1827] Yeah, I mean, NBA Jam was like the most intensely popular arcade games of all time.

[1828] But they are that devoted that they would spend the extra, let's say, I don't know, $45?

[1829] Sure, maybe.

[1830] Also to play it now.

[1831] What do you think this would cost on arcade?

[1832] $15?

[1833] I think $10, $15, something like that.

[1834] I'm not saying that it's a good deal.

[1835] I'm saying that there would be some people that would just go, yeah, and then probably be disappointed.

[1836] And then probably be disappointed because it's like they're stuck with this basketball game that they may or may not want to play.

[1837] My problem is I am just, as a consumer, I am completely befuddled as to, like, where do I put my NBA Jam dollars?

[1838] Like, I would rather probably play this game on the 360 or PS3.

[1839] But this game that they're putting out that doesn't have everything that the Wii version has doesn't sound as appealing to me. But then is that stuff eventually going to come out for the 360 and PS3?

[1840] That's the thing.

[1841] Get their shit together.

[1842] There have been too many bait and switches.

[1843] It's like this sort of stuff has happened too often for people to believe it and for people to kind of take it at face value.

[1844] People have been burned too many times on these sorts of scenarios in the past, I think, for it to work.

[1845] I don't know.

[1846] One thing, I think they cannot put out this downloadable version six months later for money and then put out a disc -based version of NBA Jam for these systems.

[1847] It seems like they have to do one or the other.

[1848] I agree with that.

[1849] I think they'll probably make that decision later once they kind of see what the reaction to it is.

[1850] Then it's like, oh, well, yeah, we could totally support this $60.

[1851] But the people who just want classic NBA Jam are going to get that out of this downloadable version, so they'd be technically cannibalizing.

[1852] sales of a disc -based game down the line if they did go this route.

[1853] Do they just feel like that game's not going to move?

[1854] What's the real one they're packing everyone with?

[1855] Elite.

[1856] NBA Elite.

[1857] They just feel like that's not going to move and this is a way to move it.

[1858] I think this is them trying to get behind that as best they can to give it a real good shot because they are making a lot of changes to it over live.

[1859] So once people play, it's not just a new name.

[1860] They're trying to make a new basketball game and they need people to experience it.

[1861] So they're doing everything they can to get it into people's hands and say like this is different.

[1862] Hopefully they'll like it and they'll become a franchise.

[1863] That's my guess of how they're looking.

[1864] Because otherwise you're selling Jam kind of short for a game.

[1865] They are absolutely selling Jam short.

[1866] But it's I I can't say that I'm too surprised by that, that they may not be 100 % sure as to what to do with that game because it is such a weird thing.

[1867] Your point about the midway quandary, as it were, seems really salient here just because on the Wii, yeah, you can make that game cost 50 bucks.

[1868] NBA Jam is practically a party game.

[1869] Yeah.

[1870] When you think about it, it is best enjoyed by four players.

[1871] It is, you know, big, crazy, over -the -top style and, you know, easy to pick up and play.

[1872] And, you know, it fits perfectly on the Wii.

[1873] And it actually controls very well on the Wii, too.

[1874] Like, the nunchuck and Wii remote controls are great.

[1875] But you can play it with a classic controller if you want, too.

[1876] But on the 360, I feel like developers have made inroads into...

[1877] getting over that arcade problem of like, what do you do about leaderboards and quarters and stuff by doing online leaderboards and achievements, making it kind of worthwhile to keep going at it and playing again.

[1878] I think it's just like, how do you have a game that is $50 on one platform and then there's the discrepancy between what is the content and the price and the prices that we are comfortable with paying for downloadable games, even if...

[1879] If you had slapped that shit onto a disc, it would have been a $50 game.

[1880] The thing also is that sports games used to work by the roster update was the big thing that keeps people coming back.

[1881] Obviously, Madden makes significant changes every year, but the big part of it is I need to stay up to date with this stuff.

[1882] But that doesn't work for the arcade -style games.

[1883] It doesn't work for boxing.

[1884] It's why they don't put out Fight Night every year.

[1885] They did knockout games every year for a while, and it was like, wait, no one...

[1886] Why would anyone do this?

[1887] It's why they shouldn't do a Tony Hawk game every year.

[1888] We've got this NBA Jam machine here, and it's still pretty fun to play Scottie Pippen, you know?

[1889] Yeah.

[1890] And they're aware of that.

[1891] They're putting classic players into the new NBA Jam.

[1892] Detlev Shrimp, dog.

[1893] Kevin McHale is in.

[1894] is in this modern NBA Jam game.

[1895] Of, like, all the characters to be like, yeah, Kevin McHale.

[1896] Dude, Death Lab, that's fucking hilarious.

[1897] Both of those are very funny choices.

[1898] So they need Dominique Wilkins in there, obviously.

[1899] Yeah, they gotta get the Neek.

[1900] But they need Scottie Pippen in there, bad.

[1901] Yeah.

[1902] Like, that game has to have.

[1903] Wait, does he not confirm to be in there?

[1904] He's not yet.

[1905] Oh, dude.

[1906] Like, Rodman's in it, though.

[1907] How are you gonna hit your threes without Pippen?

[1908] I don't know.

[1909] Poorly.

[1910] Oh, man. No, it's...

[1911] To me...

[1912] the definitive NBA Jam experience is like that Tim Kitzrow voice going, Pippen!

[1913] Over and over and over again.

[1914] Someone just ruling ass with the Bulls.

[1915] Classic Bulls.

[1916] So hopefully, I mean, yeah, looking at the direction they're going with the heads so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Pippen in there at some point.

[1917] I just, like, Spud, I was talking to Dave, like, after Kevin McCann, I was like, I need to put Muggsy Bows in this game.

[1918] Weird ass, like, where's Isaiah?

[1919] That's a good question.

[1920] Well, I hope...

[1921] This is all disappointing because it seems like there's a lot of excitement over NBH.

[1922] I really hope that EA doesn't fuck that up just being too EA.

[1923] You know?

[1924] It seems like they're going to eventually outsmart themselves on this stuff.

[1925] They're trying to get too clever with it and going to screw up a good thing.

[1926] Yeah, I mean, everything up to now seemed like they really had a good handle on what they were doing with it.

[1927] It was almost better when it was just officially just coming to the Wii.

[1928] Because then it was like, okay, I know what to do.

[1929] I'm just going to buy this on the Wii.

[1930] They ended up introducing a bunch of confusion into the marketplace for people that own multiple consoles.

[1931] I think the best answer for people that want to play NBA Jam is going to continue to be get the Wii version.

[1932] Because so far it'll still be the complete game.

[1933] That is still the complete game.

[1934] So how many people do you think will just buy Elite, redeem their code, and then trade it in and keep their code?

[1935] Immediately trade in and be like, fuck it, I'm happy to pay $60 for...

[1936] half a game on the 360.

[1937] I wonder how much you would get for a used copy of NBA Elite.

[1938] If you turn around and do it like week one, you'd probably recoup half the cost.

[1939] It's going to be like a bin full of NBA Elite.

[1940] You just have to go day of, buy it, rip the code out, and just sell them back the game right there.

[1941] Just open it right there, just grab the code.

[1942] I'd like to trade in this used copy of NBA Elite.

[1943] Take a picture with your iPhone and basically just say like...

[1944] Oh, this is the wrong one.

[1945] I'm sorry.

[1946] And once you open it up...

[1947] No, they're not good.

[1948] I hate them.

[1949] That's why you have to time it right so you have to get the last copy they have in -house.

[1950] You have to get an open one.

[1951] I hope the code...

[1952] Somebody else didn't do the same shit you were planning to do?

[1953] Yes.

[1954] Have we seen any video or screens of this Xbox PlayStation version?

[1955] No. So we don't even know if the art assets are higher quality for those platforms?

[1956] I believe they were calling it NBA Jam HD, or maybe that was just other reports were calling it that.

[1957] That could still be the same character models and textures running in HD.

[1958] I'm sure that's exactly what it is.

[1959] I'm sure they probably did put some work into cleaning it up where they could, but the Wii version looks totally fine.

[1960] It's just a resolution thing.

[1961] Well, I'm thinking more in the future if they were going to make a disc retail version of...

[1962] Those LinkedIn profiles were from people saying they were working specifically on those versions of the game.

[1963] So someone had to make it work on those consoles, and they probably did a little bit too.

[1964] I can't imagine them selling a $60 disc with Wii -level art assets and stuff in it.

[1965] I think if they went to a disc -based NBA Jam game on those consoles, they would have to redo everything.

[1966] I don't know.

[1967] There's a lot of man -hours to sink into.

[1968] I don't think they necessarily have to redo everything.

[1969] Because the graphical style of that game, it's not...

[1970] It's deliberately kind of chunky.

[1971] Going polygonal, like more polygons isn't going to make that thing better.

[1972] Running at a crisper, higher resolution that shows all the jagged edges on those faces actually will make it way better.

[1973] But...

[1974] get it on the wii i don't know that's that's still the only safe sure bet like don't yeah try not to get too confused by this stuff unless you really want to leave i mean unless you're unless you really want to leave and you don't care about the remix tour which i actually you know from what i've seen and played of of the like the stuff that's part of the remix tour like that stuff seems cool right like that's where it it seems like i mean they got a whole different perspective like a half court behind the back like old school like uh dr j versus larry bird one -on -one perspective right um I don't know.

[1975] It's weird.

[1976] It's weird business.

[1977] It's a controversial issue.

[1978] Maybe they'll make you have to have the disc, the elite disc in when you launch NBA Jam.

[1979] Oh, no. This is kind of their, you know, it seems like this is their way of making sure you buy shit new.

[1980] Well, it's also going to have online pass in it, too.

[1981] Oh, yeah, right.

[1982] It already have.

[1983] Oh, wow.

[1984] Their incentive plan.

[1985] Was that Project $5?

[1986] $10.

[1987] $10.

[1988] All right, moving on.

[1989] Let's talk about Batman.

[1990] Let's talk about something we can all agree on.

[1991] Batman.

[1992] Batman.

[1993] Got a name for the new Batman game, you guys.

[1994] Well, we broke that a few weeks ago.

[1995] No, this is not.

[1996] I'm afraid it's not Batman, Batman, Batman, Jeff.

[1997] Much to our and the internets and Kevin Smith's chagrin.

[1998] In fact, it is called Batman Arkham City.

[1999] As broke by a game informer.

[2000] Or as I say, Cite.

[2001] Cite.

[2002] I think Batman, Batman, Batman.

[2003] Much cleaner.

[2004] They got to save that for the third game, though.

[2005] This is the second one.

[2006] Better branding.

[2007] It says the name that you care about three times.

[2008] There's no confusing what this is.

[2009] Do I play as Arkham?

[2010] Why is there Arkham City?

[2011] I thought this was like a SimCity, but like...

[2012] Who's this Batman?

[2013] Your game is called Batman, Batman, Batman.

[2014] Oh, so I'm Batman.

[2015] No, no, you're Batman, Batman.

[2016] It's a car racing simulation.

[2017] Oh, man. No, you're Batman.

[2018] Yay, I'm back in.

[2019] And your buddy, he's Batman 2.

[2020] Oh, great.

[2021] Come on.

[2022] Third friend, you can get one.

[2023] You can scrounge one up.

[2024] He's Batman 3.

[2025] He can be Batman 3.

[2026] All right, B3.

[2027] Trace Batmans.

[2028] B -Cubed.

[2029] Batman, and we replaced the E with a 3.

[2030] You know, that's actually the longest grammatically correct sentence in the English language.

[2031] Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman.

[2032] Perfect.

[2033] Yes.

[2034] Shakespeare.

[2035] Does anybody know what I'm talking about here?

[2036] No. Yeah.

[2037] I know what you're referencing.

[2038] There's a sentence.

[2039] If you repeat the word buffalo seven times, that forms a grammatical sentence.

[2040] I couldn't get past, like, the fifth one.

[2041] I read a breakdown of it.

[2042] It makes more sense after that.

[2043] So, anyway, is that it?

[2044] Just the title?

[2045] Cat lady's on the cover.

[2046] Cat lady, cat lady, cat woman.

[2047] Not cat lady.

[2048] I like cat lady.

[2049] Just an old lady with a lot of cats.

[2050] I don't know, dude.

[2051] Go read Game Informer if you want to hear about that stuff.

[2052] This is why I listen to you.

[2053] Yeah, this is the stuff that we already know about different, less x -ray -y, x -ray vision.

[2054] Yeah.

[2055] And apparently there have been hints that there is a full, like...

[2056] blueprint map of arkham city hidden in a secret like super fucking secret room in arkham asylum really like they seeded hooks for that that's their sequel oh yeah there's a room that is not on any maps that does not show up as a weak wall with batman's like vision and only and the wall only crumbles after you use multiple charges of explosive foam so they put this it's uh was the somebody's found it I believe they revealed it during one of Rocksteady's podcasts, Rocksteady the developer.

[2057] That's amazing in a game full.

[2058] I was like, man, Rocksteady is a podcast.

[2059] Is there just Bebop on it?

[2060] The game's not just full of hidden stuff.

[2061] It practically trades on hidden stuff.

[2062] Maybe there's still something so hidden that nobody found.

[2063] Yeah, they said that they had a few things.

[2064] Was Quentin Sharp the warden of Arkham Asylum?

[2065] I think so, yeah.

[2066] I remember Quentin is, right?

[2067] I wasn't sure if Sharp was the last name of Sharp.

[2068] Anyways, apparently in his office there is a secret room, and that is where this map for this proposed, I guess like an annex onto Gotham City called Arkham City.

[2069] Cool.

[2070] So Arkham Asylum is growing and turning parts of Gotham crazy.

[2071] Man, I hope that game is good.

[2072] That'd be nice, right?

[2073] Yeah.

[2074] Are you worried?

[2075] A little.

[2076] Won't be?

[2077] Really?

[2078] Well, because I liked the other one.

[2079] Again, going back, full circle, heightened expectations.

[2080] I would, if they just made another one of those, I'd be happy.

[2081] I know, me too.

[2082] That's why I hope it's not like, don't break it.

[2083] Yeah, yeah.

[2084] Because the first one, I was very close.

[2085] I'm just glad they're not rushing it out.

[2086] Remember how fast they turned around and announced this after the announcement came out?

[2087] Yeah, the announcement was kind of scary because you're like, oh, they're just going to totally pump out another one of these.

[2088] Shove it out the door by the end of 2010 or something.

[2089] Yeah, that first one was great.

[2090] Agreed.

[2091] Although I share your concern, Vinny, of like, does this, will this formula, you know, hold up?

[2092] Like, if they had just cranked out another one and it was just like, it's the exact same shit, but new levels.

[2093] I'm like, eh, that would have, you know, lost some of the luster, but.

[2094] I hope they take it.

[2095] It is reassuring that they are taking their time with this.

[2096] I don't even know what I'd want to see.

[2097] No. I don't know.

[2098] Dude, I want new gadgets and about 300 more Riddler challenges.

[2099] I think if you got a city, you have to drive the Batmobile.

[2100] I think they got to put driving in it, right?

[2101] As a minigame or as a form of...

[2102] That sounds like a slippery slope.

[2103] Yeah.

[2104] I've got three things that I want.

[2105] Okay.

[2106] Batman.

[2107] Got it.

[2108] Batman.

[2109] Okay.

[2110] Batman.

[2111] What's the third again?

[2112] Batman.

[2113] Okay.

[2114] As long as it's got plenty of Batman in it, I'm okay.

[2115] How about the Batman?

[2116] You know what?

[2117] I like the Batman the best.

[2118] I like the bat hyphen man. Right.

[2119] Because you're scared of the Batman.

[2120] Oh, yeah.

[2121] The Batman is a terrifying motherfucker.

[2122] What are you scared?

[2123] What do you think, you're going to get killed by the Batman?

[2124] You're crazy.

[2125] Woof.

[2126] Yeah, only people who know him go, hey, what's up, Batman?

[2127] Yeah, yeah, like the Batman is before people are familiar with him.

[2128] That's when he's still a legend.

[2129] He's a boogie monster.

[2130] Yeah, totally.

[2131] I heard the Joker's going to take down the Batman.

[2132] There ain't no Batman.

[2133] Like Batman and Joker refer to each other as Batman and Joker, but anyone who is not within their circles, it's the Joker and the Batman.

[2134] And then just Robin.

[2135] Yeah, well.

[2136] That's how they could break it.

[2137] That is totally how they could break it.

[2138] Co -op with Robin.

[2139] Yeah.

[2140] No Robin.

[2141] Please don't put Robin in the game.

[2142] It could...

[2143] Co -op is not necessarily a bad thing.

[2144] But that kind of game does not...

[2145] Co -op with another Batman.

[2146] I'm just saying...

[2147] I just know that there is another Batman.

[2148] In the eastern block.

[2149] He's ready to come.

[2150] Of space.

[2151] Of a space who has been infected by Martian space dust.

[2152] Batman returned to the mothership already.

[2153] He went from the motherland to the mothership.

[2154] That's right.

[2155] He had to leave to...

[2156] Dosvidanya, Batman.

[2157] Batman?

[2158] There's whatever.

[2159] There's precedent for people other than Bruce Wayne being Batman.

[2160] That's right.

[2161] Val Kilmer could be Batman.

[2162] Val Kilmer was Batman once.

[2163] So Iceman could be Batman.

[2164] George Clooney could be Batman.

[2165] That's right.

[2166] I guess.

[2167] Sure.

[2168] Michael Keaton.

[2169] Adam West.

[2170] Adam West.

[2171] The most revered of Batman.

[2172] He was not the Batman.

[2173] There was a Batman before Adam West.

[2174] Really?

[2175] I don't remember his name.

[2176] Yeah, there was like a black and white Batman.

[2177] Oh, right.

[2178] That wasn't also Adam West and that was just one color?

[2179] It was like 10 years before that or something.

[2180] Black and white Batman.

[2181] Is that like a pre -order only for Batman?

[2182] That's just a black man. You're just confused.

[2183] We're happy doing that.

[2184] That's our GameStop pre -order exclusive.

[2185] got the film grain effect on him.

[2186] It's a flashback with, like, B. Yeah, yeah, just not the screen around him.

[2187] It'd be pretty awesome if they did a flashback from Batman and he's in, like, Adam West style, like, bat suit, like, just kind of form -fitting.

[2188] Like, a little chubby, a little too form -fitting.

[2189] That should just be the unlockable character model, like the fat Batman.

[2190] I remember my first encounter.

[2191] Weird eyebrows drawn onto the cowl.

[2192] In white pencil.

[2193] Yeah, yeah.

[2194] You kind of got girly, arched eyebrows there with Batman.

[2195] It was a weird time for everybody, all right?

[2196] The late 60s.

[2197] You should have seen Penguin.

[2198] The Penguin.

[2199] That's all I got on that.

[2200] Batman Arkham City.

[2201] Look for it.

[2202] Arkham City Rock.

[2203] Batman Arkham City Rocket.

[2204] More like Arkham City.

[2205] What?

[2206] See, that's what I hope they don't do.

[2207] I hope it's good.

[2208] Oh, sad Vinny.

[2209] Pokemon Black and White.

[2210] You know, the Pokemons.

[2211] They're making a new Pokemon game.

[2212] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2213] What's this one called?

[2214] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2215] It's Black Slash White.

[2216] That's the best one they've had so far.

[2217] I think so.

[2218] It's two different games.

[2219] Black and white.

[2220] And then white.

[2221] Segregation again.

[2222] They're just finally taking their weird separation to the ultimate.

[2223] You can't.

[2224] How much more black and white do you get than black and white?

[2225] How much more binary is the combination than black and white?

[2226] That's it.

[2227] I bet black outsells white.

[2228] Oh, really?

[2229] Well, it depends what the Pokemon is, right?

[2230] Which one's going to be in the white, which one's going to be in the black?

[2231] I bet black outsells white.

[2232] You think he's going to be bad?

[2233] He's cooler.

[2234] All right, what do you want to put on this?

[2235] I agree.

[2236] I think black will outsell white in the States.

[2237] In Japan, I bet white outsells black.

[2238] I don't know.

[2239] White is the color of death in Asia.

[2240] Because that makes it cooler.

[2241] There could be an aversion to that.

[2242] I don't know.

[2243] Really?

[2244] Why all like the Wii and...

[2245] The same reason why they're scared of the number four.

[2246] I don't know.

[2247] Because four in both Japanese and Chinese sounds like death or looks like the character for death.

[2248] Did they announce the Pokemon?

[2249] They keep revealing new.

[2250] They keep revealing new Pokemon, but what this story is about is that on your first playthrough in Pokemon Black slash White, you will only see new Pokemon.

[2251] It used to be that you'd see, okay, I know who this Pokemon is and how to deal with him.

[2252] Yeah.

[2253] Because you've seen all the damn Pokemon.

[2254] There's a handful of new Pokemon in any of these games.

[2255] Apparently, they're structuring this one in such a way so that you will not know going in what sort of strategies to use on all these new damn Pokemans.

[2256] How much do you guys know about Pokemon games?

[2257] Ask me anything about Pokemon games.

[2258] So there was Pokemon.

[2259] Yep.

[2260] There was Red and Blue, right?

[2261] Well, there was Pokemon Red and Blue.

[2262] When did they remake that?

[2263] Leaf and Heart Red.

[2264] They remade that in the GBA days.

[2265] It was a Game Boy game.

[2266] Red and blaze blue.

[2267] And what was the Pikachu yellow one?

[2268] That was also red blue, but you started with a Pikachu instead of the starting Pokemon from red and blue.

[2269] What was like leaf green and other ones?

[2270] Green was also red blue.

[2271] Okay.

[2272] But in Japan.

[2273] Oh, no. But then they remade that.

[2274] No, no, no. Then we're getting into Jade, which is the third from these.

[2275] Sapphire.

[2276] They did Jade Emerald and then Sapphire was the combination of those two.

[2277] Didn't Diamond and Pearl come into it at some point?

[2278] Diamond and Pearl was the last pair of proper games they made, and then the Soul Silver and Heart Gold, which were the most recent ones, the ones that came with the Pokewalkers.

[2279] Those are just remakes of Golden Silver, which were the first Game Boy Color.

[2280] So there are a bunch of remakes in there.

[2281] This is the problem with the Pokemon series is that even between proper iterations, there's not huge differences.

[2282] And then they keep fucking making these weird remakes of a generation old.

[2283] with slightly newer tech.

[2284] So it's real easy to lose the plot.

[2285] Completely confused.

[2286] And it's basically the same plot in every one, right?

[2287] Like you're just a Pokemon player.

[2288] Yeah, you do our gym leaders and you gotta fight them.

[2289] You wake up and mom says, it's time to start your day.

[2290] Professor Elm, Professor Oak, whatever.

[2291] Some professor with a tree name will be like, dude, you gotta collect a Pokemon.

[2292] You wanna guess that black and white professor tree name?

[2293] No, I'm sure they've already said like what region it's gonna take place in and that kind of, that determines what professor you're gonna have because they're regional.

[2294] Oh.

[2295] Brad, how's it going over there?

[2296] Good.

[2297] Is there a Professor Elm yet?

[2298] Yeah.

[2299] Is there Oak, Elm, Maple?

[2300] I think that's it.

[2301] I think it's just Oak and Elm, isn't it?

[2302] Maybe Professor Maple and it's a chick.

[2303] Or a lady.

[2304] Or one or the other.

[2305] I kind of have both.

[2306] Excuse you.

[2307] Black and white.

[2308] I'm excited.

[2309] All right, real quick.

[2310] We're going to burn through a couple of things here because there's just a lot of...

[2311] Miscellaneous?

[2312] I think it's fired up, actually.

[2313] Bioshock 2, Seale Player DLC forthcoming.

[2314] Borderlands, more DLC forthcoming.

[2315] Split second, some DLC forthcoming new city stuff, which I'm actually kind of pumped about.

[2316] I think the Borderlands story is actually kind of weird.

[2317] Yeah, if that stuff's accurate, Randy Pitchford came out and said, like, it's wrong.

[2318] It's like reading the first draft of a script.

[2319] I think even the Steam achievements showing up in there is kind of weird.

[2320] So far, after the fact.

[2321] Yeah, they patched in Steamworks support.

[2322] Almost a year.

[2323] For achievements.

[2324] I'm going to play through that game.

[2325] And someone dug through the latest patch and found a bunch of stuff pointing at claptraps being enemies in the next DLC.

[2326] Like you fight a bunch of zombie claptraps and other kinds of different claptraps.

[2327] Robots can't be zombies.

[2328] That doesn't sound...

[2329] I don't know.

[2330] That doesn't...

[2331] You feel that goes against the spirit of the claptrap?

[2332] I totally think it does.

[2333] I think it's too much claptrap.

[2334] I don't know.

[2335] I thought the claptrap characters were...

[2336] Kind of funny, but not enough to hang your hat on.

[2337] But it's the closest thing to a personality that Borderlands has.

[2338] I think the crazy Russian dude is better.

[2339] I like the claptraps.

[2340] I don't think I need a full DLC pack.

[2341] You'd write them.

[2342] A minigame.

[2343] Yeah.

[2344] The thing is, I don't want to fight them.

[2345] I like them.

[2346] Yeah.

[2347] They're friendly.

[2348] If a little...

[2349] Claptrappish.

[2350] A little claptrappy.

[2351] You just want...

[2352] Anyways, a lot of DLC is forthcoming to some of your favorite games.

[2353] So look for that in the near future.

[2354] We should just say that every week.

[2355] In case I missed anything.

[2356] Yeah, there's a DLC coming for something.

[2357] I don't know.

[2358] Check your local listings.

[2359] It's kind of a map hack.

[2360] I don't know.

[2361] And then there's going to be a...

[2362] All right, this is the last story.

[2363] I don't know.

[2364] This doesn't make me happy.

[2365] Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, that new Assassin's Creed game that's forthcoming.

[2366] Yeah.

[2367] There's going to be a multiplayer beta, or what Ubisoft is calling multiplayer beta, that will be exclusive to pre -orders from GameStop.

[2368] It's really just a misuse.

[2369] And only on PS3, I think, too, isn't it?

[2370] Yes.

[2371] So it's a demo, is what you're saying.

[2372] So it's a marketing campaign.

[2373] I mean, the problem is I'm fine with what they are doing.

[2374] Just stop.

[2375] You find different words.

[2376] Stop saying multiplayer beta.

[2377] I literally co -opted the meaning of that word.

[2378] Means what you think it means?

[2379] Yeah.

[2380] You're not using that word correctly.

[2381] Marketing people.

[2382] And shame on all of us for then falling for it also.

[2383] Who fell for it?

[2384] Anyone that's pre -ordering that game to get at this multiplayer.

[2385] I'm all for like, hey, you want to play some Brotherhood before it comes out?

[2386] More power to you.

[2387] Remember when betas were fucking betas?

[2388] Remember when Quake 1 beta fucking Q test?

[2389] It was like one map.

[2390] Remember when Q3 test came out and you came out on the Mac first and you're like, what the fuck has happened?

[2391] Video games are broken.

[2392] Those were betas, goddammit.

[2393] But then there's also just a demo, which is, you know, just give me a couple of levels.

[2394] Just call it that.

[2395] Bring back shareware.

[2396] Start saying shareware again.

[2397] Oh, what was it?

[2398] Raptor?

[2399] What was the new shareware?

[2400] Yeah, Raptor.

[2401] Call the Shadows.

[2402] There's like a new one coming out.

[2403] Well, it's just they've remade it with different graphics and made it run on Windows 7 or something.

[2404] That was some shareware right there.

[2405] Download that from the BBS.

[2406] Oh, yeah.

[2407] Call up Software Creations and download it.

[2408] I think you put that out, didn't you?

[2409] Yeah, probably, yeah.

[2410] That's it for news.

[2411] We got new releases, though.

[2412] All right.

[2413] Such as Madden NFL 11 for PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and I think that's it.

[2414] No Xbox?

[2415] No original Xbox.

[2416] They stopped doing their original Xbox games a while ago.

[2417] No GameCube?

[2418] No PlayStation?

[2419] No PlayStation 1, no GameCube.

[2420] Gosh.

[2421] Doing a version for the Playdia.

[2422] Lean time.

[2423] It was a Game Boy Color.

[2424] It's still five platforms.

[2425] Vectrex.

[2426] And, of course, the DS and PC version is still forthcoming.

[2427] This is just what's launching this week.

[2428] An LCD version.

[2429] Xbox Live Arcade, Monday Night Combat.

[2430] Really?

[2431] Yeah, it's an iPad version.

[2432] $15, Monday Night Combat.

[2433] Yeah, that seems all right.

[2434] PlayStation Network's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The Game.

[2435] Coming this week.

[2436] How many references to River City Ransom can you pack into a video game while still making it a marketing vehicle for an upcoming film?

[2437] Oh, that also looks kind of okay.

[2438] I like some of the visual style stuff.

[2439] They seem to be going forward with that.

[2440] The hidden shop under the bridge from River City Ransom is totally in that game.

[2441] It's weird.

[2442] That whole thing is weird.

[2443] And that's all I have.

[2444] Jeff Gerstman, let me pass you the microphone so you can spit hot fire about Nintendo downloads.

[2445] Here we go.

[2446] Let's get some new Nintendo theme music, Vinny.

[2447] Why don't you start doing your Civ music?

[2448] No, you guys are going to mess me up.

[2449] I can't do that.

[2450] All right.

[2451] For WiiWare, My Aquarium 2 from Hudson Entertainment.

[2452] 500 Wii points.

[2453] TM.

[2454] I have one question for you.

[2455] Yeah.

[2456] Do I have to have played My Aquarium 1 to know what's going on in My Aquarium 2?

[2457] Do you think I'll be able to pick up and play My Aquarium 2?

[2458] It'll be too confusing.

[2459] Well, we've developed, through the tutorial, you're actually kind of, so the tutorial is actually kind of a retelling of the story from the first My Aquarium.

[2460] But, you know, Dunn is like cave drunk because, you know, this is a new generation, so a generation has passed.

[2461] So the events of my aquarium have kind of become legend at this point.

[2462] So you're going to kind of be able to see the retelling of the legend as you learn the controls.

[2463] And you'll be pretty much up to speed.

[2464] If you play the first one, it'll be like a good refresher.

[2465] And it's, you know, we tell it in kind of a fun way.

[2466] So I think even if you're intimately familiar with the story of my aquarium one, you'll still get something out of it.

[2467] Do that way too well.

[2468] Go ahead.

[2469] We're coming out on WiiWare in early August, so look for us then.

[2470] My Aquarium 2, the sequel to the hit WiiWare title My Aquarium, is here.

[2471] This time, the theme is the mysterious deep sea.

[2472] With a single Wii Remote TM controller, you can raise fascinating creatures of all shapes and sizes, including deep sea fish and glowing jellyfish.

[2473] As with the original My Aquarium, you can customize your aquarium.

[2474] By choosing which fish to include...

[2475] Wait, my aquarium?

[2476] Your aquarium.

[2477] My aquarium too?

[2478] Two.

[2479] No, just your aquarium also.

[2480] By choosing which fish to include and where to place various decorations, you can also choose for...

[2481] Oh, it's truly a number two.

[2482] You can also choose for a variety of colored lights to illuminate your aquarium.

[2483] Boom.

[2484] Colored lighting, finally.

[2485] Always good for a sequel.

[2486] Always good for...

[2487] In time, your fish might breed to give you a whole new school.

[2488] Create your very own aquarium for endless hours of relaxing fun and entertainment.

[2489] The sequel features a larger selection of fish and objects than the original.

[2490] You can also link up to the forecast channel to have your aquarium's appearance reflect the actual weather.

[2491] Or send your aquariums to registered friends via WeConnect24 trademark.

[2492] Additional content will be available for purchase at a later date.

[2493] Dive in and see all of the wonderful creatures of the deep blue sea.

[2494] Except for the ones that they'll sell as additional content.

[2495] Those are two sentences that should have gone in the opposite order.

[2496] Enjoy your massage.

[2497] Done.

[2498] From Microforum.

[2499] Wait, I'm sorry.

[2500] That's the name of a game?

[2501] Enjoy your massage.

[2502] Maybe my massage from Microforum might be...

[2503] Exclamation point.

[2504] I don't want a massage.

[2505] Your massage.

[2506] Lowercase.

[2507] See, I get more enjoy your massage.

[2508] Enjoy your massage.

[2509] Hey, Vinny, enjoy your massage.

[2510] Oh, thanks.

[2511] From Microform?

[2512] From Microform.

[2513] I don't want to let Microform touch my back.

[2514] E10 plus mild.

[2515] I am not taking off my shirt in front of Microform.

[2516] You don't have to.

[2517] Suggestive themes.

[2518] Uh -oh.

[2519] 500 Wii points.

[2520] How much?

[2521] If I give you 1 ,500, can we, you know, give a happy ending or something?

[2522] Congratulations.

[2523] Thank you.

[2524] You have just been hired as an apprentice masseur.

[2525] At Giselle's Beauty Farm.

[2526] One of the most famous in the city.

[2527] It's the most famous beauty farm?

[2528] In the city.

[2529] I just got to get through college.

[2530] I didn't know that there were multiple beauty farms.

[2531] Learn new relaxing massage combinations and use them on your stressed customers.

[2532] Jeff does not sound like he has just gotten his massage.

[2533] Ask an apprentice.

[2534] You'll have to do your best.

[2535] If your client gets angry, no one will save you from losing your job.

[2536] Oh, bummer.

[2537] This is maybe a little too realistic a rendering of the rough and tumble world of the pro masseuse.

[2538] The beauty farm?

[2539] That's right, masseur.

[2540] But if you prove capable, you might even become the director of the whole beauty farm.

[2541] So what are you waiting for?

[2542] They call that the madam.

[2543] Six clients are waiting for your help.

[2544] I can't do that.

[2545] I can't take six on at once.

[2546] You're not ready for that?

[2547] I'm still an apprentice, for God's sakes.

[2548] I mean, you've only got two hands.

[2549] Let me go one -on -one here for a bit before we get in some group work.

[2550] Six clients.

[2551] That's it for WiiWare.

[2552] Fantastic.

[2553] DSiWare, though.

[2554] Oh, some bangers.

[2555] Turn!

[2556] All right.

[2557] The Lost Artifact.

[2558] Turn is in all caps.

[2559] Colon.

[2560] Lost Artifact.

[2561] From Creative Patterns, 800 Nintendo DSi points, mild cartoon violence.

[2562] Look out for that.

[2563] Turn!

[2564] The Lost Artifact is an adventure puzzler with fun, intuitive gameplay.

[2565] Kurt and Camilla are explorers on a mysterious journey to find a lost artifact.

[2566] How do you spell Kurt?

[2567] K -U -R -T.

[2568] Yeah.

[2569] Not K -U -R -D -T.

[2570] Is Camilla with a K?

[2571] No. You guide them through rooms filled with various dangers from enemies to rolling boulders.

[2572] Your main power is the ability to rotate the rooms 90 degrees to the left or right.

[2573] Mastering the law of gravity is essential to your success.

[2574] Everything in every one of the room is subjected to gravity and falls when you turn the room.

[2575] Watch your head!

[2576] Featuring three worlds of nine levels of about ten rooms each.

[2577] The game promises a whole lot of brain -twisting fun on your Nintendo DSi system.

[2578] This sounds like Lazy Raiders.

[2579] Okay, yeah.

[2580] With Professor Digabone.

[2581] Where you just have the gravity move you around.

[2582] Yeah, you just tilt the level.

[2583] That's what that sounds like to me. Rhythm Core Alpha from Soft Egg.

[2584] 500 Nintendo DSi points.

[2585] Make music with your Nintendo DSi system.

[2586] Rhythm Core Alpha is an advanced music creation system designed for creating and performing live music in front of an audience.

[2587] Rhythmcore Alpha makes it easy to build drum and instrument loops, then allows you to play solos over them using the stylus.

[2588] It automatically detects the key and scale of the music you have created and allows you to change chords at the press of a button.

[2589] All notes in the solo match the selected key and scale so you can never hit a wrong note.

[2590] Rhythmcore Alpha also includes a powerful pattern mode that allows you to make chord changes and arrange your sequence parts, enabling you to build a whole song or make sections that you can play back as you desire.

[2591] Hundreds!

[2592] of adjustable drum and instrument sounds are included.

[2593] You can edit while the song is playing so you can really build the song in front of an audience.

[2594] That actually sounds kind of cool.

[2595] I saw some screenshots of it.

[2596] It seems insane.

[2597] Aren't there, like, already a whole bunch of these weird little, like, music creation?

[2598] I mean, there's the cord cartridges, which are kind of a little more specific than this.

[2599] This almost looks like a full -on sequencer.

[2600] If there's enough samples in it, it could be kind of neat.

[2601] Absolute Chess from Katsuki.

[2602] Is that like vodka branded chess?

[2603] No, it has an E on it.

[2604] Damn it.

[2605] That's okay.

[2606] Yeah.

[2607] One to two players.

[2608] E for everyone.

[2609] Yo, is it chess?

[2610] Absolutely.

[2611] And then we're good.

[2612] This easy to understand chess game explains everything from basic rules to aggressive strategies.

[2613] There are two modes of play.

[2614] In free play, you can play against a number of preset characters ranging from a young kid to a grouchy old man. That sounds like fun.

[2615] You damn kids and your damn chess.

[2616] I'll show you chess.

[2617] Oh, grouchy old man. I shit myself.

[2618] That's why I'm so grouchy.

[2619] That's why I'm so grouchy.

[2620] The light moves in an L shape, you dumb fuck.

[2621] The challenge mode gives players multiple levels and missions to complete.

[2622] Player support features include a function to indicate possible moves for the player and opponent as well as the ability to undo your previous move.

[2623] You can also enjoy matches with friends via DS Download Play.

[2624] Did it myself!

[2625] A -B -C -1 -2 -3 from Powerhead Games.

[2626] I shit myself.

[2627] All by myself.

[2628] Rated EC.

[2629] That's early childhood.

[2630] 200 Nintendo DSi points.

[2631] Did it myself!

[2632] A -B -C -1 -2 -3 is packed with different activities to stimulate your young child's brain.

[2633] Including counting, colors, letters, drawing, and music.

[2634] The target age range is roughly 2 to 3.

[2635] Whoa.

[2636] But kids ages 1 through 5 should be able to enjoy.

[2637] I did it myself.

[2638] ABC 1, 2, 3.

[2639] There are options for parents to adjust the counting range.

[2640] The amount of games to play in shuffle mode.

[2641] And the overall game speed.

[2642] Slow and medium are recommended for younger kids.

[2643] While older kids may enjoy fast and ridiculous.

[2644] I know that pretty much anything that I enjoy qualifies as both fast and ridiculous.

[2645] Well, you've got to pick one because those are two different difficulty settings.

[2646] I'm going to get two.

[2647] Okay, here it is.

[2648] I'm going to get two DSIs.

[2649] I'm going to get two copies of I Did It Myself, ABC123.

[2650] It's Did It Myself, not I Did It Myself.

[2651] Really?

[2652] Did It Myself, ABC123.

[2653] Clearly there's still room for improvement there because you didn't know to use the possessive eye.

[2654] Well, who knows?

[2655] You did it yourself.

[2656] Kids age one through five should be able to enjoy it.

[2657] I'm going to put one on.

[2658] But it's focused for children aged roughly two to three.

[2659] So, you know, limited time.

[2660] Early development, that stuff can fluctuate.

[2661] Jeff, thank you again for reading things off the paper for us.

[2662] You did it.

[2663] I did it myself.

[2664] Did it yourself.

[2665] Did it myself.

[2666] ABC123.

[2667] ABCDSIware.

[2668] Can I catch it?

[2669] Can I do it myself?

[2670] I don't know.

[2671] Can you?

[2672] Do you need our permission?

[2673] Do it yourself.

[2674] Emails.

[2675] All right.

[2676] Bombcast at giantbomb .com is the email address.

[2677] First comes in from Paul Prince in New York.

[2678] Does not specify as in the state or the city.

[2679] Schenectady.

[2680] Yeah.

[2681] Sure.

[2682] Isn't it Schenectady?

[2683] Schenectady.

[2684] Schenectady.

[2685] I said Schenectady.

[2686] That's not a place.

[2687] You're Bombcast.

[2688] What games from the past do you feel would fare better today due to either advancements in technology or the change in audience?

[2689] I used to love playing the Resident Evil Outbreak games.

[2690] They were filled with more attention than any of the mainline games in the series, but were severely limited due to the online functionality of the PlayStation 2.

[2691] With so much progress made in the online environment, it would really make a sequel shine.

[2692] Have a good one, Paul Prince.

[2693] Those are the words of a crazy person.

[2694] No, they did remake that.

[2695] It's called Left 4 Dead.

[2696] They made it good and modern for the current audiences.

[2697] Saying that he enjoyed Outbreak is the part that I...

[2698] It's so hard to tell because so many of those bad game experiences just made the game bad.

[2699] So it's hard to say, this would have been awesome if it works.

[2700] The concept of an online Resident Evil game is not necessarily a horrible one.

[2701] No, not at all.

[2702] The Sims Online sounded awesome.

[2703] But then...

[2704] But then it came out and wasn't so good.

[2705] I mean, if they set out right now to make like a six -player Resident Evil Online game, I think that they would do a much better job with it.

[2706] But is it even necessary at this point?

[2707] With Left 4 Dead on the market?

[2708] I don't know.

[2709] Those games aren't comparable.

[2710] The Resident Evil Online is pretty similar.

[2711] It's pretty similar.

[2712] I mean, not for pacing, but as far as like...

[2713] group of people trying to escape from Zambies.

[2714] Like Resident Evil Outbreak had a lot more of like, gotta go find the key to get to the room to do whatever.

[2715] Like the bra strokes, the ominous tone, like the scarce ammo, that stuff is very...

[2716] Yeah.

[2717] Very reminiscent.

[2718] Yeah, I guess.

[2719] But I mean, you know, it's like...

[2720] Resident Evil is a much different game than Left 4 Dead.

[2721] They put out Resident Evil now because that game was shit.

[2722] You know what would be cool?

[2723] How about that?

[2724] Starcraft would be a lot better if they put it out.

[2725] Yeah, they should just like make it 3D.

[2726] Or like Diablo.

[2727] I don't know.

[2728] I mean, like the stuff that...

[2729] Resident Evil outbreak was really clunky because it didn't even have headset support.

[2730] No, there was no voice chat.

[2731] You had that weird kind of context -sensitive system.

[2732] They're still using the tank controls of the old Resident Evil games.

[2733] So if they modernized all that stuff, it would be a way, way, way, way better game.

[2734] Would it be a game you would want to play?

[2735] But also you have to...

[2736] think about like when they made that game they made it to the current technology was available and that's the game that they thought would be good to come out then yeah so if they were to remake that now would they reach too far again and just make kind of a game that doesn't use All the good things about the current technology.

[2737] Well, I mean, they made a good Resident Evil game with online support.

[2738] You make a good point, though, is that you can't make the game then, now, because that game was dictated by the state of the franchise.

[2739] It was also dictated by what Japan thought that online games should be back then, which was Crazy Town.

[2740] It's still kind of crazy, though.

[2741] That Castlevania game is...

[2742] Yeah.

[2743] Or something like Lost Planet 2.

[2744] We still haven't quite figured it out.

[2745] Would you still make the same mistakes just years later?

[2746] Guys, I'll be over here playing Metal Gear Online, so don't mind me. I like video games.

[2747] So maybe you should go the opposite way and say what games would be better if they were made 10 years ago and stripped out all the broken parts that were in it now.

[2748] And then you just have Lost Planet 2, it would just become Lost Planet.

[2749] Yeah.

[2750] Castlevania.

[2751] The Castlevania game you just played would have been Castlevania.

[2752] It would have been awesome as a PS2 game.

[2753] Wow.

[2754] It's pretty good.

[2755] All right, Prince.

[2756] There's your answer.

[2757] There is no answer.

[2758] Purple Rain.

[2759] Purple Rain.

[2760] Purple Rain.

[2761] Little Red Corvette.

[2762] Next email comes in from Jonathan in Alpharetta, Georgia.

[2763] Dearest of bomb casts, with Blizzard's new Battle .net service being as great as it is with leaderboards, ranking systems, and achievements, do you think that Activision slash Blizzard will turn Battle .net into a gaming platform like Steam with the multiplayer juggernaut Call of Duty, a staple of the Activision publishing house?

[2764] Do you think that COD would find a better home on Battle .net with all of the features that it has going for it?

[2765] No. No. I think there'd have to be some real big...

[2766] I bet there's some businessmen rubbing their hands together going, we've got to figure out a way to do this.

[2767] They've also been doing that over the idea of charging monthly for Call of Duty.

[2768] Right.

[2769] It doesn't mean they're going to make it happen.

[2770] I think if they are going to do that, they're going to try and make their own Activision separate Battle .net for Activision.

[2771] I absolutely think that, I mean, maybe it's probably obvious that Blizzard is making Battle .net a platform.

[2772] I mean...

[2773] But for Blizzard?

[2774] Yeah, just for Blizzard games.

[2775] Like, the friends list is already...

[2776] cross -compatible between WoW and StarCraft 2.

[2777] But at the same time, if some of those features started crossing over into other Activision games, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

[2778] It's not a bad thing.

[2779] Like if I went to go play the PC version of Black Ops and my real ID friends list carried over, I'd be totally okay with that.

[2780] I don't know that those companies interoperate in the way that is required to make that happen.

[2781] What percentage of Blizzard would have to leave?

[2782] How many people from Blizzard would have to leave for...

[2783] you know, modern warfare, call of duty, whatever to be 75%.

[2784] You are envisioning a nightmare scenario that I dare not entertain.

[2785] I just got my unlock code.

[2786] That's another company.

[2787] Like even before the black ops that like, I would love to read a book about the inner workings at blizzard.

[2788] And like, how, how do you get away with what you get away with?

[2789] Yeah.

[2790] Money.

[2791] I don't know.

[2792] It's called World of Warcraft subscription fees.

[2793] Yeah.

[2794] But even now, I would love to know how the...

[2795] fending off of the teaming Activision hordes that, you know, on the daily that Blizzard has to do.

[2796] I'm like, no, we're not going to do that.

[2797] Internal Activision producers going over there and just like opening up their mouths and just vomiting creep out so that other Activision units can creep up.

[2798] And then Blizzard people just soak it up with $100 bills.

[2799] So that the Activision lings can get double speed on the...

[2800] Well, the thing that people seem to never remember about Blizzard is that they've been owned by one corporation or another for the last, like, God, almost 15 years.

[2801] I still see all these forum posts, even now, going like, why does Blizzard team up with Activision?

[2802] Can't they find a better publisher or something?

[2803] It's like they're owned by, and they have been.

[2804] But now it's like Activision does all this other stuff that seems to...

[2805] never penetrate into...

[2806] But that's the point.

[2807] They've been owned by, like, God, they got bought for like $10 million.

[2808] Before that, it was like some company, some little company you've never heard of, and then they got bought by, like, that company got bought, and then they became part of, like, some conglomerate that included, like, public waterworks and all this crazy stuff.

[2809] Oh, yeah.

[2810] They've been bounced around, you know, they've had different corporate ownership.

[2811] I mean, Vivendi was not the most sparkling of game publishers when this merger happened, which is, you know...

[2812] The merger was really Activision and Vivendi.

[2813] Right.

[2814] They just said, Blizzard's a better name.

[2815] Let's use that.

[2816] I mean, in fact, I think the mechanics of the deal were Vivendi bought Activision.

[2817] Yeah.

[2818] But then the Activision management was put in charge of the whole operation.

[2819] Do you know the specifics of IP holders and does Blizzard still own...

[2820] Like World of Warcraft and all their original IPs.

[2821] Yes, but they're owned by Activision, so it's all one thing.

[2822] When you look at a corporate ownership hierarchy, the person at the top owns everything below them.

[2823] So that's not really...

[2824] It's not a meaningful distinction.

[2825] Could they basically dissolve Blizzard and still make World of Warcraft games?

[2826] Yeah, they could.

[2827] They could, but they don't want to fuck with the golden goose.

[2828] That thing is too good of a money -making machine for them that they don't...

[2829] I think the only reason Blizzard at this point gets to maintain the autonomy that they do is pure fucking fear.

[2830] Of just like from the business end of like you guys have figured out a way to make scads of money in ways that we have never figured out.

[2831] So even if we don't understand how you're doing what you're doing, we are not going to stop you from doing that.

[2832] We will make some suggestions.

[2833] Feel free to shoot them down.

[2834] It's like they're in the position that Infinity Ward wished they were a year ago.

[2835] But like could Activision, if they wanted to, if they do really own basically the world of Warcraft IP solely, I mean without having to go through Blizzard, couldn't they just spawn off console?

[2836] IPs that are like, you know, World of Warcraft could do that and then the entirety of Blizzard could walk out the door.

[2837] The problem is, yeah, like the shockwaves that that would send or, you know, how would Blizzard react to that?

[2838] I don't know.

[2839] I don't think anything that they could do is worth the risk of messing up what they've already got.

[2840] Do you think the dudes at Blizzard now...

[2841] But the split second that Blizzard stops doing that is open fucking season.

[2842] The split second, their IPs do not crank out the value that they do for Activision.

[2843] Yeah, but let's be honest here.

[2844] That's never going to happen.

[2845] No, that'll happen.

[2846] I mean, everything.

[2847] Empires.

[2848] Eventually it'll happen.

[2849] Maybe you won't care about Starcraft at that point.

[2850] I probably won't care about video games at that point.

[2851] Maybe.

[2852] But yeah, like all the one of the founders of Blizzard, like the five guys who made games out of a room are still there.

[2853] So do you think they could do it again?

[2854] do you think without the Blizzard name, if they did something like, you know, Modern Warfare or like Infinity Ward style and like cast them out, just like the dudes, kept the Blizzard as a name, kept doing what they're doing.

[2855] I don't know.

[2856] I mean, if those guys were still in charge and they still have the hunger to make those kinds of amazing games, then probably, yeah.

[2857] Do you think it's more momentum now at this point, though?

[2858] Just kind of like the Blizzard name?

[2859] At the time, it was close to 20 years ago.

[2860] Like, making games was a very different business back then.

[2861] And now, like, they've got all the pride and legacy and nostalgia for...

[2862] what they've built i'm not saying starcraft 2 seems like an awesome game so it's like it's not like they don't have the chops to back it up i think it's that it's that internal culture there that allows them to be as protective of their properties as they are but it also took them fucking 12 years to make that game well realistically No. Well, but okay.

[2863] They started on it after Warcraft 3 and then they took time off to help finish WoW and all that stuff.

[2864] It's actually like a six -year.

[2865] I mean, that's still a long -ass time.

[2866] That's still crazy.

[2867] So if they walk, like let's say they walk out of there and go get another publishing deal, whoever the fuck they sign with is going to say, like, ship a game next year.

[2868] I have ghosts.

[2869] Like, well, we got like five more.

[2870] Hold on.

[2871] We have to go find a visual style to rip off from someone else first.

[2872] Oh.

[2873] What?

[2874] Oh, I'm sorry.

[2875] What?

[2876] Is that too far?

[2877] Why do you get a harsher buzz here?

[2878] Sam.

[2879] Sam.

[2880] Sam.

[2881] Bring that out there.

[2882] Anyway, the only point I wanted to make with that long -term ownership is that they've been owned by all these different people, but they have continued to do things the same way, like the duration of that time.

[2883] Yeah, I agree with Ryan.

[2884] At some point, they will stop being the industry leader in terms of financial revenue, and what happens then is that when you get the...

[2885] Oh, Activision stepping in and being like, you didn't meet your...

[2886] We think we can fix it.

[2887] That's the big question.

[2888] I mean, they've got this second MMO in development, and if they come along and do the whole thing all over again...

[2889] Yeah, but what if it fails and they spent all this money?

[2890] I mean, I guess that could happen too.

[2891] I don't know.

[2892] Yeah.

[2893] I don't know.

[2894] WoW hasn't exactly slowed down.

[2895] To say, yeah, that thing will only matter if...

[2896] like WoW stuff starts dropping off significantly.

[2897] And when you've still got people playing the original EverQuest, imagine how many people are still going to be playing WoW 10 years from now.

[2898] Somebody's going to come through and someday they're going to make the game that takes over from WoW.

[2899] Well, I mean, everybody's looking at Old Republic right now and saying, is this the game that could finally challenge the throne?

[2900] I don't know if it's going to be Old Republic.

[2901] That's not the game.

[2902] Someday somebody's going to do it.

[2903] It needs to be more like WoW was, like for MMOs.

[2904] It was a considerable stepping up in the accessibility and broadening of that format.

[2905] I don't think you can do that again without making a huge shift to the way those games are played.

[2906] It's called Frontier.

[2907] It was the watershed moment in that genre that brought it to the mask.

[2908] That was their Ocarina of Time.

[2909] Now they're going to make Majora's Mask.

[2910] I don't know.

[2911] It'll be interesting.

[2912] Indeed.

[2913] All right.

[2914] But I just envision it as like a bunch of dudes that would love to get their mitts on that stuff.

[2915] Right.

[2916] Waiting for the electric fence to get turned on.

[2917] Blizzard higher -ups just have sticks.

[2918] No, no, no, no, no. Shock prods.

[2919] Get out of here.

[2920] Eventually, they start wearing helmets, so they have to get better sticks.

[2921] There must just be people employed there whose whole job is to just fend off dumb stuff.

[2922] I think it's like Velociraptors at the electric fence.

[2923] They just touch it every once in a while.

[2924] They'll be like, that's still on.

[2925] I found the weakness.

[2926] They're touching other parts of it.

[2927] Yeah, and they're just like...

[2928] It's probably not as standoffish as it was at Infinity Ward.

[2929] Otherwise, something horrible probably would have happened by now.

[2930] Again, I think the Activision people are probably still very pleased with the amount of money that Blizzard, however they want to handle themselves, if they keep bringing in this sort of cash, then they can justify that.

[2931] We'll see.

[2932] Especially if Activision can do whatever it wants with those properties, then there must be a balance of good and evil going on.

[2933] You make money, you do whatever you want.

[2934] But I've got this idea for a kid.

[2935] But then, you know, you would have thought the same thing about Infinity Ward, but they did not get such treatment.

[2936] They also probably, the Infinity Ward guys probably went about things in a slightly different way.

[2937] Probably not as diplomatic about it.

[2938] It's probably not like a list at the door at Blizzard that says, here's people that can't get in.

[2939] Or whatever it was.

[2940] I don't know.

[2941] All right, let's move on.

[2942] Okay.

[2943] Happier times.

[2944] One, two, three.

[2945] Hey, this is Kevin from Washington, D .C. looking to Jeff about Mortal Kombat help.

[2946] Jeff, are you prepared to provide Mortal Kombat help?

[2947] Some MK assistance?

[2948] I recently got MK2 on my PS3 and now...

[2949] You can talk to me about that one.

[2950] And now want more.

[2951] Jeff.

[2952] I am somewhat of a novice with Mortal Kombat and have been looking to get another proper 2D game.

[2953] I know that 2 and 3 are the best in the series, and I was wondering if I should upgrade to just MK3, or should I get MK3 Ultimate or MK Trilogy?

[2954] I don't know if there are too many characters come to Trilogy or if MK Trilogy is truly the pinnacle of 2D MK.

[2955] Thanks for your help.

[2956] I don't know that you would recommend Trilogy in any...

[2957] Capacity.

[2958] Explain what Trilogy is for the folks at home.

[2959] So Trilogy is a game that is built on the Mortal Kombat 3 stuff that Avalanche Software made for PS1 and N64.

[2960] And they went in and shoehorned in some additional moves without actually doing new...

[2961] like mocap with the dudes so they just took existing animations and made them crazier uh -huh so it's just like you know now johnny cage has a red shadow kick that moves him across the screen further and also johnny cage is in it because he wasn't in three but also you can play as goro yeah you can play like yeah exactly like i think johnny cage is like the one new thing they did is they went out and found a dude and did all that stuff plays goro in that Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2962] You can play as Goro.

[2963] You can play as all the bosses.

[2964] Just lots of weird stuff.

[2965] Like Motaro and Kataro.

[2966] Yeah, it's like all this weird stuff.

[2967] You can play as like MK1 Kano in that game if you want to.

[2968] And he didn't even have a run animation.

[2969] So that's just like he just walks real fast and you hit the run button.

[2970] It's ghetto as hell.

[2971] This sounds like some sort of HK bootleg.

[2972] It might as well be.

[2973] So it's kind of cool in that respect because they made Rain, so there's like a whole new ninja in it.

[2974] I remember that.

[2975] But this is like...

[2976] To appreciate what MK Trilogy does, that's kind of like high -level MK appreciation.

[2977] Well, I think it's more of a novelty, right?

[2978] Yeah.

[2979] But yes, you have to appreciate MK in a lot of ridiculous ways to look at Trilogy as anything other than total fucking garbage.

[2980] All right.

[2981] It's neat for what it is, but it's...

[2982] You wouldn't take it seriously as a fighting game.

[2983] Yeah, exactly.

[2984] And you don't want Mortal Kombat 3, you want Ultimate.

[2985] Because Ultimate is basically just an upgrade to MK3.

[2986] It's the ultimate in Mortal Kombat 3.

[2987] It's the ultimate in all of Mortal Kombat.

[2988] Mortal Kombat 2 didn't need an Ultimate Edition.

[2989] We just needed a full -on sequel to wash that out of your mouth.

[2990] We screwed that one up.

[2991] But there aren't necessarily a lot of great ways to get Ultimate right now.

[2992] You can get it on the DS.

[2993] That's a pretty good version.

[2994] That was actually a pretty good version.

[2995] It's got online.

[2996] It's got online play.

[2997] It looks good.

[2998] It moves well.

[2999] It has puzzle combat built in.

[3000] Oh, wow.

[3001] That was a surprisingly good game.

[3002] That was a midway published, I guess, yeah.

[3003] You can't buy it on the 360 anymore.

[3004] They're not selling the XBLA version.

[3005] It's like not even if you have one of those weird old codes.

[3006] Wait, really?

[3007] I don't know for sure, but yeah.

[3008] Why'd they pull it?

[3009] All those Midway games got pulled off Xbox Live.

[3010] Because there was no one left to pay royalties to or something.

[3011] Oh, wow.

[3012] I wonder if somebody like, you know, you and me both own that game.

[3013] Yeah.

[3014] If I were to copy that to USB stick and give it to somebody who didn't own it, could they buy it?

[3015] Like it would say, unlock full version.

[3016] I wonder if they would actually let you go through that transaction.

[3017] I don't know.

[3018] So nobody owns that version of that game right now?

[3019] Or is it just caught in litigation or something?

[3020] I don't think it's caught in litigation.

[3021] I think it's just like it's done and they'll have to release something new.

[3022] I mean, I guess Warner Brothers owns it.

[3023] Warner Brothers technically does own it, yeah.

[3024] They just don't own it.

[3025] I don't know.

[3026] But like Robotron, Smash TV, all that stuff's gone.

[3027] Man, I never got Smash TV.

[3028] Jazz is never gone, baby.

[3029] Just no sound.

[3030] Currently no power.

[3031] So that's why that store listing from some German store for Mortal Kombat HD 3 -in -1 is so exciting because that to me implies that they would be releasing 1, 2, and 3 on a disc.

[3032] Well, does that need to be a disc?

[3033] But they wouldn't list it at a retail store if it wasn't a disc.

[3034] Oh, that's where it was.

[3035] It said add to cart.

[3036] Yes, but I'm saying, are you excited that they would probably charge full price for a disc when that could be an easy download?

[3037] If it's three games and it's redone in HD.

[3038] How do you make it real HD, though?

[3039] I don't know how you do that.

[3040] That's weird.

[3041] Poorly.

[3042] Poorly.

[3043] Yeah, I don't know.

[3044] Just make the characters real small in the background.

[3045] I don't know.

[3046] Yeah, Castlevania HD style.

[3047] Everything's like tiny in a frame.

[3048] Like 20 fights happening on the screen at the same time.

[3049] Cool.

[3050] Who knows if that's even legit.

[3051] That could just be some weird erroneous listing.

[3052] But I suspect that Warner is going to want to get back into the business of Mortal Kombat in a big way, not just with the next game, but in as much other stuff as they can.

[3053] And they should be leveraging the Midway stuff as best they can, more than they are.

[3054] Hydro Thunder Hurricane had their logo on it, so they had some piece of that.

[3055] That's it for emails.

[3056] Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

[3057] Once again, bombcast at giantbomb .com.

[3058] Did it myself.

[3059] That's it for the show.

[3060] You guys want a massage?

[3061] We've got TNT coming up later this week.

[3062] We're going to play some Madden.

[3063] Well, we're not going to play some.

[3064] Well, maybe we'll play some Madden.

[3065] I don't know.

[3066] Madden NFL 11 is going to be this week's Thursday night throwdown.

[3067] So if you like footsballs.

[3068] Field goal.

[3069] Oh, Jeff, did you want to very quickly talk about Irrational?

[3070] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[3071] Well, they're announcing that game this week.

[3072] Yes.

[3073] They updated their teaser website saying that they would have stuff on Wednesday.

[3074] Yeah, so we got invited out to this thing.

[3075] Just real quickly, just want to say we're not going.

[3076] So I basically wrote to them, and maybe I wrote to them a couple days too late or something like that.

[3077] I don't really know how they were scheduling it or whatever, but I kind of said like, hey, are you going to allow interviews?

[3078] I said, no, we're booked up, and you're not going to be able to film the presentation.

[3079] So I was like, well, we're not going to get it.

[3080] any kind of video out of it then any sort of unique content from an event that's happening in New York City then not even not even at the like like if this was going to be at the irrational HQ or something right but I'd be like okay that'd be worth going out there and at least seeing the joint but it's like you know you will release the assets and we will run them and it'll probably be pretty much the same speaking of speaking of HQs and companies that will let us take video.

[3081] I went up to Relic last week.

[3082] Oh, damn.

[3083] Can you talk about that yet?

[3084] I can't talk about the game, but...

[3085] You went up to Relic.

[3086] I could probably say what the game is.

[3087] Okay.

[3088] They have announced the game.

[3089] It's the game they're working on.

[3090] It was the Warhammer 40K Space Marine.

[3091] Oh, crazy.

[3092] I was about to ask you a question.

[3093] I'm like, I can't ask you any questions.

[3094] Somebody, I don't know, I guess somebody has been talking about a relic event last week because a friend of mine who's not even in the game industry was like, hey, did you go to that relic event last week?

[3095] Like, are they making a new home world?

[3096] And I was like, no, it was for Space Marine.

[3097] He's like, fuck!

[3098] And in fact, they told me not to ask about a new home world.

[3099] Not because they're implicitly admitting that they're making it, but because they're tired of people asking them about a new Homeworld.

[3100] Maybe they should just make a new fucking Homeworld already.

[3101] Every single interview that we've done today, somebody asked for about Homeworld.

[3102] But anyway, Thursday, there will be video and impressions and stuff of that new Warhammer 40k game.

[3103] Hot soup.

[3104] Looking forward to that.

[3105] Looking forward to this irrational announcement.

[3106] Looking forward to all sorts of shit.

[3107] Vinny, anything you're looking forward to?

[3108] Screened will be showing heat.

[3109] Oh, fuck, really?

[3110] No, they won't be showing heat.

[3111] That's right.

[3112] They will be showing people watching heat during their screening room.

[3113] Was that Wednesdays?

[3114] Wednesdays.

[3115] Wednesdays.

[3116] It's an hour earlier this week.

[3117] It's a long movie.

[3118] So 3 p .m. Pacific Daylight Time, Screened .com.

[3119] Maybe I'll call it heat.

[3120] If you have heat or can get access to watching heat, watch it with the screen folks.

[3121] I've got it on Blu -ray.

[3122] All right, here's my last request.

[3123] We need to name our studios.

[3124] We have three of them.

[3125] Come up with triplets.

[3126] Come up with three names.

[3127] In triplicates.

[3128] Yes.

[3129] We need three names for our studios.

[3130] Okay, let's see.

[3131] Desert, Magma, Jungle, and Magma.

[3132] Yes.

[3133] I fucking quit.

[3134] I think Magma is always my go -to joke name for it.

[3135] Yeah, please stay away from...

[3136] Yeah, it's either bad names from past conference rooms or I just keep saying like A, B, or C. Yeah, and now it's starting to get really confusing now that we have people shooting in different things.

[3137] They're like, the big one!

[3138] The little one!

[3139] The couch!

[3140] You know, there's actually a pro StarCraft player called the little one.

[3141] The little one?

[3142] Yeah, because he used to play games with his brother who was the big one.

[3143] StarCraft, what's that like?

[3144] Is that good?

[3145] Let me tell you.

[3146] That's going to do it for this week's edition of the John Bobcast!

[3147] Online, the little one.

[3148] The little one is amazing.

[3149] We'll be back next week with another edition of the Giant Bombcast.

[3150] The Batman.

[3151] Massage time.