Giant Bombcast 09-28-2010

[0] It is Tuesday, September the 28th, 2010, and you're listening to The Giant Bobcast.

[1] I'm your host, Ryan Davis, joined by Vinny Caravella.

[2] 2010, a mere year away from the great chili cook -off.

[3] Great chili.

[4] Get your ostrich chili recipes ready, Jeff Gerstman.

[5] My chili will blow you away.

[6] I'm sure it will blow something.

[7] Blast your pants off.

[8] But really, I'm looking forward to the vegan chili style of one, Brad.

[9] A little quinoa chili.

[10] Shoemaker.

[11] Yeah, hippie.

[12] Cut so low.

[13] Not vegan, goddammit.

[14] Keep your artichokes out of my chili.

[15] No, but you'd make vegan chili.

[16] No, I wouldn't.

[17] How would you even do that?

[18] Beans and vegetables?

[19] I'd make vegetarian chili.

[20] That's not chili.

[21] I make vegetarian...

[22] You put a lot of heavy cream in your chili?

[23] I don't know.

[24] I'm not sure, but I'm sure there'd be something that'd be like, oh man, now you just can't even...

[25] Oh, it's brick of lard?

[26] I can't use that?

[27] What?

[28] What kind of animal product in there?

[29] Like pork fat.

[30] Yeah.

[31] There we go.

[32] Just give pigs liposuctions to get that.

[33] It doesn't kill them.

[34] It's just...

[35] Yeah, just make them skinnier.

[36] You milk cows, right?

[37] Pigs want to look good.

[38] Hey, Vinny, what's up?

[39] Hey, how's it going?

[40] Hold on.

[41] Maybe I'll mix it up this week.

[42] Brad.

[43] Oh, no. What's going on?

[44] I'm just going to start with Civ V. You want to talk about some Civ V?

[45] Let's talk about Civ V. I saw you were playing a little bit of Civ V over the weekend.

[46] How's your Civ V going?

[47] I played a lot of Civ V. Jeff, have you played any Civ V?

[48] No. Get out.

[49] Vinny, have you played any Civ V?

[50] I've had it installed.

[51] I'm looking.

[52] Recently?

[53] Been playing any?

[54] I didn't get into it this weekend.

[55] When we get back around, I told you a little bit about my Civ problem.

[56] Tell me I'm the only one that played Civ.

[57] I think you may have been the only one I've played.

[58] I've played it since the last podcast.

[59] Okay.

[60] We could talk.

[61] Let's talk.

[62] Yeah, absolutely.

[63] Since the last podcast, I have played some damn Civ V. So, yeah, some of your weekend went to Civ V. Yeah, still on my first game since Tuesday night.

[64] Wait, so what length are you playing?

[65] Just normal?

[66] I went with all the defaults.

[67] Okay.

[68] Per your suggestion, just like got in.

[69] It's a marathon, isn't it, by default?

[70] No, it's standard.

[71] Standard by default.

[72] I think it's small map.

[73] Is it a small map?

[74] Medium?

[75] I don't know about map size, but I know as far as turn length goes, it's normal or whatever.

[76] I know that I'm on Chief in difficulty, and I'm playing Washington because it's my patriotic duty to do so.

[77] It's a good default.

[78] Yeah.

[79] What do they get?

[80] I can't remember.

[81] I thought that D17 looked pretty nice.

[82] Actually, the plus one sight to all military units seemed huge.

[83] That's helpful.

[84] But it's not a range, though, right?

[85] No, it's just sight.

[86] So it's like a late game kind of?

[87] Well, it can also be good just for scouting.

[88] Sure.

[89] That's good.

[90] I do own the entirety of the continent that I started on now.

[91] Have you encountered another continent yet?

[92] I just got to that point.

[93] Okay.

[94] What year are you in?

[95] I know I'm in the Renaissance era.

[96] It doesn't mean anything.

[97] Oh, that's right, because it's...

[98] It's not fixed.

[99] Yeah.

[100] It just happens when your civilization hits certain milestones.

[101] Maybe like 1 ,000 AD?

[102] Wow, that's pretty early to be.

[103] No, no, farther than that.

[104] I'm about 250 turns into a 500 turn game, so...

[105] Hard to say because the time compression kicks in pretty hard.

[106] Once you get to the end, you're going year to year.

[107] I don't know anything about the game that I'm playing.

[108] I just clicked next turn.

[109] But did you turn a corner?

[110] You're obviously the superpower on your continent.

[111] Do you feel pretty confident?

[112] Alexander and Napoleon have been wiped from this planet.

[113] And have you...

[114] I forget what their terminology.

[115] Is it annexed?

[116] Is it annexed there?

[117] I actually pretty much go puppet on all the cities.

[118] So they can come back.

[119] What?

[120] Yeah.

[121] If somebody liberates that city, you can bring them.

[122] But it would have to be another active sieve, right?

[123] Because I've wiped those empires out at this point.

[124] I took all of their cities.

[125] If they're still puppets.

[126] Napoleon is still somewhere creepy.

[127] Wait.

[128] Sneaking.

[129] That's right.

[130] Can it really do that?

[131] Yeah.

[132] Like a vanquished leader of a civilization can come back.

[133] At least I did it in my game.

[134] Like I liberated a puppet state.

[135] Because it said when something's a puppet state and you take it over, it's like, oh, do you want to liberate it?

[136] You mean a city state?

[137] No, no. A puppet's like if I come in and take.

[138] You mean if you own a puppet or if somebody else has a puppet.

[139] Somebody else has a puppet.

[140] And then instead of just annex puppet state, it says liberate.

[141] So you're telling me that if Hiawatha crosses the ocean.

[142] At least this is how it works for me. I don't know if CPUs will do it.

[143] He will reinstate Alexander?

[144] CPUs.

[145] That's what I call him.

[146] He could.

[147] I don't know.

[148] I don't know if the AI does it.

[149] But you could.

[150] I brought back some dude from the dead.

[151] Why?

[152] So I could take him over myself.

[153] Nobody else is going to wipe out people.

[154] Only I do that.

[155] Okay.

[156] Oh, so you wanted him to get back his city so that you could shame the original owner.

[157] And I got bored with him and then killed him.

[158] All right, so boredom.

[159] That's my problem here.

[160] You're pretty vicious.

[161] Maybe aimless is a better word.

[162] Are you familiar with a phenomenon of sort of mid -game doldrums?

[163] Do you hit a lull?

[164] It's called your 30s.

[165] You have to shift gears in that game.

[166] Yeah, so I guess my gears start grinding up when I got to that point.

[167] You've hit the point where you have on ground explored all you can.

[168] Now you've got to start getting naval.

[169] You're not going to, like, rule the rest of the world unless you have a significant naval presence.

[170] What if I just mass B -17s and bomb everybody?

[171] Are you building planes?

[172] Not even close.

[173] Yeah, because you'll need to – because planes tend to have a pretty limited range before they need to refuel.

[174] Oh, God.

[175] Okay.

[176] So – You build aircraft carriers, man. They're not great.

[177] Yeah, but at that – Yes, you'll get down that road eventually, but, yeah, just go build some basic ships and start exploring.

[178] You can even just, like, auto -explore with ships, so you can still be doing stuff and say, like, you, ship, just go find stuff.

[179] Yeah, but you have to have researched the deep water navigation.

[180] Right, right.

[181] Build yourself a caravel.

[182] Yeah.

[183] It's true.

[184] Yeah, it's true.

[185] It's true.

[186] It's what they call family trade.

[187] Yep.

[188] So I did actually just get to that point.

[189] So I guess I maybe solved that problem.

[190] I've started, like I said, you know, I met Gandhi, I met Hiawatha.

[191] Yeah, and then there's a whole tech tree associated with naval stuff to be explored.

[192] I do love when you hit that new continent and you realize all the mayhem that has been happening over there where now, like, you know, Canterbury is owned by India.

[193] It's a bummer.

[194] Like, one of the other civs already got knocked out, and I'll never know who it was.

[195] Unless you liberate them.

[196] You're saying you're going to go over there and be like, oh, shit.

[197] Well, the weird thing is that I saw that.

[198] These guys are really built up.

[199] This is where the Great Wall of China showed up.

[200] Yeah.

[201] Actually, I built the Great Wall.

[202] Did you?

[203] In Washington, D .C. That's a good one.

[204] Great Wall is powerful.

[205] Yeah, seriously.

[206] What does it do when you have a Great Wall?

[207] It makes any enemy units in your territory.

[208] It takes like one extra.

[209] Is it one extra?

[210] Something about the movement.

[211] I forget exactly how it is.

[212] I believe it slows down movement, and I believe it also has crazy effects on just defense for your city.

[213] It's like it takes one extra turn to move space or something to that effect.

[214] It's cool looking, though.

[215] Also, it looks cool as hell.

[216] True.

[217] You literally have the Great Wall all the way around your thing.

[218] Gandhi lives in Montreal.

[219] Gandhi's a dick.

[220] So as soon as I saw him, I sort of...

[221] Shook in my boots a little bit.

[222] I understand that Gandhi has quite the reputation going back to previous Civ games.

[223] I was unaware of this.

[224] I started doing some research on it because some people were early on in comments talking about Gandhi.

[225] I've seen that too and I thought it was a joke.

[226] Apparently he has a reputation for being a bit of a bastard.

[227] Apparently Gandhi is pretty nuke happy in civilization.

[228] Which doesn't quite seem like him.

[229] It's pretty funny that he is though.

[230] That is kind of funny.

[231] So are you going for the military victory at this point?

[232] So that's my question.

[233] Okay, so I went for rapid military expansion.

[234] I wiped out Napoleon and Alexander, but mostly because they were being dicks.

[235] I didn't go into this game wanting to be like a...

[236] A bully?

[237] What is the military victory?

[238] Domination, is that what it's called?

[239] Yeah.

[240] Where you just take over all the other...

[241] Yeah, yeah.

[242] I didn't go in planning to do that, but they kept rattling their sabers around my border, so I was just like, well, fuck you guys.

[243] I'm going to take you out.

[244] So now that I've done that, what do I do?

[245] Just keep going, baby.

[246] Should I just keep building up and then go take those other sieves and that's it?

[247] Glass the earth.

[248] You could glass it.

[249] That's an option.

[250] Do the nukes look cool?

[251] The nuke looks pretty cool.

[252] Oh, man. Maybe I should do that.

[253] But you know what else looks cool is going to space.

[254] Oh, man. Sounds pretty good, too.

[255] You know what looks even cooler?

[256] Nuking from space.

[257] Hmm.

[258] Okay.

[259] I don't know that that's an option.

[260] So, I mean, there's like, what, three tracks?

[261] There's military, culture, and technology.

[262] Technology slash science.

[263] Are those the three?

[264] You can also...

[265] Is economy one?

[266] I thought there was like a diplomacy one.

[267] Oh, there's a diplomacy one.

[268] That's the United Nations one, right?

[269] Yeah.

[270] I didn't see the option in this one, but the other one was like you get voted to the head.

[271] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[272] Is that something?

[273] That's possible.

[274] You have to found the United Nations and then get voted in as the leader.

[275] Oh, okay.

[276] Which I think basically requires you to be friends with everybody on the planet.

[277] Or less.

[278] That's not going to happen for you now.

[279] Kill them.

[280] Kill them all.

[281] They're not too fond of me. I mean, I guess the question for me is, like, once you get to about the mid -game and you've done this one thing...

[282] Are you locked into doing that until the end of the game if you want to win?

[283] Or could I, like, try to go for a cultural victory?

[284] I mean, that's kind of the thing is that, like, to get that far, you had to have still been, like, building up a certain amount of tech and a certain amount of money.

[285] And culture.

[286] And to a certain degree, culture is probably the one that I think you have to work on individually the most.

[287] Well, just by expanding your towns, you know.

[288] True, true.

[289] But, I mean, if, like, to focus and, like, create.

[290] Oh, like pick these.

[291] The hardcore cultural standards because you need to have completely filled out five of the policy trees to be able to then build the thing that gives you the cultural victory.

[292] That's a lot of culture.

[293] It is.

[294] I don't think I'm that culture.

[295] It's filled them all out or is it just activate?

[296] No, you have to fill five.

[297] Oh, wow.

[298] Yeah, that is pretty rough.

[299] To complete the utopia project.

[300] Oh, right.

[301] Sounds kind of sinister, actually.

[302] It kind of does.

[303] Yeah, that sounds like the nuclear victory to me. That's my utopia.

[304] Utopia where we fucking glass everyone else.

[305] Nuke these assholes.

[306] But yeah, so I think that you could still potentially pull off the scientific because you have to research a shitload of tech to keep your military stuff up and a lot of that stuff goes hand in hand.

[307] Start building those spaceship parts.

[308] You'll get there.

[309] All right.

[310] Get to Alpha Centauri.

[311] This is crazy.

[312] I'm like seven...

[313] Seven hours from this game?

[314] Yeah.

[315] Eight?

[316] Yeah.

[317] I'm like barely halfway through it.

[318] Through a game.

[319] A game, yeah.

[320] Just the default game.

[321] I didn't even make it a long game.

[322] No, it's interesting the rhythms that that game has and that it's still able to work somehow.

[323] Yeah.

[324] It can get real long.

[325] Oh, yeah.

[326] That's a short game.

[327] I started a game.

[328] Actually, after I finished that game, I played, which I realized I had put it on a marathon, so that was an even longer one.

[329] I started a new game with the biggest map I could find.

[330] As many players cranked up all the way.

[331] How many civs can you have in there?

[332] I think it's like 24.

[333] Holy crap.

[334] There's a lot of dudes.

[335] What?

[336] It might be 24 different city -states that I can't remember.

[337] No, it's 24 city -states, and it's like 12 civs.

[338] Is that right?

[339] Because there's a lot of dudes.

[340] I forget.

[341] And there's that extra dude.

[342] They're both obscene numbers.

[343] From the deluxe package or whatever.

[344] That's right.

[345] You got the digital deluxe.

[346] Who's the bonus dude?

[347] Somebody from the Babylonians?

[348] I think that's right.

[349] So, man, that's crazy.

[350] Did you say it kept crashing your computer?

[351] It just slowed it down.

[352] My computer's been having some problems, so I don't know if it's the game, but why not, right?

[353] Because there's like a billion dudes taking turns now.

[354] And I ran into a really huge problem.

[355] The Romans and their big benefit is their early game because they get Legionnaires, basically, which are awesome dudes, and they get catapults, right?

[356] Right.

[357] But they both need iron.

[358] And there's no iron near me. And the only iron is behind this one city -state's borders.

[359] And they won't trade with me. It's too early to build the whole trade mechanic.

[360] So I was like, Christ.

[361] I can't do it.

[362] I'm stuck here.

[363] Can you not just take them out?

[364] Fucking pussy over here, right?

[365] So I was like, I'm going to build up.

[366] The Warriors would suck.

[367] The movie's okay.

[368] But the dudes they give you suck, right?

[369] Oh, the base Warriors.

[370] So they even say these guys kind of suck.

[371] And spearmen.

[372] And archers.

[373] That's what I've got.

[374] You use that combination correctly, you can get some stuff done.

[375] So I marched them over there.

[376] It's just a city state.

[377] They're in a city state that has a defense of like 20.

[378] Oh, that's already pretty.

[379] Pretty damn high.

[380] Pretty burly.

[381] So there are some mountains that are around them.

[382] So I've just got dudes standing on mountains.

[383] Show point.

[384] Archers on mountains because they get the defense bonus.

[385] taking away one point, but I need to take away more than one a turn because it gets one back.

[386] Right, right.

[387] So I have wasted about 500 years trying to take over this one place while everybody else is like...

[388] We built the hanging gardens.

[389] And, like, we're going to space.

[390] We've accomplished amazing cultural things.

[391] We're shooting arrows at this asphalt.

[392] Throwing rocks.

[393] Live next door.

[394] Trying to get this ore so I can move on.

[395] Throwing bags of dog shit on my neighbor's lawn.

[396] Yeah, and at this point, it's just become, like, kind of a joke.

[397] Like, just, like, I don't even know what's happening.

[398] I just want that damn ore. Like, I could make a car at this point, I think.

[399] But, like, I just want that ore. Just give me that goddamn iron.

[400] So it's rough.

[401] The hardest thing is everybody else is doing stuff.

[402] So they're taking up the wonders.

[403] Everybody's doing them.

[404] But a lot of those early wonders, I don't worry about too much.

[405] They're pretty good, but it's just the fact that they're moving forward so fast.

[406] Right, right.

[407] Is there a way to see which wonders everybody else has already built?

[408] They just won't be available to you.

[409] Yeah, I'm not sure because there's a lot of unmet players.

[410] All they will ever tell you is, oh, this wonder got taken.

[411] They'll tell you like when it's gone.

[412] So yeah, that's a big bummer.

[413] So like as I look through the thing being like, ah, crap, they're all taken.

[414] That's stressful because there's like a...

[415] In the smaller game with only four or five players, stuff isn't getting taken as rapidly.

[416] But the land grab was so fast.

[417] It was so fast.

[418] Washington just got whomp, whomp, whomp.

[419] And all these dudes, I was stuck on this little tiny bit of land.

[420] Man, this is a rough game.

[421] This is some sieve.

[422] I think I might be out of my league.

[423] I think I might be.

[424] You might have gone too big.

[425] I'm actually just trying diplomacy, which is weird.

[426] Because you're usually, it sounds like your play style is pretty military, pretty aggressive.

[427] Well, I like to do that first.

[428] Be like, all right, I'm solid.

[429] Nobody's going to mess with me. I can do whatever I want.

[430] But here it's not working.

[431] I have to be like, Washington, hey, you want to attack the city state for me?

[432] Help me out here, bro.

[433] All right.

[434] The AI in my game has been kind of like shrinking violet.

[435] Move some guys toward their borders.

[436] They're like, hey, wait a minute.

[437] Why don't we just talk about this?

[438] Like, Washington's been pretty – he's on this little tract of land with me. That means that you've got a pretty good military presence.

[439] Compared to theirs?

[440] Yeah, because I would – Is it all relative?

[441] Yeah, because, yeah, I think it's just relative.

[442] Because I would – early game, I tend not to build a lot of military stuff, focus on the establishing cities and whatnot.

[443] Pretty often I will just get the messages from the other civs going like, hey, your shit's weak.

[444] We're coming for you.

[445] Build your stuff up.

[446] I feel like I'm pressed up against a rock because if I don't take the benefits of my civ, which are these units, I'm going to miss out once we get to the industrial age and I will not have Rome needs to expand now.

[447] Yeah.

[448] Now is our time.

[449] Rome wasn't built in the day, all right?

[450] It's true, but 500 years later and we are having some problems here.

[451] Rome needs to move.

[452] Way to do well by your ancestors, Vinny.

[453] I'm sorry.

[454] Real good.

[455] Sorry.

[456] The empire.

[457] Remember Rome for what it was supposed to be.

[458] Is this what they taught you in public schools?

[459] It's true.

[460] I sat at the peanut table.

[461] You mean the no peanut.

[462] I have one more quick question and then I will save the rest of my questions for after the podcast.

[463] Yes, we have time for one more question in the front.

[464] Sweet.

[465] Maybe this is just me playing too much StarCraft, but is it bad to have a lot of money in the bank?

[466] No. It is good to have a lot of money.

[467] Because I am approaching like 10 ,000 gold.

[468] You know you can buy upgrades.

[469] You could just fast track a unit.

[470] Yeah, I've been doing that.

[471] That stuff's good.

[472] It's also good for, I mean, that's just good.

[473] That's just gives you a lot.

[474] That's probably more than anything why everyone else is tucking tail.

[475] Afraid, really?

[476] That is a vast amount of resource.

[477] It popped up, you know, the little periodic status report.

[478] It's like, Gerta has completed his masterwork through Worlds vs. Countries.

[479] And it's just like, I have 9 ,000 gold and the next guy has like 600.

[480] Yeah.

[481] Right.

[482] Is that a good thing, though?

[483] That's what I was saying last time.

[484] I was like, dude, I'm asking you for...

[485] 20 gold and you're like, no. Like, do you see my bank account?

[486] Like, this is only a shame fee.

[487] This isn't really going to like, I'll give you a thousand and you just give me five.

[488] How about that?

[489] What would they say to that?

[490] Sure.

[491] They're into that.

[492] No, because you can just, like that much gold, you can just bust out in so many ways.

[493] You can suddenly expand the empire really quickly because you can buy tiles.

[494] That's true.

[495] You can suddenly just, you know.

[496] buy a whole bunch of crazy military units and go roughhouse on them if you wanted to.

[497] Or just buy improvements for each city.

[498] Start buying coliseums and banks and stuff.

[499] It seems like production is always the limiting factor on all that stuff.

[500] It's always the bottleneck.

[501] Depends.

[502] I've had it where usually for me, I'm pretty tight on the money.

[503] Usually I have a ton of production.

[504] And it's the cash.

[505] How do you maximize your production?

[506] Is it just micromanaging the...

[507] It's all about what sort of stuff you're building on the tiles as well as what sorts of buildings you have in your cities.

[508] Okay.

[509] Those are all factors.

[510] Also, there is like an inherent production value to each square.

[511] That is your base value and you're basically just multiplying that and plus one -ing that by building different stuff on the tiles and by adding different buildings to the cities that the tiles are associated with.

[512] I think I've got it.

[513] During a quick look, I showed you a thing of like you can see little icons.

[514] Yeah, the little green and orange dots.

[515] That shows the food and production, right, for each tile?

[516] Well, right.

[517] There's the little icons.

[518] The hammer and the apple?

[519] Yeah, the hammer and the apple.

[520] You'll see a number of those.

[521] That's how many it's creating at this current rate, at its current configuration.

[522] But you only get those if you have a citizen on that tile, right?

[523] You only get those if there's space there.

[524] You know how you have your borders?

[525] Yes.

[526] Okay.

[527] Anything inside there is creating stuff for you.

[528] No, you need to have citizens on it.

[529] That's why the citizen count is good.

[530] So you can micromanage where you put a citizen on it.

[531] Oh, okay.

[532] Right.

[533] I'm pretty sure.

[534] Because you can change the focus, like food focus, production focus.

[535] Or you can blow a citizen and just put them on entertainment.

[536] You can blow a citizen.

[537] I do.

[538] Well, how do you think you keep your citizens happy?

[539] Welcome to Rome, motherfucker.

[540] Bacchanalian indeed.

[541] Anyway.

[542] All right, I'm going to stop talking about Civ unless you guys want to keep talking because we could just talk about Civ.

[543] I hope my computer can handle it.

[544] My massive Civ.

[545] The only way to win is not to play a game.

[546] Well, you've made it this far.

[547] Can you set it to zero players and actually just watch AI?

[548] I wonder.

[549] Go.

[550] Man, that...

[551] I don't know.

[552] That's a good question.

[553] That's kind of what it turned into now because when I hit and turn, it's just like, all right, calculate.

[554] It's just globe.

[555] Go make a sandwich.

[556] Globe.

[557] Yeah.

[558] Globe.

[559] I have to play it in that weird abstract view.

[560] The hex view.

[561] Yeah.

[562] Otherwise, everything chugged.

[563] But again, my computer problems.

[564] Something weird happened.

[565] That's a bummer.

[566] Brad Shoemaker, anything else?

[567] How was your StarCraft game?

[568] I watched more StarCraft than I played this weekend.

[569] Nice.

[570] What matches did you watch?

[571] The GSL is raging in Korea as we speak.

[572] We are down to the round of 16 now.

[573] I hope it's not a spoiler to say that there are no more Westerners in the tournament.

[574] How many were in the tournament?

[575] How many people were in the tournament in general?

[576] So when you say Westerners, do you just mean like non -Koreans?

[577] Everyone who's left is Korean in the top 16.

[578] One German guy made it to the top 30.

[579] So it's not even like there's a Japanese dude still in the mix or anything.

[580] It's just Korea.

[581] I'm pretty sure it's all Koreans.

[582] India has some top StarCraft players.

[583] You guys should watch that thing.

[584] It is so ridiculous.

[585] Like the studio they have set up for this thing and all the flashing colored lights and Korean metal that plays in the background.

[586] Do any of the competitors have awesome nicknames that are StarCraft related?

[587] Oh, no. God, the Korean ones are so weird.

[588] Zerg King or something?

[589] There's a guy called Check.

[590] What?

[591] Like Czech, please?

[592] Yes, like that kind of Czech.

[593] Okay, not like he's from the Czech Republic.

[594] No, but he's on Team Prime, so his name is actually Czech Prime at the moment.

[595] Got it.

[596] I don't know.

[597] They're all very nonsensical.

[598] There's one called Hope Torture.

[599] So, like, do they all just sound like they're Wayne to Slipknot?

[600] Is that, like, the name convention?

[601] Well, actually, I think in Brood War his name was Into the Rainbow, so I really, it's hard to say.

[602] Starcraft is really weird.

[603] Really weird.

[604] Really weird.

[605] Yep.

[606] As you do here, the clicking.

[607] Angel Blade Dark.

[608] That's another one.

[609] That's good.

[610] Yeah.

[611] That's top -seeded Starcraft.

[612] I'm sorry, Brood War player.

[613] Halo Snake.

[614] Chaos Infinity.

[615] There's a guy named Top.

[616] Chaos Infinity is really good.

[617] Hyperdub.

[618] Book is pretty good.

[619] They have what the English commentators call a Street Fighter voice that introduces them.

[620] It's just like this Japanese sounding like, ooh, that kind of thing.

[621] Yeah.

[622] It's really funny.

[623] And you said I'm racist.

[624] Oh, no. Korea and Japan are way more racist than you are.

[625] Yeah.

[626] I don't know.

[627] I will just say that with the game market kind of waning in, game development waning in Japan, it's very exciting to know that Asia is still living the dream of being in the future at all times.

[628] Yeah, like some portion of it is definitely living in the future.

[629] Somewhere in Asia people are still keeping it mad futuristic.

[630] It's like a Star Babies future.

[631] It's not like – it's like one of those like 80s weird spinoff futures.

[632] It's the future that we always thought we wanted except for now we have it and we realize how wrong we were.

[633] It feels like kind of a William Gibson -y kind of future.

[634] It's a Power Glove future.

[635] It's like if the Power Glove were to take hold and like that was a future.

[636] It's like if you were to research the Power Glove tech in Civ and like that's like, okay.

[637] Endgame is StarCraft on TV.

[638] Yeah.

[639] You win.

[640] The birth rate goes to zero.

[641] Yeah.

[642] You also lose.

[643] And you lose.

[644] Bradley.

[645] That's it.

[646] I'm going to stop.

[647] Okay.

[648] Jeff, what's up?

[649] Hey.

[650] Let's talk about Dead Rising.

[651] Yeah, okay.

[652] Or let's talk about Dead Rising 2.

[653] Oh, okay.

[654] Yeah.

[655] All right.

[656] We'll talk about that too if you want.

[657] You've been playing some Dead Rising 2.

[658] Yeah, I have.

[659] Yeah.

[660] How's it going?

[661] Don't say it's Dead Rising.

[662] I like it a lot.

[663] Yeah?

[664] That's good.

[665] It's very satisfying in a lot of ways and very frustrating in a lot of other ways.

[666] So far, it's more fun than not fun, but I think that's only because I've been dodging all of the side missions where you have to fight guys.

[667] You mean like the psychopaths?

[668] Yeah, any kind of psychopaths.

[669] All the kind of boss battle psychopath stuff has been awful.

[670] It's been downright awful.

[671] Like worse than the first?

[672] Because the first game...

[673] The first game was bad with that stuff as well.

[674] Do you feel like you're just not getting what the game wants you to do?

[675] It feels like a lot of that stuff.

[676] I mean, there's definitely been cases where I've stumbled into the encounter and we're like, oh, crap.

[677] Okay, now I have to fight this guy that has a broken shard of glass.

[678] Yeah, exactly.

[679] Hey, then you can just die and start over the whole game.

[680] I did that once already.

[681] Didn't necessarily need to, but basically, like, I was running back to the safe house to, like, start case two or something like that, and I didn't make it.

[682] And it said, like, the truth has vanished.

[683] What do you want to do?

[684] You want to keep going and get, like, the worst possible ending?

[685] Oh, yeah.

[686] Terrible, like, F ending or whatever.

[687] Or do you want to restart all the way or load?

[688] And I was like, I'll just restart.

[689] It's only, like, an hour and a half in at that point anyway.

[690] And once you start skipping the cut scenes and all that stuff, like, you can...

[691] You book through stuff that you already have seen.

[692] Once you learn how to jump kick, jump kick your way through.

[693] Yeah, jump kick's pretty good.

[694] Jump kick's pretty good.

[695] There's a standing front kick that's all right.

[696] Oh, that's pretty good.

[697] Do both of those make zombie heads explode?

[698] No, no. But, you know, it's...

[699] What's bugging you, Jeff?

[700] That game is not designed around its true strengths.

[701] The combo weapons are awesome.

[702] They're tons of fun to use.

[703] You know, they're good about putting the maintenance places, basically the workbench where you can combine weapons together to form stuff around all over the place.

[704] But, you know, if you're actually trying to play the game and play through the case files and actually play it and complete missions and stuff, you don't necessarily always have time to go find the crazy stuff.

[705] Like I think I've only seen one leaf blower the entire time.

[706] That's kind of the dead rising thing, right?

[707] It's constantly like shitty choices.

[708] It's constantly like, well, am I going to go save this person or do this other thing?

[709] But in this case, the shitty choices mean that you're just using spiked bats over and over again the whole time.

[710] If they're trying to promote and push this whole like you can combine things with other things to make crazy stuff.

[711] That stuff should be a little more accessible.

[712] I feel like that, and that's kind of compounded by the way that you have very limited inventory space.

[713] I mean, as you level up, you eventually can carry more items.

[714] But there's no place to put those items.

[715] So it's like if I go find one half of a combo weapon, I have to carry that around until I find the other half and then go combine it.

[716] I can't just go to a maintenance room and put it in a chest or set it down or something like that because...

[717] If I'm going to leave that area, anytime you hit a load screen, all the items and all the everything resets, which, you know, obviously they need to keep populating the malls and the casinos with zombies.

[718] So, you know, some of that stuff does need to respawn.

[719] But, you know, when I'm on a story mission killing mercenaries and then it's like, oh, God, I'm actually going to die.

[720] I need to go find some food.

[721] And then I leave the area and then come back and, oh, wait, all those mercenaries are there again.

[722] Well, it's like you said – And that's until I kill them and actually finish the mission and now they're not there anymore because it's past that point in the story.

[723] But that was a very frustrating thing to discover.

[724] Well, like you said with the leaf blower, like if you were to be able to find that, take it with you to a – Yeah, and on top of that, the leaf blower is like a heavy object that you can't put in your inventory.

[725] So if you can keep that somewhere until you have time to come back to it.

[726] And the other part on top of that is that when you combine the leaf blower or like the vacuum cleaner with the saw blades and make the exsanguinator, like it's – Cool, but it kills stuff in one hit.

[727] So does the spiked bat.

[728] So they're not really giving you any real gameplay incentive.

[729] It breaks like everything else.

[730] You get more PP out of some of the more elaborate items when you are killing people with them, so you're leveling up a little faster maybe.

[731] So you think the new item combination, the weapon crafting system in there is really cool.

[732] It's awesome.

[733] It's great, yeah.

[734] But Dead Rising being Dead Rising is getting in the way.

[735] Yeah.

[736] Like you knew something was going to be messed up about it.

[737] Yeah, I know.

[738] But it's – and they've kind of made it – you have multiple save slots now.

[739] The general getting around and working with survivors actually seems easier than the first game.

[740] Survivors, like you said about Case Zero, they seem to survive a lot better.

[741] I've spent the last several hours with a magazine that gives you a leadership skill.

[742] that supposedly makes them better in combat, and I haven't really had too many issues with survivors not surviving, basically.

[743] Are there instances, like in the first game, where you've got two side missions that are basically expiring around the same time, so you just have to decide which one of those you're going to do?

[744] Yeah, they're pretty close.

[745] Or just get a giant posse?

[746] You have some that are pretty close together.

[747] Well, sometimes you don't have time to do that, is what I'm saying.

[748] Sometimes it's an either -or proposition of, like, I'm going to go get Sally or John's all the way on the other side of the mall.

[749] I haven't necessarily run into that situation, but that's largely because I've stopped doing a lot of the side missions.

[750] You just let them go?

[751] Yeah, totally.

[752] It just says message expired.

[753] Do you get anything else for saving people?

[754] Will they give you any kind of...

[755] You get hell of PP.

[756] That's it?

[757] I guess there's some psychopaths.

[758] Photo points.

[759] Yeah, photo points.

[760] No, prestige points.

[761] They were always prestige points, I believe.

[762] You'll get combo cards for bonus damage and bonus PP with using those combined weapons if you have the card for them.

[763] Also the alt attack?

[764] Yeah, some weapons will have multiple attacks.

[765] I bet there's an achievement for getting all the combo cards.

[766] You think?

[767] 20 points, get it now.

[768] You do keep those cards from session to session.

[769] Yeah, if you start over.

[770] It's almost everything that comes over.

[771] Well, your kills reset.

[772] You're not.

[773] But like your 72 ,000 TP.

[774] It's like you and everybody else on my list that was playing that game this weekend.

[775] Like nobody has more than 60 to 80 points in that game.

[776] Yeah, same type deal.

[777] 50 achievements, all 20 points apiece.

[778] But more than that, it's not like there are even any story related ones.

[779] It's like they're all hard.

[780] Well, the one story related one is like actually complete the story.

[781] Oh, that's it.

[782] Discover the truth.

[783] Oh, the best to discover the truth one is finish the game and you get 20 points.

[784] That's like finish the actual case.

[785] I mean, you can finish the game crappy.

[786] I think you could just sit in the safe room for three days.

[787] Oh, I'd not get the best room.

[788] or best ending yeah so you wouldn't even get that right that's crazy that's great so oh man i i don't like it but i respect it that's yeah yeah like it's it's crazy and punishing in in some really good strong ways but there's still just enough stuff in there that's super messed up you're just like man if they had done this like not set it in a shopping mall Well, I feel like you have to set that game.

[789] Really?

[790] Well, maybe just to give you the playground.

[791] You need all those items.

[792] All the costumes and all the different things.

[793] Unless you can come up with some other alternative location.

[794] What a flea market.

[795] That's just a mall.

[796] Just a redneck shopping mall.

[797] Yeah.

[798] I mean, technically, this is casinos and hotels.

[799] It's casinos joined by big malls.

[800] Sure, sure.

[801] But when they first said this is going to be in a Vegas -like city, I envisioned going outside on the Strip and...

[802] Go into different buildings.

[803] There are some outdoor areas.

[804] It looks like looking at the map, it's still a very self -contained enclosed kind of area.

[805] Yeah.

[806] It feels that way so far.

[807] There's an underground area that you can get down to.

[808] I see your point, though.

[809] The scope of it is smaller than I kind of thought it would be.

[810] It's not filled yet, but it's only day two.

[811] That was the thing, right?

[812] Cars down there?

[813] I haven't seen any cars.

[814] Golf cart.

[815] There's that one car up there.

[816] There's a car in the...

[817] Yeah, there's a car, but I don't think you can get that into the underground area, which theoretically would fill up with zombies.

[818] 72 ,000, I think, is the number now.

[819] I need a bigger car.

[820] So for $500 ,000, you can buy the keys to that car.

[821] You have to buy the keys out of a pawn shop.

[822] To the car?

[823] To that car in the indoor car.

[824] The mercenaries don't have a car?

[825] They don't have a Jeep with a machine gun on it?

[826] Not yet.

[827] Nothing like that yet.

[828] Yeah, nothing like that yet.

[829] The biggest...

[830] There has been like a children mascot big head character on roller skates with two makeshift flamethrowers.

[831] Just riding around?

[832] Yeah, I got into that fight and lost it.

[833] Went, okay, I'm not going to do that side quest, I guess.

[834] Maybe that's where the big combo weapons come up, but if you stumble upon them...

[835] It feels like that stuff is more about you learning how to exploit the battle and win that way than about actually fighting them head -on or learning a pattern.

[836] It feels like you have to cheat your way through all these fights.

[837] Get them stuck behind something.

[838] It's weird that most of those are...

[839] They take so much damage.

[840] It's weird that they're mostly on side missions.

[841] I thought I remembered in the first game.

[842] In the first game, I thought I remembered all the psychos being like story milestones.

[843] Yeah.

[844] Well, you know, I'm not done yet.

[845] So who can say?

[846] Someone did write me on Twitter and said the last fight in that game, which I assume is story -wise, is like totally messed up and real bad.

[847] So we'll see when I get there.

[848] Is your daughter still there?

[849] Yep.

[850] Fight her.

[851] Playing Mega Man. She's hanging out playing handheld video games.

[852] Oh, good.

[853] That's cool.

[854] Specifically Mega Man. Tell her to give you the Mega Buster.

[855] It's a great weapon.

[856] Yeah.

[857] Hopefully she'll give me the Mega Buster.

[858] She has it.

[859] Sitting on it.

[860] She is the Mega Buster.

[861] That's right.

[862] Oh, man. Does she still look like a freaky little burnt baby?

[863] No. She looks a little more normal.

[864] What did you say she looked like?

[865] She looked like the Trainspotting Baby.

[866] She looked like a Gelfling.

[867] That's what I thought.

[868] That's right.

[869] Which I also agreed with.

[870] Enjoying it, though.

[871] Despite its dead risingness.

[872] It's frustrating in different ways that I don't find as rewarding as the first game.

[873] Okay.

[874] In some cases.

[875] You think you just have less patience for it now?

[876] I don't know.

[877] Maybe to some extent.

[878] It's like, man, I can't believe that this didn't happen or this didn't happen.

[879] But generally speaking, it is really cool.

[880] Is the voice acting...

[881] Did you play much of K -Zero?

[882] No. Okay.

[883] Some of the voice acting in K -Zero was really flat.

[884] The voice acting seems fine.

[885] It's just a lot of it is very Canadian.

[886] Yeah, I noticed that.

[887] There's a lot of noticeable pronunciation.

[888] Really?

[889] It's not like stereotypical.

[890] It's not like a boop.

[891] But there's just like, I'm going out.

[892] It's like Adam.

[893] Talking about rum.

[894] The pronunciation of out.

[895] Yeah.

[896] Out.

[897] Out.

[898] Yeah, sort of.

[899] In K -Zero, there's just stuff where you would save, like, a survivor, and then they would have the most ridiculous, terrible line.

[900] I keep expecting this, like, oh, Katie's in grade seven, or something like that.

[901] And they would say it over and over and over.

[902] Oh, it was terrible.

[903] I hated it.

[904] And it was in K -Zero, too.

[905] There were a couple of them that were just like...

[906] That's what I'm saying.

[907] Like, in K -Zero, you bring people back, and it was like, you just want to throw them back out with the zombies.

[908] Like, shut up.

[909] Just a good reason not to hang out at the safe house.

[910] Yeah.

[911] Because why else would you go there?

[912] Also the load.

[913] Except that you have to.

[914] A lot of the stuff in the safe house is, well, there are some voices when you're walking past people, but a lot of the actual dialogue is text.

[915] Oh, okay.

[916] Yeah.

[917] Yeah.

[918] It was the, oh, man. That one dude you saved from the diner was just like, you talking to me?

[919] Oh, yeah.

[920] I was more annoyed by his companion, Gemini, who was just constantly weeping.

[921] I found her the chance.

[922] Her weep loop was really bad.

[923] First it sounded like sex, then crying.

[924] Very grating.

[925] Yeah.

[926] So just sex, then.

[927] Well, Canadian sex.

[928] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[929] Where's the part where that doesn't sound like sex?

[930] Anything else, Jeff, that you managed to squeeze?

[931] Wait, how's that?

[932] Did you play in a multiplayer?

[933] Yeah.

[934] What's that like?

[935] The multiplayer is like Fusion Frenzy with zombies.

[936] Did you play as a zombie?

[937] No. Oh, okay.

[938] No, it feels like a minigame collection.

[939] I mean, it is, in fact, a minigame collection.

[940] So when you go play a ranked match, it's four players get lumped together in this futuristic reality TV game show thing.

[941] And they've created like eight or nine different mini games that involve the hilarious murder of zombies.

[942] Like being in a giant ball?

[943] Yeah.

[944] And at the end, the last one is always Slicicles.

[945] So it's like you're on a dirt bike with chainsaws out the sides and ride back and forth to kill zombies.

[946] But you did say you take the money you make back into the game.

[947] Yeah, so you win money in your ranked games, and then there's just a menu option marked cash out, and it lets you assign all your prize money to any one of your save slots.

[948] So you just go and say, like, I want this save slot to have all this money.

[949] So money, not a problem.

[950] Money, not a problem.

[951] Sorry.

[952] And then the co -op is present.

[953] I didn't even know the West Co -op.

[954] Yeah.

[955] Like main story co -op?

[956] Yep.

[957] The joining player does not gain any story progress.

[958] So if you join, you're just another Chuck Green.

[959] What?

[960] They don't integrate it into the story at all.

[961] Oh, no. It's like a PS2 game.

[962] Really?

[963] Just like alternate Chuck Green?

[964] Yeah.

[965] Just in whatever the other Chuck Green was wearing because they got all these costumes and stuff you put on, right?

[966] So.

[967] They just throw you in as another Chuck Green, does not integrate into the cut scenes at all.

[968] Can you run wherever you want?

[969] No, you're locked to the same zone, the same loaded zone.

[970] And you can't leave a zone unless both players are close together.

[971] So there's very much a you can't leave without your buddy Superfly.

[972] It is Jump and Jump out.

[973] So can I jump in and just help you beat a boss and then fail?

[974] I think so.

[975] And then the joining player gains PP and gains money.

[976] But that's it.

[977] So it's like you can kind of grind your character in other people's games.

[978] And in some ways that almost seems kind of cool because if you're just joining, you're not really governing what's happening, especially if you're jumping into random games.

[979] Just killing zombies.

[980] Just killing zombies.

[981] Having a good time.

[982] Yeah, exactly.

[983] Like, I'm going to go put items together and kill zombies because that's what makes this game fun.

[984] So, I don't know.

[985] That might turn out to be the way to play.

[986] Let's worry about all the other crap.

[987] Yeah, just jump into other people's games and kill stuff for a while.

[988] Kill their survivors as they're trying to escort her back.

[989] That you totally can't do.

[990] A guy totally hit one of my survivors for a while.

[991] He eventually stopped and let the guy make it.

[992] But, yeah, he got in a couple shots.

[993] I was like, oh, this is about to turn back.

[994] You can kick the player out at any time.

[995] Psychopath.

[996] Yeah.

[997] Jeff, any other games you would care to talk about you've had some time with?

[998] Played a few hours of the new Borderlands DLC.

[999] Ah, yes.

[1000] The Claptrap's new Robot Revolution.

[1001] Yeah.

[1002] That's the...

[1003] Fourth.

[1004] Fourth.

[1005] Yeah.

[1006] DLC pack.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] What's in there?

[1009] What's going on?

[1010] What's up?

[1011] So far, it's robotic versions or like cyborg versions of existing creatures in a lot of cases.

[1012] So it's like Hyperion soldiers with vacuum tubes sticking out of their heads and Robo Skags and General Knox, but a robot.

[1013] And I found the best shotgun I've ever seen within like 10 minutes of starting it up.

[1014] You know, luck of the draw, but that's pretty cool.

[1015] Or is it?

[1016] I mean, I don't know.

[1017] Is it?

[1018] It's not implausible that they would wait the drops.

[1019] You're right.

[1020] In such a way to attract players who have not been around in a while.

[1021] Yeah, that's certainly possible.

[1022] Are you gaining more levels?

[1023] No, that is not out yet.

[1024] That's a separate patch that is coming out sometime between the release of this DLC and the release of the Game of the Year edition of Borderlands.

[1025] Between the release of this DLC and the end of time.

[1026] Is that a general game patch?

[1027] Yeah.

[1028] So that'll be everyone will get eight more levels.

[1029] Just on top of whatever.

[1030] Just on top of whatever.

[1031] If they purchased General Nox, then it'll take them up to 69.

[1032] Otherwise, it'll take them to 58.

[1033] It's a bummer for you, then.

[1034] Yeah, to be playing it right now before that's out, I'm just like, man, this actually super sucks because I'm finishing these quests and getting all this XP.

[1035] But this playthrough one and playthrough two, so theoretically I could just play it now for...

[1036] my review needs.

[1037] Play through it again if you want.

[1038] Play through it again if I want, yeah.

[1039] They added some achievements.

[1040] You kill a lot of claptraps that are coming at you with swords and boxing gloves and stuff like that.

[1041] You know, suicide, kamikaze, claptraps.

[1042] Any new multiplayer stuff like arenas or anything like that?

[1043] I don't think so.

[1044] Like as a robot?

[1045] No. No, that's not what that game's about.

[1046] That wouldn't.

[1047] Why would they do that?

[1048] They did put those arenas in there to begin with.

[1049] If they ever get around to making another one of those, I bet that those either don't exist or are built out to be actually fun because right now they're just kind of pointless.

[1050] And that's out this week.

[1051] That is out this week.

[1052] It seems pretty good so far.

[1053] The whole thing is Claptrap has now turned evil basically.

[1054] So they're a bunch of evil robots.

[1055] He's giving revolutionary speeches over loudspeakers.

[1056] That seems like that could be a fun fit with the claptrap persona.

[1057] It is.

[1058] Yeah, it does really well.

[1059] There's really good Bioshock humor in there.

[1060] Well, really good is maybe a bit strong, but it's really Bioshock -y.

[1061] And you're like, all right, that's good that you did that.

[1062] That's funny.

[1063] Take those rational fuckers down a page.

[1064] That's right.

[1065] Someone has to.

[1066] Yeah, that seems cool.

[1067] And also Minecraft.

[1068] You think Pitchford and Ken Living would get along?

[1069] Yeah.

[1070] What do you think, Vinny?

[1071] I don't know.

[1072] That's a tough one.

[1073] They're two dudes that have run independent game developers.

[1074] They get along.

[1075] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1076] I feel like Levine is more of a wine and cheese kind of game developer and Randy is a little more meat and potatoes.

[1077] I don't know.

[1078] Do you think they could ride a roller coaster together?

[1079] There's a philosophical edge to Ken Levine that I think is just not there with Randy Pitchford is a guy.

[1080] Gearbox is a little more populist maybe in its development.

[1081] Rowdy?

[1082] I don't know.

[1083] I'd say Bioshock sold pretty well.

[1084] That ended up being fairly popular.

[1085] Sure.

[1086] It's popular, not popular.

[1087] That doesn't mean they were playing to the mainstream, necessarily.

[1088] I don't know that I'd say that anything about Borderlands was playing to the mainstream at that point.

[1089] Like, that game's ridiculous, if you look at it.

[1090] Like, it makes perfect sense that analysts were looking at that game and just going like, yeah, fucking right.

[1091] Like, Halo was popular with the mainstream, and that stars tiny little alien dudes who run around screaming in high -pitched voices.

[1092] My greater point is that Irrational would not make a Duke Nukem game.

[1093] Right.

[1094] Gearbox would.

[1095] What if they did?

[1096] Like, if you're just judging by the games, and you're looking at, like, you know, Bioshock atmosphere and kind of the moody trailers, kind of stuff like that, and the advertising or the gist behind Borderlands was like, I'm visiting guns!

[1097] Just kind of, like, shoot everything!

[1098] Totally, totally.

[1099] I think that's where you're getting at with the kind of, like, two camps of, like, we're kind of artsy and, like, cerebral.

[1100] It's kind of hard to say, like, if one team could do the other thing or vice versa.

[1101] I would love to see that.

[1102] We don't really know.

[1103] That would be awesome.

[1104] I'm saying it's not something they would pursue because it is not the culture and it's not the mindset.

[1105] Perhaps.

[1106] Is that the, you know, rational wouldn't, wouldn't say, you know what?

[1107] Let's take a stab at Duke Nukem.

[1108] Let's try and make Duke Nukem forever.

[1109] Fuck yeah.

[1110] Yeah.

[1111] Like Ken Levine likes making the thinking man's shooter.

[1112] Yeah.

[1113] God, I want to see that.

[1114] You want to see the irrational Duke Nukem forever?

[1115] Kinda.

[1116] Just let them, this is just like, like, like Sin City style.

[1117] It would make no sense.

[1118] Just let them do a level.

[1119] It's just like, all right, we're going to fucking guest director.

[1120] For 10 minutes of, yeah.

[1121] For this 10 -minute sequence, Irrational is going to do all of the heavy lifting, and here's what they came up with.

[1122] I feel like it would just be like Max Payne or something.

[1123] It would just be super dark.

[1124] It would just be like, that Andrew Ryan is going to pay for shooting down my airplane.

[1125] It's just like, all right.

[1126] They would fuck up the rest of the entire story.

[1127] Like suddenly Duke Nukem is somebody's father who was, you know, the spawn of the aliens.

[1128] What'd you do?

[1129] Duke Nukem's the villain.

[1130] Knock your head off for the golf club and shit down your neck.

[1131] Duke's father is actually a pig cop.

[1132] All right, pick it up from here, guys.

[1133] Oh, crap.

[1134] It would just be all, would you kindly shake it, baby?

[1135] I was going to ask you something else, Jeff.

[1136] What else?

[1137] Yo, Minecraft.

[1138] Minecraft.

[1139] Well, I thought we were talking about games, but we could talk about Minecraft also.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] Did you see what somebody did with Minecraft?

[1142] Did you see that?

[1143] That's like the most open -ended question of the month.

[1144] If you had seen it, you would probably know what I was talking about.

[1145] Some dude.

[1146] Was it the guy that burnt down his thing accidentally?

[1147] Some guy physically constructed a memory bank within Minecraft.

[1148] Like a 16 -bit wide bus.

[1149] functioning like logic circuit out of this enormous fucking room of...

[1150] I don't understand.

[1151] Like a functioning computer, basically.

[1152] Well, not an entire computer because he's working on the CPU right now.

[1153] Out of little in -game logic gates and shit.

[1154] So it'll make a one over zero?

[1155] Yeah, it literally will store data.

[1156] You can pull levers and shit in the thing to change the values of the memory cells.

[1157] And he was talking about how if you were to expand it...

[1158] Two -dimensionally, it would become a 32 -bit wide bus and all this shit.

[1159] Weird.

[1160] It's fucking crazy.

[1161] What's he going to do?

[1162] Because I've looked at the crafting list for that game, and I don't understand how any of that would be.

[1163] That sounds like more of a Gary's Mod kind of thing.

[1164] There's a YouTube video of him walking around explaining how everything works, but I'm starting to think that Minecraft might be Skynet.

[1165] Is he going to make Minecraft in Minecraft?

[1166] Possibly.

[1167] Yes, he's going to...

[1168] Can he program Minecraft in his new sub -Minecraft programming language?

[1169] He's going to architect a processor, and then he's going to devise an assembly language for that processor, and then he's going to write the game within the game.

[1170] We are going to look back upon Minecraft when all is said and done, when people are done with Minecraft in six months or six years.

[1171] It's hard to say.

[1172] Five minutes.

[1173] That's going to be the game for absentee fathers.

[1174] that is absentee father the game that is i am on the road traveling doing business but once every couple days me and my son are gonna get on the minecraft server that i set up back home and play play with blocks and build stuff and he's gonna show me what he spent the last few days building i mean like little kids yeah okay yeah so like Like my seven -year -old or six -year -old.

[1175] Like, oh, you know, he's been building stuff with his friends.

[1176] Now I get on the server and I get to help him build for a while.

[1177] And he gets to show me what he's made while we're chatting.

[1178] So, yeah, it's building blocks, more or less.

[1179] Like, yeah, there's all this stuff you can craft and kind of do stuff.

[1180] But it seems like a lot of the crafting is in service of you digging holes or placing blocks.

[1181] You know, there are a lot of blocks of different types.

[1182] You know, you chop down trees and then you craft the trees into wood blocks.

[1183] And then you can.

[1184] take the wood blocks and break them up into sticks, and then you can use the sticks to make a pickaxe.

[1185] And then you can, you know, with your wooden pickaxe, you can more easily dig through stone and also collect stone at that point.

[1186] So you can make a stone pickaxe that lasts longer.

[1187] Eventually you get up to like a diamond -tipped pickaxe and you're mining coal and using it to make...

[1188] torches so you can dig these big underground caves and light them along the way.

[1189] Is there multiplayer stuff in it?

[1190] Yeah.

[1191] Okay.

[1192] That's really the only way.

[1193] That's the crux of it.

[1194] I mean, yeah, you can play it alone, but then it's just like, here's my crazy world.

[1195] Yeah.

[1196] Go back to it.

[1197] That's what I want to do.

[1198] I have a world that I've dug, you know, just because I wanted to get a sense for like what the hell you do without like getting onto some server and, you know, assing it up.

[1199] Is it free?

[1200] No. Is it money?

[1201] 14 bucks.

[1202] A month or?

[1203] That's it.

[1204] Is it?

[1205] They're the dudes.

[1206] I shouldn't say they.

[1207] I should say he.

[1208] The guy who made it.

[1209] His record day of sales last week in a 24 -hour period.

[1210] $350 ,000.

[1211] Didn't he get his PayPal suspended or something?

[1212] Yeah, there was some weird.

[1213] Oh, yeah.

[1214] Well, no, so they withheld the funds because they thought they were fraudulent charges.

[1215] Oh, I don't know about that.

[1216] I would think this is generating enough publicity at this point that they wouldn't know who this guy is.

[1217] PayPal's a weird company.

[1218] They have a lot of automatic triggers and stuff.

[1219] This is obviously porn or they're stealing stuff.

[1220] They see a lot of big transactions.

[1221] What happened was his authentication back end went down, so he was not able to determine if people were playing legitimately or not, which meant that anybody could play.

[1222] For a weekend.

[1223] So he called it a free weekend.

[1224] It became about four days or something like that.

[1225] It became a de facto free weekend.

[1226] Oh, wow.

[1227] So as a result, a bunch of people got to try it and word of mouth spread.

[1228] And then everyone, as soon as all the payment stuff got back online, everyone went and bought it.

[1229] Well, what do you think?

[1230] For 15 bucks.

[1231] Oh, for the, you know, it's nine euros.

[1232] It's just like 10 euros.

[1233] So it ends up being like 14 bucks or 15.

[1234] Enough to do in there or just keep you kind of...

[1235] You have to kind of like make stuff.

[1236] Yeah, you kind of have to...

[1237] Just do it.

[1238] Just sandbox it.

[1239] Just build stuff.

[1240] So there's a few people running servers on the message boards.

[1241] They kind of say, even when you go to connect to a server, it just says like, the multiplayer is in an alpha state right now.

[1242] And he's always kind of updating it.

[1243] Every time you load it up, it downloads more Java.

[1244] Just more jars coming your way.

[1245] Wait.

[1246] Did you say Java?

[1247] I did.

[1248] Yeah.

[1249] Like the Linux version is a Java app.

[1250] What?

[1251] Yeah, it's totally.

[1252] I mean, you can play browser version if you care to.

[1253] Oh, that's right.

[1254] Yeah, that's right.

[1255] God, what a weird game.

[1256] So, you know, like I connected to one of the servers that's running, and people had built this elaborate, I guess you can make glass in that game, which I didn't know, but people had made a tunnel almost entirely, or the large length of it was entirely glass, and it was also underwater.

[1257] So you would go down and walk through, and you were looking through the glass, and there was water out there.

[1258] And this huge tunnel also was built diagonally.

[1259] So like digging that tunnel and keeping it straight was even crazier because it's, you know, all jagged like steps, stair steps kind of thing.

[1260] And it just gets, you know, eventually opens up to this huge, huge area.

[1261] It's all underground, you know, plenty of torches placed everywhere so you can see what the hell is going on.

[1262] And it's just like, man, like how long must this have taken people to do?

[1263] Like that's the part that blows me away is I see what I can build in an hour or something kind of barely knowing, scratching the surface of the crafting system, figuring out how to dig better.

[1264] And I see this stuff and I was like, I mean, how does that happen?

[1265] What is the persistence if you're picking servers?

[1266] The server is running.

[1267] The server is persistent.

[1268] There's no way to save the state of the server.

[1269] I imagine.

[1270] I don't know.

[1271] I have not tried to run a server.

[1272] I mean, your character, there's no persistence.

[1273] So you're just you got to start from scratch each time and work up the.

[1274] Well, there's nothing that changes about the character.

[1275] You know, if people have already made torches, you just pick them up.

[1276] You're not like, oh, you don't personally.

[1277] Yeah, you're crafting or into the stuff.

[1278] So if the stuff is already there.

[1279] You can just pick up from wherever?

[1280] Yeah, and there's storage chests and stuff.

[1281] If someone left a bunch of stuff in there, I can pop it open and be like, oh, there's a flint in here.

[1282] Great, I can go burn down this wood house that someone obviously spent a long time building.

[1283] But if the server crashes, is that stuff all gone?

[1284] I don't know.

[1285] I haven't tried running a server.

[1286] It's in an alpha state.

[1287] Yeah, yeah.

[1288] I would hope that the server kind of auto -saves every so often or does some kind of...

[1289] Persistence that way.

[1290] Has anybody built anything in the sky yet?

[1291] Is there any sky castles?

[1292] There is a tested server that has the tested logo built out of blocks of some kind.

[1293] Is it floating?

[1294] Is it floating up in the air?

[1295] Anybody built Columbia yet?

[1296] No one has built Columbia yet, as far as I can tell.

[1297] Has anybody built 1 -1?

[1298] Jeff?

[1299] I haven't seen it.

[1300] Why do you think this is such a thing right now?

[1301] Just word of mouth.

[1302] You know, it's one of those things that game designers get really geeky about because it is so emergent and non -gamey that, you know, you're seeing people kind of collaborating in this shared space and, you know, building kind of interesting things.

[1303] And, you know, you're seeing some people use that kind of, you know, they could theoretically be using this kind of tell their own stories in a sense, you know, and I think that's what makes it interesting.

[1304] It's very like, almost like new age crystal gripper bullshit in some ways, but, uh, it's, uh, for me, like stuff like this and, and even like the little big, big planet stuff, like it, it comes down to a question of like, I, you know, the difference is that little big planet had a game.

[1305] And, you know, if you were just a player, but, but even little big planet is, is like, it hinges on the, you know, create your own fun kind of thing.

[1306] And this is like that times a hundred.

[1307] Yeah.

[1308] I mean, I bought one.

[1309] I, I've messed around with some, I, I've seen it.

[1310] I have crafted a mine.

[1311] Yeah, I dug a hole in everything, and I fell down another hole and got stuck down there and said, all right.

[1312] I know I can get out, and I was able to get out eventually, but yeah.

[1313] It's really cool.

[1314] It's interesting, but I'm still like, okay, where's the part?

[1315] When does the fun kick in?

[1316] That's the part I guess.

[1317] It's less the fun, and I think that it's just that zen -like quietude of, I built this house, man. It was interesting to walk around and go.

[1318] You're right.

[1319] But it's only interesting – It's also really cool to join other people's servers and just see wild shit.

[1320] Yeah, that's all I've done has been that.

[1321] And that part is crazy and interesting.

[1322] But like only largely because you know how much fucking time the systems that are in place demand of the – I don't know that.

[1323] I mean I have some idea of how long it takes me to build something like that.

[1324] But there must be shortcuts.

[1325] There must be faster ways to do this stuff than I can think of right now.

[1326] Like that's sort of where I'm at with it.

[1327] I guess for me it's only impressive because I know like how hard and how much time it takes to dig a hole.

[1328] Well, that's the thing.

[1329] You build these pickaxes, holes dig a lot faster.

[1330] Yeah.

[1331] So.

[1332] Like, that's kind of the core.

[1333] Sure, but they had to, like, dig that initial hole to get to the thing to dig the other hole to get to the other thing.

[1334] Like, there is still that cumulative time spent to get to the point where they have the good tool.

[1335] Right.

[1336] But if a server is getting robust and mature, like, all that stuff's already been built and it's kind of around.

[1337] Are pickaxes, like, a pre -existing game mechanic or is that something somebody just devised out of, like, the general rules?

[1338] No, so there's a bunch of crafting recipes in the game that are all hard -coded and built.

[1339] So it's just you end up getting...

[1340] You end up building a crafting station.

[1341] So basically you can individually craft things that take four blocks.

[1342] You get like a two -by -two square that you can use to craft.

[1343] So the first thing you do is you take four wood blocks.

[1344] So you chop down some logs.

[1345] You turn those into wood blocks.

[1346] I feel like this is like an infinite regression here.

[1347] Halfway through every sentence.

[1348] How are you chopping them down?

[1349] Wait, wait.

[1350] How did you make an axe?

[1351] So you can chop stuff with your hands.

[1352] You can just punch stuff until it's yours.

[1353] So you punch the wood.

[1354] You pick up the wood.

[1355] So wait a minute.

[1356] How do you punch?

[1357] Just hold down the left.

[1358] How do you get hands?

[1359] You start with a hand.

[1360] How is Babby formed?

[1361] With wood.

[1362] You build the crafting station.

[1363] That gives you a three by three crafting area.

[1364] Now, it's not just the items you drop in there.

[1365] It's also the spots you put them in.

[1366] So it's three by three.

[1367] So you imagine I take two sticks, put one bottom center and dead middle.

[1368] And then across the top three, I put stone, stone, stone.

[1369] Sure.

[1370] That is the basic shape of a pickaxe.

[1371] And it shows up, sure enough.

[1372] that that's the recipe for the pickaxe.

[1373] For the stone axe.

[1374] You get that and then you can...

[1375] It's not even just like throw shit in a pile.

[1376] It's like throw them in this specific pattern.

[1377] You throw them in order.

[1378] The pickaxe and what it does were like scripted by the guy who made the game.

[1379] Okay, that's what I wanted to know.

[1380] So that means that there's a finite number of these things that can be made.

[1381] That's the question.

[1382] For now.

[1383] So I joined a server and grabbed some flint and like I said, set fire to some dude's thing.

[1384] And that felt really awesome.

[1385] Because right after I watched that video of the guy accidentally setting his house on fire in Minecraft, I was like, I wonder if that works.

[1386] Yes, it does.

[1387] So he might not even be on his own server watching this happen.

[1388] Yeah, it could totally be someone else's hard work.

[1389] Someone just logs in later and goes, oh, I had a house.

[1390] So it's like super chaotic with that stuff.

[1391] Because the multiplayer is like super alpha.

[1392] But at the same time, I don't know how much further you build it other than to make it more stable and more crafting recipes or something.

[1393] It kind of always has to have chaos.

[1394] It's got to be that kind of anarchic thing just because of the nature of...

[1395] What happens to that glass tunnel?

[1396] Can you break the glass?

[1397] I could absolutely break glass and flood that tunnel.

[1398] And then the water would flood into that huge gigantic room.

[1399] Oh, that...

[1400] What server is that?

[1401] Yeah, great.

[1402] Somebody just went and did that.

[1403] Thanks.

[1404] Yeah.

[1405] Another fish?

[1406] Can you build a boat?

[1407] Yes.

[1408] Okay, so build a boat first and then...

[1409] Also, you're currently invincible when you're playing multiplayer.

[1410] You wouldn't kill a bunch of people?

[1411] Yeah.

[1412] Also, there's zombies at night.

[1413] What?

[1414] There's zombies at night.

[1415] That's only when you're playing single player or on some servers or something like that.

[1416] It seems like traditionally...

[1417] The server that tested plays on, they've got zombies.

[1418] What do they do?

[1419] Do they kill you?

[1420] No, you can build a bow and arrow.

[1421] You can build a bow and then you build arrows.

[1422] You have to build each arrow individually?

[1423] You build them in groups of four or something, but yes.

[1424] Can you build wheels?

[1425] No. Okay.

[1426] So no cars.

[1427] No, so it's not Gary's mod.

[1428] Right.

[1429] And that's kind of the, for me, that's the most direct point of comparison is that, but the difference is that in Minecraft, you're building the world, but in Gary's mod, you're building weird contraptions in a world, like on a Half -Life map, actually.

[1430] So I can't build like a...

[1431] You can't build a car.

[1432] Theoretically, though, they could totally put that in there.

[1433] I mean, they do have boats.

[1434] So I wouldn't be too surprised if they eventually built out the crafting recipes.

[1435] You can build mine carts and track for that and ladders.

[1436] Really?

[1437] Yeah.

[1438] Does the cart move on its own?

[1439] Like you push it?

[1440] I think you hook it up to a button.

[1441] Oh.

[1442] So you can actually make buttons and pressure plates and stuff like that.

[1443] Oh, boy.

[1444] I haven't gotten into that stuff.

[1445] It seems super crazy.

[1446] Oh, I'm sold.

[1447] I want to check it out.

[1448] I imagine that's how you build your 16 -bit computer bus.

[1449] You should go watch that video.

[1450] I think it's worth checking out.

[1451] Whether you get it or not, I think it is too important to the moment.

[1452] Do they say anything about when you buy it, like, oh, you're putting it on this alpha release and we'll keep making, but you'll have to pay more?

[1453] No, no. It's kind of like I think it was a year ago it was five bucks.

[1454] Now it's $14 or something like that.

[1455] They are selling it for cheaper than normal because it's in this alpha state.

[1456] They're saying, hey, get it now.

[1457] Get it now and also help fund development or something like that.

[1458] Help fund that guy's new house.

[1459] He did just hire somebody.

[1460] He's got a second dude.

[1461] He is actually putting that money into more development.

[1462] The wheel guy.

[1463] You.

[1464] Figure out how to make wheels.

[1465] All right.

[1466] He's just going to find Gary of Gary's Mod fame, and they're going to start working on...

[1467] Dude, I was just about to ask you, what if they combined the best aspects of this with the best aspects of Gary's Mod?

[1468] I think Gary's Mod, there's too much fidelity there for the blocky world of Minecraft.

[1469] It doesn't necessarily...

[1470] But this similarly, that's kind of why this caught, right?

[1471] Because the Valve guys started talking about this, right?

[1472] I think so.

[1473] I think they saw it and went like, oh, this thing's really neat.

[1474] I mean, it's definitely like it's been word of mouth, and you see a lot of game designer -y type dudes.

[1475] Yeah.

[1476] Is there chat or anything in it?

[1477] There's text chat.

[1478] Has it gotten to the point of a bunch of dudes just Halo style?

[1479] No, I think you can only have like eight people per server.

[1480] Oh, wow, really?

[1481] Well, I don't know.

[1482] That's the most I've seen on a server.

[1483] I don't know what the upper limit is, but I imagine it would explode.

[1484] At some point.

[1485] I did give out the address for the tested server at one point and summarily broke the tested server.

[1486] Nice.

[1487] When it came back up, did it have the stuff there still?

[1488] I don't know.

[1489] The tested logo in flames on the ground.

[1490] I would have gone back.

[1491] Just dead people.

[1492] I said, here it is.

[1493] Don't be dicks.

[1494] It's the internet.

[1495] Why was it?

[1496] It's just flat earth.

[1497] That's what I want to do.

[1498] I want to join a server and dig up everything possible, but not...

[1499] Lay any of it down.

[1500] Just dig down as far as it can go.

[1501] So it's just, you join it, it's all lava.

[1502] Is there like lava?

[1503] Oh, by the way, there's lava.

[1504] There's totally fucking lava.

[1505] So you think like having a tunnel flooded with water is bad.

[1506] Yeah, it's pretty bad.

[1507] It's also bad because you'll be like down in a tunnel somewhere and you'll be digging and you'll get past that brick and it's like, oh, on the other side of that block is fucking lava.

[1508] Do you die?

[1509] So in multiplayer you're still kind of invincible all the time.

[1510] So you type slash home.

[1511] on some servers and warp out it.

[1512] Is the lava cool into rocks?

[1513] I don't think so.

[1514] If the water hits it?

[1515] Lava's just lava.

[1516] It just flows.

[1517] Alright, I'm out.

[1518] You're taking a staunch anti -lava position?

[1519] Well, it's alpha, man. Beta lava.

[1520] He probably didn't even know that lava was there until somebody dug.

[1521] And also, there's some way to make infinite fire that does not burn the wood it is burning on.

[1522] I don't know how people are doing that, but I joined a server, and there was just a wood block hanging in the air, and it was on fire.

[1523] I was like, okay, cool.

[1524] That happened.

[1525] Yeah.

[1526] So I jumped on top of the fire, and it hurt.

[1527] I mean, yeah.

[1528] We are at a state with Minecraft where there are no bugs.

[1529] Kind of.

[1530] Yeah.

[1531] As God intended.

[1532] There's the server going down, which is unfortunate.

[1533] Yeah.

[1534] But as far as behaviors go, like...

[1535] Yeah.

[1536] Can you say that's not what that's supposed to do?

[1537] I don't know.

[1538] Right.

[1539] You're exactly right.

[1540] Do you reach a limit on the world, like borders, invisible boundaries or anything like that?

[1541] I don't know.

[1542] I tried running in one direction for a long time, but you can go.

[1543] You can just go.

[1544] Getting through that tunnel, I think I probably just held the W key down for like six or seven minutes.

[1545] Really?

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] You should have broke that thing.

[1548] Yeah, I know.

[1549] All right.

[1550] I made a daring escape of this flooding tunnel.

[1551] Oh, no. This isn't as fun as I thought it would be, but this is so pretty cool.

[1552] That daring escape is just disconnecting from the server, by the way, and chuckling to your side.

[1553] So they have central auth.

[1554] So there's one login.

[1555] So your player name is the same all the time.

[1556] Yeah.

[1557] It checks in with the central Minecraft server.

[1558] So theoretically, if this thing grows to a point where they hire a community team, there's things they could do if they wanted to keep you from being a dick.

[1559] And then everybody will lament the good old days of Minecraft.

[1560] Just like Ultima Online, whenever you could do whatever the hell you wanted.

[1561] Maybe just you run chaos servers.

[1562] I don't know where that game goes from here.

[1563] It's impossible to say what the future holds for Minecraft.

[1564] It could go away in two weeks.

[1565] And everyone could be like, oh, right, yeah, that was cool, whatever.

[1566] I have a feeling that there will be GDC talks devoted to Minecraft.

[1567] That's sort of where it's at right now.

[1568] Yeah, I could see that.

[1569] Five years from now, it could be making our nation's strategic defense decision.

[1570] Yes.

[1571] Exactly.

[1572] Somewhere right now, Paul Barnett is really stoked about Minecraft and Wing Commander.

[1573] I see it being one of those things that is like...

[1574] academically, intellectually really interesting, but it doesn't really serve a purpose outside of that.

[1575] It's weird to me because it just seems like somebody at some point was like, you know, the tools we use to make games are kind of fun.

[1576] What if we just stop making this game and just put the tool out there?

[1577] Slap a real ugly 3D interface on top of it.

[1578] That's kind of the story that they're telling for Call of Duty Black Ops when they added bots and that sort of, and like the replay editing stuff or the replay capture stuff.

[1579] They're like, yeah, this is stuff that we built, you know, for bug testing.

[1580] Let's put that out there.

[1581] Yeah, figure, you know, brush it up, put it out.

[1582] I'm going to go back and play like the Unreal tools.

[1583] Yeah.

[1584] Get a couple of people in here and make some, you know, curve walls.

[1585] Just make multiplayer versions of Quake map editors.

[1586] Yeah.

[1587] Well, I mean kind of like philosophically when you talk about play like on a high level, like the creation play, play where you are like making stuff is something that has always been kind of lacking in video games and trying to – Create some balance between like a structured play that we're used to of like here's your mission, here's your goal, go do a thing versus like the play of like do whatever.

[1588] And this is probably the lowest barrier to entry of any kind of world building stuff out there.

[1589] It's true.

[1590] Yeah, I think that's probably – Because it is just blocks.

[1591] But I feel like there's no vertex.

[1592] There's no vertices being manipulated.

[1593] You're not rendering lighting.

[1594] You're doing it all from the first person.

[1595] It's not like, okay, I'm going to stop here and go to this perspective and your manipulation options are pretty crude.

[1596] It's like Forge mode in Halo, but the whole thing is that, sort of.

[1597] You never have to pop into edit mode or out of edit mode.

[1598] And you can dig and build a whole world.

[1599] It's not just like, I'm going to place a warthog here.

[1600] I built the forge mode in Halo in Minecraft.

[1601] You should check it out.

[1602] Oh, man. Yeah.

[1603] It's almost there.

[1604] It's almost there.

[1605] All right.

[1606] Okay.

[1607] It's pre -alpha.

[1608] Yeah.

[1609] The other room has the processor.

[1610] This podcast is taking place inside of Minecraft.

[1611] I built this all in Minecraft.

[1612] And Mindcraft.

[1613] Oh, no. Vinny Caravella.

[1614] Mind.

[1615] What?

[1616] I see what you're doing, Brad, when he comes around the other side of the table and catches off guard.

[1617] Vinny!

[1618] I see Brad jumped even when I shouted your name, so he's just conditioned.

[1619] It's about that time.

[1620] I'm just coming back around the other way.

[1621] It's about that point in the show when I go, noise!

[1622] Hi.

[1623] Hey, Vinny.

[1624] What up?

[1625] What's happening?

[1626] Man, we talked about all the games.

[1627] I know.

[1628] Is there any other games that you want to know about?

[1629] No, I played some...

[1630] What'd you play?

[1631] P -Zero.

[1632] Did that?

[1633] You finished it yet?

[1634] I did.

[1635] I got my S rank.

[1636] You got your S?

[1637] It's an easy S. Pretty easy.

[1638] Pretty easy S. Got a little annoying at the end.

[1639] This easy S brought to you by Easy A. Yes.

[1640] Some stuff I just didn't want to do anymore.

[1641] Starring Emma Stone.

[1642] Then I did, I don't know, I had some old computers I started trying to consolidate into.

[1643] One working computer?

[1644] Well, just like data.

[1645] You're just like, I've got all these old hard drives.

[1646] You've got to stack that data.

[1647] It's a pain in the butt.

[1648] Data.

[1649] Throw it all away.

[1650] Who cares?

[1651] Nothing on there.

[1652] That's what my wife says.

[1653] What are you backing up?

[1654] I don't know.

[1655] I can't throw this away until I know what I'm throwing away.

[1656] Important high school data.

[1657] Gigabytes of bootleg TrueType fonts.

[1658] Remember that?

[1659] That was kind of goofy.

[1660] I can't believe I still have this.

[1661] When I downloaded this folder of old NVIDIA drivers that I thought I would need to save for some reason.

[1662] That took a while.

[1663] This is my Linux machine.

[1664] This is my old G...

[1665] Ford Tower.

[1666] This hard drive doesn't even work.

[1667] So now I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to figure out why it doesn't work.

[1668] Maybe if I shake it?

[1669] I'll download this program.

[1670] This says it'll recover data.

[1671] This says it can re -kickstart.

[1672] What's on here?

[1673] If it doesn't want me to know, it must be important now.

[1674] It's got to be good stuff.

[1675] Where did this even come from?

[1676] This is a 120 -gig drive.

[1677] It must be good.

[1678] So it's fairly modern then.

[1679] It's not that old.

[1680] No. 120 gigs.

[1681] Come on.

[1682] I know.

[1683] Seriously, right?

[1684] Huge.

[1685] I did have like a 20 gig drive on a computer.

[1686] Like formatted MFM.

[1687] No. No, come on.

[1688] That's not even.

[1689] I'm frowning at you because that's not even.

[1690] Come on.

[1691] Let's talk 320 megabytes.

[1692] Let's talk first gig hard drive.

[1693] I don't have anything running that old.

[1694] That's because those don't run.

[1695] Yeah.

[1696] All that stuff's busted.

[1697] Those are broken.

[1698] And then I need to figure out, so now I'm at the point where I've got most of that stuff.

[1699] I need to figure out my new storage solution, which I don't know what it is.

[1700] Maybe I'll go S3.

[1701] Maybe I'll make a little raid.

[1702] I don't know.

[1703] And then what do you do with that stuff?

[1704] You recycle it?

[1705] What's cool nowadays?

[1706] Well, you can't recycle it because it's got your personal data on it.

[1707] Who knows what else?

[1708] Zero it out.

[1709] Run D -band on it.

[1710] Drop it into Minecraft.

[1711] You can recycle it.

[1712] Yeah, you could recycle it.

[1713] You're vegan.

[1714] What do you do with that stuff?

[1715] I recommend you shoot it with a pistol.

[1716] I eat it.

[1717] That's for televisions.

[1718] Oh, yeah, televisions.

[1719] Yeah, you can't recycle TVs either, man. The TVs spend all those years watching you.

[1720] Who knows what they can tell.

[1721] Preferably a shotgun.

[1722] Where does my e -waste go?

[1723] I mean, there are electronics recycling services.

[1724] And just call them.

[1725] They'll take it?

[1726] Probably have to go.

[1727] Just throw in the garbage.

[1728] Just throw in the garbage and don't worry about it.

[1729] Smash it with a hammer.

[1730] Make sure the platters are totally destroyed and then spend six weeks throwing it away so that no one can get enough of any platter to reassemble it.

[1731] Shake it out over like a five -mile radius.

[1732] If you open it, it's unrecoverable after that.

[1733] But my apartment's a giant dust -free environment.

[1734] That's why hard drives are made and serviced in clean rooms because if any dust gets in there...

[1735] You can't recover anything?

[1736] They're done.

[1737] I bet the feds could recover something.

[1738] That's why I like to crack them open and then just write the word error using a nail onto each platter.

[1739] While it's spinning.

[1740] Just so it's known.

[1741] Yeah, well, these are all great ideas.

[1742] I don't know.

[1743] I don't throw away.

[1744] Really?

[1745] Yeah.

[1746] They just kind of pile up.

[1747] Oh, no. Really?

[1748] Yep.

[1749] Box in the closet, right?

[1750] Yep.

[1751] They just kind of pile up.

[1752] I don't even have one box.

[1753] It's just like, oh, there's a hard drive in here.

[1754] Weird.

[1755] Oh, yeah.

[1756] They're kind of scattered.

[1757] Every once in a while, I try and group them together and figure out, like, okay, which of these can I actually use right now?

[1758] And what are these that are just...

[1759] They're so cheap, though.

[1760] Any hard drive I have that's still usable, I put in an enclosure or something like that.

[1761] I have too many hard drives for even places.

[1762] My desktop is full of hard drives.

[1763] I have these 120, 200 gig hard drives.

[1764] It's like I have nowhere to put them.

[1765] I've got some SCSI hard drives in the closet.

[1766] Nice.

[1767] Is that next to your zip drive and your jazz drive?

[1768] It's next to Jeff's.

[1769] I've actually got three SCSI optical drives also just sitting there.

[1770] I realized that my Linux server I had made to back up everything.

[1771] It was, like, at the most, like, 400 gigs.

[1772] So I was like, I could buy one drive and put it...

[1773] This is silly now.

[1774] This has gone into comedy.

[1775] But then, yeah, what do you do?

[1776] You need to make a backup drive for your backup drive.

[1777] I hate...

[1778] Do you want to tell you about it?

[1779] Who here knows about computers, right?

[1780] Computers.

[1781] Anybody in the audience know about computers?

[1782] I got a computer.

[1783] All right.

[1784] I'm on American Online.

[1785] What's the deal with IDEK?

[1786] Like, the shit that came with your motherboard.

[1787] Do you guys save that stuff?

[1788] Yes.

[1789] No. I do.

[1790] Every motherboard I've ever bought, all the stuff is still in the box.

[1791] Really?

[1792] All the extra like fucking five USB ports that you can put on the back.

[1793] All the mounting screws and all that stuff.

[1794] Do you save the plates from the front of the bays that you take off?

[1795] Yep.

[1796] Like the metal?

[1797] I freed myself from that.

[1798] No, I threw out the metal stuff.

[1799] Okay.

[1800] But as long as if there's a plastic.

[1801] How about the plastic?

[1802] I keep all that.

[1803] I would keep plastic out of a case.

[1804] Really?

[1805] Yeah.

[1806] Like even the bay thing?

[1807] Yeah.

[1808] The thing is I've had this like I've gone through like three, four motherboards in the current case that I'm using.

[1809] Yeah.

[1810] Like two or three power supplies.

[1811] Like that case I'm going to hang on to for a while still because it's of sturdy construction and I like it.

[1812] You can't beat a good case.

[1813] Yeah.

[1814] Yeah.

[1815] It's an Antec.

[1816] Yeah.

[1817] I've got an Antec.

[1818] How many old motherboards do you have that?

[1819] are not functional.

[1820] Well, they might be functional.

[1821] They just got too old and I don't have anywhere else to put them.

[1822] Yeah, what else are you going to do with them?

[1823] Take them out and put them in a static sleeve and stack them up in a box.

[1824] What happens to it?

[1825] I don't know.

[1826] Eventually, I will build a computer for my mom because the one that she is actively using right now is several generations older than even anything I have in a box somewhere.

[1827] But won't that computer cost like $120 with the motherboard you were putting in at that point?

[1828] Well, no, because they won't sell it.

[1829] They won't sell it.

[1830] Yeah, we're not looking – I'm not a retailer.

[1831] So you're building a – Take all the motherboards and, you know, build – get one of those, build your own clock kits, and then build a clock.

[1832] I'm going to run a Minecraft server out of my mom's house.

[1833] You just like vintage computer parts?

[1834] It's going to go in your 80s room?

[1835] I just know at some point – I've used them in the past.

[1836] There have been points where it's like, oh, here's an old motherboard that I'm not actively using, and then, oh, I need a shitty computer for something.

[1837] I've used an old power.

[1838] I keep one old power supply usually because power supply is good.

[1839] Brad, barring power supplies, cases, and monitors, how many computers could you build?

[1840] Oh, man. I could build at least two computers.

[1841] Yeah, I'd say two to three.

[1842] At least two computers.

[1843] I could build at least three.

[1844] What do you mean when you say barring?

[1845] Let's not think about cases or power supplies or monitors.

[1846] We're talking about CPU, video card, RAM, hard drive.

[1847] There's some video cards on the board.

[1848] Whatever.

[1849] Dude, however you need to make it happen.

[1850] But something that you could plug into a power supply, plug into a monitor, plug into a mouse and keyboard, and have a computer.

[1851] I bet I've got five or six video cards in my house.

[1852] Really?

[1853] Yeah.

[1854] See, at some point I purged the video cards.

[1855] I got rid of them all.

[1856] CPUs go out with the motherboard.

[1857] Yeah, they sit on the motherboard.

[1858] It's terrible.

[1859] It's a terrible world.

[1860] I feel like I've known at least one or two people too many whose houses have become the overrun old computer store.

[1861] See, but I don't keep cases.

[1862] That's the beauty is that I'm not like, okay, here's another, you know, beige box to stack up.

[1863] Nothing gets dusty like computer parts.

[1864] Nothing collects.

[1865] Yeah, but not everything.

[1866] You really have all the boxes for that stuff?

[1867] No, no, no, in a box, not in the box.

[1868] I have one like moderate, like probably, I don't know, two by two by two cardboard box full of motherboards and RAM and hard drives.

[1869] And it's nice and neat.

[1870] The RAM that I just took out of my current PC because I had to replace it with bigger RAM is sitting on the floor.

[1871] I'll tell you what's worse.

[1872] The computer parts isn't the bad part, and you will be able to identify with this more intimately than anyone.

[1873] It's like in cables.

[1874] Oh, yeah.

[1875] The boxes that I have dedicated to cables in my home.

[1876] I have a separate cables box.

[1877] Well, that's right.

[1878] Of like eight different – well, it's like, okay, I don't want to get like all my – because I've got like 100 -foot – Cat 5 cables.

[1879] Everybody needs one of those.

[1880] All kinked up.

[1881] Every once in a while you need to bust out with a really long ethernet cable.

[1882] Tabs are busted on both ends.

[1883] There's a big fray in the middle where it got caught in a door because you were running into your neighbor's house or something.

[1884] So yeah, it's like that.

[1885] But then also all this console and TV stuff.

[1886] I've got a big ass fucking box just fully.

[1887] Here is the Ziploc bag where I just keep all of my S -video cables.

[1888] Is it black bag?

[1889] That's pretty good.

[1890] I wish I was that organized.

[1891] Instead, it's just like, here's another box full of cables.

[1892] What's in here?

[1893] That's me. Shit, I don't know.

[1894] And it took a lot of work for me to even reach that modicum of organization.

[1895] I did that at one point.

[1896] All my IDE cables wrapped up in a big rubber band.

[1897] See, those are throwaway.

[1898] Really?

[1899] You're done?

[1900] Anytime you need an IDE cable, the thing you're going to buy to plug in comes with an IDE cable.

[1901] I know.

[1902] Except they don't even make stuff with IDE anymore.

[1903] Right.

[1904] Also, I haven't used IDE in years.

[1905] And then also, I made the investment in myself several years ago and bought rounded IDE cables.

[1906] Oh, good for you.

[1907] So I don't have to.

[1908] You don't go back to the flat?

[1909] No. I also hate stuff that comes with proprietary stuff.

[1910] Here are seven adapters for this iPod thing that you're going to use this one because that will keep the other six in a little box.

[1911] I had a FM receiver for my car that had little backing plates so that you could mount different iPods into the seat.

[1912] God, we're terrible.

[1913] So it's like I only have the one.

[1914] I have the belt clip for an iPod.

[1915] that I don't even own that type of iPod anymore because it breaks.

[1916] I have the inline headphone remote control for a MP3 playing CD player.

[1917] Uh -huh.

[1918] That Rio, that Diamond.

[1919] That Diamond Rio.

[1920] Oh, man. CD player.

[1921] Yeah.

[1922] Like an electronic.

[1923] Like a specific thing.

[1924] And I remember like I had worn out the previous one.

[1925] So I had to buy this from the factory.

[1926] And it was like $20.

[1927] This thing that I paid like $20 for.

[1928] Couldn't be more useless.

[1929] Could not be more.

[1930] My Rio got stolen at a party.

[1931] I think I still have my CD player.

[1932] I think I still have the Rio.

[1933] The Rio Volt.

[1934] That was called?

[1935] No. The Volt was newer.

[1936] This is.

[1937] Whatever it was.

[1938] Anyway.

[1939] Bradley.

[1940] I have a Rio that Andy Deamer gave me that doesn't even have anything necessary to use.

[1941] I still have it.

[1942] Does that have an SD card?

[1943] I don't know.

[1944] I think this was before SD cards.

[1945] That wasn't part of the great CNET tech.

[1946] Hall.

[1947] No, that was his yard sale.

[1948] Remember that?

[1949] Or his sidewalk sale?

[1950] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[1951] That sidewalk sale was awesome.

[1952] Yeah.

[1953] That's some great shit.

[1954] I still have some of the VHS tapes.

[1955] Yeah, and we got nachos.

[1956] That stuff should be more.

[1957] Those nachos were fucking awesome, too.

[1958] Those were real Farley.

[1959] Are all the videotapes like obscure horror films?

[1960] Well, here I have one that's nothing but trauma trailers.

[1961] Okay.

[1962] I have another one that is a test tape of him making short films with a PXL 2000, which is great.

[1963] I'm going to show that to you at the same time.

[1964] I would love to see that.

[1965] Stuff like that.

[1966] Yeah.

[1967] That stuff needs to be more fun to destroy or get rid of.

[1968] Like there should be something that like when you bring it somewhere, it does something awesome because otherwise it just sits in closets.

[1969] That was the best part about living out in the middle of nowhere.

[1970] That house that was supposedly going to get demolished is when it came time to move out, we just started shooting things.

[1971] See, like that would be way more fun.

[1972] Like just shooting TVs with pellet guns and breaking them with baseball bats.

[1973] Like a wood chipper or something.

[1974] Yeah, it just became like total techno carnage of just like, well, fuck this thing.

[1975] We don't need this.

[1976] Like basically once we made the decision we were going to move out.

[1977] We broke our empty Jägermeister bottle collection, and once that was gone, it was like, well, none of this other stuff matters now.

[1978] We've already crossed this barrier, and it just all went from there.

[1979] Everything just got destroyed, like reckless abandon.

[1980] We should have a technology -burning wood chipper party, and you just bring stuff.

[1981] We were cutting up couches with machetes.

[1982] That's also good.

[1983] Yeah.

[1984] My dad's got a wood chipper.

[1985] Does he?

[1986] Yeah.

[1987] Does he mind if we stick like an old MP3 player in it?

[1988] I just won't tell him.

[1989] I'll say, hey, I need to borrow this for the house.

[1990] Got a couple of PC cases that might not make it.

[1991] It's not that big of a whichever.

[1992] If you want to put a hard drive in it, that might be fun to watch.

[1993] Cell phones will go through it.

[1994] Do you guys keep old cell phones?

[1995] Please tell me you don't.

[1996] I have like five sidekicks.

[1997] I have all of my old phones.

[1998] Do you really?

[1999] What are you going to do with your old phone?

[2000] I can't say.

[2001] Oh, so he has actual plans.

[2002] I have no sinister designs.

[2003] There might be stuff.

[2004] There might be stuff on those phones.

[2005] Like old pictures.

[2006] I don't want to lose.

[2007] That's all.

[2008] That's fair.

[2009] That's fair.

[2010] Memories.

[2011] Text them to, like, you know, put a SIM card in it.

[2012] Text it to someone.

[2013] I don't think they should not be public.

[2014] No, text it to yourself.

[2015] Maybe.

[2016] Once I realized there was a place to put old phones, I got rid of my old phone.

[2017] Yeah, I just, I know there's a place.

[2018] I've just been lazy with that stuff.

[2019] And then there's, like, the whole suite of cables and adapters for old phones.

[2020] Belt clips.

[2021] That are just like, oh, here's, like, it's USB to whatever crazy -ass connection this thing uses to do.

[2022] Good.

[2023] Now I can sync my Tapwave Zodiac with my computer.

[2024] Contact information and whatnot.

[2025] It's the worst.

[2026] The technology is the worst.

[2027] I played some Hail at Reach over the weekend.

[2028] Oh, good for you.

[2029] I think it's pretty good.

[2030] Did you play it on Heroic?

[2031] No. Okay.

[2032] I started playing on Heroic because I finished it on Normal.

[2033] Let's play some co -op.

[2034] Yeah, now I want to play some co -op.

[2035] We'll do that.

[2036] Okay.

[2037] I also played a bunch of, I went and downloaded a few of the get all of your points on firefight mods.

[2038] And even though they're just fat cheats, that stuff's fun.

[2039] It was pretty fun.

[2040] It was actually kind of fun.

[2041] Just be like, here, you have infinite rocket and you have infinite jet.

[2042] Now just fly around this level and just murder the hell out of these fools and hear the announcer go crazy for the next 10 minutes.

[2043] You know, that's a decent time.

[2044] Especially because after playing through about a third of it on Legendary.

[2045] I bet you just needed to get some, yeah.

[2046] So cathartic, man. I bet.

[2047] The gold -plated elites, what are those things?

[2048] Are those the Zealots?

[2049] The generals or...

[2050] Whatever.

[2051] Whatever.

[2052] The one I got, the guy had made it nothing but those things, but of course they all died in one hit.

[2053] And then I got the concussion rifle, which shoots really fast but has splash damage.

[2054] It's way better than the rocket launcher.

[2055] Oh, really?

[2056] Oh, my God.

[2057] Carnage.

[2058] Good stuff.

[2059] So much fun.

[2060] All right, let's talk about some news.

[2061] Let's talk about Ron Gilbert got hired by Tim Schafer to go work at Double Fine.

[2062] Great.

[2063] How the tables have turned.

[2064] Yeah, shouldn't it be the other way around?

[2065] No. I bet he just wanted...

[2066] Oh, wait.

[2067] Before we move on, I played more Amnesia.

[2068] Okay.

[2069] That game's pretty scary.

[2070] I knew that I couldn't play it even just from the teaser video that they have on Steam.

[2071] Okay, that's not for me. I will say I've never been really scared by a video game.

[2072] Those who have played Amnesia, there's this water part which was actually pretty fucking scary.

[2073] Go watch the quick look.

[2074] That part's not so scary.

[2075] We didn't even see any monsters in that video.

[2076] I don't think I've actually seen a monster.

[2077] You know they're there.

[2078] It's weird.

[2079] It's kind of weird.

[2080] Sorry.

[2081] But yeah, check that game out.

[2082] It's good.

[2083] All right.

[2084] Back to...

[2085] Back to the news.

[2086] Sorry.

[2087] Back to news.

[2088] Ron Gilbert.

[2089] Ron Gilbert.

[2090] In the mix with Tim Schafer.

[2091] Back together again.

[2092] Yeah.

[2093] Now who's the master and who's...

[2094] Tim Schafer.

[2095] The Jedi.

[2096] Tim Schafer just wanted another version of him working at Double Fine.

[2097] They do look pretty.

[2098] You look at pictures of those two dudes.

[2099] Well...

[2100] Tim Schafer has the artiste hairstyle going on now.

[2101] Yeah, it's straight -haired versus curly -haired versions of each other.

[2102] You think Tim Schafer says, I'm hiring Ron Gilbert, or you think he says, we're working together?

[2103] I think the headlines were pretty much like, Ron Gilbert hired by Double Fine kind of stuff.

[2104] Well, the headlines aren't necessarily how they put it.

[2105] I feel like Tim Schafer can't really say, I hired you.

[2106] We're working together.

[2107] you know, be like a really funny thing.

[2108] I would tell the world that I hired you.

[2109] If I was Tim Schafer, I would like blog posts and like every interview.

[2110] Guess who's getting me coffee now.

[2111] Yeah, exactly.

[2112] It would totally be those types of jokes.

[2113] Ham that stuff the hell up.

[2114] Take it to the hill.

[2115] Kotaku interviewed both those guys about this.

[2116] Oh, yeah.

[2117] There was a lot of goofing.

[2118] Ham and egging about.

[2119] Ham and egging.

[2120] Yeah, like, you know, they were like, so what's your role?

[2121] And he's like, oh, I'm Tim's boss.

[2122] Yeah, I am.

[2123] Yeah, whatever.

[2124] I mean, Tim Schafer owns that company, right?

[2125] Yeah.

[2126] And runs it, so technically he hired the other guy.

[2127] I mean, this makes sense.

[2128] Double Fine is going crazy with their downloadable stuff right now.

[2129] Well, it's not all downloadable, right?

[2130] They just have multiple projects in the works.

[2131] Yeah, but do you think Tim was like, man, that Death Bank, that is something good.

[2132] So I went to, I can't talk about the game just yet, but I went to Double Fine last week to go look at Costume Quest, which is the first of this.

[2133] What do you mean, Clothing Party?

[2134] Yeah, Clothing Party.

[2135] Maybe you've heard of it from Vinny Caravella.

[2136] Whatever.

[2137] A lot of games coming.

[2138] No, no, Vinny, what I love.

[2139] Oh, wardrobe bash.

[2140] What I love, Vinny, is your fearlessness when it comes to like you know what the game's name should be.

[2141] You're like, well, I don't know exactly what it is.

[2142] I'm just going to take a stab at it.

[2143] You're going to know what I'm talking about.

[2144] I'm going to give it a go.

[2145] It's like clothing party, right?

[2146] Oh, man. It's like, well, no, Costume Quest, but...

[2147] What was that Resident Evil?

[2148] I see how you get here.

[2149] It was like the Wii Resident Evil.

[2150] What was that last one?

[2151] Umbrella Chronicles?

[2152] Dark Side Chronicles?

[2153] Oh, man, I forget what...

[2154] I can't remember.

[2155] That was the last one.

[2156] I forget what it was, but...

[2157] Okay.

[2158] Never mind.

[2159] Good story.

[2160] Well, I'm not trying to give Vinny a hard time.

[2161] The thing he kept calling it was very funny and endearing in some way.

[2162] Stuff rattle around up there.

[2163] They made it sound...

[2164] Yeah, they made it sound like they're...

[2165] There was a big downloadable focus going forward.

[2166] There is, but they also said at least one of those four is a retail product.

[2167] But so part of the thing is like there's this woman, Tasha Harris, who's part of the Double Fine team who is actually running Costume Quest.

[2168] That is not a Tim Schafer joint necessarily, and that's the first Double Fine game that hasn't been so.

[2169] I, it makes total sense to me for them to like, all right, let's, let's get some delegation on, you know, Ron Gilbert's going to, it's still be going to be a double fine game.

[2170] We're going to use our artists.

[2171] I don't even mean on the kind of like format.

[2172] I just mean like the content of death spank being like, oh yeah, that's, you know, Ron's doing really great things.

[2173] And I bet if you asked at some point, someone would just say, no, that wasn't me. That was all them.

[2174] Also, I mean, that's Ron Schaefer.

[2175] I'm sure has a pretty good idea of what Ron Gilbert.

[2176] Absolutely.

[2177] I'm not disparaging Ron Gilbert at all.

[2178] I mean, I love the, I love a lot of his work.

[2179] It turns out, it turns out in this interview, he worked out of the double fine office for most of like what he did on death bank.

[2180] There you go.

[2181] It would be, I would be interested to hear kind of the death bank story someday as a division of comedy labor.

[2182] on that one, because there's some stuff that is funny, and there's some stuff that seems like a very Ron Gilbert style of funny, and then there's a lot of stuff that doesn't.

[2183] Also a little flat, maybe.

[2184] That is not funny.

[2185] Who's going to cop to writing the not funny part, though?

[2186] Well, what if you approach it and say, that game is so fun?

[2187] How about this one part?

[2188] I knew it!

[2189] You did that.

[2190] Who wrote the Guybrush Threepwood joke?

[2191] It wasn't really so much a joke as much as it just said Guybrush Threepwood, so it could kind of go either way.

[2192] Guys, I have a mind -blowing piece of news for you.

[2193] Lay it out.

[2194] NBA Elite 11 is coming out in 2011.

[2195] What?

[2196] A sports game with a yearly number on it.

[2197] Wait, so it's got all the guys from 2012 in it?

[2198] Yes.

[2199] Great.

[2200] Now what's happening to NBA Jam?

[2201] It's cut to the heart of the matter.

[2202] Yeah.

[2203] The cool part of the story.

[2204] The cool part of the story is that NBA Jam will be released on 360 and PS3 before the holidays.

[2205] Hooray!

[2206] So it's just going to be an XBLA game.

[2207] What is going on?

[2208] I would assume that they're actually just going to make it the full retail game and put it out for real.

[2209] That would be my guess.

[2210] It seems a little late to just suddenly decide to do it.

[2211] Yo, that content is done.

[2212] On the Wii.

[2213] Yeah, but it's like the graphics are already done, right?

[2214] Yeah, yeah.

[2215] But they've already ported all of the high detail Magic Johnson model waiting in the wings ready for the Xbox.

[2216] I imagine.

[2217] I hope not.

[2218] You don't know that.

[2219] I don't want it.

[2220] No. You want the low detail one?

[2221] I want the Wii assets.

[2222] Okay.

[2223] I imagine that the assets were generated at something.

[2224] Well, I don't know for sure.

[2225] I bet they're just going to put out that downloadable thing.

[2226] I'm easily confused.

[2227] This was a packing, right?

[2228] NBA Jam was a downloadable pack -in with NBA Elite 11.

[2229] They were going to put a code in the box to let you get three modes of the Wii NBA Jam on 360 and PS3.

[2230] I hope that this translates into them putting the full game out at retail on 360 and PS3.

[2231] That's assuming there's no Nintendo exclusive in place.

[2232] I don't think so what is the actual it's also they said that it'd be due out by the holidays that's they also they're pretty clearly saying it's not simultaneously shipping because that would be you know next week wait NBA Jam for Wii is out next week by the way games are out next week it's October and so they didn't say anything about the release of the 360 NBA Jam in this story that is they said it was it was due by holiday still for 360 and PS3 okay for NBA Jam, but NBA Elite is pushed off until, like, March.

[2233] So this won't...

[2234] Yeah.

[2235] It won't affect the timeline of the NBA Jam release, but obviously it will affect the format, because...

[2236] Maybe.

[2237] Or the packet.

[2238] I pre -ordered...

[2239] I stand by my assertion this thing will be released as planned.

[2240] No, it'll just be the three modes?

[2241] Yeah.

[2242] For $15.

[2243] I hope that's not the case.

[2244] Yeah, it would be nice if it wasn't.

[2245] But then it still comes with Elite later on?

[2246] Is there a packing code leader?

[2247] Who knows what they'll be.

[2248] I don't know.

[2249] Elite at this point.

[2250] Also, who cares?

[2251] Once they unhitched the NBA Jam Wagon from NBA Elite, it was like...

[2252] Did you see the video?

[2253] There was a video that someone sent to me of someone playing the NBA Elite demo, and there was one of these Lakers players doing a full -on game room center court.

[2254] Oh, no. Just stretched out, stuck there.

[2255] The ball would get past him, and it would just drop on the court.

[2256] Between plays!

[2257] Between scores, between camera movement, all this stuff just stuck there.

[2258] It was pretty special.

[2259] Maybe if you buy NBA Jam, you'll get Elite code for free.

[2260] Maybe.

[2261] God, I wonder if they'll pull in PS1, Madden era.

[2262] Just like, we've got to skip a year on basketball.

[2263] We've fucked this up too bad.

[2264] Well, yeah, if they just hold it another four or five months, they can call it Elite 2012.

[2265] Right.

[2266] Weird.

[2267] Yes.

[2268] Making games is hard.

[2269] It is.

[2270] Yeah, it's hard.

[2271] Clearly.

[2272] Yeah.

[2273] Just ask the folks at Lionhead, who Source is close to, are saying...

[2274] What part do you believe?

[2275] That Milo has been canceled and that the tech for Milo will probably appear later on in some sort of...

[2276] uh fable themed connect game this to me still just seems like that was the plan all along yeah and like you know everyone misspoke there was never five times back when they said no that's not happening as a game and someone said no it's very much happening as a game as i was like no it's not happening as a game like i mean what like that's why i don't believe this story at all because that to me never seemed like a game so whatever way this finds itself its way into a game is what it was originally intended to be which is a proof of concept into technology I don't know I mean yeah it's an issue of yeah just cagey corporate communication where people are excited and they want to talk about stuff but they're also not allowed and there's you know what you see from the public end versus or I would really like to see where that is right now before they that development of milo games so like what the hell are you doing in the frisbee yeah i don't know in the reality where milo is a standalone product and not just like a weird technology proof of concept like what is the current state of that yeah where are we and what was the design doc how did that eventually become a product that you sell to people in that like like how does that become a full game right how is it not like my whatever my notebook or uh my notebook milo Check out what I drew.

[2277] That's a Nintendo product.

[2278] We can play pen and paper games.

[2279] Games not included.

[2280] Look at this.

[2281] Do I have to teach Milo how to play tic -tac -toe?

[2282] He won't know inherently.

[2283] Where do I put the knots and crosses?

[2284] Other news happened also, but them's the hits, folks.

[2285] Let's rapidly and judiciously move on to some new releases for the week.

[2286] There's a lot of them.

[2287] All right, great.

[2288] A couple of new releases this week.

[2289] What you got?

[2290] Starting off with Samurai Warriors 3 for the Nintendo Wii, published by Nintendo of America.

[2291] Hmm.

[2292] That weird part in the year where they're looking and going like, man, no one is putting out Wii.

[2293] Okay, I guess we should.

[2294] Okay, let's pick up some stuff and just bring it over ourselves.

[2295] From Tecmo for the PlayStation 3.

[2296] It's not us who.

[2297] Atelier Rorona, The Alchemists of Ireland.

[2298] It is a Japanese -ass JRPG.

[2299] Atelier Rorona, isn't it?

[2300] Atelier?

[2301] What did I say?

[2302] Myrona.

[2303] Atelier Rorona.

[2304] You said Atelier or whatever.

[2305] I did say Atelier.

[2306] I believe it is pronounced Atelier.

[2307] Atelier.

[2308] How do you spell it?

[2309] A -T -E -L -I -E -R.

[2310] Atelier.

[2311] I don't know.

[2312] Atelier?

[2313] I don't know.

[2314] Oh, okay.

[2315] Atelier.

[2316] Yep.

[2317] I don't know.

[2318] Don't know.

[2319] Long running series.

[2320] Okay, really?

[2321] Not all that long running, I guess.

[2322] But it has existed.

[2323] There was the Atelier Iris.

[2324] Yeah, all those games.

[2325] Okay.

[2326] Greg Hastings, Paintball 2 for Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, brought to you by the fine folks at Majesco.

[2327] Oh, they're still around?

[2328] Yep.

[2329] Dead Rising 2 for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3.

[2330] Oh, so they are shipping PC the same.

[2331] Okay.

[2332] That is the claim from the retailer.

[2333] I've only seen it on 360 so far.

[2334] Quantum Theory for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 from Tecmo Koei.

[2335] Interested to see what that ended up being.

[2336] Yeah.

[2337] I haven't seen that game in a really long time.

[2338] Me neither.

[2339] There was a demo that came out that I guess didn't get a very positive reaction.

[2340] I didn't even know there was a demo that came out.

[2341] That's great.

[2342] Rapala Pro Bass Fishing 2010 for the PSP, PlayStation 3, 360, Wii, DS, and PlayStation 2.

[2343] I know that's banging.

[2344] For the deuce.

[2345] FIFA Soccer 2011 for the PSP, 360, PlayStation 3, DS, and PS deuce.

[2346] Beautiful sport, beautiful game.

[2347] Mm -hmm.

[2348] It's a beautiful game.

[2349] The rest of the world is going bananas.

[2350] I'd like to check out a soccer game.

[2351] Yeah, I bet you would.

[2352] Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii.

[2353] What's up?

[2354] We're talking about the soccer game, right?

[2355] You're saying now there's a...

[2356] Now there's something I'm not going to play.

[2357] Front Mission Evolve for the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360.

[2358] I kind of want one of those guitars, though.

[2359] It felt good last time I tried it.

[2360] I haven't tried them yet.

[2361] The new Guitar Hero guitar felt...

[2362] Nice.

[2363] Here's how bummed out I am about Rhythm Games.

[2364] I don't even know a new song that's in there.

[2365] Somebody said Rush.

[2366] Rush.

[2367] 2021 -12.

[2368] Has Rush not been in other...

[2369] No, they have, but this is like...

[2370] Like a whole album.

[2371] It's like a whole EP.

[2372] I used to be really excited when the song list would come out and be like, oh my gosh, here's the next five songs.

[2373] I looked at the song list.

[2374] It's not...

[2375] But also, like, all of the, like, Harmonix and Rock Band's hardcore DLC initiative has made the on -disc songs kind of irrelevant.

[2376] Yeah.

[2377] Like, I kind of don't give a shit.

[2378] Yeah, but I don't even, when was the last time you checked out a Rock Band song?

[2379] And also, like, I don't really care about.

[2380] I actually just bought the Snoop Dogg song pack.

[2381] Nice.

[2382] Even though I haven't fucking booted up Rock Band in, like, a year.

[2383] Oh, is it next year old motherboards and wrapped in IDE cables?

[2384] I am a sick person that's still, like, every.

[2385] Four or five months will...

[2386] I don't even boot up fucking rock band.

[2387] You can go to the music store.

[2388] I boot up the music store.

[2389] I'm like, what's going on?

[2390] Oh, that Alanis Morissette song.

[2391] That would be fun if I ever played this game.

[2392] But I still keep buying the DLC.

[2393] Yeah, it's Guitar Hero this year.

[2394] Hope you assholes are happy.

[2395] I mean, I think it's nice that they tried to go craft a story and try and do their stuff, but that nut...

[2396] Nothing about those characters, nothing about a story in a rhythm game is interesting to me. At least the way that they seem to be doing it.

[2397] I feel like I just can't anymore.

[2398] It's just not about that.

[2399] It's not about that.

[2400] I don't know.

[2401] I just think...

[2402] And you look at the two games this year, like...

[2403] Is there a competition?

[2404] Yeah, it's like Rock Band is iterating on instruments and...

[2405] like pro mode and all it's like it seems to be like it like the rock band 223 like there's a clear generational shift obviously some of it showed up in beatles first but you look at guitar hero and the pitches yeah but you can earn more stars per song it's just really weird it's really weird but even with rock band it's like they've just gone mad yeah it's it's it's not even They don't get to make another one of those.

[2406] No one's going to let them do that again.

[2407] Unless this somehow catches on and reignites the genre.

[2408] Like, no. At some point, someone's just going to be like, I wear a suit to work and you're all fired.

[2409] Or something like that.

[2410] From Mission Evolved for PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360.

[2411] That's a third -person shooter.

[2412] That's a double helix release.

[2413] Yeah.

[2414] Formerly known as Shiny.

[2415] I've got a copy of that in my bag for about a week now.

[2416] Yeah, we should take a look at that and do something with it.

[2417] Sid Meier's Pirates for the Nintendo Wii.

[2418] I threw that in over the weekend.

[2419] It's terrible.

[2420] It is an awful, careless port of a very old game that looks even older than it ought to on the Wii.

[2421] I remember it being well -liked when it originally was coming out, that Pirates remake.

[2422] I remember liking it.

[2423] It was pretty light on the strategy stuff, and it was a lot of minigame stuff, but it had a good charm and feel to it.

[2424] That whole project just turned me crotchety because I really liked the original Pirates.

[2425] Sure, sure.

[2426] I just went, ah, my lawn.

[2427] Yep, yep, I get it.

[2428] Well, this wouldn't help.

[2429] At this point, there are people that are old enough to be crotchety about the Pirates remake that don't pay attention to this, please.

[2430] Morph X for the Xbox 360.

[2431] Wow, really?

[2432] That's the claim.

[2433] I don't believe it.

[2434] That's that shooter from 505, right?

[2435] Mm -hmm.

[2436] Yeah.

[2437] Get fit with Mel B for PlayStation 3.

[2438] Hell yeah.

[2439] Move required.

[2440] Who's Mel B?

[2441] From the Spice Girls?

[2442] The Spice Girls?

[2443] Maybe you heard of Scary Spice.

[2444] Which is Mel B?

[2445] Mel B. Yeah.

[2446] It's not Mel C. No, Mel C. That would make more sense, but it's not Mel C. But Mel B, I think, is higher profile in the UK.

[2447] Absolutely.

[2448] She's higher profile worldwide.

[2449] What's the B?

[2450] It's private.

[2451] I do not know what the B stands for.

[2452] C stood for chisel or something.

[2453] I don't know what the B stands for.

[2454] Anyway.

[2455] That's for the PlayStation 3 from Deep Silver.

[2456] Xbox Live Arcade.

[2457] Is that a move game?

[2458] Yes.

[2459] Move required.

[2460] Xbox Live Arcade this week.

[2461] Hydrophobia for $15.

[2462] It's a weird first -person shooter with a lot of water physics.

[2463] Third person?

[2464] Hmm, okay.

[2465] I think it has something akin to Tomb Raider.

[2466] There's, like, climbing and stuff.

[2467] All right.

[2468] And water.

[2469] I believe you.

[2470] You climb out of water a lot.

[2471] Jeff, would you like to know about Game Room this week?

[2472] Yeah, sure.

[2473] We've got Hyper Crash, which is from Konami.

[2474] It's an arcade game.

[2475] Okay.

[2476] We have Missile Command.

[2477] What?

[2478] Which version?

[2479] And we have Pressure Cooker, both for the 2600.

[2480] That's right, 2600 version of Missile Command.

[2481] They've already put out the arcade version of Missile Command, which was bad because you don't get the trackball.

[2482] At least you'll be playing this with something akin to the real controller.

[2483] Super essential.

[2484] All right, go.

[2485] Deep Pocket Billiards for the Intellivision.

[2486] Good, we needed more pool.

[2487] That's it.

[2488] Yeah.

[2489] Four releases.

[2490] Look forward to that.

[2491] $412, I think they were saying.

[2492] Is that what you'd spend?

[2493] Oh, my God.

[2494] At least the points that I've purchased will be some sort of tax write -off.

[2495] Sure.

[2496] The company is not funding our game room.

[2497] That's good.

[2498] Know that your membership dollars are not necessarily going to fund game room.

[2499] Although they are still paying your salary.

[2500] They are still paying my salary, so there is that kind of end around, but we are not directly taking...

[2501] Yeah, out of the business.

[2502] This is all coming out of my own pocket because I'm an idiot.

[2503] PlayStation Network, we've got Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light still without online co -op.

[2504] That'll be really good because they'll patch it in after everyone has forgotten that that game exists.

[2505] After absolutely everyone.

[2506] Yeah, on every platform.

[2507] It's a real unfortunate situation there.

[2508] Especially for such an otherwise good game.

[2509] And Sword and Soldiers.

[2510] It's a side -scrolling real -time strategy game in which three distinct factions battle for the powers of the gods.

[2511] And that's most of your new releases at this point.

[2512] I would like to pass the mic to Michael Diamond, to the Mike D of reading about Nintendo download games.

[2513] Jeff Gerstman, what is happening in the world of...

[2514] DSiWare?

[2515] Its name is DSiWare and it gets respect.

[2516] Yep.

[2517] Your cash and your jewelry is what it expects.

[2518] Got it.

[2519] Does it really, though?

[2520] Yeah.

[2521] Get respect.

[2522] No, but it still expects your cash and jewelry.

[2523] Oh, I'm sure it does.

[2524] Much like Mel B. All right, so DSiWare, Jeff, what do we got?

[2525] Xenonia!

[2526] All right.

[2527] In all capital letters.

[2528] From Game Evil USA Incorporated.

[2529] E10 plus mild fantasy violence.

[2530] Game Evil?

[2531] Game Evil.

[2532] Is that like a play on medieval or is it just G -A -M -E -E -V -I -L?

[2533] G -A -M -E -V -I -L.

[2534] Oh, shared E. Shared E. Game Evil.

[2535] Game Evil.

[2536] Game Evil.

[2537] 800 Nintendo DSi points.

[2538] Classic RPG action returns with Zedonia.

[2539] Get ready for the endless journey of regret.

[2540] who's on a mission to find the reason for the death of his father at the hands of a demon.

[2541] He begins his quest by choosing one of three classes, Paladin, Warrior, or Assassin.

[2542] Players can equip and customize using hundreds of different types of weapons and armor.

[2543] There are tons of items to refine or combine from five different item classes.

[2544] Normal, Magic, Rare, Unique, and Epic.

[2545] There are even more astonishing features, such as full -skilled trees which you can level up, along with stunning visuals and sound effects.

[2546] Zenonia offers extensive playtime with numerous main and side quests, plus good and evil storylines to choose from.

[2547] Anime -style graphics and innovative real -life systems such as a day -night cycle and a hunger -weight system make Zenonia!

[2548] A unique game experience for everybody.

[2549] How much was that again?

[2550] That sounds like a terrific value.

[2551] What else is going on?

[2552] That was a long one.

[2553] Yeah, it took a patience.

[2554] Fizz from DK Games.

[2555] That's all caps on Fizz, all caps on DK -GAMES.

[2556] Donkey Kong made it.

[2557] I was going to say you think it's from Germany.

[2558] That's also a good guess.

[2559] 200 Nintendo DSi points.

[2560] Welcome to Fizz, the explosive puzzle game.

[2561] In Fizz, you earn points by creating rings of energy.

[2562] To do that, you must align identical colors and create links between the different nodes.

[2563] The bigger your rings, the more points you earn.

[2564] There will be outside events that get in your way, such as asteroids, meteorite showers, and aliens who will try to break your nodes.

[2565] What?

[2566] Magnetic storms and pulsars will change colors, and magnetic spheres will prevent you from using the nodes in the surrounding area.

[2567] You're causing a walkout in the engineering bay area.

[2568] Exceedingly simple to understand but challenging to master.

[2569] Fizz is an inventive puzzle challenge that will have gamers on the edge of their seats.

[2570] That's it for DSi.

[2571] Woo!

[2572] There's a real quick supplemental piece of DSi news on the lighter side of DSiWare, Cave Story.

[2573] Oh, yeah.

[2574] They announced they were going to do it.

[2575] Cave Story is coming to DSiWare.

[2576] Oh, excellent.

[2577] I guess it's done.

[2578] It's coming out soon.

[2579] Great.

[2580] Cool.

[2581] Just in time for the 3DS.

[2582] Yeah.

[2583] All right, we wear another couple of hot games.

[2584] Some bangers.

[2585] Target Toss Pro.

[2586] Lawn darts.

[2587] Incredible technologies.

[2588] 1 to 16 players.

[2589] Rated E for everyone.

[2590] I'm sorry, did you say 1 to 16?

[2591] 1 to 16 players.

[2592] You know, there's nothing I enjoy to do with 15 of my closest friends as much as fake lawn darts.

[2593] Fake lawn darts.

[2594] 700 Wii points, TM.

[2595] Target Toss Pro Lawn Darts is a new video game based on one of the nation's most infamous backyard games.

[2596] I mean, I play some games in backyards that are infamous.

[2597] Do you play lawn darts?

[2598] Well, you could call it lawn darts, like, as a euphemism.

[2599] People's vision.

[2600] Get impaired.

[2601] There are four types of flying dart action to choose from.

[2602] Now this is all ruined now.

[2603] Classic lawn darts, 501, cricket, and poker darts.

[2604] Oh yeah.

[2605] Each game has a unique scoring method and strategy to keep players entertained for hours.

[2606] Classic lawn darts involves throwing three darts at two circles with an escalating red dot bonus bullseye in the center.

[2607] I like that red dot bonus.

[2608] I'll tell you this, though.

[2609] I only play poker darts in the front lawn.

[2610] No, poker in the rear.

[2611] Oh, that's right.

[2612] 501 is similar to the classic pub darts game of the same name.

[2613] Throw three darts at a dartboard during eight rounds of play until all 501 points and not one point more.

[2614] are cleared.

[2615] Cricket is another classic pub darts game of three tosses per round, challenging players to close out the bullseye and the numbers 15 through 20 before their opponent.

[2616] Poker darts involves launching five darts and a deck of 52 playing cards while attempting to get the best poker hand and highest scores over three hands.

[2617] Vinny, do you have any special techniques that you like to use when you try and close out the bullseye?

[2618] It's disgusting.

[2619] I just think about baseball.

[2620] When you're trying to close out the bullseye?

[2621] Oh, yeah.

[2622] That's...

[2623] Yeah, you know, I got my own method.

[2624] This is why lawn darts is infamous.

[2625] I bought a speculum.

[2626] Astro Bugs Revenge.

[2627] From sudden games, one to two players.

[2628] Rated E for everyone.

[2629] Mild fantasy violence.

[2630] 700 Wii points.

[2631] Astro Bugs Revenge.

[2632] That's a Z in bugs.

[2633] I can tell by the way you said it.

[2634] Bugs.

[2635] Is an action puzzle game with a retro vibe.

[2636] Protect our solar system from astro bugs.

[2637] Even a Z there, lowercase, whatnot.

[2638] And blast them by matching three or more bugs.

[2639] Pick up valuable power -ups and activate them to annihilate the incoming invaders.

[2640] Hold on, power -ups or power -ups?

[2641] Power -ups, got it.

[2642] Flip to the other side in revenge mode and play as the bugs.

[2643] Test your skills against your friends by playing in co -op or versus mode.

[2644] This action -packed game will surely keep you challenged.

[2645] Short one for that one.

[2646] I think they just stopped.

[2647] I think they had more of a, you know what?

[2648] Yeah, fuck it.

[2649] Nobody's reading these.

[2650] We're fine.

[2651] Let's make them longer so this asshole stops reading them.

[2652] Little do they know.

[2653] Long darts.

[2654] Long darts.

[2655] Perfect.

[2656] Right?

[2657] Lawn darts.

[2658] This is what the Wii was invented for.

[2659] What better fit?

[2660] 16 -player lawn darts.

[2661] 16 -player.

[2662] It'd be cool if you'd throw the Wii remote just in the air.

[2663] Just let it fall.

[2664] You could do that.

[2665] Infamous.

[2666] Infamous backyard game.

[2667] All right, let's go to emails.

[2668] Let's read some emails from some listeners.

[2669] How do you guys feel about that?

[2670] Yes.

[2671] Vinny, thank you for not leaving me completely hanging there.

[2672] I was waiting for Brad to pick it up.

[2673] Emails.

[2674] Bombcast at giantbomb .com is the email address to send in your question.

[2675] Brad is not your monkey.

[2676] You don't control Brad.

[2677] No, that's why I was waiting.

[2678] He fucking says emails when he wants to fucking say emails.

[2679] Emails on command, all right?

[2680] That's right.

[2681] I kind of do.

[2682] I don't ever hear you say emails other times.

[2683] In fact, it seems like you deliberately go out of your way the rest of your life to say electronic mails or messages or I just got this thing.

[2684] You don't like seeing emails.

[2685] Did you see the latest posts to my web board?

[2686] Yeah.

[2687] He only wants to say emails when he's getting paid for it.

[2688] Bullet board service.

[2689] That's what I'm off the clock.

[2690] That's where it's come to here.

[2691] First email comes in from Finstern.

[2692] Dear Bombcast, I was psyched to play Civ V when I...

[2693] When I saw the quick look up on the site and ran to Steam and purchased it only to be allowed to preload it, Instant Sadness.

[2694] So with that, I was wondering, why do you think Steam has separate release dates for Regents?

[2695] I'm going to go on a limb and say that's probably not Steam, but the publisher is saying that we don't want to undercut whatever the date we have for the...

[2696] Retail releases.

[2697] Retails.

[2698] Yes, retails indeed.

[2699] And it's my understanding that retailers will make crazy demands of like, we don't even want to be day and date with the digital releases.

[2700] Have you guys heard of any of this stuff?

[2701] I mean, you will see once in a while a Steam game coming out like a day or two after.

[2702] Yeah.

[2703] I don't know that that's happened lately though.

[2704] I haven't seen it in a while, but it has happened.

[2705] That used to happen.

[2706] Sure.

[2707] Dead Rising 2 came out in Europe.

[2708] Yeah, that came out like at retail.

[2709] Yeah, I'm just saying both, Steam and.

[2710] And for Civ V, there was like a two -day difference.

[2711] Oh, for Steam, right, yeah, yeah.

[2712] There was a two -day difference between like it came out in the U .S. and then came out in Europe.

[2713] The thing to keep in mind is that these are still like, even though it's just 2K to us.

[2714] That's a big -ass company and within each region is being run by whole different teams of dudes.

[2715] Making different decisions sometimes.

[2716] Making different kinds of decisions based on different things, different priorities and different needs for – All sorts of insanity.

[2717] Europe and also everyone just has their old fiefdom.

[2718] So then sometimes – I imagine that they would have to make sure that there was a lot of language support in whatever they put out over there.

[2719] That's true.

[2720] Yeah, that's true.

[2721] I mean they probably put it in the U .S. version also, but – Who knows?

[2722] That's definitely part of it.

[2723] Next email comes in from Zach Moss in the UK.

[2724] Hey, Bombcast.

[2725] Long -time listener.

[2726] Wanted to bring up something peculiar.

[2727] Whilst.

[2728] Whilst.

[2729] Whilst.

[2730] All right.

[2731] I believe you now.

[2732] He's from the UK.

[2733] Whilst browsing the internet.

[2734] Is it whilst?

[2735] Can it go either way?

[2736] I think it could go either way.

[2737] I thought it could go either way.

[2738] Whilst.

[2739] Whilst.

[2740] I mean, I hear British people say wilst, but I thought it could go either way.

[2741] I've never heard wilst, but if a British person said it, I would just...

[2742] I don't know.

[2743] I'm not going to try and correct them.

[2744] What the fuck?

[2745] I thought it was a matter of taste or preference.

[2746] Englishman.

[2747] I like a wilst.

[2748] Now you're going to fuck me up now.

[2749] We should check.

[2750] We should check.

[2751] I thought it could go both ways.

[2752] Wilst.

[2753] I don't know.

[2754] While...

[2755] Yes.

[2756] While I done been browsing what on the internet...

[2757] Okay, got it.

[2758] Just speaking to Jeff.

[2759] I saw an advert for MySpace Sky Heroes, MySpace, MySims Sky Heroes, and was in the middle of changing the page when I realized the music sounded familiar.

[2760] I then recognized the music as the main theme to command and conquer generals.

[2761] My question is, is this normal?

[2762] It's the first time I've ever noticed it, but is this something that happens a lot?

[2763] Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[2764] Cheers.

[2765] So again.

[2766] Adverts.

[2767] Trifecta.

[2768] Adverts.

[2769] Wilt.

[2770] I was taking the lift up to my flat.

[2771] Exactly.

[2772] We believe you, Zach Moss.

[2773] We believe you.

[2774] Or Lori Loading Doc.

[2775] You needed the lift because you were pushing your mum in the pram, right?

[2776] I was.

[2777] Like EA.

[2778] What?

[2779] Well, so EA still has like the EA tracks.

[2780] Yeah.

[2781] Initiative where they're, you know, signing artists for.

[2782] Yeah.

[2783] Use in multiple games.

[2784] So there's like it's.

[2785] at least amongst like the sports games, it hasn't been uncommon to be like, oh, okay, you'll hear this one fucking newfound glory song is going to show up.

[2786] Isn't tracks just for external licensing though?

[2787] Four or five.

[2788] Yeah, I believe so.

[2789] What do you mean?

[2790] Well, I mean, Command & Conquer stuff.

[2791] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2792] Well, that's what I'm saying.

[2793] But yeah, like that's the example I can think of.

[2794] And even that, yeah, because it is like.

[2795] It's not something that was made internally.

[2796] Maybe that just indicates the amount of respect they have left for Command & Conquer.

[2797] Yeah, I was going to say, it's very much, well, we have all this music that we're never going to use again.

[2798] And this MySim stuff, we're not really getting behind either, so we can't afford to have new stuff made.

[2799] So it's like 15 years from now, Paul's going to be like, we're close to re -releasing Command & Conquer.

[2800] I guess they actually already did put out Command & Conquer 1 for free for download at some point, didn't they?

[2801] Yep.

[2802] I wonder if that's still out there.

[2803] Blaze the trail.

[2804] This next email comes in from Devin.

[2805] Now, we've been talking a lot about Civ 5 on the podcast and on the site in general lately, but we don't always know exactly what the hell we're talking about.

[2806] So Devin has been kind enough to throw in five fun key points for playing Civ, things to keep in mind.

[2807] As someone who is himself still burgeoning in his Civ V skills, I take these all to heart myself.

[2808] Rule number one, make cities with a purpose.

[2809] Three basic types of cities, production city, money city, and research city.

[2810] Only build buildings that help with that objective, i .e. library in research city, barracks slash forge in production city, and bank in money city, etc. When you scout at the start, pick spots for these three types.

[2811] Three specialized cities will outperform six all -purpose cities.

[2812] Your capital will serve as a jack -of -all -trades.

[2813] but should be focused down the line.

[2814] Build defense.

[2815] Your production city should always be building units unless it is constructing a building to help build them better, stronger, faster.

[2816] Do not use your first great scientist to build one tech.

[2817] Use him to build an academy near your research city when combined with other research -enhancing buildings and techs down the line.

[2818] The games will be infinitely higher throughout the game than sacrificing him for one tech.

[2819] Pick a victory early.

[2820] Assess the situation early in the game.

[2821] If you're isolated, go for tech because you don't need to focus on military.

[2822] If you're getting surrounded by other civs, go military because you will be choked out of the land race.

[2823] If you are in land with little production tiles and cannot keep up with opponents in terms of army size, go for peaceful victories, etc. Final one, and something that I've been telling people not to do, and there you go.

[2824] Play the tutorial.

[2825] I cannot believe you guys told Brad, who had never touched a Civilization game before, to jump straight into the play now.

[2826] There is a learn -as -you -play tutorial that sets you up on a 1v1 map on easy with two city -states.

[2827] It has hands -on learning tools that teach you the basics while playing a real match.

[2828] It is also brief.

[2829] Yeah, man. I should try that.

[2830] I skipped it as well.

[2831] Worth it.

[2832] I mean, I just felt that like the inline tutorial and kind of – Yeah.

[2833] Yeah, it still tells you a lot.

[2834] The advisor stuff is rich enough and gives you enough kind of guidelines of where you need to be going and what does what and why.

[2835] I just don't know why they keep telling me to make workers.

[2836] I have like a dozen workers already.

[2837] At a certain point, they get kind of, well, again, this is your middle stage, and this is a point where I often flounder in Civ, is you hit a point where you've built on all the land that you can, that you have, because you're on a continent and there's only so much space.

[2838] And that's the point at which, well, having your workers around, It starts becoming a liability because there's that upkeep cost, and that's going to start.

[2839] You have so much money, that's probably not going to be that big a deal.

[2840] But if you have less money, like if you have $1 ,000 or less, it's very easy for that stuff to start eating into it.

[2841] You start getting deficit spending, and it's no good.

[2842] Can they embark?

[2843] Did you research that?

[2844] Okay.

[2845] So when you get the deep water or whatever.

[2846] Yeah, I just got that.

[2847] Your workers will cross over the ocean.

[2848] Oh, man, embarked units are so slow, though.

[2849] This next email comes from Bob Ruff, and it may be one of the best emails we've ever received.

[2850] Wow, that is quite a setup.

[2851] Many contemporary first -person games seem to be designed so that running backwards and shooting at advancing enemies is a basic element of gameplay and necessary for defeating many enemies.

[2852] I tried this yesterday.

[2853] Thusly.

[2854] Thusly.

[2855] I believe it is our duty to convince game designers and programmers to design first -person games where running backwards is unnecessary.

[2856] Enemies should stagger and respond to gun wounds at close range.

[2857] A shotgun blast to the chest, legs, or face should suitably disable an opponent so they cannot continue to attack the player at full speed, requiring every encounter to result in a running backwards Benny Hill style comedy adventure.

[2858] Better yet, what if the player fell back 70 % of the time and incurred some damage or loss of health?

[2859] That would be an even better gameplay mechanic.

[2860] I am brilliant.

[2861] Someone should give me a job.

[2862] I appreciate the scientific method.

[2863] Yeah, yeah.

[2864] I admire his devotion to that.

[2865] Tell it to Cabela's.

[2866] They're the only ones that care.

[2867] At the same time, why don't you just circle straight?

[2868] Instead of moving backwards.

[2869] Yeah, I'm interested in the follow -up test of running circles around his target and shooting.

[2870] I am not going to ask this man to do more things with guns.

[2871] Does a rocket jump really work?

[2872] Yeah, also that'd be good.

[2873] That'd be worth finding out.

[2874] Yeah, Dead Rising 2 has a fair amount of that too.

[2875] You can kind of run backwards and shoot.

[2876] Human body lands.

[2877] Man. Borderlands.

[2878] Some backwards running.

[2879] I wish that game had weird stat tracking of how much time did you spend running backwards while firing.

[2880] All of it.

[2881] Of the 40 hours you've played this game.

[2882] I wonder what kind of shot he was using in his shotgun.

[2883] Buckshot?

[2884] Slugs?

[2885] It's got electric buck in it.

[2886] Yeah, that's right.

[2887] I don't know.

[2888] I'll have to ask him when he comes here.

[2889] Bucket of Earth.

[2890] I wonder where he was.

[2891] That's a good question.

[2892] Bucket of Earth.

[2893] Australia?

[2894] Threw it off.

[2895] Central Park.

[2896] Last email.

[2897] Comes in from Scott Washington.

[2898] Chico State.

[2899] California.

[2900] Chico.

[2901] Chico.

[2902] It's a party school.

[2903] Salutations.

[2904] Bombcast.

[2905] It's a party school.

[2906] With many indie games offering purchase models in their alpha state, such as Minecraft.

[2907] I wouldn't say many games, but I get your point.

[2908] And Cortex Command.

[2909] Does that mean?

[2910] Where you can buy the entire game before it's out, but in return have much earlier access to play it.

[2911] Do you guys think this is a viable strategy for big budget titles?

[2912] I personally at least like the idea more than the current pre -purchase strategies that occur in AAA games, such as additional content via specific stores, which is then later sold.

[2913] Blah -de -blah.

[2914] No. I feel like a lot of big budget games are broken into weird, smaller chunks of non -working product than independent games that are, you know, just kind of being iterated further and further and further.

[2915] You know, when you put out a build of it that crashes, you know, it's like there's that sense of like, well, it's one dude making this game, naturally.

[2916] You know, it's a shame that this happened, but, you know, it's a small team and you're kind of...

[2917] you're buying with the understanding that, you know, that you're a part of the process.

[2918] Yeah, absolutely.

[2919] So, um, yeah.

[2920] Like if they put out gears three, you know, nine months ago and it was just like floating guns, it's a box in which you can shoot guys, but it's a bigger box than you might've expected.

[2921] I mean, I don't, I don't think, uh, like I don't, I don't think it should be an issue of budget.

[2922] I think that there's an issue of the types of games that this could work with.

[2923] Yeah.

[2924] I think that if you had, you know, a little big plan, it might work with something like something.

[2925] It has to be something that's not story focused.

[2926] It has to be emergent like this.

[2927] It has to be a weird like, you know, half tool, half game kind of thing.

[2928] Because if there is a story to be played through, if there are characters whose fates are sealed over the course of this or whatever, if it's not, you know, even as loose as like The Sims or something like that, where it's just like shit just kind of happens.

[2929] You set up the parts and then.

[2930] You wind it up and it goes.

[2931] It could work, but I don't think we need to – further to the point, we don't need to incentivize publishers to – They're already really good at shipping unfinished games.

[2932] Yeah.

[2933] But they also released like the Sims character creator stuff, which is almost like a small portion of that.

[2934] Like here's a little tool.

[2935] Go mess around.

[2936] More to come.

[2937] Yeah.

[2938] But this is – yeah, like the Minecraft model is so wildly different from – I feel like that guy wasn't sure if that game was ever going to come out.

[2939] I'm sure that this helps secure the development cycle for that game as well because if it really is iDude or was until he hired his first employee, then...

[2940] It could be a long alpha phase.

[2941] No doubt.

[2942] It's not like Frozen Synapse is another deal where you're kind of like basically buying the beta, but you get two copies of it.

[2943] I think that might have been Frozen Synapse that had the thing where...

[2944] You buy at the silver level, like some other level, like you get thanked in the credits or something like that.

[2945] Oh, yeah?

[2946] I don't remember that.

[2947] At some point, you're funding the arts in a sense.

[2948] So you're an investor.

[2949] Yeah.

[2950] Well, not an investor because you're not necessarily expecting a return beyond the ability to play the game.

[2951] A benefactor or a patron?

[2952] Yeah, a patron.

[2953] Philanthropist.

[2954] Yeah.

[2955] That's what I do.

[2956] All right, we're running out of time and hard disk space, so we're going to wrap up.

[2957] They are the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

[2958] We're going to wrap up this episode of the Giant Bobcast.

[2959] I got some scuzzy drives I can bring in.

[2960] I need to find a backup solution.

[2961] Get a Drobo, dude.

[2962] I heard you talking at length with Test .com's Will Smith.

[2963] Hopefully next week you can come back to us and let us know what your solution is.

[2964] It's not a Drobo.

[2965] I know it's not a Drobo.

[2966] I know that much.

[2967] Jeff, have fun with zombies.

[2968] Yeah, that's solid.

[2969] And Brad, have fun with strategy, both real -time and turn -based.

[2970] And folks at home, we will see you again next week in another edition of the Giant Bobcast.

[2971] Take it easy.