Giant Bombcast 05-10-2011

[0] Hey everyone, it's Tuesday, May the 10th, 2011, and you're listening to The Giant Bobcast.

[1] I'm your host, Ryan Davis.

[2] Joining me, the original quartet, Vinnie Caravella, Jeff Gerstman, and Brad Shoemaker.

[3] We are Melody.

[4] I'm not Melody.

[5] I was just saying, I was just saying, I was melodizing Melodica.

[6] Jeez, get the band names right.

[7] Harmonized?

[8] We talked about this.

[9] Harmonizing, thank you.

[10] Simonizing.

[11] I was vulcanizing your harmonies.

[12] I feel galvanized by this conversation.

[13] To make them more suited for the road.

[14] I'm going to euthanize this whole podcast if you don't want to keep it going.

[15] Just going to keep it alive.

[16] Just going to let it shit up its own back.

[17] Have to change its diapers.

[18] Down the legs, into the shoes.

[19] Filling up those hard shoes.

[20] It's like bed bugs just got to throw the whole thing out.

[21] Yeah, like what do you do?

[22] You can't salvage any of that.

[23] Podcast is covered in feces.

[24] Again.

[25] Welcome to the podcast.

[26] There's an acceptable amount of feces you can have in a podcast before the government steps in, though.

[27] So I think we're still.

[28] I think that's specific to rat feces.

[29] I think if there's any trace amounts of human feces.

[30] Well, if you know the right people.

[31] In a podcast.

[32] Grease the right palms.

[33] Yeah, that's okay.

[34] With shit.

[35] It's effective.

[36] Yeah.

[37] They will leave you alone.

[38] Yeah, don't shake that guy's hands.

[39] Ever again.

[40] Ever again.

[41] Stay away from him.

[42] I thought I was getting greased.

[43] A little flat.

[44] And that's the shit we were talking about.

[45] 25 minutes of just noise.

[46] Vinny Caravella, how you doing?

[47] This podcast is longer than 25 minutes.

[48] You can't fool me. That's just the warm -up.

[49] Now we're in it?

[50] Now we're in it.

[51] We've done our vocal exercises.

[52] Oh, yeah.

[53] Vocalizes.

[54] Shake the phlegm out.

[55] What are you doing?

[56] Getting the phlegm out.

[57] Does that work?

[58] I don't know.

[59] I made that up.

[60] Your neck's all red now.

[61] Don't eat cheese before a podcast.

[62] It's effective for that.

[63] Hey, Caravella, how are you doing?

[64] Doing all right.

[65] How are you doing?

[66] I'm fantastic.

[67] Great.

[68] I had a great weekend.

[69] You did?

[70] I did.

[71] What are you playing?

[72] What?

[73] Oh, he's good.

[74] Whoop.

[75] Not much because I was in L .A. for the Ali Moss gallery show for the majority of the weekend.

[76] Although I did manage to squeeze in a little bit of Gatling Gears, but I can't really say anything about that right now.

[77] Yeah, we'll have a quick look up on Wednesday.

[78] And probably a review this week.

[79] I'll probably play enough of that to review it.

[80] I don't know what that is.

[81] So it's actually the follow -up to Greed Corp. I don't know if you remember that for Xbox Live Arcade.

[82] It's like Assault Heroes, but slow.

[83] Okay.

[84] Yeah, dual joystick shooter.

[85] Yeah.

[86] Shares that same kind of design that it could set in that same universe even.

[87] What platforms are we on?

[88] Xbox Live Arcade and others.

[89] Okay.

[90] Someday it will be available on the PlayStation Network.

[91] I think they're even still planning on rolling out like a week later on PlayStation Network anyway.

[92] Yeah, I think the plans.

[93] They did say that date to us, but I wonder if that was them.

[94] Saying, like, it'll have to be up by then, right?

[95] We know it's not going to be up next week, so we'll plan for the following.

[96] I can't wait to the news section to find out what's going on in the PlayStation Network.

[97] Well, you know, we'll just jump ahead.

[98] PlayStation Network's still down.

[99] Hold on, check in.

[100] Yeah.

[101] We can't start cannibalizing our bits from other shows, man. Why not?

[102] We need those for the other shows.

[103] Can't start double -dipping.

[104] Nobody watches that.

[105] So many Caravella.

[106] Yeah.

[107] How you doing?

[108] Doing okay.

[109] Tell me about yourself.

[110] It's weird.

[111] I should note for the home listener that today is Vinny Caravella's birthday.

[112] That's right.

[113] Today.

[114] Today.

[115] Finally.

[116] Double digits.

[117] Today's the day they come take my eyes.

[118] That's it.

[119] It's like Logan's Run style.

[120] They put a little tracker in it, and that went off.

[121] Yep, so now the youth police are coming.

[122] Yep, 23.

[123] Who knew?

[124] A shame.

[125] What a hairline for 23, huh?

[126] Well, congratulations to making it to the ripe old age of 23.

[127] Thank you.

[128] Yeah, I had my eyes checked out.

[129] I don't have macular degeneration.

[130] That's good.

[131] Yeah, contrary to the PMs and stuff that I were getting and the retinas people were sending me. Oh, well, so, yeah, I think last week Brad said something about macula and the only...

[132] application of that term that i know is macular degeneration which is my grandma has that yeah that's bad news it's really bad she can't see anymore yeah that's bad but you would know because it starts in like right in the middle of where you look so it's a weird thing where like for a while as it's happening you can see like out of your peripheral still but if you actually try and look directly at something, you can't see it, which I can't imagine there's a more...

[133] Imagine being just fucking fully blind is better than having that kind of vision.

[134] It's like cotton in the middle of your eye.

[135] Yeah.

[136] No, this is not that.

[137] I'm fine.

[138] Good.

[139] It should clear up on its own in a month or two or three.

[140] That's what the quacks tell you.

[141] That's what the doctor says.

[142] Fluid got in my retina or something.

[143] Did you ask what kind of fluid?

[144] No. You don't want to know.

[145] Urine.

[146] Yeah, I was going to say, have you been taking shots of vodka through your eyeballs?

[147] He said that would clear it up, but I don't want to.

[148] Or make me forget about it real fast.

[149] Tested.

[150] Yeah.

[151] Will Smith, Norman Channing here.

[152] It's weird.

[153] It's still a weird thing because I still see it.

[154] But yeah, having somebody tell you that it will go away is a nice thing.

[155] Then you just kind of enjoy it as a temporary weird thing.

[156] It's not degenerative.

[157] I have to check back in.

[158] I have to go back and see it and make sure it's going away.

[159] I mean, there's a chance it won't go away.

[160] But it's not like a symptom that they're like, oh, that means that your dick's going to fall off in 10 days.

[161] Well, I mean, it does not go that far, but it should go away.

[162] Is your dick going to fall off in like 10 days?

[163] How do you know it hasn't already?

[164] Why would you say that?

[165] Happy birthday.

[166] Guess what, Jess?

[167] I got a present for you.

[168] A dick in a box.

[169] There you go.

[170] Did I just say dick in a box?

[171] Now we have to pay Lorne Michaels $75 every time anyone listens to this podcast.

[172] You've ruined us.

[173] The Lonely Island album is out today, so I think we can just get off of saying it's pre -promotional.

[174] It's sponsored by their thing.

[175] Yeah, so that's the eyeball thing.

[176] Yeah, thank you.

[177] So how is that?

[178] Obviously, do you want to talk about this thing?

[179] Describe the thing?

[180] Well, I will say that for those...

[181] A lot of very heartwarming support emails and PMs and stuff.

[182] I'm fine.

[183] I really am.

[184] It's a weird thing.

[185] It's almost like a blind spot right in here, right in the eyeball area, which is, as you can imagine, it's kind of frightening.

[186] It doesn't go away.

[187] So it's like somebody snapped a flash real close to you, and that thing never goes away, that part where you're just like, I can't shake it out.

[188] Yeah.

[189] You were originally describing it as a weird after image.

[190] Yeah, and then it started changing shape.

[191] It makes sense because it's fluid in there.

[192] And it starts changing shape.

[193] So it worked from my periphery into my main center of vision.

[194] So I'd gone to the doctor, you guys might remember, a couple of weeks ago.

[195] And then when it moved into my central field of vision is when that day I went back to him.

[196] I was like, dude, let's find out what this is.

[197] What did it look like at that point?

[198] Yeah, it started out as a circle, and then there's a tangent coming off the circle.

[199] Did it ever take the shape of the Virgin Mary or anything?

[200] I was kind of thinking, maybe I'm seeing a...

[201] Ghost assigned.

[202] Now it's weird.

[203] Your eyeball is haunted.

[204] It's like this blind spot that I mostly see when stuff changes really quickly.

[205] If I move my hand quickly in front of my face, I can see it.

[206] So it's almost like my eye, my retina is on a little bit of a delay, like a split -second delay before the picture clears up again.

[207] The frame rate's not right.

[208] It's not right.

[209] There's a mismatch.

[210] I need a reference signal.

[211] I can't capture SNES.

[212] It's too many reference frames.

[213] That's the problem.

[214] Turn off V -Sync.

[215] Hardware acceleration.

[216] Turn it off on your player.

[217] By the way.

[218] Turn off hardware acceleration in your player if your video stutters during a live stream or if it stutters on the site.

[219] Yeah.

[220] That seems to be the key.

[221] Right click on the player.

[222] It still didn't help.

[223] You're not helping.

[224] Sorry.

[225] It worked for Melissa.

[226] Yeah, it seems sporadic.

[227] I don't know.

[228] Mine actually resolved itself without that.

[229] It went away on its own.

[230] I have no idea.

[231] Brad's fine, too.

[232] I think your computer's messed up.

[233] I don't know.

[234] I installed a new version of Flash that may have helped.

[235] So anyway, yeah.

[236] So that's kind of what it is.

[237] And hopefully it should be shrinking or going away on its own.

[238] They say there could be a little subtle vision.

[239] change.

[240] I wouldn't say loss.

[241] Would it be like a superpower?

[242] I don't think so.

[243] You're going to have x -ray vision when this is all over?

[244] I'll get to this when I talk about what I was playing.

[245] I'm colorblind already.

[246] When I AB my eyes, it's fluid there and I think it's viscous a bit so the color, there's a tint on it and it doesn't help.

[247] It makes everything actually much worse.

[248] Because now I'm starting to, it makes the blues kind of, and that's where my strong point is, my blues and yellows.

[249] Right.

[250] And it makes that a little worse.

[251] So anyway, my eyeballs.

[252] So how has, I mean, has that affected your ability to enjoy Vigigames?

[253] Because, you know, pretty visual medium.

[254] No, not really.

[255] No. Just can't play any 3D games for the time being.

[256] Yeah.

[257] Oh, well.

[258] So VKV, what have you been playing, man?

[259] So since last week, you ready?

[260] Yeah.

[261] There's some stuff.

[262] So I made it through Gemini Rue, which we did a quick look of.

[263] Oh, you played through all that?

[264] That game's great.

[265] So did that end up staying?

[266] You fire a gun in that game.

[267] Did that end up staying good then?

[268] Yeah.

[269] Strong start.

[270] Nice art style.

[271] Yeah, so you get this weird adventure game fire a gun mode, which is completely weird.

[272] So you're actually real -time shooting a gun and going into cover.

[273] Weird.

[274] In an adventure game.

[275] But the whole game is point -and -click inventory style.

[276] Yeah, yeah.

[277] So you get to this point where you're using...

[278] ASW -style controls to hide behind cover, pop out, shoot a guy, and you've got a meter that fills up, and if you get it, you get a headshot and kill him in one shot.

[279] It happens four or five times in the game, but it's cool.

[280] It's interesting.

[281] That game's fun.

[282] Back to the Future beat the latest episode.

[283] Moving along.

[284] Now I'm behind.

[285] Now I'm reaching my...

[286] It's almost over.

[287] Yeah, I know.

[288] They've got one more episode left, but I'm reaching my...

[289] I'm far enough behind in that series that I might not be able to catch back up.

[290] They're very fast.

[291] They seem to be getting shorter.

[292] So good?

[293] I remember you said the third one was great and you weren't feeling as excited about the fourth one with the cliffhanger from that.

[294] Is that weird?

[295] No, I think the second one was second, third.

[296] Because now this was just the fourth one.

[297] Second to third was exciting.

[298] And then you said you finished the third one and you're like, I don't know how I thought about it.

[299] Fourth one was good.

[300] Fourth one's solid.

[301] Yeah, it's good.

[302] And we're ready to wrap it up, which is cool.

[303] And then I guess Jurassic Park at some point?

[304] They pushed that back to the fall.

[305] Yeah.

[306] Yes, at some point.

[307] You are still correct.

[308] I finished Dragon Age 2.

[309] Great.

[310] Moving on.

[311] Yeah, that's finished.

[312] Go back in.

[313] Find the last little bits.

[314] Nope.

[315] All done.

[316] He got them all.

[317] Finished.

[318] Play time.

[319] Give me play time.

[320] Oh, I don't even know.

[321] I just click, click, click.

[322] Auto attack.

[323] Credits roll.

[324] You're like, all right, I'm out.

[325] The ending is that of that game.

[326] The whole.

[327] The whole finale of that game is just a series of people making the most unfortunate decisions you have ever seen in a video game.

[328] And for a role -playing game, it's the worst.

[329] Just like, what the fuck are you doing?

[330] Why would you do that?

[331] I love the world!

[332] Be like, why would you do that?

[333] I don't know.

[334] Because it's the end of the game!

[335] That guy's going to do something real stupid in about two minutes, too.

[336] Like, what are you doing?

[337] No, everybody stop.

[338] That doesn't justify your bad decision.

[339] Well, check it out!

[340] And, like, it's just terrible.

[341] So it's just, like, all these weird contrived fights at the end of the game for people.

[342] Just being like, you're doing the stupidest thing in the world right now.

[343] Why would you?

[344] I don't know.

[345] And then it's at the very end of the game.

[346] It goes like, and then he was never seen again.

[347] Or was he?

[348] Or was he?

[349] We don't know because we're not sure if we'll get to make a Dragon Age 3.

[350] Oh, they'll definitely make a Dragon Age 3.

[351] If you were to put some sort of star rating between 1 and 5 on that game.

[352] It would be between...

[353] I would give my anger at Vinny over continuing to play this game five stars.

[354] Five stars of anger.

[355] It's probably somewhere.

[356] If I had to sit down and think about it, in my head it would be between a three and a four.

[357] Somewhere there.

[358] We don't do half stars.

[359] I know, so I'd really have to sit down and think about it.

[360] That's higher than I thought you would have said.

[361] Yeah, the four I feel like would be generous.

[362] Three probably seems about right.

[363] Two is too low.

[364] I mean, it still is a pretty good game.

[365] I don't know.

[366] Stuff about that game just gets under my skin.

[367] Might and Magic.

[368] Oh, more Clash of Heroes.

[369] Beat that.

[370] Nice.

[371] Fantastic.

[372] Did you really?

[373] Yeah.

[374] Not a short game.

[375] Not a short game.

[376] I think 30 -something hours in there.

[377] Good lord.

[378] It's great.

[379] It's a fantastic game.

[380] Maybe in my top...

[381] One of my top games of the year so far.

[382] Never ran out of steam.

[383] I mean, it's the same core kind of puzzling stuff all the way through.

[384] But you change units.

[385] Yeah.

[386] You change factions so much that you're basically relearning everything.

[387] That helps keep you fresh, then?

[388] Yeah, and they do this really smart thing.

[389] By the time you get to the last faction, they basically...

[390] Each other, when you start at level one, you're like, okay, here are the core units.

[391] Let's start.

[392] Let's move up.

[393] Last one, you're just like, you're level seven.

[394] You understand everything already.

[395] You don't even have to buy units anymore.

[396] Just give you all of them.

[397] You're going to play this last faction for, I don't know.

[398] a couple of battles, and they're like, great, fantastic, because I understand what's going on.

[399] It's smartly done.

[400] Some stuff I would still nitpick on it, but it's great.

[401] Everybody should check it out.

[402] Everybody.

[403] And, you know, pretty significant value for a downloadable game like that.

[404] Yeah.

[405] If it can keep your attention.

[406] And I know it was out on DS like two years ago, so people have probably already checked it out, but if you haven't, check it out.

[407] Well, now it's cheaper on Xbox Live Arcade than at least when it launched.

[408] Yeah, what was it, 15 or 20?

[409] It was 15.

[410] Okay.

[411] It's fantastic.

[412] It might even be 10.

[413] And the music is stuck in my head because it's the same song.

[414] Well, then there's also the completely redone art and all that jazz.

[415] And all that stuff, there's voice acting.

[416] I don't know if that was in the DS.

[417] The load times are the worst part of it.

[418] That game's got kind of crazy load times, for sure.

[419] That's the worst part of it.

[420] And they're too frequent.

[421] That's the main thing.

[422] Yeah, and it seemed like, so at the end of the game, they show cut scenes of like, you know, Bill went on to be a lawyer.

[423] And in between each one of those, it's a loading screen.

[424] And you're like, they must have not figured something out in their technology.

[425] I wish everything you just said was true.

[426] I wish that there was a character named Bill in there.

[427] He's the main bad guy.

[428] They actually just stream a YouTube clip of the ending of Animal House.

[429] Freeze Frames and everybody.

[430] That's a weird game.

[431] So maybe.

[432] So let's talk achievements here.

[433] Let's talk cleanup on that stuff.

[434] Achievement -wise, I'm missing like four.

[435] That's it?

[436] Yeah.

[437] You do wind up with a lot, or half of them at least.

[438] The multiplayer ones, three multiplayer ones, and the...

[439] Hey, bring one guy's entire crew up to level five.

[440] But there was like the going back and hitting specific stuff within each.

[441] That's easy enough to just go back and do that.

[442] Well, at least for me. Yeah, it's easy to go back and do it.

[443] But I did it mostly in everybody's campaign.

[444] But it's pretty easy.

[445] They tell you.

[446] There's a little pop -up that says, you beat everything here.

[447] Great.

[448] Fantastic.

[449] And then I started playing some New Vegas again.

[450] Like from scratch?

[451] No, no, no, no. But it was really hard to get back into.

[452] Where were you?

[453] I don't know.

[454] I don't know.

[455] In New Vegas?

[456] I don't know.

[457] But you had not finished it once before already?

[458] No, no, no. Okay.

[459] Like I said on, like, three podcasts ago, I should go back.

[460] I forgot all about it.

[461] Yeah.

[462] I don't...

[463] That's tough.

[464] I don't know.

[465] I mean, that's a pretty tough game to, like, walk away from for an extended period of time and come back and expect it.

[466] I have no idea what's going on.

[467] To know, yeah, like, any of the story threads.

[468] I had that experience with Fallout 3, and yes.

[469] It's impossible.

[470] It's really hard.

[471] And plus...

[472] There's just a lot of shit going on.

[473] Yeah, you forgot everything that was going on.

[474] You forgot where everything is.

[475] Not knowing where to go in those games is like the death knell.

[476] You can't get past that because it's so big.

[477] I think I just might not like that game that much.

[478] It's just something like...

[479] Something about...

[480] I don't know if it's the bugginess or whatever.

[481] Not even that the game itself is really buggy.

[482] It's just what it is.

[483] Something about that...

[484] I got to this point yesterday where I kept walking to a room and I would explode.

[485] Somebody would set off some mine or something like that.

[486] It saves after each door.

[487] I would just reload and I would just explode.

[488] I would just reload and I would just explode.

[489] I'm trying everything I could to not explode.

[490] I just couldn't do it and I had to reload this other save.

[491] Stuff like that just makes me feel like I really want to finish this game but you're making it so hard.

[492] Do you still have that save?

[493] It was an auto save.

[494] Probably saved over it at that point.

[495] Just load that up and make a loop.

[496] Yeah.

[497] Just scream that out for a couple hours.

[498] Here's why I love this.

[499] Boom.

[500] And then it was like I was supposed to find this guy, but I guess I had already done something so that when I went to go find him, he was just a corpse that was just laying there.

[501] And you're like, well, I found him.

[502] That mission's done.

[503] It kind of just sucks because I told the guy, I was like, I'm going to find your buddy.

[504] I'm going to go to that place.

[505] I'm going to find your man. I'm going to kill this guy first, and I'm going to find your guy.

[506] And I go, and I kill that guy first, this guy Motorhead or something like that.

[507] Sounds like a Fallout name.

[508] Yeah, he's the leader of the Fiends.

[509] And I kill him, and I'm like, I'm going to find your guy now.

[510] And he's dead in a pile of feet.

[511] Oh, no, no, no. You only ever find that guy dead.

[512] No, because I looked it up.

[513] If you're going and going after the fiends.

[514] But that has to be a way disconnected, much earlier decision.

[515] Maybe.

[516] When I found the dude, he was fucking smoked.

[517] I found him in a corpse of a dude, so he apparently tried to get out of there.

[518] And didn't make it.

[519] I feel like that might be just like a set piece thing.

[520] Like that's how that mission.

[521] Because I couldn't find him.

[522] And then somebody's like, no, he's there.

[523] You know what?

[524] I actually had an incredibly hard time finding him as well.

[525] Because it's one of those.

[526] It's crazy making with the mapping system in that game.

[527] Where you're not sure if it's pointing you towards.

[528] At a door.

[529] A door or.

[530] I'm supposed to find an entrance, and then from there the map will continue.

[531] It's like, oh, no, it's pointing me towards where that thing should be in the world, but I'm just standing on top of it.

[532] The actual door to it is like eight miles away.

[533] Some of that stuff can be really frustrating.

[534] Very frustrating, very confusing.

[535] So anyway, I spent some more time in there.

[536] These are pitfalls of a big -ass open game like that.

[537] So what I didn't play is my new segment.

[538] What I didn't play was Hector.

[539] I did not play Pac -Man.

[540] I did not play Moon Patrol.

[541] Why don't you lie?

[542] Your weekend sucks.

[543] No, I'm just saying.

[544] I'm just saying.

[545] You didn't play.

[546] I didn't play Moon Patrol, but somebody played Moon Patrol.

[547] Somebody played Moon Patrol.

[548] And I kind of wanted to play Hector, and I just, I don't know.

[549] It sounds like you were already adventure -gamed up between Back to the Future and whatchamacallit?

[550] Gemini Rue.

[551] Gemini Rue.

[552] Also what I didn't play?

[553] Crisis 2.

[554] Which I just kept looking at and being like, I should buy this.

[555] And then it was like the Crysis sale and the EA thing is going on.

[556] Oh, God.

[557] I meant to let you know.

[558] Did you see it?

[559] The Crysis sale?

[560] I was going to text you about that.

[561] Yeah, but I don't know.

[562] On Saturday?

[563] Do you have Warhead?

[564] Yeah.

[565] Okay.

[566] But Crysis 2 never went on sale, not surprisingly.

[567] And I was kind of waiting for it to be like, all right, you knock $10 off.

[568] I'll get some Crysis 2.

[569] They never did.

[570] They never did.

[571] So you didn't buy Crysis 2?

[572] I didn't buy Crysis 2, but I want to.

[573] But I didn't.

[574] Well, they want that $10, so stalemate.

[575] Yeah.

[576] Call me. You're at an impasse between you and EA.

[577] Let's work this out.

[578] We'll figure something out.

[579] Because I played through Crysis, and it got me all Crysis -ed up.

[580] Recently?

[581] Yeah, recently.

[582] But, yeah.

[583] Anyway, that's it.

[584] I can keep going on what I didn't play.

[585] It's a long list.

[586] We'll stop.

[587] Why don't we change the segment to Did You Play?

[588] Where we ask you games and you tell us if you played them.

[589] Did you play Might and Magic Clash of Heroes?

[590] I did.

[591] I win.

[592] I fucking win.

[593] Oh, wow.

[594] I am the best at this game.

[595] I'm just kidding.

[596] I didn't.

[597] I made all that stuff up.

[598] Damn it.

[599] So that's the new game is you have to talk about several games convincingly.

[600] So one of the games we didn't actually play.

[601] Which of these stories is bullshit.

[602] So Hector was awesome.

[603] So Hector had this great part in it.

[604] A couple of things I don't like.

[605] So yeah, you've got to be able to bluff your way through it and hope that no one else played that game so they know, wait, he's bullshitting because I know that part and that's not true at all.

[606] I got to point E in 47 seconds.

[607] So feeling pretty good.

[608] Pretty good about my Moon Patrol experience.

[609] Thought I'd jump back in the flower.

[610] Have some good times with that.

[611] Jeff Gerstman.

[612] Hello.

[613] Video games.

[614] What about them?

[615] Orange shirts.

[616] What do you want to know?

[617] I am a credited expert on both of these things.

[618] What's up with orange shirts?

[619] That shirt you wear is hella orange.

[620] The weather outside is great.

[621] It is great.

[622] No, that's plenty of good reason for an orange shirt.

[623] I don't need a reason to wear an orange.

[624] Also, I don't need a reason to wear an orange shirt.

[625] You have coffee on the bridge of your nose.

[626] That's fine.

[627] What are you saying?

[628] Are you rapping?

[629] I don't need no reason to wear an orange shirt.

[630] I don't need no reason to wear an orange shirt.

[631] Also, you have coffee on the bridge of your nose.

[632] I'm just freestyling over here.

[633] Moon Patrol.

[634] Yeah, we'll put the Moon Patrol beat under this.

[635] All right.

[636] Okay.

[637] Good.

[638] Yes.

[639] And that'll be your high concept rap.

[640] That's my one Zojirushi pitfall is.

[641] My nose is too big to hit the...

[642] We just gotta flip it down.

[643] If you flip it all the way back, it's fine.

[644] Anyway...

[645] Lazy Americans.

[646] Also, I played some video games.

[647] What sort of video games did you play, Jeff?

[648] Let's see.

[649] Did you play a class -based first -person shooter?

[650] Yeah.

[651] I played Dark Spore.

[652] Oh, you played some Dark Spore?

[653] Yeah.

[654] What'd you think of that?

[655] I sunk about an hour into that.

[656] I don't know that I'm going to play any more Dark Spore.

[657] It just...

[658] It's okay.

[659] It's okay.

[660] Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever.

[661] It's, you know, I had nothing to lose, nothing to gain.

[662] Yeah.

[663] But it did not hold my attention past that first hour.

[664] It's like, okay, I kind of beat like 1 -1.

[665] I was like, okay, I kind of see what kind of game this is.

[666] And I don't really like the way the editor works.

[667] The way you equip stuff onto your guys, it doesn't...

[668] What don't you like about it?

[669] It just doesn't feel...

[670] I don't know.

[671] It didn't feel like it was giving me enough good feedback about what I should be doing there.

[672] And switching between your guys in the editor is a little more cumbersome than it probably should be.

[673] I don't know.

[674] If you eventually get a hundred dudes in that game, I could see that whole process being completely crazy.

[675] Yeah.

[676] Yeah.

[677] Right now I have four dudes and it's already like, wait, okay.

[678] Also, they all look like crappy monsters.

[679] They all look like garbage.

[680] They all look like garbage.

[681] I don't like the way any of the characters look at the beginning of the game.

[682] They're all made to look like they were made in the Spore creature creator.

[683] But none of them have any of what actually made Spore cool.

[684] None of them animate or seem lovable or lifelike in a fun way.

[685] They're just like, I'm yet another claw beast.

[686] Look at me, man. I'm like a crawfish, but now I got legs and I'm going to stab everybody with this hammer.

[687] What kind of blade on the back of it?

[688] So not enough penis monsters.

[689] Yeah, basically.

[690] I think it's a horrible mistake that you don't create your own dudes in that game.

[691] You start from...

[692] like their kind of ideal like you start from one of their creatures and then yeah okay you picked up some eyes and these eyes are plus two to something and you can put them on between levels but just the default looks for the guys at least those first four It's all stupid.

[693] I didn't like the look of any of them.

[694] They all look like space bugs.

[695] But they look like evil space bugs.

[696] If you get to the next rank, there's a spider.

[697] Yeah, exactly.

[698] I want fun -loving, space -faring oddballs.

[699] Then you need the game not called Dark Spore.

[700] I guess, yeah.

[701] I guess they do kind of let you know right off the bat.

[702] But it's more dark than Spore.

[703] There is not a lot of Spore there at all.

[704] Dark comes first.

[705] I want Spore Dark.

[706] Yeah.

[707] Yeah.

[708] Perfect Spore Dark?

[709] Yeah, zero.

[710] Because it's a prequel.

[711] Takes place before Spore.

[712] Yeah.

[713] Oh, geez.

[714] That's tough to do.

[715] So that we don't have to pay Will Wright any money for this.

[716] Smooth.

[717] Yeah.

[718] Think about it.

[719] Yeah, I don't know.

[720] I mean, I feel like there's some neat stuff in that game when you're actually playing it, but I just...

[721] It's a competent dungeon crawler, and it's got loot, and you're running around these kind of surreal environments, but I see what you're saying.

[722] If you had to put a star rating on it between one and five.

[723] I'm not going to put numbers on games I played for an hour, but three.

[724] I played it more than Jeff did, and Brad, you sat in on that quick look.

[725] And I feel you.

[726] Once I was done with that, I'm like, yeah, I kind of don't want to.

[727] I'm not chomping at the bit to come back.

[728] I'm like, yeah, I kind of feel like I know what the trajectory of this game is going to be of like, I'm going to go to more space dungeons and fight more space monsters and unlock more space monsters.

[729] I wonder if story ever enters into it again or if it's more just premise.

[730] It sounds like it gets awfully repetitive.

[731] So probably not.

[732] Yeah, I mean, by the end of editing my guys for the third time, I was like, yeah, I kind of don't want to do this anymore.

[733] And it does the thing where each character levels depending on use.

[734] Yeah.

[735] So I could very easily see you getting into a situation where it's like, well, I'm now fighting way nastier enemies, so this guy that I've barely used, I'm never going to bust him out because he will just die.

[736] Well, they kind of expect you to – I think it's why they put a chat channel right in the main menu of that game, like almost Command & Conquer 4 style in terms of this is a – This is not an MMO, but we're going to connect you to some chat anyway.

[737] Because they probably just want you to...

[738] You should be playing this with some dudes.

[739] Yeah, you should be playing this with some dudes, and you should be grinding the same worlds over and over again, but with dudes, because that makes everything fun, even if it's super repetitive.

[740] Like, I think that's probably the core idea about that game.

[741] And there are people in that chat channel going like, who wants to chain World 9 with me?

[742] Like, who wants to sit here and do all of World 9 in one go?

[743] Let's do this.

[744] Like, ooh, I don't...

[745] It means you have to get to World 9 first.

[746] Well, yeah, I mean...

[747] Well, I don't know.

[748] Maybe they let you invite.

[749] I don't know.

[750] I probably would get ripped up.

[751] I've not touched any of the online stuff.

[752] Anyway, yeah.

[753] So it seems like they are expecting people to play through the same content again and again with different groups of people.

[754] So there's your opportunity to level up your underused heroes, as it were.

[755] But yeah, I don't know.

[756] Like I said, I only played it for an hour.

[757] So obviously not a full opinion, full view on that game.

[758] But it definitely...

[759] is not a game I expect I will return to.

[760] Is there something in the story called, like, the Dark Spore or something?

[761] Yeah.

[762] Okay.

[763] The enemies you fight are the Dark Spore.

[764] Everything, every enemy you fight is Dark Spore.

[765] It's a good Dark Spore, okay.

[766] All these Dark Spore.

[767] Because they've been mutated by some kind of crazy DNA.

[768] They spent a fair amount of time beginning of that game, like, setting up the fiction and, like, who you are, and you're a cro -genitor.

[769] Yes.

[770] Whoa.

[771] Yeah, because you were cryogenically frozen.

[772] Progenitor.

[773] Wow.

[774] The progenitor or the progenitor.

[775] So, okay, that's where I got confused because they were saying progenitor at a point and then they started saying progenitor.

[776] Yeah.

[777] Specifically about you, I guess, right?

[778] Yeah, I guess.

[779] Yeah.

[780] They were put to sleep while AI computers researched a way to stabilize the crazy mutant DNA that you could use to create more hero.

[781] E -DNA.

[782] E -DNA.

[783] Why is it E?

[784] Extended.

[785] Is it extended or enhanced?

[786] Enhanced.

[787] I don't remember.

[788] Electronic.

[789] I forget.

[790] Where do you load your sound card drivers?

[791] IRQ -7 -220 -H.

[792] High memory, duh.

[793] High mem .sys.

[794] Load equals high.

[795] But yeah, they spent a lot of time setting up this fiction about how there's this, you know, the race of creatures that, you know, went around the universe and created life on all these planets, and then they started making eDNA, but then the eDNA went rotten, and that's what created the dark spore that murdered a bunch of the universe, and so now they've got to try and stop the dark spore.

[796] And you're the last of the progenitors.

[797] Why would it happen to everybody else?

[798] They all got slaughtered.

[799] But there's like five, you know, a bunch of ships got launched off and you're one of them.

[800] Okay.

[801] And I imagine that all of your multiplayer buddies are other ones.

[802] Because you're just, it is literally like almost Command & Conquer style.

[803] Like you are controlling these guys from your ship.

[804] So from somewhere else.

[805] So it's just like tying into this actual spore thing.

[806] Like are you a progenitor being like a spore maker?

[807] No, I don't think it really necessarily ties into spore at all other than we have this technology laying around.

[808] Let's use it to make guys that look dumb.

[809] Also this IP, oh God, what do we do with this?

[810] This is like Gundam Wing style alternate.

[811] Right.

[812] Okay.

[813] So yeah, I played some of that.

[814] Played a little bit of cargo.

[815] I like how you're dancing around the...

[816] Cargo's weird.

[817] You're avoiding the issue here.

[818] I played a little bit past where we got in the quick look of cargo, and then I don't know that I'm equipped to play any more cargo.

[819] Does it change much, or are you still just collecting fun stuff?

[820] Yeah, I'm still kicking guys to collect fun.

[821] So did you get to the race stuff that Brad was playing during the happy hour?

[822] Yeah, and that's also where I kind of was like, I don't know.

[823] You lost it there.

[824] This is maybe a little...

[825] Too Russian for you?

[826] You know, she just moves so slowly.

[827] She just plods around that island.

[828] Granted, you eventually get vehicles and build different stuff and you can move around more quickly, but I just wish if she just ran faster, I think the entire experience, the entire startup of that game anyway, would be a little more enjoyable.

[829] But even then, it's pretty weird.

[830] Played some Gatling Gears.

[831] What came out the week before that download -wise?

[832] It wasn't Outland, was it?

[833] No, I guess I didn't play a ton of Outland.

[834] You should play that, Vinny.

[835] It seems like something you would like.

[836] There was something else.

[837] Something I threw a code at you for.

[838] Yeah.

[839] Sanctum the week before?

[840] It was a couple weeks ago.

[841] Played some more of that.

[842] Game's cool.

[843] There was some other downloadable game.

[844] I don't know.

[845] I downloaded Metro 2033.

[846] I'm going to try that out here pretty soon.

[847] Ninjump.

[848] Yeah, Ninjump.

[849] But yeah, then I also played a whole bunch of Brink.

[850] Yes.

[851] That's out this week.

[852] It's out this week.

[853] Splash Damage.

[854] That's out today.

[855] Blue Box.

[856] And...

[857] I don't like Brink.

[858] Okay.

[859] Yeah.

[860] It's...

[861] Why don't you like Brink?

[862] Because I don't think it's a very good game.

[863] Why don't you think it's a very good game?

[864] That's an acceptable reason.

[865] Well...

[866] I mean, do we need to go down the list here?

[867] Do you want me to say?

[868] I should probably start at what is Brink?

[869] I think I had a misconception of what that game was.

[870] Yeah, I think a lot of people did.

[871] It's like when I go back to the first time we saw Brink, were you there with me for that first demo?

[872] It was like Darth Vader.

[873] He went on that class trip.

[874] Class trip to Splash Dam.

[875] It was E3 two years ago.

[876] I was there.

[877] And then we shot that interview in that really tiny room.

[878] It was Drew that was with me for that part.

[879] The Munich Olympian murder.

[880] I don't remember it looking that much different then.

[881] Jimmy Carter was in office.

[882] Yeah, I think it's just that when you see what that game actually is.

[883] So the way that they spun that game is, yeah, it's going to have this campaign mode and you can play it and you need to complete these objectives.

[884] But we're going to really try to incentivize people to play the campaign with or against.

[885] against other human players.

[886] And, you know, it'll come up and say like, hey, you know, you can get more experience for doing this.

[887] When you spin it that way, it's like, oh, cool.

[888] So it's like, you know, I can play this whole campaign and then enhance it by playing against people.

[889] But where it breaks down is the campaign is the exact same thing as the multiplayer, but with bots, if you don't allow people into your game, and the bots are terrible.

[890] So it's, you know, the bots do stuff like, so I'm interacting with a terminal.

[891] to capture it or whatever.

[892] Other bots are planting an explosive on something.

[893] It's an action that takes time.

[894] You're interacting with an object.

[895] And you're out of combat.

[896] And you're out of combat.

[897] You're watching a bar fill up.

[898] Other bots will run up behind you or alongside you and just keep running in place up against the object like they're trying to capture it too.

[899] They don't get that, oh, you're doing this.

[900] I should turn around and cover your back.

[901] The only bot action that feels remotely Decent is that if you go down, medics will find you and revive you.

[902] That's nice.

[903] Like bot medics, which is more than I can say for the human players I encounter while playing Brink.

[904] I was going to say, it kind of begs the question, it sounds like this is intended to have highly integrated online.

[905] kind of multiplayer in the single -player, single -bucket style.

[906] Yeah, and any experience you gain goes into building your character, whether it's offline against bots or online.

[907] You get like 15 % more experience points if you're in an online game, even if you have that online game set to private so they're all bots.

[908] So when you say a single -player campaign against bots...

[909] It's not.

[910] It's practically map selection.

[911] I mean, they lay out some...

[912] missions for each, it's two, there are two factions, the rebels and the security forces or whatever, uh, resistance.

[913] Um, and there are basically like eight missions per side, but there are, you know, eight maps in that game and you know, each can be played two ways depending on which faction you are.

[914] So it's kind of like the same thing as the multiplayer.

[915] Like exactly.

[916] Is there a narrative?

[917] Sort of.

[918] But that narrative also comes up in the multiplayer because it's really just like 20 seconds of guys talking before the round starts.

[919] Okay.

[920] It's like cops on a train.

[921] It's like, what are we doing here again?

[922] It's like, oh, the rebel leader did this stuff and we need to stop him.

[923] So if we stop him, that's it?

[924] It's done?

[925] Yep.

[926] Let's go stop him.

[927] And it's like these aren't named characters that you care about or anything like that.

[928] There's no like real narrative other than, you know, you kind of.

[929] I learned sort of at the beginning that the rebels want to try to get off this island.

[930] Can you be the rebels?

[931] Yeah, at the beginning.

[932] And you can choose at either point.

[933] I mean, this is how Little went into the campaign.

[934] You can pick any mission in it any time you want.

[935] It's not like you have to progress to the end.

[936] It practically is just map selection.

[937] So it sounds like you're playing offline instead of playing a single -player campaign.

[938] Yes, it's exactly what it is.

[939] But even then, you can open those games up to humans.

[940] and still get your campaign progress checkbox checked if you win that match, whether you're playing against humans or not.

[941] So it could be just a random mix of that.

[942] My understanding of this is that also in that scenario where you're in the single player and there are live opponents on the opposing force, could they also be going through their campaign?

[943] I don't know.

[944] Or are they going to multiplayer?

[945] Where does that split start happening?

[946] It'll probably be less of an issue now that the game is out there, but to give you some indication as to how confusing this is, the publisher sent out a lengthy document saying how to find games with humans.

[947] Granted, it's before the game was out or whatever, so it was not as easy as it will be when theoretically people are buying the game and filling out the different modes.

[948] But there's no quick match button or anything like that.

[949] Even the free play mode, if you don't get matched up with humans, there are still bots there.

[950] So it was this sort of thing where you're like, well, wait a minute.

[951] In the campaign mode, you're splitting it 12 different ways or something.

[952] How am I going to find humans?

[953] I wrote back and said, hey, how does...

[954] how do i find people because they had sessions for the review like like you know everyone meet up at two o 'clock and i was like okay like so i looked at the menus and went wait what do i need to do so i tried all the different options and never found humans and finally wrote in and i guess everyone must have done the same thing because then the next day they sent out this this like screenshots of the interface yeah which that can't be a good feeling when you're like Oh, okay.

[955] Because that's all information that will not be in the final game.

[956] Right.

[957] Did it seem okay once they got back to you?

[958] Like, oh, okay.

[959] No. Even once you get into the game, it's not explicitly clear if people are human or not.

[960] Oh.

[961] It doesn't ever – it doesn't – I mean, you can go into the scoreboard and look at the names of the enemy team, but the enemy team names only show up in, like, the death messages otherwise.

[962] They don't show up over their heads.

[963] So you kind of have to go look and see, like, are these humans or not?

[964] Like, what's going on?

[965] Do player names?

[966] Player names of people on your team show up over their heads and stuff.

[967] But, you know, it was a sort of situation.

[968] Like, I don't know.

[969] Maybe these humans have just gamer tags that just are Hernandez.

[970] You know, it's like.

[971] Oh, so they don't go for the silly online names in the bots?

[972] No, it's not like Lost Planet.

[973] But it's a similar kind of issue with Lost Planet where you can't really pause the game in a lot of cases because it's always sort of online.

[974] I think I thought it was going to be more like, was it Geist?

[975] People could jump in and be the bad guys.

[976] Mind Jack is the most recent example of that.

[977] I think that's what I thought.

[978] It's a single -player campaign, and occasionally there'll be multiplayer guys.

[979] I mean, what it really is is...

[980] It sounds like it's almost an anachronistic throwback to eight or ten years ago when stuff like Battlefield 1942 and Quake 3 was coming out, where it was a multiplayer -only game, except when you had to play by yourself, you had monsters.

[981] Well, what it really is is it's the next enemy territory game.

[982] Which grew directly out of that era.

[983] And these are the guys that made those enemy territory games.

[984] And the way the classes work and who can disarm what and who can plant what kind of comes directly from those games.

[985] And they still have that stopwatch mode that they kind of came up with for those modes as well.

[986] So it really is just this class -based, team -based multiplayer shooter.

[987] And the guns just aren't very fun.

[988] They give you kind of a lot of weapons.

[989] You're kind of left looking at these bars going like, okay, well, rate of fire is slightly less, but is it less enough to matter?

[990] Do I get more ammo for this gun than this gun?

[991] They don't let you compare weapons one -to -one.

[992] The most they give you is that when you add attachments to the weapons, the bars change.

[993] So you can kind of see like, okay, this increases rate of fire but lowers stability a little bit.

[994] I guess I was expecting and hoping for a meatier single -player experience.

[995] Yeah, this is not that.

[996] Where that whole philosophy kind of breaks down is we've entered this era where we're starting to see downloadable shooters that are multiplayer -focused kind of coming along with similar amounts of content.

[997] You put this up against something like Section 8 Prejudice, and I don't think Section 8 is a great game by any means.

[998] I think it's got some pretty serious issues, but it's kind of doing its own thing, and that's cool in its own way.

[999] And for $15.

[1000] And for $15, not $60.

[1001] Right.

[1002] So this game just feels like an incredibly poor value.

[1003] This game is not four times Section 8's Prejudice?

[1004] No, no, not in the least.

[1005] If anything, it feels roughly on par.

[1006] But it's just the guns don't feel right.

[1007] The grenades just feel like...

[1008] The grenade explosions look like M80s going off.

[1009] And they just kind of knock players down.

[1010] Are they even doing any damage?

[1011] I don't know.

[1012] I've maybe killed one person with a grenade the whole time I've been playing the game.

[1013] Because usually it'll just knock people down and you can go up and finish them off instead.

[1014] And that's kind of how you get your kills.

[1015] The weapons just don't feel meaty.

[1016] The sound isn't great for them.

[1017] The stability of the fire just doesn't feel all that great.

[1018] It's hard to know which weapons are going to be the good ones.

[1019] Just from the stats.

[1020] So you're kind of left trying out a bunch of different ones and just going like, none of these feel good.

[1021] But it's first person and there's the parkour stuff in it.

[1022] Is that right?

[1023] Or just jumping over boxes?

[1024] It's jumping over boxes and jumping up ledges and stuff.

[1025] So sliding.

[1026] Yeah.

[1027] So if you hold down the run button, you will automatically vault over low cover.

[1028] So you'll see a hand -to -hand stick out and you'll leap over something.

[1029] Or if you're kind of looking up at a ledge.

[1030] As you run up to a wall, if it's a low enough wall, you'll jump up and grab it and scramble up on top.

[1031] And there are body types.

[1032] So if you pick a heavy body type, you can't do that as well.

[1033] If you pick a light body type, you can do it much better.

[1034] Does it in practice work out or are people just shooting you as you're trying to climb up?

[1035] People are just shooting you as you're trying to climb up the walls and stuff.

[1036] And usually the action is so centered around one specific area because there's really only one objective going at a time.

[1037] You're running up to these firefights, getting these firefights.

[1038] So it's really just you're holding out this button to get where you need to go as fast as you can.

[1039] And if there's crap in the way, you deal with the crap without having to run around it or hit the jump button.

[1040] Otherwise, you're just either dead or hiding behind something.

[1041] It's a neat idea that doesn't really factor into actually playing that game that well.

[1042] Yeah, from what I've played of it.

[1043] There are some areas that if you're a light body type, you can mantle up.

[1044] or get up higher than a normal player would be able to.

[1045] So theoretically, maybe there's some sniper spots you could find that way.

[1046] I haven't really found any situations like that where it was a huge benefit.

[1047] But yeah, you can kind of climb up on top of stuff and you can kind of jump over guardrails and banisters and stuff like that.

[1048] I guess there must be game modes where you're like capture the flag or something where you're running away with something, right?

[1049] Yeah, yeah.

[1050] But it's...

[1051] There's not really a game mode in this game.

[1052] It's like each map has its objectives.

[1053] So it'll be like, in this map, this team needs to guard this giant robot as it rolls across the level.

[1054] And if it gets damaged too much, engineers need to repair it to make sure it gets to this certain point.

[1055] If you get it all the way at that point, you get more time on the clock and it moves on to the next objective, which is like you need engineers to repair this crane.

[1056] And then the crane picks up the robot and brings it over to this other side and you need to guard the robot again.

[1057] And then it eventually tears open this wall and then there's an object in there which is basically a flag equivalent and you need to take that flag to somewhere else to win.

[1058] So it's like all these objectives in order.

[1059] It's kind of disturbing that those objectives are fixed on each map.

[1060] and there's only eight maps, and there's only one style of play, you're going to burn through the content in a week.

[1061] Like I said, it feels very light on content.

[1062] Eight maps is a decent number for a multiplayer mode in a fully featured shooter, but when that's all you've got...

[1063] That's all the assets.

[1064] And that's all there is to see.

[1065] It was one of those things where after my first full day with it...

[1066] I was kind of digging through the menus going, well, there's got to be something else in here.

[1067] What's going on?

[1068] How many folks maximum on a map?

[1069] 16.

[1070] Eight on eight.

[1071] It does seem a little content.

[1072] I think it's a higher player count on PC.

[1073] It might be 24 on PC.

[1074] I'm not sure if that's the case.

[1075] Okay.

[1076] We've only seen the 360 version.

[1077] You almost wonder if they did the game a disservice by not providing the PC version.

[1078] Ahead of time.

[1079] Yeah, I would have been really interested to see.

[1080] I mean, we'll definitely...

[1081] I'm interested to check out the PC version and see if it came out any better.

[1082] It seems like they're at least...

[1083] If it's just more suited for that.

[1084] platform even.

[1085] Not even the platform, maybe so much as the audience.

[1086] It seems like that is...

[1087] It's a follow -up to Enemy Terror.

[1088] It's another one of those games.

[1089] For everything they've tried to do to maybe strip that down a little bit and make it more appealing, I feel like they haven't done anything with that regard.

[1090] It doesn't have vehicles like Quake Wars did or anything like that.

[1091] Maybe a little smaller game.

[1092] It's too bad.

[1093] I always really liked the look of that game.

[1094] The art is cool, but in -game I think even that looks a little grimy.

[1095] Like some of the textures and stuff don't look awesome.

[1096] Sure.

[1097] It seems like a lot of character customization is just kind of lost.

[1098] Like you just don't really get a chance to see it.

[1099] You don't ever have time to really look at your guy or any of the other guys that closely.

[1100] But there are a lot of character customization options, and I think the art style for the guys is really interesting.

[1101] Yeah.

[1102] It's got this kind of very stylized.

[1103] Yeah, really stylized, cool look.

[1104] Also, lots of British voices.

[1105] Yeah, lots of British voices.

[1106] There's some patois in there as well.

[1107] Yeah, yeah.

[1108] A lot of ethnic...

[1109] And they talk all the time.

[1110] Racist.

[1111] Ethnicity is what I was trying to say.

[1112] It's annoying.

[1113] Yeah.

[1114] Five minutes left, brothers.

[1115] I'm going for the objective, man. He picked up the briefcase.

[1116] You know, it's just like, yeah.

[1117] And any objective where someone needs to pick up an item and bring it somewhere, it's always like, I'll take the item.

[1118] We dropped the item.

[1119] They returned the item.

[1120] We picked up the item.

[1121] Get the item.

[1122] You're playing Dragon Age 2.

[1123] Yeah, kind of.

[1124] You found this item.

[1125] I've been looking for that item.

[1126] Thank you.

[1127] Yeah.

[1128] So, you know, those guys just talk way too much.

[1129] You can opt to have that come out of your headset.

[1130] It defaults that way.

[1131] The first time I jumped online.

[1132] It comes out of both for me. Really?

[1133] When you plug it in.

[1134] I just immediately, as soon as I jumped on, it was like you and this other guy were talking and all of the bots.

[1135] I was getting some of that.

[1136] All jumbled into the headset.

[1137] It was just super disorienting.

[1138] Yeah, for a game that you probably want to be chatting with your teammates while you actually play, all that stuff was super annoying.

[1139] So you guys have seen this game for like five years, right?

[1140] Like seven, seven and a half years.

[1141] No, we saw about three at least.

[1142] E3 two years ago, I think.

[1143] Two years and like a month ago.

[1144] It was the summer that the hustle was big.

[1145] That's every summer.

[1146] Does it look like the conclusion of what you guys saw during that development?

[1147] Well, yes, because everything that they said about the game is totally in there.

[1148] You can hold down this button and vault over stuff, and they do give you an experience point bonus for playing with people.

[1149] The way it's implemented.

[1150] It's just that it's totally another enemy territory game.

[1151] Yeah.

[1152] So I guess the question is, If you were crazy about fucking enemy territory, is this going to appeal?

[1153] I don't really know.

[1154] It's hard to say because, like I said, it is kind of a smaller game than those games were.

[1155] And I think that there probably will be some people in that audience that gravitate towards something like this because it is similar, but at least it's sort of new.

[1156] But, yeah.

[1157] Because it has to be the draws.

[1158] Like, someone out there knows that, okay, Splash Damage was the developer of these games.

[1159] If that was the draw, though, don't you think they would be trying to capitalize on that as much as possible?

[1160] Like, at no point have they really...

[1161] I'm saying that, well, there's a difference between what the publisher thinks the draw will be and, like, who the actual audience is.

[1162] Yeah, I guess, yeah.

[1163] Yeah, I don't really know.

[1164] This game came out early, didn't it?

[1165] Came out a week early, yeah.

[1166] Pushed it up a week, so...

[1167] Maybe they needed that extra week.

[1168] You know what?

[1169] It's one of those things.

[1170] You know what I just realized?

[1171] If it had come out next week, what else is coming out next week?

[1172] L .A. Noire.

[1173] Yep.

[1174] La Noire.

[1175] Granted, maybe not a lot of overlap in the audiences there, but still.

[1176] Are you suggesting that this was pushed up to get out of the way of L .A. Noire?

[1177] I don't know.

[1178] And maybe PSN would be back up by then, who would say?

[1179] Who can say?

[1180] So you want to talk about, like, a bad version of that game.

[1181] Oh, man. It's the PS3 version right now, which I haven't seen it, but...

[1182] That's a shame, huh?

[1183] The bots are terrible.

[1184] And that's all you got.

[1185] And that's all you got.

[1186] Like, come on.

[1187] Like, you don't want to play Brink on the PS3 right now.

[1188] I mean, that situation is enough of a boondoggle that they put out a statement.

[1189] Yeah.

[1190] We got a hold of them and said, like, hey...

[1191] Bethesda, in effect, said, yes, we are still going to ship it.

[1192] They know how gimped the functionality is going to be without online.

[1193] That's a real shame.

[1194] I think they're just screwed.

[1195] They don't really have a choice.

[1196] So you're going to end up with a bunch of players that are already high level by the time it comes out because getting to the maximum level is not...

[1197] If they are dedicated to it, or it's going to be a situation where you'll have a lot of people waiting for PSN to come back up before they buy it.

[1198] And by that point, I'm feeling word of mouth will have kind of spoken.

[1199] Yeah, it's a real shame.

[1200] I'm going to paraphrase here from an email that we received on this topic.

[1201] Do you think that these licensees for Sony to make PS3 games, they are paying money to...

[1202] put games out on this platform and are, you know, expect certain things to be true about, you know, the functionality of that platform.

[1203] Yeah.

[1204] And, you know, are anticipating, you know, that stuff to then impact their sales.

[1205] And, you know, the whole business is predicated on fucking PSN works and people can play their games online.

[1206] Yeah.

[1207] Like, do you think that these companies could...

[1208] Sue Sony for damages on this stuff?

[1209] I mean, I don't really know what the contracts between third parties and Sony even look like, if there is that guarantee of an expectation or what it is.

[1210] I doubt it.

[1211] I mean, because we see kind of the, at least at this point, vague talk of make goods from region to region to consumers.

[1212] On PSN stuff.

[1213] Sony's going to have to figure out something for developers also.

[1214] Especially PSN specific developers.

[1215] It's like the PixelJunk guys were coming out saying like, Hey, if you want to buy a t -shirt, that'd be great.

[1216] We need to eat.

[1217] We have no money coming in right now.

[1218] We're getting emails from people saying like, We've got this PlayStation Mini ready to go.

[1219] It's supposed to be out by now, but we can't launch it yet.

[1220] So, yeah.

[1221] What happens when it finally comes back up?

[1222] Do they release like 12 games in one week?

[1223] I don't know.

[1224] I think they have to rejigger the whole release schedule, I guess, and kind of go from there.

[1225] And then how much, like, you know, kind of goodwill for fans being like, it's free week.

[1226] Thanks for coming back.

[1227] And then, like, sorry, devs.

[1228] We gave away all your stuff for free.

[1229] They're not going to give away new games.

[1230] Well, Sony would pay those developers.

[1231] I hope so.

[1232] If they did anything for third -party stuff, they would have to...

[1233] 24 hours, all you can eat.

[1234] 24 hours, just download as much fucking shit as you can.

[1235] Which, if it's anything you can get, it's yours.

[1236] If it's anything like the old PSN, it would be about three things.

[1237] At those awesome speeds.

[1238] It sounds like it will be an incredible thing.

[1239] And then when you actually get there, ah.

[1240] Online interactions may change.

[1241] Or what's the ESRB thing that always comes up before you go online?

[1242] Your online interactions may vary or whatever.

[1243] Yeah.

[1244] Or not be existent.

[1245] Maybe that's in the rider for when they sign.

[1246] What does signing with Sony mean?

[1247] Well, you get this, this, and this.

[1248] This is all subject to change.

[1249] We can't guarantee the system specs.

[1250] We can't guarantee this.

[1251] It's right there.

[1252] It says you signed it.

[1253] Talk about the fucking network.

[1254] That's a good point.

[1255] We don't know what the specifics of that stuff looks like.

[1256] I'm sure they're hurting.

[1257] Everybody involved, I'm sure, is in a bad place.

[1258] Christian Svensson from Capcom has...

[1259] Definitely aired his grievances.

[1260] Said hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars being lost.

[1261] And that's just for Capcom.

[1262] And granted, they put out more downloadable games than the average large publisher.

[1263] Well, then also, you know, fighting games is very online focused.

[1264] Like, you know, you can't play.

[1265] Yeah.

[1266] I think everybody has some impacts.

[1267] Right, yeah.

[1268] All that DLC stuff.

[1269] But even just like, oh, if right now I was going to go and buy, you know, a fighting game, well, I'm not going to buy a PS3 version of.

[1270] Right.

[1271] Super Street Fighter 4 or MVC3.

[1272] Or anything.

[1273] Or anything.

[1274] Yeah.

[1275] Yeah, I went and pre -ordered a 360 copy of L .A. Noire, despite the three DVDs versus one Blu -ray thing.

[1276] All that online L .A. Noire stuff.

[1277] What are you getting at here?

[1278] What I'm getting at is that they're talking about there's going to be platform -exclusive stuff for the PS3 and L .A. Noire.

[1279] I don't know if that's going to be on the disc.

[1280] I don't know if that's going to be a code that I have to punch into PSN.

[1281] Yeah.

[1282] hedge my bet on the system that I know is fucking up and running.

[1283] I wonder if...

[1284] I mean, that is a three -disc game.

[1285] I wonder if it's going to end up being like the Forza situation of install them all and don't swap, or if they're going to just go traditional disc swap.

[1286] Mass Effect style.

[1287] Yeah.

[1288] Change discs.

[1289] Yeah, nobody else has done that.

[1290] Nobody else has done that.

[1291] Yeah, it'd be nice if they did.

[1292] Yeah, so...

[1293] I'm just going to see what the fuck that game is.

[1294] Yeah.

[1295] For sure.

[1296] So, yeah, I played a lot of Brink.

[1297] Review should hopefully be up by the time you hear this, I guess.

[1298] If not, this should be a pretty good jumping off point.

[1299] Yeah, and there's a quick look up as well if you want to see a bunch of it.

[1300] Yeah, I'm trying to think if I played anything else.

[1301] I feel like I did, but it's been a lot of Brink.

[1302] But, yeah, that PSN stuff is really crazy.

[1303] I mean, you think about, like, there was...

[1304] that infamous beta test was running or whatever, wasn't it?

[1305] It was for testing out all the user -created missions, and now no one can get in that.

[1306] Games that are in development are being impacted by this as well.

[1307] It's not just the people that are trying to ship things and sell things today.

[1308] It's the people that are testing the stuff that we're going to be playing this holiday season.

[1309] So this stuff has impacted the developer -specific network as well.

[1310] Crazy.

[1311] Like that's where it starts to get really crazy because what impact is it going to have on the stuff that's coming out in November if they're not able to test this stuff now or if they're not able to develop.

[1312] This is kind of game -making time if you're looking for holiday release.

[1313] Yeah, and especially it is demo polishing time if you're getting ready for E3.

[1314] Yeah.

[1315] So if you've got an online -only PlayStation 3 game that you're going to be showing at E3, I bet you're fucking hating life right now.

[1316] You're listening to this podcast going like, I'd be doing work if I could.

[1317] Man, I can't decide if I'm super excited for it.

[1318] or just need to close my eyes during the Sony E3 press conference.

[1319] Oh, it's going to be so uncomfortable.

[1320] I can't tell if it's going to be awesome.

[1321] You can't joke your way out of this one.

[1322] You can't come out.

[1323] You're going to have a room full of people that's waiting for you to fucking prove anything at all.

[1324] Staring daggers at the stage.

[1325] Jack Trenton can't just come out and act flip about this.

[1326] See, I think I brought this up two weeks ago.

[1327] That's how long this has been going up.

[1328] If there would be a mention of this at E3.

[1329] Well, it kind of depends.

[1330] I mean, it's...

[1331] The fact that it's like two weeks later and that shit's still going on.

[1332] I think at the time I said, yeah.

[1333] And I still think, yeah.

[1334] There's a flip joke about it.

[1335] That's what I think.

[1336] This is way too serious, dude.

[1337] I think there's a joke about it.

[1338] I don't think you can joke about it.

[1339] 99 % uptime.

[1340] You can't joke about it because...

[1341] The whole point of that presentation is, like, strong look at the future of, like, based on our current kick -ass -edness, look at the cool stuff we're going to be bringing you in 2012 and beyond.

[1342] More importantly, to joke about it is to just, like, shit on the huge number of people that have been inconvenienced or fucked over by this thing.

[1343] So maybe you spit it in, like, we went back and we're stronger than PlayStation Network is stronger and more secure than ever.

[1344] It would be crass for them to go out there and be flippant about it.

[1345] Do you think Microsoft makes a joke about it?

[1346] Yeah.

[1347] There's one sentence of like, and our network works.

[1348] But it's meaningless crap like that.

[1349] And then Nintendo says like, see?

[1350] The internet's bad.

[1351] We knew that.

[1352] We could have told you that.

[1353] Friend codes.

[1354] Doesn't seem so stupid now, huh?

[1355] No, it does.

[1356] I know.

[1357] Put the tinfoil over your windows.

[1358] Project Cafe.

[1359] I don't know.

[1360] I still think Jack makes some kind of joke about it.

[1361] They bring Kevin Butler out and fire him.

[1362] That's right.

[1363] There you go.

[1364] He's the fault man. Make him be the fall guy.

[1365] Maybe Kevin Butler makes the joke and that's how they get around it.

[1366] Damaging their core brand because he's kind of just a goof anyway.

[1367] I don't know.

[1368] I feel like Kevin Butler might be done.

[1369] I think that thing is totally his shelf life.

[1370] I don't expect them to know that just yet.

[1371] Didn't they have the little kid for the PSP?

[1372] Marcus.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] He did about as well as the PSP did.

[1375] Yeah.

[1376] That's kind of sad.

[1377] Yeah.

[1378] Oh, damn.

[1379] Although I guess PSP is still selling gangbusters in Japan.

[1380] Right.

[1381] Yeah, sure.

[1382] That's why Sony thinks we should do more PSP stuff.

[1383] Pressure maker.

[1384] They'll have so much NGP stuff to cover at that press conference anyway.

[1385] They're going to have plenty of cool things to talk about.

[1386] But I really think before you mount into the, like, here is the future.

[1387] Yeah, I think they open with, like, all right.

[1388] Especially, I mean, you know, right now they're saying we expect it to be online in May. Oh, really?

[1389] Which then some, you know, that led to a lot of stories of like, well, it'll be back up May 31st.

[1390] Or like, yeah, there's a May 31st deadline.

[1391] And then Sony said like, no, no, no, no. We said sometime in May. That end of May. Sooner than that, we hope.

[1392] Or something like that.

[1393] Well, the weird thing is like they kind of, their response to the interpretation of the statement.

[1394] made it sound like it could go either way.

[1395] It may sound like they're like, no, no, no, we're not saying guaranteed it's going to be the 31st, but that's the window we gave.

[1396] Their response almost made it sound like it could be sooner or it could be way longer.

[1397] Imagine if they didn't have full service restored until the end of May, the week before E3.

[1398] I think the amount of time that gets devoted to this situation in their press conference grows as the days tick on.

[1399] It's probably more of a news item, but have they basically said what the hell's going on?

[1400] Have they kind of just, I mean, is it just destroyed?

[1401] They're rebuilding everything, you know?

[1402] Like, from scratch?

[1403] They have to, like, I don't know.

[1404] What did they do?

[1405] What happened?

[1406] The old stuff didn't work.

[1407] The old stuff let bad people see things that they shouldn't see.

[1408] It's extremely speculative.

[1409] It's a long time to have your...

[1410] There's a lot of speculation and, you know...

[1411] perhaps semi -informed speculation about the technical side of it.

[1412] I don't think any of us here are equipped to talk about what exactly happened, but the hackers hacked it, and Sony couldn't unhack it, so they had to make a new one.

[1413] So you think it'll come back and be different?

[1414] I don't know.

[1415] On the surface at all?

[1416] Not to you.

[1417] Not to you.

[1418] You don't think it comes back and they're like, well, we took some extra time, and I don't know, we figured this would be cooler.

[1419] We went back, and trophies work a lot faster now.

[1420] I think they just need to get that shit.

[1421] up -ended any sort of functionality as goddamn quickly.

[1422] You need to be able to purchase stuff on the PlayStation Store as soon as humanly possible.

[1423] That's what makes it seem so odd, and that's why I ask.

[1424] Wouldn't you just roll stuff out in stages where it's like, you can play online.

[1425] I think that was the plan, that it was going to be a stage rollout.

[1426] Maybe the store stuff, don't put your information in.

[1427] They were saying the movie and music stuff might be rolling out ahead of the full functionality.

[1428] It seems like they are trying to stage it in some way, but to my knowledge, all of the PlayStation Network is still down.

[1429] It's crazy.

[1430] It is.

[1431] At least open up home.

[1432] That's where the hackers came from.

[1433] It would be funny if they have home and it's all burned down in the neighborhood.

[1434] Don't forget, you know, SOE is also still affected by all this stuff as well.

[1435] Oh, that's right.

[1436] You know, that universe online.

[1437] That's just back up, though, isn't it?

[1438] I don't believe so.

[1439] Well, not if you have the PlayStation version, right, of DC?

[1440] Well, yeah, you can't play that version at all.

[1441] But I know they are rolling out their make -good plans for SOE stuff, so that's happening.

[1442] Brad Shoemaker.

[1443] Hello, Brian Davis.

[1444] Hey, Vinny Caravelle.

[1445] Stop with those cheese yawns talking about video games.

[1446] Oh, my God.

[1447] My mind did a backflip in the middle of that conversation.

[1448] I don't know if you noticed.

[1449] What happened?

[1450] I think I've been playing way too much Portal.

[1451] Uh -huh.

[1452] Because, like...

[1453] All these are portable services.

[1454] Every surface in this room...

[1455] Portable.

[1456] Practically.

[1457] Portable.

[1458] Yeah.

[1459] Potable.

[1460] Like, this is...

[1461] Potent potables?

[1462] It looks...

[1463] It kind of looks like a test chamber in here.

[1464] Oh, sure.

[1465] Sure.

[1466] Definitely too much Portal.

[1467] Too many white walls.

[1468] So you've been playing a lot of Portal too, eh?

[1469] I played through the whole story again on the Xbox.

[1470] Yeah, I saw that.

[1471] Just to do that.

[1472] And then I played a bunch of the PC co -op last night.

[1473] That stuff's pretty good.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] I don't know if you heard.

[1476] It's really well done.

[1477] Yeah, no, I have.

[1478] People have mentioned to me that they think Portal 2 is pretty good.

[1479] Well, the co -op specifically.

[1480] There's a lot of smart stuff in there, but we've talked about that game.

[1481] We have.

[1482] I do want to just plug real quickly on the site.

[1483] Alex Navarro went to a talk, I think, at NYU last week where Eric Wolpaw talked at length about kind of process and stuff behind that game.

[1484] I know there's kind of been a lot of that stuff.

[1485] We had our spoiler cast.

[1486] There's the Jeff Keighley Portal 2 iPad app where he did the final hour stuff.

[1487] So there's a fair amount of that information kind of already out there.

[1488] But I still think Alex's rundown of that talk is still pretty interesting and I think still kind of illuminates some specific stuff that hasn't been turned over just yet.

[1489] When do we get to talk about that game for real?

[1490] I don't know.

[1491] Is everyone done with it?

[1492] Are you done with it?

[1493] Everyone's done with it?

[1494] We don't have to do it today.

[1495] There's other stuff.

[1496] No, we're not going to do it today.

[1497] I almost feel like if it's still soon enough, we might just fucking break it out and do something separate so that people can choose to listen to it and not have it destroyed.

[1498] Some people were upset at even how much was said last week, which was nothing at all.

[1499] Idiots.

[1500] What are you going to do?

[1501] Play more Portal 2.

[1502] Yeah.

[1503] And some Brink.

[1504] And some others.

[1505] No. Some other stuff.

[1506] How about some Lego Pirates of the Caribbean?

[1507] Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, the video game.

[1508] I don't think it's the video game.

[1509] I think it's just Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, the movie.

[1510] I think it's just Lego Pirates of the Caribbean.

[1511] The album.

[1512] The ride.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] All right, I'm in.

[1515] I would totally go on Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride.

[1516] I don't want to go on a Lego boat.

[1517] That game's pretty good.

[1518] It's...

[1519] Is it like all of those other games?

[1520] Like, yeah, but better in some ways.

[1521] Man, they have gotten really good at making those games.

[1522] Like, big effing surprise, right?

[1523] Because they're putting out like two a year.

[1524] It is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, the video game.

[1525] Is it really?

[1526] Oh, man, I think I tuned that part out.

[1527] Well, is it like LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, the video game?

[1528] Like, is LEGO even in like the, it's probably just their logo on the bottom.

[1529] It's the big red, right?

[1530] It's the big red logo, Rick.

[1531] Yeah.

[1532] Yeah.

[1533] Pirates of the Caribbean.

[1534] It's that, and then it's the Pirates of the Caribbean logo.

[1535] Right.

[1536] And probably somewhere else on the box it says the video game.

[1537] The video game.

[1538] Psycho.

[1539] Say three titles.

[1540] It's definitely still another one of those.

[1541] Who are the characters?

[1542] Like, you know, in all those games there are so many different characters.

[1543] I mean, yeah.

[1544] There's Jack Sparrow.

[1545] That's it, right?

[1546] Well, they duplicate a bunch.

[1547] There's like Jack Sparrow.

[1548] There's Jack Sparrow from the island where the natives painted extra eyeballs on his face.

[1549] There's like Elizabeth Swan in...

[1550] Undergarments, in addition to in regular clothes.

[1551] Like, they duplicate a bunch of characters.

[1552] Yeah, because I can only think of, like, who would you want to play as?

[1553] But, you know, when we were playing, like, the Lego Star Wars, Clone Wars 2 or whatever, you know, I don't know who any of those characters are, but you fill roles with just archetypes at that point.

[1554] And it's still...

[1555] I mean, they all look the same in the face.

[1556] You can't really...

[1557] They're all fucking Lego people.

[1558] They're hard to tell apart, you know.

[1559] Here's a piratey LEGO person.

[1560] Here's a piratey LEGO person that's also a skeleton.

[1561] Here's a piratey LEGO person that's also a fish man. I also feel like the kind of weird part is that LEGO pirate sets have been around forever.

[1562] There's not that much special about a LEGO pirate set.

[1563] I don't know.

[1564] This one and this Clone Wars game have convinced me that these games are earning their keep again.

[1565] For a while, it was just like, man, give it a rest.

[1566] Are they $60 or are they $50?

[1567] Ooh, I don't know.

[1568] We should check.

[1569] So what makes it so great?

[1570] It looks...

[1571] It feels weird to say it.

[1572] It looks almost amazing.

[1573] Like, I'm shocked at how good it looks.

[1574] Like, this and the Clone Wars game.

[1575] Like, I don't know if you saw the quick look.

[1576] I did.

[1577] I don't know if you were here that week.

[1578] I was.

[1579] They're cramming, like, in that game, they're cramming, like, hundreds of characters on the screen.

[1580] Yeah, that opening sequence in the last four actors game is kind of crazy.

[1581] It's not just, like, a bunch of weird backdrops, like, animating and showing a bunch of characters.

[1582] Like, you can run back there and fight any of those hundreds of dudes.

[1583] This one, I mean, they're just doing so much with the engine.

[1584] You know, little tricks with depth of field and HDR and all that stuff.

[1585] Like, it just looks way better than it should.

[1586] Does it have that crazy split screen again?

[1587] Yeah, that's totally in there.

[1588] I'm not so sure that's actually a good thing.

[1589] Oh, you've turned.

[1590] Yeah.

[1591] I played some of it two -player with my girlfriend.

[1592] The camera's just not very smart when it splits.

[1593] Like, it tends to not focus on the character that is on the side.

[1594] Does that make sense?

[1595] The character that is starring in the half of the screen that you're playing tends to sort of swim off to the side.

[1596] The camera kind of moves around on its own without really focusing on that character.

[1597] You get a lot of double images in a lot of cases where you're seeing the same thing on both sides of the split.

[1598] So that gets pretty disorienting.

[1599] I mean, it seemed like even what we saw in the Clone Wars game, like there was potential for confusion.

[1600] Sure, sure.

[1601] So I'm not 100 % sure that is a great feature.

[1602] Is this awesome?

[1603] I mean, all that's really doing, I think it is a great feature.

[1604] I think what it's really doing is shining a light on those games having kind of shitty cameras and kind of always having had kind of shitty cameras.

[1605] Even in the single player occasionally, like you won't be able to see where you're jumping very well.

[1606] I remember definitely being sequences before, like in...

[1607] in past games where, like, I have fucking no idea where I need to be going, and it turns out, like, oh, well, if I just walked a little bit to the right, then the camera would have moved, and I would have seen that, oh, there's this whole other area that I need to move.

[1608] Trial and error still largely rules those games.

[1609] Yeah.

[1610] You can't really die, right?

[1611] Up to and including this one.

[1612] You can't, I mean, you can die, you just respawn immediately, but you do lose a bunch of the little studs.

[1613] No permanence.

[1614] Which, well, if you're trying to hit, like, the milestones, if you're really trying to collect stuff in that game, then, yeah, that's a pain in the ass, because you need a bunch of those.

[1615] You've got to build pirate ships and stuff.

[1616] Yeah.

[1617] But then you can just, you know.

[1618] Do it again.

[1619] You can, yeah.

[1620] You can actually cheat like a motherfucker in these games.

[1621] I don't know if you guys have kept up with how these games work lately.

[1622] Obviously, you've not been reading my blog.

[1623] No, I need to sign up for your newsletter, apparently.

[1624] Your zine.

[1625] Your Lego zine.

[1626] Yes, my Lego video game zine.

[1627] All the other games have had these red bricks, and this one, they're red hats, but they're basically cheat toggles, essentially.

[1628] Every time you find a red hat, it gives you a certain cheat toggle, like, oh, you can build faster, or...

[1629] Enemies drop loot or money when you kill them.

[1630] And those things are really hard to get normally.

[1631] It takes a lot of grinding.

[1632] You've got to get a bunch of money.

[1633] You've got to get to a certain level, and then you can go unlock them and then buy them.

[1634] Or you can just put in a cheat code, like a six -character alphanumeric cheat code, and it just gives it to you.

[1635] Each time or once?

[1636] No, like once.

[1637] You put them all in there, and it's just you've got everything.

[1638] But doesn't that disable certain progress stuff?

[1639] No, no. It can still do everything.

[1640] I want to say in the past that they've had those for a long time, but I want to say in the past that they did disable.

[1641] It may be different with this one because I don't have any of the codes.

[1642] They're not out there yet.

[1643] Once this game has been out for a week and all those codes are out there, you won't have to do a lot of work to get most of the stuff.

[1644] It's a kid's game.

[1645] It seems crazy.

[1646] It's just nice to hear that games have cheat codes.

[1647] It's a kid's game based on PG -13 movies.

[1648] What's it rated?

[1649] PG -13?

[1650] No, the game.

[1651] E .T.?

[1652] It's got to be E10+.

[1653] Swordplay.

[1654] I bet E10+.

[1655] Characters explode when you...

[1656] There's a lot of neat attention to detail in there.

[1657] The last level of the first movie, when you're fighting the cursed crew, and there are spots of moonlight, and when they move into it, they very seamlessly turn into skeletons in the back when they step out.

[1658] So it's three movies in it?

[1659] It's all four.

[1660] It's got the new one in there.

[1661] It's kind of weird because that movie's not even out yet, and you can just play through the storyline, which I'm sure is really integral to the experience of seeing that movie.

[1662] Is there drinking in it?

[1663] It's a pirate.

[1664] They've got a drink.

[1665] I recall a lot of grog, actually.

[1666] Now that you've mentioned it.

[1667] Tea, see?

[1668] Tea.

[1669] Alcohol.

[1670] Firearms.

[1671] Oh, no. No, it's not tea.

[1672] Anyway.

[1673] Rated M. It's well made.

[1674] It's still a Lego game, but it's getting better.

[1675] Actually, the one thing that's worth pointing out is they do a lot better about leading you now.

[1676] The previous games were pretty bad about directing the player.

[1677] It was just like, smash everything you find until you can build something and then carry it somewhere.

[1678] So when you pick up...

[1679] puzzle -y story objects now.

[1680] You get a little pointer that shows exactly where they need to go.

[1681] They sort of direct your attention toward the important stuff a little bit better now.

[1682] That's good.

[1683] That was still definitely a problem in Clone Wars.

[1684] I mean, it's not perfect.

[1685] There's still plenty of situations where you're just staring at the environment like, what do I need to hit here to move on?

[1686] But it's fun.

[1687] They have created a little cottage industry for themselves there.

[1688] I can't imagine how efficient their production pipeline must be at this point.

[1689] Those cutscenes are...

[1690] Fantastic.

[1691] Yeah.

[1692] Just the animation and the kind of visual fidelity they get.

[1693] It's the best -looking Lego people you've ever seen.

[1694] You can tell.

[1695] They've been doing it for a while.

[1696] So a review of that forthcoming.

[1697] Yeah.

[1698] Yes.

[1699] Anything else you want?

[1700] Me to check in with you, Bradley.

[1701] Something.

[1702] How's your StarCraft game?

[1703] Best not to talk about it.

[1704] It's looking grim.

[1705] Yeah.

[1706] Not as bad as Norm, though, who has declared himself done.

[1707] Oh, did he fall off hard?

[1708] He hasn't played in like a month.

[1709] He doesn't even watch it anymore.

[1710] I hardly do either.

[1711] There's no time.

[1712] Too many other games we have to cover.

[1713] It's a hard stop.

[1714] Yeah.

[1715] I play a lot of 3v3 now because that's pretty low impact.

[1716] You can just get in there and fuck around.

[1717] That's Norm.

[1718] If Norm's not at the top of his game, he wants nothing to do with it.

[1719] Oh, that's the thing.

[1720] He cares more about winning than having fun.

[1721] So if he's not winning and he's not playing.

[1722] Then he's not having fun.

[1723] Did he ever finish the single player?

[1724] I don't think he did.

[1725] I don't think he ever played it.

[1726] I don't think he ever started it.

[1727] Christ.

[1728] Yeah.

[1729] Going down to Blizzard in two weeks to see that Zerg expansion.

[1730] And then you're right back in it.

[1731] Well, they're only showing...

[1732] I suspect that whatever you see there, no matter what it is, you will come back and play the original again.

[1733] Get that little taste.

[1734] We'll hit the post E3 lull.

[1735] Remember, you can't do as much as you think you can do.

[1736] Just got to ease back into it for a couple of matches.

[1737] You don't want to stretch.

[1738] You got to make sure I stretch a little bit before.

[1739] Just get right back into the exact amount you were into before.

[1740] Your body can't handle that.

[1741] No, your metabolism is different now.

[1742] I'm not sure I can't pull anything.

[1743] Breathing exercises.

[1744] Get you out of there.

[1745] Strengthen the kegels.

[1746] I played some Dungeon Siege 3 last week with a couple of folks from Obsidian came through the office.

[1747] Big old quick look.

[1748] Big old long quick look with that mofo.

[1749] That's a dungeon crawler.

[1750] Yeah.

[1751] Mm -hmm.

[1752] Yeah.

[1753] Oh, then you did some, what was it?

[1754] Daggerdale.

[1755] Yeah, played some Daggerdale.

[1756] Oh, yeah, we did Daggerdale.

[1757] There's a quick look of that up.

[1758] Is that out this week?

[1759] No, they haven't announced a date for that.

[1760] Okay.

[1761] I hear soon -ish.

[1762] Okay.

[1763] One of those is Dungeons & Dragons.

[1764] Yep.

[1765] One of those is not Dungeons & Dragons.

[1766] The other one might as well be.

[1767] Definitely.

[1768] Kind of, maybe a little more like, you know, kind of mechanical business in Dungeon Siege.

[1769] You know, more clockwork kind of stuff.

[1770] Oh, in terms of the...

[1771] The aesthetic and, yeah, the fiction and all that.

[1772] It seemed like Daggerdale was like...

[1773] Man, that's Dungeons and Dragons.

[1774] It is straight up.

[1775] You are in a dungeon.

[1776] I wonder if there's even a dragon.

[1777] Maybe there's a dragon at the end.

[1778] D and motherfucking D. It doesn't matter.

[1779] Dragon that shoots daggers instead of fire.

[1780] I love the name Dagger.

[1781] Welcome to Daggerdale.

[1782] I love the name Daggerdale.

[1783] Nice, nice, nice, nice.

[1784] I was incorrect in the quick look.

[1785] Daggerdale is an existing place.

[1786] Okay, I did not create that.

[1787] This is in the Forgotten Realms.

[1788] I was shaken to my fucking core to find out that Elminster is dead.

[1789] Did that bother anybody else?

[1790] I had no idea.

[1791] Persistent fiction and timeline.

[1792] Specifically, that guy's like the Gandalf of Forgotten Realms.

[1793] Does he truly die?

[1794] I don't know.

[1795] Now, Elementor the White is going to show up.

[1796] Yeah, right.

[1797] I think I, like you, in that quick look, was kind of shocked that when they do a new rule set or revision, that they up...

[1798] Date the story.

[1799] Yeah, there's like timeline and story attached to that.

[1800] It's like season four.

[1801] I thought it was literally just like, all right, here's how Thaco balances out now or here's what it means when you roll a natural 20 or something.

[1802] I don't fucking know what I'm talking about.

[1803] Point being, I didn't realize there was sort of an update to the universe.

[1804] It's interesting.

[1805] It makes you kind of want to check it out.

[1806] Kind of.

[1807] Daxdale.

[1808] Dungeons and Dragons Daggerdale.

[1809] Niceville.

[1810] I used to read so many D &D books when I was like 14.

[1811] Works of the devil, man. Yeah.

[1812] Yeah, look how you turned out.

[1813] Yeah.

[1814] Devil.

[1815] I had a teacher who once said I had to burn all the D &D stuff because it was for the devil.

[1816] She wanted me to burn it.

[1817] Like, literally burn it.

[1818] Like, bring it to her house.

[1819] We'll burn it.

[1820] What was your response to that?

[1821] It's my brother's.

[1822] I can't do that.

[1823] Let's make birdhouses.

[1824] This is weird.

[1825] You know what, Vinny?

[1826] Let's make birdhouses.

[1827] And if by birdhouses you mean take a quick break.

[1828] You want to make a birdhouse?

[1829] I'm going to go make a birdhouse.

[1830] We're going to make birdhouses.

[1831] Is this drug code now?

[1832] Hey, you guys.

[1833] You got the peanut butter.

[1834] I'll get the sesame seeds.

[1835] I'm just going to make a birdhouse.

[1836] I just wanted to mention the chair folks came through this morning real quick.

[1837] That's true.

[1838] The mustards.

[1839] Break our iPad cherry on this podcast that we talked about.

[1840] I don't know what the deal is.

[1841] Can we talk about why they were here?

[1842] I don't know how tightly wrapped up they are.

[1843] I guess we shouldn't really.

[1844] You screwed this up already.

[1845] Yeah, well, it's an update to a game.

[1846] You're going to poison our relationship.

[1847] There's an update to the family, which is more important to me. That you can't talk about.

[1848] I don't think that's under embargo.

[1849] There will be new stuff coming to Infinity Blade.

[1850] There's a baby!

[1851] You're right, I forgot we can't really go into a lot of detail there.

[1852] All right, well, let's take a break and get our story straight and then come back with more of the Giant Bobcast after this.

[1853] All right, we're back.

[1854] That was a disastrous birdhouse building session, I would say.

[1855] What are you talking about?

[1856] The bird will survive.

[1857] Vinny, you made a cuckoo clock, which...

[1858] That's a birdhouse?

[1859] Like an A for effort, and Jeff just put a cardboard box around his hand and then flipped everyone the bird.

[1860] That's another birdhouse.

[1861] Take it, you effers.

[1862] And then Brad made a house out of birds, which I don't think a bird would ever go inside of.

[1863] I think that's a pretty...

[1864] strong warning sign for most birds I'm a bird You wouldn't have fit in that house then either.

[1865] It was pretty big.

[1866] So we'll come back later.

[1867] We'll figure out this whole birdhouse building thing.

[1868] What did you build?

[1869] Until then, I didn't come up with anything for me to build.

[1870] I came up with three.

[1871] Those are pretty good.

[1872] Rule three.

[1873] But I did come up with a fourth where I built some news.

[1874] This is all good today.

[1875] These are great.

[1876] Thank you.

[1877] It's just transitions, smooth segues.

[1878] It's great.

[1879] It's great stuff.

[1880] Wii price drop $149.

[1881] Get yourself a Wii and a copy of a game.

[1882] I have a Wii.

[1883] Then you don't need this.

[1884] This is not for you.

[1885] This is for people that don't have a Wii.

[1886] I don't have a Wii.

[1887] So they're changing up.

[1888] Mario Kart and the wheel are what they are now packing in for $149.

[1889] Sounds like a downgrade.

[1890] That's really uncool.

[1891] Well, I'll tell you the weirder thing.

[1892] For the audience that would buy a Wii for $150 at this point, Mario Kart, it's not a terrible kind of pack -in for that.

[1893] You know, it's better.

[1894] Wii Sports.

[1895] Here's the weirder thing about all of this, is that they are now selling Wii Sports as a standalone product for $19 .99.

[1896] I don't know how you...

[1897] But, like, with the millions of Wiis that are already out there, all of which came with a copy of Wii Sports...

[1898] at least in theory, right?

[1899] Yeah, yeah.

[1900] Like, they've never sold that...

[1901] Well, I guess...

[1902] I don't know.

[1903] They started coming with Wii Sports Resort.

[1904] Right, they started coming with the second one, which I guess they were phasing out and all this.

[1905] I think it makes perfect sense at this point to start offering Wii Sports as a separate game, because not only do you have people that didn't get it when they got their Wii...

[1906] But, you know, it's like there are probably like a bunch of used Wiis changing hands.

[1907] And in some cases, people probably set that disc on fire by mistake or something.

[1908] So if people want to experience some of the best that the Wii has ever had to offer, the game that came with it when it launched, pretty good.

[1909] Does a new Wii come with Motion Plus?

[1910] Yeah.

[1911] That's one controller?

[1912] I believe that's the case, yeah.

[1913] Okay.

[1914] That had been.

[1915] I see nothing on the packaging for the stuff that they've released since then.

[1916] Say one way or the other.

[1917] But it is black, isn't it?

[1918] You can get a black one or a white one.

[1919] Either way.

[1920] Also, they're launching ValueLine budget lineup.

[1921] Animal Crossing City Folk, Mario Super Sluggers, Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess, and Wii Sports for $20 as well.

[1922] I bet the Wii Motion Plus controller thing doesn't fit in the wheel.

[1923] It can, right?

[1924] It's built into the controller now.

[1925] Now it's just the Wii controller.

[1926] It's a Wii.

[1927] It's called the Wii Remote Plus.

[1928] So, yeah, they integrated that into the actual thing a while ago.

[1929] So is that what they sell now?

[1930] Yeah.

[1931] That's what you get.

[1932] I think you can still get the controller attachments if you really want it.

[1933] Really want it.

[1934] Don't get it.

[1935] Mass Effect 3 has been delayed into early 2012.

[1936] That is no longer coming out this year, which generally is a positive thing.

[1937] Spend more time making the game, and then also we don't have to worry about that game when we're also worrying about Skyrim.

[1938] Everybody is a winner.

[1939] And Uncharted 3 and the new Assassin's Creed, which got announced last week.

[1940] Batman.

[1941] Earth loses.

[1942] There's a lot of games.

[1943] I never understand people who get upset over delays because...

[1944] I don't know.

[1945] I want to play Mass Effect 3.

[1946] Yeah, but do you want...

[1947] I mean, clearly the people who are making the game feel that more time is needed to make it properly.

[1948] Hold on a second.

[1949] How does it rank?

[1950] Wait.

[1951] No, it's not good.

[1952] I don't like it.

[1953] But to be fair, Splash Damage has a long and storied history of delaying the shit out of their games and then they end up not being very good.

[1954] So...

[1955] All right.

[1956] You know, fool you once.

[1957] People liked Quake Wars.

[1958] It was not for everyone, but...

[1959] Someone will like Brink.

[1960] Yeah, I think it'll be a small number of people.

[1961] I think it'll be a smaller number of people than liked Quake Wars.

[1962] I don't remember that many people liking Quake Wars.

[1963] Yeah, maybe you're right.

[1964] A lot of people like E .T. Yeah.

[1965] Because guess what?

[1966] It was free.

[1967] Right.

[1968] But also, I'm not saying it's bad, but...

[1969] What are your feelings, Brad, on how do you feel Mass Effect is...

[1970] Are you scared?

[1971] About how it's going to turn out?

[1972] Yeah.

[1973] Well, we can't talk about this without also addressing the John Richtello comments, right?

[1974] What are the John Richtello comments?

[1975] About...

[1976] Do you have that story up?

[1977] I can't remember exactly how he phrased it.

[1978] All I have is Casey Hudson from Bioware saying that...

[1979] Development team is laser -focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is totally fucking awesome.

[1980] That's great.

[1981] Yeah, take more time.

[1982] Take all the time you need to make it great.

[1983] To make it totally fucking awesome.

[1984] Take all the time you need to make sure there's at least 20 hours of dialogue in there and not, like, say, three.

[1985] I never saw...

[1986] I never directly saw what the Riccitello quote was.

[1987] I can't remember how he phrased it, but it was something to the effect of, like...

[1988] It was something about the, you know, shooting.

[1989] Well, no, he didn't say anything about the shooting.

[1990] He said, like, we are investigating ways to, or maybe we are applying ways to make this appeal to a more mainstream or a broader mainstream audience.

[1991] Yeah, you know, third game in a trilogy.

[1992] That's the perfect time for people to jump on board.

[1993] I mean, I'm just pulling back from this a little bit.

[1994] Broadly, I have been worried about this getting the Dragon Age 2 treatment because they're whipping through it.

[1995] And, you know, it's going to have been about 18 months since the last Mass Effect.

[1996] A little more, but with certification time and all that.

[1997] They will have cranked out Mass Effect 3 in 18 months.

[1998] Not now, because they have delayed it, which seems like it's for the best.

[1999] Yeah, but it is the third game in a series and not on a new console.

[2000] Sure, the pipeline has been refined and all that stuff.

[2001] But, I mean, there's just a lot in those games.

[2002] There's a lot of dialogue to write and record.

[2003] And hopefully generate a lot of assets.

[2004] Yeah, a lot of places, hopefully, that you're going to go.

[2005] Hopefully.

[2006] It'd be awesome if you just...

[2007] We've got this space dungeon and we've walled off this.

[2008] There's actually just like these gray bricks we just threw in there.

[2009] Even better is they actually are in the Dragon Age dungeons.

[2010] You're actually just shepherds.

[2011] You made everything neon glow.

[2012] But if that was just a side quest where you are teleported into the world of Dragon Age 2, and it's just like, oh.

[2013] I mean, don't forget, like, most of those, like, the actual, you know, the world areas you would go in Mass Effect 2 are pretty small.

[2014] Yeah, they're very constrained.

[2015] But at least they're nicely varied.

[2016] You know, you go to a lot of different planets, they look very different.

[2017] That's true.

[2018] That's true.

[2019] Like, how would you feel if the majority of Mass Effect 3 took place on Earth?

[2020] That'd be cool.

[2021] As long as the places are different.

[2022] Who knows what Earth is like?

[2023] Yeah.

[2024] I saw Big Ben.

[2025] That's about it.

[2026] But, you know, that could be really cool.

[2027] I think if the story justifies that and they're able to turn that into like a full Mass Effect 2 length game and make it interesting and varied, then that's fine.

[2028] I don't care.

[2029] I want them to do right by the series.

[2030] And if they think the best story to tell is putting most of that game on Earth, and if they could back that up with the level variety and stuff we saw in Mass Effect 2, plus hopefully a little more.

[2031] then that's great.

[2032] Nothing as simple as what if it all took place on one planet is going to immediately throw me off the game.

[2033] As long as the impetus for that started with the story.

[2034] Because most of that game is indoor environments anyway.

[2035] Very rarely are you on these amazing, crazy -looking jungle planets.

[2036] There's some pretty nice, especially that stuff at the end of Shadow Broker and stuff.

[2037] They can get pretty crazy with those environments.

[2038] Yeah, but you can make that environment on Earth.

[2039] Who knows what kind of crazy...

[2040] You're at the core of the Earth.

[2041] Part of what I love about that series is the ability to fly around and do other stuff.

[2042] Right.

[2043] But to be fair, most of the Do Other Stuff was kind of shitty.

[2044] I thought a lot of it in 2 was better.

[2045] In 1, absolutely.

[2046] Shitty in slightly different ways.

[2047] 2 had a lot of decent sideways.

[2048] Mining is what I'm talking about.

[2049] Yeah, mining.

[2050] Which was kind of like one of the main reasons why you would go and try to explore stuff other than there's a planet there that I know I have a mission on and I will go to that planet.

[2051] There were a lot of side missions.

[2052] I liked finding the random side missions that you didn't know about.

[2053] I guess like...

[2054] how they present how I approach side missions doesn't concern me as much.

[2055] Like, I don't, the whole, like, I'm going to fly my little ship through this, you know, fake universe, and then, oh, but I got to go get gas because I don't have enough space gas.

[2056] I've got plenty.

[2057] I've got a horrible case of space gas.

[2058] If I walked up to Normandy and then right there, it's like, all right, you have these four missions.

[2059] Which one do you want to go do?

[2060] They're each on different planets.

[2061] I don't know.

[2062] And then you showed me a cut scene of the Normandy going through the mass effect gate or whatever.

[2063] And then you got to take an elevator load scene.

[2064] I'm just saying, and then I'm on the next place.

[2065] That would be okay, too.

[2066] That wouldn't bother me. I want my own spaceship.

[2067] I want to be on the ship.

[2068] You need to be on the ship.

[2069] Oh, wait a minute.

[2070] Are you suggesting not walking around the ship?

[2071] Oh, no way.

[2072] You've got to be able to get on the ship.

[2073] Fuck that.

[2074] Maybe I'll have a big car.

[2075] That's like exploring that ship and talking to the people on it and getting their thoughts on the current state of the mission.

[2076] How do you know there's even a Normandy in Mass Effect 3?

[2077] Because there was one at the end of 2, so at least for a little bit.

[2078] There's got to be some kind of Normandy.

[2079] Maybe there was Normandy at the start of Mass Effect 2 as well.

[2080] Having a ship and feeling like it's your home and it's like a living environment was one of my favorite things about that series.

[2081] Maybe it'll orbit Earth and it'll drop from there and do stuff.

[2082] Who knows?

[2083] It's all speculation, but I will say...

[2084] It's just XCOM at that point.

[2085] Yeah.

[2086] I like XCOM.

[2087] You haven't heard shit about that 2K XCOM.

[2088] Someone get on that.

[2089] Instead of a ship, if it was like XCOM and you had your own G .I. Joe base or something like that, I'd be down with that with the lift.

[2090] Put the Mako up on a lift and watch it go up and down.

[2091] So the strength of Mass Effect, having played through that, what was the latest, the last DLC?

[2092] Arrival.

[2093] When that game sucks is when you're by yourself and it becomes a single.

[2094] If they just put Shepard out there to draw and there's no more of that party stuff, that will...

[2095] I can't see that happen.

[2096] They did it in that thing.

[2097] I'm saying you really find out where the strengths are of Mass Effect is.

[2098] I mean, not a surprise.

[2099] It's in the character interactions and all the party stuff, which is awesome.

[2100] And how people react to Shepard and how Shepard reacts to them.

[2101] When he's alone just shooting dudes, there are better shooters out there.

[2102] I still have faith.

[2103] I'm feeling better now.

[2104] I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[2105] Yes, Dragon Age 2 was not quite what it was supposed to be, but Dragon Age 1 didn't really click with me either.

[2106] That happening doesn't rattle me to my core or whatever.

[2107] The Mass Effect team has been good to me, and I'll see what they have to say.

[2108] The delay is encouraging.

[2109] The comments, not as much.

[2110] If they make the shooting in that game better, I don't think anyone loses.

[2111] It's only if it comes at the expense of other stuff.

[2112] I'm specifically worried about something being stripped out.

[2113] I don't think broadening the appeal of that game...

[2114] I don't think you get there by stripping out the things that make it Mass Effect.

[2115] My fear is that they're trying to broaden the appeal by taking out all that talking.

[2116] Yeah, if they just ship Gears of War with Shepard and Rex, that might work as a separate multiplayer -focused game.

[2117] But if that's what they ship as Mass Effect 3, it literally just sent chills up my spine.

[2118] But you need that for fucking commercials and stuff.

[2119] If the game is just shooting dudes, if that's a harder game to sell and market, more talking makes that game more marketable.

[2120] And Christina Norman was recently on Twitter.

[2121] I guess some comments she had been made had been taken into context that she did not care for and went out and cleared the air of basically people saying like – Taking her comments as meaning that they were going to reduce the RPG elements in that game, and she's like, that's not what I meant at all.

[2122] What I meant is that we were going to try and contextualize them and make them more meaningful to the actual actions that you are doing in the game.

[2123] So XP for jumping?

[2124] Yeah, it will.

[2125] If Shepard jumps, I'm done.

[2126] You're out?

[2127] I have no interest in a jumping Shepard.

[2128] What about kind of a...

[2129] If there's like a little like a low step, that's it.

[2130] That's the edge of the world as far as I'm concerned.

[2131] Dodging roll.

[2132] I don't know that I want to see what Shepard looks like jumping.

[2133] Like what sort of just like this awful prancy little...

[2134] He's like, yeah.

[2135] I don't know.

[2136] He just jumps.

[2137] Something about that seems weird.

[2138] Shoots his way out of a situation.

[2139] Suits too heavy, man. I don't think he'd jump in that thing.

[2140] He pulls the right trigger, kicks a guy out a window, and then that's it.

[2141] Yeah.

[2142] Or the left trigger.

[2143] I already forgot that.

[2144] Left is the good, right's the bad.

[2145] Yeah, right.

[2146] Always right.

[2147] I just know because I just clack, clack, clack, right hand.

[2148] Whatever comes up, I'm ready.

[2149] But while we're on the topic of Bioware stuff, Rick Tello, I guess this is all coming out of a recent earnings call.

[2150] Earnings call, yeah.

[2151] Star Wars Old Republic is going to come out before March 31st, 2012.

[2152] So March 31st, 2012.

[2153] At least that's what they're saying right now.

[2154] Yeah, this fiscal year.

[2155] This fiscal year, that game is going to come out.

[2156] So they say.

[2157] Does that game need a holiday launch, do you think?

[2158] I don't even know.

[2159] Does it matter when it comes out?

[2160] I don't know what that game needs.

[2161] I don't know.

[2162] I mean, is it bigger than that is what I'm saying.

[2163] I don't know.

[2164] Do they need that boost?

[2165] I can't even tell if it's big.

[2166] I can't even tell if that game is big anymore.

[2167] Is the release of that game like an event unto itself?

[2168] Well, I think it's hard to tell.

[2169] Are a lot of people excited about that game?

[2170] A lot of people still really like Star Wars.

[2171] Yeah, a lot of people still really like Star Wars.

[2172] I can't tell anymore.

[2173] Has that been announced for consoles?

[2174] No, it's just PCC.

[2175] That's for a personal computer.

[2176] God, I can't remember.

[2177] Who posted that scathing preview a week or two ago?

[2178] I didn't do it.

[2179] Did you guys see that?

[2180] Vinny.

[2181] I didn't do it.

[2182] Jeff.

[2183] I was like Star Wars, more like Star Bores.

[2184] Star Snores.

[2185] Someone said bad things about Old Republic?

[2186] Some publication that I cannot recall at the moment called it one of the most boring games they've played in years.

[2187] I don't know.

[2188] Last time I played it, it played like every other MMO in the world.

[2189] Except that they had sectioned off the story bits to keep other players from running in while you're in the middle of a cutscene.

[2190] But that was a year ago.

[2191] Who knows what that game even is.

[2192] Like, we've stopped going and seeing that game because seeing MMOs in 15, 30 -minute chunks is kind of pointless.

[2193] They had some kind of larger thing where they let people play it for, like, you play the first four hours.

[2194] Yeah, even like an entire day.

[2195] I mean, you want like a good couple weeks that you can keep going back to the same character and like really get a feel for the progression and stuff.

[2196] I hope that game comes with the EA Online Pass.

[2197] Oh, you bought a used PC games.

[2198] Don't be weird.

[2199] Oh, weird.

[2200] I have to enter this code to play online.

[2201] It's an extra $10.

[2202] You're going to have to buy it through the EA Downloader.

[2203] It's always a treat.

[2204] Always a treat.

[2205] That game's in this weird limbo now for me where I will be interested in seeing that game when it is complete.

[2206] I am interested in that game in a purely academic fucking format at this point.

[2207] Same here.

[2208] I'm curious to see how people react to this.

[2209] I'm curious to see what that game actually is.

[2210] Will this really matter?

[2211] Telling me you're making a Star Wars video game doesn't do anything for me personally, but yes, I'm with you.

[2212] I'm very curious to see what this does.

[2213] And I'm even more interested in how it does for EA.

[2214] I'm more interested in those parts of it.

[2215] They've spent a lot of time and a lot of fucking money and a lot of resources on building this thing, and they have...

[2216] Clearly very high hopes for what this is going to do for them as a business, and I have to wonder what the implications are for EA as a business, the Bioware unit specifically as a business, Rickatello's role in the organization as being kind of the dude who approved this stuff.

[2217] Everything hangs in the balance?

[2218] Kind of.

[2219] A little bit.

[2220] Kind of.

[2221] This is kind of a linchpin for EA in a big way.

[2222] It'll take a while, right?

[2223] Everyone involved, it seems like, has put their...

[2224] theoretical nuts on the table.

[2225] It certainly seems that way.

[2226] But you know what's always great?

[2227] Our Konami press conferences.

[2228] That was a pretty good one.

[2229] That was alright.

[2230] Thank you.

[2231] Thank you.

[2232] Why?

[2233] Well, I was using it ironically because Konami press conferences are fucking awful!

[2234] I don't know.

[2235] Constantly.

[2236] Consistently.

[2237] Over the years.

[2238] Last year there was that one where they announced Def Jam Rap Star.

[2239] That one was pretty good.

[2240] Last year they...

[2241] There was an inflection point.

[2242] They crossed over.

[2243] The meter circled back around to, oh wait, this is actually amazing, but not for any other reasons they expected it to be.

[2244] It became so bizarre and terrible that it became amazing.

[2245] So they live -streamed that on the internet last year.

[2246] And they have the worst possible...

[2247] Their press conferences are during E3.

[2248] During the show, at the show.

[2249] None of us saw that live.

[2250] We have to go see games.

[2251] The problem there is that the ESA only gives out so many slots for press conferences.

[2252] and they didn't get one, so they just have their own thing on the floor or in the building.

[2253] What are they doing now?

[2254] They will be, again, live streaming it, but they are also organizing viewing parties around the globe.

[2255] This takes place before E3.

[2256] Yeah, this is actually the week before E3 happens.

[2257] So, yeah, June 2nd, which is the Thursday before Electronic 3.

[2258] They're setting up viewing parties in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City, among others.

[2259] Like what?

[2260] So I wonder if this is them – It's like the Hannah Montana live concert experience.

[2261] If this is them finding some kind of self -awareness and if that self -awareness will ruin the potential for this to even be accidentally entertaining.

[2262] I don't think they're – I don't think anybody there was like, oh man, our press conferences had become a giant joke.

[2263] Let's make a party out of it.

[2264] Like wear a meme, kind of?

[2265] Yeah.

[2266] But they are a joke, and there has to be some amount of awareness about that.

[2267] If they were to come to that realization, I don't think they would feel proud about it and want to exploit it.

[2268] Yeah, it's never for the right reason.

[2269] This has to be, I mean, I don't think you try and do something like this unless you have something.

[2270] This is just Metal Gear related.

[2271] It's a big announcement.

[2272] It's got to be.

[2273] And it has to be more than rising also.

[2274] That was announced two years ago.

[2275] More rising information.

[2276] If that's not playable at E3 this year, something is wrong.

[2277] It has to be Metal Gear Solid 5.

[2278] I'm totally expecting MGS5.

[2279] Or come to my viewing party and find out.

[2280] Okay.

[2281] At your house?

[2282] It was the week before E3, the weekend before E3.

[2283] It was Thursday before.

[2284] Yes, so it'll be a viewing slash suicide party.

[2285] Excellent.

[2286] So wear your track pants.

[2287] We're going to take ourselves out of E3.

[2288] Wear some Nike's.

[2289] Yeah.

[2290] If you guys could avoid killing yourselves until after E3, I would really appreciate it.

[2291] Nothing worse than a fake suicide party.

[2292] I've been to like five of those.

[2293] I'm just kidding.

[2294] Everybody at home.

[2295] I'm just kidding.

[2296] Everyone at home.

[2297] Suicide parties are awesome.

[2298] I mean.

[2299] Join my cult.

[2300] Do you have to pay a review?

[2301] No. Where can I find – where is all this information?

[2302] Konami .com?

[2303] The Internet.

[2304] What?

[2305] I don't get that.

[2306] Konami .com slash the Internet.

[2307] Yeah, the Internet .com slash Konami slash the Internet.

[2308] Tilda slash the Internet.

[2309] Oh, so it's their user account?

[2310] Yeah.

[2311] That's right.

[2312] It's on their shell account.

[2313] Yeah, I can't even imagine what – I don't think this will be as great as people who really enjoyed last year's press conference will think it is.

[2314] I just don't think it can be.

[2315] Well, again, it was for the – Because it has to creep up on you.

[2316] That only worked because zero expectation.

[2317] Yeah, right.

[2318] It's like here's this thing that no one wanted to go to, but some people ended up kind of wishing they went to because it was so messed up.

[2319] It was pretty messed up.

[2320] And it did not necessarily – I can't imagine that anything that happened in that press conference or anything that was remembered from that press conference sold copies of games.

[2321] So that has to be – Extremely true.

[2322] So I don't think you do one of these and try to capitalize on that aspect of it.

[2323] I think you come out swinging and say, like, hey, man, we used to be able to put out DVDs with people reacting to trailers from press conferences, but we kind of can't do that anymore, so we're going to get the public involved because they're easily excited.

[2324] So we'll have cameras at people walking out of this thing saying, what did you think of Metal Gear, blah, blah, blah.

[2325] Are they going to film my viewing party?

[2326] Yeah.

[2327] View you.

[2328] It's the only way that Konami executives can get off anymore is watching someone else watching their press conference.

[2329] Clap goddammit.

[2330] Do you want to come to my viewing party?

[2331] I like it when the swarthy one smiles.

[2332] I have the Metal Gear Solid 2 trailer DVD.

[2333] I'll bring it over.

[2334] We can watch that.

[2335] But it's incredible how much both the industry and Konami has changed since they were able to pull stuff off like that.

[2336] That was 11 years ago.

[2337] I don't know that that's the same.

[2338] No, it's not.

[2339] Metal Gear doesn't matter as much as it once did.

[2340] Yeah.

[2341] I mean, there's still, there's fond memory for it, but like the impact of, you know, the first Metal Gear Solid had significant impact on the way games were made.

[2342] Metal Gear Solid 4, not so much.

[2343] Certainly not.

[2344] You know, by the time you get there, it's, you know, it doesn't have that same level of sway.

[2345] At least not, you know, in a kind of modern, relevant kind of way.

[2346] I really enjoyed MGS4, but yeah, you're right.

[2347] Yeah, totally.

[2348] It was a great game.

[2349] It felt like there's a lot of holdover shit in that game that did not necessarily feel completely modern.

[2350] I'll grant you that.

[2351] It was a very good looking game.

[2352] Not saying it was bad and fucking completely goddamn crazy.

[2353] Yes.

[2354] That is what I loved about it.

[2355] Yeah, absolutely.

[2356] You'll take a lot just for a little bit of good old -fashioned crazy.

[2357] Speaking of crazy, Super Meat Boy level editor coming at you.

[2358] That's crazy.

[2359] You'll be able to – so they're saying – I don't know when this is coming out, but it's coming to the PC.

[2360] It's out.

[2361] Is it out now?

[2362] Yeah, I think so.

[2363] Oh, did it come out?

[2364] I think it's out.

[2365] All right.

[2366] I didn't see a date on any of this stuff, so I wasn't sure.

[2367] Free update for Super Meat Boy level editor that includes all of the art from – They're saying that you can make any level in that game other than the warp zones and the boss fights using the level editor.

[2368] And then you upload them through the Super Meat World, and you'll also be able to use any of the 20 characters that are in the game, even if you haven't unlocked them yet.

[2369] You can title your levels, create strings of levels, I believe make your own music.

[2370] In the...

[2371] I don't know how the music stuff works.

[2372] I don't know if you're our...

[2373] I can't imagine you're sequencing anything.

[2374] Finally, I get some good music in Superman 4.

[2375] I imagine you're probably dropping an MP3 into a folder somewhere, but I don't know.

[2376] Okay.

[2377] I don't know.

[2378] That'd be crazy.

[2379] I don't have the PC version of Superman Boy.

[2380] Superman Boy levels to like AHA and like copyrighted music.

[2381] It'd be just like Trackmania at that point.

[2382] Great.

[2383] Except it's all like German house music or something.

[2384] Happy hardcore.

[2385] I just love that they call it Super Meat World.

[2386] I love that they are taking the Mario...

[2387] Yeah.

[2388] Inspiration as far as they possibly can.

[2389] The catch is that you have to have finished, like, I think you have to finish the first two worlds or get 20 bandages to open up to Super Meat World.

[2390] So you can't just, like...

[2391] First two worlds, not that bad.

[2392] You're right, but I already played through that stuff on the 360, so now I'll have to go back and, like, repeat a bunch of stuff.

[2393] And there will be, like, user rating system, or there is a user rating system in there, and the...

[2394] I'm pretty sure it's out.

[2395] I'm pretty sure it's out.

[2396] The staff is also doing kind of top picks as well.

[2397] I guess part of this announcement was also that they have no intention of doing a sequel to Super Meat Boy.

[2398] I believe they've said that before, but this is them kind of reiterating that fact that...

[2399] Good.

[2400] This is kind of like, okay, this is all that we are going to do to this fucking game.

[2401] We've done a lot.

[2402] We're done.

[2403] Yeah, worth noting, not going to happen on the XPLA version.

[2404] Because there's no...

[2405] You can't do unchecked user -created content.

[2406] They do push out those levels over that little portal.

[2407] They're going to keep putting out levels, they said, but as far as the level editor functionality and being able to submit and stuff, that's not going to be there.

[2408] I wonder if they'll push out any user levels over that thing.

[2409] They make it sound like they are going to keep supporting it, and it's kind of implied that that could be with user -created levels.

[2410] That's that.

[2411] Cool.

[2412] All right, we hinted at this a little bit earlier.

[2413] Assassin's Creed Revelations announced last week.

[2414] So I was kind of anticipating that the next game they were going to announce was going to be Assassin's Creed 3.

[2415] Yeah.

[2416] This is Assassin's Creed 2 -3.

[2417] What?

[2418] San Andreas of Assassin's Creed 2.

[2419] This is the third Assassin's Creed 2.

[2420] Okay.

[2421] World 2 -3.

[2422] They're saying the final adventures with Ezio.

[2423] Oh, it's confirmed?

[2424] Ezio is a revelator?

[2425] Yeah, he's going to revelate like a mofo, potentially alongside Altair in Constantinople.

[2426] So action moves to Constantinople.

[2427] Did they say anything about how Altair is going to be integrated?

[2428] No. I am speculating here, but what seems to be implied is that – or what I'm expecting out of this is that you will be seeing the events in Constantinople in different time periods.

[2429] Yeah, as you were saying that, I kind of clued into that.

[2430] That could be cool, I guess.

[2431] Geographically, that's a good midway point between Jerusalem and – You don't think they'll be like – solving puzzles by going back to Altair.

[2432] I do not believe that.

[2433] I do not believe that.

[2434] I will say this.

[2435] I really hope that's not what it is.

[2436] I bet that's exactly what it is.

[2437] I hope not.

[2438] I hope that it's for story structure stuff.

[2439] What I also hope is...

[2440] It's going to be actually just like Sonic CD.

[2441] You'll run past the sign and it'll go past and then if Ezio runs really quickly he'll eventually go back in time and you'll be Altair for a while.

[2442] I also hope that we don't lose the Brotherhood mechanics from...

[2443] Yeah.

[2444] I don't know.

[2445] I can kind of see that going away if he's leaving Italy.

[2446] Well, the art that they have put out there of Ezio, he is older.

[2447] Like, this is...

[2448] approaching old man Ezio at this point.

[2449] Well, it's always still Desmond, right?

[2450] We're all living through this stuff.

[2451] And after whatever happened in Brotherhood, I don't even know what you're going to show in the Desmond parts.

[2452] Which, again, after the events of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is maybe the story thread I am most interested in seeing what the fuck is going on.

[2453] With Desmond?

[2454] Yes.

[2455] Yes.

[2456] But, you know...

[2457] I was super skeptical about Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and that turned out fucking totally awesome.

[2458] So, you know, I feel like they're kind of raising the stakes for potential disappointment yet again.

[2459] They haven't really boned yet.

[2460] I'm like, all right, dude.

[2461] I have my personal doubts about some of these decisions, but so far you've been good.

[2462] I don't know.

[2463] The whole thing just feels kind of cheap.

[2464] But so did Brotherhood.

[2465] That was the thing.

[2466] It wasn't until I played Brotherhood's multiplayer about a year ago.

[2467] I was like, oh wait, this is actually awesome.

[2468] Yeah, sure.

[2469] And this may very well be a fine game too, but they can only put out so many of these before it's just like, alright, enough.

[2470] I don't care if it's still good.

[2471] We've had enough.

[2472] It's revelations, man. Who knows what they're going to uncover.

[2473] What's been good about it is that they have been making really drastic changes to the way those games handle from game to game.

[2474] The Brotherhood mechanic and multiplayer in Brotherhood are significant steps over Assassin's Creed 2.

[2475] Do you feel like they...

[2476] I hate to use the word perfected, but...

[2477] Do you feel like they refined it enough in Brotherhood that to significantly change it further would be kind of counterproductive?

[2478] It's hard to say without knowing how this game works, you know?

[2479] Yeah.

[2480] Without knowing what the mechanic is.

[2481] Like, if it is a lot of time travel puzzle solving of...

[2482] Like, you end up in a situation where, like, okay, you're playing as Desmond through Ezio stuff, but then he starts tripping out and seeing Altair stuff.

[2483] And then that's how Ezio solves puzzles, because he sees Altair solving a puzzle and goes, like, oh, I need to do it this way.

[2484] And you end up in a lot of cases where, like, you see ghost Altair jumping and pulling switches.

[2485] And you go, like, oh, that's what I need to do.

[2486] It could totally go that way.

[2487] If that's what it is, I am not necessarily interested in that.

[2488] I like the sound of what you propose with the two different time periods and stuff, but the fear is that...

[2489] They're going to change some minor window dressing on those city environments and say, hey, it's 300, 400 years later.

[2490] Well, I think they're going to have to make some significant changes to the aesthetic of the world by going to Constantinople.

[2491] Sure, from the previous games, but I'm worried about two time periods.

[2492] And they don't actually put that much effort.

[2493] Potentially.

[2494] Potentially.

[2495] Oh, I haven't played Brotherhood.

[2496] I don't know what's...

[2497] Well, I mean, Desmond's probably involved somewhere.

[2498] At some point, he'll be out of an animus running around doing something.

[2499] Oh, I thought you were proposing he would be climbing around Constantinople or whatever the modern -day equivalent is.

[2500] He could be.

[2501] That's what he's proposing.

[2502] I didn't know if it has gotten to that point yet where that could be happening.

[2503] I finished that game.

[2504] I'm not sure if that's possible either, one way or the other.

[2505] And we'll see.

[2506] Revelations.

[2507] I would love to know when the first game came out what the plan was for an arc, like a story arc for this.

[2508] Like how close are they to that arc?

[2509] Or more specifically, how much have they diluted that plan by cramming in these like...

[2510] Right.

[2511] I don't know much about writing trilogies, but I feel like you...

[2512] are writing pretty broadly outside of whatever your first game.

[2513] I don't think the plotting is ever that tight.

[2514] I think it's like you need to account for things that are going to change, and you're going to find out that some people are going to react to certain elements better than others, so you don't lock yourself into hard choices like that.

[2515] Back when Assassin's Creed meant, or at least kind of seemed to promise a different character in a different historical period with every iteration.

[2516] It seemed like one of the most exciting things going, and it's kind of not turned out that way.

[2517] I like Ezio.

[2518] He's fine.

[2519] And they've been making each game better and better.

[2520] They found a really great, like, Altair was a dick, and they found a really great and interesting character in Ezio.

[2521] So I don't, like, you had one shitty one and then one really good one.

[2522] I don't blame you for, you know, keep riding that one.

[2523] Altair was not much of a character at all.

[2524] No, his only characteristic was he was kind of a dick.

[2525] He was kind of a dick.

[2526] He got the job done.

[2527] That was it.

[2528] I liked the tone of that first game a lot more than, again, having played Brotherhood, but 2 felt kind of comic book -y to me, if that makes sense, you know?

[2529] 2's definitely a lot lighter.

[2530] Yeah, yeah.

[2531] It was a lot more light -hearted.

[2532] Well, don't forget how stupid the end of the first one got.

[2533] They got pretty silly.

[2534] I guess they all get kind of silly.

[2535] To be fair, to be fair.

[2536] Is there any kind of a date or see more at E3?

[2537] I'm sure it'll be November.

[2538] Okay.

[2539] And then play it in November.

[2540] We're looking for a summer.

[2541] Downloadable revolution.

[2542] We all agree, though.

[2543] November is the new summer.

[2544] Does anyone not agree this has to be it?

[2545] They've agreed that this is the end of the Ezio trilogy.

[2546] I thought it had to be it.

[2547] It's a trilogy within a trilogy?

[2548] Yeah.

[2549] Like I said, it's Assassin's Creed 2 Part 3.

[2550] Assassin's Creed is no longer a trilogy.

[2551] This one's a hood movie.

[2552] And you can eat hamburgers and then go lift weights.

[2553] What?

[2554] And you get a jet pack.

[2555] Assassin's Creed is an ongoing.

[2556] We're the knives of Assassin's Creed.

[2557] There's all this graffiti around.

[2558] Yes, exactly.

[2559] The food of Constantinople.

[2560] Makes sense, you all fat.

[2561] Now he can't climb around so good.

[2562] I guess you can't blame him.

[2563] I mean, did you guys see what Brotherhood sold?

[2564] It was like over $5 million.

[2565] Great game.

[2566] I'm not saying it doesn't deserve it.

[2567] I just hope that there is like some, you know, whether it's a small team that will get bigger as time goes on or, you know, there needs to be some kind of Strikeforce top of the top guys sitting there going like, all right, here's what Assassin's Creed 3 is really going to be and specking out that game and starting to work on that while these other guys are working on it.

[2568] And that's got to be like next level shit.

[2569] That's got to be like, you know, new engine.

[2570] At this rate, you know, that could be next console shit.

[2571] Oh, man, yes.

[2572] Now we're getting somewhere.

[2573] Adam is 3 .0.

[2574] Now we're getting somewhere.

[2575] All right.

[2576] Ezio, his face is going to be on this 6 -inch screen that you're holding in your hand, right?

[2577] All right.

[2578] And then if he gets cut up, you have to apply cotton to stop the bleeding on his face.

[2579] You have to touch his face.

[2580] I like that.

[2581] There you go.

[2582] I just made the new punch -out game for the next Nintendo system.

[2583] I'm on board.

[2584] I'm the virtual cut man. So, yeah, as mentioned earlier, PlayStation Network's still down.

[2585] And last week, Sony came out and I believe it was during the Senate hearing stuff said that basically, yeah, we have reason to believe that, you know, the group, the hacker group Anonymous is responsible for this because there was a file left on one of their servers that they found that was titled Anonymous and inside it said, we are Legion.

[2586] And then Anonymous has come back and said, nah, it ain't us.

[2587] Like, yeah, we are kind of – we're a decentralized – I will read a chunk of the statement that we've quoted in our news story here.

[2588] If a legitimate and honest investigation into the credit card theft is continued, Anonymous will not be found liable.

[2589] While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our leadership does not condone credit card theft.

[2590] We are concerned with erosion of privacy and fair use, the spread of corporate feudalism, the abuse of power, and the justification of executives and leaders who believe themselves immune personally and financially for the actions they undertake in the name of corporations and public office.

[2591] This is a statement from Anonymous?

[2592] From Anonymous.

[2593] Put this statement out.

[2594] But so, you know, there's theory flying around like crazy right now that there's like splinter groups of anonymous that were acting as this or that there were some other even more diabolical hackers that were using the anonymous like denial of service stuff that was going on.

[2595] Those ones aren't doing it for the most.

[2596] As a smokescreen for their operation and kind of, you know, if the.

[2597] The part about being a decentralized, anonymous organization is that it's easy for an organization to suggest that, yeah, you did it.

[2598] Yeah.

[2599] Without you being able to – It's also easy for your group to be infiltrated by a bunch of underworld thugs looking to make a bunch of money off of your hacking talents.

[2600] Certainly.

[2601] It's like Russian mafia could be piggybacking off of – A bunch of kids running low -orbit ion cannon at this point.

[2602] What?

[2603] Who can say?

[2604] How deep does this go?

[2605] All the way.

[2606] They also suggest that this would not be the first time that they have been pinned with something that had absolutely nothing to do with them.

[2607] Anonymous?

[2608] Well, it's like now anonymous sites are being taken down by other factions of anonymous, supposedly.

[2609] Also, use a name like anonymous.

[2610] And Tumblr is down today.

[2611] Oh, no. Really?

[2612] Yeah.

[2613] Now I can't check out your image blogs.

[2614] I know.

[2615] Those owls look so hungover.

[2616] It's hilarious.

[2617] I can't tell.

[2618] Sight's down.

[2619] Username like anonymous.

[2620] That's used in other things.

[2621] If you say we are Legion anonymous, that doesn't mean that it's anonymous.

[2622] I mean, we were, you know, yeah.

[2623] Me and a friend of mine called up a bunch of local BBSs and erased all the messages and then pretended to be my friend.

[2624] In such an obvious way that there's no way they could have thought it was him.

[2625] But then they figured out it was him.

[2626] It's a double spoof.

[2627] I'm just saying anonymous means anonymous.

[2628] Sometimes it doesn't mean anonymous.

[2629] Heavy.

[2630] Yeah.

[2631] Okay.

[2632] You know?

[2633] No. Go read Vinny's Tumblr for more details.

[2634] You can't.

[2635] It's down, dog.

[2636] Exactly.

[2637] I mean, when you refer to anonymous as a decentralized organization, like...

[2638] I feel like even the term organization is too binding in this case.

[2639] Yeah, I think so.

[2640] Because there is no leadership, there is no manifesto or unifying directive.

[2641] They don't have guys at the top going, all right, you guys go bring down Sony while you other guys antagonize Scientology.

[2642] It's like who runs the bots in the IRC channel.

[2643] They're the ones with the power.

[2644] There's nobody calling the shots.

[2645] It's literally a bunch of people on 4chan and wherever.

[2646] Right, which we can get away with this stuff.

[2647] Again, there's nobody up there.

[2648] There are people kind of directing things, and certain people have a little more say than others.

[2649] I'm not going to speak at all.

[2650] I can't say that I know anything other than hearsay and speculation about what that organization is actually like.

[2651] I don't think any of us can.

[2652] It's basically like anarchy in internet form, basically.

[2653] That's why that letter...

[2654] Letter from Anonymous, right?

[2655] Yeah.

[2656] It seems so odd.

[2657] Like, who composed it and who vetted it and who was like...

[2658] Well, that's the thing.

[2659] This represents us.

[2660] I don't know that you get, like, jumped into Anonymous.

[2661] 47 Communications.

[2662] And then you're like a...

[2663] It's representing Anonymous.

[2664] The PR firm representing Anonymous.

[2665] Yeah, the PR firm, they run it past them first and they say, well, we'll attribute this quote to you, Mr. Anonymous.

[2666] And he's like, yeah, that's fine.

[2667] That works.

[2668] That's okay.

[2669] Yeah.

[2670] Although, let me post it on 4chan.

[2671] So yeah, continued drama, and the end of the story is, hey, PlayStation Network is still down.

[2672] Still down.

[2673] Still down.

[2674] So thanks to the ESRB, we know a little bit more about a little game called Burnout Crash, which is a name that we had heard floating around for a bit.

[2675] The ESRB has...

[2676] graciously provided us with one of their totally awesome descriptions of the game, which I'm just going to read here.

[2677] It's like a paragraph.

[2678] Get ready.

[2679] This is an action game in which players earn points for creating traffic pileups.

[2680] From a top -down perspective, players initiate crashes by driving cartoony vehicles, e .g. cars, trucks, vans, buses, into busy intersections.

[2681] Multiple crashes, triggers, score multipliers, and rack up large bills of property damage.

[2682] Each level is accompanied by crashing sound, small explosions, and vocal encouragement, e .g. cool and maximum carnage.

[2683] In some levels, players are instructed to crash into police cars, e .g. crash them before they bust you.

[2684] In other sequences, oversized airplanes, tornadoes, lobster monsters, and UFOs slide across the screen, destroying any vehicles in their path.

[2685] I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

[2686] Lobster monsters.

[2687] Or the whole thing.

[2688] Lobster monsters.

[2689] Okay.

[2690] I got the gist, actually.

[2691] Top down.

[2692] Top down.

[2693] Lobster monsters, UFOs.

[2694] Those are the three.

[2695] For me, the thing that I take away is crash mode because it's the thing that I missed from Burnout Paradise.

[2696] But in an overhead format?

[2697] In a product that sounds like it's going to be a downloadable thing.

[2698] Yeah.

[2699] Yeah.

[2700] That could be interesting.

[2701] I mean, it's clearly, it's.

[2702] Not a racing or even driving game at all anymore, but really the crash mode stuff in the previous Brand Out games was kind of a puzzle game anyway that just happened to be played from a driving perspective.

[2703] I have to wonder if Criterion is doing this.

[2704] Yeah, it doesn't.

[2705] I don't know.

[2706] Maximum Carnage.

[2707] Lobster Monster.

[2708] Lobster Monster.

[2709] Lobster Monster.

[2710] You've got a lot of Lobster Monster.

[2711] DJ Lobster Monster.

[2712] Lobster Monster.

[2713] Lotsa, lotsa.

[2714] Lotsa, lotsa.

[2715] Lotsa, lotsa.

[2716] Let's go get some lobster monster rolls after this.

[2717] Yes.

[2718] To not eat a lobster roll in Boston.

[2719] Still sad.

[2720] Yeah.

[2721] I got some of those Pillsbury biscuits.

[2722] You know, the little tube.

[2723] Get the tube, crack the tube.

[2724] It's expired by about a week.

[2725] You can't.

[2726] That's fine.

[2727] That stuff wouldn't go bad.

[2728] Yeah, I'd cook them.

[2729] I wouldn't just eat it raw.

[2730] Yeah, that'd be fine.

[2731] That'd be fine.

[2732] Yeah.

[2733] Lobster monster.

[2734] Lobster monster.

[2735] Lobster monster.

[2736] Lobster monster.

[2737] What kind of monster is it?

[2738] It's a lobster monster.

[2739] I hope there are no lobster monsters in that game.

[2740] It was like something that they looked at and said, it looks like some kind of lobster monster.

[2741] You look at it and go, no, that's a car.

[2742] That's a Ford.

[2743] It's a pickup truck.

[2744] So as E3 continues to rapidly barrel towards our faces.

[2745] Oh, no, like a lobster monster.

[2746] Like a lobster monster.

[2747] Yeah.

[2748] I want to go to E3.

[2749] They could be lopsided now.

[2750] Yes.

[2751] Bungie announcing that they will not have any sort of official presence at E3 this year.

[2752] So if you were expecting, like, a big -ass, proper, full -on reveal of whatever game they're working on for Activision, this is them basically saying, A, maybe not so much.

[2753] Like, they released a statement kind of saying, like, we wanted to, you know, head it off at the pass so that people weren't then totally soul -crushed when E3 came and was like, where's the Bungie game?

[2754] Although that does not necessarily mean that we won't see some sort of teaser -y thing during a press conference somewhere.

[2755] Yeah, could be.

[2756] But no Bungie at E3.

[2757] I wonder if that is a this -generation game at this point.

[2758] God, I'm not ready to start doing this.

[2759] I know.

[2760] Every game now.

[2761] I don't think we're ready to do this because we don't have...

[2762] I mean, I still don't think this next generation is quite close enough.

[2763] Which makes us just not...

[2764] And also remember whenever the next generation comes, we're going to be covering PS3 and Xbox 360 games for a little while longer anyway.

[2765] I bet that transition will happen faster than you think.

[2766] Once it happens.

[2767] Faster than a lobster boss.

[2768] Lobster monsters are not necessarily fast creatures, but thank you for asking.

[2769] Once it happens, it will have happened.

[2770] These lobster bosses have yet.

[2771] While Activision is in the statement -giving mood, they're like, yo, Call of Duty.

[2772] You guys like that, right?

[2773] Yeah.

[2774] Yeah, they had the earnings call on Monday.

[2775] Yeah, sure.

[2776] I like Call of Duty.

[2777] Yes.

[2778] Then you're going to love the Call of Duties that we have for you this year.

[2779] Am I?

[2780] I hope so.

[2781] Bobby Kotick says so.

[2782] I hope so.

[2783] I hope so.

[2784] What reason would he have to be dishonest or disingenuous with you, Brett?

[2785] It is an earnings call.

[2786] They can't lie in those.

[2787] Openly.

[2788] What do they got?

[2789] You can't set that up and drop it.

[2790] No, they've got details forthcoming.

[2791] They've got Modern Warfare 3 because there's a fat 3 in the back of the UK official PlayStation magazine in that font.

[2792] Along with like, the biggest game in the world is coming back or whatever.

[2793] Really?

[2794] Some kind of strapline there that's like, okay.

[2795] All of Udi is returning.

[2796] Who?

[2797] Never mind.

[2798] I was speaking in code.

[2799] Sorry if that confused you.

[2800] They say in the next couple of weeks that you will hear more about that franchise and whatever they're going to do with it this year.

[2801] So whether that means we'll get details about Beachhead or, as Jeff is suggesting, and probably very accurately so, Modern Warfare 3 details.

[2802] Probably both.

[2803] 3D?

[2804] Whatever that third -person game that those sledgehammer dudes are supposedly...

[2805] Rumoredly working on...

[2806] Yeah, that could be still a thing.

[2807] Yeah.

[2808] Hard to say.

[2809] But there were some other rumors saying that they got pulled off of their own game to work on Modern Warfare 3 in some capacity as well.

[2810] So it's...

[2811] No idea.

[2812] All hands are on deck.

[2813] That's right.

[2814] Finish the fight.

[2815] I mean, you know, Black Ops is now officially the fastest selling game.

[2816] Or not fastest, but highest.

[2817] Yeah, highest selling game ever.

[2818] Of all time.

[2819] So wouldn't you...

[2820] Do you think they'll just make Black more...

[2821] Like they'll do a Call of Duty...

[2822] Mon Warfare, Call of Duty Black Ops, and start switching those back and forth.

[2823] Like, stick with Black Ops.

[2824] We're not leaving.

[2825] That's our trade -off.

[2826] You mean, like, next year there's a Black Ops 2?

[2827] Yeah.

[2828] Like, abandoning the World War II as being the other year.

[2829] World War II is done.

[2830] It's got to be.

[2831] I think that's...

[2832] possible.

[2833] I think that would be cool.

[2834] There's potential more Black Ops.

[2835] Keeping in some of that era.

[2836] I think there's more cool secret weird shit from that era that they could explore a little more deeply.

[2837] There are more numbers stations to find.

[2838] The Lincolnshire Poacher.

[2839] I stand by I think that at some point the zombie stuff is going to get broken out into its own game.

[2840] I totally agree.

[2841] It seems like it's going in that direction and they keep putting more and more stuff in.

[2842] That should be the game that they put out as a download and microtransact or sell you DLC forever.

[2843] As long as people will take it.

[2844] And then collect it on disc every six months or whatever to sell to people that don't like the internet.

[2845] Or only have a PlayStation 3.

[2846] People who don't like the internet and have only a PlayStation 3 probably aren't going to be too excited about this next news item.

[2847] Diablo 3 Beta.

[2848] Coming before October.

[2849] And the game might be out this year.

[2850] Nah.

[2851] Might.

[2852] Yeah.

[2853] I'm going to stick with that game's not coming out this year.

[2854] You're probably right.

[2855] You're probably right.

[2856] But yeah, they said that the beta...

[2857] Is it before or in Q3?

[2858] Is that some kind of BlizzCon?

[2859] Yeah, during Q3 of this year.

[2860] Is that some kind of BlizzCon code?

[2861] Hold on to your thing to get in the beta?

[2862] Scratch card.

[2863] You are now entered in a Blizzard beta.

[2864] When is BlizzCon usually?

[2865] Is this before BlizzCon?

[2866] March?

[2867] I thought it was like this time.

[2868] Okay, so if they're saying the beta is going to be before October, then they couldn't.

[2869] Oh, well, yeah.

[2870] But sometimes they have those codes that's like your upcoming beta registration thing.

[2871] But that's...

[2872] If the beta has to start before BlizzCon, then they can't give out beta keys at BlizzCon.

[2873] Unless they make it really limited.

[2874] Well, this is a game.

[2875] Yeah, did they give out some kind of codes last year?

[2876] Yeah, it's always like, you know, you'll be in some kind of upcoming.

[2877] You'll love it when you get it.

[2878] I think that's how I got into Cataclysm or something.

[2879] It was from BlizzCon.

[2880] 1987 or something like that.

[2881] It's usually the previous BlizzCon that you get.

[2882] I remember that one.

[2883] Cash received by the bell was there.

[2884] That was a crazy one.

[2885] You had that first glimpse of Back to the Future 2.

[2886] New Coke.

[2887] BlizzCon.

[2888] That's too old.

[2889] Wrong time period.

[2890] Diablo.

[2891] So between July and September is when this stuff has to roll out to hit that.

[2892] Q3 date that they're spitting out there.

[2893] So you may be playing some version of Diablo 3 in the relative near future.

[2894] Cool.

[2895] Yes.

[2896] Yes?

[2897] Yeah.

[2898] I want to play Diablo 3.

[2899] A little Diablo?

[2900] All right.

[2901] Yes.

[2902] Diablo.

[2903] No, no. Oh, Diablo.

[2904] Diablo.

[2905] Don't get it twisted, Jeff.

[2906] I know you like it.

[2907] I'm sorry.

[2908] I know you tend to.

[2909] I did get it twisted.

[2910] Don't get it Twitterpated.

[2911] I got it Twitterpated a lot there.

[2912] I should have probably.

[2913] Again, you got to stretch.

[2914] Yeah.

[2915] It helps.

[2916] Those are the news items that I have for us today.

[2917] Gents, let's switch gears into some new releases.

[2918] Okay.

[2919] Brink is out.

[2920] Brink is out for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

[2921] For the Xbox 360 and PC.

[2922] Yeah.

[2923] Don't be mean.

[2924] What?

[2925] That's being realistic.

[2926] Regardless of what you think of these types of games, even if you've heard everything I had to say and think, whatever, that guy's an asshole.

[2927] I love these types of games.

[2928] I'm going to get Brink.

[2929] You don't want to play that game against bots.

[2930] Oh, for sure.

[2931] You probably don't want to play the PS3 version until PSN is back up.

[2932] For sure.

[2933] I would say don't even get it early and play against bots because I think that has the potential to sour your entire experience.

[2934] I'd be curious to see if there's...

[2935] I don't know if there's any way for us to know or to find out, but what, if any, impact this PSN outage has had on the overall prices of new PS3 releases.

[2936] Like if games are going down faster than they might have otherwise.

[2937] I know there haven't been a ton, but the ones that have been out have been significant.

[2938] between SOCOM, MK, Portal 2, and now Brink.

[2939] Right.

[2940] I do feel like there should at least, and they probably don't, but some kind of buyer beware thing in stores of like, hey, especially for a game like this where the focus is so online, just heads up, like a little sticker or something.

[2941] But no one knows when it's going to come back up.

[2942] They probably don't have a great timetable yet.

[2943] It could be tomorrow.

[2944] Well, if it's tomorrow, then obviously you wouldn't do it.

[2945] But I'm saying, like, if it's not up when you're putting those boxes up on the shelf at, like, a Best Buy, it's kind of a shitty thing.

[2946] Best Buy still really wants to sell those PS3 copies.

[2947] I know.

[2948] Now more than ever.

[2949] But, like, you get home for dudes who are going to brick -and -mortar stores who are like, oh, Brink, I haven't turned my PS3 on in, like, three months.

[2950] Like, I've been waiting for this game.

[2951] And then get home and...

[2952] You're creating a theoretical person that I don't think exists.

[2953] I don't think the, I haven't turned my PS3 on in three months, yet I am still super excited.

[2954] About Brink?

[2955] And yet I'm super excited about Brink, and this is the game that gets me to buy a game since the last time I turned on my PS3.

[2956] Or even a person who hasn't heard of Brink but sees it on the shelf and decides to buy it because it looks cool.

[2957] How's that box art?

[2958] That's not going to happen.

[2959] It's okay.

[2960] Actually, I like the cover.

[2961] See?

[2962] But no, dude, come on.

[2963] Because they'll put it up on the big shelves in front, I'm sure.

[2964] He has to probably pay for end caps for that game.

[2965] It's a big deal for them, I think.

[2966] I don't know.

[2967] You're right.

[2968] Maybe.

[2969] It is theoretical, but that's where I live, man. The theoretical places.

[2970] Good to know.

[2971] Lobster monster land.

[2972] There's nothing theoretical about lobster monsters.

[2973] They are a serious threat.

[2974] And until we all start taking them as such, we are all going to be living in fear of being dominated by them.

[2975] George, come over here for a second.

[2976] What does this look like to you?

[2977] Some kind of crab, I don't know, lobster.

[2978] Crab beast.

[2979] Is it like a lobster monster or something?

[2980] It's like a crawdaddy, but it can fight you.

[2981] Like a crawdaddy king.

[2982] Like the king of crawdaddies.

[2983] I'm just going to write lobster monster on here.

[2984] Oh, like a crayfish.

[2985] Yeah.

[2986] I don't know.

[2987] You want to get something to eat?

[2988] Lobster monster and cartoon cars.

[2989] Virtua Tennis Fighter.

[2990] Damn it.

[2991] Virtua Tennis 4 for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, which we will be playing on this week's Thursday Night Throwdown alongside Virtua Tennis 2009.

[2992] I have doubles.

[2993] Which is the 2009 Virtua Tennis game.

[2994] Oh.

[2995] If you can deal with that.

[2996] Thought I could.

[2997] Can't.

[2998] No. No, I thought not.

[2999] This way we can play, you know, a little something old, a little something new.

[3000] Maybe do some comparison between the two games and, you know, allow us to mix it up since there's, again, no PS3 version for us to play.

[3001] Brad, is Virtua a word?

[3002] It is now.

[3003] No. No?

[3004] Okay.

[3005] I don't think so.

[3006] It's short for virtual.

[3007] Is it, though?

[3008] Or is there some other word?

[3009] No, it's...

[3010] Okay.

[3011] Something...

[3012] It's a copyrightable.

[3013] It's a copyrightable.

[3014] And there was a while there that even some Sega games...

[3015] Like, it's Virtual On, not Virtua On.

[3016] That always weirded me out.

[3017] I think it was because the people that were coming up with the Virtua games were protective of the name and how it was used, and the Virtual On guys were a different team.

[3018] You don't think there's too many vowels next to each other?

[3019] Virtua On.

[3020] Yeah, that could be the issue as well.

[3021] But I seem to remember hearing...

[3022] And I'm just like repeating weird hearsay from decades ago.

[3023] But maybe that's the proper use of Virtua is you add an L when it's like after or preceding a vowel.

[3024] That's a good point.

[3025] I always love it when people say virtual fighter.

[3026] That's my favorite fighting game is virtual fighter.

[3027] I love virtual fighter.

[3028] Virtual racing.

[3029] Yeah.

[3030] All right.

[3031] I always thought tennis, like it should have stopped at racing and fighting.

[3032] Tennis was too far.

[3033] Tennis is where I live.

[3034] Virtual Tennis.

[3035] Oh, Virtual Tennis.

[3036] Like, okay.

[3037] Virtua Tennis.

[3038] No thanks.

[3039] Also, I like to play Virtual Cop.

[3040] That is not a video game.

[3041] Yeah, Virtual Cop.

[3042] Okay, Virtual Cop is also on the list.

[3043] Basically, like, anything that wasn't...

[3044] Anything that's not made by Yu Suzuki or is a sequel to a game made by Yu Suzuki.

[3045] I mean, that's an AM2 game.

[3046] Yeah, I guess Tennis is also an AM2 game, isn't it?

[3047] It's that group.

[3048] Yeah.

[3049] Okay.

[3050] It's those lunatics that were doing this stuff.

[3051] Yeah.

[3052] Fair enough.

[3053] Tennis.

[3054] We're going to play some fucking tennis on the show this week.

[3055] GBTNT on your Xbox 360 if you want to play fucking virtual tennis with us.

[3056] What if I want to play virtual tennis with you?

[3057] Well, we will be really playing virtual tennis, which also happens to be a game that features lots of virtual tennis.

[3058] See, it's zero calories per can, and it's also a zero -calorie cola.

[3059] Also out this week, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean for Xbox 360, PSP, Wii, PS3, DS, and 3DS.

[3060] Hmm.

[3061] Mm -hmm.

[3062] Coming out for everything, as you'd expect.

[3063] Yu -Gi -Oh!

[3064] 5D's World Championship 2011 for the DS.

[3065] They still make Yu -Gi -Oh games, I guess?

[3066] 5Ds.

[3067] Yeah, five of them.

[3068] It's for the 5DS.

[3069] It's for the 5D.

[3070] Yeah.

[3071] It's where my eyes get all buggy.

[3072] MX versus ATV.

[3073] Alive for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

[3074] Both MX and ATV.

[3075] Fighting.

[3076] Yeah.

[3077] They're not friends.

[3078] They don't get along.

[3079] And as Jeff had mentioned earlier, Gatling Gears.

[3080] That's an EA Play putting that out?

[3081] Am I completely mis...

[3082] Some arm of Electronic Arts is putting that game out.

[3083] Yes, Electronic Arts is putting that game out.

[3084] I can't tell you what weird sub -label it's coming out under, but yes, it is an Electronic Arts published thing.

[3085] I'll do it.

[3086] And that's, to my knowledge, the new releases for this week.

[3087] To my knowledge.

[3088] Hosted by Ryan Davis.

[3089] That's it.

[3090] Let's talk about some emails from listeners.

[3091] Emails!

[3092] Bobcast at GiantBomb .com Here's the email address you can send your emails into if you want to email us and hear us read your emails during the email segment here on the Giant Bombcast.

[3093] I think I misunderstood this whole segment.

[3094] Emails.

[3095] This whole time.

[3096] I'm in space.

[3097] The eShop update is out this month.

[3098] If that helps.

[3099] Is it?

[3100] It's supposed to be out in May. It's supposed to be out in late May. Oh, God.

[3101] That's coming up.

[3102] You're right.

[3103] I'm going to say that will get me to turn my 3DS on again.

[3104] I'm excited about that.

[3105] They're supposed to be sending us a copy of Dead or Alive for 3DS pretty soon here, which I suspect will be the thing that gets me to turn that 3DS back on.

[3106] Very good.

[3107] And say, yep, she kicks high still.

[3108] Enjoy that.

[3109] First email comes in from Brian Awis in Cape Coral, Florida.

[3110] Hey, Bobcast, if you had to run a fruit farm, what kind of fruit would you grow?

[3111] Don't worry about taking into consideration weather, temperature, or soil type.

[3112] Vinny Caravella.

[3113] Is he making a game?

[3114] Is this a pitch for a game?

[3115] I don't want to be a fruit farmer.

[3116] So Vinny opts out.

[3117] Vinny says no to your Facebook invite to play fruit farmer.

[3118] Yeah.

[3119] Is this spam?

[3120] What is this?

[3121] Who sent this to me?

[3122] Do you know you sent this to me?

[3123] Click here for your response.

[3124] Oh, no. Now I'm sending fruit farmer spam to all my friends on Facebook.

[3125] I've got to put up apologies.

[3126] I don't want to.

[3127] Jeff.

[3128] Oranges.

[3129] Oranges.

[3130] Oranges.

[3131] Oranges are good.

[3132] Yeah.

[3133] My town has oranges, so if you have – I want to get some peaches, though.

[3134] How many bells?

[3135] Just come, and I'll give you some oranges.

[3136] You give me some peaches.

[3137] Brad Shoemaker.

[3138] Does it have to be fruit?

[3139] That's a weird stipulation.

[3140] It does say fruit farm.

[3141] Subject line, fruit farm.

[3142] Okay.

[3143] We had a discussion last week about whether avocado was a fruit or not.

[3144] Yes, it is.

[3145] Then avocado.

[3146] All right.

[3147] I fucking bathe in guacamole all the time.

[3148] Bananas.

[3149] I want to grow bananas.

[3150] You can't raise...

[3151] No, that has to be a plantation.

[3152] What are you talking about?

[3153] You said you can't have a banana farm.

[3154] What are the stipulations again?

[3155] You have a banana plantation.

[3156] If you have to run a fruit farm, it says...

[3157] I mean, all it says is fruit farm.

[3158] Yeah.

[3159] Doesn't care where or how.

[3160] Fruit farm.

[3161] But again, it can't be a farm.

[3162] It's a plantation.

[3163] What if it's smaller?

[3164] Why not?

[3165] No. It's just the way it is.

[3166] I saw a Chiquita to go display filled with the most old looking bruised up bananas in the world at the gas station.

[3167] That probably came from my farm.

[3168] Oh, you don't want no gas station banana.

[3169] And I, yeah, I wasn't talking to any of you about the Chiquita to go stuff.

[3170] So this is, this is my, get Patrick in here.

[3171] This is my farm.

[3172] What about Chiquita to go?

[3173] Talking about bananas.

[3174] Talking about your banana container.

[3175] Just talk to John Drake about bananas.

[3176] Vinny's Bananas.

[3177] And they're crazy.

[3178] About bananas.

[3179] What was your fruit?

[3180] Apples.

[3181] Apples.

[3182] Versatile fruit.

[3183] Yeah.

[3184] It's good.

[3185] A lot you can do with an apple.

[3186] Exactly.

[3187] It's not boring.

[3188] Boring.

[3189] You're a fruit monger.

[3190] It's good.

[3191] Well, here's the problem.

[3192] Okay, so I actually had to.

[3193] I played this game as a child at one point.

[3194] Really?

[3195] When we were deciding to plant an orchard on the property that I grew up on and we're like, okay, we're going to get all these different fucking crazy kinds of trees and get like these Japanese pear trees and all these like kind of custom like crazy grafted like types of apples and berries and stuff.

[3196] Braeburns and Fugees and all sorts of good shit.

[3197] And I got to have some input on what sort of trees were on.

[3198] I'm like, I want to have a pomegranate tree.

[3199] Wow.

[3200] You were ahead of the time.

[3201] And I was because I was way into pomegranates.

[3202] I thought they were awesome and weird and tasted good.

[3203] But that tree fucking sucked and barely produced fruit.

[3204] And so by trying to go very specific and weird and unique, I'm like...

[3205] Guess what I ended up eating most of out of that goddamn orchard was fucking apples.

[3206] It's regular -ass apples.

[3207] Well, apples, at least you can rent out apple picking and stuff like that.

[3208] So that's a pretty good investment.

[3209] People love picking apples.

[3210] Do they?

[3211] Only apples, though?

[3212] No one's going to want to come and pick Jeff's shitty oranges?

[3213] My oranges aren't shitty!

[3214] I think you have to pay people to pick oranges.

[3215] They're like, meh, oranges.

[3216] It's really apples, they'll pay you.

[3217] Oranges, you have to pay people to pick those oranges.

[3218] We had a delightful weekend picking apples.

[3219] You're crazy.

[3220] What do you do for a living?

[3221] I pick oranges.

[3222] What about bananas?

[3223] Bananas?

[3224] They're crazy.

[3225] Can I pay you to pick your bananas?

[3226] Go banana pickings?

[3227] It's a Craigslist ad.

[3228] Can I pay you to pick your bananas?

[3229] I'm looking for someone to pay.

[3230] Missed connections.

[3231] I think bananas are tough to pick, right?

[3232] You've got to get up that tree and shake them out.

[3233] I look at you, Brad, because I didn't think for some reason.

[3234] You have to train monkeys, I think, to pick bananas.

[3235] How cool is my plantation going to be?

[3236] Or Kirk Cameron.

[3237] It's not a plantation.

[3238] It's a farm.

[3239] It's nature's wonder fruit.

[3240] Top five fruits.

[3241] Go.

[3242] Apples and oranges and kiwis.

[3243] Really?

[3244] Do you like a kiwi?

[3245] Kiwi's tough to eat.

[3246] I really like a kiwi.

[3247] Oh, kiwis are good.

[3248] Well, because you can't eat the skin.

[3249] They can.

[3250] Wait, can you?

[3251] Yeah.

[3252] Really?

[3253] You eat the fuzzy skin?

[3254] Yeah, you can kind of defuzz it.

[3255] It's a little weird.

[3256] I mean, it's kind of like eating a peach.

[3257] They're hairier.

[3258] Oh, I like a good peach.

[3259] Peaches are good.

[3260] I like a nectarine.

[3261] I like a plum.

[3262] I like grapes.

[3263] Plums are good.

[3264] Yeah, grapes are good.

[3265] Grapes are good.

[3266] My wife really likes strawberries, but I'm not so...

[3267] You know what blew my mind?

[3268] I mean, well, you already kind of talked about it, but when I moved out here, the fact that everybody has fruit trees.

[3269] Even if you don't want them, which I'm guessing you probably don't.

[3270] I have a pear tree that I don't want at all.

[3271] I've got like five fruit trees in my backyard.

[3272] I would love to have a different fruit tree because I would love to have apples.

[3273] But I fucking hate pears.

[3274] So of course it's a pear tree.

[3275] Oh, I love pears.

[3276] Pears are my top five for sure.

[3277] You want to come pay me to pick my pears?

[3278] I'm not paying you.

[3279] You want the pears for free.

[3280] Do you guys have to take care of the tree at all?

[3281] You probably ought to.

[3282] I mean, in terms of like, you know, fertilize it or like prune it.

[3283] You probably ought to.

[3284] Like you will.

[3285] The fruit that my trees puts out sucks because I do not fertilize.

[3286] I do not have irrigation for water or anything.

[3287] They just get what they can, and they grow, and they produce some fruit, but it's not the premium, really excellent fruit that it could be.

[3288] Just expose that tree to the elements.

[3289] You're not going to get much out of it.

[3290] You're going to get a bunch of fruit.

[3291] You're just going to get a bunch of shitty fruit.

[3292] It's probably bad news if the rotten fruit just collects on the bottom of the tree, right?

[3293] That's very bad news, as it turns out.

[3294] It probably smells real bad.

[3295] Yeah, it starts to smell a little weird, and you get some bugs.

[3296] Hard to walk around out there.

[3297] A lot of bugs.

[3298] So that gets taken care of now, and it's no longer a problem.

[3299] But the first year I had that house, fuck, man. It was a nightmare.

[3300] Just mushy, just rotten fruit everywhere.

[3301] But there's some cement back there, and it's not lawn.

[3302] It's like wood chips and crap like that, so it sort of sucks.

[3303] And the whole surface was just like...

[3304] It's disguised dirt.

[3305] Yeah, it's disguised dirt, definitely.

[3306] Just composting in the...

[3307] In the sun.

[3308] There's a ton of raccoons around there, too.

[3309] So raccoons will be getting in there.

[3310] Just charge them the picker bears.

[3311] If they would get it off the tree, get it before it was rotting, they could have it.

[3312] Free?

[3313] Yeah, the raccoons all live in the storm drain in front of my house.

[3314] They have a little TV social.

[3315] I've seen them crawling in and out of storm drains around that area.

[3316] That's absolutely where they hang out.

[3317] They have names.

[3318] I threw an ice cream sandwich into one a couple days ago.

[3319] Thanks.

[3320] You know, just keep them distracted.

[3321] Yeah.

[3322] Be like, all right, you don't have to leave.

[3323] I mean, it was a crime.

[3324] Yeah.

[3325] Just like, just stay down there.

[3326] It was a really crappy ice cream sandwich.

[3327] And I was like, I don't want this.

[3328] So it was kind of like a diss.

[3329] It was like passive aggressive.

[3330] Yeah.

[3331] Oh, here's this great ice cream sandwich, raccoons.

[3332] Oh, this sucks.

[3333] Yeah, take it, you fuck faces.

[3334] Oh, fuck you.

[3335] More M80s to come.

[3336] Next email comes in from Kyle in Seattle.

[3337] Hey, bomb crew.

[3338] I just wanted to share a strange situation that happened Saturday night while working in the register at my theater, which he spells T -R -E.

[3339] Of course, that as you will.

[3340] After Jeff's talk last week about the Snake Eyes slash Storm Shadow tattoo, I had to Google it to see what the hell he was talking about.

[3341] My childhood was spent mostly during the Pokemon craze of the late 90s, so I had very little understanding of G .I. Joe in any capacity.

[3342] I'll get the Pikachu Bulbasaur tattoo then.

[3343] It's the same thing.

[3344] But this little nugget of information then armed me with the knowledge to suddenly become distracted as a buff, sleeveless shirt -wearing dude came up to my register with the very same tattoo on his forearm.

[3345] Wow.

[3346] Being a complete idiot, I basically yelled, Dude, I recognize that.

[3347] It's that Snake Eyes tattoo.

[3348] He responded in what, in retrospect, was a veiled, annoyed response of, Yeah, it does look like that.

[3349] To seal the deal, I then promptly fucked up his order.

[3350] Looking it up, it turns out that it's a Taoist Bagua symbol, meaning fire and water, and that the guy was probably a hardcore martial artist, or maybe just a G .I. Joe nut, or maybe a cage fighter.

[3351] You know who else is a fucking hardcore martial artist?

[3352] Snake Eyes.

[3353] So thanks, Jeff.

[3354] For making me look like an idiot and for pissing off a dude who could probably cave my skull in with his elbow.

[3355] Anytime.

[3356] So we all learn.

[3357] What we're here for.

[3358] Where is he working?

[3359] A theater.

[3360] Okay.

[3361] Oh, okay.

[3362] Messed up is like popcorn or something?

[3363] Yeah.

[3364] I imagine.

[3365] I like popcorn.

[3366] Do you?

[3367] I bought some Jiffy Pop like old school.

[3368] Like fireside?

[3369] Stove top.

[3370] Like campfire.

[3371] Like a little foil?

[3372] Yeah.

[3373] Make the little aluminum balloon.

[3374] Rise up.

[3375] Brad, you looked all perplexed when I said aluminum balloon.

[3376] I don't like popcorn.

[3377] You don't like popcorn?

[3378] What?

[3379] It always gets that reaction.

[3380] How do you not like popcorn?

[3381] Any kind of popcorn?

[3382] You're from the South.

[3383] You don't like kettle corn?

[3384] I've been eating popcorn with no lettuce.

[3385] No lettuce.

[3386] No lettuce, goddammit.

[3387] No lettuce, no tomato.

[3388] No mayo.

[3389] No salt and no butter on it.

[3390] Just plain ass popcorn.

[3391] It's just like air popped.

[3392] The Christmas.

[3393] I kind of like the Christmas tricorn.

[3394] Like tin?

[3395] Yes.

[3396] Right.

[3397] Yeah.

[3398] Well, that's high -end.

[3399] That's butter, the cheese corn, and then the caramel corn, whatever.

[3400] That's tolerable, but I'm not.

[3401] So how are you popping your corn, Jeff?

[3402] So someone sent us some kind of bowl here that is a microwave popcorn bowl that you can pop a regular -ass popcorn.

[3403] Have you been using that thing?

[3404] Yeah.

[3405] That works?

[3406] It was sitting around my house for the last six months or whatever.

[3407] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3408] I was like, man, this thing came with popcorn.

[3409] I got it all right here.

[3410] I should just try it.

[3411] And I tried it, and it was popcorn.

[3412] And it's popcorn.

[3413] So it's microwave.

[3414] You can put regular popcorn.

[3415] You put regular popcorn and put it in the microwave for about like four minutes.

[3416] And it pops.

[3417] And it's popcorn.

[3418] Think of the savings.

[3419] I make my own popcorn.

[3420] Think of the savings.

[3421] From scratch.

[3422] You grow corn in your apartment.

[3423] Well, that's the plantation I have, yeah.

[3424] Yeah, I grow corn.

[3425] That is not a fruit.

[3426] That's a grain.

[3427] That's not a fruit.

[3428] You grow corn on a farm.

[3429] I have a stir crazy.

[3430] It's awesome.

[3431] Well, oil.

[3432] I was always an air popper guy, and then for some reason I was like, I'm done with air popper.

[3433] I'm going to put oil.

[3434] You know the oil poppers?

[3435] Yeah.

[3436] I mean, you do it in like a walker.

[3437] They say in this bowl you can put oil in it, but you don't have to.

[3438] And I assume just putting oil in it means more of it's going to pop because it'll spread the heat around more evenly?

[3439] Yeah.

[3440] It's just the conducive properties of oil.

[3441] Yeah, but it's not necessarily like...

[3442] changing the flavor of it that dramatically, right?

[3443] Well, I don't know.

[3444] I think it tastes a little different.

[3445] Okay.

[3446] The Stir Crazy has a thing that moves all the kernels around, so they...

[3447] Oh, you're talking about the Stir Crazy.

[3448] I love a Stir Crazy.

[3449] So it's good?

[3450] Oh, it's fantastic.

[3451] You can use it when you're making popcorn in like a pot?

[3452] Well, no. The Stir Crazy is just a self -contained plugs in the wall.

[3453] Okay.

[3454] Yeah.

[3455] Okay.

[3456] I thought the Stir Crazy was a thing that went into an existing pot and then clamped on the top and then stirred stuff around so you don't burn your soup.

[3457] Stir Crazy is like a hot surface, right, with a thing that spins around and moves all the kernels around so they don't burn.

[3458] And that's the worst part about making a pot.

[3459] You have to shake it all the time.

[3460] Yeah.

[3461] And then you put a big dome on top, and then it fills up the dome.

[3462] And then when you're done, you flip it over, and the dome's the bowl.

[3463] So wait, is this device specifically for making pot?

[3464] That's all it does.

[3465] Okay, it's dumb.

[3466] It's a one -use device.

[3467] It's the best.

[3468] It's a gadget.

[3469] It's a gadget.

[3470] That's right.

[3471] It's fan -fucking -tastic.

[3472] You don't like popcorn.

[3473] You don't get to have a say in the quality of popcorn.

[3474] I mean, I guess it's such an outcast.

[3475] Air poppers also do...

[3476] People put their coffee beans into the roast than air poppers, but that's a gadget.

[3477] Yeah, I don't have one of those either.

[3478] Really?

[3479] No. I got a quesadilla maker.

[3480] Oh, man. Now we're talking.

[3481] Is that just like a sandwich press?

[3482] It's a sandwich press with different lines on it.

[3483] Think of all the different kinds of quesadillas he could make.

[3484] I could make different types of popcorn.

[3485] Breakfast quesadillas.

[3486] Name another kind of popcorn other than fucking popcorn.

[3487] There's all kinds of different...

[3488] So this...

[3489] This bowl came with two different types of weird gourmet popcorn kernels.

[3490] So actually different kernels and they are saying this is going to be a different popcorn experience.

[3491] This is mountain white and this is mixed black midnight popcorn.

[3492] This is a blend between AK -47 and Purple Kush.

[3493] You don't want to mess with this.

[3494] You can get this stuff anywhere.

[3495] It's a real body high.

[3496] A lot of creativity.

[3497] Not so much sleepiness.

[3498] No stimulants.

[3499] Dispensary grade.

[3500] I will say this.

[3501] I didn't know I liked popcorn.

[3502] It's the weirdest thing is that I like all the other kinds of foods that a lot of people don't like.

[3503] I think Matt Rory doesn't like popcorn.

[3504] He worked for movies.

[3505] I know.

[3506] Which makes his existence that much more ironic and tragic.

[3507] I think it might have been him that was saying that any time he ate popcorn, he got a really bad stomach ache afterwards.

[3508] I don't think it's worth the crap that you get stuck in your teeth.

[3509] What?

[3510] This weird gourmet popcorn has a much softer hull, so they explode into smaller pieces when they pop, so you don't end up with anything in your teeth.

[3511] Do you buy a hot dog when you go to the theater?

[3512] I'm trying to put it...

[3513] Because if you do, I hate you.

[3514] Sometimes.

[3515] Oh, hot dogs at the theater.

[3516] They took out the hot dog machine from the gas station we go to.

[3517] Oh, did they?

[3518] Thank God.

[3519] That thing was crap.

[3520] Yeah, it was really.

[3521] And the hot dogs were terrible.

[3522] But they were hot dogs.

[3523] We should go to that bar after this and get hot dogs.

[3524] I went to the Wienerschnitzel when I was in L .A. and got hot dogs there.

[3525] Got a chili dog.

[3526] It was not very good.

[3527] I ate two kinds of feet this weekend.

[3528] Next week, I'm going to the Femima every day and getting pork buns.

[3529] Wait, you ate chicken feet?

[3530] No, I've had that before.

[3531] That's whatever, man. Chicken feet's fucking old news.

[3532] That's amateur hour for feet eaters.

[3533] What does a professional feet eater eat?

[3534] I ate pig feet and also duck feet.

[3535] What?

[3536] At the same meal.

[3537] Wait, did you say pig feet?

[3538] Pig feet.

[3539] Do you have to knife that?

[3540] No. Do you eat it right off the hoof?

[3541] I don't know.

[3542] I just picked it up and ate it.

[3543] Was there, like, a lot of bone left over when you were done?

[3544] There was some.

[3545] Yeah.

[3546] See, I imagine, like, eating a drumstick.

[3547] Like, you just eat it off the bone kind of thing.

[3548] Yeah.

[3549] With the avian feet, yes.

[3550] Do you have to pick the nails out of the duck feet?

[3551] I can't remember if there were claws on there or not or talons or whatever.

[3552] I honestly can't remember.

[3553] That all sounds disgusting.

[3554] Yeah.

[3555] Why don't you eat some popcorn?

[3556] How's that taste?

[3557] How's it taste?

[3558] It was all right.

[3559] All right.

[3560] It was pretty good.

[3561] Okay.

[3562] It's just weird when there's, I don't know.

[3563] You've eaten some feet in your time, I'm sure.

[3564] I've had like frog's legs.

[3565] I think I've had chicken feet once.

[3566] They're just fried, right?

[3567] They're just crazy fried.

[3568] Depends.

[3569] It's like barbecued kind of.

[3570] I wouldn't think that there would be enough meat on a chicken foot to make it worth your while.

[3571] There's not a ton, but chicken feet are a pan -cultural experience, all right?

[3572] That's enjoyed by many, many peoples.

[3573] All right.

[3574] You know, just ugly American, afraid of food that actually looks like the animal from which it came.

[3575] But I mean, my grandma ate chicken feet during the Depression because, you know.

[3576] Sure.

[3577] They had to.

[3578] Let's do what you had.

[3579] Can't waste the feet.

[3580] Oh, more emails.

[3581] More emails?

[3582] More emails, sir.

[3583] More emails.

[3584] Movie theater hot, though.

[3585] What's the problem with that?

[3586] It's like the guys who get nachos.

[3587] Yeah.

[3588] That's too much mess.

[3589] I'll get some 7 -Eleven nachos.

[3590] No, it's a mess.

[3591] No, it's a movie theater thing.

[3592] That's the same quality of product.

[3593] It is.

[3594] It's just not a place to eat those nachos.

[3595] Hot dog.

[3596] The nacho just comes into the little nacho cup, and you're just dipping chips into the nacho cup.

[3597] It's not like it's some place that you pump.

[3598] I have not seen a nacho pump, a freestanding nacho pump in a movie theater in a long time.

[3599] Then you just put on the hot dog.

[3600] Yeah, I had to put it on everything.

[3601] Hey, guess what?

[3602] This popcorn?

[3603] It's nacho cheese popcorn now.

[3604] Oh, man. Then you just dip your hand in it.

[3605] Yeah, you just got a bunch of your hand in there.

[3606] There's popcorn stuck to my skin.

[3607] I can't shake it off.

[3608] It's a terrible idea, but I can't stop.

[3609] It's just getting worse every second.

[3610] I'm going to use my other hand now.

[3611] What else?

[3612] I don't know.

[3613] Emails about Japanese shaky pizzas, Kit Kat crushed pizza.

[3614] How about that?

[3615] Do I like the Oreo pizza?

[3616] John in New York, greetings, Bomb Squad.

[3617] Your recent discussion regarding pizza spheres and cookies.

[3618] Oh, yeah, you missed out some fun last week.

[3619] Don't tell him about that.

[3620] He'll die.

[3621] Pizza spheres.

[3622] He will eat himself to death.

[3623] That's right.

[3624] Those exist.

[3625] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[3626] Somebody sent a picture.

[3627] Someone sent a picture of a legitimate pizza sphere.

[3628] There's a restaurant in Reno that just sells pizza balls.

[3629] What, is it a pizza sphere just around pizza?

[3630] Yes.

[3631] Like a basketball, but a pizza.

[3632] I don't like the scale.

[3633] We can't have this conversation again.

[3634] I'll go listen to it, I guess.

[3635] It's hurtful.

[3636] It's bad business.

[3637] I have to make some very...

[3638] But it was all spawned from a conversation about the DiGiorno pizzas that also have cookie dough alongside them so that you can make fucking...

[3639] You can throw one thing in the oven and you get pizza and cookies.

[3640] Yeah.

[3641] Okay.

[3642] That's the thing that Brad didn't want me to tell you about.

[3643] He's already thinking about it.

[3644] No, Jess is already locked in for your birthday sin food.

[3645] That's great.

[3646] I don't want that.

[3647] I don't like a sweet pizza.

[3648] We don't have to make them at the same time either.

[3649] Cookie dough is not on the pizza.

[3650] It's separate so you can make cookies.

[3651] It's pizza and cookie dough.

[3652] Separate item?

[3653] Yeah.

[3654] On the side.

[3655] On the side.

[3656] You could bake them both at the same time and I imagine they would inform the other flavor.

[3657] They're just like two in one?

[3658] Like a two in one pack?

[3659] Yeah.

[3660] It comes with dessert.

[3661] It's just so you can run the oven once and you get a pizza out of it and also cookies.

[3662] Okay.

[3663] Why not just start adding other shit in there?

[3664] I don't know.

[3665] I don't know.

[3666] Why don't you throw a roast in there while you're at it?

[3667] Like garlic bread.

[3668] Yeah.

[3669] Oh, they make that too.

[3670] They make...

[3671] DiGiorno's also has one with like...

[3672] Breadsticks on the side, like cheesy breadsticks.

[3673] I would say there was one with wings?

[3674] Yes, that's new.

[3675] Except they spell it W -Y -N -G -Z.

[3676] That's right.

[3677] Technically, they're not actually wings.

[3678] That's right.

[3679] Really?

[3680] They're not the wing parts.

[3681] If you're not actually putting a chicken wing in the thing.

[3682] That's fucking amazing.

[3683] Why don't they just call it like Buffalo Bites or something?

[3684] Because they can copyright WINGS, W -Y -N -G -Z.

[3685] Nobody's going to question it.

[3686] By law, it has to be.

[3687] Nobody's going to wonder why you're spelling it that way.

[3688] John in New York.

[3689] Yeah.

[3690] Greetings, Bob Squad.

[3691] Your recent discussion regarding Pizza Spheres and Cookie.

[3692] And it reminded me of a horrific experience I recently had while visiting Japan.

[3693] Shakey's Pizza.

[3694] More specifically, Shakey's Pizza's spring special Kit Kat crushed pizza.

[3695] Based on the photo, because I sure shit didn't try it.

[3696] This seems like more of a horror than a regular pizza with Crush Kits cats, as well as a bonus in the form of a metric shit ton of marshmallows.

[3697] So, yeah, I'll do a little word picture here.

[3698] It looks like a crappy pizza with, I believe, it looks like there is a layer of cheese on top of the bread, and then on top of that, there's sprinkled bits of Kit Kat and, like, little...

[3699] Colored marshmallows.

[3700] What the fuck is wrong with people?

[3701] I mean, Japan just shouldn't be letting near pizza.

[3702] It's a lesson we learned a long time ago.

[3703] So, John, thanks for the horrible imagery, but...

[3704] Nah.

[3705] Nah.

[3706] Oh!

[3707] Brewmaster Andy from Somerville.

[3708] Mah!

[3709] Mm -hmm.

[3710] The maker of...

[3711] previous Giant Bomb brews.

[3712] Right, so to say, gentlemen, I'm hard at work on the latest Giant Bomb brew, the Zojirushi IPA, sponsored by Zojirushi, as presented by Giant Bomb.

[3713] And it really sucks to keg it and send you guys some samples.

[3714] That said, I need new beer names.

[3715] This is my to -do list, or my to -brew list, so you know what the next few styles I will be brewing.

[3716] I'd appreciate any and all names you can come up with.

[3717] So he's working on a raspberry wheat, an American brown ale, a citrus hefeweizen, and an American pale ale.

[3718] So we got for more crazy beer from Andy.

[3719] Or Andrew.

[3720] Casually racist IPA.

[3721] Is there another IPA on that list?

[3722] Is that the Vinny?

[3723] Yes.

[3724] Casually racist?

[3725] That's the Vinny tribute.

[3726] Yeah.

[3727] There's nothing casual about it.

[3728] It's offhand.

[3729] It's very off the cuff.

[3730] Wait, what?

[3731] You don't present with a lot of pomp and circumstance.

[3732] Oh, I meant there's nothing racist about it.

[3733] What's the brown one?

[3734] It was beer.

[3735] Brown beer?

[3736] Raspberry wheat, American brown ale, citrus hefeweizen, and American pale ale.

[3737] I'm not looking for you to come up with anything off the top of the head.

[3738] Just wanted to put that out there.

[3739] Oh, let's see here.

[3740] Actually, and I think that's it.

[3741] I've run out of emails.

[3742] Really?

[3743] Yep.

[3744] Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

[3745] Sweet.

[3746] Let's run out of here.

[3747] But that's going to do it for emails, and that's also going to do it for this episode of the Giant Podcast.

[3748] Why are you guys going so fast?

[3749] We're going to get done really quickly now.

[3750] Be careful.

[3751] Thanks for having us.

[3752] Good to have all four of you back here in the podcast room.

[3753] Don't forget Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 2009 being played on TNT this week.

[3754] If you want to play some VF4 on TNT, we can do it.

[3755] You could have suggested that, but we were playing Virtua Tennis 4.

[3756] You just said Virtua Fighter.

[3757] Did I say Virtua Fighter?

[3758] Virtua Tennis 4.

[3759] We did.

[3760] Virtua Tennis 4 and Virtua Tennis 2009 are the games that we will be playing.

[3761] Virtua Fighter 2009, that rare Satellite version.

[3762] Exactly.

[3763] It's all about the Bible.

[3764] It's weird.

[3765] All Virtua, all Tennis, all the time.

[3766] TNT, send a friend request on the 360 to GBTNT if you want to play.

[3767] That's it for our business.

[3768] Anything else?

[3769] Outstanding items on the action list here?

[3770] No. Leaving.

[3771] That's it.

[3772] Thanks for listening.

[3773] We'll be back next week with another edition of the Giant Bobcast.