Giant Bombcast 02-15-2011

Hey, everyone, It's Tuesday, February the fifteenth, twenty eleven, and you are listening to the Giant BombCast. I'm Ryan Davis. Hey, Ryan Davis hitting the wrong syllables. What's up with your intonation? Do you like that? Vinny Caravella, Yes, I do. How's it going? It's going well. How are you doing? You have a haircut since the last time I saw, I do, I'll clean I did military to military? Vinny? Was it because your brother was here? Did you feel like the

comparisons were coming too fast and furious? No? Because his hair is short too, is it? Yeah? I thought it was longer. No, No, he's not a hippie. No. Watching Watching the Friday Show from Vegas with Jeff Hey, Jeff hiu. We watched the Friday Live Show from a hotel room in Vegas and watching the chat become un glued when your brother and Dave's sister were on screen. They're like, Oh, it's like the people I know, but it's not them, but they kind of looking sound

like them, dressed up in weird Dave and drag. And then Beverly, this is a your Your Back to the Future Part two that was actually Vinny oh yeah, he came magas. Thank you so much for your help on that stuff. That man, that happy hour costs a lot. I believe the budget a hotel room in Vegas probably the best place to be during a happy hour, will smack. Well, I don't know nothing about that trip to Vegas seems safe. I want to hear about your trips of Vegas.

We went to Vegas. We went to Vegas for dice design, Uh, innovate, create customers and rich entertain Yeah, I think is what it stands for. But to you know, high end game makers and publishers and such high end only the well, it's expensive to get there. So like you know, your Maya dudes and your you know, your artists are not showing up at Dice. It's it's you know, people who are kind of at the at the least captains of industry. Yes, our are who show up

at Dice and drunks. Which turns out there's a big overlap the Van diagram there. It's like this, it's like circ Yeah, it's it's the one circle vand diagram. Yeah, as it turns out. Also, brad Hi, brad Hi, thanks for having me. You didn't bring a sibling and you didn't go to Dice, so we have nothing to talk about. You even get a haircut, although I desperately need one because I'm playing with it

now. Is a little shaggy. As soon as I start playing with it, I know it's time a little shag keep you know what, hot tip here keeping. I'm all for, like, you know, bring it down, tight on the sides and the back, little length on top, length on the top. The last time I got my cut, and I think I'm gonna keep going that route, I don't know, give it a shot, A little little high and tight. Yeah, just you know, little a little high top fade. I think you just go bowl right across the

top here. Don't do that at home. Don't listen to him about hair advice. Commis, trust me, trust I'm I'm gonna go the other direction. I go for the flyer. Oh yeah, yeah. So like a ticket to go to Dice to get like a badge, it's like three thousand dollars or something. Yeah, something like expected floor entry or Dice flo So that's the thing. I was looking at the actual like schedule of stuff while we were at Dice and realized there's not there aren't really things that happen at

DICE, Like, Yeah, they're a huge number of scheduled events. There's a golf tournament and for the first time this year they had a go card tournament. They had poker tournament as they usually tournament that happens every year, and then they have a bunch of sessions, but there's like it's one at a time so you can see every single thing I want. And then like every three sessions they have on the schedule, just like networking break, which

is kind of maybe a little ridiculous, fifteen minutes for networking. Everybody gets in the circles already and then kind of talk shit. I think everyone just comes to the bathroom. That's I mean, that's what we did. We went and that's where all the real we want to talk to to Toma Greeno during our networking break. Yeah, it makes their evening plans. Team Mags talked to Bob Kolako for a little while. I know that guy. Oh he was there, he was doing a little network I don't think he was

I don't think he was there that long. Cool. So we have a contact of Blizzard Nough. Yeah, I met someone from Blizzards you know, we can talk to Colico. Yeah, something like that. It's Jose. I don't know. I'm confused on the name. I just want to know who won the Pert Poker tournament. I have no idea it was. I think I think what happened is a couple of like Doctor I heard different stories that between that somewhere between two and five guys just split the pot at the

end and just said, like, forget it. It's like twelve thirty. Let's just all of our pokers are too impenetrable. Yeah. Well, you know, like everyone was evenly stacked and you whittle it down, it's like it's just gonna be this grind if everyone playing super super you know, safe and not taking risks, and everyone had to get up in the morning for you know, actual dice to start. I just want to know how Doctor Ray did. He did not win. He was not one of those five.

He was definitely not. He raped box and there was a bracelet someone they had a they had like a loser's table. Yeah, like after he lost, you could go to this loser's table and play some multiple buy ins.

Yeah, and they had one of the World Series of Poke. Yeah, all the money they like World Series of Poker style tournament bracelet for the winner of the loser's pot, and then this dude bought the bracelet off that guy for like three hundred bucks and was basically he was going around the rest of the show wearing it like in a very like let me chack and see what time it is, pulling it out in a very risk and a lot of social situations, which was never not funny always, I will say so.

If there's one thing about Dice, it's that it's hilarious funny. Yes, I would say that the inside jokes running fast and furious before the show even began. Inside how inside? I can't repeat any of them here? Okay, super inside. You had to be there, Yeah, and even if you were there, you probably didn't entirely understand what was going on.

Jeff, do you have any this You're correct, And I'm trying to think of like a better way to describe it other than to say a lot of people got introduced as being people that they were not in the group that we were running with. There was a lot of deliberate obfuscation. Guy was introduced as, uh, you know, he worked for Giant Bomb. Have you heard of them and this guy who was like pretty drunk at two thirty in the morning at Burger as everyone at two three in the morning at the fat

Burger. Yeah, it's in the inside the you know, it's like no. And then there's also oh, they're a developer. They got eight games on XBLA with medical of eighty or higher. Oh so it's just really funny, kind of like industry kind of like oh yeah, yeah, really yeah yeah. And I was like, yeah, you know, we're pretty proud of that. It's just gonna have to roll with it. I mean,

there's some truth in there. On Giant Bomb, there probably are eight games that have been in Metacritic, you know, with ratings of you know, eighty or higher. Yeah, the developer parts maybe. So. So back to like the actual contents of dice there there were some some pretty good sessions.

Uh. The first one we saw was Adam Sessler with the Hot Topics, which kind of just very rapidly cycling through successor was just moderating these talks where you'd have to two developers or you know, people of that nature kind of quickly interview them about versus that. But it wasn't it wasn't super adversarial serial necessarily. Yeah, it wasn't just like I'm taking this position hard and you're taking games versus gamification. Like it was a little more gray spaceed than

that, but definitely people from from different perspectives at the very least. Yeah,

and you got that a lot. And there were definitely a lot of people talking about kind of Facebook games and social games and where that stuff's heading, uh and agents, and yeah, like that's that's kind of not necessarily stuff that came out of the talks, but definitely the realization is that this business is really run by agents in a lot of cases, I mean people representing other people basically, Yeah, are people representing independent studios of like work

for higher guys and stuff like that. Like you know, hey, we're this company that you know does a lot of we get a lot of outsourced projects for art. But how do they get those projects? It's because they are represented by like the various agencies out there specializing in this sort of thing, which you know, I guess we kind of all knew at some level

right there. It's like a it's like Hollywood. There's definitely some of that stuff there, but it seems like the agencies that actually matter are game specific in a lot of ways, like CEA is involved in it, and I guess they do have like a game division that probably is pretty good or something. Shame's Blackly joyt right, I think so. And I saw special Thanks

number one and the credits for stacking Shameless Blackly. Oh yeah, Like I wonder if you know, I wouldn't have something to do with but if not, if not, then probably all of a double fun. There's person I mean, there's like the personality like like Kennel Viene is represented by a CEA, so is uh the respond guys. And that's but that's separate of any

of this other like kind of development facilitation stuff that's going. But we've been seeing that stuff pop up in credits, you've been hearing about it, but the teams, but getting a sense of how prevalent it was at dice of how many of those dudes were around, how much how much business gets done because of that and and this is I'd have to say that this is probably

something that happens for like the bulk of games. Now. It's not something you hear about with kind of the big, huge franchises because a lot of those. You know, it's like EA has its internal studios and you know, they've got their huge staff and all this other stuff. But for you know, the companies that are not these like we have studios in five continents,

you know, like that that whole thing. They're out there looking for these kind of work for our studios and bringing people on when I need him. And but those those big ones are still very dependent on this. Like you know, trey Arch did not make these Call of Duty games on their own, but there are there are these support studios that exist out there. I think it makes perfect. The drunk guy that we told that we made games kept saying that he worked on black ops and then wouldn't say how well.

I think it helps, you know, Like I guess what you've seen in the past is like a game ship's big layoffs, right because they staff up and like you know, now you just have your contract right for your stud Now it's just like you're you're a studio working on art or something, and you have to make sure that you're Asian and you're out there hustling and making sure that you have a steady stream of work coming into your guys so

that they can stay employed. Yeah, so you don't get people who get laid off and then they're like, fuck all this this is shit, bullshit, motherfucker compriminalize. Yeah, it seems to makes sense. Moviess been doing it. Video games are big business. Yeah, yeah, it kind of is that. Like, you know, here's a dude who's a good key grip, all right, Like that's it's not an art. This is not He doesn't have to have some weird Peter Molly new vision. He just fucking

has to know. You're insulting so many grips right now, how to But I'm saying he is really good at his job. You hold on to that guy, all right. He But what I'm saying is he's very good at his job. Any any movie can rely on him. Yes, I mean,

it's it's kind of the privatized union. Basically, I was thinking more like the effects houses where you look at the credits now and it's like seventeen different effects houses and they did we did the Spaceship exploding shot, and like we did you know, dude running on the wall shot, And you're like, dude, how many different effects places that they rent out for this? So I could totally say that happening. If you are like, we do physics real, well, we'll work on that stuff. What do you do?

I'm really good at making cut scenes? All right, you guys do that stuff. What are you gonna do? I don't know I'm gonna make And then there's like, oh, we're making an unreal engine game and we totally realize we don't know how to do that. So here's this team of coders to come in and engineer it up. And then when the project's done, it doesn't you don't have that horrible news story that's like, you know,

we just laid off seventy five percent of the staff. It's like we just ended everybody's contract, and like, you know those studios are not working on that other that other games. Well, actually it turns out you do still get that story. Yes, right, yeah, what have you been playing? I was playing Dice? Uh, there's some other Mark Sarney of Sony Games, Yes, really, creator of Marble Madness. He gave a talk that was really really interesting and really good kind of yeah, but what's

he done lately? Talking like Got a War three, Gone Charted two, Killzone two? Uh, so you can he's consulted on a ton of Sony games. He's still deeply in business with with Sony, but so like one of the big I would say, the single theme of of Dice and I think this kind of echoes in some ways what we saw it at E three last year is you know Facebook, what's up on Facebook? It's crazy?

Really yeah, and it's it's I think this was interesting because it was people talking about like that actually means, and not just because when you hear about, you know, oh, Facebook social games, it's always some high up business guy going that's big. So we're throwing a lot of money at it. What are you doing our old games frontierville's big, you know. But so this was actually from more from the perspective of like, how are you going to make that? Not? Shit? Sure? So he was taking

it. It was really interesting because he was taking all the way back to kind of the beginning of his involvement, which is arcade games and kind of the design philosophy of arcade games and how that was that all revolved around the quarter, okay, and you know, the like that was the payment system,

and that was what the how the exchange was designed. So the gameplay kind of followed suit you had short, really hard game play because these machines were super expensive, so these you know, the people who were running them

had to have some way to pay them off. But even even as things evolved, even as you go to consoles and it's you know, it's a slightly different you know, market for that, and even through to today, how certain things from that original arcade mindset are like still permeating things and even even if they shouldn't, or even like how death works in games, like how adversity works in games, like the idea that games have to be hard

to be valuable, or stuff like that. Well, there's some stuff that I feel like has come over from the Arcade scene that shouldn't, right, But sometimes the brawlers where you're like, it's not fun when you have unlimited

continues because now I could just mash buttons to high. Hell yeah, I mean that that's that's a bad solution to that problem, right, But you know, he was so he mentioned the first crash Bandicoo, which he've worked on, and kind of talked about specific stuff like even to get a password, like if you lost all your lives, it dumped you back to the title screen and said press start man let's go. And and it was had a password system, and to get the passwords you had a complete come some

kind of special bonus level. So it's like they were throwing all the stuff in the way of people that you know, had already paid all they were going to pay. They should get the enjoyment out of the game, right uh. And and that's that's it's like kind of unlearning those lessons from arcades. He talked about some interesting stuff about kind of the arcade craw or the crash of uh, you know, consumer games and and and the arcades and how that went, and kind of the things they were trying to do to

stave it off. Like multiplayer games like Gauntlet probably wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for this notion of, well if we can get four quarters out of people every three minutes instead of one, huh, Like like trying to stave off the like like everything going rotten. So like all those kanami brawlers are a reaction to like we just need to get in while they getting or or just like you know, maybe this will help, maybe this will work,

maybe this will be the thing that kind of saves it. But like a lot of that design was done for business reasons, not necessarily because well the Simpsons, So maybe like putting multiplayer in every game to make sure that used game sales don't you know, destroy the market. Nowadays, maybe sometimes seem more like a business decision than this game doesn't really need multiplayer. Well,

yeah, I guess you could probably look at it. It's almost similar, but well the differences that like, you know, this had actual like major gameplay changes that were meaningful and core to the experience, not just didn't stack on. There are three more joysticks on this cabinet, Like that didn't quite

work. He was also talking a lot about It's another interesting point is you know, you're if you're making an arcade game, your budget is primarily hardware, Like the amount of the like the percentage of the cost of what you're

making actually going into software is was like this crazy tiny fraction. And when you went to the nest, which you know again you have these you know, flash wrong cards that are crazy expensive at the time to produce, mostly going towards hardware, very small amount towards towards software, and that got worse and worse as time went on to where you know, by the end of this nest era where you're getting these eighty dollars square RPGs and stuff like that.

It's because those those yeah, exactly, like when you went and paid eighty dollars for Strider, when I went paid a dollar, it's because of the cart and so it's because I'm an idiot. So so he was very big on like, you know, optical media was was like saved the business, Yeah, because you know you could actually they're cheap and you could spend more money on on the software and not just on the delivery mechanism. So

he covered up. And I think maybe the craziest thing about the talks at Dice for me, it was like they were all a half hour Wait, so how did how did this come back to Facebook? Basically the end of death kind of the third Age? Yeah, the end of death and and and and reworking, like what the penalty is for or the challenge or the philosophy of like you know, is there still value? Like you know,

does Farmville have value? Even though there's no explicit storyline, there's no like end goal, right, Like is that is that still really very little adversity? Right? There's there's no way to die there's no way to really fail other than not doing as well as others a series of roadblocks. It's just right and like the series and in the way of your progress or yeah, or just like you know, you need to put time into this and alternately, if you don't want to put time into it, put money into it.

I mean, he wasn't there like handing out answers or like saying and here's the solution, but very much kind of philosophically. It was a lot of the stuff at DICE was sort of like, you know, here's a way of thinking about this, and you know, you can come to your conclusions from there. But and then they like, you know, they weren't selling shit. And in a half hour and a half hour, which I thought was crazy, Like the amount of information that Marks already pack into his

presentation that half hour was pretty impressive. Yeah, I wouldn't have mind talking about the game budgets and how they're spiraling out of control and making it harder and harder for the big game to exist. And I mean that's why you see so much, you know, so much leaning into the Facebook stuff is you know, the fifty million dollars game is high risk takes a long time to make, right, but the profit margin on this farm Bill game, Yeah, it's like these small games can be huge. I mean that was

another thing we saw a lot of. It was a lot of people talking about, you know, we are looking at small games, looking at downloadle was working up you know, micro developers, you know, small small teams where potentially the profits could be you know, the payoff could be huge. So were they talking about like shifts and audience where like, you know, I don't think any of us are playing a lot of Farmville, but like

reaching into that Facebook kind of our parents or whatever audience is. We really talked too much demo yeah, you know, yeah exactly like I think, you know, Richard Garriott kind of got into the point of like, well now everyone's a gamer, but most of but mostly just talked about space. It was dope, man. His whole talk was about here's how I got space. And then at the end he was like, and me and John

Carmack are partners now and he makes games, all right, peace. But it basically ended with like, and we're gonna take all of you to space. Yeah, yeah, you're going to space. Look under your chair, there's a helmet. Who would have guessed Richard Garriott and John Carmack are going to be the man to send us to fucking space. How awesome is that? Everybody? I was so stoked, like, even though there was not anything other than his great anecdotes about going to space, so jazzed after that,

says, yeah, we're all going to space. Space. This is gonna be awesome. Start learning Russian. Now how's he looking? Does he have his little retail implied? It is now split into Oh no, that happened in space? Yeah, yeah, he's cloning himself. We saw him there and then we saw him at a Burger place the next day. He's the guy at the fabrics. That's right, Okay, Yeah he was there, wasn't Yeah, walked in that chain. Wow, let's say I was in space. Motherfucker. It implied it maybe, but it was in the

tabular rassa language asked me about space. I couldn't. I couldn't decode it, unfortunately diced. And then the Awards, Yeah, the Awards with Jay Moore hosting. I thought he was pretty good this year. Yeah, he seems to have kind of figured out how to present to that audience. It's I mean, it's it's a it's a delicate balance between you know, talking some shit without being overly familiar. I mean he's been doing it for a while now, yeah, six years. He is. He is the industry's

official comedic enscy. He does bluz Con. Yeah, he does everything. He talks some about blizz Con. So some good material. The Activison stuff bounced around the room a little oddly, just timing. Yeah, just like the day after that, all those layoffs a hit, So it was like everyone basically joke was like, you know, you you make all those money

on games, but still no one wants to work with you. Was was kind of the good punchline without listen, just describing the whole thing, and everyone was like, I thought it was hilarious, and then like it's basically like wave of laughter and then it kind of sunk in, like oh maybe I should have laughed at that totally. But then people were like, oh, wait, I still don't want to work there because anyone who runs their business in such a way that they're laying off five hundred people is not the

company I want to go be with. So uh still played, still played. Yeah, there were some I don't know that that thing moved the awards. Yeah, once they got got down to it. They were not joking

around like they were presenting four or five awards at once. They're kind of getting a bunch of awards out of the way, and then for the I guess the major awards or what they deemed to be the major awards, they would have people up for acceptance speeches and so what's I've been there, I think maybe twice, and I always liked the vibe there and I always hated having to go down as somebody to try and cover it because the vibe there

always seems like everybody's real comfortable. Everybody's they're not being surrounded by pr and they're not being led around. They're kind of doing what they want to do and talk to people they want to talk to. Is it's still yeah, absolutely, I mean like it's not guarded. It doesn't seem like everybody's super guarded and like puts on their kind of saccharin smiling Hey as it going. No, I mean there's there's there isn't like it's it's not press facing.

Yeah, in that way, I think I think that that's smiling and a handshaken is happening, but it's happening between developers and you know, people in need to be There were definitely some people. There were definitely some people there that were doing like a little more hardcore businessing than some others. Like basically there were people there with games, pitching games to publishers and stuff like that, and you know, trying to get get money to finish their game and

stuff like that. So serious pitching, yeah, exactly, Like you know, it's like, hey, we've got the sweet set up. I'm going to take pitch meetings for three days straight and and so on and so forth. Yes, there's some of that, but a lot of just you know, there was a large bar in the middle of this casino, and that's you pretty much just would everyone eventually gravitated there, and you're like, man, there's a like ridiculous cross section of people standing in here right now.

That's cool. Yeah, And then someone's got and then someone has the experia play out the day before their press conference talking about it. It's so weird. So a guy just like pulls out a phone say check this out, and it's like, what, it's your phone? What? And then he

slides it and you're like Oh it's that. It's that thing. So I actually got to have my hands on the Experia play a couple of minutes of the you know, call it the PlayStation it's what people have been calling the PlayStation phone since before it probably existed, So now that has officially been Yeah, they had a thing, I get think in Spain or something like that. It's gonna gonna come with Crash Bandicoot preloaded onto it, so have fun

taking out those passwords. Uh So, so I didn't actually get to play what you would call a game on there. It was like a little three D kind of tech demoe. It was a room. It was it was a room with some stairs you could go through a couple of doors and in the first person. Yeah yeah, and it's Kingsfield sequel. And it seemed like it was designed to kind of show off the way that the little touch

pad stuff works because you're basically using that like dual analog. So you have this this this little pad in the middle between where the deep pad and uh you know, the four buttons are, and that is where your touch space is. And there are actually these two little like nubs that stick out that you aren't actually moving, but they are useful for knowing your center. It's kind of like, you know, the the F and J keys on a key, so that you know, like, okay, that's where I am.

Uh. They serve that kind of a purpose and I thought that was significant in making that stuff feel better. So I don't know really anything about this. I didn't see the news, and so this is Sony putting out you know, they've been putting out phones for for a long time. They're putting out an Android phone that has these like most Leap it doesn't have dual shoulder buttons. Okay, that's kind of the only thing it doesn't have from

a standard PlayStation controller. But they are actually creating their own hardware standard within so other Android devices will be able to get certified for the PlayStation Suite, which is the thing they announced alongside the MGP. Kind of got buried a little bit, but the MGP will play these games as well, and they're going to set up their own separate store, separate from the Android store. It'll be PlayStation stuff just to be able to buy buy PS one games.

So I felt like the controls felt good, the phone felt felt decent. You know, it looked it looked what I was seeing look good, big screen. Uh no, no, I mean it feels like a kind of a modern Android phone. Just feel kind of like it's a slider. Does it feel like it's going to break in your hand or something? It felt sturdy actually hold it. But uh like my issues with that thing are are

not hardware. It's it's not what that thing is. It's the like where that play thing exists in the market, in the market, like, you know, who does it serve? Who is it for? You know, what is it competing with? Because I feel like the way it's sitting, it's it's almost like it's competing with everything. It's almost like you by being an Android phone and a PlayStation product, you both have to compete with, uh like the iPhone and other you know Android like non Sony Android stuff as

well as you know, potentially different market. But you know, m GPS, it's a handheld PlayStation device and and this convergence, man, it's so so uh so yeah, I think I think that I had some challenges and also you know, they'll I think they're going to develop their own games for as well. But there's nothing appealing about playing PlayStation one games on my cell phone. Like, that's from a technical perspective, I'm like, okay, that's okay, right, you can do that. Yeah, that's the thing

you could do. But you know, not not a big selling point. I agree, not gonna. I agree. It was still totally crazy to be playing with that thing in that bar. Yeah it was. It was a little a little weird. Anything else we can talk about from Dice? You want to bring up chess models, chess models and mispack man tournaments for money and let you know, the MTV skins is coming out January seventeenth, look for it. What would you guys do while we were Dice? Oh,

we did all sorts of things stuff. Brad, would you do a website? Yeah? Into the ground pretty well? How was tnt? Uh? It was okay, it's a sensitive to happened. It happened. How How was the you mean you mean Thursday night? Tested saw the Friday It went well? I saw the Friday show. Friday show? Was that was We talked about that. Congratulations, that was a that was a welcome back. Let's say, yeah, it it went well, and uh, I

thought, I thought we'll did a good job and a fantastic job. He brought a insane segment to the show, and I was sitting there so in this hotel room. One of the rare sober moments of Dice watching everyone here be drunk and uh and and watching Will with the like bring out the champagne bottle, like he's not actually going to try this. Holy shit, He's gonna try and savor that bottle, isn't he? Oh, this is gonna go horrible. I was really nervous. I had never I had never heard

of that, so the whole thing was crazy to me. I had only heard of it going poorly. Yeah, that's all I've ever seen is people try to do that and then glass shattering in their hands. I think you shouldn't have showed the videos of it being done beforehand, because once you saw how it was supposed to go, it was less magical when it happened. Well, we showed the videos. For me, it's like, having never even heard of what was going on, It's like, I'm gonna open this

champagne bottle of the knife, I'm like, that's fuck. Well, I wanted to show the videos of it going poorrible, Right, Yeah, here's what I just want to let people know before you get you're not so you're not falling along at home. Here's what could go wrong, right, yeah, in case it doesn't go horribly wrong here and I want to voice my opinion that I think this is really dangerous. We had the deal sup the mop bucket under Underwill, and that cleared out all the wires and cam away

from him. I was really weirded, worried somebody's gonna get really hurt, like yeah, like kind of like fun fun fun, and then oh my god, it shows over. Oh like we're done, like somebody just lost an eye on a life where you guys, it cuts back to an empty couch and just like, we're done, you guys. You guys did street tests, we did, and that one, oddly sou the cork popped off before we even did. It went like thirty five forty feet into the street,

almost hit a car. I don't know. We shouldn't, we shouldn't leave any will Will took a piece to the face. Didn'tee on the show. Uh it's uh, he didn't. It didn't get captured on video. But yeah, I think of the cork ricochete spot and that cork had a you know, inch of glass, sharp glass around it. So I don't know, man, don't try that at home under any circumstances, you know, especially in a smallish studio with walls. Yeah, it's not hard,

circus hard to open. Shame. It almost wants to open on its own. You just I just put a put a I'm even bigger less than that. Just put a towel or something, do a twist, yeah, and it just comes right off in your hand. You don't need you need to save you. It's just like I don't like champagne. So the idea of having fun opening crazy bottles that that's the only appealing thing about it. Yeah, well, yeah, I was just yeah, I don't know. It was it was a good show. It was a good show. And Will

did a great job, fantastic job holding it together. Uh you know he had to sit on the couch, get up for a segment, and go back down. I think, yeah, good covering for that. That was nice business. Hey, did you have a chance to play any game? I did play some games, So play through some more Black Commander Rearmed co Op two. That game kept hitching up on the co op and so I

think I'm just gonna have to go through a single player. Now that my little brother has gone, it's gonna have to be single player because it's obviously gonna hitching. You mean it hitched up or it locked up, locked up? Okay, yeah, so it came to a dead freeze like a pretty long hitch. Yeah it was. It never was a internal hitch. Yeah, it's still going now hopefully it'll come back. So like from NIS, we we tried three three playthroughs, and every everyone ended with a hard freeze.

Uh. Played through Extraction, Uh, dead Space Extraction. Now I'm ready to play Dead Space two, which I also started really enjoying that game. Extraction is the shooter that is, yes, yes, the I played through it on the p S three Uh, and then I read Salvage and then I read novel a synopsis. But you're totally playing Dead Space two on the three sixty. Yes, So there's nothing that carries over from Extraction of no I bought, I bought the I bought the standalone Extraction on p S

three. Oh, I didn't know that exists. I thought I thought it was only to buy okay, okay, I thought it was just on the disc. I didn't know that it was also, Yeah, you can put down a lot of money getting all your dead Space kind of uh peripheral novels so like uh, which you know, I'm kind of happy I did, because a lot of that stuff overlaps and really kind of small, not very meaningful ways, but you know it's like little winks and nods and stuff.

Uh, and I'm sure the books add a little bit more. But Dead Space two, I'm not terribly far into it. But I teld you where I was, and you said decent. But if I feel like I just started because that big game moves really quickly, I'm gonna but I'm really enjoying it. I thought that game opened so strongly, and uh, the visuals

the first scene in that game are fantastic. That that whole opening coming out of that it looks like it should be CG but maybe one of the best kind of up close model transformation, best best face exploding animation, yeah, best exploding producer face. Yeah. Uh, that part's a little creepy. I mean it's weird. I've seen NonStop adulation for that specific scene, Like

it just the guy's face like bursting open. It's just like one post after another on form after for it just looks like it should be rendered differently than in the game engine. Maybe they do do some trickery, but uh, because it looks so the fidelity on it looks so good. So twenty twelve, every game is gonna open with an exploding face. Yeah, great, that's gonna be and is really going to come back in twenty twelve. That's that's next year's trope. You know what. Actually, Dead Space two contains

a couple of notable tropes that one of which needs to go away. Yeah, which is the sort of like frantically scrawled graffiti style messages to the player on the walls. Yeah, like all we're done. Like a lot of shot came out almost four years ago. Now, I think we could probably put that one to bid. So I was telling you some guys, I'm sorry, Yeah, I was gonna say this has kind of a BioShock field. Yeah, I mean, this definitely has some other other traits in common.

But like some guy stopped long enough to write shoot their limbs off in his own blood on the wall before he like crawled away. The best one I don't want to die written into lighting on the wall and start running, or like hopefully you're not using your own blood for that, because that would be right bad idea. But the trop that we need to see more of helmets that automatically form around your face dark void. Yeah all right, they got it. A me of two space got it drawn true, Yeah,

doesn't. And we're talking specifically about ones that like mechanical helmets that mechanically form around your face. Yeah, iron Man, sure, I mean, I mean the Army of Two is like the proto version of that with the slide it up. Oh yeah, I like. I like the helmet stuff. I can't get enough of that. Uh yeah, So I'm kind of getting

that bioshocky vibe of like, here's this like space Wonderland. Like now you're in the nursery and it's like space metropolis, right yeah, here residential area with like here are living areas that normal people would do normal stuff, but it's all except they all died in those places. But I'm really really enjoying that. What else is going on? You don't know, jack Man?

Fantastic? I want to know more. You don't know, jack. Uh So, I've been playing a bunch of single player and I played with you guys, you and Gary Wood a bit a uh when it's even it's the only game I think we would have the patience for. For like when we had a bad connection and somebody was hitching up. Yeah, we still tried to crank through a game. How is that represented in the game? Does it just like it just stalls, like just yeah, just hitching up.

It's it seems like it is directly related to voice chat. And we're talking about the three sixty versions specifically. I don't know how how it works on the on the PS three version and the PC version is of any online multiplayer at all, No, no online supports, which is which is why it's twenty bucks. Okay, so but yeah that was but whatever, that ten bucks for the multiplayer to me is worth it because it's just playing online is

a is good And it seems like it's smart about choosing question packs. Yeah, it's choosing episodes that no one that's playing has played before, so you don't go into that issue, which made me wonder what happens when you make it through every episode? I think you start going, you start recycling. So that's that's what people can plain about playing with like randoms, is that there there are people out there that have just jammed through everything. So they

can try and game the system. So whatever, I just don't ruin your own experience. I don't play with people that I don't know. Are there a bunch of like performance related achievements, like like get through an episode without missing a question or something. Some people were out there just trying to game those things. That's an achievement, but that's easy to get and get that by yourself. Yeah, I have to do it online. It's not smart.

Yeah, no trivia or don't because those questions are real twisted kind of like sometimes sometimes just a well placed guest is all you need. It could definitely go from like the okay, I kind of know what they're talking about, to like, you guys are talking about quantum physics and I don't. I don't know how many planes of reality there possibly are in string theory. We launched the screw. Don't fucking you're ruining the question it you have spoiling

shit again, that's nice going. I also never get tired of the commentary in that game, which is a testament to how well it's done. I have a copy, I having that time to play it. I'm really really fun written. I hear it's got really good chests. Yep, well well modeled chests. Uh. The voice of Cookie Masterson, of course, is expertly done. I know. I also love the end each time they just that, you don't know, Jack slam That comes like immediately after you finish

the game. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's it's it's paste. Well, what's up with a dude named Cookie? It's funny. I guess I don't know what you got a problem with Cookie? Oh? I love cookies, all right, it's a good it's a good game shows. Cookie sounds like in fact, I have known a female Cookie. Yeah weird, not in the biblical sense, but anyway, it sounds like a lady's

name as well. Cookie sounds like like a girl's name. I'm just saying Cookie Masters and Cookie Monster, two male cookies together in the same room at once. No, I think about it. I think cookie is an adjective. If you were to model Cookie Monster's chest in a monster, who would you get to do it? Who's like cook ish? So it's monster, that's he's a monster of cookies. So I have a question for you. What's up Jack? Your jackhead? Yeah? Whoa is that? The head?

Is that Jack's Cookie that's just a head. That's just a head. That's that's not Jack. No, because there's been a number of different hosts over the years. Has Jack ever been a host? I believe there was a character named Jack that at one point was the was a host, but I don't think it was even the first one. Did Paul Rubens play Cookie Masterson? Like did they give him a name and then that show in the live show? Yeah, it might have been his own character, but it

was not Cookie. But there's a reference to that. There's question. There is a question that has that basically like, does not acknowledge the existence of the TV show you Don't Know Jack game show that they made briefly but totally it's like, if you know that, it's a hilarious question. Otherwise it's just a trivia question about Paul Rubens. Actually, but it's not even it's

it's actually like, wouldn't it be crazy? It's actually about it's actually about pointalism in a fucking weird way, like it's that's that's how, that's how. Yeah, that's how you don't Know Jack rolls is you know, start with either a high or low culture framing device and then spin it around on its head, and the this or that questions are are always disord Yeah, yeah, dis or that straight off the streets, that's what they're called.

They're called this really funny. Yeah, they do good juxtaposition, ridiculous. I love seeing that, I really, I realized last night. I love seeing that game on just a giant fucking TV because all my memories of that are like thirteen fourteen inch monitors from the nineties CRTs because you play it on a PC. So now I'm like, you know, sixty three inch big screen HDTV, Like, you know, it's still the same, just like solid color background, you know, moving text across it. But it just

looks so fucking it just looks so crisp and bright. I really, I don't know. I enjoy it, Yeah, having a lot of a lot of fun with that. It's too bad about I hope they do something about network issues, because I haven't noticed it in every game, but it definitely certain players for whatever reason, Like over the course of a game like the like you'll start off fine, like everyone like okay, everything's working good, We're clipping through, and then like by the time you get to the end

game, someone's hitching it up. Real bad. Yeah, we had a lot of problems making through the last round. Yeah, which I assume is because the last round is so very timing oriented, but timing based on everybody else, you know, like I assume for the other stuff, you get your own counter. It doesn't really matter well this, yeah, but the

synchronization of the last thing is where it gets crazy. And I would imagine they would just look at all that stuff locally and then as soon as everyone anyone buzzes in, it compares notes with everyone else to say like, yeah, here's when this person buzzed in, here's when this person buzzed in. And it doesn't seem that way. Yeah, well at least not at the last one. Yeah, yeah, well yeah, because the other ones, it doesn't like everyone can buzz in. It's not a it's just it's not

a buzz. It's not a buzz to take control and then answer it. They're all just like everyone answers, and then your score is based on how quickly you answer. Yeah. Yeah, but the last one is one player gets the scores. Whoever is actually first that matters, So it's it's it's different from the rest of the game in that way, and uh, and definitely seems fun, fun, but still actual contents of it are a blast. So I'm glad you're should play some more. I'm glad you're still have

a fun Yeah. It's hopefully that there's delcat already. Yeah, there's already. I already bought like five bucks for the first time you got it. Yeah, it's it's well, it's five bucks and it's the ten question pack or ten episode packs eighty three. Yeah, yeah, so cool. I will I will never run out of you don't know, jack stuff. I think they added achievements for the achievements for those questions, added them for you can see him for the first three packs already what the achievements are going to

be? So wow? Yeah, add up? Yeah, point Well it's and it's like one hundred and twenty five points per pack, so they're they're throwing some achievements into that stuff. Hard stacking stacking. You played some stacking I did. What do you think it's stacking? I think it's really fun. It seems like it's going by very quickly. Uh game, Brad, you finished? I got up at six thirty this morning, finished it.

Uh. So the puzzles they give you hints to get through them. If you want optional hints, you have to you have to pull up a menu and highlight the challenge that you want to hint for, and then press a button to get the hints. So it's not like it's popping up a message, Hey, go do this thing. It's like, go through these steps. And are the hints like procedural, like we'll give you like a first Yes, there's there, they are in sequence, yes, and so yeah.

Hint one's kind of vague. Hint too is a little more like, all right, come on, guys, do this to do well. The first two we're both pretty abstract. It's just a hint three is just like, dude, just go over to this guy some Lucas Art's hint guide. Yeah, it's business. It almost The wording of the third hint always almost sounds a little impatient. Yeah, it's kind of kind we already gave you

two hints. Yeah, you an idiot, Like, no, go do it like fucking stack with the pirate and take the parrot over here and put it in the nest. What the fuck? Uh. So it's not like you're you're playing through because there are like multiple routes to accomplish something right, and they'll they'll say like, all right, you've gotten three out of five of them, and you're like, well, I don't know what else to do. You go into the hints and you can kind of burn through the

rest of them so you can complete everything in an area pretty quick. I'm gonna give you a piece of advice, because I know you're only about halfway through the game. Don't play it that way. Don't don't try and because I think you will get if you play the game that way, you will get burned out on every area that you do it in before you move on, and you'll just continually I'm having fun, get annoyed and sick of the

game. I really like it. I'm having fun, and it seems like the hints are stopping me from getting too annoyed of being like why isn't this working? And you go to the hint right, Oh, you don't even want me to do that. It's like you want me to pry this other thing. The way I played it was pretty much to solve each puzzle once with whatever solution I found first, and then just kind of move on to

the next stuff. And if you do that, it's yeah, it's probably like a three hour game, but you can always go back and do the other stuff. Yeah, so I'm enjoying it. It does seem like it's gonna be over pretty quickly for me. But I like the art style, I like the concept. I think the overall creativity of it is great fan plastic. I think double fine if they keep down, going down this road has a very bright future ahead of them. It was always they're making money

on these things. I mean, I don't know if they are. I don't know. I mean it's not exactly geared towards the mass market, you know. Yeah, so I hope they are, because like in these smaller chunks, that creativity really shines when you're like all right, that was really cool for like five hours and move on to something else, and it's it's

working really well for me. So they nail that like early twentieth century industrialists like high society thing so well, like like from steamships to Zeppelin to you know, big trains, child labor laws. Yeah yeah, but it's like everywhere you go, they're like they're all these like evil industrialists with monocles, right, Yeah, there's a lot of real hoity toity. It's it's brilliant. It's a slow start, make some time to kind of wind up.

I am only maybe you know, I'm still kind of tutorializing a little bit. But it's they hold your hand a little bit, and they definitely do. Vinn He was complaining about the length of the titles on all the silent film stuff. Yeah, you have to, so they're looking at text for quite a while. Yeah. Every time somebody says that, it's not that I don't appreciate. It's just that kind of like, you know, I mean, it's a good framing device again for kind of the era and the

style of trying to book. But I'm with you, Yeah, just kind of it's just they're up there too long. Not even that it's like a little too much like back and forth, like with the Hobo and stuff like that. Was like, I mean something, it's fun, pretty awesome, it's good material, but it's it is the like you'll see the little guy sit there and move around like he's talking about the movement, and you will see the screen. Ok here's what he's saying. Right, that's up there.

That's okay, Okay, I read that and then go back and then that guy's gonna move around some and then more so it's yeah, just the pacing on the on that stuff. You can't like button through it. I'm always afraid to hit it. But it right, But it's it's it's very much in the style of old silent films where there's an actual orchestra. They're playing music to the dramatic yea, so it all needs to be kind of timed up. It makes sense that, yeah, I guess its stylistically they

do it first style stuff. But when you were out of that way, when you know where it's going, when you kind of figure that stuff out, you're like, all right, all right, right, come on, come on. But I'm having a good time with it. And and I think I'm I'm glad they're putting this stuft and I hope they continue to do

so in the in the future. I do think this if this were like a full game, and that that concept wouldn't hold out, not at all, not at all, because if you do start seeing a lot of repetitions, it's it's probably about the perfect length. I thic quest. I think, yeah, they've found a good avenue for their crazy ideas. I wonder if I wonder if throw any DL see for this like there was with Costume

Quest. It's well, I mean they wrap the story up in this pretty well, but but the episodes are so compartmentalized that they could easily add another another one on like another hour or two. I love the names of what all the dolls names like, They're so good, like the Widow, Chastity and stuff like that. It's it's a clever little piece of business. Anything else, I can't think of anything right right now, so I'm gonna say, no, Jeff, Hi, what's up. I don't know what talks

about? Kill Zone. Yeah, we can talk about all kinds of stuff. We talk a little bit of a kill Zone, but we got like quick look and Kilson's awesome. I haven't finished it yet, but in terms of just like first impression stuff from playing probably about an hour and a half two hours of the campaign and messing out with bots. As soon as we're done here, I'm actually gonna go play multiplayer for review purposes. But it

just looks so incredible. Drew Drew like was starry eyed after you came out of that quick Yeah, I was like, oh I had to go and say, man, that came just looks amazing. Does it looked dramatically better or different from two? It's faster, it's it's it's as at least as good as two, if not better visually. And then on top of that, everything moves faster and the controls are better smother it's pretty smooth. Yeah, it's uh, it is an impressive game. Is your guy taller?

I hated that that was awful? Sorry, I was actually getting confused with with the giant beer can and Duke Newcomer that we saw earlier today. Oh yeah, we did play the strings Fosters man, That's what I said. Oh nice. Uh so yeah, I don't know. I'll have to go back and then and I'll keep an eye on that as I play more, because it really stood out to me into because there are those murderous mainly attacks

that you're kind of so they kind of bigger. Yeah yeah, I mean it seems like they are being smart about they from what I've seen, which is even less than what Jeff seene because I just you know, I sat alongside on that quick look and talk to him some about it. I this sounds like this is the game they've been trying to make I feel like like Kills one two was great, it had some it had some caveats. I feel like this maybe them finally nailing it. It looks it looks very exciting.

Still have the the cover mechanic and like pop your pop over the wall. Yeah. Same. I feel of like it's the it's the same as the duck button with the way I have the controls configured, and so it's like you can get on cover and hit it and you'll get behind it. Does it feel snappy because I remember from Killzone two, I remember being kind of like a little floaty or something like something a little mushy about it, like kind of like, no, it's like you get you once you hit

the it's a toggle. Basically, you hit the button and you're just right, you're just like pop on the thing and then and then and you're ducked behind it. From then from there it's like you can push up to shoot over or just hit the aim button and you just to like pop up and aim. Which would you say there's a little less like animation priority, Uh,

yeah, I think so. Like that was kind of the complaint, was you know, whether people were calling it input lag or just you know, they they spent so much time making smooth animations and goddamn it, you're gonna watch them or you know, like whatever it was. Uh, this game feels very snappy with the way you play it, like it's just it's it's pop pop hop. You're shooting guys, you're zooming in, you're zooming

out, you're running, you're you know. It feels uh like other shooters in that way without necessarily feeling like it's just like ripping off other popular shooters because I go for the aiming because it was it was the weight of the

weapons. It was like how slowly aiming has swung your gun around fast and the second significantly like run speed is fashioned, like just everything moves like be as a spectator, I'm sure it's different actually playing, but as a spectator, there are times that it was kind of overwhelming, like the speed of like the game game fucking moves. It's did they take it too far in the other direction? No? I mean I think it feels great. I

think it's just because I was not controlling it. It's you know, it's one of those when you when you're standing at a demostation trying to watch someone else play a first person shooter. It's like when you're watching somebody play Marvel Capcom three. You start, well, you know, you start doing that that you start rocking a little bit, kind of like wait, hold on center gravity, where is just shoot a helmet off anybody? Yeah? Great,

absolutely, lots of helmets constant. He kicked a helmet off of a dude. I stuck my thumbs through a dude's eyes. Oh yeah, so these up so that the animation priority still exists in kill animation these meal call it, which is maybe a little ridiculous, but you know, basically accurate. Accurate though, Yeah, though you kind of see similar animations again and again with that stuff from from what I've played. You stick your thumbs through that, Yeah, that one one I've only seen once. So what's in

there? What's behind those blood I mean blowing thing is just some kind of eyemask, right, yeah, yeah, yes, uh so basically when you get a clothes it'll come pop up and say hit our three and you will basically just slid in his throat or you know, break his neck or something like that. They've got a bunch of different animations that. Yeah, that that look pretty fantastic though, it has this side uh thing of while you're doing that, you are getting shot. So that's you know, it's not

always the right move from what I can tell. And then you're the same guy you were in two continuing. So this game, I mean, it's got a little little prelude previously on. It's it no, it's it's like, uh, it's gonna start at the end and show you some crazy stuff and then go six months earlier, and then it is it is you sitting on the steps. It is literally like yeah, yeah, so it is thirty seconds after the end of kill Zone two basically where it really really picks

up. That's because I was fucked up. Yeah, and uh, you know the first thing I did is gunned down Rico Good and then I had to heal him to bring so he could keep moving. That is not a part of the story. Hopefully, definitely there really part of the story. You know, you're kind of looking to move away from there because sh it's bad and everyone who encounters Rico fucking hates him good and you too because you

were there, uh for some of that. You know, it's a little questionable about you know, whether you should be court martialed or just shot on site and that sort of stuff. But not only did he do fucked up stuff, he spent the last battle shooting out of banister. For me, that guy, Yeah, I've got a real fuck that guy attitude as well. Jeff has unresolved angry issues. I hope he gets his at some point,

but but but I don't know where it goes. I appreciate the restraint from Guerrilla that they don't just ice him and meat, that it's not just like the knee jerk, like, oh, fans haided him, we have to get rid of him. It's like, no, if you could get that sort of response at the same time, like if there was a good storyline reason for Like if that game had opened in the first thirty seconds, was your commanding officer showing up and putting a bullet in his fucking head,

that would have been just as awesome. Maybe you haven't seen how it ends yet, Yeah I guess not. I guess not, but that that would have been pretty cool. That makes me really excited for for Kills one three. The story stuff from what I've seen so far seems cool. How's How's Malcolm mcdell? So that really is Malcolm macdwell. Okay, okay, great, Finally I hadn't looked it up yet. The quick look, we're like, that's a real Malcolm looks like Malcolm McDowell in the game, and certainly

sounds like and Ray Ray Winston. Oh fuck, that's him. I I was gonna say that. Watch the click video couples like them with the pinballs, all their pinball balls on their faces stuff, Avatar style. The voice, the voice of Windstone very very specific. Again, not just the voice, it's his facial expressions. Everything well, I couldn't pick up on its. So Malcolm McDowell is awesome, like as a character from what I've seen so far, like he he is. He plays as a chair I guess

Chairman stall is his name. Uh, And he is a bad guy. He seems like he pretty well embodies the British Space Nazi. Absolutely. Yeah, the British Space Nazis are eviler than ever they've They've stepped up their British Space Nazi game. That makes me very excited. I think after this podcast, I'll go put in my Amazon or order because that's the next Tuesday, right second, So that's that's coming us coming up. And I haven't tried it. I have not tried it in three D or with the move for

any real length of time yet, so not really. It's got support for all that stuff. Seems like move would be something that might be kind of cool for single player. It'll like draw targeting brackets on enemies and stuff like that when you're using it and you kind of go to the edge of the screen and turn from what I can tell, But multiplayer you're probably not gonna want to do that. That seems like it'd be a bit much. Do you want to talk about Marvel Verus cast count of three? Yeah, sure,

Okay, I'm playing Days of the Day. Yeah, it's I you know, I don't know, man, all right, I really think that that game. I really respect that game. But right now where I'm at right now with it, and I need to play more, I don't know that I like it. Okay, what's the what's the dividing line? And pardon me one second if he can't be here for this, I don't know that. You know. It's It's like, I I like fighting games.

I'm I'm not the best fighting game player in the world, but I have enjoyed them for a good long time, I can get reasonably good at fighting games and probably be about as good is anyone who's not going to go devote tournament Like yeah yeah, people that are not going to go devote themselves to one specific game and get into like that side of things. Yeah, so

I'm all right, uh, you feel confident in your skills. Yeah, and you know, I'm picking up more and more I guess as I play a more Marvel versus capcom and kind of getting into the different systems and when you should use them and that sort of stuff. But it's like it's kind of like reach this point where the more I learn about it, the more

I just kind of don't want to play it. Like the the air combo system, they did some really smart stuff with the kind of turning that into this cool guessing game where you can tagging characters around and you know, a character can counter out of it on when you're attempting to tag in the middle

of an air combo. But my snap judgment on that system having played like what three matches, Yeah, yeah, So the guessing game you're talking about is that you're basically trying to guess which way they're going to juggle you, right, yeah, if it's yeah, and if you match that you break break out of the air combo. It happens so goddamn fast, Like what can you really do besides just spare them all directions? And I hope that you that's kind of like, that's basically that is kind of it. But

at the same time, everything in that game happens that fast. So once you've spent now that I've spent a lot of time playing it, like the speed is not the thing anymore. I can understand why you when your first three matches trying to pick that stuff up, you'd be like, man, fuck this because it is is a much faster game than than we've been playing lately. So that definitely takes them getting used to. And I don't know, you know, it's like the Marvel cast really holds very little sway for

me personally. Yeah, I think that's They've They've made some great fighting game characters out of some of those guys, and I think some of the additions, like I think task Master is really cool u in there. He has some some fun moves, But you know, it's it's like like, so the roster is not necessarily doing it for me. I think the Capcom roster is not really doing it for me either. It's the notable emission Ken.

I don't know they've they've you know, guile, uh, you know, Charlie, do you think I mean I never played much much too never, you know, not really a fighting game guy in general. But do you think that they have maybe focus too much on playing to the audience that loves MVC two. I don't really know, because this game is it had kind of has some similarities to Tad's and Nook versus Capcom with what they've done. So that's the kind of the other thing. That game doesn't have kick buttons.

It's got light, medium, heavy, and I I don't really like that about you know, it's kind of a weird thing, you know, because I think that the system that they've built works well enough, but it's not what I want out of a Capcom fighting game. It sounds like but it sounds like a lot of this stuff, like like you're saying, I think I'm starting to understand it's like you're just just kind of like slam your

way up the tree light, medium, heavy, special. But I mean like there's a difference between like what's good and what like what you like and what's good are not necessarily always exactly. I think. I think it's a well made game from people who know how to make fighting games, Like they definitely have spent a lot of time thinking about these systems, and and I think it's immediately though I don't know that I can necessarily tell you why just

yet. Uh, Like I didn't like testsanocco Versus Capcom at all. Uh this game, I am borderline liking and and kind of into it. Yeah, depending on you know, five minute chunks of playing it. You know, ask me in twenty minutes and my might just say, like this, it's fine. So I'm really torn back and forth on a lot of this

stuff right now. Interesting, But Testsanoko I didn't really like it at all, and it's you, you know, it had to kind of the additional uh side penalty of like half the roster was just dumb as far as I can, as far as I'm concerned. So taking those systems and taking them to kind of the next logical level and refining them and enhancing them still kind

of based on that core. It still kind of feels like that core, And uh, I think that can only go so far for me, there's a lot of stuff like, ah, I'm glad that we didn't review this game before it came out because now that like it's out today and it's it's got the exact same problem the Street Fighter and Super street Fighter had of sometimes you hit quick match and it just and so I had like thirty matches in a row that I was trying to get into and it says the connection with

the opponent is lost. This is the three sixty version. PS three was fine before launch. I haven't tried it today to see if it's it's as bad, but that was something that the Street Fighter did and I'm like, I can't believe, like we're still but they haven't figured out the match. So it also dumps you back like two menus, and that's just like shoddy. You know, they don't have spectator mode in there, like eight player lobby stuff, so it's just like seven. You could potentially be sitting through

seven matches staring at menus, staring at life bars like that. It's just how do you how do you take that step back? Whereas and I have seen it officially from them, but you know, some when we were saying that earlier, there was some response saying like, oh, they're looking at patching that in. It's like, well, yeah, like how do you not ship with that? It's kind of also the tutorial stuff from that quick

look seemed wanting for a little bit. It's similar to Street Fighter fours, but you know, I think that was like a missed opportunity there as well. And especially you get into this game that has more systems to it and stuff that like people who play like more traditional fighting games might like have some questions about like, you know, we're kind of in this age now where

fighting games are coming back. You know, It's like Street Fighter for did really well and appealed to a lot of people and stuff like that, and if they want to prevent it from going away again, they need to find a way to make it more inviting. And you know, it's like, I think the roster kind of does that for some people, but if they had actually taken the time to say, hey, here's here's kind of the basics of the combo system and then they kind of do some of that stuff

with the mission mode, but they're not explicit about it. If they say, you know, try to do the advancing Guard five times here and and then had just like a couple of sentences in the game saying here's why this is here or here's why you want to use it. I think that that's something that would have been hugely beneficial to It would have made the game easier to play for a wider audience instead of saying like, oh, now you

have to go look around online for all these character videos. They're like well made. Like, you know, the Fighting Game Communities has done a great job, yet again picking up the slack of yeah, exactly of picking up

the slack. But they shouldn't have to, you know, like like Capcom should be doing that, Like Fighting game developers should be putting some of that stuff in the game and not putting it into the strategy guide they're selling or you know, community outreach stuff like it should be part of the core experience.

For me, it was terrible at that stuff. Like in the tutorial, there's there are a few things and some of the top ones are a button to show me the move, show me show me what you want me to do, just like exec, which let let the AI just show me what to do. Also, some of that stuff let me just do it in stages like walk me through the stage is like jump in all right, now, just keep me there until you know I do the next correct button press. Okay, you got it, you got it, you got it,

got it. Now let's try it again. Yeah, let's try it again, because some of that stuff gets really intense and learning guitar and sometimes you just don't know we talked a little bit out on the quick Look. Sometimes there's you know, specific positioning you need to be in or you need to do like a juggle or something like that. There's like multiple spots where you can hit him with that move, and you spend a lot of time doing it one way only to realize like, oh wait, I need to

wait. Yeah, it can. It can get really frustrating, and I think makes you just go back into mash mode where you're just like I, I you know, I can't do this stuff. I'm just gonna mash up the you know, light medium hard again. Where like you know, if you had, if you had spelled it out a little bit more, maybe

I'd be trying more complicated stuff. Yeah, And you know, it's like that stuff that I'm kind of past that point now, Like I understand how stuff works for the most part, and you know I'm trying to get better, but I'm still this point where I'm losing matches and not know why. You know, I'm not learning anything from my losses, and it's super frustrating. It's just like I'm getting in these games and just getting the fucking shipped out of me, and I'm like, I don't I don't know how to

Wolf won't stop hitting me. And someone wrote back said, block low. I was fucking blocking low, Kill Kill. But you know, it's one of those things that like that's just a well timed combo where you're just hitting with that normal like over and over again, and it's just kind of like looks lame. But plus it's a crazy game. I mean, you jump

into that, you're immediately playing with three different characters. It's not like you, let's just say street Fighter, where you're like, all right, I'm gonna learn how to play for you for a while, Like you're kind of just gotta figure out a team and the assists and how they work together. Yeah, it's a lot to take it to kind of pick up to really excited to jump in. I really it's online. It's not gonna be where I'm gonna play you know, it's got some some issues that I think it

could have been better, but it is. It is a well made game, like systems wise, like once you got to get past like oh this this online menu is not as good as it should have been, or you know, like some of the UY stuff is not as clear as it should have been, and you know, they could have been more instructive to uh new players and that sort of stuff. Like the core game is well made. The disconnect for me about the core game though, that makes it less

approachable than Street Fighter four. Right again my brief experience. Correct me if I'm wrong, But like you mentioned that this is has more systems going on. It almost seems like it's all systems. Like you can jump into Street Fighter four having no idea what to focus attack, dash, cancel is right, to throw a fireball into a dragon punch. You can still have fun with it. I think that's the thing is, you know, like the core level of Street Fighter four is fun on its own, and also there

says you get better. Yeah, it's it's it's fairly standard, and there are systems that they've put on top of it, like focus attacks and you know, canceling. You know, like like just the additional layers that as you get better and start to figure that stuff out, it becomes more rewarding. But that bottom level is awesome and then fun. But like the bottom

level of NPC three is like mashy and kind of ridiculous. Like I pick, I pick naturally, I pick for you for my first match yesterday because hey, I think I know how to play that right, but not not try throwing fireballs and doing dragon punches and hurricane kicks. Fucking jack shit happens.

Yeah, it's just it's smeared all over. It's like you need stuff that's gonna like, you need moves that are going to cover two thirds of the screen when they come out, like task Masters normal just just reaches out with that sword and and so like that's what I'm looking for right now is characters with a ton of reach, and you as like, doesn't seem to have a whole lot of it. And I'm not saying that makes it like bad or that it's designed in a wrong way. It's not that it's not

fundamentally messed up. It's just like it it doesn't make sense to somebody who has no experience with it. Yeah, so it kind of provides a learning curve, and it becomes that matter of like do you want to put in the time to learn it or not? And uh, and are the learning tools robust enough that you actually can that's right, Yeah, it's yeah.

For me, it's it's it's that frustration of of like I said, like losing these fights and more or less knowing why I'm losing, but not knowing what the next step is other than to just like I mean, I guess I just gotta have to bang my head against it. Like if I really wanted to get into this game, I'd probably have to bang my head against it for like a month until every single attack that was coming out of any

single person was something I recognized and knew how to deal with. Whereas right now it's just like, oh, that that one hit high, that one hit a loo, that one. You know, it's like getting crossed up all over the place because it's just everything happened so fast. It's uh, yeah, I don't know, like characters thirty two, I think there's six, yeah, with the thirty sixth the Onlox and then there are two more

coming. Uh, it'll be it's packed in or the code is in with the uh, you know, the Collector's addition, but it doesn't work yet, weren't work till the fifteen. That's a lot of dudes, and then combinationssary the three way assist combos, and then like three supers for multiple supers reached. Guy, I don't know that it's necessarily three proposes, but like not even just like damage wise, like when you were shown it to us, it was like, this is gonna launch them high, this is gonna

push them back. Like that's a lot of three sis. Sorry, yeah, like that's that's a lot to keep in mind. Yeah, I mean I understand why people like that game, but you know, I was never a big MVC two guy, and MVC three is more approachable in some ways, but still just buck wild. I think it'd be real fun to watch matches of like tournament dudes just going filling that screen with craziness and just I

don't know what's going on. It's beautiful, like you know, for you know, m VC two was all about filling the screen with craziness, but this looks it is always on in that game. Kumas Kumas Fireball Hyper Just thing is fucking beautiful. Purple flower waving up and down as it's just decimating anything gets near that just looks crazy, like that engine, the art,

like everything about it presentation. I think I think some of the some of the art doesn't work, like some of the stylistic stuff doesn't work with every characters. The big Tron looks a little weird. It seems like it might be the shading they're using, or like some kind of shadow for the short guys like Arthur and Amaturasi and stuff like that just look a little weird with the shading that they're the shaders they're they're using on all the characters, I

don't know, but it's really cool. But I I the more I play of it, the more I'm just like, man, you know, I just know I'm never gonna be able to or really even want to put in the time to master it. But at the same time, I really respect it. So it's this whole horrible thing of trying to review this game that, like, I think is really quite good. But even as someone who likes fighting games, I'm just like, I don't think it's I don't think

it's for me. So I'm now staring real hard at our scoring scale and starting to write reviews and playing a much more and just going like, I don't know, grah me, I feel like I understand now finally why people wouldn't want to play star Raft online. That's what it looks like. Played this yesterday. I'm just like christ Man, exactly what you said. Yeah, it's like a month long proposition to get good at this. Yeah.

Fuck. And it's like it is a situation where you know, like in StarCraft, like I understand the basics of StarCraft just fine, but then you lose about thirty matches in a row before you realize, like, oh, he made a bunch of roaches. I should have gotten something that's good against armor, right, but that takes a while. Let's make more immortal. Yeah, it's all nonsense. Let's gonna play more. You don't know, Jack, Yeah, so if you made your robo after your second gateway,

you would have been good. Sure, I'll keep that in mind for next time you play him MVC three. Remember more when they put StarCraft characters into MVC three, drink more robott, drink more robotesting and that I'll just happen. What does Jim Rayner special his assist? Is he just one of those. Uh is the try The valky was the what is his ride called his motorcycle? The first one, Yeah, it was vulture, little vulture. Well I think it was a vulture. Yeah, you just hit the button

and a vulture drive spot. All right, drop some Spider mons. What's just one vulture? It's not seventy two vultures for his hyper Okay, we'll get there. It's just like that Strider one from two where it's like every single sprite from Strider they could put into this game just comes onto screen. Where is Strider? He's not in him? I know, Like what it just occurred to me, What the fuck? I mean? They? You

know, they made some adjustments to the roster. That's sometimes like yeah, but did they really need like Chris what Redfield and Wesker and Jill is the little Could they not have dropped one of them? People like Resident Evil? They made a new Strider game in a very long time that swords that look

that curve. Keep in mind that there was there was a good year or so where we were talking to people about Capcom who were kind of winking and nodding about how there was a new Strider in development and now that doesn't happen anymore. They don't. Not a lot of people winking. If I had to guess, at some point someone was working on some kind of Strider that is now totally dead man. Now I'm extra depressed. That sucks. We'll go back and play Strider two and then be even more depressed. People like

that game. I was never I actually actually went and played something pretty recently. Really yeah. I was like, it's it's just that that two D three D combo is just so gnarly. Sometimes it works really well sometimes one game yeah, yeah, and Arcade running on PS one hardware. It was the first eight Mega disc press shoemaker. Hello, anything else going on in your life? Duke Nukembe Forever, Duke dukeamb Forever, Duke Nukembe for Kem

Forever Forever, Duke Nukem Forever forever exactly. Uh. Two K came through Yeah in More Always and MOREE and gave us a good couple of hours with the with Duke Nukem Forever. Yeah, they're pretending like that's a video game that's going to ship the stores. They continue to act they're talking to give it like they're saying like special Edition, a lot of work into that fake demo build that they're driving. Gave us a pair of Balls of Steel as

a little promotional item. Yeah they did. Oh wow, Yeah, well they're special especial edition is called the Balls of Steel Edition. They're they're leaning into that gage pretty well. Games should come with Ventrillo support. Actually, they just announced the full Steam works today, so that's that's a good thing for show, especially after the Borderlands to Bacle. Anyway, Bright, you played at now, Gess, I played the most. We all played it

out of the office. We've all played it, but you played it the most. Played it from the beginning. Yes, so it was like the first ninety minutes of the game or yeah, two hours. They say it took you longer, but yeah, they said they said it was about first nine minutes because I had to run around hitting X button on everything and everything, and they're picking up poop you can you can pee on the poop and the toilet, and then you turned the statue puzzle. I was told that

took you like ten minutes. It took me ten minutes. Yeah, I was maybe. I don't know. I thought I went through that pretty quickly. I didn't see it. You don't want to be fair. It was a dumb puzzle. So, oh, did you guys do the statue puzzle? I didn't know. You can make the statue talk at first, and then you make them talk and everything blows up. That's where I was stuck.

Well, it's two buttons you hit speak or to talk and the Delian invasion, and that makes the buildings coming a game, it takes a while to get going. I was surprised. You mean, like, yeah, it seems like there's a lot of like the intro ramp up. The intro is that stuff from packs? Yeah, which is the end of Duke three D. You run out football field, you kill the cycloid dude. Yeah. From there, you don't pick up a gun again for Jod like thirty minutes. No, I don't think it was. That was a while.

It was thirty minutes because you were talking to I guess. But that's what you would want to do, if I mean you plan it played a Duke Nukem game. You're gonna run around messing with everything you see. Yeah, maybe if you include pache like you were going to pick up the poop and the toilet and throw it at everything. You can. I guess if you if you count all the cutscenes, it could have been thirty minutes, because what did Duke say when you picked up poop and the toilet? All sorts?

A lot of there were. There was a surprising number of lines of dialogue. Of my favorite was specifically, who the falk would do this? Just? Why am I picking up wet feces? Which? God, what is wrong with me? Yeah? Something like that, something that's super weird. It's really weird. And he just started throwing it at everybody. You can throw it and it'll splatter, but then it's still a whole and you can pick it up and throw it again. Then you throw it at the

white board and it does not splat on the white board. On the white board. Yes, yes, poop. That game is weird. It's weird. I don't know what to make of it. It's it's a throwback. It's a throwback. I don't think it counts, yeah, because I think you're right, throwback has to be made in modern times intentionally looking back.

This was just made a while again. But but you see it. It's I mean, you see the spots where they modernize some stuff, like you hold two weapons at a time and you have recharging health but it's still a health meter. Yeah, well, you know it's not it's not necessarily it's not like a red haze around the edge of the screen. Get that though. Yeah, you can add more health points, more ego or ego you can get ego boost. But doing bench pressing, yeah, doing duke like

things. But that is but I mean, that is a modernization like those systems, even if it is not the most modern. But there's there's the feel of that game, the pacing of that game, the way you're kind of like, all right, we're coming up to this kind of this this arena type space and you're gonna see several waves of enemies come through it, and you have to kill all those enemies before you then move on to the

next thing. Like, there's there's something that the set piece kind of flow of what I was shown, at least of what I played, uh, felt like an older first person shooter, felt like the way they fucking kind of used to make first person shooters. Uh. And it's a it's a weird it's a very weird, very dissonant experience. They're there's some rough looking geometry in that game certainly. We were playing the three sixty version. Yeah, like the buses in that one outdoor spot, we're just kind of big

rectangles that were rounded on the front. Like it was like some real hard edges on some stuff. And you saw a lot of like you know, unreal pop in type stuff as well. The game's not done so that that stuff not necessarily indicative, but I think it's probably safe to say that, like they're not going to add geometry to the busses at this Yeah, I'm not going to round out the buses. I thought it did feel like pulling

the trigger and kind of shooting shooting guys. Well, we were playing the I think if that game gets really silky smooth in the frame rate and stuff, could be real fun to kind of run through, yeah, and kill guys, which is totally why I'm going to play that on a PC. Yeah, some of the footage they released than some of the b roll, the in house b roll looked a lot higher rest and we played it on the PC at packs and it played really yeah. Yeah, and this Xbox

version was kund of him. You know, there's stuff sometimes so we don't know, but I think that will be pretty key and something that fast. Yeah, because you want to run up, dude, smack them around. You want to be basically like as fast and as smooth as like yeah, absolutely, you know, and it kind of needs to be that for if

I think that style of game to really work right. And you know, it's like they've changed some stuff, like you can kind of zoom or you know, you can look down the sites, but it's just as zoom some stuff that The only thing that looks a little awkward I thought. I didn't even use it, like, it seemed to be of no use whatsoever to me, unless I mean, if you're shooting from a distance, shooting like

the pistol for you from a long way away. Maybe. But the only thing that kind of bummed me out a little bit that I feel like was a poor holdover from those older games was the the kind of bigger boss fights of just unloading unloading go reload at an AMMO crate and just unloading, unloading, unloading, just like trying to get this health part to come down right while you're just kind of like unlimited AMMO over here and you're just like kind

of running around dumping AMMO run back, And it just felt like, I don't know, this is just kind of a long or boss fight. It's not that interesting. I'm just kind of doing the same thing, like hide behind this pillar, pop out, shoot rockets out of guy's face. And I can't decide if I think it's funny or not some parts of it, but there are genuinely are there definitely some parts that make you grow. Yeah,

I mean it wasn't just like the one boss fight. It was like it seems to be the model for I mean, I saw you fight too, I thought too. Yeah, there are a lot. There are a lot of strategically placed Ammo crates. It's a lot of It's a whole lot of like, yeah, pour an Ammo into a huge guy who barely flinches when you shoot him, but you see the health taking down, so you know you're doing damage right right, and he's just shooting rockets at you.

Yeah, just kind of straping around him totally circle straight from that guy in the football arena until he's dead. Yeah, which I don't know. It raised a question for me. They don't really have an answer for, but I asked them. You know, when Gearbox got this game on a bunch of hard drives or whatever, Like, how much work on top of what was on there have they done or are they just like cleaning it up and

getting ready to go out the door. And they said, you know, like they're philosophically, the way they're approaching it is they are trying to bring as pure they're they're trying to bring the vision of three D Realms to market in as pure a form as possible so that they can get this out of the way and then start making Is that your theory. Yeah, yeah, maybe maybe that's right, But I mean, I don't know, is that does that serve this game? Well? To do that, to say this

is the game they were making serves this game? Well, I don't know. Starting over is crazy. Well, you couldn't do that at this point. Yeah, so if you're going to use anything from this game, you might as well use it all. I don't I don't know that the game will be awesome, But I don't think they're looking at making an awesome game. I think they're leading finishing this game and putting it out and saying we're

the ones. We we did what nobody else could do. Yeah, we made it happen, you know, we we facilitated this game making its way to shelves, and it'll be a really interesting curiosity regardless of quality. Yeah, and I think there'll be a generation of people that will need to see that and have to know for themselves. And there will definitely be a generation that doesn't have the context, and they'll probably just look at this game and

go, this game is garbage. Like they're probably looking to go, I don't understand why any of this game is like this, go back to serious Sam old Man, Yeah, why is this even interesting? Yeah? Uh, you need yeah, you absolutely need that context. But if if they could finish Duke nukembe forever, regardless of frame rate and busses and whatever else, you finished Duke Nukem forever, that's insane. It's it's like a madman's

quest. Yeah, because like even when you win, you still kind of lose, because it's not like the game's gonna Yeah you're you're not gonna win Game of the Year with that, But you're going to put out an interesting game that gets people talking about Duke Nukem that hopefully isn't like such a horrible mess that you know, turns people off to the future of the franchise, which I think I don't know that. I don't think it'll do that.

What we saw seems it seems cool, if not completely archaic and crazy, and it puts them in a position for Gearbox to say, all right, now we're actually going to make a proper Duke Dukeham game and guess what it'll take like eighteen months and be totally better than Yeah, it's it's about keeping that property a lot. I mean, they're using the book on this chapter that is fucking ridiculous. Like they wouldn't have ponied up for the IP itself

unless that was exactly their plan. Yeah, like that's the only reason to do that. I think the humor in it is is kind of what I expected out of Duke's mouth was just kind of like, ah, I don't take care to leave it. But the part I actually found really entertaining was everybody's reactions to do some of those Yea, just like the world around It's funny because you've never had that, Yeah, you've never had people reacting to like Duke is pretty the only person because in his game you want to talk

about like stuff that doesn't exist in today's shooters. How about the scene with government guy just talking at you while you're in the world like half dumping, and he's just like, we need to go get this dude, you did this. I don't know if the president's bad guy, sure, hope not control. I got to the point where I'm just like throwing melee and a like head tracking because he doesn't like look at you as you move around him or no, He's just says like, this is just physician dump. I

was just throwing the trash can. Yeah, maybe I should if. Yeah, there is a line of flos to getting into that, and it's stuff that doesn't exist in truly modern shoot. I love how you have. He was running around like plugging every guard he saw in the head with the pistol and the guy would like the guy would take it in the head and he was like, hey man, I'm on your side. But that's the funny part is they just love you, just like all the dudes. You're like,

fucking dud, don't look a dude. And there's the one like the first cop. I don't know if it's the first cop, but you know it's it's the cop that we saw when you get there's a very cursy cop. Yeah, they're just like, hey, man, just fucking get some pussy. Fucking fuck this shit, I'm gonna get some fuss and fuck this, We're gonna kill these fuckers and then pussy's awesome, and then fuck this ship. The ship's for pussies. Yeah, it's that part makes me crack

up because I feel like everybody's trying to play up to Duke. Like everybody's like that guy's just cursing extra because it's Duke of Yeah, fuck this bullshit, retire, it's bullshit, and and that's and fuck that bullshit. Yeah. The world they have constructed around that character is is like, did they tell you all the backstory of what he's been doing in the last twelve You're

tired or something. Yeah, But he also became an MMA champion, and he owns a successful Burger franchise, a poker champion, and he's the World Series of Poker Champion, and yes, he has a Duke Dome like like

he is a he's a Renaissance Series of Poker Champions. Really funny. Yeah, I think there was one guy when I don't know if you guys got this cutscene when you walk out and some guy's like, yeah, Duke, we're gonna get it done, and then the guy acts hims like you don't say we're gonna get it done to Duke up your assay college extreme damage. That stuff. To me, it's like the whole game is set in idiocracy.

Yes, there's some good gags, and then like I there are like just here's a line ripped directly out of the movie Old School, like nobody says you're my boy brew does he say blue? But again like but yes, but I but and he says that I think every time you drink one of these gigantic cans of but I, but I expect that Like if Duke isn't ripping off gag like frat boy gags, repeated lines from popular you know, sources of humor, that's not Duke and powers, it's straight up is

the Halo armor arms. So the Dice Awards, UH were the opening of the Dice Awards was Duke nukem and uh And they showed that power in there to okay, and I thought that that was just I was really surprised to see it in the in the real game, because I thought it was something they just built for Dice we had. I was just bullshitting with the pr or like five minutes before that scene about them skirting copyright on something, and then I run up to it was, oh yeah it was because there is

a Bellaggio knockoff called Fallaci. Of course. Yeah. I want to probably, you know, like Gearbox made a Halo game, so that's true. I think it was the right they have those assets. Yeah, yeah, well yeah, they certainly have the assets. I choose to believe that game is set in the world according to George Bussard. Yeah, and I think I'm okay with that. Seems like it. He told George Bissard was an

MMA champion and a world serious poker champion. I would be like, of course, he is the baddest motherfucker on the planet as far as I could tell. He would own a fast food chain, wouldn't he. What a weird game. Weird game, What a weird game. But it has that level of like weirdness that you're interacting with all these objects in it that is just like this is really weird. It's like you look at it and go, this is why it took so long, said a fully functional pinball machine,

right, like, fuck you, you don't you don't need. Well, it's okay, it's pretty cool. You need to actually be able to play basketball with that basketball and hoop bonus for throwing the basketball through the hoop and hitting the heavy bag and lifting weights and finding all the weights to put on the weight things. Yeah, it's what a weird game. So we allegedly allegedly it actually is, assuming any of that happened, Jeff, Like, like you said, you'll have to go and buy it in a store.

Yeah, I mean they'll send us copies or whatever. But I still don't believe I'm gonna go buy a copy of a Duke Nukem forever and until that happens, Until until I open that copy of the game and put it in a console and it runs and see that that's what they're selling to people out there. That will when I believe that, I think that's what I

believe. Anything step further and make it to the end of the game, because maybe after that's like, thanks for playing the demo, see you in five years, all right, So that's stuck forever or that's or yeah, whatever happened today at pizza was drugged. Find out in a couple of months. I guess anything else. Oh, I got to meet the lead writer of Assassin's created Dice. That's cool. First one the series. Did you ask them what happens? I've been wondering. I've been wondering, but I

can't ask very specifically because I haven't quite finished two yet. But I mean the basically the creative director of that series departed. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if you got any insight into this, but I wonder how much

of like the vision of this series was flowing from him. I didn't much, didn't much other people were supporting it, and if it's kind of like gone in a sideways direction since he left, Like, yeah, I didn't didn't get into it because you know, Brotherhood has this weird appearance of being kind of like a side story where they used a bunch of assets again and kind of the company spin on him leaving was that, you know, kind

of his be lifting with Brotherhood was done when departed Brotherhood, sure, but what is what is to become of subsequent That's that's the big question. But then I also, like, you know, five hundred person staff on Brotherhood, like hard how much sway can any one person I'm wondering, you know, like, are they gonna kind of like try to draw this series out. These are these are the questions that I do not get into it. Dice. Uh you know, it's it's that's when you get them drunk.

It's not the time to get like to do the hard journalist grilling. It's uh, yeah, well you just gotta get that. You gotta get them drunk and start saying things that you just can totally conjecture. It has to be it has to be offered, sure, but also ran into the Monday Night Combat guys and to get the story from him, and yeah, that you want to know about has created will talk about that they had the scoop. At one point I pitched Sega that they should they should do a Night

Trap sequel and have Double Find Elephant. Wow right. It was the exact reaction. It's just a Night Trumps. People like, yeah, I was like, gonna have Double Fight too, and everyone's like, oh wait a minute, that could be like FMV still with the Muppets. News. Let's take it into news gentlemen news see them wanting to work in the league. Somebody's just say yeah, night court backcord game, Yeah, night Court the game he plays bullion good tail Tale on the line, I'm doing a night

coord game. God two k is announced The Darkness Too for later this year. Starbreeze ain't making it. Guess who is Brad? Guess who is Digital Extremes. You guess correctly, What do you win? I don't know. You mean the makers of Dark Sector, Yes, that's the No, the makers of Unreal right, Digital Extreme, Digital Extreme this or that. This is either a developer are in eighties Electronica band? Did your ext one or the other? I never played the first Darkness, but I know people really

liked it. It was quite good. Yeah, I like that that was also made by Starbreason. They're not making this one. Yeah, so that's a long time since the Darkness though. True, it's been a while. Yeah, Like you never got any sense that that was ever coming back. Who was it, Tommy. It was something that where they said, like a while ago, it was like one of the top cow like the comic

company said like, oh yeah, Darkness Too, totally coming. And then you're like, okay, well we wrote a new story saying that, and then here we are, like two or three years past that, and they're saying like, oh, actually yeah, and it's totally coming out of this year, and we forgot that was going on. We gave those guys a deal like two years ago, like, oh, these guys are working on syndicates, so we're gonna give it to these dudes. Mike Patten's coming back,

Mike Pattons, Mike Patton, Mike Patton. I don't, I don't know. Is Mike pattin coming back? I hope. I don't think they said. They didn't say, yeah, he was the Darkness. So Gears of War connected title, this is, I guess being rumored around right now. Microsoft hasn't anything official about this, but I don't believe so Steep Titillo

has weird sources with blurry screenshots. The screenshots great because it's picture and picture of a real person in set of a Gears of War shot, and I think that's the actual leak screen and not something they just cobbled together because that it's funny either way, but it is just literally Marcus with two hands to like a two fingers to his ear and then instead of the real shot is someone with two fingers to there, And I'm like, nailed it done,

great, fucking ship it great? What an awesome game you've already done exactly what you need to do. Just put it out. I'll hold this up and go yeah and great fail great xbox on ya yeah, exactly to preface everything. So they should let you change what you have to say. You should be able to name your Xbox on ya ya ESPN. So this is not It sounds like this is not going to be like Gears three. This would be its own whether that a rail shooter right, whether that means it's

a downloadable thing or its own separate disc based thing. You know, it's it's all current or even true at all using Gears two assets though it said, I feel like that that kind of constrains what it could be supposedly again, well if if any of it is true, right well, and also if that's true. Oh that was the other thing we heard is from a few different developers. I think this this ended up coming out as a rumor somewhere, so I guess it's still technically a rumor now. But I guess

the connect SDKs the libraries are being updated to track fingers. Yeah, that is apparently happening. That's a big deal. Yeah yeah, more fidelity.

Yeah, So so it's it's interesting kind of realizing that, you know, the actual back end the libraries that they get to use to access the connect are being improved upon the HAWA istially significantly if we can only track my hand for Yeah, and I mentioned stuff like, uh, you know, we just kind of talk about the future of connect with some people, and I was like, I mentioned that, you know, you had seen Child of Eden and came back and thought that it looked like kind of trash because the

support there was two la noticeable trash. It's maybe a bit hard, And was basically told like, that's no longer an issue. That's that's good to connect games. It's definitely good to hear the future. But the way the libraries are now, so who knows well the video games, we'll see how long that takes to actually reflecting games. Right, everyone is fired and out of jobs. Everything's closed. Now. That's that's the biggest, the big

news right now. It's start. Let's warm it up with Hudson closing at the end of the month, which I guess Hudson has kind of existed as a part of Kanami, right, so Konami owned something like sixty like some kind of controlling percentage of it. For a good long time. Bomberman was coming from. This is what was it called entertainment? Was the US? Yeah, the US, which was just a subsidy area of Hudson Soft. Right, So the Japanese company, which is what's owned by Konami's right.

It's ultimately it's like, do we really need us people or can the people in the Konami US office handle all of this business for us? Those people are stoked. Yeah, now we get to shill bomber Man. Now we get all the skateboards, er and eggs. You're not considering like some of the stuff that Canami has been shipping lately. Like at least you can say, hey, Bomberman doesn't established franchise. Well that's a bomber Ryan. Uh

yeah, but that's just the start. Vinnie Okay Activision. While we were at Dice last week, Act Division dropped some some bombs, closing a bunch of studios, killing entire business units, and laying off roughly five hundred people in the process. So Guitar Hero is done. No, that's officially done, or they're just the move. I believe the official statement was that there

would be no Guitar Hero this year. You know they're never gonna come out and say, but they've also dissolved their entire music games business unit, so there's no there's no DLC for that or DJ Hero past March and Freestyle is

done, are they I believe? So okay, So I feel like they didn't necessarily get into which studios are clothes or anything like that, because I know some people were like, oh, never Soft's history, but never Soft was supposed to be rolling off of Guitar Hero so that Vicarious Visions could pick it up. So so, I mean, never soft is still alive working on something. I know everyone just jumped to the immediate conclusion that never Soft

was shut down, but I mean great. I was on the road, so it was kind of hard to track down exactly what had happened with this stuff, but it seemed like there was a lot of there's a lot of stuff up in the air and people saying like, well, there's never gonna be another Guitar Hero Games, which is not true. That's kind of ridiculous. But they disbanded the business unit, right, so no Guitar Hero Games for the foreseeable future. So yeah, but yeah, and that's five hundred

people company wise, across all of Activision. That's that's doesn't mean that's five hundred developers or people code and that's business teams and marketing. It's but it's people. It's people's game jobs. Don't have them any people with families. No, absolutely, it's sensitive best people like count right, not like the good ones. Right. No, I don't mean that it's it's those people, right, Vinnie, you know, you know what I'm talking about.

They still have jobs. I mean that that is I suspect there are a lot of people out there selling guitar hero making deals in that in that business unit. Not anymore, not anymore, which is a shame. They also canned a True Crime Hong Kong. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I don't know what it was looking like, but man, it's crazy that it was allowed to go on as long as it did before they canceled it. What I what I had seen of that game in various states did not

look good. Granted again, you know, it's you got to do your your grain assault of you know, unfinished games and what have you and stuff, and that's United for developing that. So it's it's hard to say this the monation it's kind of hard to say what impact that's going to have on

them. They posted something on their site about it, really and I can't remember what the phrasing was, but it was just something like, you know, where it's we're sad or disappointed or something that we didn't get to bring our work to fruition with activision, we're pursuing, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, if they've got other projects lined up, then it'll be fine. So yeah, all right, don't I don't. I don't know what the their situation is, but I don't. I don't know

that they do. But sometimes that sort of stuff can be devastating to a studio if all the funding is of a sudden there's no money left to pay people or something. But but mad Nation the race just seemed to do. When I saw of True Crime, just it nothing about it stood out like, you know, isn't that the one world crime? But just it just isn't that the one that started with female protagonists and it was called black Lotus

or am I getting that mixed up with something else? I think that is like that's the one time they started showing it was no longer that was that was the one that sparked the the big conversation last year about why aren't there more female protagonists? And that was one where it got focused grouped into having a male protagonist and being an open world game, right or something that I don't know. So that's a big shift for Activision then, especially with the

guitar and DJ hero stuff. Is that no music games for twenty eleven, No Tony Hawk game for twenty eleven, Spider Man is still on for twenty eleven, and can you guess what else is still on for twenty eleven? The one where you shoot people, Transformers, the one that makes them a whole lot of money, Transformers for now. Yeah, Transformers Also, yeah, Transformers is still seemed developer that Lizards still Lizzard pulling the great chain,

all three of them. Yeah, well that So how do you guys feel? Obviously the layoffs horrible, really sad news, but you know, taking a break from like guitar heroes, I mean, these are the fruits. But the kind of unnerving thing is it doesn't seem like like any fucking lessons are being learned here. I feel like we are we are prepped to see the exact same path for a call of duty in the next year or two of just as part of this, announced their new like Beachhead Studio slash initiative.

I'm even talking about that because I don't understand what it is, but other than like trying to further monetize the online stuff like they've been talking about for a while. But if they don't fucking change things on a fundamental level about the way they run their business, they won't have call of duty to rely on anymore in a couple of years. But they may not care because they may be poised to purchase, to acquire the next big thing and start

exploiting the hell out of that. And that's what they have done over and over and over. Yeah, this is the third time this is happening. It went from Tony Hawks to x Hero, guitar Hero, yeah, band Hero whatever. It's call of duty. But the business is shifting. Also.

They are still relying on the two thousand model, but they're doing a pretty damn good job of it. They're still number one, except there's still number one, but they had to fire five so to maintain that position, there aren't to have another five necessarily to skim there are there are three potential outcomes here they modernize and come up with a more viable long term business model. Yeah, or they find the next thing to the next like explosive thing

to acquire to take call of duties place. When that burns out, right, they don't find that thing, and all of a sudden they're not the number one publisher anymore, sud. They're mediagenic again, right back to those days. I mean, yeah, it's it's kind of like it's you. You can't help but think about like the way EA has transformed their business right

and punished got punished into second place as a result. Yeah, it's sad because they began a specific initiative to kind of bolster internal development and quality and internal games. But to like pull that off, the games actually have to be great, which they weren't always there. There you're there are a few group great games, yeah, and a lot of that's a lot of okay

games. Yeah. It's like it's hard to you know, you like you look at that initiative and go like, well, that's that's the environment that led to dead space, so they must be doing something right. But solves the environment led to like Mirror's Edge and Medal of Honor. Yeah, sure, and you know, stuff like that, and and like some fairly assy need for speed games, I mean, hoppersuits solid you know, they're they're

turning around. But it's just it's it, it seems like an irresponsible way to run a business, and it seems like it is it is taxing on the industry at large. And then like right around the same time as this, you started seeing rumors that they were looking to labor line up to try

to buy Take two. Yeah, which the thing that I think it came out of dice that I heard from someone was that, you know, they had to take such a huge stock right down as a result, a lot of the stuff that any money that they would use to buy Take two just got used up. So the viability if that questionable, Well it's good if you don't want to see three current theft called this a year, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's I mean, that's that's the pattern, right yeah, so uh yeah, it's it's it's one out for a shipload of people out of work industry because Activision is the number one develop number one publisher in the world and uh and extremely profitable. So it just you know, makes it makes you makes you angry. It's not. It's not

how you want. You know, you want it to be a responsibly run business and you know, one that allows people to have a livelihood in it and drive a car into the ground, get out of the cars and jump in another car and drive that into the ground. Yeah, exactly, like and then at some point say, there's no room in this car for you, right, Sorry, sorry, I drove your car into the ground. Okay, I borrow your car. Sure, yeah, just you know,

you want some sustainability and I don't feel like that. It doesn't it seems like a it's it had. It has every appearance to me of being a business model that does not see past the next quarterly earnings report. Yeah. Yeah, like as long as we are increasing shareholder value a quarter by quarter.

And it's also one of those things that is reflected by the changing nature of development outsourcing and a lot of that stuff as well, that you know, it probably doesn't benefit Activision in some cases to have as many employees as it did, and so this is a correction, you know, based on

that. And you know, anything they do going forward, they'll probably have to like shuffle some things around and kind of figure out how they want to play it, and you know, all the talk about what they've been doing with Call of Duty and having calling in additional studios and all this sort of stuff is sort of indicative of that as well. You know, I don't know, but again it's all in service of saturating their market, right with

possibly more product than it conveyed. Oh well, let's wait and see what they actually do with Call of Duty this year, you know, if they if they make some changes or not, if they ship two games or one. You know, if they if they ship this game and then say, by the way, we're doing one with the Jets, you know, or we're doing one, this is a third person this and that. You know,

it's I just don't know. It's not beyond repair. No, but the like the establishment of the Speechhead studio doesn't seem like a port end of good things if they're already like three other activision studios that we're not real sure what they're doing at the moment, because it seems like they're probably working on or supporting Call of Duty right now. They've created another studio that is explicitly

to support Call of Duty. Yeah, but that was supposed to support it in a like an ongoing digital sure, but instead of like let's pull these guys on to do a map pack, you know, let's have this unit that is specifically built for map packs. I mean when something like again, you look at the history, when something is hot for for activision, they pour everything into it. When Tony Hawk was hot, they were buying developers and putting them onto ports and hand ailed versions and yeah, they bought by

various visions in the wake of that stuff. And then when Guitar Hero got hot, the shift went in that direction. They had you know, four or five different studios working on that in one way or another. So like this, it's it's it's why I feel bad about it is because the pattern is there and it's very easy to see. Think the the haunting part about it is that all that stuff was kind of running all at the same time. Like it wasn't like Call of Duty didn't exist at the same time as

Tony Hawk. Uh sales were not such yet still kind of on the rise. But what is on the rise for Activision right now? That's that's the real question. You know. It's like they go ahead and they say, like, oh, we're doing transformers and Spider Man and Spiro. Yeah, and you're like, well, that's fine and good, like you should continue to make those games, But where's the next big thing for Activision? And that's that's you know, your point about going out and just buying the next

big things. It's hard to see a lot of this stuff coming because it's like Guitar Hero went from blowing up in the fall of what oh six or was it oh seven five? It wasn't that long ago, it was it was really if it was the year the three sixty launched, right, yeah, yeah, maybe you're right. Anyway, I mean it went from blow that franchise blowing up to the owner of that franchise being acquired, and like that was like less than a year, wasn't it. Yeah, Like some

of them sometimes it's just just comes out of nowhere. Run they are it poised to strategically snap it up. Yeah, Well, they had put out two games, they had already put Our Guitar and Guitar two on the on the PlayStation two before activation, before it purchases started happening. Well, they announced their acquisition at e three of the year that they bought them, So I think that was and I think you're talking about Okaya came out under Activision,

Yeah, I believe. Yeah, when both of them were published by Activision Red oct Red Octa and put the first one out by itself pret Activisions Games on it. No, Activision wasn't involved with the first first guitar. Yeah, maybe developers will be cautious if if they, you know, can look past some of the money and stuff and be like, I don't want my franchise to get burned out. If you're the owner of the company and they come calling with a five foot wide check, it might be kind of

hard to turn down. And it's like, okay, you know, I'll admit though, I'd have a hard time to turn down any check if they brought it in like that. Yeah, if it was publishers, Yeah, well you can take my sure TV right now. It's just do you mind writing a regular one so I can put this one on the wall. I don't actually have to cast this well else, niece, uh double fins making a sesame street game. They are it's so weird. It's a documentary.

Yeah, and it's a connected game yep. It's a called one Once Upon a Monster. Warner's publishing it this fall. Those Double Fining guys are weird crazy. I love I love the statement from Tim Schaefer do you have in front of you? It's it's like, simultaneously so boilerplate press release speak, but also like he's trying so it's make it sound like he feels good about it, which I'm sure he does. But I feel like such a weird mix of business talk and not I feel like this game is a direct like

result of Tim Chaffer having a kid. Yeah, totally, he says that, Well, here's let me just read this. Then it's a It's great to be working with one of my brothers, especially on a game like Sesame Street Once Upon a Monster, which brings together so many things we all care about. Such a Street had a profound effect on me and many members of

the Double Fine team when we were children, so did video games. Now many of us are parents and we want to share with our kids great experience as we had, but also the completely new ones made possible by cutting into technology like Connect for Xbox three sixty. So it's a labor of love on

many levels. Uh. Yeah, it sounds like a press release, but also I'm sure there's a fair amount of truth to that, yeah, totally, Like the double Fine can can have a sincerity to their work that I think makes them a good fit for something like sure not everything has to have an ironic wink and a nudge to it, Like they can they can go straight up, but they can, but they can tuck that stuff in when they need to. And sessme, Street kind of has a wink and a

nudge to a lot of their stufs. Absolutely, Yeah, it's not just kind of like, uh, you know, pedantic kind of nonsense. I feel I feel like they can imbue this with like sort of the Pixar quality of YEA primarily being targeted at kids, but but containing enough of yeah, like the subtle humor or the kind of the broad reaching humor the adults can appreciate too, so that yeah, when they're sitting there having to play this game with their kids, at least they can. They can be entertained by

it and can act is great for a little kid. Kid, little kids could give a shit if Connect works or not heard that a couple of times from different developers. I'm just talking about just like is the connect viable? It's like, I don't really know, but when my kid gets in front of it. It's like awesome. Yeah, they don't care like the fidelity and they move around. Something happens, but they know, like they know that they can wave to make it go and then that's you know, they

can then use it and move around right like that basic interface thing. If it's like you know, now all you have to do is spin around of a circle and like that's the letter s sprout of a circle and it's like wood like awesome. I love it. I just gotta go watch like old seasons now so I can catch up Sesame Street. Yeah, I don't know what's going on anymore. Oh man, you don't know what happened to Grover?

Mister Trooper is not around what who runs Hooper's quarter? Then this new guy called Elmo he's been moving in on the block is a drug dealers? Yes? Yeah, absolutely don't mess. It's gone dark on Sime Streets. Six streets gone dark. It's racist. I don't know. I'm looking at these screenshots like, yeah, that's Cookie Monster, yeah's Alma. I don know who this tall monster is though? Is that if Tim Shaffery? Uh

so, here you go sess Mere Street. What's pot of monster going to Connect doesn't say if it's a disc game or not, or if it's downloadable. I think they did say that they were were working on a disc Yeah. When when when when Shaffer announced that, like we're doing a bunch of projects, he was like, yeah, some of them murdered downloadable and I think I think for kids game, you gotta have a box. Yeah. And if they can do fingers on the Connect and you do like counting games,

that that'd be great. Flip off the cookie Monster. Yeah, you don't want to do that, it'll take you down. Guy's not messed around. So report saying that Mirror's Edge two has been canceled came out even though it hasn't actually been announced from Eurogamer. There's a Mirror's Edge too. What didn't didn't they say they were like trying to work on one, or they were prototyping or it sounds like that that this game has lived and died multiple

times now. So it's kind of a weird story to come out and say it's been canceled because it sounds like it's it's never been alive like it has been it has been you know, It's like the public quotes that've been given is like, you know, hey, you know Mirror's Edge, would it

be a cool thing? And you know it's a good franchise, and you know there's something we could do with it there, And it sounds like they've been trying for a while and this is at least the second time as far as I can tell, that they have passed on whatever was being worked on. So it's a it's just kind of a weird it's a weird story. I think it's just like this little tidbit got out there, but with the

full story didn't and probably won't. But I guess it's Yeah, there's been multiple multiple times they've taken a crack at Mirror's Edge too and had it not work out. So I wonder if they will they will take another shot at it now or I think that you know, for EA, right now, DICE's time is better spend elsewhere. Yeah, the same story with a PC version of the nineteen forty three I got canned and those guys are working on Battlefield three. No, I mean yeah, right now, it's like probably

all hands on deck for that. You gotta make games that sell, and Battlefield has been a pretty good earner for them for the past few years and you know, ramping up with three. Yeah, that's probably the best place for Dice to be focusing right now. I'm not saying that there's not a future first. It's probably time premier's edge, and you know, maybe they get to a point where you know, Dice doesn't even have to be the ones to do it or something. You know, it's like, but does

it. I also have no senseing up baby heads the whole time. I have no sense of how big Dice is either as a studio. So I mean keep in mind, like they were doing like Metal of Honor and Battlefield three, yeah, and still doing like nineteen forty three, and you know there's the Vietnam Pack. Yeah, like they're they've been able to split with hot Pursuits. Yeah, right exactly. So you know there's a lot of

people at Dice. There's the impression I get from that, But yeah, I don't know, Like in my mind, I would like it to be like all hands on Battlefield three. Yeah, like don't mess that up. Maybe they have so many people they don't actually need that many people on Bedlevil three. Uh, And they probably just have some skunk works crew that's just like up you didn't like that mirror's ash too. All right, we're gonna try it again. We'll be back. We'll be back at six months with

something else. Got this new prototype. Uh yeah, so let's let's all just collectively agreed. Just let's just not think about mirror's edge for a little bit. I can't. We'll come back around. We'll come back around. I know you love white things. Does shiny shiny reflective surfaces like a bird? Yeah, crump level piece of tinfoil, give him and look in a mirror and be like, God, that's me, un faith. We didn't actually talk about be a three, did we? Last week? We had

the trailer and yeah we did. We did. We talk about we talked, We talked about it, we talked about covered it. Magica Free and Paid dealc forthcoming also bug fixes. Anyone's still playing Magica? Still playing Magic? I've never actually played it. After that quick look, I was like, man, this is amazing, and I never played it. I thought I should just finish it. I'm pretty close and anybody want to play it?

I want? I want to play co op on. Yeah, everybody says that like three four players the way to play that game, because it's just crazy. They also say they need voice. Yeah, totally. I could see you needing to coordinate your spells and stuff. But i'd talk got for news unlece you guys, got any other news storvice? You want to talk any news in the world of any it's going in your in your world, my world? Uh nothing. I'm really excited to played Dead Space,

too fantastic, Jeff, any anything any other news for you. I spoke with a we were developer at Dice bullshit, and he those aren't real. He said that it was that his product was selling okay, and it kind of an interesting perspective. So you know, it's like we look at it we wear in dsiwear and go like, man, what a goddamn shit show. Yeah, what a mess of garbage. Yeah, what a hot, steaming pile of no quality control notebook like non games and crazy stuff and no

marketing. Right, just uh so. But the one thing he pointed out that actually, uh seemed pretty interesting is think about how hard it is to get on Xbox lave arcade. Here about people. It's like, okay, we a publisher has so many slots to put out downloadable games once a week. We want to try to get one of your slots with this game.

So we're pitching you on this and that sort of stuff. Uh, if you are a company that has shipped a quality product on we Wear, maybe it's not going to be gangbusters huge for you, but maybe getting that game out there gives you something to show too publishers and say, hey, what if we put this out on Xbox lave Arcade, it's out of the PlayStation network or at worst, like what if we made a new game for your

sister service? Right, So it's it's it's an interesting perspective. Yeah, it still doesn't mean that, like you're right, well whatever it's I mean that's not to say that these games are bad or whatever, like there are, right, but there are probably there. There have got to be some good we Wear games out there, right, It's just it's just the sifting, like the Bit Trip games Cave story. I own a handful of great

we Wear games Tomentos Honor, but art style yeah pretty good. But that's sifting because there's the sifting, I mean, yeah, yeah, because there's no quality. Don't think winding it is hard. What you're saying, I don't think requires anyone to even buy those games as long as it's on the service and you can point to I don't think I don't think anyone's expecting any

of that stuff to really sell gamebusters because it is not. And you know, and I acknowledge the value to the developer, Like that makes sense, I get, yeah, but it's still makes it's still a ship service to it. I mean it's a ship service because it's poorly presented, Like if they put out that same flow of games every week but actually had better ways than a podcast to tell you about the weekly downloads. Pirate podcast, Bootleg

Pirate podcast, boot the number one Bootleg Pirate podcast. It is the greatest podcast recorded in my bedroom this week since our podcasts then recorded in your bedroom. Yes, no, we're recording in the living Room's right, we recording the living room. People gross back there, Yeah it is. Ye want nothing to do with that. I feel like I feel like a lot of indie developers are getting a lot more candid about the trials and tribulations of getting

on too download services. And it's crazy when you think about it, Like the whole thing about these digital services was supposed to be like it's not an issue, you just put it all out, but then there's nothing to make

or ship. But then that's what Nintendo did, and look at where we are, you know, and granted, if they had, if they had a better way to surface the good stuff with with we Wear, then they would probably get the press a little more interested and maybe start to actually kind of but that's I mean, yeah, it's clear that throttle creates value when

there isn't just been done properly. I mean, there's there's a dozen games out for you to compete with every week, like you do hear about Expo developers kind of complaining about like getting law and that a lot of it has to do with whether you get into these programs, like Microsoft is just starting a new one like this week with Hardcore Uprising, isn't It's like house Party,

kidn't play last year it was a block Party. They're downsizing. Well, this is house Party and then block Party will be over the summer. It's just them inventing another new thing. Because those the games that are in those promotions that sign those deals to not appear on the PlayStation network for X for a year whatever it is, they end up selling a lot better because

Microsoft gets behind them. But Microsoft can't get behind every title and probably shouldn't, speaking of which Man Combat coming to psnon so for that really Yeah, cool, that's interesting. It's weird. It's weird looking like trying to look behind the curtain on the way that some of this stuff gets pushed. Yeah, even something as big as Dead Space too, because Sony you put a lot of effort into Dead Space too, surprisingly because it's a multiplatform game,

right, but they had it at their press conference last year. Yeah, it's got that free extraction on it, which the Xbox lacks. I think there may have been some other stuff involved there. But then if you looked at the Xbox ashboard the week that Dead Space two came out, that game was nowhere to be found. It's all money, that's all. It's a

marketing stuff, Yeah, exactly. Like I can see them just going like, well they cast their lot with the other guys put them I bet yeah, probably yeah, And I bet there were some cases, you know, like Tron was in three D and had moved support on on PlayStation three, not on the three sixty dollars. Yeah, that's money. Mortal Kombat three D and Krados on the PS three. There's still dodging questions about what the three sixty exclusive character is going to be. And I think if any,

yeah, I think that's the reason they're dodging. It is probably not gonna be one. All right, Let's let's bust out some new releases and let's do some emails and then let's get that. All right, what do you guys say? All right? Dragon Quest six rounds of Rip. I'm sorry, if any you're open earth like, No, it's stretching my jaw getting ready to say six. That's it. That's all. That's all erupt to you. Puka's kissing games. This isn't no, we're up to eleven.

This is an older dragon question. Ok. Realm Dragon Quest six Realms of Revelation for the Nintendo DS. Uh. That Gears of War triple pack? You know, the three Gears of War games. No, that's that's one and two in some matt pack business. Uh. Marvel Verus, Capcom three Fate of Two Worlds for Xbox three sixteen, PlayStation three. Dance Paradise from THHQ for Connect for the Xbox three sixty. What is that? It's a paradise of dancing? Jeff? Is it centrally located. I can't say it's

geographical whereabouts. I need to be a master of dance to go to the paradise. I can't tell you anything about if it's if that, or the para para nature of it. But Dance Paradise Xbox three sixty only the Lord of the Dance made answer the Dance Paradise. Can I have any Michael Jackson esque experiences? Well inside the Dance Paradise. It's got Rhanna in it. Okay, So, just so you know, tactics ogre let us cling together

for the Sony PlayStation Portable. If you like crazy turn based strategy RPGs, I think that might be up your out. I think it'd be like a really good slogan for the PlayStation portable. Let us cling together for the PlayStation. It's the only way we're gonna make it through this three weeks. Yeah, we need it. About fifty people a drift in the ocean clinging to a giant PSP. As you said, Jeff, Hardcore uprising out this week

twelve hundred Microsoft points on the Xbox Live Arcade. Uh and we've got Pure M coming to the PlayStation network this week. Okay, So digital version of Pure version of Pure Acceleration of Siguri X Edition. I don't ask me any because that the subtitle of Pure. No, this isn't a separate title. This is so pure Comma Acceleration of Siguri X Edition. I have no fucking idea what that is. So it's Japanese as hell. Back to the future of the game. Chapter one hitting the PSN this week. Oh two should

be soon on the PC, should be very soon. But they're they're starting it off on the PlayStation Network this week, and uh yeah, that's uh, that seems to be what's happening. Like I said, Tactics Ogre on the PSP, they originally had Hyperdimension Neptunia showing as shipping today, but now everyone's saying it's like ten days from now or something. All right, we can Yeah, they still listed here, but they say as a disc release.

But then the retailers do not list it anymore. So yeah, well, who's who lists it wear on their on their rop sony listed as being like this is going out this week, but then you look at a retail game stop updated at twenty five. Yeah, best Buy just says like or Amazon says like ships in the next three to five weeks, which is a secret code for this didn't come out. I don't know, we don't know yet. Yeah, I think I feel like we can't talk about that again

until we could show it, because it's too crazy ever to mutions. Fucking it's weird. That's a weird game. That's it for release. Happens out in Japan this week. You've pre ordered, or you you imported or pre ordered an import copy of it. Brad takes Home bodcast at giant bomb dot com. First email comes in from Tony in Seattle. Hello, BombCast. I was recently playing Mass Effect too, and I realized how much Jacob Taylor reminds me of Kanye West. He actually has a side by side here and

fairly fairly compelling, fairly convincing. I see where he's coming from. Is it possible that the likeness of Jacob could have been based off Kanye West? Did by Aware do this just for shit shits and giggles or is it just coincidental? Well, Tony, I went ahead and emailed Christine and Norman at by Aware about this and said, Hey, could you guys use Kanye for Jacob Supe? I said, you're a racist, and she said, I know this is a popular joke amongst fans, but no, he was not.

I still find the jokes funny though, So there you go. Facial words from from the Mountain. No, I did not ask. I just asked who if it was Kanyee, I assume all those human because Shepard and Miranda obviously like you know who they're based on. Garris. I mean, he's really all the Krogans that's based on people. God damn you in in Richmond, Washington, Greetings, bombardiers, I'm writing to share a sad obsession of mine. I have eleven copies of the demo disc for Metal Gear Solid

Too that came with Zone of the Enders. It started instantly enough, but eventually I just started hoarding them out. I find myself wondering if any of you have any products that you compulsively buy, whether you need them or not. Yeah, Ryan, do you have any products you compulsively buy, whether you need him or not. I may have a stack of copies sealed copies

of Nonga Sat Mister Domino for the original PlayStation. I remember going to like Wasteland PST one like shelves like when Best BUYO was getting ready to get rid of PS one's and all those like Age Tech games that were just like the remix of like the Simple series, right so just like boxing right right. Those were crazy y billiards, but it was like three bucks a copy or something for for these, no one could stop and I'm like them all yeah,

bought out their stocks. So I've got a ridiculous stack of those, like how many ten? Probably got like seven left, some of great gifts, some some have been given away. They there was a white elephant last year that someone got a copy of Nogamster on the rest of those. Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm good. Although honestly you could. You

could still get them anywhere else. We're super cheap. You can buy them now for about five bucks a pop. So uh, the not a lot of not a hot not a high level of rarity for a lot of PS one stuff. Yeah, and no one but me gives a shit about no one constomister Domino so put about incredible crisis? Is that good? Is that

ever? Get rare? I don't know, a good question. It's the tightest release, so I could see that happening, right, I have an Incredible Crisis T shirt laying around somewhore I gave away in my shirts, but I still have my framed poster. So there's that. Let me some incredible crisis. Anythink anything for you of any any weird, dumb things that you pick up? Yeah, totally Steam Games. That's fair enough. It's the session we all fall back to. To bread Shoemaker, I have two copies

of Mettle Yourself to the Trailer. That's pretty good. That's that's the official title of this DVD they put out in Japan. Or when you had that stack of copies of Unreal Tournament in two thousand and four sitting in your fucking closet for years. Yeah, and then I ended up expensing them all for resale price because they needed them. That's right, they actually needed both the right you'd bought those because at the time they were like there was a weird

a tin box like the literally the metal box like special dish. I saw like six of them at COMPSA and that place was going out of business and those things were hard to find. So I was like Kimmy bought like three hundred dollars worth of intending intending the pad to pass them on to other people who wanted them. They couldn't find them right, uh, and then I

don't remember what happened. Yeah, nobody wanted them or whatever. But eventually are Yeah, a place of employee needed a bunch of ut keys and headsets for some tournament, and I was like, hey, hey, I got something I can hook you up back. I for a while was purchasing any copies of and this is limited to like, you know, one or two weeks a year. For a few years of buying any copies of Samurai, showed out one or two that I could find because they were about three dollars

for Neogio, which the big cartridges. Oh yeah, like these big cartridges used to be like one hundreds of dollars. So I have like three copies of Samurai showed down two, which is good in case one catches on fire. That will happen. But they're all used. They are like some of them are like out of box even it's just like Nortridge and stuff like that. But I was, I was getting weird about Neojo stuff for a while. That's when I bottled that copy mark of the Wolves for all that money.

Yeah, I was like, man, gotta get these, gotta get these. I gotta I gotta bring that DVD in sometime because it has an extensive documentary or around the first airing of the trailer at E three, Who it is? It is rife with late late nineties like turn of the century luminarias of the game's press because yeah, because it was shooting everything. Add like there are Chay Chows and Mark McDonald's for days in this video, right, it's crazy. Oh tiny cha Chaws, cheapy Chows. Next weep because

Verron Harper Hey bomb squad on last week's show. Then he said he needed a new super Bowl to help assume all the frozen food he purchased recently. How's that going? By the way, I didn't last very long? Was it gone already? Oh yeah, it was skipped as email super Bowl Monday crushed it. It's great, Dan New York, New York. Hey, Bombrino's I don't know, Bomaro's brand'll work on that shot that around. I like that everyone's trying, at least, you know, give it a go.

I was browsing Steam and noticed that they were having a sale for the game rail Works DLC. I don't know if you guys saw on sale. You can buy all the DLC for one hundred and ninety nine dollars, not including the original game. If you were to buy each piece of DLCAT individuals will cost one thousand, seventy three dollars and thirty five cents, again not including the game. Do you think this is whack or crazy? Man? That's a good question. If people's lying at then neither whack or crazy.

Jeff got us whack whack? All right? Sure? What do you think, Brad? Fun? What do you think fun? What is it? Whack? I'm gonna go crazy? Actually, I'm sorry, it's go crazy? Are you gonna go crazy? Trains? I think I wish I were on the other end of that deal. I feel like it wish I was selling that stuff. I mean, it's it's that's not a game market. That is a simulate train collector, that's taking advantage of people. That is like a drug dealer. You know they probably released it a little bit at

a ton. Sure you know it's one of these things where how much do you think All Rock Band DLC would cost if you bought it at once? I ain't saying that's not whackle. Alex ballparked that in like like around three

thousand dollars. I think one time, it's like how much it's like trying to have somebody to pay for Like if you were like released like packs of like little arcade games every week and like somebody just like I gotta buy them all, gotta buy them all, gonna play all these little arcade games. I'm gonna buy them all with someone I don't know. It'd be crazy, like add up eventually be a lot of money. You know what I'm saying? What you want to see him? Venetian blonde Ryan in Saint Louis,

Mo. Yeah, Comparing game awards is the subject. There's DICE, GDC and Spike Awards as the top three game awards. How would you compare these to the movie awards, which the Baptist his guess is oscars, DICE Writers or like, you know, the the Writer's Guild, Directors Guild just GDC, and the Golden Globes is Spike thoughts. Golden Globes is voted on by press, right, specifically the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. So that's yeah,

so it's store with the Spike Awards but not foreign press. Let's say, basic idea. So yeah, I guess that makes sense spike totally more like in TV Movie Awards, yes, or perhaps the Razzies, I don't know. Yeah, I liked I liked what I saw of the DICE Awards. I felt like it was even if I didn't agree with the choice they're being made. I felt like the categories and who was in them more often than

not made sense. I think that there was some weird stuff like Limbo one Adventure Game of the Year, there was some categorizing that was I agree it was, And it just led me to realize that, like, video game genres are so fucking broken, Like that doesn't make any sense at all. That's not there's nothing adventure about Limbo other than that in that any game is someone's going on in adventure, a sports adventure, you're a football team specifically,

why we dispensed with it's crazy. It's crazy. So it's just like in the games that was going up against, we're just like, what is this game aren't even the same thing? Like, yeah, would you like reach the point where it kind of fucking hard pressed call Mass Effect two an RPG like it's it's a convergence of eight different types of games or a shooter than right, Yeah, but it's you know, it's as much dialogue driven, in story driven as it is through you know, combat driven. I'd

say it's more driven, or at least more appealing because of that. Because of it it's non shooting content. So that's that's why I feel okay calling it something around an RPG. Sure like people going like, oh, finally a new RPG, Fallout, New Vegas. No, I see what you're getting at, and there are elements of that in there, playing a role, but not really anymore. I also playing a roles of So is Duke Nukem a role playing game? I'm playing as an asshole? Is that?

Yeah? No? Any do you roll dice? You're probably crash table fully functioning? You can there you go? Did you just press the A button and watch the balls bounce around? I sunk a ball in the corner pocket? Wow? He did? He did? He did you stripper's top come off? Then? Robert and Cambridge, Ontario, Hey, guys, I was listening to your podcast and interested in your talk on it. You don't know, Jack, I was wondering if you might know if the game works

with the scene it game controllers. My understanding is yes, those controllers do work on the Xbox three sixty with you don't know Jack, but you don't want that big button. It's not a buzz in like other than the like the Jack attack the final round, it's not really a buzzy in type game.

You know, everyone's playing at the same time. And I actually find one handed with a regular Xbox three sixty controller best way to play that game because you're you can trigger the screws using the right trigger and then all of the you know, all of your responses are going to be with those face buttons, So especially if you're like quick response with this or that, you

know it kind of don't want the little buttons on that scenic controller. Yeah, because they're in they're in a vertical row like you're doing this kind of ways. Maybe put two thumbs on them or something. My understanding is, yes, it will work, but I don't think it's ideal. I don't think it benefits that experience. And I read somewhere that it does not work on PS three with the buzz control. That's my understanding as well. That's

a freemus. That's it. Thanks everyone who wrote in I didn't write it in, well, no, thanks to you. Then, Vinny screwing it up over and over again. Hey, it's good to be bad guys. Hey, oh god, we're not in Vegas anymore still, thank god. You know, it's just not to stretch this out. I just wanted to quickly mention because it was only on the live show so far. Mess around with the guitar for rock band, Yes, squire we had in the office. Yeah, thing's pretty cool. I can't find anywhere to pre order or

buy that thing. Is that they're not they're selling it directly. Maybe go to the guitar center. Yeah, I really don't know, because I was kind of trying to look up and see what the funny retail price you need to get that minibox too, which that's kind of been out there a little bit. I've seen that its stores. Yeah, so it's I've at least seen that in retail places, unlike the guitar. But the short of it, and maybe we'll do something else on the short of it is it works.

And I didn't expect it to. I really didn't. I really I really thought it was going to be really kind of iffy on you know, it's going to register the right notes and all that stuff. But it does, It does exactly. But it's just it's too bad that harmonics was dissolved and doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, it's actually stuff has to have hit them really hard. Yeah, you know, it's really sad for our friends, for those guys, John Drake and Eric Pope and the rest of them there,

everyone in the Fingerlakes region. Just you know, I feel for you. That's funny, that's poor guys. What guys, this is what being at DICE is like that. Yeah, it's it's a lot of it's like, what ways, how many different ways can you think of to give someone shit for no good reason, for no good reason. They're they're your closest

friends, and it will be nothing but shit talking. Oh no, those guys fine, but all the actual people who just got well yeah yeah, Johnny there, Johnny, that sounds like that environment would be hell on Earth for realm Yeah, probably would be. Johnny was not present for Dice, but but Craig came in for a little bit, so he was filling the role. I forgot Disney was just two weeks ago, isn't it. Well, I just talked about he takes he takes good natured ribbing pretty hard.

So it wasn't Disney, wasn't it okay? Putting that out of black rock makers of all right, that's it? Oh no, thank you for playing then it. That's good. I forgot that that works. That works. Well, I'm glad that we have you someone who can what. I took it home because I want to mess with it some because I'm like, okay, I'm I am the non guitar playing dude. Let's see what happens. Would you think I need to mess with this some more? I haven't.

I haven't gotten. I didn't get any further than I got with the Mad Cat's fake thousand button controller. Sure, so I feel like I need to get a little deeper before I can. I will say that if it is like three hundred bucks, which maybe two eighty, you're starting to get into the realm of like you can get a pretty decent, just stripped guitar at

that point, so you might want to weigh your options. But if you got a less decent guitar that also could hook up to a video game that could kind of maybe teach you how to play a guitar, right, So at that point you need to seriously start looking at your budget. See if because it is a bit funky on the real guitar end, like the neck is a little like plastic, but it works as a guitar, and it

works as a controller works, it works as a controller. Right, But at that point you can kind of start getting a really next time a guitar. So so you think the issue is that for that money you could get better than a Squire, better than that entry level model, you could start moving up to chain a bit like any guitar that you should be able to go play it. You know, maybe they do have my Guitar Center and you should probably check it out and see what it sounds like. So,

but dude, technology works crazy again. It's it's one of those things where just doing what they said it would do, is it. Yeah, I don't know over the long run, maybe it poops out in a month, who knows, We'll see, We'll see. But that's gonna do it for this week's show. Thank you guys, welcome back, Gonna be fucking back and te t later this week and U and live show on Friday, as per usual, tune and then but we will then after that see you on the next podcast.