Giant Bombcast 10-25-2011

Hey everyone, it's two Tuesday, October twenty five, twenty eleven, and you are listening to the Giant BombCast. I'm Ryan Davis. Let's take it around the table. Many caravelas here listening to Giant BombCast is here. I'm not listening to the Giant Podcast. You're not. You're making it happen. You don't listen to it, you live it. And Brad Shoemakers here,

Brad tell us about eating too many altars. Why would you eat? Like, first, first of all, I compulsively eat altoids, Okay, so those as, Yeah, so I just ate like eight or ten of them. It's easy. It's like two minutes. Once you get into like a good altoy's habit. It's way too easy to start up in the annie just like yeah, like five at a time here, crunch, crunch, crunch three at a time minimum for me, though, Oh no, you built you build up talleran you know, bliss decks or any kind of lip balmb

like. Once you get on it, it's hard to get out on it, yeah, because the lips will just fry. So a bunch of altoys is one thing, But then to drink a cold glass of water directly after. I once made myself pass out by by eating a bunch of altoys really quickly and then taking like three or four deep breaths just like it just caused the hyperventilation effect to happen way more quickly. Well ahead, rush yeah. Wow, it's like had such an extreme out there for you kids. I'll

be right back. It's not working this. This was like a fun high school trick. If any how, you doing doing all right? You're eating too many altoys later? Oh never, this guy's clean. You know you don't like altoys. I don't even altoys have a good time, but you know, it just enhances it. It's you know, we're having fun anyway. It just makes it better. Whatever, dumb that chicken your turkey just makes your breath that much. I want to share around with you guys anymore.

You know what, that's your right, and as your as your friend's supposed to play, I'll let you. That's okay, I understand it. That's that's the correct way for this after school special to end. He has shunned, but he's a better person for it. And then Jeff dies in a car crash. That's fun to the library. Oh man, I don't know what. They don't want me to take altoys. I'm on nine right now. Oh no, I gotta tell you, man, you gotta stay off this out to its kid. What you start eating, you can't stop.

I'm out of here. Let's go play some video games. I played Batman. Did you play some Batman? Yeah, like the rest of the world, did you. Did you enjoy Batman? I'm enjoying it. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm hunting down things like Batman. Are you? Are you sticking to the to the ringing every last bit of collective every everything that pops up on that map. You're like, I got to Batman. I

gotta go get that. Yeah. Some given that game one thousand Batman Man, I one Batman for every time you see something one thousand Batman hours. I've spent a lot of time just rum around that city doing stupid things. There are a lot of Riddler trophies in that game. Yep, too many, I'm gonna say, I would agree, Yeah, And then there are Riddler riddles. Not enough of those. And then there are Catwoman trophy Riddler

trophies, Yeah, there should be zero Catwoman trophies. And then uh, there are balloons you can pile, uh, And there are penguins you can bust, and there are Harley Quinn heads everything. Wait, do you get anything for doing that stuff? Respect the ridd the Riddler. Respect The Riddler loves it when you bust up stuff. Yeah, those are all part of the part of the Riddler challenges Vinny. Vinny doesn't have to flip it on

and off the light switch ten times before he goes to bed. Now, so the uh, I don't understand how it's broken out, knows like, I don't neither any one of those lines. I don't know how. I don't know if it's more. Is that how you unlocked the challenge rooms? I don't know. I don't care. It's a lot of stuff for the

Riddler. He wants you to do a lot of stuff, and he's and then he's got his own little the Riddlers demanding h So you know what it does do And I don't know if it's just trophies or not, but it progresses the next step in the Riddler. Yeah, he's taking a bunch of hostages. And then yeah, then you get to do some really kind of easy little you complete a number of Riddler challenging things. All right, all right, you can play my next game and then don't. So, yeah,

I'm enjoying the Batman. If they've been doing like three of those by the time by the end, by the time you're done, okay, I've only done two, and I keep feeling like, man, it's like four hundred Riddler trophies a lot, and uh, I don't know it's a lot. I had a hundred and thirty or something by the end or something.

So even though you can see him, some of them you can't get until you get special gadgets and stuff too, which is kind of frustrating because you don't know what the gadget's going to be, and you don't know if you don't if you have it or not. And so it's actually spent a good portion of the game expecting there to be a gadget that didn't exist to some stuff too, and then realize like, oh wait, no, I just need to use the remote control battery and in a different way that I've been

using it. I had a revelation that you could use the bray Gael to trigger those to bust those question marks. Oh yeah, and you can lay down and you can lay down three sails at a time. Oh shit, yeah exactly, And I was like, oh, this is much easier than trying to fling three really quick batterings and they just pop them all at the same time. So there's a pro tip. Read my guide. Yeah, yeah, I accidentally did it and I was like, oh shit, motherfucker,

it's not hard at all. Oh. Now these ones where I've been like, because a lot of them, you click one and it's like you got five seconds to get the rest of them. You just you can't. And it's like, I get three at a time, what do you want? Uh man? So yeah, So there's the world's greatest detective. A tell me about it. So the problem with the world's greatest detective is that the world's greatest detective only frustrates me. This clinchingly frustrating. When you've spent

all this time trying to track down this psychopathic killer. There are many of them in this city. Guys are brutal, full of psychopathic killers. They're brutal, and they're just cutting dudes up. They're taunting you with hanging bodies, and they're just cutting cops in front of you. And you get them after all this nonsense, and you're like, all right, take a seat, because I don't kill people. That's not how Batman does. Sit in

this corner and don't don't escape. I'm gonna wag my finger. I'm gonna I'm gonna go get this other. Don't leave. You're gonna sit there and think about what back. Yeah, which is also kind of weird. I don't know the whole the whole conceit with the Arkham City thing they did,

it is weird. They try and explain it, and they try and weave a story around it, and they've got a lot of gravitize don't but they're just well, yeah, wellating stuff along the way that explains what I imagine it must have been in the comics book that I have just met Bridge. So they put out comics, that's set up. They put They put out a Batman comic book exactly. Is all this co marketing? I got it. I got at least they weren't motion comic. I got it with my

copy of Batman that I got from from Amazon's and I have comics. I have to good Drew credit for that joke too, And he said, there's a Batman comic book Jesus. Uh so does that stuff set up? I haven't read it. Apparently it sets up why Arkham City is happening, because it doesn't. It just seem like the worst idea. Yeah, like how do Hugo straight? Like, first off, Hugo strains like let's let's blow the whistle on putting him in charge of the craziest Yeah. And then and

then also like why would we cut off? Like this seems like a pretty big part of you know, Gotham and you know, pretty prime real estate. Right we already had Arkham Asylum, like that was already a place designed for the crazy. Why why anybody let him do that? Does seem a little questionable, But it is also immediately but like minute one, it seems

like it's just a front for something more than affair. I have found enough stuff to to kind of flesh out how he was able to get away with it, Like there's there's yeah, but it's comic book style, like hey, guess what these guys can control your mindst it all in the game. Yeah. I found stuff that there's like all these like Arkham Cities story things. You little vignetcee, you can read it's all side stuff that you collect, yeah, and then you can go read some texts. And there was

a ton of that stuff in Arkham Asylum as well. True. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of collectible stuff and more some audio recording stuff. But it's a terrible idea, the part where the population allows it to happen, like, yeah, okay, we'll move out right. Yeah, that's so I don't know, the mayor saying it's probably a good idea. I don't. Yeah, put all these guys in this giant death city, okay, okay, in the middle of all the third of our city it was walled

off. That's fine. Yeah, I haven't really quite found in my backyard. Be fair. Gotham kind of sucks already. It's not like they were, you know, rolling into Metropolis going to some nice place. It's like it's fucking Gotham, Like, yeah, I guess whatever. And this this takes place not too long after asylum, right, six months, and then they got those walls up real quick because the whole city as these gigantic walls around it. No technology for gas, they're fast, I don't know.

Anyway, After you get past that part, the part we stranges contracting buddies. They're good, but it's all about no, no, no, it's everyone's in everyone else's back pocket. No, because all those contract and buddies getting locked up and then they're political prisoners that you have to save. That's right, which I love the idea of political prisoners, the good prisoners. Yeah yeah, good, Like how they justify like, well, here, you're trying to save this guy. How do we convey to the player that

he's not a raper? There isn't there there is an oracle prison. There's an oracle conversation though, where she's like, why are you saving these PRIs? Why are you worried about saving these prisoners? And Batman's kind of like some of these guys got thrown in here. They were just like lines of dialogue that they had to come up with, like real what they probably realized what one day like yeah, oh man, it's just kind of like okay, yeah, whatever, but you know, there was there was someone there.

He was like, no, he should just save because I'm fucking Batman. Any decision that I make is based on the fact that I'm Batman. He kind of does. He's he's more of a dick in this one than he was in Arkham's sund like he's got a couple of guys that are, like, you know, chipping in for him, right, And every time he's like, are sure about this bad Yes, well listen, I'm sure cut and like he just goes on. He is the Batman. He is. He's kind of a dick, a real big dick to a lot of

people. He was a big meani to Bane. I met Bane last night for the first time. Yeah, he's forgot it doesn't kill people. He hurts with his words, he really does. He hurts more the scone's cut this man. This game doesn't have as many moments as the first one did where someone says like he's gonna go do this just no, he's not. Doesn't have as much of that, enough of it where you're like, you know, what's worse than when Batman's angry at you is when he's disappointed.

Yeah, hurts the most when he just walks away and you're just yelling, shaking his head, something wrong, bad man. I'm gonna escape in three months seen in the next game. So that's that part's really fresh. The game game kind of collectible. Then the game is kind of overwhelming to anybody at all. It seems like there's a lot going on at one time.

They definitely launch into hey you can do all this side stuff right from the get go kinda, but at this point, now there's it's it's I have the paths as I'm going, I have like threads that can follow if I want. Because some stuff comes to a dead end and they're like, Okay, you can't complete this until some more stuff happens. The Riddler stuff just keeps popping up all over the place, though, and that's overwhelming because now

that's my ride. I just stopped spending time getting looking at trophies. It's just like, if it's a trophy I can easily get, I get it, but I'm not going to spend any time on any of this stuff. The nice thing is you can track it to your map, which is cool, so you can just kind of like if you see one you're like, I'm not doing Riddler stuff. Now you can kind of take a picture of

it and it'll put it on your map forever. So or if you interrogate the Riddler guys, you just get a whole section filled in with question marks. Are there are there incremental milestones with collecting trophies, like every fifty trophies you get X or the collecting the trophies and completing that stuff is what triggers the Riddler side missions. Okay, and I don't know if that stuff actually keeps on. I guess there are reasons to start getting the Riddler trophies even

if you don't intend to get all of the trophies. Sure, yeah, okay, yeah, I mean some of the I mean whatever. At some point, I would like to punch the Riddler in the face, but I'd like to take the Ridder out, but that's not gonna happen. You have to do everything to do that, so I don't know. Some cool scenes happen. There was one scene that was kind of funny with han't gotten the Riddler stuff. There's a part and I guess I'll just ask you later the

Tiger Security parts. So there's some stuff that's almost like Metroid style, like you can't access any of this stuff because you don't have the codes or the weapon or whatever. That stuff can be frustrating because it's not like it comes up and says I should come back here when I have the certain weapons.

Some stuff does some stuff he's like I don't have the code for this, but some stuff I spent a couple of minutes just trying to be like, this gotta be a way to get around here, and then finally just gave up on it. And they're like, all right, probably needs something else to do. But there's totally stuff like that in Arkham Asylum as well. Yeah, like you didn't have the right upgrade for the battering or whatever.

Yeah, although that was usually pretty clear of like this is a different textured wall, or this has a target on it that I can't right, this is more like I don't recognize. This is a little more of like you don't have the optional upgrade to get this, and like you don't even know you don't have the optional upgrade. There's a there's an upgrade for the line gun or whatever that shoots. There's there's gun that shoots a tight rope.

Yeah, behind you and forward, there's an upgrade that you can get to stand on it, and you need that to get a couple of trophies. And I didn't even realize that was a thing until I checked it out. So get those upgrades. Still ripping off lots of grates and crawling through yep, tight spaces, choking dudes out doing Batman shit came that bud yep RB A lot a lot of back claw on this one, because it's all the city. I do not like grappling while flying. I think it's not handled

especially well. It was one of those things that for the early parts of the game it seems a little clunky, but as soon as you get used to it, it's totally fine. I think this shoe seems to be I don't know if the camera's actually locked while you're gliding or if it's just your preoccupied with trying to glide as opposed to move the camera around, but it seems like you end up grappling onto things you can't see a lot of the time. Yeah, that's true, but you know, they give you that

icon let you know when there's stuff around to grapple onto. It's it's doable. The only the only thing. You get a lot of gadgets, I'm not a point at Yeah, and then you kind of double up that wheel pretty quickly. So I've got a lot of stuff, and they map in the fights, they map a lot of stuff to at least four things to the quick quick shot, five things is that the RB gets one too. Nope, it's a double tap left trigger, double tap right trigger and then

hold down left it double tap right triggers. Yeah, you haven't gone that yet, okay. Uh. And so that stuff, man, they give you a lot yea and uh and you have more that you can select from the menus. Uh. So it's probably a good thing. I find a little I don't know, counter and punch dudes a lot. And yeah, there were a lot of things that I pretty much never used, like the disruptor and it's really cool and kind of a funny thing to do, but not all that useful in practice. Still, I didn't use it a lot

in front. Yeah, so I'm still trying to figure out exactly how best do you use that stuff. So far, the best method for me is definitely sneak until you get caught, like basically snuff guys out until they find you, and then kind of Batman or Arkham Asylum style, if it gets too hair you get the hell out of there and and wait for them to kind of go off and do their thing and try and sneak back and take

out the guys with the guns. Guns will still take you down, I think It's funny that that Jeff you had no issue with the gliding stuff and Brad you took issue with it, because I feel like this is the flip flop from just Cause to where Jeff you were never able to get a grip

of the gliding mechanics. There. It seems like there's a pretty close parallel as far as how those mechanics ought to work grabbing lower stuff, and then I guess in this case, you're grabbing higher stuff, stepping up to it, letting go as you're kind of reaching the apex, and then using that momentum when you when you boost, he automatically shoots past it. Yeah,

so like you basically you get this upgrade for your grapple gun. If you don't have it, you just zip into something and he grabs it right. And once you get the upgrade, you can double tap the A button, so you hit A once to launch into it, and you can hit A again while you're zooming and he always shoots past it. Okay, so he'll always just go whoop. It's it's really just for blowing past stuff. Uh,

you move pretty quickly. I don't know the diving gliding stuff, like I don't use it all that off, it's not as useful as it might initially. See, Yeah, apposed to just like grabbling on everything and going around that way, right, yep. But it's fun. There's a lot of side stuff to do that I found that that's keeping me occupied. The Riddler stuff is kind of all the trophies, it's overwhelming. Yeah, it's just too much. It's just like every you look, there's like, here's

three more just sitting out of the city. Yeah. I would have been happy with a quarter of the trophies, and even as many as the riddles. The riddles are kind of more fun than the trophies because there's just fewer of them. The Detective Mode stuff, I don't I'm really I'm liking it. It's it's got great polish on it, my batsuits getting all messed up and torn up and ripped up. The realizations of the main characters and not

even being a huge DC fan or fun. You know, they're over the top and ridiculous and stupid, and I don't know where they find all these guys who have such crazy personalities, but they're out there. You want to talk about Rocksmith, Yes, uh so we got a bunch. We got some Rocksmith. We played a bunch. We actually did record some stuff for it, but I think I think we're gonna rerecord some stuff for it.

Ryan, you sat in with me. We did a Yeah, we did a quick look, recorded a quick look last week of Rocksmith, which is Ubisoft's not a game but a guitar trainer. I would say more like a teaching aid. It's well, it's one of like entertainment in a way because there are some kind of you know, mini games stuff. You do play some stuff, but it's all meant to be in service of learning guitar.

This is how you play guitar, right, because you're you're plugging an actual electric guitar in, Like there's a quarter inch to USB adapter that comes with the game. Yes, switches that into your console and then it's just it just starts picking up whatever you're you're out putting. Yeah, so here's a weird thing. I don't know how this happened. I don't know enough about how this all works. I turned the volume up at home kind of loud.

I started getting feedback. I would make sense if it was loud enough that it would vibrate the strings at the same man, it wasn't that loud, and it was weird. Anyway, you're real, you're real light light gage strings on that guitar. That's super light. Maybe I was just standing real close to the speakers. That was fun. And you get feedback on a video game, maybe it's totally love it. Maybe it's simulated. Maybe

it's not even real feedback. So yeah, just just to get out of the way, we will we will definitely put something up some kind of coverage of that game up the without our normal setup for recording. Uh. It was kind of a bear and it's problems abound in that thing. But I did take it home and I played a much played a lot more of it, and it's cool. It does what I think that uh piece of software intends to intends to do. Uh, but it's not really gonna be interesting

to people who aren't out to learn guitar. A you probably won't have a guitar and you'd have to buy the big bundle which would come with a guitar. Do you know what? Do you know what? I think it's it's I think it's less Paul, and I think it's some kind of uh, well, it's a. It's probably an epiphone styles Paul, and I think it's like a two hundred and a guitar. Yeah, so I wouldn't expect anything too great. The game makes you tune since it's all pitch based.

It's it's not there's not MIDI or anything like that. It's all it's all detecting pitch from the guitar. Makes you tune your strings. Uh, every time you start something new, every new song, every which is using any weird like alternate tunings. Uh. The game hasn't presented any of that stuff, so I don't know if they will at some point. I haven't gotten that far to have to do that. So it's a guitar rock game. You gotta get your drop dal and at one point it would be interesting if

they did. It doesn't seem like that's the kind of rock that's soundtrack. Yeah, it's weird. I did see stuff that when I was we were going through that song last some stuff did it. Mostly it said standard tuning, standard tuning, so it might it does. So it does the tech pitch and you tune the guitar through the game. But it's very fast. It's just like all right, pluck each string one at a time, very

quickly, and it's like, cool, you're still in tune. So I do kind of wish there was an option or something that I kept track of, like, Okay, your guitar is good enough to stay in tune. We're gonna trust that you know you're cool on this. Maybe every other yeah, well we'll start off every other. I can't understand, because you would have a terrible experience of your guitar ward at tune you didn't know. Uh. And and the game is really interesting in the way it progresses you.

And this is again part of why this probably is not best classified as a game. Every song starts you off mildly. It's not like you select a difficulty setting. It's like we're gonna drop you in with just single notes and we're gonna work you up to on a more advanced stuff for every song you

start. And if you're doing well during a song, during a certain phrase of a song, by that, I just mean, like, you know, like the riff you're playing every time that riff appears, if you have done well, and then the first time, you'll get the more advanced version later on the song. But if you're up to a new riff'ly you're literally starting with holding one string, like you're not even doing simple for this early

stuff. Yeah, later on it gets more advanced and you can just go in and practice a song until you master it, which is kind of fun. Just each a little riff and I'll start off again pretty easy, and you're just playing that riff over and over again. It's like, all right, you level literally just like level up, and it starts starting more at you, and it's like, all right, level up and you get like five lives to do it in, which I think is kind of weird.

So they are trying to throw some game stuff in there at you. But again, if your ultimate goal really isn't to learn how to play guitar,

it's not a party game. But by knowing me, unless you are hanging out with all guitar friends and are like, let's all see how well we could play in bloom and it's like, yeah, all right, whatever, man, I could play that while I was dead, so easy, and then like, yeah, check out my you know, Rocksmith Point collection, which you know, it's all kind of in the service of learning to play an instrument, which I think is fantastic, but I don't think it's something

that you're like gonna buy for somebody who is like I bought you, you know, like the rock band, right, you really like rock band? And now here try this game out and like this is hurting my fingers a lot. So it sounds like it's it's yeah, it's an application. This

is not but it's well done. Yeah. There are like mini games in it to try and help you again in the service of learning your instrument, which are kind of goofy, and you know, it's like you gotta shoot ducks going down a track by by putting, by striking the right fret on a single string, and it's like just basically to make you not look at the guitar neck and look at the screen. Uh, And I'll be like you one to you know whatever it is twenty one and you just gotta shoot

him. You know, they're goofy. It looks like, you know, it's like a Gallagha rip off or whatever. Right. Uh. Yeah, it's got a good way to build up muscle memory. That's exactly what they're trying. Yeah, and maybe not that much, but it's it's a lot. It's a lot of plays, a repetition doing it over and over again, and they're trying to like they've you know, everybody has done since the

dawn of time, is to try and make that fun for people. Right, It's like, here's this really shitty thing you're gonna have to do. Practice. It's an exercise. Hey, Like what if I make it bright colors and like try and fool you into like practicing every day. And it's like, okay, you got me create some sort of metagame to speak you

keep doing it. But I'm enjoying it. And it really is one of those things where once you are playing the song on one hundred percent mastery, you are really playing that song and this time for real on a guitar. Uh and it does chords and does everything else. And since it's pitch bass, you can bend strings and do all sorts of nonsense like that. If you have a guitar and uh and and you're interested in something to compliment you're

learning or just kinda have fun with it. I do recommend it. It's it's pretty cool, But you don't think it's suitable as a standalone teaching tool. Uh. It's hard for me to say, yeah, you know, I'm kind of coming at it with with a with a little more knowledge than is probably the ideal level. Yeah, well, I don't know. It does start off really slowly and you can't skip. I've started it twice now and he kind of can't skip through some of that early stuff and that's kind

of a pain. But I don't know. It'd be interesting to talk it to somebody who's never played a guitar before and see if, like this doesn't make any sense to me, this is overwhelming, Like the way the notes come down are completely different than rock Band or Guitar Hero for good reason. You know, they probably don't want to pay all that licensing, but also the I feel like they like they it's it's a different way of presenting that

information. But when you think about it, trying to present like that much like there's a lot that you need to say of like all right, this string this frame, and we're gonna use it, and we're gonna shin like like you know, three or four strings at once that you need to hit at this specific time. I think it's actually really good. Yeah, I think the timing on the little on the spinning bars seems like it's at least helpful, Like you can you have like a visual representation of Okay, that's

you know, that's this mini beats away when it's in this position. So it's kind of hard to explain how it comes down. But it does give you a little more heads up too into what's coming uh, instead of just like you know, trying to site read this stuff. It does. It does show you what to anticipate is coming up. It's kind of hard to explain. Well, we'll do some more video of it and explain it better that way. But again, it's cool. And that's a that's Xbox p

S three and I think PC as well. Yeah, it's on all of them. Lag is a little weird if you're and they say they repeat this throughout all the packaging and even in the game. They want you to run out analog audio into whatever sound system you have and don't go through the HDMI to try and reduce the lag as much as possible. Again, it's repeated throughout everything that has a set up in this game. The worst, the worst thing you could do, apparently, according to the game, is go

HDMI int your TV. I guess that introduces the worst lag of everything. Yeah, so I don't know they're like at least at least this is the direction on the p S three version. We don't know. Yeah, it is everything three sixty, but I looked it up and I think I think they want you to use the analog outs from the three sixty as well. So yeah, so heads up on that. I'm running it h GM into the into my sound system. Was takes HDMI in and then HM that into

TV. That's fine, Like there is a little bit of lag, but it's not killing it for me. And and again you're it's it's kind of a teaching tool, and they're pretty They give me a lot of leadway, like you can ring the string before the note hits. And since it's pitch based, it detects that that pitch is being played. It gives it to you, so like you could be. It's pretty forgiving. And I don't mind because I'm not trying to get five stars on a song. I'm trying

to learn how to play in bloom again. Twenty years later, have you have You all over again? For the first time, learned how to play in bloom I have It's funny. First First up, tune your six string down the D that's right, No, in bloom NIRVN. I think they actually did tune a half step down, but they're they're not dropp d for most as far as I know. Uh, it's fun, it's it's it's a cool piece of software, but not a game. I would not buy this for anybody and say, hey, win this game. What is well?

I think you can have fun, but again, you need to have fun in the context of like, man, I really wanted to learn guitar. This is a fun way to learn instead of like I break out Rocksmith for my party. Right, don't use my guitar because I want you to break it. You know, what's what guitar are you playing with? Uh? I've tried it only on I've got it just it's funny. It's probably

a similar guitar that comes with it's a EPI fun last pall. Uh. I haven't hooked it up to any of my other guitars yet, but I assume it works. It works with your cheapest guitar works. Hey, I'll call my guitars cheap. Weirdest part of that whole game, I realize that now that I've had that guitar for twenty years, which is weird guitar played in Bloom when it was first out and you're trying to figure it out.

When I was opening up books, when I when they had the tablet shirt for in Bloom in like Guitar magazine, Like, hey, you're learning how to play black Hole Sun twenty hot riffs. Uh so, yeah, that's fun, it's cool. It's cool. Yeah, we'll get we'll get a video up of it sometime in the in the near future. Did you mess with the ant modeling stuff we did? Yeah, it's interesting, it's interesting. It's interesting. It's it's like anybody who knows what a pod is,

it's it's very similar to that. It's just they're modeling different different pedals. I think all the pedals are modeled after real world analogs, but they're not named right. It's almost like it's almost like Reason where it's like, hey, check out whatever. Fake looks exactly like the real thing, but it's fake name. Like it's got like the real designs on everything are modeling software like that sort of stuff is some of my favorite stuff to use. I

just don't ever run guitar stuff. So the kind of cool part about Rocksmith with the ant modeling stuff is they will they will model the appropriate set up for each song, so your guitar sounds appropriate in that song, right, And that's actually that's another kind of cool thing. So you know, when you're playing Nirvana stuff, you're not. You don't sound like you're playing blues. You sound like your guitars a right amount of the sourtion on it.

And when you're playing songs that have like a flangeron it or something spacey or something weird, they have that on there. So it is really neat. It's it's it's well thought out. Not a game. But is it a game? Yes, totally. Any other games you win at it? No? Nope, No, it's lost terribly. Well, if there's any games the one less you want to talk about other software, if you want to talk about Mavis, it's pretty good stuff, Sirie, that's all right.

Did you just that how you learned how to type? It was with mab speaking. He's just broder buns type exclamation point. Yeah. Did you take typing in school? I absolutely did, dude. Was it on a typewriter? No? No, I was always on computers. Do you guys typewriter? Anybody typewriter? No? No, no, no, two eighty six. Really, by the time it came time for them to try to teach me how to type quickly, I could already type really quickly. Did you have to take a class or did you just skip it? It was like

part of the computer class I took in high school. Did you develop like really bad habits by teaching yourself? Were you all like two fingers? I wasn't two fingers, but I wasn't quite proper, you know. But they weren't interested in that because all the software is like, hey, are you faster? What are you making mistakes or not? And I wasn't, so I was Our class was on an electric typewriter. Wow, and you like forty yeah, and it was it was typing slash shorthand, yeah, you

know shorthand. No teaching. They threw the oldest most like, couldn't not fire you because of tenure, but you're too young, retired teacher they could at that class. So she was like ninety nine sleeping in the front of the classroom. She basically and she said, if you could type the entire alphabet without looking at the key keys, you get an A. And I did it on the on the first day, and that was it. So, No, I don't know shorthand, but I could type the whole alphabet

because but at that point as well, I could. I could type the entire thing, and so it's just like yeah, abcd FG, it's like, oh all right, and so but everybody else just had you know, I'm gonna go out by the lockers. It was a bad class. It was people were throwing books out the window while she was sleeping. It was like on like the third floor. It was the computer class I was in

that had, you know, because it was used for typing. They had like, you know, plastic bookholders that would hold books up at a proper angle. Yeah, and dude like snap those in half. Stuff like that. Typing classes they must be she I didn't have the savage fucking typing class experience, you guys. Like my first type of class was probably like fifth grade or something. Oh no, this was this was Yeah. I mean I had plenty of experience with computers, but it was never in the context

of we're gonna teach you had a type. It was always like, we're gonna teach you out a program, which I already knew that stuff too, because they're freaking Apple twos, like how Ard is it? But by the time I got to high school, though, I think they there were no more of the typing specific classes or I was right. I had taken like fifth grade, sixth grade, and I think maybe junior high I had a type class. I'm sure, like not long after I took that class,

they faced out was whatever typing portion of it there was. I had a ninth grade but it wasn't called typing, it was called keyboarding. Wow. Yeah, no shorthand for you though, Oh, my stenographer's career just went down the train. I don't know what my shorthand book is anyway. Does does Alex still type with just his index fingers? I don't know. That was always the weirdest thing to me, Like he doesn't even look at the keyboard. He just really two fingers, like going crazy that drummer. And

yeah, that seems like some maybe types off time too. My Yeah, no, my dad is a two finger typist, but can get some good speed out of it because he's just been doing it for two damn long those bad bad habits school Bella. So if no typing assisting software, we're gonna have to move on unless there are other games. No, it was it was it was Rocksmith and the Batman. It's hard to tear myself away from the from Batman. Yeah, that's very hard. Jeff Gersman, Hello,

what's going on in Skyland? I have saved the Skylands from the evil Chaos? Okay, and I've brushed back the darkness by building the Core of Light. Did they spell Chaos? Weird? Kaos? Okay? No? Does that mean you beat? Did I completed Stylanders? I saved the Skylands. You have to prevent the completion of home Front? So yeah, yes, so Chaos? Make sure? How are they going to get more money from

you? I'm gonna buy the rest at this point easily. They've already gotten most of it, so I so he might as well finish it off. I'm waiting on one more package to arrive, but I bought. I have everything that is available. It is available now. There's still two more level packs and about twelve more characters. How many do you have? I have twenty twenty four, thirty seven and all, because that's counting all the variants.

The DS version gives that away. Oh the three DS version rather which I bought, you really have over twenty Skylanders yeah, how many and two? I was doubt. No, there are not two variants of each. There are three spiros, there are two Bashes, two chop chops, and two trigger Happies. They have not released legendary trigger Happy, but he has mentioned in the three DS version about stealth Elf. I have Stealth Elf.

Did stealth Elf? Bought the three dst with stealth Elf? Oh? Yeah, it's part of why you bought the three for all show you had to know what the three DS version looked like. And it comes to the portal, Yeah, wireless infrared wireless portal, and you basically you can store two dudes on the three DS version at all times, and it writes back to the toy every time you go back to sinc it up or whatever, and

you have to point it kind of directly at it. It's not great, it's not It doesn't feel like magic the same way the console versions do. That's that's a bit of a letdown. It's nice because it's a little bit smaller, so I can keep that one hooked up to my PC. Uh, you know, for what I want to play the the Flash mini game. So no, not to to pull back the curtain here on the on the magic, but you have to deuce that they're storing in the toy,

in the figure. Definitely storing in the figure. Okay, so there's something in there that's show that Skylander you have your legendary Chop Chop or whatever. Yeah, it's writing back to it every time you drop it on there that these things tie themselves to a gamer tag. It's not to a gamer tag. It's it's there is some sort of concept of ownership and you can transfer that ownership to someone else. But yeah, so it'll it'll it'll all synk

up to two accounts and figure out who you are and such. And the first thing that you found was top chop gear, right, and then when you started playing, it was like it was like one of the first thing it's not gear what you what you find or soul gems which you can then use that that unlocks the ability for you to purchase the upgrade that the final upgrade for each one of the characters. Oh what does that? It's you

know, like there are like ten upgrades there's for for each guy. So it'll be like now you have infinite AMMO for the Golden Mini gun for a trigger happy that sounds pretty good. Yeah, it's not bad. So run on chop shop calling it. It's the first thing that you find, right, So that's the first one. Everybody's the first one. Everyone goes, oh, oh no, go get a chop chop. Yeah. And then if you end up Toys or US, that's where they all the legendary three

pack that has a rare chop chop in it or rareer theoretically. So for me, so what do you think? It's real? It's good, you know what it's It is really well made. It is insidious and dark in a lot of ways if you think about it in a in a gaming context. If this, if this didn't have the toy side to it like that, everyone would be trying to set activation on fire right now because it's all of it's on the disc and it's twenty dollars for a level and they're gonna

put out four levels. This was just twenty bucks unlock keys. People would lose it. Wow, it would be it would be the end of everything. But because they've come up with this novel, uh you know, toy based system and it works really well and it's like it's kind of surprisingly kind of cool. They get away with it. But what is the early word on the popularity of the stuff. I don't. I don't really know. Is it really catch them on? I don't, I don't know. We'll

see her. Jeff loves it. The toys r us that we bought that we made two of our Skylander runs on. Yeah, there was a distinct change in stock between the two visits. I know where I read. I forget somebody told me this. I read this some something about toys r us Chelf looking like raccoons. Yeah. Gab Gabe from Penny Arcade tweeted that they couldn't find any Skylanders anywhere because they're all had to jump on it earlier.

Yeah, so there are two retailer exclusive or there's three retail toys rust as a couple of exclusive things that only they sell, but then Walmart has a figure and Target has a figure. So Friday night I was a Walmart and getting getting Drill Sergeant as well as zapp, which is not reason are exclusive, but it was the one I was missing. Had to buy a Solo. Yeah, so I had to buy some a handful of. I bought

four Solo figures and everything. At this point, twelve bucks or seven eight, seven ninety nine something like that, though Amazon prices went up to like thirteen last week and they're all sell sold by third party tailor the market. But you know, I opened everything, so whatever. The portal will read things through the box, so you actually don't have to open anything if you don't want to. But that's that leveled up in box in box chop chops. Yeah, but that I'm not play with your toys. Yeah, I'm

crazy like that. What was it? What was it you said? Target and Walmart? Yeah, Targets Whirlwind, which I had to order online and has not arrived yet. That's the one. That's the last one that I'm waiting on. And then there are a handful of dudes that just straight up haven't released yet, like war Nato, who looks like gammera but tiny, and what are you gonna do with him? You gonna go through the game again? With with these guys? I don't know, man, I don't

know what am I gonna do with anything? I don't know. It's really what question are you really asking? I really don't know. What What has Skylanders made you question? At this point? Everything, all of it, it's got me thinking because it's it's pretty well made, you know, it's it's not a difficult game. But games aren't difficult. So I started thinking about like the things that you know, there were a couple of spots in that game where I died a bunch and you know this, your Skylander will

have to rest for the rest of that level. I mean, you gotta swap on another Skyling. Yeah. So if you we're run at of hit points with a guy, he's out, you got to take them out and put it in. Just swap in another guy. What if you only have what if you go through all three? You have to restart the chapter, but you have to go beg your parents go buy you more Skyland. Can you keep it like pause on that menu while you run out the toys? R Us started, Okay, yeah, wow, it's almost like buying another

life. Yeah, it really, wow, it absolutely is. Wow, You've got plenty of now. But I ran out of like my high level guys in a couple of spots because there was like a tight area where guys are just making bombs fall out of the sky. They're hitting for like one hundred damage each time, and it got really crazy, Like I died five six times and in one little area, can you rip him off before he dies? Yeah, and there's no benefits of that coming. Oh no,

no, the health stays static for that level everything. And you know, so there's a couple of spots that were you know, I wouldn't say difficult, but spots where I I died a fair amount of times. And you know, I think about, like think about Gears of War three, not a hard game, a couple of spots where you might die aalog, but in the grand scheme of things like this game on the difficulty scale, not that different from well especially something like Gears of War is default setting, but

those seem to have gotten a bit easier. Yeah. You know, games are designed to be finished, so you know, so with that in mind, like this game is is reasonably well made. It's charming, it's it looks nice enough, and it's it was it was it was a it was fun to go through. It's got a good hook. Yeah, it's got a it's got a really really good hook. Yeah, I don't know, it's it's not perfect, But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's kind of

designed for kids, but it's pretty good. What if pretty good? What if that hook is activisions next thing? You know, yeah, like in the line in the long line of like Tony Hawk and Spider Man and Guitar Hero in terms of like their cash, I mean you could see them. What if this catches on and this is the thing. I mean, they have the Transformers license, you know, not necessarily like the Spiro version of it, but it's like the general concept. And the funny thing is like

Spiro has such a little too. I mean, if you don't have Spiro on the portal a Spiro game anymore, it's chop shop game. Yeah, so it's kind of ridiculous. Like I saw some of the comments from people going like I can't believe what they did to Spiro, which really, like I found alarming because there's like, wait, people give a fuck about Spiro?

What is wrong with you? Yeah? I don't know. It's it's pretty well made, and I actually I like the design of the dudes, like they not all of them are are winners, but enough of them look

pretty awesome for little little dudes for kids. The actual toysy mean yeah right, yeah, any game too, Like it's you know, I think there are worse things, like, you know, I think we talked about this a bunch, but if they were to start, I don't know how you get the portal injected into natively into the consoles and mean like next generation consoles whatever that have this not or if I do what we what was it called the near field communication? Yeah, whatever whatever that is into the console.

Make make the collector's editions relevant again by putting some kind of tag in the statue of Marcus that you could put on your console and get your you know, in game delC that way that comes with don't have to punch in a code. Yeah, and the and the statue actually does some things that take up room, right or I think it would be easier for them to print QR codes on things instead of twenty five character codes and then you just hold

it up in front of your connect I agree. I've been saying that for at least a year, but you know whatever, that's kind of cool too. I'll put a statue of Marcus on my three sixty and you know, and then the ability to write back to that stuff, I think is the thing that only works because it's a kid's game, and there's that theory of You might take this over to a friend's house and play locally where it's like

Gears of World. Who's doing that? No one's doing that. Yeah, So that's where, you know, the tech becomes a little needless when you remove it from the context of it being a kids game. I don't know if you tell me that. And this is again, maybe this is just something that we run into that Microsoft would sell me a bobblehead of my avatar that you can write all my saved data two and that's my profile and just bring that around with me instead of the USB key. Yeah, I bet

we could actually rig that up right now with Will. Yeah, well maybe not with Will. It's because it's probably pretty intense. But like some sort of like encrypted USB key that is hooked up to an NFC thing that decrypts when you hold you know, when you put your NFC device on it, and then forget this, it would decrypt and in the cloud, I want a giant Well, I mean you would still keep it would be the best of both worlds, because this would be unlocking the USB key that then logs

in. But yeah, your stuff is so yeah, I mean, and then I'll just replace my Pinkie with that. Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, Ballpark. How much have you invested into Skyland? Well, they sent the three sixty version of the game, which was seventy right there. So so that's that's if we take that out of the equation, it has been let's say one hundred and sixty dollars, one hundred and seventy maybe, and there's another like I said, there's forty dollars where the level packs coming.

Those are the there's going to be like a level than some magic items and a character each. Do they sell a giant bundle? Because I saw some unboxings online and some people had some party packs. I couldn't tell if they were like party packs they were. I couldn't tell if they were like sent by Activision or if there's just some kind of like no, what was it? Was? It like it was like a big old thing that opened up and there were like ten Skylanders in. Yeah, because one of those

things where you become a brand ambassador. I don't know, I couldn't tell. You got to prove that, like you're like the happening house on the neighbor are pretty funny. A lot of people excited about Skylanders yeah, there and wrestling. If you want to find out what the crowd is like for Skylanders, just Skylander Unboxing on on YouTube. If you want to find out what happened in Rawless. Have you clear yourself an afternoon and have a good

time. Yeah, it's it's a well, it's a really well made thing, you know. It's the sort of thing that like, you know, like I said, it's when you pick it apart and look at the business of it. It's the sort of thing that people should probably be getting outraged about because it's in the gaming context anyway, but removed from that one step, and then taking into account that on some level, all kids toys are

total rip off. Yeah, it's it's hard to get so incensed about it when it's been this way for thirty years, right, Like they killed off Optimus Prime so they could make a whole new set of trans Maybe if the toys were a little more articulated and you could play, that would really go along. It's like if they were like posable, you know, yeah, actual little action figures playing with them outside of the game or something. Guys. I don't want to spoil anything, but you know, they leave it

open for a sequel at the end. So wait, hold on, you're saying there could be the further adventures of Spiro and Skyland. Home Front two is going to be to buy you a curio or something to start storing. Uh. Skylander storage has become an issue over the past couple of days. Uh. And the of the licensed things they sell to hold Skylanders not large enough. Even the castle cask I think only holds eight dudes. Oh Jesus Christ did no thinks he would have. He would have outgrown that immediately.

I'm glad he held off. Yeah he needs something though, Yeah, I need a just are you sack or something. I'm still taking that base back and forth. No, I have left. I left it at home,

so I'm not progress. I'm not lugging it taking an important step. Yeah, I mean the some of the stuff around it is kind of trashy, like like the web game thing they did is just like a bunch of bad had flash mini games and built into this weird like you see other character, you see other human players running around as Skylanders in this little isometric flash game world. Do you interact with that if you haven't purchased any of the other

skews like Is that something I could just go do without? Yeah, you could. I think you would. It's a portal into world of Skylanders. I think you would only get Spiro or something like that if you did that, or you might have to I'm not sure how that would work, but get some chump Skylander. But if you have your portal hooked up, you can just drop another dude on there and swap on the fly in the world, which I like the dude to let people know around me how deep I

am in Skylanders. Swap through all three Spiros in front of a room full of people, let them know who's real right here. Oh you gott Spiro. I got a legendary Spiro. I got Spiro as Spiro rose rosebro dot com. Yes, you've got some Skylanders. I have all of the Skylanders, all right. I don't want to Yeah, this has to stop.

Skylanders has to study cool. You know, if if if if you if you had if you have kids that, or if you have boys and games, or if you just don't give a f uh no. Dan Teesdale from Twisted Pixel was talking about having extended conversations in the Skylanders section of his Local Toys r us with another adult about what the best Skylanders were. So there's it's uh, it's it's Drobot. It totally he's a dragon in a robot. Yeah. So the thing with the Skylanders is after you buy the first

four upgrades. Uh, there, there's a path decision you have to make. There are two upgrade paths and you can only choose one, so you have to buy two of each one. Yeah, no, U and Drobot. You can either speck in the direction of his afterburner jets, which make flying faster, but speed is not really an issue. Uh, you can. All you can is gear is actually these gear attacks. So it's these

these gears. They don't shoot straight. They shoot at an angle, which makes them pretty much worthless, except you're a tight quarters because they bounce off walls. The laser path though, you get four lasers instead of two. How do you not choose that? That's double lasers? You are You are all the way across the level shooting quad lasers, laying waste everything in your

path sounds advantageous. Beginner tip you're trigger happy's fine too. He also has a projectile bassed dude, But like you know, chop chop is all melee. But he can block, so he can actually handle it. A lot of the other Melee characters can't block, so like Ignitoor and stealth elf U

are at a bit of a disadvantage. Stealth elf can turn invisible though Stealth Yeah, so with that, it's like it basically creates a clone of like you turn into eyeballs because you're invisible, and then just but a decoy of stealth Health goes running in the direction that you were pointed, So everyone follows that and then you come up from behind and yoke them. It's a bit deeper than I would have assumed. Yeah, it's it's there's like a there's

a kind of a combo system to that game for the melee dudes. It's, like I said, they did a good job at making that thing. Like they didn't have to. They probably didn't have to go this far for a kid's game, but they You really get the sense that they wanted to make something enduring. But I would argue that they absolutely had too. Yeah, it's like to make it all like the toys wouldn't sell if the game

didn't back it up. Yeah, if there wasn't a reason in the game for you to have these characters or you know, if it wasn't meaningful to the experience then then yeah then and that's that. And that makes really the whole toy gambit on this way crazier because it's like, yeah, exactly, like just thinking about all this stuff, like totally for all this stuff to come together. Yeah, absolutely, where's the cartoon? There's a really no that is that is crazy? I did, I did. They may not

be warming. I didn't want to dig any deeper. So he has to start buying Skylander d you know, Spiral will be the star of that. And that's and I'm not interested. We have to get the robot then, because that stuff is what they need to do is make is make, you know, cartoons. But then it works with the portal so you can put your dude on there and then it's like here's drowbout wearing a beret. Captain Power Captain Power exactly. Apparently the Captain Power, the original Captin Power stuff

is coming out in DVD at the end of this year. Wow and play it so we can so we can get that DVD quality versions. And apparently this is potentially leading up to a relaunch of Captain Power all new cabin power stuff, all new captins. What a great time to be a kid. That's the worst idea in the world. Let's do it. Let's buy it all and be a video game tie and Jeff, any other games you want to talk about? Track Mania is still pretty good your attention. Battlefield three.

Yeah, we did a quick look. Yeah, I got a quick look at that should be up on the site by now of the three sixty version because the as of this recording, they sent an origin code that doesn't unlock until midnight. So we're pretty good. Email. Yeah it was. Here is here is a code for the PC version of the game that unlocks at midnight. The embargo for all reviews is twelve oh one yeah, one

minute, one minute minute review. So the intro, the intro screen is quite good, the way it's meant to be played, the way it says all that stuff, it's awesome. In the sixty seconds I got to see it was fantastic. So so the quick look is of the console version of the game, which is interesting in its own way. I think there's a

lot of questions about that thing. And we played the three sixty version and had to install the one point five gig or however big it is texture pack to make it look not like ass Seriously, go look up the YouTube comparison videos texture version like it doesn't look good and there are spots in the high texture that so is that just is that just like it don't look great either, But that's that's something that they had to do because they couldn't install on

everything. Because something they had to do because of uh, I imagine it's it's sort of similar to the rage situation where you notice the textures kind of going from low to high. This is just their way to ensure that it's high. Got it is by asking you to install this stuff and and you

know it's nothing. They can't force the install because you know, they can't assume that every Xbox three sixty owner has a hard drive and and you know, so it's it's that limitation caused someone a whole lot of work that I bet they were really unhappy to have to do. But p S three version doesn't have this option. It's just installs because they you know those all I have our drive, right, so not an issue assuming it is installing textures

and stuff like that. I don't know what it installs, but but yeah, it's uh little grungy on the three sixty parts of it look good, lie real nice and two discs two discs. Disc one is multiplayer and co op Disc two is single player. Let you know where the priorities laughing. I thought it was pretty interesting, but yeah, we just got that. Yeah, so no idea. That whole process that that entire everything related to

reviews for Battlefield three pretty gross. Bottom five review experiences of my entire probably like the way that that's been handled, the way that the way that some people got PC version and then some people didn't despite us saying, well, you could send it. The the reasons we got back from them as to

why we were not getting it, we're all pretty flimsy. So so when the book is written, this is a good just this whole thing is is a full paragraph, and there's there's stuff about it that there's stuff about this week specifically that well, so adding to the fun. I'm not going to be here this week. I'm I'm hitting the road tomorrow for an event and

are hitting over today. I guess by the time people hear this. So back when you booked the trip back, it was like, oh, you're leaving the day of Battlefield comes out, but but well, cool, We'll clearly had the game for like two weeks at that point. What could go wrong? Yeah, everything, everything. They're also releasing Trobat two. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like the last week has been this weird limbo for me because it was like I was expecting to be, you know, getting Battlefield three done right and doing all that stuff, and then you know, they kept holding it back and holding it back and holding it back, and then it was like, well, plenty of time to play fucking Skylanders.

It does. It does seem weird, and also it does not seem there's a lot of stuff flying around out there that adds to the whole mystique to this or mystique is probably the wrong word for lack of another word to use right now, mystique of this whole launch. I mean it's definitely not and isolated to this building. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. There's there's just

weird stuff going on. And then just to have like the the Internet being the Internet layered on top of that, like with them having kind of half the story about this stuff, and I'm saying, no, everyone just hates Battlefield, but I love Battlefield. I'm getting it anyway, Like, no, you don't understand why why people are saying the things they're saying like some Yeah, you are about as misinformed about the way this is going as you

possibly could be. That's power marketing, but beyond the call. So no, then to talk about I mean that that brief bit with Battlefield three yea, even with it being the three sixty version, like we played some multiplayer. You'll see it in the quick looks. Yeah, you know, fucking crash the jet into a control point and a helicopter to the ground, like did some battlefield ass stuff. That was a whole lot of fun. Uh, So I'm it got me excited to see the PC version of that game.

Heard the heard the campaign is kind of rotten, despite it getting nines intense nines and tens from people saying they don't like the campaign. I was just gonna ignore two thirds of the disc. Maybe it's great, though, I don't know. I haven't played it all, right, bread Shoemaker dazzled me with Uncharted three Go to blow your mind? Yes, Canna, yes, yeah, ready, huh they made another really good Uncharted game. Hot, god damn it. Yeah, that makes me so excited. But like

they just fade another really good Uncharted game. I'm totally fine. Is that enough anymore? Probably fun? Well, I mean they only made one so far. I think two totally gets passed, right, Yeah, well yeah sure, I'm ready. I'm okay, well totally ready for for for Uncharted two too. Yeah, like like yeah, I guess listen down to marginalize the first game. Are there blue dudes? No? No, blue dudes? Are there blue dude equivalents? Not really, they're already really Oh no,

all right, let's stops stop that line of questioning right now. So anyway, so you're saying, I think I think we probably all agree. Is there a combat twist at the end of this same not want to finish? I was gonna ask is it was it the mechanics of the blue dudes or the like weird supernatural I thought the supernatural stuff was was a little out of place, but you know, like it was this archaeological stuff eventually goes

supernatural. So that's not that's not the end of the world. It was more literally fighting them and not enjoying Like, yeah, you could, you know, get like their crossbows and take them out with that, but that that was not a fun combat situation there there is there are a couple of twists, but they're nothing like that. Well conceptually a little similar, okay, but you're not. It's not gonna drive you crazy, right, okay like that, And I was whatever. I was still willing to suffer that

stuff for like the rest of the high points, I was not. And as long as there was, that was what broke me on that game. Wait, you finished it, right, what? Nope, dude, that's like thirty minutes from the end of the game. Wow, all this stuff going on. I was just like, it made that game really easy to put down, I guess. And then I got distracted with something else and

just never went back. But the little crossbow was was the solution. You're right, they all died one hit, but it was not a fun solution to use. So I just died like a bunch of times on one checkpoints, went yeah, I'll come back to this, and then didn't. It's a lot of set piece globe tribes, and it is the formula that they hammered out into like just you know, spunt like they ran through it again like it's got you probably go to like five different countries. You read some

tombs you know, so it shimmy sideways absolutely awesome. You climb all over a lot of stuff that doesn't initially look like it should be climbed on, and yet somehow you make it. And does he just barely make it? Dude? Yeah, it's every touch. Oh No, Drake knows how to get into scrapes. I don't know if you've noticed that. I feel like you always know how to grab that ledge is just barely gonna hold them.

Are there any goofy old gags like the Marco Polo stuff. Yeah, there's a reference to that gag specifically outstanding really yeah, and another trophy attached to that action. Man, But there's some other good humor where like you're doing stuff within the framework of the mechanics they've got, like the climbing over stuff and the fact that Drake is always the one that has to go do all the dirty work and everything, and like they find ways to even poke fun

at that from time to time. It's really smart they poke. That's always the really tough thing to do, is poking fun at the repetitive nature of tasks in games, because at some point the solution should have been designed something else. Yeah, did you ever did you ever feel like that? But I think poking fund at the repetitiveness is one thing, but if you poke fund at the absurdity of a situation, then it's then it's just your Bruce

Willis. Yeah, how does the same ship having the same guy three times? Stuff like that? Yeah, Okay, these guys just keep on coming and it's like, I know, come on, I've been here shooting these guys for twenty minutes. Climb in another unclimbable wall. Aye. So it's pretty sharp dialogue. Yeah, everything about it is pretty much top notch, you know, just like the last one. But it is again, just just like the last one in the what's the line I love from the grenade

line? Do you have a plan to go with that? Yeah? Tons of stuff like that constantly, constantly. It's great, great, sharp, witty, artful dialogue. I feel like that game and Batman both like like any any sort of belly aching about like it's you know, it's the same experience. Like I get that some people don't want more of that. I am so totally fine. Those were the two best experiences of two years ago. Yeah, so I had so much fun with the last games in that

series. That if they want to do, if they want to take me on that trip again, I'm on board totally. The same time, like, I can't help but feel like a little I mean, they're they're kind of inherently less exciting this time because one end and on one end, nothing has really matched those games. Yeah at doing those things. But but then like it's I really like Batman, but I hope they don't make a third Batman game. And I'm totally with you on this game as well. Same

thing. They I think if they make another Batman game, they have to do something maybe not as dramatic as they did with Arkham Asylum, though that would be nice, but they have to do something more than they did with Arkham City. But but I mean, yeah, you're you're right, it is inherently less exciting the second time around for Batman. And you know, in the case of Uncharted, like, yeah, it's the third one, but they didn't really Charted two was the one that Yeah, and Charted two

is where they really hammered out the formula. And I mean to marginalize the first game at the beginning of discussion, but it is a different game. Yeah, Like they actually in the behind the scenes videos. They even acknowledge that. They're like, yeah, we made that first game, and you know, it was it was fine, but there was like this thirty second sequence in it that everybody loved. So we looked at that we were like,

all right, we're making that the entire next game. Yeah. Yeah, they were totally moments and there were things about Uncharted one that looked great and things about that didn't look awesome. But two was a water ship. Yeah, well, I feel like too, just right, it's like one, it's him like they were working on it. In two it seemed like they were having one. It was it was still like, okay, you

are secondhand Indiana Jones uh with with the wise cracks and all. But I feel like by the time you get to two, he's got a little more. Yeah, there was a confidentity too that was really great. Yeah, there's some good range to pretty much all the characters in this, Like, there's there's some cool backstory, there's some playable flashbacks. I can I want to give too much away because I mean, playing this game is playing this game like if you played it once, like you've played it, you know,

like you can't go back and see everything play it. You cannot play what has DLC comes. It comes with a hammer, finished the game, hit yourself in the head with the hammer until you don't remember playing the game. But point being like, you know, giving away a lot of this game is a disservice to the experience because like going through it yourself and seeing

it all. Like, I'm kind of of two minds about the way they marketed it because they've shown like probably half of the really impressive set pieces in this game have been out there in some form. I feel like I haven't seen that much just the flooding, but watching the ship, the ship, the burning, the burning chateau. You haven't seen that stuff. Well, So that's the thing, is like everything that I've seen has been very much

out of context. It's been like beat right right, so you see like, Okay, I know that there's this thing, but I don't know how crazy it gets. It's the it's the chateau, the ship, and then the cargo plane sequence. They showed it even multiplayers stuff. That map is derived from that. Yeah, but that sequence in the in the campaign is probably more impressive than anything I remember from Uncharted two. That one thing, but it's still the same style of thing, right to the point that you

can only see so many of those before. It's like she's saying that they've they've they've upped the annie even on their set pieces. But it's it's in that But yeah, like you said, it's in that same style. How do you feel about reinvented like as as kind of our premier uncharted player, Like, does the notion of another tale of Nathan Drake coming so soon potentially with reduction in scale due being on a handheld, Like, do you think that works? One thing? You have to back up and ask how much

I want to play Vida Games, which is not very much. Yeah. And also, I mean this is an uncharted game coming from a different developer, so who knows how well they can nail like the specific like personality driven stuff that makes this game so good. Right? Do we know if if Nightdogg has had any sort of fingerprints on that thing? I think they do have something. I'm sure. Yeah, there's they're signing off on parts of it. Yeah, and those guys, those guys in Ben have obviously proven

themselves. Yeah, haven handheld games super, But I don't know about an uncharted game, right, But yeah, I mean, like I I could use some more time away from these guys, you know, like once every two years seems like a good interval to me. But like I fought the same way about about Batman, Like yeah, I just yeah, and that extent is to all media, like yeah, no interest in any other Batman

related material. Just give me one terrific Batman game every two years, and I'll happily reconnect with that character for that fifteen hour period to a point and then we can we can forget about it. But like you said, you know, like next, next, next time to change stuff up. I don't. I think they very easily could get away with it again. I just would hope that they would realize to not go back to the well at the time Arkham World, the entire world now complant That sounds like a good

idea. We don't really need Earth. It's just making a prison all Batman's Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, yeah dude. They showed shoot the shoot Mania level editor in France over the weekend. Tell me about it. The e W E W s C E s WC. You're supposed to be the sports editor Esports and Anime Europe. Anyway, I think it's the place where they debuted track Mania footage track Mandia two footage. Last year,

they showed shoot Mania a little bit of a level editor. Looks okay, looks kind of like track Mania with no track and a gun and no no gun because it's just the map editor. So because it says nothing about how it's played or what it even is. But it is shoot Many a storm. Are you just are you playing? That's the name of the game. It's because it's shoot Mania because just like track MANI two is track Mania two Canyon, they're gonna do three environments for each game, so they'll be track

Mania two Stadium, you know, like whatever, whatever. So this is just storm is the name of this one. And it looked to be I don't know if there were trees. It was outdoors, so I don't know if it's like a storm the castle thing and they're doing castle parts, or or if it's just raining. It wasn't raining. It was not raining, but maybe the rain's not in yet. Okay, they could still be working on that part. I don't know. So you watched fifteen minutes of shoot

Mania level editors watched about four minutes. It sounds like you don't know anything more. I don't speak French. Yeah, so that's a hindreds for sure. I don't know. It seems okay, all right, we'll check back in with you. What I come back from Montreal? Yes, let you know. How am I not speaking French? Went those track many guys wouldn't tell me shit at the airport. They're France anyway, kept going the trek

Mania and they said nothing, you guys speak French. You have to know about this stuff, right, track Mania, Jump Jumapel, track Maniacs four twenty. Then you're in. Yeah, they sure you the handshake and keys to the city saw yours wmpest hand shake. So yeah, I guess I don't want to tax you Brad too much more on Uncharted three stuff because yeah, it's just I mean talking ab I want to play it, Yeah,

you absolutely should. I don't know. It's it's weird to think that all of a sudden, they have like Naughty Dog has basically completed the Naughty Dog cycle on this game, right they they basically their thing has to come up with a new ip for a new platform and make three of them and then they're out right, so is this it? Ye? I think it probably is. I bet that bet they don't make an uncharted four, but I bet there is an uncharted four. Yeah, the that's too valuable not to

do something with at this point. Yeah, but and I imagine those dudes are just so burned out on making uncharted stuff. Probably they could probably just like just as much as they could have used a jack palate cleanser, like I'm sure they wanted a They're they're looking forward to a little bit of a break from from Nathan Drake. At the same time, though, I mean, who knows when the next PlayStation is coming? Who knows how much time Naughty Dog has killed? I do bet you don't, don't don't, I'm

ready, I'm ready. How long? How much your money you got? How many world points? None? Didn't forget it? How much? How many sky how many I've got one hundred and ten thousand planets? All right? February sixteen, twenty fourteen. All right, see's that easy. Didn't have to give you anybody. You heard that? Yeah, I heard that too. What these microphones were all connected to these headphones? Fuck? You didn't tell me that. Also, it's recording this, so everyone else is

gonna get to know this as well. How this kind of how this has been set up. Is that just how Sony's going to lauch all consoles now? February yep, February twenty second for the Vita. Really, yeah, I see, I was. It was so close put on Valentine's Day for lovers. I'm ready to close the book on a lot of these franchise, these current gen franchises. Gears. Yeah, Like there's the kind of play

zone plant on Charted. It makes you wonder, like, I mean, these guys are at the top of their game, but they kind of seems like they've done all they can do with this hardware, yeah, you know, or I mean even if they could squeeze a little more out of it, like a little bit more of and all this stuff. Well, they've been around so long, right, this generation has it's been pretty good, uh and pretty long in the tooth. So they have made their trilo everybody's

made their trilogies and and then some yeah on this console. So I think we are all kind of like like a battlefield. It is really like a stark reminder that this generation would normally be over right, you know, just

because the the disparity between the console and the PC versions. Even even Batman's got like a little little extra kicking the pants on the PC right with some of the physics and there there there are things that are happening outside of this console generation, right we can, but it's like they built they built frost Bite too, you know, specifically to be kind of a next generation sort of thing on PC, and you know, consoles can't handle it at the

same level that the PC can, you know. So it's it's one of those things where right about now would be the time where you're like, maybe we had new console next to Christmas. That might be that might be all right. It's funny that it seems like it's not like a lack of technical ability that's driving this so much as like people are just sick of these ideas, or like they want new stuff, but nobody's willing to put new ips

out there until they've got a new platform to do it all. I think that that'll be the thing that ends up driving, you know, the start of the next generation sooner rather than later. It will be like this time, it's it's not going to always be like oh well, sales have trickled

off to a point where we have to do it. You know, sales for this stuff are still going strong and kind of a scary sort of way, and they're still putting that plenty of great games, but not everything is hitting the way it used to. You know, third parties will probably start griping a little bit about like, hey, these guys need to put out something new because we need the rush of the influx of interest in this sector that happens when new consoles come out, and then on the backs of that,

people start buying ads on websites and people start doing all all those stuff because there's a whole new generation out there that then and all this money that has to be spent that is not being spent right now. So you have a lot of I think it's it's it's a weird health of the industry sort

of thing. Well, it's a scary thing because we don't have the you know, the PC isn't there's a strong platform to kind of kick it off, So it is entirely yeah, like at the impetus of the console manufacturers to start it up, like all right now at the time, now you know, we've we've done the research, people will be willing to spend this much money on console and like you said, like the economy is not in

the crapper as much as it is. They have to decide to take that risk, Like launching a new console is a considerable risk, right and right now they are making money on consoles, and they're making money on games, and they're selling a whole shitload of games because they have massive fucking install bases.

So to to to get to the point where it's like, okay, Soft, we really need you to make a new platform, Like, there has to be a lot of pressure for that to seem like a thing that they would want to do at this point, Yeah, I think so, But I still I think twenty thirteen starts to make a lot of sense. Yep, that's my money. Yeah, which one? Both both Sony won't won't let it happen? Again? I think I like both, like six months both, there's both like really like day and date both head launch.

I mean we in PlayStation three, we're like two weeks afar. Yeah, yeah, but I feel little did we know? Those weren't even really yeah, the same markets, I think, yeah, those felt felt different even at the time, even at the launch, it was like pick up both and get served two different masters. Yeah, I guess so that was Yeah. I would love to see what comes next. I kind of just want to see what the I feel like we're at such a point in the industry

where we really hit some real big mainstream veins in generation. What do you do next? How big of a leap do you make? I mean that's always very exciting, right, It's like, does the mainstream care about a full generational shift if it means a five hundred dollars console? Probably not right, you know that's not that's so not necessary now. Yeah, Like it's been so long and like GPUs and stuff have advanced to such a degree.

The Will Smith came in, Like Will Smith was really good at coming in and slinging a bunch of numbers around, yeah, and making you understand. So he was talking about like the advances in GPU technology since the stuff was

like fix when they finalize the hardware. So do you think, like knowing that, do you think you do a refresh and keep the branding because these things have penetrated so deeply, Like a three sixty has great brand recognition, right, So it's like, do you do a refresh on the three sixty with new hardware in it. That's like, you know, instead of going Xbox seven twenty whatever, people said, is it like more like a three sixty two or like a three sixty AXX three sixty squared or something like that.

No, that's you're just talking about just a matter of branding. I'm talking about branding where you're like, this isn't like the next thing that's like, you know, this is like, hey, it's a better three sixty Xbox and PlayStation or the brands like that. People know, Yeah, totally, and and we'll have to do it all over again. But the naming on this stuff is just getting even weirder and weirder because Sony can get away

with PlayStation four. Yeah, but Microsoft couldn't go to Xbox three from here, could they. Now, he's a really dumb Yeah, even as a

joke code name sort of thing is really stupid. Yeah, I don't know, just call it Xbox, the Xbox drop, everything called the Xbox, and then you have the different models, you have your Xboxes, you have Xbox I mean, because at that point you're getting you're getting like almost ten years away from the original Xbox and that thing didn't sell great, you know, yeah, didn't move necessarily a ton of software kind of kind of Halo

and Fable were the brands to make it out alive of that generation. And you have like two camps of people, some people that just called this current machine the Xbox or the three sixty. Yeah, but you can't call it the three sixty two. Yeah, just call it the The Xbox is the name of the division. They're not gonna throw out the Xbox name because they

see that as being valued valuable. I think, I think Vida, I think you're right, though, I think there is there that you get a four, So I mean that was that was certainly the marketing thing behind the three sixty. Yeah, So I don't know if they're gonna go for that again, who knows. It's like it's like the PlayStation three plus a little more a little extront if they announced before Sony, like they're just gonna have to come up with someone on their own as opposed to some kind of like

marketing response to what the competition is doing. Yeah, I don't know. It'll be interesting, and it's very exciting because I just love launches. Are are probably one of my favorite things and the industry when it when it's a big console kind of like all right, yeah, let's put up our best.

We're gonna show you things that will never happen that I'll never come out on this console, and like here's the dream, right, and it's like, oh, it's here's our same nightmare vision of the future and what games will look like and how you will play them, and fucking it's gonna be get super excited. You'd be like that's crazy, there's no way you'll get

this. I'm on board usually I agree with you, but like looking at something like Uncharted three, I mean when these consoles came out, I never would have thought that this stuff that we would be playing it would have looked like that while we were still on these consoles. Yeah, some stuff,

I don't know. I feel like there are some really good developers out there now fast their their pipeline down that point that like holy shit, Well that's that's also another thing, is like stuff just gets more complicated every generation, right, And I don't know, but I think this time it's not going to like the development is not going to necessarily get that much more complicated, especially for the developers that have been making PC games all along because generation and

like asset generation, you know, like they're already generating it at ten eighty right in a lot of cases, you know, so they don't need to go out and generate more. I hope not hire res assets. Who knows. I just hope now, because it would be real bummer if that happened. Sadly, there's a new video spack out there. Probably just makes sense sense that, like you know, this next generation will be the one where all the work everyone learned over the past five years really starts to pay off.

That'd be great, I mean, but there will be things like I'm sure there will be new physics models and stuff like that, and you know a lot of stuff middleware, I mean, their developers having to get up to speed on on that stuff kind of all all the time throughout a generation. Maybe maybe there'll be twenty seven cores you got a program for. I

don't know. I mean, you can't make too many predictions too far out because new hardware capabilities enable like radically different I say, paradigms or whatever. But I mean something like Assassin's Creed, like the idea of like complicated crowd technology like that, like one or two generations ago, it was just like fun thought of because you just couldn't do it. Now you can't state of

emergency, dude. And then all the silly little things like we learned how to exploit this shader and it's like, yeah, oh cool, great that came like seven games after. You know, I don't know. I hope it happens sooner than later, because, like I said, I I will not stand another Gears kill Zone Resistance for the numbers getting too damn high. Well, you'll get all that stuff on the next generation of console. I hope, maybe not Resistance, but you'll certainly maybe maybe not kill Zone.

I don't know, I hope, but it probably kills Zone. But but but you all you do is add another different console to it, and I'm totally excited. Again. You say it's on the same brand of consoles, and I'm like, well, I mean, if if if thirteen happens, we've got one more holiday without new consoles next year, and we practically know what all the big games are next year at this point, right, with some a few exceptions. Yeah, yeah, if you I mean, like

next hopefully they'll be some more announcements. Yeah, I mean we know a lot of big, big starts coming out next and it would kind of be the off year anyway for a lot of those brands. Well you know, Halot Force coming out and BioShock, BioShock and there's I mean, I mean for the stuff that came out this year, it would be like the development year anyway, Like you know, they wouldn't hopefully they wouldn't turn out another one of any of those things they just mentioned in a year. Maybe they

would, I don't know, anyway, next two or twenty thirteen. Well it's weird because I feel like I'm hearing that sentiment coming out of the development community of like, yeah, like you know, these these folks don't want to make another one of these games for this hardware, Like they want to have their next version of whatever it is that they're making to be the bigger,

better on the you know, on new hardware. But I don't feel like having it out around launch when it benefits from that that effect, the

you know, the launch effect of selling to everyone who bought one. But I also feel like I haven't heard any of the like rumblings of yeah, you know, Sony's coming around with some stuff and Microsoft's got some stuff like you'll be real excited next Yeah. Like I feel like those those two things, like I've seen this happen before, and I feel like those two things kind of happen in lockstep to a certain degree of like, Okay, we you know, we did our last hurrah that we are going to do on

on the you know, PlayStation two. We made the last grand Theft auto game. We're gonna make there, so we're gonna start planning for the future. And right around the same time, you start hearing, hey cell processors, isn't that some crazy shit? If anything, if anything, we've heard the opposite. It seems like, yeah, heard, you know, and I did super well. And then like the kind of pushed back plans staving off. Yeah, all that stopped spending all that money. Yeah, for

as long as they can. We'll see what happens. It's time play and chart at three. Okay you should Okay, I totally should this next week. Yes, it's a week from today. Fantastic. They got it out there early. If you went to that movie theater event in a major city last week, it's probably on the way to your house right now. Oh right, that's kind of a cool idea, they're giving out vouchers and stuff.

Very cool idea. I went to the one. I went to the one in San Francisco, so wait, that was like a that was like a fan thing. That was like, yeah, it was it was. It was different from Vinny And I went to the one in oh nine for two, which was I think free. I think it was just like members of the placestation community. I don't know if you had to have an invite or what, but like they basically they have a big tournament in a movie theater and they project the game up on a screen. It's pretty crazy.

And at that one, like at the end of the night, they were just still by the way, everybody's here. It gets the game, right now, you get a game. It was like a week before it came out. That's very cool. So this time it was a lot were structured and you have to buy into it. You have to. You can actually, I think you could buy tickets at a box office in a movie theater. I'm but the ticket got you the game. But yeah, it was

a sixty dollars ticket, right. I think you could buy like a fifteen or twenty dollars ticket to just go and get like a gift bagger or whatever.

But if you paid sixty bucks, you can go for this evening thing where a couple of Naughty Dog guys come out and you play in the tournament and blah blah blah, and then they ship you the game like a week before it hits retail, So you're not walking out with the game, but you're getting in this case, okay, but you're still getting it a week ahead of time, and you're just paying what you would have paid at retail anyway. So it's kind of super fans. Yeah, it's like a really

really decent fan outreach kind of. Yeah, that seems great. Well, the Call of Duty event they did a similar thing. Yeah, everyone who went to Call of Duty Elite got a copy of Hardened Addition, not right there on the spot, but you know they will be getting one. So that's that is the the highest Tiger version of the game. They're not doing one hundred and fifty dollars night Vision Goggle pack this year. Really Yeah, good for them. They just ran out of stuff. I think, what

are they gonna put in this for the best? Yeah, that car with that car broke it. The car I really need less giant things in my like I've got my Call of Duty, I've got my night vision goggles out somewhere. I might have been prominently placed since that game. They're they're in my living room and I keep looking at like, fuck am I gonna do

with these stupid things, like I don't want these out? You wait, but that Harden edition, that Hardened Edition version comes with a year of Call Duty Elite, So that means you get all the DLC that's coming out for that game over the next year. Also, so as a thing for you know, you got for going to this crazy event that they were given a lot of money to charity. Anyway, Like, good deal they've they've done, They've done right by those people. I'd say, uh, you guys

want to talk about blizz Con any Oh, yeah, that happened. We didn't none of us win. So I'm going to blitz Con. That is that you're one man NFL Blitz Convention. It's where I played Blitz and get Blitz. Sounds like a pretty good con. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Cosplay is pretty it's but what can we what can we say about the what happened at blizz Conn while expansion, Yes, the mists of Pandaria, yeah, which I guess was was revealed through trademark. Yeah, we saw them.

We saw the name while ago and I'm all you've been waiting for years. Yeah, I have been on the forefront of pro Pandarian uh relations, class representation, ambassador within the world of warcraft. Guys, they discovered a new land mass in the world. Somehow they've been, they appeared somehow, they've been far to the east. People have been swimming around in the oceans of this world for literally years. You have been to another dimension and to

an undersea kingdom, and to the top of the world. But we never noticed those other continents. There are pandas and monks and chi there are their gees. Panda has a bow staff, fu shit up with it? And the dope racist Yeah, it's profoundly racist. There's a monk. Yeah, that's the new new thing. Attack on the monk, I heard. But there's no brew master. I don't think you can play as I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will go roll on some come on, he's just

the the brew master. That's crazy. I don't know. They've gone goofy a wilted get scams a full of weird joke nothing nothing about this. I feel like maybe pre World of Warcraft, suggesting that you would play like that was an absurdity. But Warcraft since at least Warcraft whatever since Warcraft two has had some goofy shit in it. It's just bubbled up for them for the surface. Believen the first one, and you clicked on a guy enough times

he said stuff. Yeah, so it's kind of always but there's no more pretense, no doce they start having goblins riding fucking motorcycles through azroths. Okay, so it's just craziness. Now now it's whatever fucking batshit stuff you want to throw in there, your thrond, which is fine, like and with the game, you know, as mature as it is now, uh, it makes sense for them to just like whatever everything at it here you go, Yeah, like the game's best minds are working on Titan now, so

you know that game. I mean, it just feel safe to say World of Warcraft is peaked. Yeah it is. They're not like and that it's not accruing new subscribers. Yeah probably, Yeah, yeah, I think they're I don't mean that is a bad thing. I just mean you know, like that game has been around for a long assal I mean nothing last forever.

Yeah, and it's it's not that's it's gonna keep going for a while too exactly, but they still really at least ever quest one expansion, Like I would not be surprised to see World of Warcraft go on to enjoy a

life at least as long as that. Well, the thing is, I mean the like the infrastructure and like all the people to support the game, Like, all that stuff is so well established at this point that if they continue to drop off on subscriber count, they can probably proportionately scale that stuff back and still remain oh sure profitable. On that think they would be rolling a lot of those people over onto the game that they're ramping up on.

I'm talking about just literally like customer sport and data centers and all that stuff, just just the infrastructure. That stuff probably scales the number of players pretty pretty directly. So they did. So there's that which is a new playable race which can be either Hoard or Alliance. Right, I'm pretty sure I didn't actually read, uh, but but I think they always drop into other stuff. So I think there's like pet battles now attacking pets or something like

that. They put Pokeman into the game, yeah, which is okay. Yeah, And if I could go buy the figures for these pets and then drop them on some sort of device, is an Activision Activision products Portal power Killed Grunt looks a lot like a Marlock just saying yeah. I just I wonder if this is the first of their more frequent but smaller boxed expansions. I don't know, as they kind of talked about that, did they do

something to the talent tree too? Is that a knowther stuff's been in flushed quite a while, Like they said that they're looking to redesign artwork on a lot of the existing classes because they've you know, kind of gotten more complicated, newer stuff and they're gonna go back and refresh the old stuff. But no timetable. Uh fucking pandas you know, it's funny. I feel like I know they they did it first, but it's really hard not to just Kung Fu Panda that that whole thing. Oh yeah, yeah, like the

j black in the back of your head. The stuff they put up is like yeah, like you're right, you're not wrong. Yeah, but how's a feel now, Blizzard. Yeah, I was gonna say I didn't want to be that mean. Yeah, a little bite in the ass of like you guys just ripped off Kung Fu Panda he was first geez, but whatever World Warcraft expansions, uh StarCraft? Yeah, did World Warcraft expansion not bringing me back to the game? I'll say it here and now yeah, same

here. Well, the response seems Thomas went down there too, he's uh and he's big World of Warcraft guy. It's just seemed like the general response is like kind of soon and also kind of maybe not as much as it's

been an That's what I'm saying. They've been out there saying in the past, like we're gonna start ramping up on the frequency of these releases because I mean, like that the anecdotal evidence I even saw it, like playing because StarCraft and Wild share of friends List, so like logging on to play StarCraft

at home after Cataclysm came out. For the first three weeks or a month, it was like twenty people on my friends list that were never there, right, and they're all playing Wild for like a month, and then like like clockwork, they all just vanished. Do you think they're just like we

gotta hit it, we gotta hit it hard. It's like it's the content in those boxes that's getting people back into the game and playing it unless they level through the Like those people aren't gonna hang around and run that raiding treadmill waiting for like content patches. It's ninety now right there, that level cap five, So it only went up to five levels in the last one.

The people have become so efficient at running up that that level tree. Oh yeah, you always hear like, oh, I'm here's the world first guy to hit the new new level caps like eighteen hours after the game came out. Interesting so StarCraft. But I feel like they've been doing this for so long that it's not even just like the crazy most because like first expansion pack, when that happened, it's like, oh, well, it's just a

lunatic that's running up the you know, the level tree so quickly. But they've put out so many of these expansions, so people have rerolled so many times. Even I think, you know, post Cataclysm, they have just have it wired. Like I don't think you have to be that hardcore a WOW player that if you've stuck with it for for any length of time. You probably know what that path is. Yeah, you can fly through it. And then they've got that. They've got that new annual subscription they announced

that cheaper. They want you to go on contract. Yeah, for a while, and you get the oblow three free if you do. It's like pass thing whatever, right, Like wow, is that what they're calling? Yeah? I think, I think so. I don't know all the warcraft online pass. Yeah, all right, let's so. No one gives a shit about pandash. I give it, I'll roll a panda. Everybody cares about hydrolysks. Tell me, tell me about the shot changes that are being

made to star Craft. There are some crazy fucking changes being made and losing your goddamn mind. Last week, I don't know if it's it's the appropriate venue. Mother Ship. They took the mother ship out. Holy shit, they took up the carrier. You know what? That sounds big? Mother

ship sounds like a significant thing. Wellmore that like theckers are still in their backers are got a speed upgrade, which is kind of crazy because those things are beefy as hell, so being slow is kind of the one disadvantage. Anyway, the mother Ship being taken out is crazy, and that it was a super unit. It was like the fabled super unit, which is like the thing you can only have the top of the time, but nobody ever

ever used it for anything ever, Like it was basically a joke. Every time it came out, it's like, oh, man, like I rushed the mothership or whatever. It's just like, did they replace it or not

specifically, So they took that out. And the Carrier, which is like Carrier was in StarCraft one if you remember, it was this big sort of almost cone shaped ship that has like ton a tiny little flyers swarming, right, nobody ever use those things either, gone like they they made some pretty well I was gonna say bold cuts, but if nobody is using those units, maybe not a huge deal. They took out the Overseer for the Zerg, which is a huge deal because people use the Overseer all the fucking time.

It is a very important part of the Zurg. Right process, Yeah, so they're replacing that in some interesting ways. There's basically three new units on each fashion. The Overseer is the floating gas bag the vision right or that. The Overlord is the basic flying farm version. But then you morph that thing into the overseer, which is the only way that ZERD can detect into invisible stuff. Okay, it's the only way you get detection outside of

a couple of structures. But that's not the thing that spawns the bane lings or those Zerglings are Zirglings morph into banelings. What's the thing that shoots little things under ground? Bood Lord brud Yeah, brude Lords still in there and pretty much unchanged. They made a new thing called the swarm Host, which is basically a burrowing version of the brood Lord. Like it burrows underground so you can't see it, but it spits out a bunch of kind of stuff,

Brudling style, little creepy crawleys. So the three units they added are not the in addition to the other changes there, there's all there's nine units. There's three perfection okay, and then a ton of the existing units got changes, like the helly uh is this? It's really fast little thing that shoots it's a little car thing that shoots a jet of flame, and it's

super it's super weak. It's really good against light units. But at late game it had not a lot of uses because there's not as many light units around in most cases, but so that thing can transform into robot. Now they're like, fuck, it's yeah, we'll just come up with some credit. Like they can't. Some of the excuses they came up with for the

existence of these abilities and new units and stuff is kind of ridiculous. But whatever you think it'll be in the single player of the of the Well and it's all zerk, so like it probably fights some of it, but some of that stuff probably not. But uh, the craziest sounding thing in this whole in this whole expansion is this thing called the replicant for the pro or the pronost, which can turn into any unit that you can see, okay, for any faction so spy No, no, it's like you're literally gets

the ability becoming this unit permanently. Fucking crazy. Wow, whatever you get costs associated with turning into unit, No, no, it's the same cost. It's just it's expensive and you just have to hope that someone or something

insane your way and then trying to do it immediately. Well, I mean like the idea of prodosts, like the prods death ball, which is like the kind of jokey name for just like if you get up to two hundred supply with produces, like you're pretty much gonna murder anything that exists, so already having offense like that and having like a line of siege tanks behind it, getting a bunch of metaacs to like heal you as you're attacking and stuff.

It's just insane. I don't know how that thing is going to survive into the shipping game like it is. It just seems like there's too much crazy stuff you could do. What just seems like they have to make the

other factions just as crazy. Yeah, so they're asking all this stuff like prior to any sort of beta test process for the Heart of the Swamp there there will be a public beta, and I'm sure that stuff will change before that beta even rolls around, and then I'm sure it'll change dramatically during the beta. So who knows, Like some of these units you're saying, like you you don't think this is even like the state of that things will be

in by the time the public beta happens. Probably not. Probably not. Yeah, Like some of these units might not even make it into the beta that we actually get to play, So what are what the fuck are they actually announcing then with all this stuff, they're just saying, like, here's the direction we're going. Yeah, like they're announcing, they're very honest and open that like here's what we've got right now, like this is the best

stuff we've got working. But we'd love it if this works. But but like like they're very forthcoming about like, yeah, we can't quite figure out how to balance this thing right now, and if we can't balance it just coming out of the game. So this is really this is this is about like letting the folks that would come to blizz Con know what's up, like he and the greater StarCraft community, which is like rabid for the stuff, right, because these are dramatic changes to this game, So they say,

how this does this replace StarCraft too? This becomes StarCraft two? You mean, like at the pro level and stuff. I'm sure they will like, well, you know, it's weird, I mean because brood War is still like widely played in Korea. It's a different, different case, it's right, you know, that's like some people still play Super Turbo at fighting game tournaments, but no one's playing you know, uh second impact, Like do you think I launched battle that I don't have Heart of the Swarm installed.

Uh, I just don't play against those people. You don't play against those people yea, or those people people on the new game with BRU or you could you could opt. Yeah, you'll probably be to choose if you show if I have Heart of the Swarm, I can you want to play with a friend, you could probably choose one or the other. But I'm sure they'll let you choose. But interesting, But I mean, the mind share

is going to move on to all the meaningful play is gonna happen. You think they'll split the leaderboard or they'll they'll keep the they'll keep the league stuff. Yeah, I mean this is this is a very different Games of Liberty. They'll keep whatever they have now and start Yeah, just like you know, the same thing. But so there is going to be kind of like this dead drop point for for the Wings of Liberty. Right. Well, we're like, okay, this is this is what StarCraft to multiplayer was up

to this point. We stopped and now all future developments go into the Heart of this Swarm unless it's like security fixes and stuff, because you, I mean, you think about the you know, they still put out diapblo two patches in some weird way, Like, you know, I'm sure that sort of stuff they would still address in all products, but that's sort of balance stuff like if someone figures out that there is some crazy exploit, Yeah, like you think to fix that, yeah, go back in and touch that.

They totally would, But I mean, yeah, the day that the heart of this swarm comes out, I'm sure Wings of Liberty is considered like an archival version of StarCraft two and it's just kind of on the shelf at that point. So so you think any sort of like big meaningful balance changes other than to address game they will see, they will cease active like balance

and design work on that game. They talk about pricing at all, or they've said from the beginning, even like as soon as they announced the you know, very controversial like three game model or whatever, they said that you can think of the other two as expansions. So forty bucks I can almost

guarantee it. But man, some of the yeah, and then some of the change as they're making are so exciting to people who are really into this game, And like, again, I'm not going to bore you with all of it, but shit, is it more than the units is there anything else? Yeah, just just so many abilities, so many changes to like

everything, like practically everything seems like it's gotten a change. So we do have a story up on the site, yeah about blizz Con, Yes, thanks to a friend of the side, Brian Lahy was down there, Yeah, and is way better and more hardcore about StarCraft than I am, and he dug into that impossible. So we've got a lengthy story authored by him on the site where you can learn dive deep into the star business. I

think he didn't. He did the best thing that you could do with something like this, which is just to list out a bunch of the crazy stuff that happened while he was playing it, just like here's here's the situation I was in, and here's like the kind of brainstorm I had on in the moment with the new tools I had to like find a way out of it and stuff like that. They announced, they announced that anything else, like like the Titan stuff or talk about any of their other properties, so well,

like Diablo stuff come out of it. Diablo. They're very little new Diablo stuff shown there. So this was a StarCraft too pretty much. Well, I guess the misspend Yeah, that was the biggest announcement, and then they were showing the StarCraft stuff, like they had a little bit of new PvP stuff for for Diablo. But my understanding is, I mean they're trying to get that game done, you know, like they don't have time to be busting out another playable. It sounds like they were not shy about desires

to put that game out on consoles. Yeah, I guess they talked about that, so yeah, like officially, like in panels, like not not saying it's definitely happening, more just saying like, yeah, we think we can think we can do it, or we've been talking. Well, but what I what I like the thing that I heard was like the consistent message was like yeah, like obviously we want to, but we're not going to announce anything until we are rock solid on how we're going to do that,

and that's that'll be after the PC versions out, I'm sure. So they're like, let's let's finish that PC version first and then we'll start thinking about console stuff. So not taking the focus off that at all. Whatever. I'm very happy to play that game on a PC. It totally him. But there's nothing wrong with direct direct control as it's proven effective in games like that. Yeah, as long as they as long as they get to click

in the rights, like the click click. Like hopefully everybody remembers at this point, because it's been like everybody has reminded each other enough at this point that like the old Diablo games came out on consoles. Yeah, and they were fun. Yeah, they were fine, They were kind of cool.

It was one of the things that you weren't really sure if it was gonna work or not, and it's like, oh no, like Diablo totally, like it doesn't look as good and all that stuff, but you know, they'll play on a pis piss one one ye PlayStation I'm sorry, on a PlayStation or the PS one if you have one of those. There you go, there's the name for the new console PSX. Yes, no for the Xbox Okay, sorry, I understood. It's the PlayStation. Xbox stands for

PlayStation x uh probably the second Xbox's h do you know? Do you know what the code was? People with people must have gotten some There was something. I don't know it. Yeah, what is it? Damn it? I remember seeing it was I think it was golden want to say it was another Merlock or something. You guys you got I heard some fresh merlock buzz out on was some kind of Merlock thing. Yeah, it would be awesome as a pet. Was the Olympus Merlock. So I never made that was

not a great Merlock sounds kind of give it another shot. That was by design, but I guess i'd try. That's better. We're a little more galling in there. Blizzard Doda was the other thing, right, there were there were actually four products there. Although it's weird. We live in the craziest times yet, I know, I know there is Dota two from Valve, So you want to know what's even better? What Brian was down there waiting line to play Blizzard Doda. Who does he run into Gabe Newell?

Oh? Fuck? Waiting in line to play waiting chatted with Gabe a little bit going on, See what I mean? Man? There now like two premium your products from two premier developers, Valven Blizzard, both making things called Doda Doda in the name. I'm just like, yes, Blizzard, so it's technically Blizzard defense of the Ancients. Yes, it's yes, Yes, you're right, even though there are ancients in this thing. I don't know some of those characters are pretty ancient. But this looks I mean, what's

what's crazy? I mean, Blizzard Doda is they're all star Blizzard like it is characters that you know from Blizzard Games. Content is the unleash hot fury. I sure, hope. So I need to look at the fun I don't know if they put the full roster out yet. If I had to guess, they went Diebolo Warcraft StarCraft, which is no, no, no, because if it's Doda, you need to have like a million fucking heroes, right They're only doing thirty. So that's the weird thing about this is

that it's not like a comercial product. It's just an add on for StarCraft. Oh so weird. I'm not real sure what they're gonna do with it right now. It's like they're gonna distribute it if it's going to be a well, there's so many variables consider I mean before we have a page for it on the side right now, but at some point in the future we

may have to delete it. I feel like I feel like we've reached the point with both of these things where these companies have there's this insane brinksmanship where both companies are like, we're gonna fucking develop this thing. We're gonna make it, really have no idea if we're how we're gonna sell it. But we're gonna have a million dollar tournament over here, and we're gonna announce it at our big, you know, annual convention here. Well, I mean,

don't don't don't be mistaken. I don't think in any way Blizzard doota as being positioned as like a competitor, like a serious competitors. It is crazy. What do we do? I don't know. I mean figure it out. Before StarCraft two came out, they were talking about that battlenet market place where people would be able to like sell their mods and stuff. So I mean, who knows, Like there's every possibility this thing could come out and like usher that thing in, right, or maybe they just do it

for the fans and put it out there and that's it. I don't know. God should be really weird if they release have for just free, Like this is a free it's pretty it's Dota, it's free. Would you want to why would you pay money for anything else? Also want play other game? This game also free to play? Yeah? Crazy, it's bizarre. I don't know. It's hard to process. I don't understand. The trailer they put out is super tongue in cheek for that would they would at least

what did what did he? What did Brian have to say that to Gabe? Or they talked about the game a little bit, just other like personal stuff. I love the games like I just want to hear some game stories. No, I just love the games out there, like on the fucking streets like this. I want to see what the thing is like, I know blizzards. I want to talk to me from one of my guys about it. I don't want to go see it. I can't because I like

it. Fly me down to Anaheim. I'm gonna go stand in line, and then I'm gonna play fucking some Doda someone else's Doda figures armed always it's right. He doesn't fly commercial for that very reason. Can't carry those blades. Maybe he just can't get a field underneath your your cargo pants. Like we need to stop talking about game Nowell and Knives, because it's gonna just go see it will buy us in the as at some point. That's not a bite, it's more of a staff feels like it sting and he just

can't get enough Doda. He's take ship out of this Doda. I need fresh Doda, just this legal legends stuff. Whatever. I'm gonna fire you. They're gonna hire you. You're gonna make a Doda game for Blizzard. I need somebody else to go over there and just make a Doda game. Just somebody. Well, the world needs to make you half of this code and a gun. Go get a job at Blizzard. Well, I see what they can do something different. I'm done with this. That's that is

a marketplace confusion. M delicious marketplace. But even but like what marketplace? Like what I don't know where is it that it's being They're catering to an audience that's used to not paying for the game. Yeah, they came to an audience that is probably savvy enough to know the difference and all that stuff.

Like, neither of these games is going to really get marketed. You know you're gonna see TV ads for Doda, right, were these two things both like it will Valve's gotten way into TV advertising, Dota Billboard on one on one. So I feel like and beyond the Blizzard, one of these needs to shake out before the other starts doing that, because then it's way too easy to capitalize on someone else's marketing efforts. Yeah, but I think once you shake it out, I don't think that's they're not shake it out.

Yeah, but Valsta doesn't have a mark or a business model for their Doughta, not that they're talking anything. They've spent millions of dollars on research and developments, sell characters. They'll create a Team Fortress to style store for Dota and sell business pieces of it. They'll open up a workshop style thing and let people submit new stuff for Dota like they do for Team Fortress,

and then community creators will make millions of fucking dollars millions. I think I speak hyperboly when I say they have no idea what they're doing as far as like where this is going. Like clearly there's there's like huge fucking business plans. There is a dark plan behind all of this. You know, may

or may not be one plan. I was gonna say, imagine there's about a half dozen plans on each side of like Okay, we could go this route that might work, or we could go this route, but none of them is like put it in a box, put it on store shelves, you know, sell it for fifty bucks. Done? Like none of them? You guys want a pre order Dota too? Are none of them are a traditional product? You're suggesting they're playing both sides against the middle. Yeah,

are you saying that, You're saying there's really only one Dota. Are you saying, whoever wins, we lose Mobamania look for it storm? Yeah, fourth secret world from seventh seal has been broken. There's a map or but it only makes one map. So you open it up that you press the button. There, You've made your Dota map. Everybody makes the same map. You sell it on the marketplace for a nickel, You become a

millionaire. It's a weird I love it. I love this weirdness. Let's talk about some other weird in the in the news, what say you? I've got a little Portal news here. They announced what the second UH free pack for Portal two will be, you know, earlier this month, Yeah, earlier this month they put out the peer review uh DLC, which was a co op focus stuff. Uh. They have now announced an in game map editor that's going to be coming out next year for Portal two, and

there's some screenshots. We have a news story to check it out that has some screenshots of of ostensibly what this level editor looks like. And it's crazy because it's not it doesn't seem like they are playing this from the first person perspective, but they have created these these kind of like little isometric boxes in which you are, you know, gonna alter the geometry kind of in a block out a block, because you know, everything in Portal works in kind

of grid based logic. Yeah, it looked like what I saw, look like the those videos they put out of the demonstrate the weapons and stuff like that, like the first, like the first Portal, like all of the Aperture theme like instructional video stuff. Actually, the stuff is even in Portal too, that you see. They put some trailers out like that too.

Yeah, they productress, but even inside the game, like there's there's some Aperture Science branded stuff that looks like that, and it looks awesome and crazy and potentially like a really easy way to cook up your own damn Portal levels and then upload them and chare them. But they have an evil plan behind this too, that's right. They always do make StarCraft maps Portal to level ter hold, not for Portal Doda. I would I'd play Portal Dota what

have you. Oh, let's see here. Movie rights for Assassin's Creed getting bought. I can't say that's too surprising. I thought I would have assumed it. It happened, all right, Really, I guess Sony bought it according to Variety, Yeah, Sony Pictures Exclusive. Yeah, they've also got uncharted stuff in the world. So PlayStation four font will look like the Assassins Creed movie font whatever that happens to be. Yeah, which will not be

the Assassin's Creed game font. No. Oh, man, I came so close to buying a new PlayStation three by the end of the uncharted review process. Launch old PS three sounds like fucking shit. Yeah, oh god. I got to the point where I plugged headphones into my receiver because that was the best way to hear the game only and not the system. I tried to find a fan replacement online. I couldn't find anybody that sells them. Like, I'll happily open that thing up and swamp it out if I can

find one. Yeah, we're starting to get just kind of circling back to what we talked about before, and I have to derail the news. But it's getting a little too late to buy. It's a little scary. I mean, a, this thing works perfectly fine, so it's hard to justify buying a new one first place. And be how many more I don't know how many more PS three exclusives are you they're gonna be that I'm gonna want to play before it's all like, I just feel like mine could last me

until the end of this. Yeah, that's kind of how I was feeling. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't want to buy a new PlayStation three. As nice as those slims look and everything else, I don't want to buy it as noisy as well. Yeah, since since since I have the fresher one, that's not an issue, but I want to leave it. Yeah, if I if I gotten a refresh was a year ago on the p S three is at least Yeah, I'm okay. If I've gotten that, I feel like I would feel a lot better about making it

through. But now mine is super loud too, And yeah, I've come damn clothes to being like, man, I could use another Blue Ray Player, and I got that slim and I got my launched PS three still both hooked up to cvs. I mean the launch PS three I feel like, still works fine. It's just that yeah you can get so yeah, so damn lad mine works fawlessly. As Jeff had mentioned earlier, February twenty second, twenty twelve is a US launch date for the PlayStation Vita. It's the

everywhere except for Japan. Yeah yeah, that's December seventeenth. Yeah. Yeah, it's come a lot quicker about three months earlier. In two months earlier in Japan. But Old Republic to pick a poison, it's either or pass pass Old Republic would be cheaper initially. Whatever, I'll get a Vita. The Japanese one regions stuff has gotten a little weird. I think the region stuff is fine. I think it is a region free, but the store

stuff wouldn't be right. Well, that's that's weird. Like every when we got our first Japanese PS three's and it was like, okay, no one knows what everything what happens if you put this disc in it, does it work or not? Because that's when they kind of started, that's when sonytly started getting loose about like all right, we're not gonna reason code any of our games like fuck it. But there's still a lot of region throttling on

when end up being the important part of the services part. So I would stuck to add being I think if if we can find someone to sell us a vida that is not grossly overpriced and is a round launched so that we could get one in here for coverage purposes, I would I would entertain that. But what are their games on? That's the car cards cards? Uh?

This this is actually a last week's story, but we kind of missed it as the announcement that Nino Kuoni, a Japanese RPG from Level five the studio in Studio Zibli the you know your your professor Layton people and your U my you know Toro Miyazaki. Uh, those two camps coming together, and some screenshots and stuff came out for this and it looks crazy good as you would kind of expect, I guess from level five stuff like they make really

sharp looking things. And then Namco is doing that here? Is that what the yes, that's the announcement is that they're putting that out in the US. Neo Cooney Wrath of the White Witch, Uh coming out next year here thanks to them. I think they're just adding a subtitle to it, so I think they're still calling it, you know, Cooney Well, but then also throwing a little extra fun on there. Uh. And Layton Brothers Mystery Room is coming to iOS holding for super Layton Brothers. Wait, Layton has

a brother, Yeah there does now, motherfucker evil crabs. You gotta hit him twice, and then the flies they've jumped, and then you gotta hit them when they're on the ground and you're asshole, your asshole partner just hits the power block four times in a row. It's like, thanks for nothing. Everyone's just alive again, and then I'm dead. Thanks believe that though, right? Yeah? Horse and Herschel Yeah Herschel Yeah. What else? I was just saying it out loud for like the pairing, like this Horace

work? And also is it obscure enough? Hector not obscure enough? Horace is definitely about that matches. Uh, how about? How about? How about Ratio? Herbert? I still think I'm Herbert Latona. If you guys are looking to buy a boat, you can come down and see me on a boat. Sail here, fair grounds working down here all weekends. So you need top hats. I got top hat great deals on boatsticks. I got match sticks. I supposed to come with no match sticks. I can

guarantee no match sticks. But if you saw this, massic because I get a ten percent off your boat professor, what's wrong with your brother? He's drowning because he's not wearing one of my love jackets. Take on the professor of boats, say lasagno, his yeah, his brother clearly not a professor. Make no mistake about that. I'm gonna move my car, Okay, won't we just take a break because I can move my cartoon grace, all right, we'll be back in a second, boy, drop on it.

All right, guys, and we're back. And that's that's news. So let's move on and talk about some new releases for this week. As previously mentioned, Battlefield three available this week for Xbox three sixty, PlayStation three, and I think the personal computer, yes, and most personal computers. I'm not sure about that. Dragon Ball Z Ultimate ten Kaiichi for Xbox three sixty and PlayStation three. I can't believe this is the first Ultimate I don't know

that that's true. Ultimate Battle twenty two yeah for the original PlayStation Ultimate ten Kaichi. Apparently this is the Ultimate ten Kaichi. We're not to get any better like last year was pen Ultimate Tenchi. So I bet they have to still be telling the same sagas, right, I bet no, this one's all new. I bet you they just came up with it. Heroid Storm to the opposite guys. I have this great new idea for Goku and all his pals sell games too. What if they fight this guy called Freezer.

We did that robo Freezer Ultimate Fresca and we did that also brought back Freeza and well then fuck, let's just make that again. Fine, thank you, mister, thanks for coming in. Mister Tiama, shut up, I'll kill you. Stronghold three for the PC Drew. I handed off code to him last week, so hopefully he has already knee deep in. I know he was muttering earlier about putting together that Trey buscha that came with our copies of Stronghold three, and then he said, I gotta deep, I gotta

go deeper into Stronghold. It's getting all weird. Oh so he's he's in it, but he's not in deep enough yet. He's not ready. He's get deeper. Okay, when you get the portal and then you put the trevorche on the portal and you got to spawn that unit. Yeah, okay, we'll check him with him later. Centipede Infestation for the Nintendo we Atari. Apparently he's still doing great things with its classic titles. Great like a new Centipede game. Just Get Just Dance Kids two for the Nintendo Wii.

It's the second Just Dance Kids. It's like a hundred Just Dance games at this point. Motion Explosion for Xbox three sixty from Jessco. It's an explosive explosion of motions. How many wrestling theme mini games are in Motion Explosion? Was it five oh five to Hulk? No? That's also it's also Mantjesco fantastic. It's one way to describe it. That's great stuff. Captain America's Super Soldier for Nintendo three DS. It's radically different from the other Captain America

games they've already put out. I'm just playing Heavy Fire Afghanistan the Chosen Few for PC WE and PlayStation three. I can't make this stuff up, folks. Oh, I'm sorry I missed this. Just Dan's Kids Too, also available for Xbox three sixty and PlayStation three. The Cursed Crusade from Atlas for Xbox three sixty and PlayStation three, Back to the Future, those tell tell

adventure games. They gotten bundled up this week for PS three, and we can get those on a disc for twenty bucks, and that's the whole of the Backs Future. That's the season. Yeah, I mean, given a little bit of time and for fucking twenty bucks, I feel like that's kind of yeah. I didn't play any of those, kind of kind of can't lose if you are down for some classic adventure game style adventure games, like I tell myself that I am. But I think we all know the answer

to that question. Yeah. Yeah. Uh. Grease Dance Gross featuring hot hits from the popular musical Grease. Damn Girl, I'm gonna take you have back for a Grease Dance Brad Humor. Did you know that Dead Rising two Off the Record was coming out for the PC this week? Dead Rising two Off the Record? Yeah, I think the PC. Oh, okay, if you need that game on a disc so you can get it this week, good have it on a disc, a different kind of disc. It came out on Steam date Xbox both date, both of them, both of

them. Yeah, fantastic, the same thing. It turns out, then, why do we say it twice like that? That's silly, A never date and date. I never actually understood that. Puss in Boots for Xbox three, sixty, PlayStation three and Nintendo DS. Hell, yeah, you're like, I'm tired of these Shrek movies. They're like, well, how about one? How about a Shrek movie without any Shrek in it, or maybe like probably a little bit of Shrek in it? Because it can't put

out and Antonio Banderis can't carry a movie anymore. God damn it approval. I'm down for a grease dance. You know now infinitely more about the Puss in Boots movie than anyone I would care to associate myself. I don't even know that. I just your wild speculation. Yeah you know that because you're your girlfriend knows that she doesn't seriously have no idea Disney Universe for Xbox pree

sixty, Nintendo we in PlayStation three. I don't know what that is, but I gotta copy of it on my desk, so I'll look at that, so we'll find out. Yes, House of the Dead Overkill extended cuts for the PlayStation three. House of the Dead Overkill came out for the wee a couple of years ago. They're doing a beefier version of it. I guess for the PlayStation three, maybe any more cursing to it, because I

don't think it had enough before. Was that what it was? Yeah, just trying to remember what the thing was with that game, other than be not liking it. It was super cursy. I mean, yeah, whatever. It was a on Rail's shooter. It was a House of the Dead game that they had some weird grindhouse trappings for a Dance Central two out this week for Xbox three sixty Connect of course, review that up on the site. Indeed, that's Giant bomb dot com. That's the site. Yeah,

fantastic, that's the website. Put type that into an internet browser on the web. Go down to the library, find it, click on the type it into the search field as you type Dance Central two and up there, Ye might be do it. We'll wait, click it, Yeah, click it again. Stop, that's the wrong one. That happen you Connect Sports Season two from Big Park and Rare. Imagine Big Park probably doing the heavy lifting this time. Because they kind of did last time. No idea how

to split that stuff, No idea, what rare. Although the rumors about the next Xbox that were swirling last week, they were one of the three studios named as being hard at work on a project. Yeah you need higher as avatars, No shut up. Also, Centipede Infestation also available for the three DS this week, so we in three DS for that. Barn Burner. Human Centipede Infestation might sell more copies at this point, Yeah, they could. Just they should just cop the license and slop it on this game

for the X version. That'll be enough. Just touch a mushroom that's been touched by a scorpion, it's poisoned, and the centipedes go down to the bottom of the screen real fast. Shit in your mouth. So what do you think they do at the bottom of the screen. That's why. That's why you lose when they get there. It just makes more heads appear. Uh. That's what I've got for retail released. I have no idea what's going on for Digital Day to Daytona War the World this week? This week

or is that next week? I believe that this week War of the World that's coming out this week. All right, then for what that look ex up on the site with Mike Mica Other Oceans that I recommend you watched. We had a fun time. Yeah, Pixel junk Shooter the name of the website us. That game looks cool. We have It's a whole site. You could go look at it. We're there too. When did we do this? We do this thing where were talking to microphones, but sometimes we

talk to microphones while we play video games. You should really should really try it out. It's pretty hot, Grease Dan, check it out. It's a lot of fun, much like these emails that we read every week here on the show. BombCast at John bomb dot com is the email address if you would care to send in your emails. First one coming in from Scott meter Hot from Richmond, Virginia, Vay. Hey, Bombcasts. Since it has been the topic of discussion before, I have another question about what a

certain development studio did for a game. I recently finished Batman Arkham Cidy and noticed that nether Realms was part of the credits. Any idea what they specifically did for that game? And on top of that, why aren't they properly mentioned in the opening of Batman Arkham City. I think they did some engine stuff, like Mike Boone is credited on that game. Wait, yeah, I'm sorry, also works well yeah, yeah, there's a handful of dudes

from another realm that are credited in the end of that game. And I think it is all engine credits and stuff. So those guys also working Unreal so serious unreal experience. Yeah, so I imagine it's just that sort of stuff, no idea. I mean you see just more and more of that of multiple studios being listed and they're just there for punch up work or consulting work week and stuff. We had to bring these guys in for six weeks to make this work, or you know today the end credits of Skylanders go

for a while. Oh yeah, there are a lot of people to think there's a lot of Yeah, there's a lot of different a lot of Skylander babies. Yes, there were some some pickle Yes, my controller turned off during the credits have uncharted. Yeah, yeah, that's always a sign of a good game. Like the credits is directly equitable to reviews. So mente Turtles and Time for PS three the highest most Ubisoft games. Really, Yeah, they knock him out of the Park when it comes to credit length,

they know how to make a lot of dudes work on one game. Next year. Comes in from Bow. He says, Hey, my name is Bow, and this is my question for the podcast. With the World of Warcraft subscriber numbers now on the decline, it's got me thinking if there will ever be another MMO that can break the ten million plus subscriber back but subscriber mark. Looking back, WOW success seems may seemed to may have been helped

by A by releasing it the right place at the right time. With the current satuation of the MLO landscape, I would be surprised if even Blizzards next MMO could reach these numbers again, as it's even the same kind of game.

So I guess that's what game is. It's I mean, it's it's it's interesting because you know that you know that ten thousand subscriber number, whatever the subscriber number was, was was something to be brandished for for WOW and for any MMO because that's how many monthly dollars you were getting in as you

knew I have ten million subscribers. For most of those people, I'm getting ten to fifteen bucks a month, So you know, you can extrapolate out based on you know, maintenance costs and you know whatever your initial investment and blah blah blah. You know, I'm making some some fucking money off of that change. But the MMO landscape has changed month exactly. It's walking around money. Uh, the landscape has changed. You know, you can't.

We're rapidly seeing you can't just make a monthly subscription based MMO and and ride off of that anymore. Like people just don't. I don't care like they care, They care less and less for Wow. Every It seems like like the conversation we had earlier about you know, just the way people are playing that game, it win some mainstream that you know, there's that vein's kind of been tapped. So it's it's how do you re engage that mainstream audience?

And are those people willing to pay fifteen dollars a month for anything anymore? Or did they have that experience and move on? I think that's the like, Wow was the first MMO for probably the vast, vast majority of people who played it right, And that's the I mean, like like it or not? Like that is the big question mark for Old Republic like, who who is it going to attract? How many of them will it attract? How long will they stay attracted? I do think you'll get what is

it? Ten million? Is the number that they we're staying? Yeah? Yeah, like maybe almost twelve At some point. I do think that there will be twelve million people subscribe to something related to games at some point. I think is it an mmo? Who knows? MMOs might be dead, but at some point something well, yeah, I think I think the thing that whatever the thing is, it will not resemble Wow. But I think that that number is meaningless if it isn't attached to a dollar man? Who

cares if you have ten million subscribers to your free thing? Unless that know that? Right? You're right? Like, how many of them are you monetized? I think it's how many of them are whales? Exactly? Like, okay, maybe you have ten million players on your free to play thing, but how many of those people? Like how much money are those people

on average spends? Your conversion? Because all sorts of there's all sorts of terms and figures, and that when you start hearing it broken down by people that are working on those games, like different people, still sounds like a business and not a game anymore. I'm low hanging fruit. Wait what about yours? It's Emotion Explosion, uh Ian in Bethlehem, PA, Hey bomb

cast. I've noticed rumors about the next generation of system ramp up and uh system ramp up lately, and if true, I wonder how this affects games in the middle of development. Specifically, I'm thinking about BioShock Infinite. What a game this ambitious benefit from waiting until the next generation so it can take advantage of the beef your hardware, or would other factors deter them from this

choice? How do companies wigh the pros and cons when they're on the cusp of the next generation you invert the levels and release it on the other con exactly, No, I mean they're building it to the specification of current consoles and stuff, so that's not really so like scope and scale are all designed with the current stuff in mind, explicitly in minds quite The best you could probably get out of it is run it at ten ADP sixty frames a second.

Well, yeah, which you know a PC version of that game will be able to do anyway, right, So right, not that big of a deal. Yeah, it's I don't think it's that hard, except in cases where you know, you start development on a game and then it ends up getting pushed back unexpectedly, and then all of a sudden, you're trying to release it after those systems are out. Yeah, and that's that's becomes a very different, uh different prospect, I guess, And you know when

you see that stuff happen. I feel like Nintendo has all of the most classic examples of we were going to make this on the n sixty four, but then we made it on the GameCube. Or Ryan Star Fox Adventures, you were going to make this on the GameCube, but we made it on the Wii, Selda, they made it on both. Right, A lot of third party stuff with that, remember all those uh like Activision games and stuff. Yeah, gun gun things like that. Well that was Yeah.

Then there were the weird things where they're like, Okay, we this actually was made for the spect for the x respect just cause for the Xbox, but we're still gonna crank out a three sixty version because we can just upread stuff a little bits come out on He came out on the PS two, the Xbox, and the Xbox three sixty. It was a weird time. What does PS two just cause look like I don't want to know you know what, you're good? I don't want to know? Yeah, yeah,

yeah, gun. That's another great example of that, kind of the Tony Hawk game that came out that two X No, well, no, I mean the one that came out the first one for three sixty Oh right right, American Waste Land. Yeah, you know, like same pipe deal where there's these like half step up ports there were. Yeah. Even the original software at launch of the three sixty was nothing like what we've got now. Yeah, totally perfect, remember the outfit? Yeah I do, I do?

I do that. Being said, I am ready that weird time. I hope the launch is better this time. I really do. Like I hope that maybe they like the hardware spects are not as much of a moving target, or like, you know, the processes are more mature or whatever, like something yields better launch games than than we've had in the past. Surprise, you've got more ram than we told you you'd have. You have no time left advantage of it. It'd be great, like pleasant surprises,

like this is a whole other processor in here. Just don't worry about it. It's great, but then they're like, Oh, we could have made it so much, this would have been so much easier. Oh fuck, we already spent all this work doing this. I guess we don't have to optimize now. Great ship it. Uh. This next gamel comes in from

Tim in Los Angeles. Howdy bomb Squad. I am currently in grad school for the library and Information studies, and I've been thinking about an idea of integrating video games in public libraries, seeing as how they are becoming a much more mainstream and culturally important form of expression. I was just curious to hear

any thoughts you guys might have on the idea. It seems like this would not only be an interesting way of preserving the history of gaming and exposing the younger generation who will probably be making our games in the future, to the roots of gaming, but also using it as a way to get them into libraries to expose them to other educational topics. Do you think this is something that game developers but support or would it just seem like another way to get

kids to play their games for free. Libraries carry many more media formats than books these days, so it seems like video games are the next logical step. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm always trying to expose myself to kids, and I think that you know, if they can figure out a way to you know, public Yeah, that's I mean, not on the internet anymore. Think the Dewey decimal system presents an interesting quandary as it

relates to classifying these sorts of things. Well, I think, you know, it's this still comes back to to, you know, the notion of trying to archive this stuff in any format of like you know, how to unlike so many other things like unlike books, like or you know, recorded audio or film or anything like that. Uh, you know, it's it's not that hard to get it from one to the other. Whereas this there is this weird underlying technical layer to all games that you have to suss out

before it like microfiche. You know, you just have the consoles there at the library and then you can just use them. You can't take you home, but if you want to just grab so it's like a television game and check it out. Yeah. So, but it's this weird thing where you know, right now, yeah, the it becomes harder and harder to play an in television game and it's original state every passing day because the hardware becomes

more and more rare. At the same time, you know, they're emulating and trying to make it available on other platforms, but you start to wonder, like how far away from the original do you get the you know, more times you emulate and and are trying to guess what this was originally supposed to look like. So it's a I feel like it is an interesting challenge that specifically games have to take that a lot of other you know, media

just don't even have to consider. I think it's an interesting idea, but I think like trying to position it is like, you know, something for kids. I don't know how many old ass games kids have the patients to look at. I think this seems like a meaningful thing at like a full sale or you know, a DigiPen or something like the Smithsonian is getting into the into the act, like they've got they've got a gaming thing going.

But I mean you would have to already be interested in a gaming focused curriculum to the point that like, okay, history of games is of significant enough interest that you're going to want to go those many layers deep and have those sort of resources at your disposal, right, that regularly? So, And I don't know all of the public libraries I used to go to have been closed down. So really yeah the public libraries is one's still open. I think that's sad. Yeah, I agree, that's not good. Yeah,

so so I am. I am more concerned about just the existence of public libraries at this point. Public libraries rank kindle books now crazy? The San Francisco one does? Yeah, yeah, check out? How do you do that? You get it first on my kindle? It's not like I borrow one of there, it's yours. I don't know what the process is to like get your device connected to them and all that stuff. But it's like time limit internet? Do you think it's time limited? But they do have

a finite number of copies to lend out. I think it's great idea. It's a license, yes, it's you know, they have X number of licenses for this book. Okay, how it works? So it's a business thing, you know, it's not some weird they are adapting. Yeah, but yeah, sure, sure, I don't know. I don't know how many books it's for that kind of thing. I don't have a kindle. But but have you tried it? No, I have, but I just go there to do it. I don't think so. I think you could

do it online. But good on them. If you have a library card, I think you do. I still do. I hope you do. I have a library card. It's punched. I never had a San Francisco library card. Really. Yeah, there's that library that's right around the corner from there too. Yeah. They're rebuilds it too. It's beautiful. Did they because it was kind of a ship hole before. Oh man, they completely rebuilt itam keeping the grounds like it looks amazing. Yeah, it is

nice. Phil Waddle from Santa Cruz, California says, Hey, guys, just wondering if you can confirm from me what characters Nolan North voices in Arkham City. I saw his name in the game's credits, but all the voice actors were just listed without indicating what characters they portrayed. I AMDB list him is playing the Penguin, though I'm a little hesitant to believe that, since Penguin's cockney draw in Arkham City sounds nothing like that trademark North voice voice work.

We've come to recognize and love in the majority of the games we play every year. However, if he actually did provide the voice of mister Cable Pott, I would like to say that this his performance could easily upset un Try three for this year's Northey, as it is certainly the most unknown North

Nolan North voice I've heard yet. Thanks guys, and keep up the excellent Yeah, as far as I know that, yes, he really is the confirmed he is the penguin as well as thugs plenty, so apparently there this is the second iteration of you can have Nolan North talking to Nolan Worth after after Mafia too. That's good him have both pairs of that. Good. I don't I don't know if you people realize this, but Nolan North is a master of his craft. But you know, is a serious sound like

he's the you know, Nathan Drake. He's Yeah. I thought I thought they all got the like animated cast or something an entire game. Good. Good for him, he does a great job, fantastic, But I still got to say, uh uh space or as far as if we're gonna start talking early Northeast space space spear, Yes, I thought he was just the adventure sphere. Nope. Wait, isn't he all spears. I don't think he's I don't think he's all, but I'm pretty sure he if he's on.

If he's on, wouldn't they be talking to each other? Again, they don't never really talk to each other. No, they kind of have their little Yeah. Well, because they're just all in that bucket and then you grab one. Yeah, all right, I guess there is I guess whatever. There is a little bit at the at the very very end. Jeez, all right anyway, anyway, Yeah, I just I'm just saying I did a little Nolan North research earlier today because I was trying to remember,

like, what else has he done this year? Because we started thinking about Northeast the important awards, like almost getting chills thinking about the end of that game. It was so awesome. It's good stuff. Oh my god. Yeah, So whatever you want about the rest of that game, the last five minutes of it. Man, they yeah, they topped it off nicely. Yeah. So yeah, confirmed, Nolan North is the penguin in

that game. Let's see, hear a guy bitching about pandas Jeff from Indianapolis, Indiana, how do you guys with the reason to talk about the Simpsons ending only be renewed again for two more seasons. It got me thinking whether or not we'll ever see another Simpsons video game. From the infamous Arcade game to the slew of games that released in the nineties such as Krusty's Fun House and Virtual Bart, and the most recent games such as Simpsons Road Rash and

Simpsons Hit and Run. It would be really nice to see one more final Simpsons game that's actually good before the show ends. It will eventually. What are your thoughts on this and what Simpsons games did you enjoy? Love the show and thank you? I want to see all new Virtual Bart, Virtual Bart two point oh yep, finally. Uh you know. I that that Simpsons the game, the EA one that was okay, not a total with there's and there's some like actually very funny shit and some like very knowledgeable video

game stuff in there. I still I still still worth playing. I still agree with with with the Jeff here who says that Hit and Run is the best Simpsons game because they basically made Simpsons Grand Theft Auto and that was kind of crazy good. It's a high vault. I don't think so. Road Rash. I think it wasn't Simpsons Rash. So yeah, Simpsons road rash. Sorry, the prototype guys, what was radical? Radical? Is it? I might have been it might have been radical. Well that's kind of

a bummer of a story. Then all but shut down? No? Right? Uh? You know, well everyone survival who protype too? Maybe it's still done. Maybe they didn't get shut down. Maybe they just had layoffs. Have any any thoughts on Simpsons games that the Is that what it was called? The Simpsons? Yeah? I think it was. Yeah, Yeah, that was good. I think it was the Simpsons game. I've got a copy of it. I've never played. I don't know the five points

were pushing start. There's some funny Yeah, there's some funny knowing stuff in there. Swimming game. I can't Maybe maybe there is a great a great Will write gag Man. Really yes, yes, no, I want to play. Yeah, that's actually I would read it email earlier and thinking about it, I was like, fuck, that will write part was amazing. It was better than anything that would be in the show itself these days.

Probably I wouldn't know show. I mean I don't watch it religiously or anything, but every time I see the more recent ones, like it's still really fucking good. Really, yeah, like alarmingly so I can know it took what Yeah, I haven't. I probably haven't watched that show with any regularity in like ten years. But that's gonna be a really expensive blue recollection the Simpsons ones. Yeah, yeah, that's like a five hundred dollars. That's

like, that's that's like the Law and Order set? How much is that? Two hundred bucks? How many seasons? Was that twenty something? Jesus really eighty nine eighty nine when that started, So wow, it's a little over twenty All right, that's cheaper than I thought. Okay, at a certain point, you can't you can't just charge. You can't just say I'm

minion dollars and you're like, well fucking I'm not gonna buy that. They go like sixty dollars season one, Yeah, season scenely expensive and that I don't even want to think about what next generation in high def is gonna cost all of it. It's gonna cost all of it too. Whatever you've got on on DVD, just like the old like standard deaf versions on DVD like six years ago, it was like one hundred and thirty dollars a season.

Yeah, Simpsons is twenty something, twenty five for seasons, yeah dollars. No, no, No, it's running that's around this yeah, because it started around the same time started. Are you sure I remember watching the Christmas Special? Yeah? Yeah, so it will be like twenty two seasons and it's not quite twenty five. Yeah, but they'll yeah, but they'll probably make it there right with the season's deal they have. You can have the

Tracy Allman Show. No, no, because the Christmas Special happened after the Chris Tracy Allman Show appearances. And also they were so radically different. Yeah, go and look at that stuff. Is weird that even just looking at early Simpsons stuff's weird looking at this point, for for the way that art style kind of changed. But yes, Brad, if you haven't obviously not right now, but sometime next year, why don't you check out the Simpsons

game. I'll play the Simpsons game, you know, going into that recording booth, doing bart lines for twenty two years, getting paid millions and millions of dollars. How much money they make, it's a lot six hundred and fifty thousand dollars an episode or thereabouts, I believe at least I am led to believe by the terrible final season of Entourage that that's how much they make

for episode. I thought it was eight hundred thousand maybe. I think I thought that came up in the when they were talking about canceling it because they didn't read the Simpsons. That are the Simpsons that relevant? Like, you can they possibly be making their money back on ratings are up or if the ratings are there, you know, it doesn't matter, Like they charge X amount of dollars for ad space during shows with and I get syndicated out and I guess, oh man, they're yeah, oh yeah, those guys the

back end sag checks in there. Jeez. But then the yeah, the whole, the whole, like the contract negotiation stuff ended up coming down to being about like profit that they want. They wanted some some percentage of profit participation and they were not getting any. And they're like, we're the fucking voices. I don't know. I just I don't even understand at that point, Like what what you canna do with more money? Well, it's just

an ego thing. I think it's just the thing as you look at how much money they're getting out of it, and like other people are making this moneycentages, and you're like, hey, wait a minute. If this much money is being made off of this thing that I am helping create, I

should get a piece of that pot. Also, if you maybe if you're getting a percentage, then you can stop doing it and still get residuals from they could have stopped doing it, like well maybe it's like ten years ago, but maybe you would be able to live the lifestyle you've then become accustomed to. I don't know what lifestyle it is. The day and several million dollars a year scientology bro residuals scientology. I wish I had just played saxophone

on that intro. I could retire. I'm not clear yet, man, Nope, keep dumping money into this. Mervin from Bloomington, Indiana. Hey, guys, I work at a stark store called Kroger. Does this make me a Kroken? What is Kroger? So the phage it's no, I'm not it's a yeah, it's a it's a really bad plate. No one should go to that store. Honestly, I don't know why it's even open. If I could get it to go and then give it to somebody else, then maybe no, No, they gotta give you the phage there.

No, I'm so I'm not going They have a drive through, yeah, but you still gotta call it in. Oh, forget it. It's like going to the pharmacy at the Walgreens, like, yeah, you can drive through, but you already gotta have your thing going there than I know I know. Gavin from Scottsdale, Arizona dear bomb cast in the same vein as the long fought Gift Jiff and GiB Jib debates. I must ask how the final fantasy currency, the Gill, is meant to be pronounced. Patrick pronounced

it Jill on the recent BombCast and that really threw me. Thanks for your help, and Patrick's not here to defend himself. I don't recall that. Yeah, okay, so we are all in agreement. Gil Gil I always said gil Gil Gil Geill, gil Gerard Gill. Yeah, like Gil Grunt. Yes, as you're like your favorite Skylander. Come on, he's not

my favorite. He's up there. I was saying to favorite of the starters, which I thought it was gonna be trigger happy, but he's got a water jet pack it so just like Mario, Yeah, like an off brand Mario. Yeah, it's like an off brand Mario Sunshine because it's got a water jet pack and a water hose. You can kill stuff with it. And that's it for emails. Thanks to everyone who wrote in bodcast at Giant bomb dot cook at a lot of emails in this week. That's good.

Uh, And that's it for the show. Thanks for listening. Jeff, have a safe trip. I hope yes, I hope so. And we will see all of you next Tuesday in another exciting edition of the Giant bod. Is that the action packed one? The action the action packed stunning conclusion to the Giant Podcast