Giant Bombcast 55/2015 (Premium)

Mmm, Hello, it is Tuesday, twenty four, twenty fifteen. You are listening to the Giant Bomb Cast. I'm your host, Bratt Schreemaker. Hello, Jeff Kersman, Hi, I'm here. You're just looking at me over this monitor. I'm super confused. Why because you said it's Tuesday, the twenty four, twenty fifteen, and no month, and I'm just like,

that's a really future, far outway to talk to it. I really just say that, what if we got rid of months and we just knew what day of the year it was Wednesday and the two hundred and fifty six, Yeah, of twenty fifteen, That's totally works. You could, you could deduce the date. But here we are now, now we're too deep in I don't think I can start over. Nope, I'm not doing this again. I mean I could start over, I had I in fact have the authority to start over. Yeah, but I'm not gonna Okay, I'm

gonna own this Mistakebruary February. It's February, okay, for now, for now, not for much longer. No, it's uh, it's it's about to be both March and also light when we're leaving the office again. Yes, it was apparently daylight saving time starts in like two weeks. Yeah, they keep stretching it out because it's you know, it saves money for energy, and I don't know what. I don't know if there's a downside to daylight savings. It's awesome. It's lighter later. Is that a good thing?

Though? Yeah, you turn on the lights later in the day because then then you don't use as much you know, energy efficiency? Is that what you're in for? Yeah, I'm also in for to cause you're hitching your wagon too. I mean, I care about I do care about energy efficiency to a certain extent and all. So when I drive home and it's pitch black outside, it's soul crushing to me in a way that I'm I don't like. I could see that now. It's gonna be dark when you

wake up, though it already is. It's already mostly dark when I wake up. What time do you wake up? Draw six thirty If I'm running, okay, it's definitely gonna be dark for you. Yeah, it's already pretty still pretty dark at six thirty though. Yeah, but by the time I get out, because I wake up at like sevens coming up in this kind of it's still gonna have like eight thirty and it's probably still gonna be light out no matter what. Yeah, it works. That's Dan Rager Andrew

stan rounding out this podcast. Still these still feel the need to say everybody's names every week. It's good. I mean, just in case you have to assume that every podcast is someone's first. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. If this is your first podcast, congratulations, I've remember you've started. You've embarked on a very important journey and maybe the most important journey of

your life, life changing vision quest. Here. I just hope that you already know what month it is, yeah, because you're not gonna get that here, Nope. But yeah, I don't know who brought up right before this podcast started that Daily Savings flips over the Sunday that we're at packs a week from Sunday, which is the day that most of us either are getting up early to be on that wrestling thing and we're flying out like it's yeah,

what nights are panel probably gonna still go wrong. Friday night, still be drunk when the time change happens, Like it's a weird just perhaps not the ideal night to lose an hour of sleep. No, that's that's the real bummer. But then again, what night is No, we're all gonna live and we're gonna move forward. It'll be all right. Yeah, we got it. We got this, Brad. Do you know what night would be great to lose an hour? Would be when you're doing an extra life

I don't think that count you're doing. Ay, Oh, it totally does. It's still twenty four hours. I experienced the reverse. Then, yeah, I went eight to eight that time. I just did twenty five hours. Yeah, so what if I did twenty three? Yeah, you have to make up for extra time. Wait, you have to just do it for twenty four actual hours, regardless of worth the clocks. An, you're ruining my fantasy. Well then you just say we're gonna do it for a

full day eight to eight, never say twenty four hours. Maybe they won't notice. Yeah, that would be great. M uh hello, it's podcast. Hello. Who had a nice weekend? Yeah? Everybody? Yeah? Somebody? I watched Demolition Man. Oh yeah, man, that is a really good movie, isn't it great? Oh? My god? Have we all seen it? You haven't starting to be a wet blanket below? Okay, I have seen it. Yeah, I've seen Demolition Man. I had never seen it and it is right on my alley. It is just such

a stallone movie. His name is John Spartan. Yep, yeah, that's his name. I took notes on the things I liked here, John Spartan, What are you taking notes on while you're watching a movie? No, after I was done because I have to write down everything, right. Just yes, the Seashells thing that everybody kept tweeting to me, the Seashells thing, And now I get that joke. That's funny because you sat back and breathed a deep breath and then jotted all your thoughts down. Yeah, all

right, what do you got? Okay? West Snipes was amazing. I realized I've not seen nearly as enough Wesley Snipes movies. I've seen Drop Zone a billion times. Other than that, I think I saw The First Blade once and it was all right. I don't know if I've seen any The First Blade is a Stephen Dorff film. He was good in that. He was good. He was in that he kicked a syringe into him and he blew up. Yeah that's cool. Yeah, it's that movie actually good.

I can't remember I saw it in theater. Say yes, yeah, I have a I have a picture of Stephen Dorff from the Blade Press kit up on a wall in my home. From what how did you get a Blade Press kid? You know, I don't know. Stuff happens, you know, you end up with things like here's this picture of Stephen Dorf. Well we probably put it on a wall, right, yeah, I mean that's what you do with pictures of Stephen Dorff. Right, let's be honest here, Okay, when Wesley Snipes, first of all, his name is Simon

Phoenix, and he's a horrible criminal who who rises from the ash. He's actually in cryosleep, you see, and he comes up and starts his reign of terror again, but in an age where all the cops have gone soft because there's no crime any more, and they have to go back and unthaw John Spartan, who's been wrongfully cryo imprisoned of course, to come back because all the cops are too soft. And future San Angelus that's the name of

it, right, Yes, San Angelus sounds right. Yes, I think that's right, isn't isn't the whole concept there that the city spans the entire length of California. Yeah, it's like it's like the same concept in Blader Runner and Dread the City One thing or whatever. Really Yeah, Yeah, Wesley Snipes give gives Benjamin Bratt a attitude adjustment, which is John Sanna's finishing

move through a table at one point. Sure, when Wesley Snipes moves around when he's doing his little rants, little record scratch sound effects happen all the time for no reason. Yeah, it is what a good movie. It is a grill, should you say? The way he dies is like a rebellion leader Edgar friendly and he kind of just plays Dennis Leary. He's really good names in this thing. Dan, tell me about the restaurants in this

world. They're all Taco Bell, although I heard that there is an edited version where there's some copyright thing and they're all Pizza Hut, which is that's one of the same company. It's the international Yeah, it's international versions because Taco Bell didn't exist over there at all, so weird Pizza Hut. Oh No, they're they're Taco Bells here, which is great. Yeah, everything about this movie is great. Sylvester Sloane, sorry, John Spartan refers to

having sex as doing the hunka chunka. I like that. That's a funny way to talk about having intercourse with someone, Yeah, which in the movie they do by putting on like little oculus things and sitting across from each other, and you just get like weird VR visions of the person in your head while you're having sex or just sitting there. That was weird, seems legit. Can I talk about how what's this knives dies? I think? I think to this, Okay, if you don't want to look you know,

Okay, if this is the first time you've listened to this podcast. It's an action movie made in the early nineties, you know, I think you know you're about to be exposed to the end of Demolition Man. Oh, I don't know that. I think think about the experience you just had. It was great. I was like, try hard not to cheer in my seat on a date. This was a date. By the way, Are you sure you want to Are you sure you want to rob others? I

mean you already so, I think you already tactically spoiled it. Well, this is what I love about action movies of that era is as a kid, that's always what I look forward to the most is how does the bad guy die at the end. It has to be like ever since, Like die Hard is one of the first ones I saw. It's like, man, that's awesome. He just throws him out of a damn window and it's

SlowMo and he yeah, that's great. That's my favorite thing is how the bad guy dies each time, And this one delivers in a major way, Like do you remember Nope, Okay, I'm gonna say it. Okay, Okay. They're in the same place where they did the cryo sleep stuff or whatever, and so all the like technology for freezing water is there, and

there's water sprain everywhere, and there's a mechanical stuff flying around everywhere. The technology for freezing water, well, yeah, that's like this crazy cry no, it's this crazy drop of blue stuff and once it touches water, just

immediate ice cube. So Wesley Snipes has like a trident or a spear or something, and he's about to kill Stallone, who's on the ground, and Stallone finds the thing with the cryo thingy in it and breaks it, and right before the thing hits the water and freezes everything, Stallone rabs this like claw game thing that's going around the room for some reason, and so it just freezes. Wesley snipes completely like he turns into an ice cube, and

the claw game thing moves Stallone around in a circle. Stallone says, heads up and then kicks Wesley snipes frozen head. It flies off his body and lands on the ground and shatters into a million pieces. I don't think he's coming back from that one. He's fucking dead, like really dead this time. No cryo sleep, His head's gone. It's a good one. And then the movie ends and Sting wrote an original song called Demolition Man that is

terrible that plays over the credits. I love everything about this one. Wow, you should play the three We should We should have you played the three D O game. I didn't know that was the thing. Do we have the technology? I think so? Yeah, Okay, that sounds like a contender for you. PF have we done that? Yeah? An FMV game.

It's there's there's elements of real characters in it. Stallone's in it, yes, And there's just this bad maze level later on where you just hear just it's his plead, his plea kind of over and over again in a really shitty way. It's it's a bad fucking I seem to recall. At the end of the movie, it is left ambiguous whether Sandra Bullock is Stallone's dog. I hope it's not ambiguous because it's heavily implied that they're gonna go do the hunka chunka right, and they do, wait, where are you

getting this daughter stuff from? Well, because he did have a daughter when he was frozen and his wife died in the like whatever eighty seventy years or whatever, he was frozen, Yah, where's my daughter? And like, they don't really say what happened. And I saw some people tweeting to me that Sandra Bullocks's daughter. There's no way I know that's ye her, yeah, yeah, which is weird. But I think there's some other like they look up police records or something and someone goes like, oh, huh,

I hope that's not the case. I could be. I would think it would be the eighty years separating him from I don't think. I don't think the child. I actually think he would have been eighty because somebody refers to him in the future like, oh, some eighty year old cop comes around, So I think maybe it was like forty years or something, because it's set in like twenty thirty, twenty forty something like that. Still we're talking

about it pretty young. Sandra Bullock here, she's probably like mid twenties. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm always going to listen to Twitter's advice on awesome movies now because I bought all these movies that people keep saying I need to see. Well, if people sent me The Raid and The Raid too, I bought The Rundown and Heat and uh man bout Demolition Man. So I got a stack of movies at home. So this was your own, your very own copy of Demolitian Man that you wish. Yeah, I'm trusting man.

If you're you're out there buying movies site un scene, that's impressive. Dan has a highly curated DVD collection. It's a pretty good collection. It's really good. Yeah, yeah, it's great stuff. Is Demolition Man based on anything? Thanks? Thanks? I think I always get it mixed up with Costallan was in Judge Trid also right, and that definitely is a comic book. Yes, yeah, Man has nothing to do with anything, I

don't think so, just the product of some some fucking deranged mind. Spit that out, and at one point Stallone tells a guy, a bad guy, like, oh, you just made the decision. You're gonna regret your entire life all two seconds of it. Stop shelf stuff. It's really good. That is something. Yeah, that movie is not only like can't be good. It's like just a fun action Yeah. There are actual, legitimately a good movie. Oh yeah yeah, Rob Schneider's in it. Great.

Yeah, like you know, it's almost like a buddy cop movie like that, And that and Judge Dredd are set in the same universe, so Job Schneider's Sylvester Stallone CE Dredd is not ju Dretta is not campy good. Judge Dredd is a bad action movie. Why is it bad? I enjoyed it. What's what's bad? What definds a bad action To be fair, I was like twelve and I saw in the theater, so I don't remember shit. I just remember thinking like that was stupid. And then I saw the

New Dread and that was awesome. Fucking Armadasante picks up the gun and the guy goes like, ageah, you only judges can use the gun. He goes, most judges fucking blazes the guy with the gun like he's supposed to be Sylvester Stallone's brother or something like that. So he goes through the whole movie just that's how Wesley Snives kills the crazy cult leader guy and uh and and demolition man is he can't kill him because he was bringing watching the cry

asleep. So he throws the gun to Jesse Ventura, who doesn't even talk in the movie. He just shows up near the end. So here's a gun, Jesse Ventura. He shoots the cult leader guy and then they'll throw him into a fireplace. Sounds effective. This movie is just nothing but cool stuff happening like every two seconds. Thank you Twitter, Thank you everyone that ever told me to watch this movie. It would have blown my mind. But it blow my mind when I was thirty. What am I talking about?

It's great. That intro scene is pretty good when he like jumps off of a helicopter into a burning building or something. Yeah, yeah, because he's got hostages in there. And that's why John Spartan gets framed is because they think that he blew up the building to get Simon Phoenix. But also there's like thirty or forty kids in there from a bus that all blew up, But then it turns out that Simon Phoenix had killed them beforehand, and so salone was really a good guy the whole time. Right, Yeah,

Oh man, what's what's his name? John Matrix in Commando? Yes, John Matrix, which is previously maybe my favorite action dude name. John Spartan is like the peak action dude name. Yeah, is it? I mean, is it really? What about John Rambo's good? What's the Jack Slater from Last Action Hero. That's a good one, but that's a parody, So yeah, John Rambo's good, John Spartan. Everyone's just John Mary and Cobretti. That's pretty good. It's Cobra from Oh yeah, right, he

cuts his pizza with scissors. Yeah, while watching Toys Rust commercials. It's a cool movie. There really are a lot of John's out there, though, know that you mentioned it. Tango and Cash are good names for buddy cops. One of them has got a knife that comes out of his boot. Man. There's a lot of good movies. There are a lot of good that's true. That's why I'm a film study. Yeah, but you would, yeah, voice of Authority, You're you're definitely. Yeah, the

authority on Yes, cinematic excellence. Yeah, you have a degree. I do sing in on Birdman any day now. I actually kind of want to see that. I kind of do too. I also kind of do is he is it Cannon? Okay? So I mean so he plays he plays an a actor that used to play yes, a SUPERHEROA So that was man that was supposed to be is that was my revelation watching the Oscars last night, man like piecing together what I assumed to be the plot of that movie

from the scenes they were showing. I was like, Oh, this movie is a metaphor for Michael Keaton's career. Is that what you're saying? Because I don't I didn't know anything about what the movie. It is an actual but is it? Is it really real Birdman or did they invent some kind of fake dumb bird Man? What is I could represent Batman, forgive my ignorance, but what is real Birdman? There's a there's a superhero name bird Man. There's a car straight up bird Man, you know, Harvey Bird,

Harvey Bird. So that's I was at a riff on actual bird Man. Yes, I think it's actual bird Man. Who it's a fake one? Who owns Animar Barrow or somebody. I don't know, is it if? Because if it was Marvel or DC, I would know it was a cartoon on the on the scale of like Spaces and stuff like that. Okay, a bird Man, the whole thing super campy and never broke out of

the camp Yeah, so probably not a super valuable property. So maybe they could actually secure it for a movie like this, right, but then it got you know, while you got you know, revitalized as Harvey Bird an attorney at law for Swim and all that stuff. So I just seeing like the Birdman on the movie poster looks a lot like Birdman. It might be I don't know, I don't know very well, could be. I don't

know. As I think the movie, it was not apparent that. Okay, yeah, we should ask a Birdman expert Alex Navarro clarify for us. Yeah, he would probably who fucking hates Birdman? Oh the movie. He seems to hate it so much that makes me want to see it just to see what the hell. Well, it's available and blue ray, but I

don't know. We'll save the Oscar chat for later in the show. Oh yes, yeah, you have had more serious around, way more, way more to say about the Oscars. Oh yeah, okay, Oh we had serious Yeah, we had scheduling conflicts with the OSCAR for in fact, that is not an appropriate topic for this venue. You've got your own I know, I don't. You've got your own fucking quarantine to go wallow in your filth. We had a sting to watch. But yeah, and and wallow

in filth, make no mistake. Oh yeah, it is what we did. Oh yeah, I could tell go on. Oh boy, was it fun trying to parse Twitter last night? Wow, you watching the Oscars? Yeah, so you're watching the Oscars. I was sitting there explaining to my girlfriend. I was like, half the people on this on my timeline are talking about the Oscars and the other half talking about fucking wrestling, both equally

shitty. Was really yeah, because I ended up catching the last hour or so of the Oscars after that ship was over, and and seeing little bits and pieces of it a long way. My girlfriend was in one room watching the Oscars. I was in the other room watching not the Oscars and anything else, the concessuses. We both lost. Yeah, Like she was just like, this is fucking terrible, and I'm like you should come out of here and see this bullshit. So I watched the Oscars every year, and

I'm rarely glad I did. It's not a good show. It's never a good show. It's all those things, Like I feel like it puts in stark contrast, like you know, all the people that have complained about like all the Spike vgas aren't It's like, no, man, fucking awards shows are terror shows are generally pretty bad. Yeah, a billion people watch the Oscars and it's still a terrible show. Who hosted last night Neil Patrick Harris, which as I, well, yeah, I mean no, no,

He's done the Tony's lultiple times and stuff. But it was just super flat. Oh yeah, it's not very funny, no edge to it whatsoever, super safe, just not. It was boring and it went on way too long. I didn't dislike last year. It was last check on Stewart. Think that was right. I want to say she did a really good job, didn't she. Yeah, yeah that's right, she was all right, She's bad. Yeah. I was sitting there afterwards, thinking like who,

who the fuck would be crazy enough to actually take this on? Much less spartan Yeah, sure, Okay, yeah, I watched I've watched Stallone host the Oscars. Sure bring Letterman back. Uh, Like I realistically, I don't know who you throw with that thing at this point, Kimmel, Do you think he could fallon kimmel Man. No, I don't. I don't watch Kimmel. I don't know if he's any good lately or not. I'm just like thrown out some ideas. McDonald. Yeah, there we go.

Now we're talking. You know, it's got to be somebody who reelis play has a shot. I would think that Fallon would be like the type that would do that. Yeah. Yeah, you can see you can see him ending up on that thing. Yeah. Sure, Uh yeah, I don't know hard to say. Yeah, uh Jeff, hello by b H laying on me. Video games are another, uh core pillar of our cultural our shared cultural experience that's right in this day and age. It's another touchstone,

yes, or cultural touchstone all of us. I was flipping channels a little bit last night and I saw that The sixty Minutes was all about the life and career of Bob Simon, and I was really bummed because I wanted to watch that. Yeah, this is another thing you no, no, it's on CBS. It's sixty minutes. Man, Why weren't you able to watch NBC? No, I can't get INNBC. NBC broadcast out of San Jose

here, it's been broadcast further it comes further away, dude. I mean, if you care about like broadcast television, like the story about why NBC doesn't know it is broadcast out off of fucking Channel eleven. It's delicious. It's pretty fucking great. Oh it's delicious. It used to be Channel four and Channel four with the ship. Oh war is so great? Is the best and the worst? Man? Is just like they lost they lost the

rights to be NBC. Yeah, so they were the n here. No, uh no it well you do it just it emanates out of a channel that that was based out of San Jose like there are why weren't you able to watch it? Brad? Because this is a different He has an antenna, and his antenna can only pick up local signals because it's not something on a rooftop. It's just strapped to his fucking wall or something. It's a

little sheet of plastic with some wires in it. So this is a completely separate issue from why I didn't watch sixty minutes, which is which is that it was third on the list of important cultural events that I felt I should witness, behind one in our hearts. Fine fine CBS television program. It's it's still some pretty fine reporting. I bet I don't know. And that guy lived his life pretty much continuously in war zones, which is pretty commendable.

But anyway, Kron, just check it out some time, kronkrawn, k r O, n Channel four good name think about it. They think about it. They were the NBC affiliate for a major American city and then they lost their affiliation. I don't know that could happen. Yeah, I've never seen it in my life. Yeah, but I don't know if I was even here for it didn't happened a long time ago, right, not that long? Well? Okay, yes, I mean yes, now, Yes, it's been at least a good ten Yes, at least at a

good ten good decade or more. Can four was just NBC when I was growing up? What ye like? How does that even happen? I forget, I forget what the actual circumstances. But they're still in the air. They're still in the air, plugging away at news there's a lot of news, like a lot of news. There's a lot of law and order. It's a lot of paid programming. Uh and for a while a lot think of a lot of the long time personalities that were there back when it was

NBC. Like a lot of people got out, but the people that were still there got this really bitter edge to them that was pretty watch just like what the fuck. I forget the main anchor's name, but she was reporting. It was just a little like end of the segment, like forty five second piece about something that NASA had announced, and she just flat out basically said, like why are we talking about this? Like like I'd rather report on blah blah bah, like like they just do not give a shit like

that. It is. It is a pretty rough and tumble operation. It's probably changed since they probably get people in there they're up and comers that yeah they're there. There's a little bit. It's not network so you know, even with it being in this huge fucking market, it's still not network TV. So it's like the best you can do is get people out of college, hope that they stay there long enough, and then they go like, hey, there's a job up the street at Channel five. I'm gonna go

be on real TV now. The things everybody they are, they are all right around there. Yeah. Like when we worked in the Financial district, like channels five and seven were like a block away. Yeah yeah, uh man, local network TV. Now we're getting into it that and you know, not the real name that is the Yeah yeah, they're MACLA long time I believe CBS anchor. Huh. I'd love to read like a good tell all book about like the ins and ouse, just the operations of a local

network TV station. My roommate was working around Chrown four at the time of its dismemberment, and fascinating stuff. Chron four sounds like a planet in Star Trek. It is also, it's a really sly way to talk about weed coboy trying to get that Channel four. The Channel four is held honey sticks and stems on the Channel four teleradics. Oh man, what have you been playing the order? I mean I haven't been playing the god I almost the order to leave the room? Uh yeah, the order. Yeah. It

was a weird, weirdly time release because we had it in here. I guess it was the like the Friday ish Thursday or Friday, right before the week came out. Yeah, but they didn't actually come out until Friday, so we missed it on last week's podcast. Yeah, and then it came out even though you had already finished it at that point, right, Yeah, it did not take long. Yeah, there. Then the reviews hit Thursday, so reviews were up, you know, before the game was out,

and h yeah. Yeah. The Order eighteen eighty six it's an alternate historical take on eighteen eighty six and King Arthur's Knights where they are kind of brought forward, you know, like like they are, you know, able to live beyond normal man's lifespans, blah blah blah, and you know you end up with them, you know, you end up with Knights with guns kind of, which is like an interesting premise. And then they're fighting werewolves,

which is a less interesting premise. Wolves still a threat. And then the werewolves are called lichens, which is not necessarily a common term, but Underworld used it. So it's like did they just watch Underworld and go like, now we'll call them lichens too, Like I don't understand that part of it. Yeah, I've only seen like Castlevania use liking like is there a difference like their likings and werewolves. It's you know, it's alekanthropy is the

term for wearawolves actual condition. Yeah, but you're right, I think that's specific medical terms. Yeah. God, but the yeah, like shortening it to like it a specific term that happens in fiction right all the time. I mean, let's not to say it hasn't ever appeared anywhere else other than those two things, but I mean I think they used it in the title of one of the Underworld movies, right, yeah. I mean if you go google likns you get a bunch of Underworld pages that is absolutely true.

So I thought that was a little strange anyway, that that doesn't matter. The third person cover based shooter, it's like a Year's War style game. Yes, you know, weapons selection on the dpads, which the grenades on the dpad all the cover based shooter. Yeah come yeah, Like it's it's that kind of game they've been in in eighteen eighty six where Nicola Tesla is providing nights with uh guns, the shoot lightning. Yeah yeah, all kinds

of gadgets. They've got a little shoulder mount than radios. Yep, radios do some good walk and talk a little bit of WNT talk way more walk than talk. Yes, yeah, that is for sure, which it does sometimes even when you're not like actively talking this one on the radio. It's just big chunks of that game. We're like, yeah, you gotta walk slow through this building, right, Yeah, you're looking for something. It's like, no, I'm kind of not. Yeah, like, no,

no, you're looking for so I've so I've noticed. I don't know if you've tried this, but even in the sequences where they forced the walking speed down to the lowest level, you can still click the stick to jog. You can do, yeah, a little jog, but it won't go. It's not a full run. Yeah, once there's an enemy in the area, if you hit that, you are sprinting full speed. But yeah,

you can never go a decent speed. Yeah. So it seems like, you know, like they're trying to make this atmosphere game like you know it kind of they show their cards right out of the gate. The whole game

is letterboxed literally in like not even the metting everything screen nothing. Yeah, so the whole thing is presented in kind of a wider than wide screen cinematic I assume it's too cinema scope, but I don't know, I couldn't maybe for sure think I guess I couldn't tell you for sure if that's the actual

No, only only chapter three was shot on Imax. I'm sorry. And I don't think the game like like for starters, like, I don't think the game takes advantage of like I don't think the game is cinematic enough to warrant that approach, And it generally seems like they're just kind of cutting off parts of the action and like, you know, like cynically you think, like, well, they're probably doing that to keep performance up or something so they don't have to render as much, or you know, whatever it ends

up being. It just I found the letterboxing to actually get in the way of the action, and not at any like benefit to the look of the game. It doesn't look cinematic. It just looks like, oh, I can see less of my legs than I feel like maybe I should be able to see sure, or the action feels slightly more claustrophobic here than dust in the air. That's right, well, you know, I mean you can you can see how it would come in handy in the cut scenes where they

chose how to frame being presented within within the aspect ratio. But you're like the argument about like, oh, they're trying to make it more cinematic completely breaks down when you have free control of the camera. Yeah, and I don't even know that the cut scenes are I mean, it's a it's a great looking game. I think does the character models look fantastic, that the

environments are really detailed in a nice way. But one the one thing I can say confidently about the order is that I wish more games look that good. Yeah, but that's not enough. It's a short game. It took me probably about six hours to get through it, which you know, that's not necessarily too long, too short, I guess, But it's that there's nothing else to the game to do, ye and no real reason to go back and play at a second time. It's not like it's not like it's

a co op game. It's not like it has alternate branching paths for you to go back and see. It doesn't sound like you'd like it better if it was twenty hours. No, No, definitely, it does not have twenty hours with the mechanics. I mean, it's in it's six hours it

repeats mechanics that we're not great the first time. So that was the thing I was sitting there thinking as the hubbub about the game's length was going on about it, you go at this time, that's such a black and white where I was like, I was, like, I thus on everything I've heard from the people who've actually finished this game, like they didn't want it to be longer, Like the length is not the problem. It's more of

the content. Yeah, you know, it's again like they're going for the cinematic approach, but there's not that much story in it, and what is

there is kind of blandu. There's like an interesting premise, like the setup I think is kind of cool of this whole, like you know, oh, they're the you know, the her Majesty's Order, the Knights of the Round Table and all the stuff like HARKing back to King Arthur but brought into this weird almost steam punkish alternate alternate pass Like there's there's something to that, And I've gotten deep in enough that, like, you know, I've even

seen a little bit of like politicking within the Order, yeah, kind of disagreement, you know, like some of that stuff seemed like it could be promising, but it's so slow to get started and it doesn't finish in a satisfying way. That's probably the most damning thing I would say about it is like, you know, if if it was like a game where they focused on the story over gameplay, you could agree with it. But you're like, oh, okay, well, I mean that's a valid approach, but

they don't nail the story either. You know, Like the gameplay is pretty drab. It's you know, third person cover based shooting intermingled with some quick time event style action, you know, AC action. But that right there on its own does not dissuade me from Yeah, it's that it's like it kind of does me though, Well I think I think this award does all of that action better. Yes, Okay, like think about, like I don't I don't want to turn this into just like here's the bullet points that

a game of this type needs to have. But like, think about what kind of package Gears was by the time three rolled around. You're right, think about how much was in that it doesn't necessarily know. But my point is that no one aspect of the order is done well enough to like hit all of its marks. You know, the story is not there, the gameplay is not fully there, the you know, the length of it's not there. That the value proposition is a little questionable based on you know,

kind of just not having any additional mode. And I think of what I'm saying is that none of those individual parts make me say like, well, then I'm not playing it. But added together the fact that you say this

is a boring game, that is what makes me never totally yeah. And that's the thing is, you know, like there's the story kind of deals in like info dumps to a certain extent, Like you know, at the opening of the game, you don't really know exactly the nature of your order and what kind of what's going on or even what you're really fighting, uh

my understanding. The only reason I feel comfortable talking about Where Wolves at all is I understand that they've been prominently featured and kind of the pre release stuff, but you know, at the outset of the game, you don't really

actually know that even that's there. Well, you talk about the the info dump stuff, and there are entire chapters to where I don't know, it's probably considered spoiler if I say how many chapters there are like you know, okay, there's fifteen there's sixteen chapters, and like there are at least two or three I want to say where there's like literally no gameplay, because when I first saw sixteen chapters, I was like, all right, it seems

length the issue if those are even moderate length. But then there's some where it's like, oh, chapter eleven or whatever is just a ten minute cuts. It's literally just cut scene. Like when you say literally no game play, you don't even move or you don't even move a character forward. Yeah, you see a couple of interactions between some characters, and then it's like

chapter or twelve or whatever. Huh man, that's rough, because I even thought there was there was very little to do in the first couple of chapters that as far as I've played, because and maybe I mean, you know, the that game needed another hour or two on it, or to be more efficient with its storytelling, because it doesn't end in it like it ends at what I feel like is somewhere around the end of act two of its story, and it leaves behind like a hanging thread, but not one that's

like so compelling or deep enough that you're like, oh, clearly they'll make a sequel to go after this thing. No, it's more like, why wasn't there just one more hour of like we're gonna go stamp this out and then maybe then maybe reveal something that that hangs people on for for another game

or something like that. Like it just stops. And even in the like gameplay sections, it's so restrictive as far as you bring up like Gears of War and Gears of War, at least you could kind of attack things the way you want to attack things. And Gears of War there's different guns and stuff, and you can pick up different guns on the battlefield here, but there are very obvious segments where it's like this is the segment where you should

use this gun. This is the segment where you have to sneak around and if anyone sees you, you're immediately dead. It just feels like it's this

guy, do have like instant fail stealth? Yeah, you know, and like it just you know, if you're spotted by a guard, it cuts to a close up shot of your character's head and then you get shot in the face and then it just goes black and rest and it's like it just feels so out of time, like this weird, like how did this game make it out in twenty fifteen, Like that mechanic in it, like it's it's I say in the review, Like it just feels like the game feels

like it came out of some alternate historical world or LaserDisc games where somehow like revered and continued on. You know. It's like this just conceptually a really

strange thing to have in this game. Yeah, That's kind of the primary thought that I've had from everything I've like the little I've played and everything I've heard about the game, is that it feels very much rooted in like the ideals of the last generation of consoles, which were you know, it was kind of the first generation where the like the super cinematic, really nice looking game kind of came to prominence, you know, like when the graphics gotten

good enough that you could get away largely on like experience or whatever you want to call it. But yeah, but but I feel like I feel like the industry has moved on from that, Like, yeah, I don't feel the experience of playing this is up to par, Like it it feels lackluster compared to its contemporaries. It feels lackluster compared to the big games of its type from the past generation of consoles, Like it just doesn't hold up right by any of those metrics. But even if the only thing you can say

about it is well, parts of it looked really great. But even if they were really successful what they were trying to do, like, would that be enough? I don't think it's In this day and age, you know, at least you could say, like, hey, you know, they went for something and they nailed that, Like it may not be what people want, but you know they made a complete thing. This just feels like they headed in that direction and couldn't get it done right for for one reason

or another. Like it just nothing. No one part of it comes together well enough to be like, oh, well, I see what they were trying to do and say it's just like this weird mess. I don't know, Yeah, it just it kind of exists off to the side to me in this world where everything else is trickling down from like Minecraft and Skywrine right right, like everything else is big, dynamic, robust, like procedural.

You know, there's like everything else is about creating these big, repeatable, like interesting, dynamic experiences and like, here's this kind of like artifact from six or seven years ago that is literally just you walking in a straight line

shooting everything in your past. Yeah, I'll give you that. And like, I don't think that that's damning on in and of itself, Like I think there's plenty of room for that style of game that doesn't have to be all emergent and all fucking I'm gonna build my own way or you know, it's just a waiting style of game. Yeah, but I'm waiting for like a Call of Duty campaign without the other modes that make you care enough about

a Call of Duty games. I feel. I feel like even even Call of Duty, I feel like, is more interesting to play than what I've seen of this. Yeah, any the shooting in this is so by the numbers from from what I feel, it's it's another game where they make pistols. I mean, you know, headshots are really powerful and pistols are really accurate or or specifically like most like two of the three pistols you get are

you know. So it's it's another one of those games that I felt like I was just shooting my way through it, one shot at a time, one head shot at a time. Well, how do you get that like red dead aiming thing where you can press a button when a meter is filled up and you just kind of like move the stick to point of the guy and just keep shoot him until he's dead. So I feel like that mechanic it was terrible in this game, Like it never really seemed useful. It

always felt like am I even hitting? Like what's you know? It never felt like I was like some fucking super badass. It's not to hit it. Yeah, no, it's not extra Yeah, I mean, even to put it in the context of games where the core gameplay, like what you're doing is inherently valuable. There's stuff like Halo out there where the combat is the value is. You know, it's like playing the combat is and itself very interesting and rewarding, whereas in this it's like it's largely just a glorified

kind of shooting gallery and then move on to the next cut scene. Yeah. I mean, the most dangerous thing you face in in the order is a man with a shotgun, because they tend to wear armor and they flank you, and the shotguns do a lot of damage. So it's just about the werewolves that does it. They're they're they're I mean they're probably yeah,

I've I've fought werewolves. That's kind of rhetorical question. But it's like they run at you and you shoot them and then you oh lay your way out of them with a button press, like you roll away from them when they get close, and then you go just shoot them and then do a canned animation over their body to stab them to death, like a canned execution thing, you know, like they're You face those things like two or three times over the course of the game. It's and you don't face them alone with

other humans. It's always like that. There's that first time you face them. It's like you're in a box and there are three of them. That's how it is every time. Yeah. Wow. Also that's really early on. Yeah, Yeah, they did the same exact scene basically near the end.

It's just there's three of them in a room and there's like a bigger kind of boss mechanic where you're sort of moving, but it's kind of a quick time event and that's repeated again later on, and that's not fun the first time either, and you're like, why would you hang your entire game

on this mechanic. It's not fun. It's like like repeating it doesn't make it better, you know, it's it's just one of those things like this was a There are so many There are a lot of bad ideas being executed in the order with like some level of prowess, which leads you to wonder like is was this the plan all along? Or did It's like you've read out of time and have to go like, well, we're gonna have to, you know, make the second boss fight exactly like the first one,

I guess, because that's that's what the time we got. I just it's really crazy that this game exists in the form that it exists in because it's nuts. It just you know, it's so repetitive and and that's the thing that you know, one of the one of the other things that really stands out is is just top to bottom man good voice acting looks really nice, but everything about the way you play it it's kind of ab you know, anything you do when you're you know, the the shooting is fine. Yeah,

there's nothing broken about the game. I mean, everything works and everything it looks good, but it's just for how little it's trying to do. I would hope that it's Yeah, well yeah, yeah, I at no point in the five or six hours had any fun with it at all. Did you finish it too? Yeah? I beat it. It's it's not a good game. It's unfortunate. Yeah. I interesting interesting like premise and setting, you know, like that first reveal trailer that when did they god,

when did they show that that was? Was that a VJA A couple couple of years? Maybe it's been a while. It feels like it's been I know, I agree with Jeff. We've talked about this about how when they first started showing stuff like that thermite gun and everything, it was like for the first time they had it playable, was was I guess it was E three last year, Like right before you three, I played it's the it's the sequence of the game where you get the thermite gun for the first

time. Yeah, I played that too. Of two times. I think yeah, and you go like, oh, this isn't like it. It's my first I pick up the I pick up the controller, it's my first time playing the game. Like that little sequence up to the cut scene where you use the thermite to burn through the little fucking thing and walk through that door, like that's the playable chunk that they had, and maybe went a little bit past that, but not not too much further. It did.

Actually, yes, it went a little bit past that, and you're like, oh, this thermite gun is really crazy, Like you're shooting dust at people and then and then following up with these flares that ignite the dust. Like it's like a fucking ratchet and clank gun in this super realistic world. It's like this really weird gun. That'd be cool, you know, like give me a bunch of weird guns. That's one of two weird guns.

Because because you're your assumption in that context at a trade show is like, well, if this is what they're choosing to show me now, like imagine when they're holding back. Yeah about there. Holding back is like a lightning gun you have to charge up to shoot that. It's no fun to shoot. And you know, standard pistols, machine gun, shotgun stuff that you

know is not great all with no upgrades whatsoever. It's not. Again, I was totally hoping for Ratchet and Clank in that setting where it's like a bunch of crazy guns with a bunch of crazy like upgrades and stuff. Now there's two kind of weird guns, one bullets or lightning crossbow bolts. Do you wanted to chain together on enemies or you want it to be an AoE like Yeah, yeah, I'd like it if I had a little more stuff

like that. But yeah, the arc lightning gun sucks. I do like to throw my gun, but you get it twice and you can't upgrade anything. There's one stationary sequence where you get a like a rocket launcher with infinite ammo. Yeah, there's one. There's like a rocket launchery type thing that you've had a couple of guys drop that I've never found useful. There's a machine gun where you can like shoot air into someone's face and it disorients them

for a second and you kill them. But again, it's just man none of the stuff. I don't know. It sounds like the problems with this game are more fundamental than just a lack of variety in the weapons. Yeah, anybody who goes through that game, I can't imagine how they would say that. If it was a twenty hour game, it'd be better. Like, it's just a bad game no matter how long it is. Yeah,

it's odd. It's an odd release to me in twenty fifteen twenty minute and three demo for that where you know, like just thinking about all the games that are the biggest games these days, sure, like the industry has largely moved on from this kind of like thrill ride like theme park roller coaster type cinematic things like I think it. I think that not quite maybe, like yeah, I just I'm just not. I struggle to think of any other

like real big marquee releases like this nature right now. I mean, like for better or worse, Like I don't think those games are always great or those campaigns, but like you know, Call of Duty campaigns are very much that kind of like plow through this thing full of set pieces like battlefield campaigns

and very much that. Well again though, like how can I put this, Like by lacking, by lacking all of the peripheral features that those other games have, Like this game is basically making this confident statement that like, hey, our thrill ride is what's worth showing up totally, and it's not like those games. Those games acknowledge like we need a bunch of other modes to keep this game at some point, like you know, like it it

transcends price and you're like, is this thing worth your time? And it's like, like my answer at that point, it's like it's still just like no, not. I mean there's nothing, there's nothing so crazy here that you absolutely must see it. It's not because I mean, you know, let's let's be on with ourselves. Were still like buy and large. We're in a world where video game writing is not up to par with other forms of fiction. Sure, Like I struggle to think of a single video game

story that in itself is the reason to play a game. Well, I mean, you talk about these other modes and everything, and let's like like Uncharted and the newest tomb Rader for example, Like they had other modes, but I never touched multiplayer really an Uncharted or tomb Rater. Just those pretty linear campaigns. I thought that was worth it for that kind of throw, right. I thought they did that well. And they even have their occasional

you know, QTE or whatever, but they were interesting. The game player was more fun. Oh that's the thing. I think, Like, like those games are games where you can make a case that the combat that the you know, there are more options in what you're doing because I mean, again, take place in a larger world I think, you know, like the combat and like the action and combat in that most recent tomb Rader, Like, yeah, it was a linear path through the story, but you

felt it felt more open. Yes. Not only not only that, because there were areas that were much more kind of rounded and you can sneak around if you wanted and stuff like that, but they also broke up the action, like I think, I think they were way too heavy on the uncharted

and not enough tumb rating in that game. But at least there were some tumbs to raid, you know, yeah, like there were interludes where you weren't fighting people, you were, you know, kind of picking your way through some cavern or like you know, you were moving through a forest, like there were other things to occupy you besides just like, well, all I've seen in this game are literal shooting galleries where the level design isn't even

such that you could like flank enemies realistically if you wanted to. Yeah, it's literally just like get behind these five cover points that we laid down and pop off headshots until you can move on. And the idea of like a side thing in the order is like, oh, here's a room that's a little off the beaten path, which you know isn't even really that much. And you'll find a photograph and like an audio canister or something in it, like that's it. Yeah, nothing can do pick up this, like find

three parts and put it in a machine. No no, no, no, no no, there's there's this whole mechanic in the game of like sometimes you'll see paperwork or something on a desk and you can pick it up and look at it and they've rendered it at a resolution where you can read the newspaper if you want and that, but you don't you know, you know,

like at no point or you're needing to do any of that. And like so so every single thing you pick up, like none of it is interesting in any way, Like some of the audio canister stuff, like you

know it's audiologs and there's something there to that. But like in terms of like here's a photo and you look at it and like you can roll it around in your hand a little bit o style, Yeah, totally, like you can hit the button to flip it over, and there's never anything interesting on the back either, Like there wasn't one thing where you like gain real insight into anything about the Yeah, like every every piece of paper you pick up has the prompt to flip it over, and then like two or three

times I flipped the thing over and it was just blank on the back. Yeah, Like why is that options? There? There's stuff where like you know, like you are kind of forced to pick up some things sometimes and it won't let you put it down until you've rolled it around in your hand for a while. Happened to me with the fucking come on, yeah, come on, what are we doing? Yeah, I had to roll around an apple in my hand for a while before it said okay, you can

hit circle if don't want to look at the apple anymore. It's like, I think I'm done looking at the goddamn apple. Nice looking objects though, sure, yeah, but fucking come on objects, phone and look at I've just spent well, you know, at a certain point, you're it's kind of academic, but you're kind of You could look at it from the angle of appreciating the amount of work that went into every single piece of the game.

If it mattered, like oh, you're right, it does. If if it was good enough to be like a thing that was great unto itself, then outstanding. If it's stuff that like factors into the other parts of the game enhances your enjoyment or the your depth of understanding about the other parts of the game, then that works as well. You're You're absolutely right, like I'm you know, at a certain point, what I mean is that

you're having to abstract out meaning that otherwise isn't there. You know, like I spent a bunch of time walking around Tesla's lab just looking at every piece of equipment on the tables. Yeah, because like like they are better looking door knobs in that game than like some other entire games that are out on the platform. You know, Like it's insane how much detail isn't everything? Yeah, but to no end is what I'm saying, right in service of

nothing other than kind of establishing a world. But it just yeah, it doesn't even establish a world that well because the premise, the story is not rich enough to back it up. Yeah. So I you know, there's a review of that on the side. Quick look if you want to see some of it in action, and you haven't yet, but it's it's a it's a strong, strong disappointment. Yeah, it's a shame, but uh,

I guess we'll see where they go from here. Yeah, I don't know, Like it's like where are we at with and I don't even know who they is in this case ready don sony like console makers, I don't know, Like what is a Marquee console release in twenty fifteen? Well, you know, like what's what's announced out there that you know that we know is being worked on as a first party published game. I mean, you know, like there's Halo five, Charted four, Uncharted four. I think

is you know, probably the big one. Sure, certainly one of the biggest h blood Borne. Yeah, like kind of a different case since it's you know, uh, not quite a Souls game, but sort of trying to scratch that itch. Like it's kind of its own thing, you know. I guess we'll find out a lot more D three, but yeah, yeah, when we presume, we'll see some more announcements of games and stuff.

But yeah, you know, in terms of like big Marquee things for twenty fifteen, so you assume Crackdown would be out No Man Sky, No Man Sky. Yeah, Like that's such a weird different thing. I mean, I guess I'm more kind of approaching this for like, you know, games, that fit the uncharted Halo hold of like big traditional marquee titles, not you know, hey we made this big emergent thing, or hey we made this game that appeals to you know, you know, the people that

like the Souls games. Yeah. I think that's that's kind of that's kind of the subtext when you're looking at how expensive the order must have been to make in terms of art, It's like, there aren't many games that are like now that like, the consoles are powerful enough to make games that look that good, But how many budgets are getting green lit that allow for that? And if if that's the case, does the budget then chew up so

much? Yeah? You know, does the do the visuals chew up so much of that budget that you can't make a great game to back it up? Like we don't you know, we obviously don't know what the processes we're behind this game. But I totally had that thought of, Like, I mean, you know, it may not be an either or situation, but I totally thought of that. I Mean, I was playing that game and I was like, is this the price we're gonna pay for games that look

this good? They're like they're going to be this kind of single minded about what they're doing. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I hope not video games, Jeff, anything else. I played a little More Dead or a Live five Last Round. Yes again, something managed to avoid the spots where you lose your saved data so far. So is that just an Xbox one problem or both? No, that's on everything.

All four platforms have one issue where if I mean and you'll never you know, if you set the language to it's like France or German or Italian. Basically any of the figs in e figs I think and play certain tutorial missions, it crashes and tosses your saved data. Wow, Like the Team Ninja Twitter account is just this constant string of warning. Here's another thing. It's broken with our game, man, I don't know. We're working on it.

Thanks, and you know it's stuff like you know, they're they've made a lot of cosmetic DLC over the you know, in the past, for the p S three versions like for for Dead or Life five Ultimate that then carries forward into this and you can buy all that for like ninety three dollars,

which you know, it's cosmetics, so kind of who cares. But at the same time, like the store is clogged up because there's a free version of this game called Core Fighters that gets you four fighters and no story mode and also this stuff, and then you can buy individual characters and the story mode and also other stuff piecemeal, or you can just buy the game for forty bucks and get all that stuff, but not the costumes, but all the stuff for the free version shows up in the store for the disc

version. So it's just this cluttered mess and you're like, well, which of these can possibly apply to me? Like it's it's a it's presented incredibly poorly, but whatever. It's it's a it's a DA game, And I happen to think those are fun a lot people do. Yeah, and it looks nice. It's basically the same game, right yeah. Yeah, there's a couple of new characters and it still has the virtual of fighter fighters in it and stuff like that. Like it's it's cool, it's broken, Like

I can't. Like the night it came out, I was able to get an online matches just fine, and haven't been able too since. So I'm not gonna sit here and say, like run out and buy DA. I would say wait until they patch it a couple of times, maybe try the free one to see if it works for you, and and you know, go from there and hope for the best. But I don't know it's it's all right, but it sounds like it's absolutely the smart move if you want it, to buy the disc version and not by not buy end of the

micro transactions. If you know you care enough about DA to want to have multiple characters at your disposal. I mean, the characters are four bucks a pop, but the disc is forty, so at some point like yeah, I mean, buying the forty dollars version of the game just at some point makes sense. So you know, work that and roll that around in your head, do the math. The story mode the same as the last DA five release, so if you've already seen that on a different versi the game,

maybe you don't need it again. If you only play as one character, maybe you could get out a light four bucks or no bucks if you play as one of the four that is in the main thing all right, dead or alive? Dead, are alive? Still trucking? Still yeah? Still still ban yeah, which plent anything besides the order. Uh, I won't drag you guys know another conversation. But I beat Major's Mask. So

done with that, okay, yeah, done with that. I didn't hold up, didn't hold up, did do everything you wanted it to do. It was I enjoyed it more this time than the first time. And uh yeah, you would say that. I was just it was great. Hey, I before I, before I played this one, I was not nearly as evangelical about that game as I am. Now. I appreciate it more now, I like it more now. Yeah, I was sad to see it end. I really had a great time, you know, like four

masks and everything. I sat in on the Quicklick with you, and it was a pretty good primer for Yeah, like I knew about the bombers, no book, but you know, learning the ins and outs of all the other stuff they streamlined and changed from. Its kind of nice to see. Yeah okay, yeah they were really thought about how to make this more pleasant. Yep, yep. So I won't I won't get on my major of soapbox, but if you wind up playing it, Brad, i'd love to

know. Like I said in the quick Look, you know it's a it's gonna be a good Packs East game. Yeah, for travel and stuff. Outside of that, I am playing today. I started playing the first episode of Resident Evil Revelations. Did we talk about Kirby last week? No, we didn't. Last week was the weird week of you guys had both finished games that you could talk about. That's right, Yeah, because they were in Margot until late in the week. That's right. Herby fuck man old

down so thrilled. Man. I liked Canvas Curse a lot. That was the remind me that was the that was the very original DS. That was one of the first dsk if there was two thousand and five. So DS came out like what November of two thousand and four, something like that, And so for the longest time, it was okay, we've got ports,

so we've got Mario sixty four DS. Great, that doesn't really do anything with the hardware, And the only stuff that really made use of the touch screen, two screens and stuff was like feel the Magic x x x Y and such a gimmicky micro games or ports. It is pretty much all you

had. So if you owned a DS, you wanted something to be like, oh, here's why I bought this thing with the touch screen and Canvas Curse was one of those first games that really did that, like it used the stylist stylis only controls and stuff, and it was a great game of it was cool, it was awesome. Yeah, And I looked back at my old review of that from ten years ago or whatever, and it's so, yeah, I really really enjoyed that game, and this one any of

that magic or charm or it just feels soulless this time around. The gameplay, it's very repetitive. They don't do many varied things with like Kirby had powers and stuff in Canvas Curse, he could do the traditional Kirby thing of like oh I beat the spark enemy and so now I've got this, I could do the spark power. This one, you can't do that. Occasionally.

You're still drawing stuff with the stylist. So you're drawing, Yeah, you're drawing a clay rainbow at this point, and you're still moving them around like you would in Canvas Curse, which the level design is not great. There's no really interesting like enemy encounters, the boss fights are. They recycle a lot of them and they're not good. The first time Brad, I had to call you and Jeff in a separate times for the same boss that

was just driving me fucking nuts, because they require some of them. This one hoop Lagoon I think is his name. It requires this kind of precise level of control that just with the stylists, Kirby does not react well enough for you to be able to reliably fight this boss. So you can do multiplayers. So I had Brad and Jeff jump in with a pro controller at separate times and play it like a real video game and hit melee attacks on him. Man, it's it looks gorgeous. I love the clay style,

the art styles fantastica. The clay stuff looks really great. That going around looking real good. But yeah, a very good game. Oh and if you know what, if you're watching someone play this game, you can look right at the television screen and then it look nice and HD and everything. But if you are playing Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, you are looking down at that game pad one hundred percent. Yeah, that's the most damning thing about it to me. I gotta look at this low rez screen. It

looks gorgeous. I love the art style, but man, yeah, you're always looking down there. Yeah, I mean, you know, if the game were good, the game, the game would be good, like it would be worth playing, regardless of that. Of that, but it's one of the many complaints I have. That's that's just adding insult to injury at that point. Yeah, it's a seven worlds, three stages each with the boss fight at the end of each, which you know a lot of them

were cycled. Did I say that it's forty so it's not even a full priced here really, but it's not worth forty dollars. It's very short, man. It's some crapping and collector in a few treasure chests in each level, and some like diary pages. But uh no, I I did not like that game at all. Why they got to do Kirby like that? Yeah? I love Kirby? Would Kirby ever? Did anybody just like to eat the mall? Kirby's like the Last Man Standing and Nintendo mascot characters.

That's like great and fresh and amazing. It still has a lot of you know, potential, still feel good about Kirby. Everyone else has been in too many games. Mario has been in too many games. Yeah, Mario's Mario. I mean, you know what Mario can do yeah. You know, like Kirby seems like he could be in any kind of game and do anything. You know, Kirby can be in a pinball game. Yeah, Kurby can be in a golf game. Okay, any game with a ball all basically yeah, yeah, or any kind of platform. Like I just

look, you, guys, I just fucking really like Kurby. Okay, Kurby's pretty great. Kurby's pretty fucking Yeah. He swallows dudes, turns into them. Fuck shit up, that's Funby's fucking fun. He collapsed like on the top of his head because it stumps go over there. Yeah, that's great. But man, yeah I played a little bit of this too. Fuck no, it's it's no good. What did you think of the three DS game the most recent one, oh, Triple Deluxe. Yeah, I like that one. Yeah, that's, you know, way more of a

traditional Kurby. Yeah that is an actually eat everybody in and steal the powers game. Yeah, it totally is. I mean, I guess the one like gimmick or whatever is that you can like shoot yourself in between like the different planes like the foreground and the background stuff on some levels. But yeah, it's it's just a straight up Kurby game. Looks good, plays good, it's good, all right, good, this one's not good. Shap that is not good. Yeah, it's not good that that game is not

good. And no one ever talked about Kurby Triple Deluxe. So yeah, that one. I remember that one, just kind of coming and going. He came out in a weird time. There was some other stuff on the three DS Mario Yeah, yeah, but yeah, if you're just looking for something to play on three D s and you like platformers or Kurby games, Triple the Luxe is overlooked. What's the new one called Kirby and the Rainbow Curse? Rainbow Curse? That's right, okay, don't play that one?

No, all right, good to know, yep. And then yeah, Reside Evil. I had a chance to play maybe an hour of it today. The first episode they're doing the weird Okay, what is the actual full name of this thing? Resident Evil Revelations two episode Episode one? Okay? Is this something that has never been released before? Is this total? All right? It is gonna be episodic. Each week they're gonna put one up. It's gonna be four main episodes and two bonus episodes, not even not

even like a direct sequel to Revelations. It's more of a spiritual what what is it revealing? What are the revelations? You know? Like and not necessarily saying like, hey spoil it, but like, here's the revelation. Stop me if you've heard of this one? Residon Evil still makes money? Oh? Man, does it? You get to play? It's Barry Burton's daughter, Moira. I never know to pronounce that name, Mara. It's the ref from Nickelodeon Guts, but just call it. We'll call him Burton

Myra. Moira. Do you have it the guts? Oh? Yeah, yeah, O got guts? Uh? Wire's this said in the timeline? Dude, again, I am not a Residon eval. Lord guy, I were asking questions. You're not prepared to hear the answers too. I loved Resonval four. I liked Resonval five a good amount. Hey to the Reson Eval six didn't play through all of the first revelations on three DS or the console ones that came after, But I am liking this. So, so

what's the deal? It starts with kind of a slightly older clear red field like yes, by older, I mean like thirties or something older. So postcode Veronica. Yes, well she was still like a teenager. Okay, yeah, she's like Veronica from what I saw the intro, like she's kind of the the veteran here. Yeah, she is the experienced. Like, God, what is the agency that they're part of? This week? Stars

is long gone? I think bad guys AREPD Tara Tara Save is the bad guys because they say it's Terra Save because not every terra has to end with wrist. That's the line they say, what I think you heard him? That's yeah, no, no, I'm sorry. What's confusing here? What the what's wait? They do this commercial, they do this commercial where it's almost like an an Atlas thing from Duty Advanced Warfare, where it's like, hey, look at us where you know there was an earthquake and here we

are putting up sand bags or whatever. And then they said, yeah, Tara Save because not every terra has to end with wrist, but it's terror terror even look, you're overthinking it's terror wrists. Check out my earth wrist. Just go with it, man, it's resident evil. Yeah. So I don't know what the hell is going on. Too many people have said just to go with it. It's resident evil for too long, and that's what got us to where we are to that's a valid point. I'll say

this a lot better than six. Why didn't they just call this one seven? Because it doesn't even then they're weird, that's it's it's super weird. Hey, it's an offshoot. Be it does not have the budget to justify being called seven, like not even clothes. I don't know if it's cannon or anything. Again, lord not the lord guy. I know the first episode you're playing as you can switch between them or you can do go up, Yeah, Claire Redfield and more Burton. It could be Mara or Moira

or you know, pencipending. Yeah. And then so you're you're trying to escape this, like you wake up in this prison type area penal colony they call it, and frightening your through, fighting your way through. It's a bunch of spooky stuff happening, a bunch of guys, big gross things coming out of their heads. Are there zombies in it? Or are they fucking

not? Zombies? Haven't said that they're bows letter bows? Well, you played five and six, I don't remember what do they call it or something like that, right, right, bo double us or were they just infected in four? They were the right. Yeah, I'm so glad you can actually shoot things in the head again and coming out. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what's a good game's Resil four. That's a great game. I thought that everyone loved that game until I said in the office a few

weeks ago, like, oh, but everyone Lovedson before. And I look over and Jeff's shaking his head. Dand I'm not supposed to do this. I just the shot. I never got good at the shooting, like, honestly, like, I just never right. The shooting never clicked with me in a way that like felt shootery enough, so it felt like, Okay, they made improvements on the Resident Evil formula, but not to an extent where I wanted to play it. Okay, fair enough. Sorry, I

tried a few times. They kept rereleasing the game. I kept giving it a shot. Not even with the moat, No, not even with the moat. That's the one my dad has beaten like three times. Really yeah, it's like one of the only games. He's a weird dude. The we version of reson Eve before I got it from for Christmas and then he got obsessed with it. Yeah, the same game. It's a great version.

I played through the weaversion. It's a great version of Yeah. But yeah, I finished the part where you're playing as the two girls, and when we came up here, I was just starting one where it looks like I am controlling Barry Burton. Barry Burton, He's coming in on a ship. He's coming in to save his daughter Berry. Where's Barry. Yeah,

that guy, that guy with the beard and everything. Yeah, I'm curious to see how much the episodic structure of this means that they're just going to kind of reuse the same levels over and over and that kind of thing. Yeah, this will probably be something we keep coming back to for the next few weeks because I'm going to be, like the Embargoes Lifts on a week to week basis, so I will be able to talk about each section going forward if it stays interesting. So as of right now, I mean,

it plays fine, It runs sixty frame second. It seems pretty much all the time. AI is not great. It seems like sometimes these zombie things will just wildly leap at you in ways that like they are not even close to you. Lots of just jankie little video game things in it. But for the most part, shooting feels fine. I have been enjoying it, and I did not enjoy anything in six. I think upgrade your guns,

there's a whole like, you know, getting skill points. Does it feel like the same technology from six, like engine wise or like does it feel a lot like six? Not from what I've seen, you know what, I played about three hours of six and quit and I don't have really that's it. Yeah, lucky son of a pig. I know it's a huge game. I've seen a lot of thirty hour game if you play everything. Yeah, I recommended to play through like four days, like yeah, I

want to say somewhere between like three and five hours. And I don't remember how it controlled. Honestly, I don't remember how that feel was. But this it feels all right. I mean, I'm not gonna say this it feels perfect or anything, but you know, I've been doing it. Moving around feels fine. Yeah, I'm curious to hear out it shapes up over time. There was the the skeleton of a good resident Evil game in in

the first revelations. Yeah, it kind of went off the rails later on, but for a while it was like, man, this kind of is like what res evil used to be. Like, I probably would have played through all the first revelations if just the release had been different, because it came out first on just three DS and I didn't have a circle pad, and I tried planning with that, but I just hated that circle pad attachment.

And I know they eventually released it ONPS three and three sixty, but at that point that ship had sailed on surely wanting to get into it. Sure, So yeah, I'm just gonna jump into this one and see how it is. All right, excellent, Drew. You what's going on? Oh? You know? No, adult, That's why I'm asking. I got a sick poison oak rash cool working on. Keep that arm, keep that on your side of the room. Yeah. Is that one of the communicable ones? I don't. I don't think so. I think it's the

oil washes all yeah, I guess so. Yeah, but it sucks. I was not aware how long these things lasted. I haven't gotten poison oak at sometime. It was always more of a poison ivy guy myself. So I'm I'm allergic or last I checked. When I was five years old, I was allergic to poison ivy, Like my whole head puffed up. Oh got it, even if it touched her elbow. Yeah weird. Yeah cool. Yeah, and some people apparently don't react to poison oak or anything at

all, which those are non humans. But anyway, yeah, maybe they're bows. Went out into the wild, and then I got I got I got the I got the itch to do that some more. So, my entire Saturday was spent on Amazon buying backpacking gear. I bought way too much of it. I imagine that as a deep rabbit hole that you could potentially go down. Oh yes, stuff's expensive, man. Yeah, I would imagine a carbon fiber in there. Rugged construction backpacks s yeah, a lot

of stuff it's drilled to make it lighter. Uh. Yeah, I bought. I bought a mug from Japan. It's double walled except for backpacking. Yeah. I almost bought like a backpacking coffee drip thing that you put Yeah you it's like a you know, like a funnel that you put over a pour over. Yeah exactly. Yeah, it's a poor over for actual coffee for the outside for actual coffee. Yeah, it's like it's it's made out of silicone, so you can collapse it down and like throw it in your

bag. It's like some small and flat. Then you pop it up, put a filter in there, and then you pour in your ground coffee. And then you take the water off of the fire and pour it over there and it drips down into your mug. Which means you got to carry around like fourteen things to make coffee. Yeah, because matters man coffee serious business. I don't know how those things work at all. There's filters and beans

and crunchy stuff. It's not that hard, but the crunchy stuff are used to be beans and now what is and then you grind it, grind it up into crunchy stuff. Yeah, and then you pour the water through the crunchy stuff, so you get what what drips out. But you don't want to get the crunch stuff in your drink. Just remember that. That's why if you ever the crunchy stuff from getting in the drink, well, if you ever start drinking coffee, you remember you need to eat the grounds later

to get all the nutrients. That sounds like something that's not true. Apparently you sucked on the tea bag before maybe I haven't about it. I've never had team. Apparently you can. You can make what's called cowboy coffee, which is you just pour coffee grounds into a pot and then like shake it around centrifugal force style and push them out of the bottom and then just drink

the liquid. I can't imagine that tastes good. But I did not to go that route either, either of those routes, and just got like Starbucks instant coffee, which you played in your crazy make Coffee on You just make hot water and then you pour that little packet in there. Oh oh so you didn't buy it. No, I didn't got you. Okay, I know if I was, if I was out for a constitutional in the wilderness, I don't know, the coffee is what I would want to drink.

Oh man, if you I don't know if I want that sloshing around in there while you're like hiking up the side of a mountain or something. I went, I went on a short hike over the weekend and drank a bunch of coffee right beforehand, and it ended up okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's I mean, you know, that's for right to hear people say they like choke a bunch of coffee before they go work out, yeah or whatever. But you want to know a bad idea about what to drink

before you work out. Uh yeah, well that sounds pretty bad. That's kind of where we're going. Oh great. So in college we had a twenty four seven rec center, and every once in a while, I would like when the bars closed, I would just like run home or whatever, and it was like twelve blocks or something, sorry, from the bar, from the bar, not from the rec center, us like like a good healthy jog, like sprinting home just because I wanted to get home and fall

asleep faster. So I just like run home from the bar. When you're drunk. It's kind of like it's free because exactly, and you don't remember it. So I would wake up and my friends would be like, yeah, you sprinted all the way home and just passed out, And then I remember thinking like man, so it's like I didn't even have to put in the boring time working out if I'm drunk. So one time after the bars, I just went to the rec center and I got on the elliptical and

I puked. Yep, don't fucking work out when you're that drunk. Yeah, so sage advice. I don't want to run at full speed while drunk either, because that seems like it would be a really good way to fall over and fuck yourself up. I never happened. I drunkenly stepped off a curb wrong some years ago, and occasionally my knee still hurts, jeez, So yeah, don't work it was step off a fucking curb. It was the dumbest shit ever, like oh, stepping permanent pain. Yeah, look

back on that one. That was a good fourth of julyad That's my tip for the kids is don't get drunk and work out. You'll throw up stage great stuff life lessons with Dan Record. In terms of video games, I did a couple of like checkens on games that I haven't touched in a while. Tetris, a little more of the campaign. Yeah, yeah, it's fun, good stuff. Hearing all that Japanese. Don't spoil any of the story, Okay, I won't. All right, there's a guy on YouTube

going through and translating all of it. Yeah, I retweeted that they'll never believe what Fishman says here. Yeah, it's it's something cool. I don't know. I'm having a good I don't know what's happening, but I'm having fun with the puzzle stuff. Yeah, and I don't even really know what the like criteria are. Half the time two stars, it was a good five of something. Yeah. Does it change from stage to stage, like

the rule set? Yeah? Sometimes sometimes pray playing Tatris. Sometimes you're playing it against somebody, sometimes you're not, or there will be like a whole world where it's like, well this is gonna be mostly poyo stuff. Yeah, and there's a time or sometimes Yeah, it's fine. It's just a it's this grab bag you don't know where you're gonna get every time you go in to a level and it's like, oh, I guess i'm playing this now. Yeah, I like it. It's fun. Still holding out hope

that might come out over here, but I know that's still. I love playing a Japanese only game, like everything is Japanese and it's great. Sure. I also took a dive back into Master Chief Collection the multiplayer. I played two matches. It took a long time to match me even though it was just a single. Once you get in it's fine, but like I

couldn't even find a full game of Big Team Battle. Yeah, I wonder what all the troubles that game has had, what effect those troubles have had on just like the player base, you know, like they're just probably just not yeah, probably just not that many people looking for matches at the next point. Yeah, yeah, it's still not up to snuff. It's been like, what over one hundred days? Yeah, well, well over three

months now. I got a PM on the site from someone and you know, he didn't provide a screenshot or anything, so I can't verify it, but he said he was so, you know how they were going to do a beta test of the latest patch. Yes, And then they were sended that yes, this person claims to be part of like a small closed beta that they invited a few people to weird And this person said that with this

patch applied, like the matchmaking has been working very well. Okay, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but three months after release, it's not hard to believe they might have finally gotten it fucking working. Well, if that comes out, I'll check it out. Yeah. Yeah, I want to play with my friends. That's what was breaking before. It was just like we're playing five people, four xboxes across the country and it's

just not working. Like, did you ever ever could you say that you've ever since this game came out, had exactly the kind of experience you were looking to have with this product once I got into a game with all my buddies, Yes, but that wasn't our deal getting there. It was like hours, is there or time left for the Master Chief Collection? Like if it started working on percent tomorrow, would people like you? Do you think

people would come back? People like me? Yeah, but not the people who are like I like Taylor, I'm sure I'll get this, and they're like, nah, yeah, should probably say maybe when odst comes out. Yeah for that, Yeah, of course that's only I think that's currently only announced for people who basically bought it a launch more or less. I mean there's like a month three Yeah, well they never I think they never officially confirmed it was going on sale, but you know, of course they'll sell

it. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I don't know. I played a little Fortza five, which I had never actually played before. I had an extra copyline around and pop that in, went through like the tutorial stuff. It was fun. Yeah, it's racing. I think I think the campaign is structured pretty well. At least it looks like to me like you're you go through like the first few races and you're you're open to a bunch of other disciplines. Yeah. I bet that that game is a lot more

interesting or a lot more friendly now than it was then. Like they've rejiggered a lot of stuff really, and you know, like they've kind of filtered out some of the micro transaction the stuff, or gave people access to more credits to buy more cars than they had previously, so that ramp was a little bit longer maybe, but yeah, they they've made adjustments since since I reviewed it that I think I've maybe made a little more friendly. That's right.

You have to buy the cars before you can. They don't give you an gimmes, right, yes, okay, yeah, yeah. I went and looked at like the Formula one car and it's like two million credits and I have like one hundred and twenty thousand, so that doesn't seem so insurmountable, right, Yeah. Yeah. Six is coming out this year, right yep, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah. They announced six. It'll

have that four GT in it and that'll be on the cover. They announced it as part of like some auto show where they showed that new four GTA. At this rate every other year, they're gonna they're gonna get into weird cquel territory pretty soon. Yeah yeah, shriple tryad and let's ball with cars. Great. Yeah. I kind of wonder what they'll do with forts over the course of this generation, Like how much better could they really make it

look like it already looks really fucking good. And I don't know what the crowds. Okay, yeah, way to go. You're right, they got optimized for better crowds. That's that's a that's a clear yes, that's a clear point where they could improve. That's your one. I would love to see the marketing campaign for this thing, just get out in front of that or just like put out some promotional videos like the crowds of fours to six.

I would actually just that thing. I'd really like it if there was an option to turn on or DLC where they sell you old crowds alright, cardboard cutout, Yeah yeah, I think there's like there's a chance for like an in between step where instead of the cardboard cutouts, you get like the street fighter background, like two frames animation people like pumping their fists. That'd

be cool. We'll see how much they can optimize, I guess. But it's one of the where it's like, because so much of that game is rooted in reality, and so much of that game is based on like real world tracks, where do you go? Yeah, right, you know. It was kind of the thing from three to four. I remember like three felt like a perfection of forts as it existed at that point with the online

feature set that you expected it to have. Like four, they cleaned a lot of that stuff up, and you're like, technically, this is a better game, but I'm going to spend way less time with it because I spent so much time with three. Uh, and these games are really similar. And then that's you know, Horizon was a really good breath of fresh air for that stuff. But then there's kind of back to five and it was just like, well, it moved to a new console, so obviously,

you know, the game looks better in a lot of ways. That was crowds and then even with Horizon, like the sequel to that was kind of a retread a little bit. Yeah, the obviously moving around the world exactly. I think Horizon has you know, by not being rooted in a real world place as directly as some as some of the tracks from Motorsport.

Uh, they have a lot more room to move. But and they could get more outlandish with the design and stuff too, you know, like rereasing, raising airplanes and ship Like, yeah, I just I wonder, like this is something that I think about, you know, even you know, like they wait a long time between installments of Grant to Rismo. So by the time GT seven comes out, well it'll be the first one on the

PS four, So you know that'll be exciting in and of itself. If they get out of GT eight on the PS four though, like what you know, it's just be like well the more premium cars and fewer standard cars or you know, it's just a weird thing. Well that's something you can at least say about Grants Riismo. They're like whatever else do you want to

say about it? Like each release feels like an event. Yeah, it's because it is so long in between releases, you know, whereas like Forts is like they're on a very predictable bi annual schedule at this point, right, Yeah, you can practically set your watch by a Forts of release. Yes, I mean, you know, into forts of you know, in in twenty nineteen, forts of will probably pass grant to MO in numbers. Sure, yeah, I expected to do so so great. Yeah, I

don't know. I was thinking about that recently, just with kind of like looking at this generation and thinking like, well, where are we going to go from here? Just visually, like those genres that deal in reality, like if they're, if they're, how much more can they squeeze out of the console? How much more can they do? And will it be enough for to get people to come back every two years for another forsa or another like driving game like that? Hard to say. Also, been playing a

bit of a Hero's Charge on my iPhone. It's one of those free to play games, Jeff, that you and I looked at. Yeah, the one of them caught you quick looks of all the video games that were advertised during the Super Bowl, is that the one that everybody was getting in touch with me over the weekend about? Yep, I need to look at that apparently, And of course this slipped by me, but apparently all the all the characters in there are ripped straight from There's just like HiT's just cheeby Doda.

Yeah, I mean people were it's cheeby like like smallmed tiny like big heads s Yeah, sure, okay, it was called that. I might be into. Imagine if they just had a skin for Doda there was Doda SD, how fucking excited you would be? Might I might be into that. Apparently in China the game is called like Doda Legends or something. We're weird. Yeah, now it's one of those things where you know, the

term Doda existed way before Valve got ahold of it true. But yeah, somebody, somebody tweeted some names of hero names from that thing at me over the weekend, and just like immediately when I read them, knew exactly who they were talking about. You know, like it's so obvious. That's kind of a shame because I don't know. I kind of like that game.

It's it's is it a MOBI or is it something different? No, it's it's very simple, like you you choose a five person team and then they march from left to right and attack enemies automatically, and then you can pop their ultimates uh points. It's a very low commitment, it sounds yes, yeah, and Sherry Low Michael transaction e too I need to go download. Yeah, unlike, oh my god, Game of four you should? Yeah

that video did? We did? Is? I came away from that thing like made me feel having this thing of like, oh maybe I should get Clash of Clans. You know what? That's not that that game was not as bad as I was expecting. Yeah. I played more Dungeon Keeper than anyone should have, and a lot of those concepts came out of Clash of Clans. Yes, So I looked at it and when like, oh are

they are they? Are? They more tasteful in Clash of Clans, Like just the timers and the kind of the amount that they expect you to wait until anything is more tasteful compared to Game of War. Oh my god, that thing, man, he's kind of expected that after the commercials. This is the tone similar to the commercials and the ads, uh, in terms of like extravagance. Yeah, the extravagance of the ads is directly proportional to how egregious they are with trying to suck money out of you, If that

makes any sense, Okay, yeah, I don't know. I don't I don't want to spend too much time on that because we did a quick look about it, but like, uh, yeah, an interesting endeavor, say the least. The other game I've been playing is Attila Total War. Oh did you crack into that? Yes, I've played a couple of hours. Or I think it's Total War hole in Attila? Yeah, yes, wait

letters oh capital letters. Okay, I thought I thought for a second there might be an exclamation mark after Attila, which might be enough to give me to check that game out. That would be pretty good. I never really got. I played a fair amount of Rome Total War back in the day, but everything after that has just been way too overwhelming for me, And so I've missed the last few in terms of the design, and yeah, in terms of like I was just so much going on. I can't I

can't even handle. Because there's there's two aspects of There's like the civilization overworld part where you're like taking over territories and reinforcing your units and like it's turn based, and then when you battle another guy, it goes down into the h you know, it's real time strategy part of it, where you're commanding troops and stuff and a lot of troops and yes, literally thousands of troops, and it just I buckled under the pressure. Basically, this one seems

to be much better about teaching you how to do it. Uh. I can't say how it compares to other Total war games that have been released recently, because I didn't really play those, but it seems much more friendly and uh and uh Approachable's potentially a good thing if they're not sacrificing the I don't think they're dumbing it down any I think they've just improved things like the UI and the tutorials. But yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna do a quick look

at that. I've only played a couple of hours, but yeah, it's it seems competent and and not at all. I remember those other games being pretty buggy, and I haven't run into any of that. So yeah, excellent, good to hear. I the order is the main new thing I played. Yep. Everything else that I played has been discussed ad nauseum. There's a copy of Monster Hunter four in my three DS. I was too intimidated to start it up for the weekend. Okay, I hope by it

next time. By this this time next week, I might have something to say about it. I may have to drag Jason up here. Yeah, yeah, see what thoughts he has on this thing. You listen to the four podcast. They did a great segment on the did they I know, I know those guys are well they did, yes, but they also have known them to be insane Monster Hunter fans for quite some time. Yes, they had They had a guy on there, like they've been talking about it

for years. That's the name he goes by. He's like, he does like Monster Hunter two tooril videos basically. Yeah, And they had him on there and talked about it, and he said like, this is this is the one if if you're looking to get into it. Yeah, I've been hearing that quite a bit, like this is you know, this one's by far the most approachable to newcomers, et cetera, et cetera. Which I

also said something like, you can't this is not an action game. It is a hunting game, which is a think I think it lost me. There's very fine distinction, but it's it's not if you go in expecting to expecting it to be what it appears to me in like screenshots, Uh, you will be very confused. So I think that's been true about the entire series. Yeah, that's been Yeah, it's there's a depth there that you

need to spend real time with to to uncover. Sure, for me, it just had got to the point where too many people were talking about it too much and I had to know, you know, yeah, I mean

it's a certain point. I think it's like Dark Souls in that in that respect where it's like, you, this looks like something that I know what this is, but then it's it's not that, but it's, yeah, there's something there I talk to. I was talking to former Earns intern slash Sony deal maker Matt Kestler about it a little bit, and uh, he said he was not able to appreciate Monster Hunter until he had played Dark Souls, and that line resonate. I think that makes sense, like that.

It is one of those things where like I think that the people that are crazy about Dark Souls are crazy in the same way that Monster Hunter people are. Seems like some overlap there, and then I don't trust that's fair, no, but you know, it's it's the same. Like my problems with Monster Hunter over the years have been similar to the things that have pushed me away from Dark Yeah. It being like I'm not really sure what any of this stuff does all of the the animation involved is you know, like you

have to line up your shots very very carefully. Uh, you know, parts of it seemed clunky at first yea, yeah, And you know, and conversely, knowing that I had come to and enjoy the Soul series, I was like, oh, maybe maybe that was my gayway trugbe, I can actually appreciate it. I would not be shocked if that if that does it for a lot of people. Also some comparisons to the better aspects of Destiny, which made me curious. Yeah, just in terms of the loot,

kind of the pursuit of lout. Definitely a lute game. Yeah, you know, kind of always has been. Sure sure, I don't even think your character levels up at all? Really? Yeah, everything is light? Oh god, oh no, no, no, we'll see what happens. Stay tuned until next week. You the player level up, bread get better? All right, Well, that remains to be seen. We'll see what happens with that in the coming days. But for now, what if we were talking about some news Yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah, it's

gonna happen whether you like it or not. Some buckle up, okay for this hot banger. All right, I'm okay. Remember when I said that we weren't done talking about the Oscars. Yeah, speed Tree won an oscar? Why can it? Did speed Tree awesome? Have you heard of speed Tree? No? Yes, I have. It's a middleware for making trees quickly in video games or anything. I would preciated if you addressed it by its proper title. Academy Award winning middleware, a speed Tree. Okay,

middleware? Uh pull out? Pull up the quote from the ampus right here. Yeah, tell me it's what it won for. And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It was a so yeah it was. It was a Scientific and Technical Academy Award, which is the ceremony, the separate ceremony that they pay about thirty seconds of flip service too during the main ceremony was prestigious. That's the Oscars I would want to go to. Because they said the word Vauxhalls last night on the Oscars like four times. Yeah,

whoa, Yeah, it was pretty weird. Did they give an oscar to Comanchee? Just about right? But yeah, spe Tree was among the honorees. They gave the award for you know, vox Atron. But really, you know, everyone knows that Vauxhalls. It's just they're making good for the year. They didn't give it to Vauxhalls for commanch like it literally had this little slide appear in the middle of the oscars that said volume plus pixel equals Vauxhall. It's like, what the words show? Am I watching? What

is Jack Nicholson thinking right now? Huxtall is keyed? Go on. Here's the quote from the Academy of Most Picture Arts and Sciences. The software substantially improves an artist's ability to create specifically designed trees and vegetation by combining a procedural building process and the flexibility of intuitive direct manipulation of every detail. So there

you go. Sure, I mean it only makes sense that as the technology gets better, more and more movies are going to employ more and more digital stuff. Yeah. That was actually like in seriousness, the revelation here was like, oh, yeah, that totally does make sense for movies. Yeah, why wouldn't they use that in movies? Now? The site a specific movie they gave it for. Also, the blurb from the press release speech ree use has been confirmed in dozens of major films. Speech reconfirmed speech Ree

confirmed has been confirmed in dozens of major films since. The software was featured prominently in two thousand nine's Avatar, which received nine Oscar nominations and three Oscars. So I don't know if that was like literally the first movie was in but that's perform it's by a tree. Yep, pretty good trees in Avatar. And then they and they say they sighted a bunch of stuff, the Great Gaspee, Wolf of Wall Street, Avengers, X Men, Day's Future

Past, Iron Man three, Maleficent. So it's all over the place. Now they easy to think about the movies that like are not like science fiction in nature, and you don't think of it our action films and stuff like that that are still employing like that level of digital I mean, if you want to, if you want to like fully grasp the pervasiveness of visual effects in movies these days, go look for the effects reel for Zodiac, the

Fincher movie about serial killer, because it is fucking insane. How much like they shot almost all of that movie in La on sound stages because a bunch of the like specifically a bunch of the neighborhoods up here that they needed to shoot in because that's where things happened. Yeah, like wouldn't allow them to

shoot there. It's like kind of there would They made it sound like there were some nimbiesque issues there with like people just not wanting, you know, a film shot on their block or whatever, so they literally like, you know, building build here. Yeah, yeah, it would have been cool. But I mean, like it's an episode of Nash Bridges. Yeah, was that set here? Yeah? I think so. I'm shooting a car chase for the TV show Alcatraz is awesome, man, man, I want

to see that. But yeah, yeah, you should go pull that up because like, yeah, they basically rebuilt large parts of San Francisco in computers. But it's so subtle that you can't tell. It's like you would never know. I watched the entire movie never realizing there were like any effects shots in it, and it's fucking full of them. But yeah, speech congratulations speech Tree. Yeah, it's a long time fuck reality. Yeah, it's

boring, Big Trees. You can go watch their their kind of effects reel that's attached to this award announcement if you want to see a recent examples of speed Tree in movies. Also, this news was tweeted at me by the official speech tree account. They say they're big fans of site, and we are big fans of speech have been for years with speech tree. Oh yeah, yeah, it's going way back. Yeah, congratulations it's the speech Tree. Yeah. Absolutely, they are wizards, that's for sure. They definitely

are. Uh and other news. Who's ready to make dragons with speech Tree? Wait right? Yeah? Yeah speed speed dragon the dragon plug in for speech Tree. I'm like that. Yeah, this speetree is versatile. I believe that, saying I believe it. Cottage industry. Who's ready for another convention? Sure? Yeah? Do we have two in like a week? What if it was yes, yes, let's just live on the road. Okay, how about no, like a big RV works for flat beer?

That's true. It seemed to be doing all right. What if that convention was in San Francisco and called twitch Con? Can I walk there? Yeah? It's a Masconi I think do they actually? Yes? Yeah, firm it is? It isn't or where else would it be? In San Francisco? Slims not a lot of other options? Cow Palace? Sure, yeah, we had to push the HEMP CON's the only thing that's that's at the cow Palace anymore. Uh, it's twitch Con slash Tattoo Expo. Yeah,

they have like swap meets up there or something something. Uh. Yes, twitch Con was announced by twitch TV. Say what's gonna be at twitch can kind of? So it's the twenty fifth and twenty sixth of September this year. Okay, I almost just said the twenty fifth and twenty sixth in San Francisco again omitting the month. What the fuck it'll be on day two forty seven. We just got we just gotta map this. We just gotta get this, this annual calendar going. Who needs months? I know there's point

the months are a false construct. Summer starts on one hundred and forty third. It's gonna be our merch pages, giant bomb calendars where it's just numbered stuff. Uh so James thing. So yeah, they call it a celebration of all things twitch twitch Con. That's what this says. I don't know that this is a convention I want to go to anymore. Yeah, it's a good point. Uh yeah, it's their press release. Yeah, take

it as such. But it says twitch Con will be an interactive convention for broadcasters and viewers alike to meet each other, learn how to take your Twitch game to the next level. Yeah, and play together. That's it. So are they going to be streaming from twitch Con? That's that's probably that. That's about all the detail I've got for you here. Well, there's

there's a little more. They go in old more detail here. Attendees will have the chance to mingle with each other and their favorite broadcasters, experience live content from the convention center, and learn from the community thought leaders. So that sounds like a stage show and panels, yeah, and maybe great type stuff. I assume a laptop. So, yeah, you had mentioned this a bunch, but there's no official confirmation of it. But I mean,

I'm sure we'll find out soon. If it's the case that there will be like a big show floor with like just publishers they are showing games, I would assume though Twitch, you know, they have contacts with publisher they do deals with publishers, they do stuff with publishers. It would make sense for there to be a show floor at this thing. You know, one would expect, like, you know, maybe there's an ex split booth obs is there, you know, I don't know, does you get does a free

pass software package. Just get a booth, I don't know whatever, you free copy os for all attendees. Great, thanks for that. Uh. I would assume that there would be games there. It's it's timed at a point in the year where where there will be builds of unreleased games that are very playable kind of post post packs prime, So there's there's stuff that could be there. I would I would presume that some publishers would want to show

at such a such a destination. Sure, I'd expect like Turtle Beach and Gunner Optics and stuff like that, like yeah, well anything fatality gear. Yeah, I don't know, like Gunner Optics, Like what do you like here are some sunglasses to where while you stream save it every like I guess yeah that shit. Many hardware booth with a lot of esportists sure, playing matches and stuff. Yeah, you know, like like the Twitch booth at Packs is always like well attended to a lot of people that just kind of

post up there and watch their stage show. So it makes sense. It's the Red Pop. The company that does that puts on packs is also doing this, which makes you wonder why isn't this packs San Francisco. But I guess at this point maybe Twitch is a bigger brand name than Packs, or Twitch is growing. I don't know whatever that's that's just as that I don't

know. Well though, the way Packs has been expanding, it seems to really be targeting underserved markets, you know, like like Australia and South specifically, are in regions where you know, you don't have immediate access to the two main ones. I don't know, man, San Francisco hasn't had a big game show since Game Spot After Hours? Wait was that the last one? So Player's Ball was the last player game Spot? Players Ball, wasn't it? That was the thing I think it was. I think it went

game after Hours and then players Ball? Right that sounds right, Yeah, I think that's right. Fuck man, I don't know. Checkout game, checkout game. What was the Player's ball? We went to smallest of the three. They got smaller year and you're out of weird. We were at slims was that one? Right? This is back in your game Spot. This would have been probably six probably. Yeah, they're still You can still find a bunch of players Ball branded stuff around the office. Yeah, there's

a there's one on a pillar. Uh yeah, I'll show you. But what did we do. We did a stage show. Rich was still there, so it was like that that era. And then there were some games on the show, like on the floor of Slims. But it was like

it was one game, eight Kiosks or something. It's like wolfensteiner play some multiplayers, you know, whatever it was, and then a couple of other games there, and then there were drinks and it was it was relatively low key compared to the other ones, which were higher key and a real hassle. Swims a bar. Yeah, it's like a concert. Yeah, got a stage and everything upon which we played rock band, right or the amusement of the crowd. Good times? Huh. Live events Uh yeah, anybody

in San Francisco, Sure, come on down. I don't know, I you know, no details about like how limited the tickets will be or with a cost or any of that stuff. Yeah, yeah, I think it makes sense, uh for a Twitch to do something like this. They got they got that Amazon money. Yeah, got a huge community or a gigantic user base. As we'll see what they can do any live capacity. So yeah, September, look for it. Fandom dust. Anybody remember that Yeah.

I remember like five people very loudly freaking out about it when they announced the new one. Yeah, and me, I've never even heard of that game. I had heard of it. What's the deal? What is it about this game that peep are either completely obsessed with it or have no idea what it was? Wasn't it a card it was? I think it was card based, it was. Yeah, it's a It was on the original

Xbox. Yeah, it's like an original Xbox card like building fighting thing before Magic had all of its online stuff and a lot of the other online CCGs went online or whatever, and it didn't have an actual card game component. Like it was just a video games as far as I know. And yeah, the people who are into it really into it, to the point that those people lost their ship at three last year when they announced a new Fantom Dust at the Microsoft press conference for the Xbox One. Well, now the

studio making Phantom Dust dark Side Games has been shuttered. No, they were located in Florida. Uh. Microsoft basically canceled the game that they were working on. Uh, and the studio had to let go around fifty people who were all working on Fantom Dust. Microsoft put out of statement like, the game's not dead, so that's something, but it's still concerning if you were interested in this game. Microsoft partnered with dark Side Game Studios and the development

of Fantom Dust, but our working relationship has now ended. We have great respect for their studio and their work in the industry. While we did not have anything new to share on Fantom Dust at this time, we can confirm the development of the title continues. Look forward to sharing more details in the games we eclosit release. So no indication if they're even going to like salvage the work with it was done there and go from there, or farm it

out somebody else and start over like who knows. Yeah, not enough information to point fingers one way or the other on that one. Well, okay, lay it on me. Kataku got some anonymous quotes from someone who worked at the studio okay, which go as follows the executives who saw it. They're talking about the game. Of course, we're impressed, and as late as this morning gave our team every indication that the project was on solid ground. Yet we got the phone call today that someone up on high who in

all likelihood wasn't even aware of the game and detail shut it down. So who knows if this was the victim of like high level strategic moving and shaking or something and not actually a commentary on the quality of the game. Hard to say. I wonder if it's one of those like truly fucking dark decisions of like, well, we announced Phantom Dust when we needed to build credibility with an audience that really hated us. As it turns out, we've turned

a lot of that around. We don't need this game anymore. That's rough. Why would you do that though? Oh? I mean they say it's still in the works, So yeah, maybe they found another developer. Maybe Dark Side did like completed its work on the game, and Microsoft is taking it the rest of the way. Maybe it's like, yeah, I mean someone was like, we were spending that on what Maybe you know someone who could do it cheaper. Ah. Yeah, it's forty million dollars for a

fucking card game. Come on, I made that up. But that sounds shitty. Yeah yeah. If if that's the case, you're right though, someone who didn't know it's shit about the projects stepped in and and shuttered it. That's right. This is this isn't the years of four Oh, come on, not enough walking talk sequence is in your card game? Right? Yeah, you know, we don't obviously have any idea what actually happened. Maybe they were building it as a micro transaction based game and Microsoft realized that

that's not the direction they want to be seen as moving in anymore. You know that there's a ton of different totally, but you're you're right that this is especially interesting in the context of this being one of those things that won some hearts and minds for them totally three last years when they were desperately in need of it. Yes, so that's a shame if they may end up not making good on it, but we will see, man. I guess In other news, remember drive Club? Uh? Okay, yes, all

right, let's talk about drive Club all right again? Great? Uh, let's talk about Jim Ryan ahead of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, who you may remember from the Amazing is that? Actually? How are there really people who say that? Yes, I don't know how I feel about that. I think hang on, wait, I think I'm coming around. How is that any different than someone's saying like sness Ski, Just think about it, Visualize the letters see in your head as you say Ski sound like Ski. Yeah,

I think I'm coming around. It's kind of fun to say, Yeah, I think I'm into it now, all right, all right, you win. So Jim Ryan, you may remember from the from the extreme close up incident of games Calm. Yeah, okay, right, Jim Ryan. Of course, media recognition, right, okay, one of my all times I don't know who runs Europe? Who the fuck are these people? Yeah? Of course one of my all time favor press conference snaffoos. Uh so, uh, Metro's Game Central. I believe it's the outlet is called Metro.

I'm not quite clear on the lineage here, but they did. They did a pretty solid interview with that guy. Yeah, especially in light of the kind of the hubbub around the malanuro Rock Paper Shotgun interview last week. Uh. They called Jim napathological no no, but they certainly put some hard questions to him. It's actually a pretty solid interview. I read the whole thing. You know. They're kind of needling him about the kind of poor

first party output so far and PSN being down a lot. Give answers, like all political it's just like no, the answers to the questions make it fairly evident. Why not a lot of such interviews are conducted because you don't really get a whole lot except kind of sidestepping and you know, course spin and such. Sure, but but Drive Club came up on the subject of games launching broken. Yeah, that happens a lot. Drive Club kind of

was the only offense or in the Sony camp last year. Obviously most of the other games, most of the other games were from other publishers, but they did, you know, they did lean on the Drive Club angle quite a bit. But at the end of the conversation they turned to the PlayStation

Plus edition of Drive Club. Yes, remember that the free version of Drive Club was supposed to exist, and you know, they kind of were talking about the quality of the game, and the PR guy had interjected in the interview at this point saying, if you play it now, it's really living up to its expectations. The interviewer says, I understand that you did a lot better than some in addressing the situation, but that was still three months, you know, the after release, and is there're still going to be

the free PlayStation Plus version. Jim Ryan says, that's still being looked at. You can't guarantee that it will ever happen. I can't say anything at this stage, So not even going on record saying that thing is still coming, which interesting is a shame. Where was the last time you played that, Jeff? After they added Japan okay, they put out a weather patch

and added in an environment. They put out the first set of DLC for free, downloaded that put it in drove a race and said, yeah, I still don't want to play this game, So would you go back to it? No? No, I mean I'm not gonna buy any of the more and more of any of the DLC they put out, Like it's a bad game. I don't want to play anymore. Like adding more tracks and

cars doesn't fix the crux of what's wrong with that game. Let's say, let's say Jeff is perhaps not the target audience for Drive Club PlayStation Plus addition, I couldn't say yeah, uh no, I mean I would, but you know, a free version of that game, that's that is the right price for that product. I might get you back in yeah, Like whatever you want to say about the game itself. I mean, you know, they kind of sold PlayStation Plus on the back of this thing. A little

bit yeah, among other things. I mean it's you know, it's a good service generally, Like they've done a lot of good stuff with Plus. Yeah, but still for them to have pitched something like this out there and then having walked back this are on it. They should, I mean, it should come out at this point. They need to do a PlayStation Plus version just to get it off the books and fucking like we did it. Stop you can stop asking, Oh god, you know, otherwise it's one

of those weird black marks that dogs them forever. Have to kind of cut your losses and do it at some point. Yeah, just to make good they should like put it out and then like a week later, say, we had to cancel the last Guardian because his resources the PlayStation plush version of Drive Club. Oh boys, understand, Thank you for understanding. Boy, that would be fun day on the internet. We couldn't afford it. Sorry, that would be some interesting stuff. But yeah, that's that's a pretty

decent interview. You want to go check it out. See how a top corporate figure and sidestubs some of these very pointed questions. Yeah, let's see the only other thing I pulled for the news Assassin's creed unity. Remember all the bullshit that came out along that in the form of Companion mobile app and we and website, and many say like, there's like three different avenues of

bullshit emanating for that game. Which one are we talking about specifically the Companion app and then the initiates stuff, which was the website, Okay, where

you were doing a bunch of other stuff. Basically, there were a bunch of treasure chests and things in the game that you could come upon, you could like go to the trouble of getting to them, and when you try to open them, you basically got to hit with a big message saying like, oh, you gotta go do this and this and the Companion app first, oh, which you know, on top of all the other things wrong

with that game did not leave a good impression. So they have finally gone to the lengths of divorcing all that stuff in the game from that the external things. So any of the treasure chests you find that required some external involvement, apparently we'll just open now. Great, that's totally what I was waiting

for. Which, yeah, although you know, I actually have been meaning to check that game out, and it's not like this is gonna you know, it's not gonna be a night and day sort of thing, but it's like a little extra incentive to be like, all right, all right, I'll find it take I mean, I guess, you know, I sort of wonder where it's at these days, if it's cleaned up to an acceptable level or not. Yeah, the kind of like you look at this and you're like, all right, well, they screwed up. They went way

too far, but at least they finally walked it back. But the concerning thing to me is that they had so many technical problems with those things that I wonder if this was them just abandoning it, because they never got it quite working right right, so that would not necessarily get it right next to your right. That's the scary thing. It's like maybe they're just gonna do it again, but actually make it worth this time, which I hope not.

I had so much right into my tumbler asking if they should buy grow Home or not because they felt bad about giving youb soft money, which was a tough question to answer, and I said, yeah, like I feel like that game kind of transcends your moral peak, and more money that gets the more they go, like wells. Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's yeah, it's like that this thing, this thing is, this thing doesn't if you play. This thing doesn't have micro transactions any of those

other stuff. They like it when we don't have you play. It's just a fun little video game without any frills or bullshit. I did see someone else point out that grow Home is basically one long tower climb and yeah stucks right to the UBI Soft. Yeah I've gotten I've gotten them. Yeah we've gotten that to the podcast before. But I don't know that game's great. Yea. They put out new content for that game. Yeah, what is the new content I heard about. I haven't played it. I meant to

crack into it over the weekend. I didn't get a chance, but they put out a trailer. It makes it look like they seated the world with a bunch of new wildlife and there's like just the sheep. Yeah, there's some other types of animals wandering around and stuff. And it looks like there are some side quests now for dragging the animals into the teleporters, which is the thing I was already having fun doing. Anyway, official quests they basically

just codified the thing that was really dumb and fun to do. Anyway, did the sheep ever actually teleport because I would risk and they would just like sit there and stare at me. So you have to get in there and activate the teleporter. Oh and there it goes out. But if you're holding onto an animal when you turn the teleporter on, it will totally come with you. Why, yes, there is, there is totally. Uh so the sheeps are called I forget what anyway, there there is a brundle fly

reference in one of the achievement names based on the animal names. The game's cool. Everybody should play that. I will say for the like fourth week in a row. I've got some bonus news here. Oh yeah, that just came in, like the late breaking news breaking. That's the peril of

recording on Mondays. You never know what's gonna happen. Yeah. Valve is going to show the final Steam controller at g DC Wow, along with some new Steam machines, new living room devices in a previously unannounced Steam VR hardware system. Wow wow. Uh so they're they're giving demos to developers and publishers

at the show, and yeah, that's what they're showing. Cool, Okay, that's that's kind of unexpected because they had, you know, they had lost a number of people in their kind of hardware are type group and dude to hurt so little for so long, it kind of seemed like they were maybe walking back that project. Yeah, So to hear that they've got final stuff that they're confident in. Yeah, they've padded out this press release with

some numbers as well. One hundred and twenty five million active accounts worldwide. Wow, on this team, it's a lot of users. It's a lot and games also a lot of games. Yeah cool, all right, Well yeah, final Steam controller. I don't know if I care. Yeah, I don't know. Everyone's building for Xbox style controllers, right, and like

they're I don't know if they're still going after this. But their original stated goal of like making mouse driven games playable with a controller or like most mouse driven games, I'd rather just play with a mouse, you know, unless it's something super low weight, like a civilization or something that doesn't require a lot of precision. But I guess that was always going to be the main idea, right, they weren't necessarily building it like for hardcore go to right,

I couldn't even see it working for something like Total War. Oh yeah, yeah, do you want to play Plague inc? That's fair, that's fair. Yeah, I guess just you know, kind of fast competitive games wouldn't be so well suited. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm just I still don't have a PC hooked up to a TV, and that's not living room computers look sintizing to you. No, I got I gotta bought a big monitor. I want to sit close to it and have a

second monitor room running all the other weird shit machine steam machines. I actually went on new Egg and put together a like what if I were to build a computer to plug into my television? Just just priceing it out. Yeah, it was like it was like seven hundred bucks. It's not terrible. Were you targeting like a smaller form factor, like something that would like fit

in an entertainment center center? Yes, And like I didn't put a big video card in it because I wanted to do like the Steam home streaming thing, which I'm also not sure is a viable thing. I've been I've tried to use that a few times and it has not been great. Really, So what do you do with yours? Like I saw the case you've got, and it's huge, and my huge, ridiculous one is hooked up to my TV, and then I have my old computer hooked up to this monitor

and it's a really good monitor in my bedroom. And so I figured, like, oh, I could stream the super powerful computer to hear with the steam and home thing. Okay, so you could do the reverse of what I was gonna do. I guess, yeah, I was gonna stream it to your my bedroom monitor thing. Yeah, and yeah, it's just it says low connection a lot of time. We have pretty good internet and it's it's not great. So I've tried it and it didn't have any connection issues

because I mean it's all in the same land. It shouldn't actually be a problem. But were you going over Wi Fi to end minds Wi Fi? Okay, that way, that's probably the problem. Okay, Well, I mean I was going over Wi Fi with mine as well, and it wasn't. Well, you're in a house. I had a surface tablet hooked up over Wi Fi San Francisco. Wi Fi interference is pretty fucking bad in a

lot of places. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I have to use in my house because they're about literally about thirty other two point four gear hurts networks. Anyway, it was doable. It just you know, like it looks like video and there's just a tiny smidge of latency to that you notice, and it just wasn't the way I want to play games. So it's like you could do it, but nope, I hear I hear about like like a like kind of a common use case for it from like friends I have

who are parents. Is that like, oh, the TV isn't use or you know, sure, like kind of weird weird configurations of you know, people using different screens in the house where it's like if I want to play this game, I'm gonna have to stream it right now, or I'm just gonna have to wait five hours, right, Yeah, that kind of thing. So it's it's kind of more of a uh, you know, it's kind of a good enough a situation when when the ideal is not available.

Uh, Drew, let me know if you do that. Okay, curious. I gave it a shot on my Mac Minnie, which is plugged into my uh TV. That didn't really work. No, those things are not built for cans. No, holy shit. No, Well, I mean it's it's not a game, it's the Steam streaming thing. But oh right, you're just trying to stream. Yeah, okay, okay, so you're not gonna run any games, then I think you can put at least a halfway decent video card and even like a small form factor at this point.

Oh sure, Yeah, I was just saying, yeah, my Mac minim's not up to the task. But yeah, I don't know. I'd also like a yeah, I might get a shot. I don't know, or I might wait until this GDC stuff. Yeah. See what these news steamchines are. See I got that stuff worked out, all right. Linux. Yeah, a Lynx the Future. It's the year of the Linux desktop for the twentieth year running. Ye uh, you got any other breaking news? No, man, that's it. Emails. It's sign for emails animals.

Yep, all right, something like that podcast Jabob dot com. Oh where it goes? Okay, that's an email dry all right, let's where you sending the emails? All right now? Man, Brian from Virginia says I don't believe Dan's Zelda claims. Mhm, what claim? I'll read the email? Okay, good morning. A steamed Giant bomb crew during his quick look of Major's mask. Dan claimed that he has beaten every Zelda game aside from

Zelda two. Did Dan really mean that? Do you forget all of the mediocre to bad Zelda games that came out for handheld systems, such as Links Awakening, Oracle of Ages and Seasons, Minish Cap, Phantom our Glass, and Spirit Tracks. My respect for Dan will grow if he actually tackled those handheld games. Before you answer no, you don't, go ahead and answer and then I'll you know what, I was just trying to think. I yes, all of those he named, like, I really like Oracle of

Ages and Seasons. YEA Minish Cap is really underrated. That's a great game. I was trying to remember Phantom ower Glass. I liked the Lita beat that Spirit Tracks. I remember really disliking it, but I think I beat it. Uh man. I just I hated the train stuff and it just didn't feel like I had an open overworld at all. I remember a lot of complaints about I don't remember hating Spirit Tracks like I feel like people look back on Spirit Tracks now. I'm just going, man, fuck that game.

But I remember playing it the tables, I was kind of okay. I didn't play Spirit Tracks, but I freaking love Phantom our Glass. YEA Phantom Aeraglass is that one damn puzzle where you gotta like take the map and put it on the other screen. And the solution is that you shut your DS while the map is on the top screen and you shut it and while it's shut it makes the Zelda chime. It's like, holy shit, I just imprinted it. That's so cool. Yeah, and it makes the sailing

stuff so much better with drawing on the screen everything. Yeah, it was. That's a great game. So yes, I have beating all those games. The only one I'm not one hundred percent on is Spirit Tracks because I can't remember much of it because that is one where I definitely just played it once, you know, if I beat it. Giant Bombs. Jeff Gersman gave it a four out of five in two thousand and nine. It said Spirit Tracks is filled with good moments, the tweak the series standards an interesting

way, and I did not like Spirit Tracks. It's it's my least favorite. I always thought about checking it out because I liked Phantom our Lasts so much, but no half the reason I told thee mature of Link then what didn't finish The Adventure of Link. That's the one I have not beat. Why not again? It was when did that come out? Like eighty eight, eighty seven or something like that was born in eighty four, you know,

like, ok, you know the first one. I grew up watching my dad and stepdad playing stuff, and when I got older, it's like, Okay, I'm going to play this. I've seen enough of this game too. Never got really played in my household. I owned it and I tried to beat it, but I was really young and you could have gone back to it. I've tried a couple of times. I've gotten really far in it. I just haven't beaten it. There's this gaping hole in your

Zelda track record. Yeah yeah, really, it makes all the other games makes sense. It's kind of the lynchpin that ties the lore together, right, I've heard that in Highlatory yea yeah. Oh man. I became aware of the high Rol historia over the weekend and it almost fell down that stupid rabbit hole and like, no, what am I doing. It's like the official lore with the timeline of It's just a big hardcover like thirty five dollars.

Zelda book for like lore and characters, it's the thing that supposedly establishes the chronology of like here's the order the Zelda's happened in. There's like actual

information there. I was watching some videos over the weekend of Madora's Mask and like these theories that he's dead and I didn't know that, Like the link from Okareine of Time shows up as an enemy and Twilight Princess as this big like stalthost Night called Shade or whatever, and he's actually directly talking about how like, oh, i used to be this hero of time and now I'm

a dude. I'm a skeleton dude. Like I guess that has talked about and Hiroa story is like yeah, that Ocaena link is totally this skeleton dude, and what Twilight Yeah what Yeah? There is a pretty interesting, uh majora Link is dead video. I watched It's it's it's pretty cool when it comes in the form of fan theory. I think it's fine and kind of cool because you can kind of embrace it or ignore it as you see fit.

You weren't really dead, were you. But when they went to the trouble of putting out this ridiculous book, like arbitrarily kind of putting these things in order and stuff, and this is how they meant it all. Come on, just enjoy the games, like who fucking cares? Yeah, that's kind of half the reason that I pulled this email was this guy's ridiculous assertion that the handheld games are quote mediocre, too bad? What those are?

Good? Game? Like? Those are shifted those right like a lot of Capcom The Capcom ones were Oracle of Ages, Seasons and minish, the links were not. Those were links Awakening I think was a Nintendo. Yes, yes, I've never those were cool fucking games. I've never I've never played links Awakening, but there's like a huge reverence for that. There is, and a lot of some people say it's better than Lengths of the Past, which is crazy. I man, I be links Awakening a couple of times

once, just a couple of years ago. I don't get the crazy amount of reverence it gets. I know again I was, but it's liked like you wouldn't call it, you wouldn't call it bad. No, it's a good game. But I think all of the other porter ones portable ones, besides Spirit tracks, are better than it. Yeah, the Oracle games, Best Cap like those are all really good, solid, all the games. Sure. I like the Adventure of Link. A lot of people do too,

A lot of people don't know. I like quite a bit. We talked about it during the Quick Look, and I want to clarify I don't dislike it. I don't dislike it. I've just never beaten it. I think it's cool that it went so out there with you know, super out the side scrolling Zelda game and you level up, there's experience points like the CDI games. Good. Yeah, yeah, I think it did a lot of really cool things. There's a guy called Horsehead. Yeah, there's a

guy called Error. Yeah, I am Error. That's right. He will happily tell you his name. That's right. I've been thinking about that game off and on since the Seconds remix came out, because there, as much as all the two challenges and that thing, there's a lot of weird bullshit in that game. I was just like, how am I supposed to have figured this out normally? And you're fucking poorly localized, fucked up game. But you know, at a time when every game was fucked up in that

way, it was cool. We should we should check that game out good music in some capacity. Yeah, if only we had a room that could play any as games, Yeah that would be nice. Yeah, uh yeah, who knows. Gretchen from Des Moines writes in about new ways to review. She says, recently, it seems like quite a few video game review sites are moving away from giving video game reviews numbers or stars or letters or

whatever as a way to gauge how good something is. This is fine with me because I've long ago realized there isn't really much of a difference between a seventy five percent game and an eighty two percent, or a C plus and a B minus. So basically just a yeah, it's good or not, it's not as all I really need. However, I did remember that back in the ancient days of writing about video games on the Internet, a website named Old Man Murray put forth probably the best review metric I've ever seen,

Time till create, time to create. Basic gist is that creates or barrels are basically the game designers saying I give up, So when you first see one, that is when the game becomes bad. For example, Doom begins with you staring right at a barrel whereas in Blood you actually have to fight a few guys before you see the first one. So therefore Blood is a better game than Doom. So anyway, what I'm getting at here is have you all ever considered doing away with signing stars to your reviews? No?

All, right, next email? No, No, that does never really seriously come up. But I mean it's you know, like it doesn't any one having it there. And it's one of those things where like, I'm a believer in kind of serving people with as much information as they want. So if someone comes in and they just they only want a score and a

deck and then they're out, that's fine. I'll offer that. Yeah, I still think people should read the full review, but I'm not so precious with my words as to say like, oh, you have to read the whole thing to get the gist of what I have to say about this work. And people just read the last paragraph, yeah exactly, and they just scroll to the bottom read the last one. So it's worth Yeah, you know, that's that's fine. I still feel strongly that the five star scale

is the one. Yep, I feel good about it. It's it's broad but but still specific enough to get the point across. It's broad in a way that prevents the old problem of like when you had one hundred point scale and you had games getting eight point five versus eight point six and trying to determine what the fuck does that even mean? Like, it eliminates that part of it, and it prevents people from reading into those small variances and scores

and taking it to mean that one game is better than the other. It means that we give a whole lot of the same score. Yeah, but that's fine. Scores are not meant to be necessarily compared to one another. It's just meant to give you an at a glance look at what the general

opinion is on this game. Yeah, when we first when we first switched to it, when we first came over here, I found it harder to work with, Yeah, because you had to commit, you know, like the gap, the gulf between a four and a three is huge, Like the message that sends is huge. So it's like, shit, I what you're really saying. I'm really making a statement here with either of these scores, Like it's going to dramatically changed the impression somebody gets from the score.

Right, it makes you think a lot harder about that, because yeah, I've I've worked places with a hundred point scales and with I guess forty point scales, and with that, you know, at the last place, I'm a seven point zero or a seven point two five. Ye, not much thought needs to go into that, but like between a two and a three, like when I'm doing like Kirby or something, that's a lot bigger.

Yeah, it's huge, And we run a lot into situations where the text is there, and then we sort of assign well, not I haven't written so many reviews, but you guys assigned a star after you've written it, right, Yeah, Well, the reviewer always has like a score in mind. It's more about like does the text match up with the score or does it sound more positive or here here's where I think about this game. Does this game sound okay or bad or okay or good or great? Right?

You know that's that's that's the whole rubric for me. Like that's like when you want to come up with score, it's just like, how would you tell somebody this game is like it's terrible, it's not that great, it's okay, it's pretty good, it's great. Yeah, Like that's kind of it. I imagine when you assigned the score changes the game the game.

Is that true? Oh yeah? Yeah. I mean you can write a review thinking it's going to be like a three star, and then when you're done writing all the text, if you look at it and you realize that, like, man, I only had negative stuff to say about this, and this reads more like a two star. Yeah. So yeah, well, I mean I've I've sat down and started playing a review game and new fifteen minutes in, I was like, this feels like three star game,

and like that ended up being the score. But you know, you don't know for sure until you get there. Yeah. I've also jumped into games and thought like this is this seems like a four star game, and at the end you've been like, this is a two star game. Wow,

that's that's a pretty big swing. Y uh. Like I thought I thought Shadow of Mortor was gonna be a four star game for most of it until the last five or six hour Well maybe not quite that late, but definitely, like probably two thirds through it or something, I just thought it got better and better. Anyway. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with offering more options to people instead of less. Yeah, you know, and and yeah, there's nothing wrong with scores indeed. Uh don from Camarillo, California. Yeah,

that ring a bell? Yeah? Where is that south? Okay, camar Rio came rio? I never know, Yeah, I never know. Like some some Spanish words get pronounced properly around year and some specifically do not. Yeah, uh, like like I almost always hear cabrillo right instead of cabrillo. Yeah, so you never know anyway, don uh. It's going to E three for the first time, sure, and want some advice. This will be my first year attending E three as a working man. I

went. I'm sorry it's not his first time, but first time with a job. I went once about ten years ago as a student and remember just being overwhelmed by everything. I'll be the only person from my company attending, as most of the company is in full go time when E three happens. I just happened to have a break between projects and I'll probably only have one day at the conference before work calls me back. Drawing on your many years of going to E three, do you have any tips or things I should

know before going. I mean, if you have like industry contacts, like PR people or whatever, in their games, you specifically want to see get a hold of them and see if you can set up an appointment, because otherwise, you know, if you don't have appointments, you're just kind of wander around the show floor and you're waiting in line and you've got time to see. Like, we don't know what line of work this, Yeah, that's I guess I'm just assuming going to you three like mostly people doing something.

Oh, I don't know. Yeah, it sounds like he's probably a developer, he says he's or kind of tangentially Okay, yeah, I guess, like you know, there's a lot of companies that tangentially kind of rub up against the game industry. I went straight to journalism. But yeah, I think if you know people at different publishers and want to see stuff, then I would try to, yeah, say like hey let me back,

let me back there to see what you got or something like that. But you know, generally, yeah, you're kind of gonna walk and want to spend your day walking around the show floor playing what's out there because you're not gonna necessarily be able to get in the back to Yeah, some of the stuff that's only the back, right, My biggest piece of advice is don't waste your time waiting in lines. Well, yeah, specifically like three four hour lines, like you know, blow half your day on seeing one new

thing. Do you remember zero six? Like the line for the weed, there were people waiting in line like eight or nine hours. Right when the doors open, they would run in the back of the line. Did that. Yeah, there were totally people. That was the worst era of it. But there were totally people wasting their entire day in the line for one thing, and then like the show forward opening, they would just run. They were able to barrel through the doors like a Black Friday. Yeah,

it was just like what the fuck is going on? Like it was it was borderline industry show, Like what's how is this? How is this allowed to happen? What the fucks on? College student? It was like borderline weird, borderline I don't want to say violent, but like somebody could have probably gotten shrimpled. Yeah, then it just winds were very like running with intent toward the thing, and then they just have to sit on the ground and play d S games for like eight hours. Like it's just it's just

not worth your time. Like there's so many other things you could be out there checking out. Yeah, wear comfortable shoes, yes, yeah, so that that sucks. The food at the convention center is expensive. They have terrible good Yep, they're good. I love those. There's a bunch of food trucks in there now. It's usually like emotional stuff that I've seen this year storm food. Last year there was like a well, like food trucks

have become like a bigger cultural like phenomenon or whatever. Now, but there are food trucks between the two halls that outdoor walk between the two halls. Like, there's a bunch of food trucks, but they number several of them. This year. Is a beer there, Yeah, it's some mid day fucking beersty three That sounds like a great fucking yeah, let's take the edge

off at this fucking, super loud, nightmarish, awesome fucking mess. If I wasn't on the clock, I would totally have a couple of beers before I hit the floor. Now you're living. Yes, it's a really good grilled cheese truck in the middle of there, and then a surprisingly good considering its California barbecue truck that I've seen the last sever years. All Right, then, uh Dustin from Houston, Houston, Dustin, Yep, Houston.

Dustin writes in about Sault Caliber beef all right, uh also delicious? Yeah that food truck. Hey, bobcast crew. I want to know why Jeff thinks equating a game to dorm dorm room fun is a bad thing. He did this last week with Saul Caliber and Golden Eye. No, don't at no point that I say that's bad. It just means that it has an appeal, like a widespread appeal wider than it's genre typically. Lets on, sure, like fighting games aren't always super accessible, Saul Caliber is uh yeah,

like Virtual Fighter five wouldn't have been a big dorm game exactly. Yeah, yeah, I think I think you just rendered uh like redundant. The rest of the email, it's pretty much just going into detail about answered. You know, so Calbert wasn't. In my opinion, Still, it is one of the best finding games around, accessible for newcomers totally as you say, yes, like be really good dorm because anyone can pick it up and

enjoy it. Yes, all right, then question answered? Hope that helps Houston Dusson Jordan from Columbus, Ohio, Columbus Justin yeah, Columbus, Columbus. Jordan, Uh, Columbus. Oh uh. This email is entitled reach Quit tear Bugs. In the last podcast, Dan said he one it Red Dead Redemption. This reminded me of a few a few years ago when my friend was doing the last thing necessary, killing the final buffalo. When the game bugged, the buffalo disappeared and the game saved, permanently locking him out

of the one one hundred percent. Jesus, have any of the bombers had a bug so bad it calls you to put the game down never to return. Well, that game that you know, that would have been one hundred percent, So he's gonna put it down either way. Yeah. Yeah, but that's like one hundred point achievement. Yeah, like a hundred percent. And that thing is a big ass achievement. I think it is actually one

hundred points, Like, yeah, serious achievement. I was close and Red Dead actually through my own fault, but it actually worked out all right. I was doing the last side mission and it was some little thing where I had to go do a thing and then go back to this dude and talk to him. And that's when I would be like, all right, you complete with the mission. I rode up to him on my horse to cash on the mission. When I was done, literally the last thing I had

to do in the game, and I got off my horse. My horse kept going and ran the dude over and killed him. And I was terrified that I was going to auto save and stuff, and I was able to salvage it. S Over yanked the power cord. I think I had forced Christian Coe and Golden Eye just pulling out circuit boards exactly. Oh, there's there's nothing worse than game logic breaking in that kind of way. Yeah, to the point that you can't you can't complete some objective you wanted to do.

Yeah. The only tangentially related thing I can think of is like when they turn off servers for stuff, Like there was an NBA game where to get it, Yeah, you had to play like play online and you just can't anymore. Yeah, Sorr, there was that. It was an NBL

I was six, I want to say, like the first one. It was like be online the same time is like ten thousand other people, right, yeah, which, you know, all the achievement sites had to get all their communities together and go, we're gonna get this one last time. Before that they shut the servers off. Yeahs ye. But yeah, as far as like quitting a game due to bugs, is that the actual question?

Yeah? Basically I kind of had it with Code Veronica. There's something you were so disgusted with that you kind of never wanted to touch it again. I had it with Code Veronica. I had to fight the tyrant and the cargo plane or whatever, and I didn't like bring the right thing from the item box, like you need a flamethrower or rocket launcher or something to

like knock the tyrant near the exit of the cargo plane. And I didn't have the right thing with me, and that was my only save file, and so I just I couldn't beat the tyrant and I just had to stop playing that game. And that was like really far into it. Yeah. Yeah. I was messing around on in Halo one on the sound cartographer, blowing up wart hogs and stuff. How you do yep? And I got to a point where the game saved right as a wart hog was falling onto

my head. Nice, so it would just like kill me and then reload and kill me and reload and all that. Yeah, but Halo is how long did you leave it running. I took a video. I watched it for like a good you know, ten or fifteen minutes. Did you ever get out of it? I don't think Halo one. I think every Halo after that had rollbacks that have Yeah they have that now. Well, just mean, did you find like a creative way to position yourself so that it

wouldn't happen? I think I had to reload the mission? Okay, yeah, because Halo has always been bad about that, Like I had that. It's happened in Halo four, like right, but if that happens four or five, like four or five times, it will reload you to the one before. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, happen just like that unlikely checkpoint

where you're about to get run over by a ghost or whatever. A pretty good one in Reach where I was skidding on my wart hog and just skid it off a cliff, and so I just kept skittting off a cliffs. That's great. I love when that happens. I mean now that they have the ability to kind of roll it back, yes, like a great I mean that first example, I was just messing around anyway, Like I don't remember ever encountering that when I wasn't you know, just putting grenades underward hogs

and blowing them up. I know I've brought it up a zillion times, but that USB stick with all those three sixty saves on it that I lost other than Mass Effect three, I never went back to any of those games again, and it was like a couple of dozen games at least. Gross. Uh Walter from la right Son about the Kanye West video game. Yeah, Kanye West is making a video game to dedicate to his mom. What

should it look like? Likewise, if you could pick any artists to make a video game, who would it be and what would it be about? Uh? Did he? I mean did? All I saw was like, Kanye West is making a game out his mom. I think for his mom. I think, you know, just been development for six months or he said he's been working on it for about six months, but that's about it. Didn't really say he didn't name it developers. Yeah, yeah, I'd say Kanye West. The Kim Kardashian game was like yep, I mean that

was my first like cynical assumption. But like, but if it's about his mom, Yeah, he's definitely talked about the loss of his mom. Like really fucking him up. Yeah, so I would like to assume this isn't just some kind of crass yeah, kashion, I think it's techinitely about a song that is about only one Yeah. Yeah, I bet Bowie could make something cool except for only Crown the Nomad. He's been out there with that. I mean there was you know, there's a Labyrinth game for the common

or sixty four. Those pretty sweet. We're talking to his hypothetically. I bet Freddy Murker would come up with something pretty cool. I think someone said should make a game based on muses Knights of Sidonia video huh uh shit, Ali Moss, Yeah, Neill never worked, Yeah, uh fucking I don't know. Prince, Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. Marky, Mark and the Funky Bunch, George Clinton, George Clinton and p funk. What was the third one music Factory Chriss Cross Wait in Excess? Wait? Oh I

thought they were only three? And yeah, I know this. What was it called? Make make video? Make my video? Yeah, if you're making your own music video? It was Marky Mark CNT Music Factory, Chriss Cross in Excess, Skins Are Fat and wait no Prince no, Prince, Prince was virtual VCR right, so it was literally just that's what I was locked Prince video, that's what pause it because it's a virtual VCR, finest finest video that'll fit in a postage stamp. Yeah all right, Johnny I've

what about her? Oh m? Yeah, what is a Johnny I video game? I don't know, is that just like inlat just infinnom minor or something like something where you make things hit man go man. I would fuck I would love to get inside Apple's prototyping laboratory, like, not even to see the products they're working on, just to see all the ship they got in there, like all the equipment, like you know, it is like literally the finest three D printing Yeah, prototyping equipment that money can buy.

I just love to see what their process is for like turning out designs that they come up with and stuff. Oh let's see Galileo. Wow, okay, I'll give you that. Oh Man Sky, there you go. Yeah, that game's still coming out. Looking forward to playing that. Ryan wants

to know about game journalists a jargon. Listening to last week's bomb cast, where Dan used a bunch of crazy wrestling jargon made me wonder if there is jargon you used in the video games journalism space that might be interesting or interestingly dumb. M I think it's probably a lot of stuff that crosses over into other journalisms of like you know, subhead or you know, you know, I had actually never heard deck before I was here. That's what we always

called it, a game spot. I don't know what else you'd even call it. That would be the description. Was there another name for it on an article? Yeah, it's the little subheading sub yeah, two sentence heads and decks thumbnail. I don't know. That's always like I feel like people who work in prints refer to it their magazine as a book that definitely happened a game afore. Yeah, it's right up there with people who make movies

calling them shows. H CMS is the content management system, it's what the Yeah, A lot of that stuff is basically just general web stuff at this point, it's been so democratized through like WordPress and stuff like that. Yeah, and then game wise, like it's just the same stuff everybody else says, I guess, yeah, I just think of anything else. Really. It's like wrestling has that because that's a Carney thing. Like journalism is just a normal thing. No, it's a Carney thing too, and it's game

journalism. I just can't train wreck. I just can't think of lingo. Yeah, there's there's not much. Yeah, they comes to mind, but that's okay. I'm okay with that. Uht's just adopt all of wrestlers lingo who not really getting color and gaming. That's more business e But vod Man this review went Broadway sixty minute. Yeah. I actually don't anytime anyone says the word, I don't trust him. Same here. So video on demand as opposed to a live stream, Yeah, yeah, it's it's a video,

or it's a live thing or an archive. I call it an archive. Yeah, if it was a live thing that you are putting up after the fact, it's an archive of a live stream. Yeah, it's a video, it's a video. Yeah, we don't say that video. Does anybody say vidio? But not not until right now. That's when we started that. Yeah, we're going a lot of audio. Is I coined v audio? Yeah, Giant Bomb a vlog about video games Alex Ritson and says I solved the whole Saints Row thing for you. Okay, what was our

what was and reading? I like what to do with the series, okay, and reading his email. Reading his email, I'm inclined to agree. Traveling through time and space, the Saints crash land on a medieval era planet que a Saints Row open world fantasy RPG. It would be nice to have something to Skyrim. What the Saints Row games are. It's gta. Fantasy games are so serious, Jesus Christ. I'll take a small cut of the profits. You're welcome. Everyone love from Alex. I'd totally play that.

I would be into that. Yeah, yeah, I think you could. You know, you could. You could with with where they left off, there's a lot of different stuff like that you could do, and you do some dumb thing where it's like, oh, traveling through time took away all your powers, so you actually have to be like running around on foot. I just can't see that with like flying around and doing the flying around stuff only happened when they were inside a compute. That's right, that was a

simulation that never happened in the room. Hell yeah, but you can get magic and work your way back up there. Yeah, yeah, you could be Like I don't want that anymore though. That's the thing. I don't want to keep flying in those games, like I want those to be a little more grounded and also funny. I don't know what I want. Well, yeah, that's the kind of thing where kind kind of with you. But the thought of like going back to an open world game like that and

then suddenly having to drive everywhere again and it doesn't sound that exciting. Travling a horse? Yeah, I like. I just the Saints. The Saints need some constraints, like they can't remain superpowers. There you go? Is there your title? I like how Darksiders did that because like you don't have to talk about like stealing cars and having to drive around. It's like, no, just have a flaming horse come out of the ground anytime. You

went. Okay, I like that. I'm all right with that. I just I don't wanted to get into the Superman problem if they keep getting more and more powerful, so it gets harder to find things for them to face off against. Uh, but we we'll see. Keep the ideas coming. Zach from Vancouver wants some NWA and knowledge bombs. Hello from Canada. I have a question for Jeff. I checked out these straight out of compent trailer

that was mentioned last week. And thought it looked great. Admittedly, though, I don't know too much about the history of NWA, so some of what was shown went over my head. And you give the folks at home a brief NWA history lesson. That's kind of why why I want to watch the movie. Yeah, I mean, that's that's what the movie is there for. It is to give you that industry lesson. I mean, you

know, presumably you know, like Drey was doing music before that. The story was that Easy had some money from some things he may have been into and use that to start a record label. Ice Cube wrote the rhymes that he said, and the rest is history. Oh I was. I was listening to bow Down over the weekend. I old ice Cube is so good. Yes, that's not even that's I feel like that's a good, solid, mid period ice Cube. Yeah, you know, I mean like in

the nineties. Sure, not like whatever family films he's been starring in recently. Why he's still putting that records? Like, I got nothing against modern day ice Cube. I just mean like back then that stuff was yep, vital stuff was choice. Uh what's that movie out summer? I think so okay? Interesting? Oh, I want to read this guy's whole name, because there's now we'll get to that. It's from Barrett, he asks,

will we ever see a new Fantasy Star rpg? I was listening to the BombCast last week when Brad had mentioned Fantasy Star four being more expensive because of rom size, and it got me to thinking about what, in my opinion, is the best RPG ever. From the wicked battle system, to the monster and character designs, the super awesome techno styled tank battle sequences, and perhaps the most unexpected death of a main character in any game I have ever

played. I was still waiting to play It's thanks a lot. I could knocked up. I could not get enough. Did you actually play that game? Which one? Four? I did not? Actually I played two. Yes, there's shipping that one too, Yeah, that's for sure. I remember being so excited when Fantasy Star Online was announced, However, it was just not the same. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a great game as well, but I always held out hope that one day we

would see a Fantasy Star five. Do you guys think this could ever happen? Or our single player Fantasy str RPGs a thing of a bygone age? For that matter is the style of RPG perhaps also a thing of the past. I mean, Sega is a thing of the past almost. It's lastly, you gotta let me fish the email. Lastly does not does any of the Bomb crew share my reverence for the Fantasy Star RPGs of the Genesis Slash Master System days. Yes, you're right, can go ahead, I'll Sega.

I mean, Sega is not in a position to think that game. Yes, that's for sure, sadly, especially at the scale that we're looking for. Like yeah, I mean the idea. I mean, sure, who knows what happens to Sega long term and what happened. But you know, like even if they sold the IPS, it's you know, they tri Ace just got picked up by some mobile developer, like you know, the developers responsible for a lot of role playing games out of Japan, Like they're

not flourishing in every single case. So it's it's hard to it's hard to envision a world where there's another single player like story driven Fantasy Star game that doesn't draw from the online stuff the way like Fantasy Star Nova or a lot of the other portable Fancy Stars zero or whatever those ways were. They were still kind of online e The fantasy Star name just got like passed around between like from game to games so much that I'm not even sure what it means

anymore. Like like there was, you know the online stuff. There was the what was the one that was the card Battling game that was fantasy Star Online episode three? Yes CRD, Yes that spelled card. It does. So it turns out card Battling Game did it stand for anything? Yeah,

Like I don't even know what Nova is when you mentioned that. I want to say it's a single player adventure, but it is, like I mean, they've made a lot of other Fantasy Star games, Like there was one of the three sixties of the Fancy Universe, yes, where they had full on campaigns, but they were played like fantasy Star Online. Like they've all but kind of they didn't go back to like the turn based kind of standard style. They've all kind of been made in the image of online since that

came out. Yeah, so like the era of the master system in Genesis Fantasy Stars is probably over, but I didn't I didn't play one, and it's day I didn't know. I don't have any real reverence for it, and I had by the time four came out, I'd kind of moved on a lot of that stuff, But two and three, I'm like, I like three, really, yeah, I remember people really fucking I've never played three, but man, yeah, like the response to three was not good.

Yeah, at the time. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say it's my favorite game of all time or anything weird like that, but I remember enjoying it just fine. The ideas sounded fucking amazing at the time, like the ads they were running. It was just like, this game spans generations and you like choose who you marry and then you have kids, and it's one of the things where if you play it multiple times you see it for what it really is. But as someone who played at once

or maybe maybe twice, that's cool. Yeah, that's neat. It felt like the decisions mattered. That's cool. You're kind of making me want to go look at it. Uh, Fancy Star two is pretty cool. Yeah, I played that one a lot. Music is fucking awesome, great fucking music. I'm my girl with purple hair, she's got claws. Yeah. Fancy Star, Yeah, Fancy Star. That's yeah. That's kind of all there is to say. About that. I guess it's kind of a bummer.

Uh, let's see. Speaking of old games, I'll leave from Brooklyn writes in about Sakend and Sets You Three. What she says is amazing and that I should try it. Hey guys, I'm alive. From Brooklyn. I'm a big fan. I've been listening for a few years now. I felt like I had to chime in after hearing one of your conversations a podcast a few podcasts ago, Brad talked about wanting to try Sakend and Sets You Three back in the day but never getting around too. And it was more

than it never came out here we're in English. I just wanted to write in saying that you totally should. Game is amazing and the translation is really great. It's beautiful, plays amazingly and has a few different stories to follow. Since you can pick your main character and their party right at the start.

I remember thinking that was like super cool feature of that game, you know, Yeah, was that like you picked your main character and the story actually flowed from who you picked, you know, like everybody had a different setting or whatever. You should totally emulate it and give it a go. It quickly became one of my favorite SINSS games when I stumbled upon it. I believe it also has some sort of co op and I'm not sure how it works. It'd be a great game to do a video on, et

cetera, et cetera. Uh yeah, I thought about that many times. So I'm trying to think, is this Secret of Mana? Yes, a Secret of Manna was Saken Dan Setsu two, right, okay, Saken Dan Setsu one was Final Fantasy Quests, not Missing Quest. No, because they're all action games. They're all oh, they're basically sell the games overhead their overhead action or the first game of game Boy game, Yes, it was definitely that was then that would have been like Final Fantasy Adventure. I think

it was. What was the first Final Fantasy on game Boy? Was it was? Okay, that's not that because that was It might have been a legend it was. I think it was rebranded as a Final Fantasy game. Yeah, anyway, Uh, The Secret Amanda was like a huge Can you

play that one? Three player? Yes? Yeah, So it was a single player game and the other two characters ran around as Ai, but you could just straight up plug in another control or and take over one of them, or I guess if you had whatever the multiplayer Turbo Tap Turbo taps four score. I don't know. There was an adapter right on the Super News Yeah, yeah for four players. Yeah, there was a way to play all three characters. And I guess it sounds like the next one has that.

But yeah, like Secret Manna was huge among like everybody I knew that was into Super Nintendo games at the time. Yeah, I thought Secret Amanda was fantastic. So it always blew my mind that the one after that never came out here. It might have been a timing thing. Maybe I think it was ROM size cost of all that. Yeah, maybe I think it was pretty late period. Super Nintendo Square has been pretty good about fucking up

shit like that. Or I don't guess so, but yeah, you know it's it's it's a weird issue of like cramming a fan translation into this game to play it. But it's something the retron will do. Yeah, you plug the cartridge in, it'll take an IPS patch without even having to like integrate it into the ROM. Yeah, that's that's cool. I don't know that that makes me want to give that thing a look somehow, right, the Wrongs of the Past. Yeah, I think I have a copy of

that, The Ms of the Past. Yep, there you go. Yep, there's the super verbose title of this feature right there, right, the ROMs of the Past. I've been looking for a good name for an old game show for some time, and that's the worst one. So by default, there you go. Uh, let's see, you've got like two more emails. Two more Two more emails are both really long. How are we doing on time we have? Since we're talking about old games. I guess

you're right. Uh, Andre wrote in after the Majorer's Mask Quick Look about saves on game cartridges, just like this is this is pretty a lot of technical infos. That's something that came up. Yes, okay, yeah, so we we did the Majorer's Mask Quick Look, and I was talking about how I had effectively put in Majora's mask once and played it, which got me to wondering if my save was still there the right number of times.

Yeah, that's what I found to be the case at the time. But it got me thinking, like, you know, a lot of cartridge games from the era and especially before that, like the Game of the Saves just start disappearing after time, Yeah, when all the batteries die. So it made me wonder if in sixty four games had used that kind of battery backup or you know what the deal was, right, the e proms of the past. Yeah, Andre wrote in about that very thing. Games of the

eighties and nineties used batteries to keep saves on. In sixty four, specifically, there are twelve games that use a battery, which seems crazy to me because you would think they would have one standard and stick to it. That's probably one of the things where it's just to cast the goods thing where it might be cheaper to use batteries, or early on in the System five span they use batteries and then switch. Yeah, that might be the case.

Here. The battery used is your standard CR twenty thirty two, which I think is just basically a watch battery. Yeah, which by the way means it's it's a manganese oxide based bought die dioxide dioxide based. Jesus, easy for you to say. There's also a lot of parentheticals here. I'm not gonna go into a lot of the detail here. The bad news is that, like any battery will die. The good news is that it has a very slow discharge rate and will usually last seven to ten years, with some

lasting up to twenty. So that drives with like, you know, as time passed, like you knew a bunch of people with any S games, they're like, oh, those saves are all gone, but then yours might still be around for a while. Yeah, like my s Nest carts still like Super Mario World still has my save on. Yeah, it was a very imprecise thing. I was meaning to like dump all the saves from my like squared RPGs from that era, but I haven't gotten around to it,

and they're probably all gone now. There are some cases of old Innys games still holding their saves thirty years later. The other good news four in sixty four cartridge specifically is that it's fairly easy to replace the battery. Some soldering is involved, but nothing a novice can't do. It's basically a dab sadder, So if you want to keep the ability to save on those games,

you'll need to swap the battery every ten years or so. The twelve games that use a battery on in sixty four are because I know you were dying, Snow, I was that I was opening my laptop over find that out. Well, you're actually so fucking excited that's in the mail. You're actually dying to know. Most people are like, I'm curious. Ten eighties Snowboarding F zero X, Harvest Moon sixty four, Legend of Zelda, Akerino of Time, Mario Golf, Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Junior, New Tetris

Over Battle sixty four, Resident Evil two Super Smash Brothers. That's kind of a big one with unlocks and stuff, right, the first one didn't have a ton Oh yeah, uh WCW nWo Revenge WrestleMania two thousand. Are either of those games they were looking to cut corners? Are either of those? The Rumble Game? Or no? Is it that's the one? Are they're using a card for that? Right? Yep? But I mean it stores your It doesn't store ship that you you care about, unless you care about

your created wrestlers. They don't need to save for that thing, yea. While Acarina of Time uses a battery, Majora's Mask does not. That uses flash, so you're saved. Games from in sixty four days should still be there unless they were zapped by static or something. While sitting in the closet for a decade and a half. Flash eprom is not forever either. It has about ten thousand cycles, with modern good quality ones getting up to one

hundred thousand cycles. But it's much longer lasting than the battery save system at ten thousand cycles. If you play every day and save once at the end of your play session, it'll last you about thirty years. But since that Stan Reichert level of obsession and most of us only play games a few times, utilizing the save feature twenty to thirty times per play through, we can

say that those saves will outlast all of us. That's, of course, if external factors like static or bit rot component degradation doesn't kick in at some point. Yeah so yeah, A little uh, a little dump unsaved games courtesy of Andrey kind of makes me want to go fish out that Majora's card and see where the hell I was. Yeah. I could bring in my retro with all the weird adapters and stuff. If you want to dump you Majora's save I think I'm good. Uh. One final email. It's very

lengthy. It's about the red dead endings you. I'm gonna go into it. Jeff I don't care. I know you've been saving yourself. I'm not gonna spoil anything, are you. Well? All yeah, like all the endings and the game came out five years the game is five years old, dude, leave the room. Hello, bomb cast posse is Yeah, this is from matt Royal Tunbridge, Wells, England's quite a town name. Yeah. Indeed, it was great hearing dand reminiscing over Reddead Redemption on the last

show. For me, it is definitely the game of the generation. So for once I agree with Dan. Sorry day all right, he did say sorry. What prompted me to write in was Brad's comments that the final hour of the game are a masterpiece and storytelling. I totally agree, but my question is which final hour? The way I see it, the game actually has three endings, and herein lies my only criticism of the game. My

question to Brad and Dan is which ending or are you talking about? Here are my thoughts, and I haven't finished the game since it came out, so this is a little bit fuzzy for me. But ending one Mountain shootout, this for me, was when the game should have ended. I strongly disagree for the story element of the games who have been perfect. I loved every second of the main story and felt John Marston had become a part of

me. Everything had perfectly, Everything had perfectly built up to the final mission when you track down Dutch and have that final showdown and then it's over. The relief that flooded over me almost felt real. I genuinely had to stop for five minutes staring out over the mountains just take it all in. It was finally over. I made my way slowly down to my horse, had my final cut scene with the Law, and then climbed on my horse to

head back to my family. And then it started this wonderful, haunting Wanderer's Ballad. And as you make your way down the mountain and the snow starts to thaw and the sun breaks through the trees, warming your cold and tired body, so the song rises and warms your heart. It's very poetic, ending two family life. Whilst I was disappointed that the game didn't end there, I did enjoy the next section looking after the farm and your family and

trying to sort out your affairs. I could see the shootout with the Law from a mile off, but didn't expect the final outcome. When the game ended with my wife and son looking out over the graveyard, I was happy they had surprised me and that was brilliant. It's such a shame that Rockstar did not have the balls to end the game here, like so many of the great Cohen Brothers films, where the story hasn't reached a clichde ending and some of the bad guys have gotten away with it and some of the good

guys have been shafted. Ending three Hollywood ending. This was my only disappointment with this otherwise perfect game. They carried the game on with an epilogue after the credits where all the loose ends were tied up, and that spoiled the feelings I left the game with. Time has lessened to this, and I remember the game fondly, but this still niggles so thoughts. Having had the that ending described to me before, that sounded amazing, like that final part

that he is the last part. Yeah, so do you know what happens? How play is his son and go full murder the people that kill So it's actually way more subtle than that, because so, yeah, you you track down your old your old boss crime boss like partner Guy who screwed you over and sold you out. Kill him at the behest of the law because you're an outlaw and they're going to lock you up and take away take you away from your family if you don't do what they say. Yeah, so

you kill him. You basically do the law's dirty work. And then you go back to the farm and try to settle down with your wife and son, and you actually do several missions of like teaching your son to hunt and like other farm shit, and then like the day comes and it's like there's a heavy cloud hanging over everything, and the law comes for you and it's basically you and a dozen law men facing off in front of the barn and

they just shoot you down. You come out of the barn and you just see them all there with their guns drawn, and it's like, oh shit. It goes into the SlowMo thing, right, and you're trying to like tag as many of them as you can, and it gives you the opportunity in the slow mode to like pop off a bunch of headshots, but there's just no way to do it. Yeah, you realize during the actual SlowMo thing that like this is not gonna end up, right, Like I don't

have this many bullets. I don't have this much time on my slow moo. Like you spent the entire game like slow motion headshotting thousands of people, but you can't shoot your way out of this, and they take you down and you realize, you know, it's it's a noble sacrifice for the sake of your family and everything. Yeah. The reason the third, the final thing is so subtle is because they jump forward in time. They put you in the roll of your kid, grown up and like ready to go out

on the prairie or whatever. But it is kind of don't necessarily know that when it starts. Ostensibly it's just now you can go do the other side stuff you missed. Here's a character to keep playing as. Because the main characters dead right, the mission that you go on to find the guy who the lawman who ran this whole thing and take him down just shows up as every other side quest on the map, like what was it a question mark or something? Or maybe it might have been a letter. Actually no,

I think it was a question mark. It might have been a letter. But the point is, like they they call no attention to this final epilogue mission. It's after the credits. It's after it's like after is it after the credits? I can't remember. Actually, you made it sound like it was the credits roll when you when Marston John Marston. I think that might be the case. But anyway, you hunt this guy down and he's basically retired and trying to live the good life. He's fishing or something like the

river. You find him like fishing basically, and you just walk up to him and fucking like it's just you know, I dynamited him into the river and watched his corpse float away. Just I was all in movie mode. I just shot him down. I think I might have shot him down and

then actually laid dynamite and stuff to blow him into the river. But at this point, like you fully accepted that the game's over, there's no more story to occur, right, It's almost like they're dumping you back into the world so you can keep going, right, You wouldn't expect there to be anything else. So it's a huge surprise, ye yeah, yeah, when you fallow up on this little side mission and realized that what it actually is

is vengeance for your father. Yeah. I think those elements, those elements like made me want to go back to it again. And then because I think that stuff sounds fucking really cool. It's it's incredible, and like even like even the presentation of it when it like you shoot the guy and your turn and walk away and then it just slams to red and like red Dead Redemptions like the latest title card. Yeah, it's it's it's handled incredibly well.

Yeah, I think calling that like the Hollywood ending is like Hollywood by way of Italy or you know, yeah, like sure that sort of stuff. It's probably like consistent with the kind of cinematic inspirations of the game. Yeah, like I thought that stuff sounded pretty fun, Like I saw ended up seeing it that someone kind of walked way through that stuff and like, yeah, this is fucking that's a really fucking cool idea. Yeah, it's it's like one of the best endings to a game I think I've ever seen.

And I think you get your Cohen Brothers in the fact that Marson dies right, Like it's not a happy ending because he's not just allowed to live out his life tending the farm or whatever, you know, like he ultimately pays for the sins of his past. Well, and then there's that sad, really good scene where I can't remember you're in a carriage or something with that girl. There's that girl you talked to a lot, and she's clearly got a thing for you, and Marston just kind of has to begredgingly be

like, oh sorry, man, you know I'm a married man. Yeah, you know, he's you could tell that they would like really like they're hitting it off really well. Oh you know, he's trying to clean up his act. Yeah, he tries to go straight, but past just catches up with him. Yeah. Yeah, uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm with you guys. Yeah, I don't. I don't necessarily agree with what this guy has to say, but you know, it's the kind of a sign of a well executed thing is that, you know, there's a lot of

room for interpretation and personal preference and stuff. So there you have it. There's our five years late, uh discussion on the ending of Red Dead. That's cool. Yeah, I was never gonna play it again, all right, I kind of want to go back and play it again. I've always wanted to play it too, but it's so good I don't want to go

back and play it on old consoles again. Yeah, like I would three six, like I would in a heartbeat, would play through it again on a PC or the new consoles or something, just like to see it looking back and everything, because that landscapes are great and stuff. But you know, I don't want to go back and play through it again on the same platform. I mean, like, how excited would you be by the notion of another one? Oh my god, they made a new because of I

can't think. Well, when you think about like where the story of this left off, like you know, like gtaing it and saying like now you're another cowboy, Like is that interesting? I think yes, yes, I mean maybe different locations or whatever. But I mean it's the West. It's gonna look it's dusty and horsey, right, you know, But yeah,

I would just give me more of that. That's like I want, like if you know, it's hard to say ahead of time, Like if they were to come out and say like it's better than the last one, then like that would be a really fucking high bar and I would totally check it out. But yes, I'm with you that like it was kind of a singular thing and doesn't necessarily need to accept that it was a sequel. Yeah, but come on, what was that First Dead Revolver? I know,

but what was it? Like? It wasn't it just a shitty kind of level based action game Capcom Yeah, Socom Capcom it was before it was like Angel Studios or whatever. It wasn't right, It wasn't it. Wait was it the same studio? Thought? Oh, maybe you're right. M Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you know, there's I could look it up and that's who cares. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's always rumors

up later, always rumors about what rock stars working on and stuff. But yeah, I mean, I would absolutely be interested to see what they do with it, but I'm not necessarily clamoring for a new Red Dud. What if instead of doing another spaghetti western inspired game, they did something similar but like made it like Kirasawa Samurai movie style. Yeah, like applying their sensibilities to another setting and another story. Absolute. I think that would work with

their their similar sort of cinematic uh prowess. What if they made a game that was based on Muses Knights of Sidonia. Yeah, am I gonna get a gunned down the man who killed my father and at the end of you know the band is playing on a hologram. Uh yeah, I don't know. The older and more curmudgeonly I get about things the less I want things that I used to like to be beaten into the ground, you know. Like I see these rumors of Neil bl bloom Camp doing a new alien movie,

and I'm just like, fucking let it go. Yeah, Like we've been down this road too many times. Like I don't need to see have the same thing sold to me over and over for the rest of my life. I don't know that's necessarily old and curmudgeonly. I think that's you know, like when typically people get said in their ways and just go like I want more, right right? Well yeah yeah. If anything, it's like the the like blanket acceptance of anything that's got the same name as the old

thing on it. You know. It's like, right, it was like what's changed, you know, think about what's you know, Yeah, the idea of a new alien movie at this point, it's right, fucking pretty ridiculous, you know. Like in more recent contexts, I was reading a discussion of True Detective the other day, and a lot of people were lamenting the fact that like, oh, they're not you know, it's totally new

characters in the second season. Who cares. But it's like they told a story in that first season, like yeah, and how we're beginning to end. There was an arc there and there was a resolution at the end, and like that's done. Yeah, and the way that show works, where are they going to pull them in again and be like, Okay, so we finished up that one case, let's talk this crazy thing that happened in ninety seven and with you two, right, like you gotta do a new

character. But yeah, but you know, it's more about the emotional arc of the whole thing. You know, it's like where did the characters start? Where did they end? Like there's not really anywhere interesting to go with them after that. Yeah, So I either you trust the quality of the storytellers to tell you a different story with different characters or you don't. You know, I think that that's a way more interesting approach in a lot of ways. But yeah, I don't know. People people like sequels. They

like this church, and I'm I do too. Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean they're perfectly natural. A lot a lot of cases of sequels, like far surpassing the game that oh yeah, and the game of games is the one medium where that's often true. Yeah, you know, and for like or like consistently and Terminator two, yeah, and like then Terminator three and on and that's not even there, that's that's no. Yeah.

Yeah. Last generation is full of games that were kind of okay in their first outing, yeah, and then got great and their first or second sequel. Anyway, some wordy emails this week BombCast of Janet bomb dot com. Man is the address more new stuff? What's that? More new? Yeah, it doesn't always make new stuff. Well that's the scary thing though, of course, you know, they made the order and let's see what

happens. But yeah, yeah, there's no guarantee that new stuff is going to be but that that that's a risk that I can feel better about, oh absolutely, like, you know, because because it's not my money going into funding it, so of course I feel better about it. But yeah, yeah, it's a you know, this is a risk averse, hit driven business. Yeah, which it's kind of scary when it's more and more like movies every day. Yep, at that level, at that at that

big budget level, you know, that's a that's a grim outlook. Yeah, But you're not wrong. Uh, bomdcast Giant Bomb dot com. In case you forgot what I said ninety seconds ago. That will do it for the podcast this week. What is happening on the website? Uh? What are we? What are we doing? We're looking at some games. Yeah, I feel like I had the answer to this question and then you actually asked it. I'm gonna fuck man, I don't know. I don't want

things. Episode one of Revelations, right. Yeah, yeah, there's not of games or things to look at this new new installment of the Advice podcast Dancers with Dan and Danny sites look Giant Blom, Giant Blom, Fine Blomiant, Giant Bomb Unplugged. I mean, you guys are gonna actually start playing this time. I've hopefully heard tell of this. Yeah, we still need to we still need to finish off the end of the character creation from Lastica.

I'd like to do that off camera. If your character roles of four, does he automatically win? I don't know, probably lobby for that. There's Oh, there's still a fair fair amount of dice rolling and math to do. I think fun for those characters are roadworthy. That sounds like a great time. Yeah, if we want to check it up. Somebody did send me know your role the two thousand three or two thousand and four w a role playing D and D type game. Okay, maybe once this campaign

is complete you can look take a look at that for sure. Yeah, there's there's some stuff out. I got that new Shadow of Mortal or DLC. Take a look that bright Lord, the bright Lord. Yes, yeah, I'm gonna play that. Yes. Uh, whole World is out this week, right, yeah, total War? Total War is that last week. Have a quick video games continuing to release. It's good news for everybody, all right, Well that will do it then, yeah, unless anybody has anything to add. Breaking pause, No, see next week