Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 107 - 07/01/11
Greetings! This week we're joined once again by Area5's Ryan O'Donnell as we talk about Child of Eden, Ocarina of Time, CivWorld and more. Then we... you know the drill.
This week's music, in order of appearance:
The Kills - Black Balloons;
Blood Red Shoes - Colors Fade
(upbeat music) ♪ You're up all I've found ♪ ♪ There's nothing good on the radio ♪ ♪ Once again I didn't know ♪ ♪ It's your hard time to ♪ ♪ You're up all I've found ♪ ♪ You're up all I've found ♪ ♪ You're up all I've found ♪ ♪ You're up all I've found ♪ - Hello and welcome to Rebel of Them. I'm Anthony Eigos. We're recording live, in front of a live studio audience of children running outside our door today. With me is Arthur Geese, match, well. Put a delay in there, I wasn't sure. You gotta jump on it. Arthur Geese. - Yep. - Matt Changerne. - We need to reinstate summer school or something, don't we? - And we're beating. - And Ryan Adonal. - Salutations. - We love our meetings, especially of children. - So this week, I've played two terrible things. I'm just gonna get them off my chest. I played one which was- - This isn't your confessional. - Which was backstabbed for iOS. And the only reason I bring that up is I've been trying to bring up less iOS games, but this one is like a game off joint. So you know, they're like known for doing like console like experiences. - It looks like a thing you know. - Yes, this is their Assassin's Creed rip off. But it's very badly done. The combat super, yeah, it's very bad. Combat super boring. - Usually game off doesn't get it totally wrong like that. - Exactly. And even though the controls, you can move the buttons around and stuff, you still have to move the right camera around with the right side of the screen and all the buttons are right there. And to keep them accessible, you end up overlapping like attacking when you don't mean to. - Did you try installing your little stick to the screen? - Well, for the analog stick on the left side, it's awesome. Yeah, but game's just not good. That's what I'm gonna say about it. It's just don't, game off joints are usually pretty good, but this one, not so hot. The other bad game I played is I played Kolovores, the cartel, it's multiplayer. Man, that game is busted. That game, you know, like people say it all the time, like it looks like a game from Xbox, but it really does. - Would you like to tell the audience what the title of your preview for that game was this week? - It just was, my preview just was Kolovores, the cartel needs to be delayed. That's all I said. - Oh, Jesus Christ. - 'Cause it's coming out July 19th. - 'Cause I really liked the last Kolovores. - I did too. - Yeah, and this one is just like busted. It looks like a dated ass game, but it's like running, not even at like 30 frames a lot of times. - Is it the same company? - Yeah, but they're also busy making Dead Island. - Oh, okay. - Yeah, isn't that the same company? - I, is it tech land making? - Yeah, I thought I was. - I thought it was. - Yeah, well, that bodes really well for Dead Island. - I could be wrong. I thought it was Dead Island. Well, I've played Dead Island too, and I thought Dead Island multiplayer co-op was pretty fun. Yeah, this game's a-- - Not a cancer. - This game's really busted, and it's really not fun, and it's just got nothing going on to make it like worth, like taking more than like a passing glance at. Like, you know, why would you play this as opposed to any other team shooter out there? The one thing I did like is that you can partner up with someone, so like if me and you are partners, like police partners, when we're around each other, we have more health, we do more damage. So there's like a reason to stay with two people, like two people together at the same time, but man, it's just a really crappy game. Like I would, that is a buyer beware, if it's actually coming out July 19th. - Wow. - So, on the good side though, I've played a free game, it's coming out, it's gonna be hot shit, called Civ World. - Nice. - And it's actually being programmed by Sid Meier. This is the first game since Civilization Revolution that he's been making. - Wow, like physically programmed. - He is there, he is the lead programmer. - That is so cool on it. - And unlike Civ 5, it might actually run on your computer. - Yeah, this definitely runs-- - 'Cause it's a Facebook game. - It's a Flash game. - Yeah, I was a Flash game. - Okay, maybe it won't. - At least I think it's Flash. I mean, I'm pretty sure it is. - I don't know what it is, I think it might be JavaScript and HTML5. - That could very well be. - That would be even more awesome. - 'Cause it's more likely to work in browsers some way. - 'Cause then I could play it on my iPad. - But-- - Or iPhone. - Or iPhone, yeah. - So, you know, it's like Civilization Revolution in some ways, like in the sense that it feels like it's very much walking you through the whole process. And the art style is very much Civilization Revolution. But the game is the most elaborate Facebook game ever done, for sure. It is very much still super complex. The way it works is that when you start, you start in whatever your Facebook is, your name is, so in this instance, you'd be in Mattville. And so you start in Mattville, and it's basically your own little city state. And your little world that you explore and populate is separate from everyone else. But the way it works is that you're creating your own little city state basically. Where, you know, instead of the old game where buildings just kind of did their own thing, every building requires a worker to get a resource. So you're still dealing with science, gold, culture. But to get those things, you have to build, you have to build up a population. Each population you get allows you to build one, like set of village, like little village for workers. And then you assign those workers a job. So they either, if you assign them like to go mine stone or you just make them workers, they'll find the nearest resource. That makes production. Whereas if you assign them to be merchants, that makes gold. So you kind of have to focus your workers and constantly change their jobs to get the resource you need. And you can go to a marketplace and sell off things. Like you can sell off culture if you have a ton of that. And by production and determining how you do that, you determine the market because, okay, if the way it works is at any time, 200 players are in a game together. So if you were to go in all the sudden, Matt, and fucking just sell culture, all kinds, the price would go way down. So then other players could buy culture for way of cheap. So it is a global market that other people can influence. - Wow, that's cool. - So the way it works though, is that your little city-state you as a player, you can never be a civilization. To become a civilization, you have to band together with other players. So a sieve is a confederacy of players, basically, banding together. And so once you do that, you share science towards research goals. So you might all together be like, we are going to research math. You wanna become the first to mathematics. And the way it works is that each civilization has a victory that they're trying to achieve in each period. So in the early, in the ancient period, it might just be the first to writing if you wanna go, that way either there's also a military way. There's a way to win each one, but for each period. So you go each period through the game. And you can still make war on each other, but that's not like you actually invade. It's actually that everyone in the little confederacy, basically, musters up troops and puts them on the field of battle, and then two armies wage, and then I'm not exactly sure yet what happens when somebody wins. - Do they know yet what happens? - But they do. I think for sure that there are certain objectives, like win 10 military victories against other players. It's like a way to win certain times. - So when you say win military victories against other players, are you saying these confederacies? - Yeah, like a confederacy, one on the battlefield, you won. - Gotcha. - Like I said, everyone, you know, it's almost like, you know, the king comes to his lords and is like, gather up some villagers. We're going to war. So you're like, well, I have five pikemen. Here you go. They'll be on the frontline. - Oh, right, okay. - And so then after everyone, you get like four hours to plan it. And so then everybody comes together after four hours and throws their troops out, and it works itself out. - That's pretty crazy. So where does the free-to-play stuff come in? What are you buying? - So what you buy is a... - 'Cause they're not doing this for their hearts. - So it is generally, it is totally free-to-play though. Only stuff I've seen that you can buy is there's going to be obviously skin stuff, like reskinning items. And you have a throne room where all your achievements are displayed and you can definitely buy items for that. So there are civ bucks, right? - Right. - And you can use civ bucks to buy things like extra resources. But the way they get around not congratulating this completely fuck up the balance is like you can only ever spend 10 civ bucks a day on anything that will affect game balance, anything. So as to minimalize it, but they still allow it to a small extent. So that's the way they're planning on trying to make money. But you really don't have to do that at all. It's just like, oh, you can also spend civ bucks on buying harvests. And what harvests like to do is while your workers do trickle in resources to you very slow, you can also click buy, use harvest. And when you use a harvest, it takes the maximum from each of like what your workers are set to. So if like they're set, like you have a bunch of guys doing production, it might say like 20 production. If you click harvest, you'll get 20 production right then they're there. But you're limited to how many harvests you have. And they accrue like one per hour of real time. - Right, right, right. - So if you get impatient, you can buy X amount of real harvests if you wanted. Otherwise, you can just let them accrue. And they accrue like even right now while I'm not playing, I'm accruing harvests. - Right, yeah. - And I believe I'm trickling resources. Like the game's still going on even though I'm not there. - Well that's usually the way these games work. - Right, I mean it's persistent. So yeah, just like I was talking earlier about kings and barons and stuff, the person who has the most fame in the civilization does become the king. And then the person that's like the most focus on culture becomes like the cultural minister. The person that's most focused on economics becomes the economics minister. And if you go to like the little structure of your kingdom, you'll actually see like their picture, their Facebook profile. And you can actually go and look at their cities and see what they're building. Any given time, anybody in the game basically, you can pop in and take a look at their city. - Wow. - So yeah, it's just, it's like full-oncive in a lot of ways. - So what'd you say like the maximum for each game is 200 people? - And supposedly games take anywhere from a week or longer to play from start to finish. - Wow, that's cool. - So, so it sounds simple but complex. - Yeah, but right underneath the game, the window you're playing in is a sivlopedia, right there on the same page. That you can click through without refreshing the browser. You know, it has like a wiki built into the page so that you can dig really deep into it. They've really considered that for a lot of people, it's gonna be complex and they do walk you through goals. Like you can turn them off if you want but it'll constantly give you quests, like build another worker and it'll give you like plus two fame for building another worker. So it'll kind, like Viva Pignada, it'll constantly give you like micro objectives to make you feel like you're working towards something. - So these, I wonder if these micro objectives are ever contrary to like an overall objective that you were that the civilization might have. - That could be, like it might be put a bunch of science into this and maybe you guys are going for a military victory. So you can skip that and if you skip the quest a new one will pop up shortly. So it's not like you're totally fucking yourself by not doing that. But yeah, I mean it, you know, it's funny when we're having the demo I kept on asking about all these potential exploits that I wanted to do. - Right. - And they, and I will say they have thought about them. Like originally when they told me there was a king and stuff I was like, oh man, so can I start like emailing people in my thing like to their personal Facebook and being like, dude, I need 30 gold for me or you're fucking out of this civilization. But they're like, they're like, no, you can't do that. Like people can join. The only thing you can do is you can, as the king you can put down a civics mandate that no other people can join your civ. - Are you trying to be the first person in civil world to have his people revolt? - Yeah, that's the other thing. I was like, I noticed when I mouse over my workers it says they're content, is there like a way I can just be like, no fucking breaks. Everyone works through every break. And I would just take a bit of my production but you can't do that for now. One thing is lacking and granted right now it's enclosed beta, it's not done. But I did find it a little strange that no matter what civilization I play they're all a bunch of white people. - So that is a little strange for a Facebook game. - Yeah. - I think it's just that they haven't implemented it. - Maybe it's just because all civilization stands for white people. - I mean, that's true, right? - Right, that's what the history books say. - Right. - We started as crackers. (laughing) I love ritz and slow. - Everyone got sunburned. - It's going to be a very, it's going to be a very different civ. You know, in the sense that you're not like actively moving units around a map, running into other civilizations, that sort of thing. But it is very much like a town building sim connected to a larger social game that has bigger implications. So you very much are something bigger than yourself. You were a part of a civilization rather than the overlord of a civilization. - That's really cool. I mean, a civilization revolution proved that they can play with the formula and still produce a perfectly good game. - Yeah, I mean, this is, like I said, this is not a substitute for something like Civ 5. It's just a different sort of civ experience where you still get that like constant, like, you know, I love working and building a tiny city. It's not turn based either. So it's always going, you know. - And it's cheap and it's free. - Yeah, there's a turn based thing is what throws me off a little bit. - Yeah, but that's why they do things like they give like a five hour or four hour window before battle start and stuff. So that in theory, if you were doing something else, you could check in and see, right? - Right. - And it sends Facebook notifications to you. And if you had a smartphone, you would find out like, America's going to war. Like, oh shit, I need to log in and fucking dedicate some troops. - We should, we should start up a new Civ. We'll call it America. - Oh, I don't think you'd create your own civs. Unfortunately, currently I'm an American. - Oh, okay. - I joined up with some Americans. - Oh, okay. - If you want to switch, you got to move. - That's the thing is you can join a civilization and you can abandon them and join another one if like, and they can totally lure you over. They can send you a private message and be like, I know the civilization you're in, we know they're only to writing, but look, we're all the way here in our science. So you would gain access to all of this if you'd just join us. And we could really use the culture bonus you have. So if you were to leave a Civ with a high technology level and go to a Civ with a lower one, would you take that technology with you? - I believe you do not. You just get the benefits of that, but you do not take this. So you can't just like jump back and forth and get the best of everything. - It does seem like there should be some kind of espionage. - Right. - Like some industrial espionage? - Yeah. - Well. - That would be super cool. - I mean, I guess you could always just be a dick and join a Civ and they're like, we're all working towards science and you're like, not me, I'm making us artists. We're all artists over here. 'Cause artists are useless, man. - It's true. - Yep. - Good for nothing. - Compared to science. Artists ain't gonna make gunpowder. (laughs) That's what I know about Civworld so far. I've only played like a couple of hours, but it is, it is very, it is, for like the last hour of work, it was bad because I was like, I need to answer this email. Wait, wait, wait, but somebody just messaged me about going to war. (laughs) It's definitely one of those dangerous games that could be kept up in the background all the time. - I think they work destroyer. - Yes, they are definitely onto something with it, but I think it's cool. It's kind of a cool trend of Facebook games that actually look kind of legit. Just like there was that other one in '83 that was the never-winner game. It was like a legit turn-based D&D rules RPG. - That's cool, but I only play Google+ games now, so. - Do those really exist? Is that like a thing? - Google+ exists, they don't have games yet. It's a Google social network. But, that's it for me. - Wow, well, Frida Play is totally taken over 'cause after the TF2 announcement last week, which was- - Dude, I've already seen the effects 'cause I play so much. - The amount of TF2 being played before and after that announcement, TF2 is never outranked counter-strike in players ever in steam. - Right, until now. - And now it's ranking like three to one. It's like crazy. - It is, and it's like, they put up a whole bunch of, you know, Valve servers, obviously, which just weren't there before. And like, if you click, like just player matching, start playing, it'll usually jump you into one of those. Like, I haven't really seen it jump me into some other random server yet. I don't know if it actually can or not, or when you do, whoa. There go the kids. There go the kid parade. - Not it, you're it, I'm it, we're all it. Let's go. - Need a spike strip in front of the door. (laughing) - Put down some fly paper. Catch 'em all there. Anyway, I'm sorry. Kids are awesome. - My thing about this is that I think it's rad. - Yeah. - The TF2 and WoW are both moving in that direction. The TF2 is there, and the WoW is like, well, do you get 20 levels, then you can pay us. But these are both games where they-- - WoW, like that now. - Yeah, they're just 20 levels. - Yep, first 20 levels for free. - Just happened. - Oh, wow. - Two races from the Burning Crusade. - Well, if there was subscribers at this point, why not? - So, that's the thing is that like, these are games that are sort of approaching the tail end of their monetary, their monetization period. - Maybe, I mean, TF, the reason, I think the reason why they did this with TF2 is 'cause TF2 keeps picking up. And because like the microtransactions were getting more and more successful, the more they like integrated them with the game. - And it's a way to get more people to download Steam because I know they can play game for free. - Although, I don't know that most of the people who would actually be interested in playing free TF2 didn't already have Steam. - True, but they might've told some friends that didn't before and now they got the marketplace in front of them. - Yeah, but I mean, it's interesting to hop into these Valve servers and play with a whole bunch of people that have never played TF2 before 'cause they do really stupid things all as a group. - Oh, really? - Yeah, like-- - They don't know how to play for-- - That would be the team up. - Yeah, so like you can tell all the people that don't know how to play, they all run out together and then there's like a chunked and you're like, "Well, it's so funny 'cause like on payload, payload is where you have to stand next to this vehicle that moves really slowly along this track." - They're basically escorting a bomb. - You're escorting a bomb, yeah. And the other team is trying to keep you from getting from the bomb getting to various checkpoints. And you'll see people like the defenders won't know that, okay, the bomb is about to get to the checkpoint. If you go on the defending team and you have people stand next to it, then it won't advance. You know, they'll all just stand back firing at a distance and things. - So, I mean, it's funny to watch stuff like that happen and just like, you know, want to virtually face-palm yourself. But then I'll hop into a bunch of servers that I have favorited where everybody there is still a veteran. - Playing in the pro zone? - Yeah, playing in the pro zone. And then all I hear in chat is about how much they hate playing on the valve servers 'cause of, you know, they're surrounded by idiots. But it's also funny when like you play on a valve server and somebody's a really good spy and all you see is backstab, backstab, backstab, backstab, backstab. I'm confused to that. - Yeah. - That's a good idea if you just want to rake out your spy crap real fast. - Yeah, exactly. So it's, I'm just glad that TF2 has been such a long-term successor to those guys. It's great. I still enjoy it. I just forget to ever make time for it. - Yeah. It's like it's been my obsession for a while now is people probably sick of hearing me talk about it. But the other game that I'm playing that's sort of along these lines is a tiny tower on my iPhone. And it's pretty cool. It's the same kind of thing. It plays itself even while you're not doing it. And it has a micro-transaction model. You can get these tower bucks. - Is it free to play initially? Or is it like for dollar and then there's-- - I'm pretty sure it's free to play initially. Honestly, I can't remember. So it was either 99th sensor. It was free and-- - Same thing. - Yeah, same thing. But it's, you build the, so you build floors of towers and then people of a tower and then people come and move into them. And you have one elevator that moves up and down the tower. And it sort of keeps you engaged 'cause the tower's, it's sort of a self-running thing a little bit like what it sounds like civ is like. 'Cause you'll have people, you'll put in a residential floor and then people will move into the residential floor. And then you assign them jobs to any of the commercial floors that you have 'cause apparently every tower, the people only work where they live. And people, as the people move in, you'll be like, "Okay, this person has this kind of dream job. "Well, I'm gonna build a creative floor "because there are three people that want to be, "they want to work in a pottery studio." And, but those three people, you build the creative floor and the creative floor will just pop in with some random business. You have no control over it. It might be a photo studio. It might be-- - Something artist creatively. - But just something creatively, yeah. And people will have each of your residents has different skills. And when you put them in a business that's right, correctly associated with their skills, then when you restock that business, it doesn't cost as much. And you have to restock every business when it runs out of merchandise. And that's one of the other things you end up spending your in-game currency. - To me, it sounds like you're describing a game that appeals to the same part of me that likes things like game dev story, all these management sims. Like that's what you're describing to me that sounds hot. - Yeah. - It's basically what it is. It's like a tower Tamagotchi. - Also, there's also a new story game out there for people that don't know. If you're an Android Grand Prix story, if you're on iPhone, it's a Academy story where you're a kid going to school. - Wow. - So they did specific stories for each platform? - Yeah. - I'm sure they'll cross them over at some point and I will buy both. Kyrosoff. - I never did get in the hot spring story. - Well, it's okay. I was a fucking spa baron. - But yeah, it is that kind of game. - Super Stickman Golf was the game you talked about last week. And I'm just gonna say I agree with you, that game's awesome. Easily one of the best iOS games I've played in the long term. - Yeah. It's crazy how much content's in that game too. - Yes, especially for a dollar. They just keep adding more. - Yep. - So, so good. And then I also played a game, another iPhone game is called Surveillance. Not that good. I kind of don't recommend it so I'm just not gonna. - Well, you put it out there. Just put it out there that you should be on it. - Violence is a first person game where you're sort of trying to avoid cameras that are in the environments. The environments themselves sort of look like the, I don't know if you ever saw the challenge maps from Mira's Edge or like the VR training missions from Metal Gear Solid. - Okay. - Yeah, that's entirely different from it. - Yeah, but he's talking about flat-shaded. It's simple, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of the overall aesthetic. Yeah, way different. - It's sort of geometric. - Yeah, geometric. - Just being a bad ass. - Simple. - Spy basically. - Well, basically there's a camera at the top of some geometry. And then what you have to do is you have to move from place to place, avoiding the camera as it looks around the map trying to find you. And, you know, like, and basically anywhere that you tap on the screen, your guy just sort of, you as the player, you just sort of glide to that location. So you have to be able to see a floor so you can tap on it. So let's say, you know, you see something that's just barely, it's just barely low enough so that when you aim the camera at it, you can see the floor, you tap on it and you'll go up a little bit higher to that area. But the whole time, you have to pay attention to where the camera is. - So you're always looking for points of occlusion from the camera, basically, yeah. - Or to like, you know, outrace the camera as you're trying to climb up towards it. The idea is to get to the base of the camera and, you know, that's how you win. If you get to the base of the camera without it seeing you. - It sounds cool. - It sounds cool, but the controls are really awkward. Like the camera's controlled by tilting your iPhone and it just, it feels really weird. It doesn't, the camera just doesn't move well and quite often you'll tap on an area and you're like, I can see that, I'm tapping on it, you're not letting me go to it, I can't figure out why. - So it's like missed. - Yeah. (laughs) It's just, it's, I don't know. It feels like a really cool concept, it just isn't done. Which is a bummer. Because, you know, I always want to like every iPhone game. 'Cause I'm that way. - Ryan, tell us about-- - Like I will. - So, okay, I have one more. - Frozen Synapse. - Oh yeah, well we talked, we Tyler told us about that a while back ago. - He did. - And I have been meaning to play. Have you ever gotten around to try? - I fucking bought it and I haven't played it. Jeff Green has gotten more out of my money for that game than I have. - Yeah, that's the cool thing is every copy you buy comes at the second copy. - Yeah, and it was really awesome. One of the listeners gifted me a copy and I started playing it. Thank you very much. It's an awesome game. - I really want to. That game, I like the look of it and I like just the idea. - Yeah. - Of hardcore turn based-- - Oh man, like if you don't do everything exactly right, you super get your ass kicked too. I mean, like you really got to pay attention and use all the right commands and the right timing. And the interface for it is really good except that I wish that you could, 'cause, you know, you make a bunch of points, like a bunch of way points along a path. And there doesn't seem to be a way to just modify one of the mid pads along the, ow! - Sorry. - She's a whore. - Anthony's cat just jumped on my lap and I'm wearing pants that have substantial holes in them and her claws dug into my leg to climb up. So that was awesome. Anyway. Don't be a pussy. - Yeah, I know. - I see you today. - I can't help it. - Yeah. - I appreciate it. - But yeah, Frozen Synapse so far is really cool. It seems like it's like the game that, the people that lament the days of, you know, old Rainbow Six tactical planning before mission. This is like the game, if you loved doing that. - Yeah, that's all this game is. - Right. Without the first person part, it's just doing the tactical planning step by step. - And it's turn based without being on a grid or anything like that. So it's fun. It's really good so far. I'm enjoying it. - So the setup for me is that I haven't been playing very many games for about two months, but I have played two games. You've played one that both you and Arthur have played. - Right. So that would be Child of Eden. - I've played that. - Magical. - It's pretty good. We played with Connect first, obviously, 'cause we got one. And I had a pretty good time with it. I was actually really, really, really afraid leading in the lead up to this game. - I was as well. - Did the Connect was set? - No, no, no, actually the Connect thing always sounded pretty good to me. - I was terrified of the Connect thing 'cause the one time that I played it last year it was a fucking abomination. - Yeah, see, I had never played it. So I just assumed, oh, they'll work it out. And every time I was reading about it, I had heard from people that played it at E3, the prior year that the Connect stuff just seemed real slow, wasn't really working great, but that was so long ago. I figured they'd sorted out by the time the game came out. I was worried about, and at the end of the day, I knew you'd be able to play it with a controller, so. - If the Connect controls suck, I can always go back to controller. - Exactly. - The thing that bothered me about it is every time I would see video or pictures of the game, the aesthetic just didn't appeal in the same way that Res did to me personally. I was sort of afraid that we were just gonna be seeing Lumi running around all over the place, Lumi, the whatever, 18-year-old girl that-- - Asian Space Girl. - Yeah, first girl born in space. That she, and she is everywhere in the game. - Digitize consciousness of the first girl born in-- - Right, right, right, right, right. - Don't try this. - Yeah. Basically, it looked too colorful. I think I'm quoting Phil Fish here. He made a comment saying that it looked like a, you know, Bryce, 3D, or Kai's Power goo screen saver from 1994. - It's fucking true. - And I always said this thing, this game looks like a trapper keeper to me, and so I was really afraid. And more than the visuals, I was afraid for the music, 'cause the music was such a key component, especially-- - Why would you be afraid for that, though, coming from who it's coming from? - Because they had said that it was all Genki Rocket's tracks, and the great thing about the last game was that each stage was done by a different DJ, so, you know, it all sounded different. - But this time it was all Genki Rocket's tracks, but they got somebody different to remix each stage. - Precisely. - Yeah. - Which is really smart. - The visuals are good. It looks really good. It's still, I still sort of prefer the vectory aesthetic of Rez, and overall, I like Rez better. I think it's a better experience for the time in which it was released. Personally, I enjoy it more. I think that Child of Eden, if you play it with a controller, I mean, it is Rez. - Not only does it, it is, because if you read the plot synopsis, such as it is of Rez, it references the same fucking shit. - Yeah. - Like, this isn't a spiritual successor. This is the fucking sequel to Rez. - Yeah, it is, it is Rez. - It wasn't that always what they said it wasn't. - Like, yeah, it's always what they said it wasn't. - Eden is the database that you're flying through in Rez, I think? - I believe that is true. It's been a while since I looked at the storyline for Rez, but I remember thinking, like, this is essentially the exact same game. - They wouldn't just call it like it is and call it a sequel, then. - I think maybe they wanted to go about it this time. - Or that. I did really enjoy the game, though. There are certain things I don't like. Like, I don't really like that you end up having to replay stages to make your, you have to like-- - Grind. - Yeah, you have to get credits to unlock new stages. - That's really a bummer. - Yeah, and it doesn't need to be there. - It's really Japanese. - Yeah. I also, and this may sound stupid, but I really liked in Rez, in retrospect anyway, I really like that area five is so much better than all the other stages in the game. Like, you play through areas one through four, and by the time you get to the end of area four, the boss battle, graphically, is far more impressive than anything you've seen in the game by a long shot, which is the giant running block guy. That battle is amazing. And then you load up area five, and instantly, graphically, it's far better than anything you've seen, except for maybe the running guy, and the music, the Fears the Mine Killer track by Adam-- - Freeland. - Freeland is way better than any of the tracks in the game, and that stage is like four times as long as any of the tracks, or any of the stages in the game, it is just like, it is the fucking exclamation point at the end of the game. - Yeah. - And in child of Eden, it doesn't really work that way, and they still-- - Mine is a little harder than four, but not ballbustingly so. - Yeah, and it's still just a boss rush mode, basically, which area five in Rez has as well, but there's this whole lead up where they tell the entire story of like life growing from nothing in the seas, and you know, leading up to-- - Solid out evolution. - Yeah, evolution in moving into space and into the digital realm, and yeah. So, area five of Rez is still probably the best Rez-like stage those guys have ever created, in my opinion, but this game's far more even, so every stage in this game is really cool. They all look wildly different, and they all are as graphically interesting as area five was in Rez, and there are children running behind me. - And screaming. - But, uh-- - They might be screaming for different reasons soon. - True. (laughter) - This is why some places on Arthur does give one child. (laughter) - So retroactively enforce that rule. (laughter) - So, I'm glad my fears were unnecessary. Like, I really do think this game turned out good. I am slightly disappointed that it's exactly Rez in terms of the gameplay, but when you play with Connect, I feel like that's the reason. That is sort of its reason for being. That's what makes it feel new. - That's why it's a retail game and not a downloadable title. - Right. And it works. I use the, which control scheme to use, Arthur? I use the one with the clap and where you can use either hand. - I don't use the clap. - You don't use the clap? - I love the clap. - I haven't really tried the one with the clap because I used the clapping method when I played it last year, and that was the experience that soured me. - People who don't know that there's two ways that you can use the two weapons. - So the two ways you can control child of Eden is the way that-- - The default ways left my hand. - That Ms. Gucci showed it at E3 last year, which is to move your right hand and to clap to switch weapons between lock on and rapid fire. - You can actually use either hand in that, in the clapping scenario, it doesn't matter. - I mean, you aim with a hand and clap to switch. The other method, the default method is to move your right hand for lock on and your left hand for rapid fire. - Correct. - I found, I guess, more success with the alternating hands because clapping seemed to take too long. - The problem that I had with the dual hand method, which I feel like should be better, is there's this moment when you're switching between your hands, switching between weapons, where it doesn't register immediately, and more importantly, the thing that really ruins it is your camera moves when you swap hands. So you pull your right hand away, which you've been using to lock on, and the camera pans down and right with your right hand and you're looking down, and then you bring your left hand up and all of a sudden, you're sliding-- - You're sliding disoriented. - It moves up and left, and then you kind of finally get yourself re-centered, but if you're trying, you know, the whole point of these games is a score attack. So sometimes you have to switch weapons really frequently. - Right, so I ended up using the clap just to make it slightly easier for myself. The other thing is that the game is awfully hard with Connect, or at least much harder than it is with the controller I found. - Really? I didn't find that. I found that, I mean, first of all, they balance the game completely differently between Connect and the controller. - I didn't notice that. - Oh yeah, I mean, the way to know it immediately is whenever you don't kill anything fast enough and it fires those purple things at you, they take about six times as long to reach you using Connect as they do when you're using the controller. - That's interesting. - But it is, it's actually, everyone in the office has experienced the opposite, which is that it's much easier with Connect. - Yeah, that's totally it. To me, the area where it gets rough, I think it's in archive three, maybe four. - I thought it was toward the end of four is when that game becomes a real bitch. - There's a part that's sort of like - Where there's like so many-- - The area two boss battle in Rezz. In Rezz, there's a part where it starts showing these shield walls at you and you have to lock onto buttons on the shield walls as they're spinning. - Yeah, the exact four that does that. - Right, so it's archive four. Archive four has the same sort of thing from the second stage of Rezz. And because there's that slight moment of delay as you're trying to lock on and because these things come at you just fast enough, it can be really hard to lock on. You can end up getting destroyed pretty fast when you're using Connect. In my opinion-- - Yeah. - The thing was like when they have those in stage one too, in archive one as well, like there's some doors that you have to open by hitting the little buttons on the door. - Right. - And that was the crazy thing to me is because in archive one, they are coming at you really fast. And it's like the rest of archive one is pretty easy, but right there I got damaged like three times in a row playing Connect. - The other thing is that you have to, we already mentioned that you have to grind a little bit because you won't have it collected enough points to just go one stage after the other if you win, which is really annoying. - That's really my biggest bummer about Child of Eden. And that's the least friendly thing about it. - Yeah, it feels like it was just there to artificially extend the gameplay time. - And not only that, but you have to, your save files attached to which control scheme you're using, sort of. So you have to, if you've made it to archive three, for example, and died at the end, and you're like, "Ah, screw it, I want to switch the controller." If you switch to controller, you have to start at archive one and begin again. - And just to throw this out there, there was no way to know that until we got retail code for the game, because the preview and quote review code that we were sent, you could just pick any act at any time. - Wow, so after I had died, wherever it was the first time we were playing through with Connect, and to be honest, you get a little tired when you're playing as well. - Yeah, waving arms around like an asshole's tiring. - Yeah, it is. - And I was, you know, you fire by sort of pushing your hand forward, you like thrust it forward, and the joint between my elbow, like I felt like I was pulling a nerve after a while, 'cause I was really getting into it and jerking my arm really hard. My arms started to hurt a little bit, but anyway, I switched to controller. - The Connect thing, like you don't use Connect for a while, and then all of a sudden you use Connect for like a couple of hours, and you're like, "Fuck." - Yeah, yeah. - Well that, and when you have some sort of resistance, you know how much force to put out. When you have none, I do the same thing where I'm just like being an asshole, and I'm like, "Ah, like really pressing." - But we did, we switched back to controller, we ended up tearing through all five stages, unlocking the sixth archive, which is more like a score attack thing. But the great thing is when you finish the game, it unlocks the mode where you can just play freely, like a God mode where you can't lose. So I ended up coming back to the game, you know, we beat it the first day, and I played it probably the next four days straight, you know, a stage or two at a time, all in Connect, all with the, you know, God mode turned on, and I find that to be highly enjoyable. So, you know, I really, 'cause I just had fun, you know, turning up the music, putting my Connect on, shooting stuff, and not really worrying about whether or not I'm getting hit. And yeah, I had a great time with it, and I wasn't expecting to, and I'm like some people, I'm super into 3D. I got to spend a full day, like probably nine hours at a buddy's house who has a 3D TV with the active shutter glasses and all that, played Wipeout and Motorstorm, and even the Prince of Persia, Sands of Time remake, and, you know, we just played whatever we could find on PlayStation that was 3D. - I didn't think those Prince of Persia Sands of Time remakes, like the 3D wasn't all that interesting. - I actually, I mean, I think 3D is interesting because it actually works well in older games. Like the, you know, it doesn't matter if the textures are muddy and stuff. - Yeah, I didn't think in the sense of time, it really did all that much. - To me, there's those rooms where there, where there'll be like, you know, five or six columns, and you're sort of jumping between columns to make your way up, and just that extra element of the 3D, the 3D dimension makes it really easy to know like, oh, this column is right here in front of me. It's just slightly more accurate in terms of choosing which direction to jump off of when you have that 3D dimension, but, you know, whatever. Sands of Time was not the coolest game I played. I mean, Wipeout obviously looks amazing to me as the Wipeout guy and Motorstorm Apocalypse, which is a game aesthetically I'm not super into. The 3D-ness of it is really, really- - What are you doing in general, boys? Isn't that the one that they've been showing over me, and it's always had really impressive 3D. - Yeah, anything in 3D, there's weird stuff. Like anytime there's something that's a bright light, like a really, like if you see the sun, or in Motorstorm a lot, there's sparks that come off of things. And anytime there's a bright light, there's something about it being in 3D and your eyes perceiving that way. It shimmers in a way and it makes it look real. Like it hurts to look at the sun in a game that has stereoscopic 3D, where if you just turn that 3D off and stare, you know, it doesn't do anything. It's very strange and it's hard to understand. I have no idea why that is. But the fact that Child of Eden is probably gonna be 3D when it comes out on PlayStation 3 and has them- - I'm a little scared of what that's gonna do to people. It's gonna make people real happy. - I think it's actually gonna make people throw up. - Maybe that too. - Like that game is enough of a visual, like I played it at work in our demo room, which has a projector that goes about 80 or 90 inches. - That's awesome. - That's where the surround sound really loud. - That's great. - And I don't, it like fucked my brain out of my head. (laughing) Like you know that swimming effect you get if you're staying at rock band or guitar hero for too long? - Oh yeah. - Multiply that by like a hundred. - And in every direction. - So in every direction? - And when it comes out for PlayStation 3, is it gonna use like two move controllers or what? - I don't know. - Honestly. - That's interesting. I haven't thought about that. - It would be sweet with two moves actually. - Yeah, it would be good with two moves. - It probably has a couple controls. - It would be awesome if there were multiple options. - I mean, I honestly doubt it. They'll probably just do one move and then you like use the thing to switch between weapons. - Yeah, probably. - 'Cause what's the point of having the two different control methods if like- - It would be sick if they put two cross areas on the screen. - Clapping is like a physical motion that they want people to do. - Yeah. - But I don't know what that game is gonna do in 3D. - Yeah. It's gonna make people go nuts. So the other game that I've been playing, oh, I had one more thing to say. - What would be why are you agreeing? - Hold on, let me think. Child of Eden. - It's anesthesia. - It's really, I liked it. I really enjoyed it. It was a nice thing to play. You know, it sucked me out of my, I'm just not into games right now, mood. It was the one thing that just brought me right back. And especially because I was so worried that it wasn't gonna turn out to be great. - Yeah. - I'm really glad that they pulled it off. I really like that game. - The other key, the thing I was worried about the most, I think was the music. - Yeah, oh yeah. And so yeah, that's the thing. It's the music turns out to be relatively pretty good. That I was afraid we were just gonna hear Heavenly Star for like 40 minutes. - I don't think I've ever gotten to a game ending that felt quite as cathartic as Child of Eden's did. - Yeah. - Just from an emotional and sort of like experiential perspective. Like 'cause it's just like building and building and building to this sort of very surreal and over the top kind of joy thing. - And if you're playing with Connect, you know, your whole body's in it. You know, you start to get tired and when you're, you know, it's sort of like the end of Res where the final boss, you kind of get to the point where there's just like a core. This is what all the bosses is kind of this way. The final, the final bit is you just locking on to like the core and then blasting off shots one after the other. So it'll be like (imitates drill) and when you're playing it with Connect, you know, you're really getting into it for the last game. - You feel like a superhero? - Yeah, sort of in Atlanta. - Well, I feel like a space baby. (laughing) Maybe, okay, before I go into my next game. - It was almost out of the credit tree. - Yeah, yeah. - All right, before you go into the next game. - Before I go into my next game, I once had a really good idea for a Res sequel before there was, before child of even wasn't out. Yeah, before there was a Res sequel. And I must have been playing Pat-upon at the time 'cause it was highly inspired by Pat-upon. But imagine if, you know, what's, so what's the story of Res? The story of Res is that the computer has a virus and you're going in to clear out the virus. So in Res to the rhino-donal version, you are the virus trying to re-infect the computer. And imagine on screen sort of seeing something that looks a bit like Res, but instead of you being a little avatar moving through space, you're a cloud of nano, whatever, little bits flying all around and the core action of the game, instead of being a lock on Panzer Dragoon, Res sort of experience, is you playing along to the music in a sort of Pat-upon way that makes it more like a rhythm game where the nano machines like form clouds and go attack the beautiful elements in the environment to turn it back into like Trani resiness instead of, you know, the beauty that you brought to the game the first time through. Anyway, I think that would be a badass. That would be a badass game. This would be which you would never make it, but it would be a badass game. And it would just have made a game that still felt like it was within the universe of Res, but not be the exact same gameplay mechanics. - I wonder, like, if he'll get to make many more games after this, 'cause Charlevine is not selling well from every indication. - I don't think they ever thought that it was gonna be like some hit. - I don't know, it's published by Ubisoft. - Yeah. - Granted, they're also publishing the cartel, so they're worse games than just trying to filter the Charlevine is gonna be, but I just, you know, with Res was more, you know, Res didn't sell at all. I mean, it could certainly be his last retail game. - I was afraid. I went to the store on the day Charlevine came out, and I hadn't pre-ordered, I don't believe, and I went up to the front and said, "Hey, do you have a copy of Charlevine?" It was probably only 11.30 AM. You know, the store hadn't been open that way. And the guy was like, "Yeah, there's one more copy." And he had to go pull it off the shelf. And he's like, "Yeah, we only got two copies in." And I was like, "You know, that's funny." When Res came out in the United States on PS2, I was working at an E.B. at the time, and we only got two copies in, and I bought the one copy, and I put the second one aside from my buddy, and no one got to buy Res. We never put a copy on the shelf, and we never got more copies of that game in, not once. It was only those two copies, that was all we got. And I remember calling my friend who lived about an hour away and telling him, "Yeah, we only got two copies of Res in, and I don't think we're getting any more, so if you want to go get it, you probably got to go get it right now." And he did, and it was the same experience for him. So I really hope that Child of Eden gets stocked a little bit more than Res at stores, but it's not something. I mean, how do you expect a game to sell when stores get two copies in? I mean, if it doesn't even go on the shelf, what's the point? - A new copy of Res for PS2 goes for $60 on eBay. The trans vibrator by itself goes for 48. Wow, those sell for like 400 yen at stores in Japan. It's like $4. - Maybe not anymore, but we used to see, they have these bins of clearance materials at the front of some of the stores in Akiyara, and we saw massive amounts of trans vibrators there in the years that we went to- - A lot of them went into the store selling on eBay, our import versions of PS2, Res, and the trans vibrator. - Right, that makes sense. That was gonna say the trans vibrator didn't get released. - It didn't get released here, it was only Japanese. - Yeah, so the other game that I've been playing is, and man, have I been, this is the one game. Like I really like Child of Eden, don't get me wrong, but after that I was like, yeah, you know, I'm back to not caring about games again. But I've been playing the Ocarina of Time remake for 3DS, and I'm sort of having like a honeymoon with that game. And I think part of the reason is because, in retrospect, when I think back on Ocarina of Time or when I had prior to this playthrough, I think of that game as good, but not great. I always have like the 2D Zelda's a lot better than the 3D Zelda's. I think Aonuma is ruining the series. He doesn't- - Oh, and you can send emails to letters at e-dash-ly. - And I'll explain why. - He's the guy that makes all the 3D ones. - Yeah, he's made everything since then. And I don't get me wrong. Wind Waker, I think, is a absolute classic. So I'm saying this- - It's a tough out for me, it linked to the past, honestly. - Yeah, I never got to play the Game Boy Advance one, though. - I always heard that one's great. - Well, the Minish Cap. - Minish Cap, there's also the ages, or, oh, well, those are Game Boy Color, but Oracle of Ages and Seasons, and then the Game Boy version of Link's Awakening. And, you know, I love all of those games. I think they're fantastic. And I think there's just something magical. I'm sure I've explained this on some- - You and every other gushing Nintendo, some fan board. - I can put it very simply. The thing I like about the 2D Zelda games is that the overworld is extremely complex, and- - Totally navigable. - Navigable, but filled with mystery. You know, you'll see something, you'll be wandering on some screen, and there'll be something that stands out in a weird way, but not super obvious. It's like, you know, you'll see a tree that's slightly discolored, or there'll be a bunch of bushes, but, you know, four of 'em are in the shape of a cross, or something like that. And it just, there's something that, in the level design that lets you know, if you're paying attention, there's something interesting going on here, maybe. But not all the time, but maybe. - But no past use music a lot, too, to tell you- - And patterns, like he's saying. - We should be paying attention. - Yeah. - And then, once you locate this mysterious thing, and it unlocks, usually some sort of cave entrance that takes you down into some other part of the world. - Dungeon. - Or, yeah, or- - There's your random caves. - Random caves. - We're interested in it, we're involved. - The caves are always different. It's not cut and paste, it's not templated, and in the 3D Zelda games, I think almost across the board, they did an okay, there's like one or two caves that are a little bit different in Twilight Princess on the overworld, but basically, the caves are just the same thing, and it's really, really boring to me. - Yeah. - And the overworld in those games just feel really sparse. I enjoy navigating the oceans in Wind Waker, but that game's missing a couple of dungeons, and all the islands that you can explore, I'll feel like they don't have anything substantial on them, and it's very clear that none of them are as deep or as interesting as the ones that you have to go to. They're like two or three islands that are towns that are interesting, plus the dungeon islands, and then everything past that is like really small and sort of boring and straightforward. - And the 2D Zelda's you really feel like you get rewarded for just exploring, and just playing around with the environment as much as you can. - Right, and Twilight Princess overworld really bugs me because you wander onto a screen and you'll see something that'll catch your eye. You're like, oh, there's something wacky over there, but then by the time you're far enough in the game, you realize, oh, that's just a hook shot latch, you know? I just need to come back here when I've got the hook shot, and that's the answer to the puzzle. Whereas in the old games, you actually felt like you were exploring and finding something. It felt like you're actually using your brain. - Well, especially in a link to the past once you got the ability to move through the two different worlds, you'd start going around and just being like, I'm gonna change the other world right here, 'cause I wanna see what happens now. - Yeah, exactly. - 'Cause you're like, maybe something will happen here. - Right, so, Oh, Green of Time 3D. So I think about this game in retrospect as not being that great because I always like the 2D games a lot more. But I am having a pretty darn good time with it. I really, really like the 3D. It sucks that you, you know, the 3DS is a, is it the industrial design of that machine is god awful. - I hate it. - I thought you liked the physical, right? Didn't you think it looked good? - Yeah, but the, like the footprint and actually like just the silhouetted cuts is fine. I actually think that the dev kits look nicer than anything they've released from. - I have not seen it. - They're like a graphite with a black sort of under finish and they look really cool. The buttons and the D-pad and the everything on the 3DS sucks and the power buttons where the fucking start button should be. - And the, you know, when you have it open, the hinge like squeaks a little bit and you know, it's got that glittery finish that's gross and the buttons are too small. The D-pad sort of lame. The circle pad is pretty good, I guess. - Yeah, no. - But basically, aesthetically, the hardware of that machine is just terrible. You know, I love the 3D but you really have to nail that viewing angle just right. When I'm playing O green of time though, I forget about all that. I just get totally sucked into the world and I really was not, every time I saw a screenshot of this game, I thought it looked exactly like the old game. I mean, I sort of, I would look at comparisons and realize like, oh yeah, you know, it is, they upgraded the texture on this thing but I really didn't appreciate how much of an improvement graphically it was until I saw the game in 3D. The link model especially is like far better than it was in the N64 version. I mean, when you get the, it probably is the same in that game but when you get like the Goron bracelet, you know, it goes on your character, you see it there, it's sitting there physically. Link's face actually looks like Link's face rather than what it looks like in the N64 version. You just can't go back and play N64 games, they look so pretty interesting. - Yeah, I know, in my mind, I always imagine N64 games looking like way higher res than they do. I forget how muddled and blurry everything was. - Yeah, this game, they look like, you know, YouTube videos back when they first came out. - Right. - It looks like what your memory of the game is like. It's like what it looks like in your brain and then all of a sudden it's in 3D. So if you're the type of person that appreciates it and I know there are plenty of people that don't care about that, it is magical. It really is fantastic. Jumping off anything of any height, like just standing on a house in the Kokiri forest at the very beginning of the game and leaping down 10 feet onto the ground, gives you a little bit of a sense of a thrill of jumping off of something, all of a sudden, because it's now in 3D. I know a lot of people like to slide that slider around the 3D slider to find just the right point where the game feels right to them. To me, this game feels right with the slider all the way up. I want all the depth that I can see. And when you finally get to some of the dungeons where you're standing really high up and looking down, it's just incredible. And they added a bunch of fun camera stuff like the, you know, there's a button on the touchscreen where you can go into first person and look around. And you can use the gyroscopes to look, which is really cool, except when you're playing in 3D, like I was saying, you've got this really narrow window of where the 3D works. - You move your head with it. - And you gotta move your head with it. So it doesn't work really well to do that all the time if you're playing in 3D, but analog or whatever, the circle pad works also. So what I end up doing is like doing the vast majority of my movement with the circle pad when I'm looking around in first person or whatever. And then once I've found what I'm actually looking at, then I'll take over with the gyroscopes. And then it's all of a sudden like a little bit of handheld camera shake on that I'm controlling. - Do you think about just turning off the 3D when you wanted to use the gyroscopes and then turning it back on? - I do occasionally, but part of the reason I'm going to 3D in the first place is to look at the world in 3D usually. So... - Do you need to use the gyroscopes? - You don't need to use them at all. You can totally do it without it. - How often do you feel compelled to use the gyroscopes? - Every time I go into first person. - And then the other thing is that you can hold down the L trigger, which basically allows you to then use the gyroscopes to control the camera while you're still in motion. So it doesn't zoom into first person, link still third person standing in the center of the screen. But you can, let's say you're running through the Hyrule field, you can just be running along, going to your next destination and then hold down L and move your hands a little bit and then glance over this direction, move your hands over here and glance this direction. Just those little extra camera tweaks really makes it easy to get immersed in the world. I mean, it really feels 3D in a way that the old games didn't, and it is 'cause it's stereoscopic as well, and that's really, really cool. Beyond all the dumb graphical things, the game holds up better than I thought it was. I mean, that Hyrule field is still really sparse, but they have cleaned up a lot of the areas of the game, like the shops, any indoor environments that are like single screen sort of isometric perspective look way better. They added a ton of new art to all of that stuff to make it look really nice. There are funny things that make the game feel old, like when you quit, if you save and quit. For a vast majority of the beginning of the game, you end up starting back at Link's house every time. So if you're in the middle of some town, Goron City or something like that, way far off in the map when you have to stop, when you turn the game back on, you started way back at the beginning of the game, and you have to run all the way back there. So there are little things that are kind of annoying, but overall, I've just been having a little love affair with Zelda, and I'm remembering how much fun that was, and there are parts of it that really make it feel like the game was designed to be played in stereoscopic 3D when it was first made. Like at some point, you climb up the top of Def Mountain, and there's an owl that's a character in the game, and he tells you, "Hey, if you wanna go back down "to Carcarico Village, I'll take you, "I can just fly you back down there." And it goes into a first person flight scene that takes you back down to the game, it's totally in the original N64 version. But now, all of a sudden, you're flying back in 3D, and he's winding through caves and going by waterfalls, and it's like, "Whoa, this is really, really amazing now. "You know, it's weird." I always, when I heard that they were doing Oak Read Enough Time in 3D, I had no interest, not at all. I was like, "Why aren't you doing Wind Waker? "That would be a way cooler game to do in 3D." Now that I've played it, I really, really enjoy it. I think it's easily one of the best games on 3DS, even though it sounds dumb, like-- - It's sort of like one of the special Olympics. - Yeah. - Greatest game voted, greatest game of all time is good. Big surprise. - Yeah, that's good. - See, it's really good. - It's good that you came out, because if you hadn't come out, we probably would have never have talked about Oak Read Enough. - Yeah, it's really-- - Anything on the 3DS, 'cause I don't own the 3DS, do you, Matt? - No. - Yeah, nobody else owns the 3DS. - And I'm not likely to get one. - I really felt like it was a mistake to buy that system. I gotta say. - Yeah, for me, what it came down to at the time was, I could either spend 250 bucks on the 3DS, more like 300 with a game, or I could put that money towards the most cheapest iPad I wanted to get. This is what I did instead. - I'd much rather have an iPad, but if you're a guy who, or a guy or girl who has a 3DS, I would say get the Oak Read Enough Time. - It's why, wouldn't you? I mean, what else you do with it? - Yeah. - No, but it is remarkably good. - They're gonna take 3D movie trailers off of it in July, I guess. - Really? - Oh. Can you play TF2 on it? (laughing) - If you can't, don't care. (laughing) - That's all I got. - How 'bout we take a break? - That kid is really upset at you, Ryan. - I know. - He hears games, aren't they? - I'm not taking a break from Megalyn. - He's like, do we sell the sock? - What? - The kid outside it was screaming. - We can put him in a meat grinder. (laughing) - I feel like I need a break before I can talk about my stuff. - All right, we're gonna go from your stuff straight into letters. - That's totally fine. - All right. - Cool, I'll see you in a minute. (upbeat music) ♪ Black balloon ♪ ♪ You say, well, right ♪ ♪ Black balloon ♪ ♪ You wear a pen ♪ ♪ It's white ♪ ♪ You say, well, right ♪ ♪ Black balloon ♪ ♪ You wear a pen ♪ ♪ It's white ♪ ♪ You say, well, right ♪ ♪ Black balloon ♪ (upbeat music) - Oh, we're back, sorry. I forgot you were gonna want me to cue you off. I thought you were just gonna start talking about your shiz. - I mean, how do you open with transformers darker than the Moon's still force edition? - Oh, no. (laughing) - Well, I think you should do what Matt and I did with the terrible games and make it mercilessly short. What you have to say about that game is it's transformers with no transforming. - There's no transforming and transformers darker than the Moon's still force edition. - What the fuck? - Wow, what's the point? - Which is the 3DS and Wii version of transformers. Same game across both platforms. Not just like, oh, well, they play the same. I mean, they are the same game. They both look like a not great 3DS game. - You talked a little bit about these last week. - Yeah. It's just-- - Sounds terrible. - I hadn't really played very much. - But so when you quote transform, you're just going still force. And the way you control your car was still forced, did I explain this last time? - No, huh. - You move, when you're just a car, you drive by-- - Oh, you did actually, yeah, yeah. - So it's an abomination. (laughing) I gave it a 2.5. - Nice. (sighing) - I only ever done that to one game. - My original strap line for the game that my manager vetoed was abortion meets the eye. (laughing) - The abortion meets the eye. (laughing) - Oh, now I get it. - Yeah, exactly. It takes a second, but then it stays with you. (laughing) I also reviewed the PS3 version of Sniper Ghost Warrior. - Was I never heard of that? - Charizard and I have just been stacking on the shit. - Also, the reason that I reviewed this is because I reviewed Sniper Ghost Warrior last July, the very beginning of July, so almost exactly a year later. - So they took a year and they made the PS3 version that the definitive version. - Quotes, this is what it said in all their marketing material. And apparently by definitive, they meant drop the resolution down by half, make everything blurry, kill the frame rate, and instead of fixing the levels that were especially bad, they just cut them out. - And replace them with, and replace them with cut scenes, like covering what happened in those sections. - Wow. - How do you get money to do something like that? - I wonder. - I guess. - Where can I get it? - The Sniper Ghost Warrior between PC and 360 has sold a shipped a million units. - Really? - Yeah. - Wow. - Internationally, because people were dumb and PC gamers are desperate, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. (laughing) I forgot how low I scored that game, 'cause for some reason I kept thinking, oh, six, right? I gave that game a six. - I thought I gave it a six, too. - It's an okay and a 10, but no. I rated that game a 5.5 on PC and a five on 360, and it is a 4.5 on PS3. - Wow. - It's probably a little lower than 4.5, but apparently my text read like a 4.5. - That has got to suck when you work on a game for a year, and it's worse than the last version you put out. - You'd think that in the year they could, like-- - Make something better. - The biggest problem with Sniper Ghost Warrior last year was that for a game called Sniper, with these gigantic environments, it was super linear. - Wow. - You couldn't go outside of these very poorly marked paths in the center of the level, basically. And the AI was, we're fucking terminators with how aware they were of everything in the world. - Which sort of defeats the purpose of the stealth sniper game. - So I mean, it counteracted a kind of cool sniping mechanic, which is that when you zoom in, your bullet is vulnerable to wind and gravity, but there's this tiny red dot that will show you where your bullet will fall, and you can slow time. - Which makes it playable, as opposed to, can't you turn that off and make it super, super hardcore? - Yes, you most certainly can. And you can slow down time by clicking in the stick. - Just like in real life. - So it's like Sniper Superpowers. And that's interesting, nothing else in that game is interesting. It runs like shit, even on PC, there's no way to stop the tearing. - And I'd argue that the title is interesting. - Like on the PC version will tear in the middle, the PS3 version tears in like three or four places on the screen at once. - Is it those tears that are vertical and horizontal? 'Cause those are the worst. - No, it's not like a Tetris is going down the screen. - Oh, okay. - It's just like somebody like ran Wolverine's cause across the screen horizontally. - I gotcha. - So it's just not, it's not good, it's not good. - Usually that's supposed to be an effect, I think, you know? - Like no. - No? - Yeah, I spend a lot of time trying to recreate that. - Snipers have a lot of that happen to them after they stir through a scope for ours. - Right, the reason that happens is because the engine can't finish rendering a frame before it's time for the next. - Nerd alert. (dog barking) When you hear, you might hear programmers or developers talking about how long something takes to do in an engine like NA aliasing might take like 4.6 milliseconds. They have a millisecond budget. - Is this the wrong engine? - Yes, no, it's the tech land. It's the dude who did a-- - Call of Waras. - Call of Waras. - It's called Waras. - Which, they are making Dead Island as well. Which says to me something about how they're splitting their time. - Well, no, they did, okay, so the Call of Waras guys did not make Sniper. - No, I'm just talking about Call of Waras and Dead Island. I was right about that earlier. - So for the next Sniper Ghost Warrior game, they licensed CryEngine 3. - Wow. - So it's probably gonna look great and play like crap. 'Cause it doesn't seem like they have anybody there that knows how to design a level around the conceits of their game. Which is too bad. 'Cause it'd be cool to play a game like that where you really had to be smart and it was like an open world thing where you could take your shot, et cetera. - I wanna play it co-op where all I get to do is lie in the grass next to you until you win speeds and shit like that. - Well, unfortunately, no one north took that job. - For this game too. - Yes, no one north is in the game. - But you do run with a co-op partner. - No, you don't run with a co-op. I mean, you run with a co-op partner sometimes. - I wanna be. - We'll do this. 'Cause just do it. - Just do it. - Just do it 'cause I'm no one north and I do it. - Just do it. Do it. So yeah, that game is not good. I downloaded the DirectX 11 update to Crysis 2, which is kicking the shit out of my computer at work. - And his computer at work is better than your computer probably. - Wow. - Probably. At first, it was kicking the shit out of my Core i7 system, running at 3.2 gigahertz with one ATI 6970 in it. - Which is the best graphics I could use. - Which is the best single GPU graphics card on the market. And so I thought, you know, let's just put another one of those in there. So I went into our storage area and pulled out our other 6970 and stuck it in. As a side note, in a normal SLI motherboard, 2.6970s, right on top of each other. - Oh, I'm sure. - Hot, like literally, I mean, like that. They're making out. They're doing it. - Keeping each other nice and cool. - And everyone in the office was so terrified of this that I actually had our tech editor, Scott Lowe email AMD and ask them if this is okay. And they said it is, they said it's fine. They're designed for it. It doesn't change the fact that when crisis two or any game is running really hot, really hot and heavy. First of all, my computer sounds like a vacuum cleaner. And second of all, it smells like someone with a vacuum cleaner on fire. - I hate the smell of like the electricity burning. - Yeah, it's like whitening is about to strike my balls. - Yeah. (laughing) - The answer is probably that you're supposed to spray some soft syrup up in between the two cards, you know, and make yourself a GPU sandwich. - Some lube. So, even with two, 6970s, crisis two is kicking the crap out of my computer. - But did you update the drivers? - I did update the drivers. - I don't want it. - It's future proof, okay? It's future proof. - Not future proof. - Only did I update the drivers. I completely uninstalled the drivers. I deleted the devices from Device Manager. I used a program called Driver Super to eliminate every remnant of video card driver on my system. And then I reinstalled them. - You wouldn't have this problem if you was running in a video card. - That's what I was gonna say, 'cause I thought crisis two was-- - Not for this game. - Or running to have such a great engine. - Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. - When it says meant for NVIDIA, what it really means is we really didn't really test this with an AT&T card, it could work. - Right. - I don't know. (laughing) Which is funny because in DirectX 9, which is what it really said originally, it ran phenomenally well on AT&R hardware. It ran well on everything, honestly. - But the DirectX 11 is doing what PC gamers were, huffy about crisis two not doing when it came out, which is bringing everything to its knees. - So it's gonna make them super happy now. - They seriously, like reading message boards, they're like, oh my god, this is the best thing ever. I'm only getting 30 frames per second at 1080p. It's amazing, I'm like, fuck is wrong with you. (laughing) I mean, it does, so when it's working, 'cause also crisis two has still got crash bugs on AT&R hardware, 'cause I have AT&R cards in my desktop at work and in my desktop at home. And whenever I try to mod a weapon, it locks up. Not that that's an important thing to do in crisis or anything, you know, putting silencers on or p-switching between sites or whatever, that's not important. But you know, in the event that I wanna do that, it will lock up on me, so no doing that. - It's so easy to have a love-hate relationship with a PC, but you just keep coming back for more. - The past five minutes reminds me why I quit. - I have a ridiculous Frankenstein's monster beast of a computer at work, and it's making me a hate PC gaming more. Even though I like opening my tower at work, because it's like entering the Batcave. (laughing) - Those Alienware's are particularly, particularly messed to open up and work, right? And they have these big old liquid cooling things. - But they're not, but that's only on the processor. Like, to open the, my... - Well, they're painting the assages, figure out how to open the fucking case. - Yeah, so, I mean, I think we talked about this once ago, but the way that you open the new Alienware's, the ones with the fins that open by themselves that don't actually do anything is to go to the last fin and lift it up. It's like you're moving a bust in the library in Bruce Wayne's house. - Yeah, you only kind of, you do kind of stumble upon it out of frustration. You're like, wow, it's gonna yank on everything and also it opens. - This is how Batman gets into his computer, I'm pretty sure. So you lift up the last fin. - Is that hydrolyx or something? - You lift up the last fin and you hear a click, and the side panel kind of comes down and you lift it off. And the inside lights up. - Huh, does it go... (imitates whooshing) It should have really, it should have really, smoke and steam come out. - No, that would be the special model, like cooled by liquid nitrogen. - I gotcha. (laughs) - And Alienware, Alienware's are like, old school jaguars to me, you know? Like, they look really, well, I don't even think they look pretty, but I mean, the idea is they're supposed to look pretty on the outside and then on the inside they have all kinds of like weird electrical and hardware problems and... - Yeah, I mean, it crashes, it crashes all the time. - Yeah, Alienware's like... - And not just like programs, like it hard-- - The Alienware used to be good though, didn't they used to be-- - Before they were bought by Dell? - When they were independent. - Oh, good point. - When they were assembled by parts. - The independent PCs that I hear people general like now are those ones made-- - Eye by power. - Yeah. - Mm-hmm. - That was the one. - I still like, the next time I upgrade my PC, I'm just gonna put it together myself. I mean, I've never found a better way to have a good PC that's stable. And it's like, I think one of the things about having, you know, a super high-end cutting-edge PC, like the one you have at work, Arthur, is that being on the cutting edge means that if you're not getting the better performance than you could possibly imagine, then there's something amiss, whereas like my computer, which is a little bit older, if something doesn't work quite right, I'm just like, eh, it's older. - Yeah. - Like, honestly, my computer at home is better in every respect, except for video cards than my computer at work. But there's not really anything I can do about that, 'cause I can't just take them home. - Right. - I've asked. - I can't. (laughing) - That's a problem, it's 'cause you asked. - Yeah, so I was gonna say that. - I think they'll notice if the $400 video cards are missing. - I'm pretty sure they didn't take one of them, and then just say like, well, I don't know why it's running so badly, it's an Alienware. - Yeah, just put your video card in there. - Yeah. - And be like, yeah, I don't know, weird. - Actually, one of my video cards is in a computer at work, because we didn't have any Direct X11 video cards at work. - So, what are you running in your computer right now? - Oh, I bought another one, remember? - Oh, anyways. (laughing) - So, Crysis 2 in Direct X11, it looks incredible. I mean, there's no longer even any argument-- - No surprises. - That it's not the best-looking PC game, just the stuff they're doing with lighting and tessellation is amazing. - So each frame that you get every so often looks really nice. - Well, I mean, I get like 30, which is down from 75,000, or something like that. (laughing) - Yeah, whatever, 30 is fine. - But I mean, like the stuff it does, like the tessellation makes like all the bricks on walls look like bricks instead of just a flat texture. - Mm-hmm. - You can actually see like models, like in buildings become more complex as you come up to them organically and not just like-- - Popping. - Popping. - Popping new level of detail models, 'cause that's like the big thing with tessellation is it doesn't have to store like a Nintendo 64 version of the model and a Dreamcast version of the model and a PS2 version of the model and the Xbox 360 version of the model. (laughing) In memory, it just procedurally fills in the detail or lowers it in all of those models. Ow, my cat is stabbing me in the knee. (laughing) And there's other stuff that just adds more depth to a scene and the particles are fucking bananas. - Wow. - Explosions look really good, but if you, it'll look like your frame rate is fine, like it's totally playable, and then some dudes in the distance will shoot at a wall and all this dust and stuff will fly off and your frame rate will just light lower into the tenants. - Oh yeah, it's always the particle effects that do it for any engine that's ever existed. - So I need a physics card. (laughing) - I don't know that physics actually works with crisis. - I was joking, I don't know. Just remembering that scam. - Yeah, yeah. - And that's scam. - So yeah, so that's crisis too. And that's really, I mean, I think I played, I didn't even play anything this weekend. I played some trench last week, trench is good. - Trench is really good. - Minus some bush league omissions in general wonkiness, which we talked about last week. - Yeah, it's so fun though. - Yes. - It's just so fun. - Closest to a Microsoft game I'm ever gonna get, so. - Any time soon. So the first letter is from Andrew Vance, and he wants to know, I'm pretty sure this needs a question for you guys to answer. I was wondering whether you could recommend a good video podcast similar to the one up show or co-op. (laughing) Basically, that's what he's asking. He's like, I would even be interested in paying a yearly subscription fee for a co-op show if you guys are going back to that. - You feel your heart just breaking a little bit and hearing people say. - I do, yeah. - There is no video podcast like that out there. - Nope, it was one of a kind. - You can't, yeah. No one can pay to make a show like that. - It takes too long, that is all in the story. - Yep, it's too expensive to make a show like that. - It's expensive, the production value is too high for a weekly thing that takes many people to make when you can't, I mean, it's hard to make money doing any gaming editorial right now, even if all you're doing is pumping out pages. So, I mean, doing something that has high production values is maybe not the way to go. - You need at least four people to do the one up show, and that's an insane amount of work. And that's just the production side. That's not talking about the people that you actually need in addition to that, to play games. - Convince. - And to be on camera to talk about them. - You know, I keep feeling like at some point there'll be someone will figure out the business model for online television stations that actually function properly that can afford content that's not just people sitting on a couch and talking. - Yep. - Maybe, maybe that'll happen. If it does, you know, we'll probably go, we'll probably be there, we'll come back and we'll make something. But until that point, there's just not really, there's not really space for it. The one up show was like this magical moment in time where we were hired as full-time employees, editorial staff, and everyone else on staff, it was their job to play along with us. And we had carte blanche from the bosses to do that show. And probably, I just can't imagine it happening again for quite a while. - Nope, and probably not in the video game space, but I mean, the thing is outside of like those who made it, like, you know, the college humor guys, there are a few other places where you get that same sort of, you know, people are actually editing on editing software and making these stories. But even then, no one's doing 40 minute episodes every week of, you know, something that has that sort of production value. And I'm not even saying we were all that great. We were always rushing to make-- - Most people just aren't as ambitious for stupid. - We were stupid. - Keep in mind also, 'cause I was thinking about it today when I was talking to Matt about it, that like, there are at least one of us, and possibly two or three of us, that worked all nighters every week. - That's what I'm saying. - We did 145 hour work day every week. We worked like 65 hours a week, or at least to make that show. Yeah, it was cool. It killed me, like, killed my body. - Yep. - It made me very fat. - What is going away now, Ryan O'Donnell has lost a metric fuck ton of weight. - Yes, I have. I'm like, a lot smaller now. - It's like-- - You have to make that stupid show. - Several babies worth of weight. - Yeah, I threw those away. - I hate babies. - Where they belong. - So Chris writes in, and he says, in regards to the PlayStation Vita, information I've seen is that games are going to be on a SD card, like, piece of media. - Proprietary, but yeah. - He says, I've also heard that the SD cards are going to have to be taken to some type of kiosk in order to load a game on it. - I do not believe that that is the case, but, I mean, they did that business model back in Japan a long time ago with the Famicom disk drive. That's how you got games on it. - So yeah, I had no idea. - It was a super Famicom, Famicom? Anyway, yeah, they would have a kiosk back at the game shops, and you take a blank disc over and you get them to copy over whatever new game you wanted, and you take it home and play it and go back. - I don't think that's gonna happen, 'cause I still think that they're going to want people to have the impulse to see a box on a shelf and wanna buy it. - And we have this thing called the internet now. - The what? - The internet. - I have a Japanese company, I don't understand what you mean. - I mean, they need retail, like, especially with the, man, Sony has got their work fucking cut out for 'em, because they have burned retail so much over the last four years with PSP stuff. Like, and people have had to eat PSPs, so they need to be good retail, good partners with retail. - Okay, so I'm gonna kick it back to a letter we talked about last time. - I don't know, kick back, what was it? - This is from Anonymous, who wrote us last week, and he says, hey guys, thanks for reading my letter out last week, and in Prince, it's the six month relationship slash wanting to propose guy. - Oh, right. - But he says, I have to admit, nice work, Anthony, with the surprise there, 'cause I didn't, I had withheld that they had only been dating for six months until the very end. - That was good. - Just so that I would read their whole relationship letter. - So, wait, so the setup was that it was about him wanting to get married and whether or not he should do it, but you kept out the part about six months? Okay, gotcha now. - But he says, I should explain, me and my significant other have actually been friends, best friends, for the last four years, and I did what Mr. Bromley would call fucking my way out of the friend zone. So, so he's trying to say that yes, they've only been boyfriend, girlfriend for six months, but they've known each other for years. - Right, okay, right, it's completely different. - Yeah, totally different. - And he says, by the way, I'm also, I'm 29, 'cause remember we also were guessing about what he might be. 'Cause not one of these high school kids who wouldn't know a girl's belly button from her pussy. Very tastefully written, that one, anonymous. - Was there a word you'd prefer in its place? - I don't know. - But the genre, oh, wait. (laughing) - He says, I simply didn't go huge with the info, 'cause you guys asked for letters. I will thank you. - Oh, so you sent us a petty letter. - I would thank you for the advice, and go for the engagement later this year, the best of both our worlds. So he says, yeah, he's just gonna wait for a little bit. Take our advice, wait for a little bit, but he just wanted to give that clarification about his age and the prior knowledge of the girl. - That's actually important information. - Right, I agree. - Everyone was withholding information from us on that letter. Anthony was anonymous. - Yeah, exactly. Well, good luck, anonymous. Lord only knows what she hasn't told him. - Exactly. - The fact that he keeps it anonymous, and he gives out enough details as he has, though, I just wanna read your fucking name. - Yeah. - I love that I have that power. - What if his name is anonymous, Johnson? - Nah, his name's in his email. He's one of those guys. - Oh, I see. - My name at Gmail. - Oops. - Yeah. - So. - I wish your cat would stop stabbing you. - Needing. They both need to have their cause clipped. - Okay. - Yes, they do. - This is from Kevin. - This is from Kevin. - Hey, Kevin. - Hey, Kevin. - What up, Kevin? - If there is a new console generation coming up, I can think of three technologies to move forward. One is higher memory in the console, and he's talking about specifically disk space. Like 500 gigs. - What? - Or one terabyte to push down loadables, not just the arcade, indie, and DLC, but what iTunes did with music, Xbox Sony can do games by downloading full games. He says, "Two, an internet browser, "as well as a dashboard for apps like Facebook, YouTube, "Twitter, et cetera." I mean, I think that's a given. - I don't think the next consoles will have an internet browser. - I'm not saying a browser, but I'm saying a dashboard with things like Twitter access and stuff like that. I mean, Microsoft already has it. - That's happening already, yeah. - So, three is the push for 3D technology. I mean, Sony's going to do that. It seems like they've invested so much. They have to. - Sony, I don't think anybody else is going to. - Yeah, I'm not so sure about anyone else too. - I'm pretty sure that they've thrown their lot in. - We might be witnessing the beginning of the end for consumer 3D. Again, yeah, 'cause 3D TVs are not selling and 3D movies are consistently performing worse and worse at the box office. - Well, that's because they keep doing the shitty 3D on shitty movies. It didn't matter before and a lot of these are movies that were filmed in 3D. - I don't know. I think these are just the growing pains of a new way to consume media. I mean, eventually it'll just happen 3D is inevitable. - Again, I just strongly disagree. - I don't think any, I mean, I don't know anyone who's experiencing this stuff in 3D basically, or cares to do so. I think if you're a gamer and your buddy has one of these things and you can just spend a day at his house and play games in 3D, you'll probably come away thinking that it was pretty rad until the top of your nose starts to hurt 'cause the glasses are uncomfortable. - I mean, we have a 3D TV at work and I'll say that no one goes out of their way to play it on 3D. - Right, but that's what I mean by growing pains. It's like right now it's inconvenient. It's annoying, but eventually media is going to go 3D. - That doesn't strike me as growing pains. That strikes me as stillbirth. (laughing) - I mean, people just aren't showing an interest. - Yeah, it seems like they don't care. - I mean, it might become this niche thing that people can do, but first of all, the studios have handled it badly and second of all, these studios in collusion with the hardware manufacturers have handled it badly because instead of making the biggest 3D movies widely available, they sign exclusivity deals with specific TV manufacturers. So the only way you can get the biggest 3D movie of all time is to buy a specific company's 3D TV. - Which has ridiculous. - Or any, like a bunch of other, like cloudy with a chance of meatballs is only available in 3D from a specific TV manufacturer. - Right, but the biggest 3D movie of all time isn't going to be the biggest 3D movie of all time forever. - Right, the next, the sequel to the biggest 3D movie of all time will be the next biggest 3D movie of all time. - And then they're gonna be wanting to do 3D and 60 Hertz. Like that's James Cameron's big plan for Avatar 2. - I actually think that's a fantastic idea. I think that the budget for that movie is going to be 400 million dollars. - That's not surprising. - Because they're generating it. - They're generating it. - It's outrageous. They're generating twice the number of special effects shots, basically. - Yep, you'll probably make it back. - And actually, I think 48 Hertz is what they're shooting for. - It's double 24 frames per second. And it makes sense, like I remember the first 3D movie I saw in theaters was Coraline. And it seemed really frame-y and jittery and I was like, you know, with this 3D, especially with 3D animations, like I'm a guy who loves 24P. I live it. - But I mean-- - And I hate, there are a lot of times when I don't like seeing things in 60 frames per second, there are some games I do and some games I don't. But when it comes to-- - The 3D shit looks weird at 60 frames a second. - What's that? - Unreal Engine 3 shit looks weird at 60 frames a second. - That's very true. But there was something about the third dimension seeing something stereoscopic where I was like, you know, this really just should be as smooth as real life. If we're going for 3D and everything's supposed to have a really solid feel, make it 60. I mean, even-- - Well, if it's 48 Hertz and it's, you know, active shutter one eye and then the other, then that's 24P anyway. - Right. - Whoa. What are we talking about? - I don't believe that's the case, actually. - I think it is. I mean, at least that's the way it works with games is that if you're watching a-- - That's why I say the game is 60 FPS, but you see it at 30. - Exactly. But anyway, the point is that-- - It's not going to be that way in the theaters, to be honest, it's going to be whatever the other technology. - 3D attendance is down significantly, and it continues to fall even for big movies, like big tent pole 3D movies. I think Transformers is going to be a big test this weekend. - It would help if that wasn't such a crappy movie. - Except it's being what it is, is the most impressive use of 3D ever in its final scene, and that's including Avatar. - Well, movie? - The new Transformers movie. - I am, uh-huh. - It's like, it's Michael Bay saying, well, if we're going to do 3D, I'm going to ram 3D so far up your ass, it comes out of your mouth and you'd say thank you. But, I mean, the point is that studios were banking on this, and now it's not happening, and analysts are pointing out that it's not happening. - There's so many problems. I mean, to me, it feels like such a content problem. - Yeah. - Like, I love 3D, I'm just the wrong audience. I don't want to see fucking Transformers movie, but if you went and shot a bunch of animals like in 3D or just went and did like crazy planet earth documentary or something like that, and it was running in a theater near me, I would go watch that immediately. - I mean, it used to be-- - We used to show the Herzog Werner caves, documentaries in 3D, would it have forgotten caves or cave of the forgotten something or others. - Something like that. - And the Herzog Wernerisms aside, seeing that in 3D was actually incredible. - It would have been the same thing in 2D. - No, not at all. - Right, well, I mean, watching Avatar in 2D is not the same thing. - Oh yeah, totally not 3D. - No, it's completely different. - Like Ocarina of Time in 3D is now not the same. - Yeah, so I mean, don't prepare that to Avatar. So I totally agree to this. - I think games are a better use for 3D than films are by like a lot. - And people are buying even less in the way of 3D televisions than they're going to see 3D movies exactly. - Exactly. - So no, that's the thing is like, when I played Wipeout in 3D, I was like, this is amazing, oh my God. But I realized like I'm one of probably 200 people on the planet that have played this, you know. - It's just, people don't care. - Yeah, they super don't care. Or not only did they not care, but they're actively becoming antagonistic to 3D. - Yes, that is true. - I think they don't care for now. I think it'll, like even if 3D practically goes away in the near future in the long run, it's just, I just think it's the next step. - I think that there's gotta be some other technology they'll come up with other than two images on top of each other to simulate depth. - All right. - And that's what we're gonna stop at. - Okay. This is like the fourth time we've had this conversation. - That's actually true. - But I mean, every time we have this conversation, it's spaced out a few months from the last time and stuff changes. - That's true. - Like the bottom is starting to drop out of 3D movies. - True. - It's the summer. - And I guess I wasn't thinking of just two overlapping images in 3D. I was just thinking of the concept of 3D. - Right, I mean, we like to touch stuff. We like stuff that looks like we could touch it. - Yeah. - Go on. - There are people fucking upstairs. - There certainly are. - So anyways, this letter's from Hannah. - The buffalo are mating? - And I'm gonna read the whole thing and before we all respond to it, I mean, I think it's a pretty easy answer for myself. She says, "Over the years I've been sensitive "for trails of women and games for obvious reasons, "but the other day I realized that white female "player characters have gradually been improving "over the last years. "There remains a lack of minority characters. "Most main characters in big action games, "adventure games remain white. "Am I imagining things that want to be clear? "I'm not accusing any developer industry itself "of being racist, but perhaps just out of touch." I think that it's because a lot of the people that work in the industry are also white and a lot of times you default to the white white you know. And I'm not saying that's right 'cause it shouldn't be, but I mean, like with you, for instance, like that game, I'm gonna talk about it real quick, Papa Oyo. I'm just saying that game, it's a minority character, but he's also a minority developer. You know, I just think that people kind of associate these things with what they're most familiar with, but there are games that are different with different lead characters like Starhawk. I mean. - Yeah. - Well, overall it's just a question of, you know, any industry that has a lack of diversity is gonna have a lack of content that reflects diversity. You know, like imagine that you're a bunch of high school white dudes, you know, who got, or a bunch of white dudes that got together in high school and you grew up and like started making games and stuff like that. Are you gonna make a game that stars somebody who's going to, you know, reflect the experience of a black woman in America? Well, probably not. - I really hope that's not someone having sex upstairs. - 'Cause you're not gonna feel a little crazy. (laughing) - Shit. - You know, you're not gonna feel genuine and it's not gonna come off as authentic. You know, you have to have somebody who has that kind of experience on the team in order to do that. - You don't like what you know. - Yeah, you write what you know. You know, it's like when people do TV shows and stuff like that, the star black characters, you know, there may be a lead writer who's white, but they have other writers on the team who are black, you know? Or they go out and they do a whole fuck ton of research to try to make it happen. I'm just saying it's a question of a lack of diversity and game development in general. - Yeah, that's what I was thinking. - Yeah, I mean, there's a sort of cat, it's, there's not really a good way to put it other than to call it casual racism like in our society, which is that we just determine white is normal. - Yeah, exactly. - Like that's the default. - Like so, the same thing like transfers to gay characters or to like depictions of gay people in media. Like stuff like seeing a pair of straight characters holding hands in a movie means nothing to people, but if it's a pair of gay characters holding hands, then they're flaunting it. - Right, I mean, it's just that people default to characters that represent the majority rather than the minority and their mind is just like... - Or the majority influence, even if it's not the majority populous. - Like true. - California right now is a minority majority state. - Right. - You know, the white still makes up the majority single ethnic group, but you know, there are less white people. - And I would like to just point out that when I say the word minority, it is not a pejorative. It is just indicating there are less than. - Yeah. - You're just talking like someone from the census, it's cool. - Yeah, I mean, when I was growing up, even my mom referred to us as minority family, so we are weird. I mean, not increasing the less so that my dad's Mexican, my mom's white, that's becoming more common, but my dad was shunned for marrying outside the brood. - Oh yeah, that still happens, unfortunately. So did her, was that the end of her question? - Yeah, she just wanted to know if she was just like... - You're not crazy him. - No, you're not crazy, this is true. I mean, like I would always tell people, like name me like even three games with a black protagonist. - But I've actually, I read a lot of feminist blogs and stuff like that, and there's a lot of them that talk about the uptick in the last five years or so. - They're just trying to get laid, white night. - My girlfriend's right here, I don't really need to find somebody. Yeah. (both laughing) So like the, but they've been talking a lot about how there seems to be an uptick in the portrayal of strong female characters in ways that they approve. At least in, not in terms of, I'm not saying just in terms of... - Is that fucking ocarina time? It sounded sort of like it, but not quite, but... - There is some weird shit going on around this apartment today. - We have always lived in this apartment since we started the podcast, and above us have always lived these fairly large people that we refer to as the Buffalo 'cause when they, when they move around the apartment, it's like they heard, and you can always hear it, you know? I can tell exactly, like, oh, they're in their living room. Oh, they're in the living room. Plus they do like all this weird movement and construction work at like three in the morning. They're definitely cooking meth up there or something, but they're too fat to do meth. So I know that they ain't doing, they ain't taking their own product, but there's... - There's three of them up there, and then the other day I saw another girl walking with all of them into their apartment, I was telling Anthony they recruited another one. (both laughing) The Buffalo's are gathering. - So, I don't call them Buffalo's 'cause they're fat. I call them Buffalo's because they stampede all over their fucking apartment. - Yeah, me too. - All the time. Have you ever heard bumping and thudding in the podcast? It's from our fucking upstairs neighbors. - It's totally true. - Hopefully not our upstairs neighbors fucking hate us. - I've had roommates before that... - I'm trying to watch bowling balls do it. - I had one roommate that was this tiny little girl, and I swear to God, she sounded like a Buffalo when she would walk around 'cause she would just pound and she'd walk for a reason. - I'm so glad you said walk around. - So, the next question is from Matt. He writes in, he says, "I'm a huge fan of third-person shooters, "but with first-person shooters becoming more prevalent, "it seems like the genre is dying. "I'm gonna stop him right there." - Becoming? - I'm gonna say, but I'm gonna say, he seems like the genre's dying. Let's go over the fact of how it's not dying. There's Uncharted 3 coming out this year that it has some platform, but it's a third-person shooter, I would say. There's a, God, what's that game called where you can change gravity? - Oh, it's from the-- - Time shift, people. Well, anyways, there's the next game from the time shift, people that's a third-person shooter. - Once they finish Halo Anniversary, they're dead. - There's Gears of War, which is a third-person shooter. Like, third-person shooters are not dying. They're just as prevalent in my mind as they have been in a long time. You are doing it, Rob. - I mean, maybe there was a moment where people try to jump on the gears bandwagon and make third-person shooters, and maybe it tilted back towards FPS a little bit because modern warfare destroyed the world. - Right. - I just don't feel like they're any less prevalent, though. - No, no. - Okay. - I mean, you've got Space Marine coming out this summer, too. - Also a third-person shooter, yeah, in action game. - Although it comes out two weeks for Gears of War, so no one is gonna buy that game. - Aw, I'm gonna buy it. - No one, no one besides Anthony and the few other people that own Warhammer 40K models are going to buy it, so. - And I'll buy it out of devotion. I'll buy it for the title. (laughs) - Okay. - Space Marine. - A couple more. - This one's from Brian, and it's totally ungame related, but he says, "How do I politely ask someone to stop trying to sell me on a religion? I work at a construction camp, and I stay about three weeks at a time. Each time I return to camp and go to pick up my bags from storage, the guy sits down to me and talks to me about Islam. I just start by saying-- - Wow, that was unexpected. - Yeah, I know, right? I should start by saying that I am typically respectful to evangelists because their intent is to save you, right? In contrast, what kind of friend would believe that you're going to go to hell and not try and do something about it? I can understand that. - True. - I've told him that I'm an atheist and that I believe in the scientific method. While I have been known to enjoy religious debate, - That's just one person. - He says, "I've invited Door to Door Mormons in my home, for instance, dedicating 1.5 hours every time I return to the site can be excessive. Made way through my first sit down with him, I regretted it. His English skills are mediocre at best, so adding to the painfulness of the conversation, I'm also concerned that if I tell him, I will never accept the Quran. As a matter of principle, I might come off as rude. He's a nice guy, so I don't want to slight him. - You can just tell him you don't have time to talk a few times, and maybe he can get the hand. - Yeah, I think that's an appropriate thing. Say you have a prior engagement and you just gotta go. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - I just think that you would tell him that-- - Or don't go in until it's time for him to pray. - Or I would just say-- - That was five times. - I've had these problems, and I have not always been able to handle it well. - No, no you have not. (laughs) - Usually-- - Do tell. - Just-- - There was one time when we both worked a tower. - I start off by humoring them. I'm like, tell me more, 'cause I want to hear whether they're coming from so that I can build up the ways that I want to tear it down. - So-- (laughs) - So to skip this, there is a dude that came into tower that wanted to talk about, wanted to spread the good news about Jesus Christ all the time, and Anthony and I were working, and Anthony engaged in conversation with him, 'cause Anthony doesn't know not to fall for this trap. - Yeah. - But then the guy started saying things about gays and evil, if I remember correctly. - Correct. - And things started to get heated. - Oh yeah, that's a tough one. - I don't mind having that conversation with someone, like I totally, I'm not saying that they're right at all. - But you were getting pissed. - But I do have friends that honestly believe homosexuality isn't, and I know exactly why they feel that way. I know biblically why they feel that way, because they have this logical conceit that they look at this as the word of God, it makes perfect sense. I understand their worldview is just different from mine, and I can live with them and be friends with them still, even though we fundamentally disagree about that. But yeah, this guy was just being increasingly aggressive, and I did the dumb thing, which was responded with aggression. - Right, yeah. - So finally, I had to get on the intercom at tower and ask Anthony to report to the back room. - Just so they-- - To save him from himself. - Yes, so that he would save him from himself. - But I think the best way to handle this is just to tell him that while you appreciate the talks and stuff, because you realize that only someone that cared would do this, that you're not really comfortable discussing this, and that you just fundamentally can't share those beliefs. I don't know, he might not have talked to you anymore, but-- - So if you want to be a good person, do what Anthony said. - If you want to just get out of there-- - You want to be over. - Yeah, deceit, deception, lies. - What's not? - Lies, you don't have time to deal with this bullshit. You just said it. - Yeah, I would have made up a more elaborate lie. (laughing) That's how I roll. - Ice-- - Ice. - Or you're just coming to town in 20 minutes to eat spaghetti? I have to go eat some pork and have some premarital sex. - Yeah. (laughing) - And get drunk. - Right, of course you could just say, well, actually I'm a fundamentalist Christian, and we believe that any religion other than ours. - See, the reason this guy still likes you is that you don't have a religion. - Yeah. - So it's much easier to convert a non-believer than-- - Somebody who has a conflicting belief. - Right. (grunting) - That's a bummer. - Okay. - I'm just gonna read one last question. - Sounds like that was a message for Tyler. - It actually, specifically, the title says help, Tyler. - evangelist doesn't want me to go to hell. - Tyler is not the person you wanna ask about this. - And then in the very end, this is what would Tyler Barber do, which is like why I'm reading what Tyler isn't here, yes, because Tyler is-- - Tyler would say no, you tell him he's full of shit. - Yeah. (laughing) - I mean, yeah, I've-- - You tell him that you won't stand for that. - I've dealt with all kinds of crazy people, man. - Yeah. - So, I've been to lots of crazy churches. I've even had a really uncomfortable dinner with my friend's mom, where it came up, whether or not I believed in her brother's church, where they were having people speak in tongues and laying hands, and she asked me what I thought about all that. Totally out of nowhere, I was like motherfucker. - Yeah, you don't know what the right answer is. - Oh, I knew what the right answer was. I just said what I was like-- - I knew what the right answer is for you, but I mean, in order to preserve the situation, like you don't know what they're expecting. - It was very uncomfortable dinner for the rest of the time. I just told her, I believe that these people believe they're experiencing something, and to them, it is real. They are actually experiencing something that I don't understand. - Much like a schizophrenic believes the voice is in his head. - They're experiencing something, something in their brain, chemicals going on, but I do not believe that that is induced by an unexplained spiritual friend. So she did not like me. (laughing) Halo 4 question from Shines. He says, "So Arthur was of the opinion "that Halo 4 may be re-announced for the Xbox successor." - Yep. - I don't see why, I think releasing on the 360 is a much more logical move. I think he mentioned, sorry for being nit-picky, Halo jumping the Mac as an example, but that was during a time when Microsoft was going about grabbing exclusives and opportunistically bought out bungee. - I never mentioned Halo jumping the Mac as an example. - So why do you think Halo 4 might not be a 360 game though? - Because that would be pretty much the most beautiful system launching stroke that could possibly make next Christmas is to attach Halo to it. And also, that would completely separate talk of Halo and how much it sells versus Call of Duty from any sort of discussion. - When they announced it, did they debut it as a 360 game? - He said it was a 360 game. - Okay. - We heard some stuff during E3 that led me to believe that they are not so sure of that. - I'm totally with Arthur on this one. I think they use that as their system seller. - Yeah, it'd be like having... - They're not gonna release Halo in September and a system in November. And it seems increasingly clear that they're going to release a system next November. - It'd be like their Twilight Princess, basically. Like the best thing that could like... - It would be their Halo Xbox One launch. - Yeah, well, right. I'm just saying that when Twilight Princess came out, I know plenty of people that bought Wii's at launch because of that. Like they weren't gonna buy one at launch then when Twilight Princess coming out of it. - And that's with it. A game that came out on both the new system and the old system at the same time. - I mean, there was another rumor that surfaced this week, this time from a source inside of Microsoft Entertainment Devices Division that Microsoft is announcing a new system at Nexty3. - I mean, it makes sense. It's like six years in the life cycle. - For some reason, I don't understand why people keep doing this. They keep thinking they're gonna announce it in a 2012 and release at Christmas 2013. - No. - But that's not what Microsoft does. Like they announced their shit and then they release it that year. - Yep. - So yeah, I think we're gonna have a new Xbox next year. I think we're gonna have a new Halo with it. - I think you are totally... - I agree 100%. - And then when we're all wrong, we're all wrong. And when you write in letters to say it, retroactive, I am preemptively saying, fuck you. - I mean, it's fine if I'm, I don't mind being wrong, but I'm going to enjoy being right when they announce a new system next year. - You can send in your own letters that you want us to answer two letters at eat-sleep-game.com. And if they're cool, I'll read 'em. And if they're not, I'm just gonna roll my eyes at 'em and skip 'em. - We may in point of fact read them when Anthony's not here. - That's true too. - So I'm on Twitter at Chuff Money. Ryan O'Donnell is at Ryan O'Donnell with two N's and two L's. - Yep. - And Matt Changerney is talking orange. And Arthur is at AEGIES. - I'm also gonna be gone next week on vacation with my lovely girlfriend, who's sitting here next to me? - I like saying that because otherwise people think she's not real. - Great. So, thank you for listening. And I guess, you know, we'll probably see you next week in your eardrums. Why are you making love? (laughing) - I would be really weird if you upstairs and they were losing the podcast. (laughing) And they finally realized that I called them both for one. - We're not-- - We're a blower blower! - It's a bison. (laughing) - We just did it. 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