Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 97 - 03/25/11
Hello again! This week we talk about Crysis 2, Swords and Sworcery, Ghost Recon for the 3DS, and a bunch of other PC stuff, then move on to letters.
This week's music, in order of appearance:
The Mars Volta - Circatriz;
Year of the Rabbit - Say Goodbye
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ There's nothing good on the radio ♪ ♪ Once again, I didn't know ♪ ♪ There's your hard time too ♪ ♪ To rebel and build ♪ ♪ To rebel and build ♪ ♪ To rebel and build ♪ ♪ To rebel and build ♪ - Hello and welcome to rebel theme. - In episode 97, I'm Anthony Eigles, with me is M.A. Shandere. - Hi. - Tyler Barber. - What's up everybody? - And Arthur Geese. - You creep me out sometimes, Matt. - Hi. - I'm just happy to be here. - That's the best I could find alien this week. - So, there's only one big game that came out this week. - Wait, how do you put my stuff? - Sims medieval. - No, I'm saying one game that came out this week though. - Oh, swords and sorcery. - Oh yeah, there was that too. - Yeah, that one too. - In case you're not on Twitter. - I know, how could I forget? Last night, I was like, oh, I guess that's all Twitter is now as a sword and sorcery feed. - Kind of a brilliant insidious idea when you think about it. - Yeah, I don't understand exactly. So when you're in the game, you do certain things and it feeds it to your Twitter feed. - Isn't it like every line of dialogue or something? - You can tweet every line of dialogue, but that comes when you're a little bit into the game, you get a book that allows you to read people's thoughts and then you can tweet any of those thoughts 'cause every single line in the game is less than 144 characters. And it does say things like, you walk up to this one thing and you examine it, it says tweet and you shall be retweeted. And it says tweet this and you can just click yes and it'll tweet it. And then it automatically puts hashtag sorcery. - Yeah, I saw it, I saw it. - I should say sworcery. - Sworcery, yeah, I saw everyone hashtaging that. - Do we need to-- - Is it sorcery? - It's not, I mean-- - It's sorcery. - It's swords and sorcery. - It's swords. - It's not swords. - No. - So why would it be sorcery? - 'Cause there's a W. - Right, but it's not swords. - I know, it kind of-- - Sworcery isn't a word. - They did that so that we would have this conversation. - Now there is swords. - Oh God. (laughing) This is true. - But yeah, that game is amazing. - Do we need to describe? - I am curious about it. I mean, you can tell me about it, Matt, 'cause I'm not gonna get to play it. So I would like to know-- - Well, iPad from work. - That was the plan eventually. - Yeah, well, I was fortunate enough to get my iPad on Monday, which was just in time for the release of this game. And Ryan had already played and beaten it. He got an early build. But I'm like, all right, well, I'll play it when it comes out. And this game actually tells you to take breaks. It's like, okay, you played for, you know, and they were done with Act One. You should probably take a break now. - Is it limited to cycles of the moon? Is that what I was hearing? - There's actually one point where it says, you know, you should put this down and not come back until the next cycle of the moon is complete. And then like the creator, Craig, says that, you know, if you actually play this game the way it's meant to be played, you will put it down when it tells you to put it down for how long it tells you to put it down. - Bitch. - And it's really interesting to me because this game, it's sort of making a game out of real life. It's like bleeding back into your actual way of doing things in life. - How was that? - And that doesn't happen very often. - How? - Well, because it, well, first of all, the tweeting thing, you know, it becomes like an active part of your Twitter feed if you're actually engaged with that. And, but then, you know, it actually says, all right, to have the best experience, the intended experience with this game anyway, set it down when we tell you to set it down. And, you know, I can't think of a game that's like tried to get you to modify the way that you play the game in that regard. I mean, there's, you can think of it sort of like, you know, with Animal Crossing where it was like, come back every day to do something. 'Cause, you know, things are happening in, in, well, real time, quote unquote, you know. But, I think in this game, it's, you know, it's, it's trying, it's trying something a little bit new and that instead of just being daily or just being tied to specific calendar events like holidays and stuff like that, it seems like-- - Please make an iPad game called, can I drink a dance, have a nap? (laughing) Anthony would not be good at that game. (laughing) - He kind of just failed. (laughing) Anyway, it's, it's really interesting. Didn't we? - World Warcraft does that to an extent though, with like the seasons where it was like, there are only four days you can potentially do any of these quests per year. That's it, per actual calendar year. - It's true. - It also ramps up your experience gains if you go a while without playing, right? - Yeah. - Right. - You get double experience against monster wars. - So does, so if you take a break like it instructs you to, does it then sort of have a different outcome when you come back to the game? - I don't think so. - When you follow the instructions. - So it's all, it's all internal to the player. - Okay. - And you know, I bet every single player who, if you do that and you go back to it, some people are gonna be like, why did I do that? And other people might feel that it somehow enhanced their experience in some way. And you know, I can't really say that with wow. You know, like, if I'm leveling in wow and I go back to rest in an inn and I come back two days later, does it really fucking matter? - No, it's true. I mean, is that enhanced my experience? - The only reason you do those things in wow is for double experience. And the only reason you do the seasonal quests isn't 'cause they're cool as much as you want a seasonal mount or something. - Or tournaments. Like the wow. - Yeah, or teammates, yeah. - Some people in. - Right. - And swords and sorcery, or swords and sorcery, is uh... - Or swords and swords. - Sports and sorcery. - Sports and sorcery. - Is trying to be something a little bit meta, but it ties in really well to the game itself because the game really is intent on being an experience as opposed to just game play that you move through. - So just for people that don't really know much about it 'cause you and I don't. It's a point and click adventure, yes. - So. - Sort of. - Because yes, that is some of the elements to it. You know, like you're gonna hold your finger down to make the guy walk. You can double tap on things to examine them or to use them. When you get into combat situations, you turn the iPad to portrait. You turn it portrait, you know, so it's the rectangles sitting up. - It's sideways. - And then it's a little bit of like punch out style combat where you have to hit the shield and you have to hit the sword at the right time, but the combat and people think like, oh, I'm gonna go and fight a whole bunch of things, but it's actually, at least in my experience so far, it's not very common to actually go into combat and fight things. It's much more common just to move around the world. And you know how pleasant it is when you're playing a game and the soundtrack isn't just taken seriously, but is integral to the game itself. That totally happens in this game. The music is so good. And it comes in at just the right time with just the right pacing. I mean, it's so enjoyable. Like there was this time where I was being chased by this big dark shadow thing. And obviously if it got to me, I was gonna die, but I'm like, the music in this part is so fucking rad that I kept running around trying to make the chase last as long as possible, because it was just so good. And you know, you put this game in and play it with headphones like it's meant to be played. They even tell you in the beginning that this is how it's supposed to be played and it feels really great. But I actually think maybe the ultimate way to play this is especially if you get the new iPad out to HDMI connector and hook it up to your TV and like your 5.1 audio system, it's incredible. - The sound is rich. I mean, I remember when they were just showing it on the iPhone a year ago at PAX, they had me put on some headphones and you know, it's just a lot of textured, a lot of varied sounds. - They were showing us a year ago on an iPhone. - So this game, I mean, I got the impression everyone talking about this game was like designed for iPad. Like that's like one of the things I'm saying. - It's just tailored to iPad. - It's tailored, well, I mean like it was started as an iPhone game and then it was tailored to iPad. And so like the iPad version was the version that was like worked on and done first now. That's why the iPad one came out a little bit later. But the two versions are basically comparable. - Oh, so there is going to be an iPhone version. - Yeah, it should be out like it's, I don't know if it comes out today or tomorrow, but it's full. - That's cool. - Next week, I don't know. - That's cool. - The releases are really close to play it. - No, it's not just an iPad game. It's an iPhone game too. And you'll-- - Well, and I was going to say if the people listening are unfamiliar with super brothers, they sort of got their start from these little sort of like short animations and they have a very signature style that uses pixel art, but not in a way that-- - Not that you know where you used to-- - Not in a way that a video game uses. - Yeah. - Very, very elegant, simple, minimalistic-- - Have you brought into the character that's voiced by-- - Robert Ashley? - Robert Ashley. - Yes. - What? - It happens very early on, yes. Robert Ashley has several lines in this game. - It's tight. - I was just kidding. - Are they actually voiced or is it like Sims talk? - No, it's actually, well, actually the only voiced lines I've run into so far are Robert Ashley lines. There haven't been any other voices. Everything else is just text on screen. - That's awesome. - But man, I really think that when people play this game, they're gonna be as stunned by the aural immersion more than anything else, because that's what got me. - Aural with an A. - Yes. - Aural. - Aural, yes. - So, let's do this for the last time, Arthur. - Oh, God. - Let's make you talk about crisis one more time. (laughing) - I just talked about crisis a lot in the last week. - How's crisis, too? - It's okay. - Yeah, it's pretty-- - It's okay. - I've just seen, I've read your review. - It was pretty good. - It's pretty crap, huh? Is it a game? I'm just kidding. (laughing) It's fucking gorgeous. - It's okay. - How long is the campaign? - When I finished it the first time, the first time, mind you, because I have finished it now probably about three and a half times, it's at eight and a half hours. - Can you finish something half a time? - When you're playing it on other platforms for review, yes. - But I'm just saying that, like, that just seems weird to me. You can't finish something. If it's either finished or it's not finished. - Or it's half finished. (laughing) Anyway, fucking naysayer. It's at eight and a half hours. I think that that is low-balling and it also doesn't count the times you die, which will definitely happen. - Yeah. - It's pretty lengthy. It's a pretty lengthy single-player campaign, especially for what I think people have grown to expect. - Yeah, I ask 'cause, I mean, normally, I mean, I don't care at all, but the impression that I got from a lot of the reviews is that it really was a long campaign, so I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. - I mean, crisis one was pretty long. - Two. - Yeah, yeah. - But that was open world, but even this one, not open world. - Some of it probably has to do with how you play two since you can stealth up and kill people. - I think they definitely make stealthing a lot easier in this one, like, I am not a stealth oriented player, but in the first couple hours of the game that I played, I was using stealth all the time. - I mean, there's definitely extended sequences near the end of the game where I would just avoid combat completely, where I would just, I would stealth and not murder, I would just stealth and move past. And I like that you have the option to do that. - Yeah, definitely. - There is a pacifist solution often. - So the, you know, it's a graphical powerhouse, as they say, and it's out on all three major platforms. - Yes, it is. - So, and you've played all of them. - I have played very much of all of them. - So is there any sort of discrepancy that we should know about? - I mean, well, obviously the PC version is better than any other two. Especially considering that Crytek really, really nailed the 360 controller on the PC version. - But I don't get to, Arthur is on the PC version. - Uh-huh. - Why they don't have the graphical settings, but like two days after the game came out, came out there as a fan that could make one. - You can run modifiers from the executable. The reason, I think, I mean, there are a number of possible reasons for it. I think a lot of it comes down to Crytek being disenfranchised or disenchanted with the perception of Crysis, which is that no one could run Crysis on high, and the only way to see Crysis look beautiful was to have it set to high or very high. And that was never really the case. I mean, Crysis on low still looked pretty decent. Crysis on medium still looked good. Crysis 2 on every setting looks fucking fantastic. - Yeah, I guess I'm just curious why they wouldn't have a low, medium high settings, and then also allow you to go in there and tweak everything. And it just seems like it's like, you know, that you could argue they didn't have time, but obviously it doesn't take that long. If someone did it like two days after the game. - I think it's accessibility as much as anything. - I think, yeah, and it's not just accessibility, but I could also see the art directors deciding, like, well, if this is where people are gonna save the most CPU cycles with this particular combination of settings, because, you know, a lot of people just don't know if their particular video card runs better with two times anti-aliasing or four times anti-aliasing. - I mean, in the case of Crysis 2, you can't enable an aliasing by yourself from the main game because it uses a couple different forms of anti-aliasing given your settings. - And what your card is capable of? - Right, well, no, it uses temporal anti-aliasing which sort of blends a pair of frames together over time, which can lead to some weird ghosting, but works pretty well to smooth out jagged edges. And I think if you have it set to extreme, it uses a specific edge enhance anti-aliasing method that bores it. - Hmm. - Basically, Crysis 2 is the most aggressively optimized PC game I've ever played. - Yeah, I started it up and I was like, all right, my PC's about two and a half years old now. Let's see what happens if I just put it on extreme and maximum resolution. And I get between 24 and 30 frames. I'm sure if I dropped it down one detail level, I'd be getting a silky smooth 40/50, you know. - And like, are they saying about it being optimized, even Charles, our PC editor at IGN, he can run it on like medium settings on his MX11 laptop. - I mean, when you say medium, they say very high. And to be fair, I mean, Crysis 2 on low looks better than almost every other game out there. - You know what else that makes you think of Arthur? Sorry, just to make a rest on that. It also reminds me of like Starbucks, tall, grande, and video games. - Yeah, well, what's funnier is in the beta, it was a gamer advanced in hardcore. - Yeah, I heard about that. - And then for at least they changed it to high, very high and extreme. So. - Well, I'm running on extreme. I think, I don't know, I think that for, they wanted to reach a wider audience with Crysis 2 clearly. And that includes on the PC because there are a lot of people who play PC games that just didn't think that they could run a Crysis. - There's a lot of people who play PC games because, and they just think of it as their wow machine. So they haven't upgraded it in six years. - And in Crysis and Crysis Warhead, there were like 15 different graphical checkboxes and drop down menus that you could change from the advanced settings. And that's intimidating to a lot of people. - Right, I just don't understand why like, like for me it's always nice because I don't use those checkboxes. I can just understand why certain people that are really into that would want them there as an option. Or for me, I just select pre ones like hi and it'll just automatically set all those points. - Honestly, in my opinion, it's an irrational thing as much as anything because those things are still there. You can still change them. It's not a difficult thing to go into the configuration file and change those things. And those people online and forums have known basically since the game came out exactly what they would need to do to change those things. - I mean, yeah, you know, I can definitely say that I spend a lot of time in the first Crysis, you know, and I'm a PC noob, there's a lot I don't know about. So it's like, I would spend a lot of time in those checkboxes going back and forth, trying to like get the best, get the most graphics and also the best performance. - Right, I mean, like average guy who sees medium texture detail and they're like, oh, well, that's probably bad, right? Or low texture detail, like actually, I should definitely set it higher than that. Whereas like, if you were running at 1280 by 720, low texture detail is probably fine. And if it's like 1680 by 1050, then medium is probably fine. - Right, I guess, like I said, I don't think it's a bad idea that those options are there. I just think that's weird that they wouldn't have the extra options in there as well. - Yeah, I just, I think that they wanted to make a choice and the choice for accessibility. - We can't, you know, we also can't ignore the context, the greater context of it all is that, you know, if you often go on forums, you know, like, you know, like read now about Deus X3, you know, there's a lot of PC gamers that feel as if PC gaming is getting, quote unquote, dumbed down to a console. - Well, it's getting up down, but they are designing on console first because it's smart. - Yeah. - I mean, that's the bottom one. - I mean, for a variety of reasons, which is A, their bottom line. - Yeah, exactly, they're going to sell primarily on the console. - I just, the entitlement to the PC audience never ceases to amaze me. And you would think that it would because I see it all the time. - The entitlement of every audience never ceases to amaze me. - PC gamers are in this sort of category ahead of everybody because they feel like they're dumping, because they have the option to dump money into their system to force more out of it. And so they feel like everything should be catered to the maximum potential that they have. - Well, yeah, I think-- - Like imagine people saying this legion of fanboys that say, well, everything should lead on the PS3, so everything will be the same across consoles. It's not fair that it's better on one thing or the other. - Right, and I think that it's not right, but I mean, it makes sense why they'd be like that because for years, that's how it was for them. - Well, my perspective has always been, especially as somebody who doesn't upgrade their PC more than every, you know, like three years or five years. - Is that when this particular generation of consoles has been awesome for me because like every time a game like Fallout or Oblivion or something comes out, I'm like, man, this looks great on my 360. Wait until I put this on my PC and how awesome it's gonna be because I always felt in the past, like anytime I upgraded my PC, you know, like even when I was upgrading it, I wasn't buying like the 100% top of the line component. So I already couldn't run things at maximum resolution with maximum detail. It was totally crazy to buy the best possible thing. - Yup, and I couldn't run maximum detail at maximum resolution, you know? And, but now it's like these games that have been optimized to shit so that they can outdo the competition on consoles are just gonna look that much better on my PC. So like, I think that, you know, the, the, I think the people that we're talking about are the Volca minority who have the disposable income to have like, you know. - Well, they are a Volca minority 'cause they're already on a message board to begin with. - Right. - Which is even a minority, most minority. - But they have, but I'm saying like they have like, they have the financial and technical know-how to put together like a dual SLI system. - Yeah, they don't even have to, I mean, Arthur showed Charles Amad today that it's just like a simple thing you download and allows you to tweak all those settings. - I mean, it's not Amad, it's a launcher, basically. - Well, Charles called it Amad. - It, I don't know, that wasn't right. - PC, I don't know. - No, no one is mobbing Chris. - It should be a launcher, yeah. - It's a launcher that basically upends certain commands to the end of the executable shortcut on your desktop or whatever. - Why am I, why am I, why am I, why am I, why am I, why am I. - On your desktop, it's a, it's a shortcut. - Right. - Right. - To the game. And then after the shortcut, it like in the shortcut, it has a destination for that file. And then after the file, it embeds specific commands to run on that executable. - Okay. - Mm-hmm. - Which can change things. - And so like, I would just say that, you know, kind of my bottom line point is that for PC gamers who are upset about the effect that consoles have had on this generation of games, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. - Honestly, well-- - It's had a benefit. - No, you haven't. - 'Cause you haven't had to upgrade your PC extreme amounts. - I mean, with the course of nearly as short a window as it was in the past. - I mean, the main complaint that I'm seeing aside from the graphics options is that they wanted crisis again. - Right. - They wanted this big open world-- - Big open world. - That too. - Where you run into random KPA patrols. - Mm-hmm. - Which is, honestly, I just didn't think the first crisis was that fun. And I think a lot of people thought that way. - I didn't, I never finished it 'cause it wasn't fun. - I thought it was fun, but I didn't, I think that it's better the way it is than a big open world. And these levels at least, I'm not very far into the game. And oh, and I should preface this again by full disclosure, crisis paid area five to do episodes called C2TV. So I am wearing a money hat while I'm talking. - Grishell, that's cool, we understand. - Yeah, so either I'm praising crisis because I got paid, or with the bad things I'm saying about crisis is 'cause I'm trying to not look like I got paid by Crytek. - That's all of us, though, really. - Yeah, but anyway-- - I want to review events, so clearly I'm bought off. - Mm-hmm, so the few levels that I've been in, 'cause I think I'm maybe an hour and a half all is all into the game, maybe two hours, 'cause I like to stealth a lot and move slowly. But they're big, you walk into a two or three block area where you can go on rooftops on both sides of the street and circle around and flank people. And you know, there is, I think like you said before, Arthur, there are crisis moments in this game. It's not a linear shooter, or not strictly a linear shooter. - I mean, there are different definitions of linear, like people will frequently-- - Well, it's more linear in like the way of like battlefield bad company, right? - It's less linear than that. Well, people will conflate corridor narrow shooters with linear shooters. Like every shooter in its own way is linear because you're going from one place to another and then the level ends, then you're going from one place to another and then the level ends. And there might be multiple ways to get from point A to point B, but there's still a point A and there's still a fucking point B. - Right, I think the difference for people is just that in your first crisis, you had an entire island, you could go anywhere on the island, right after that. - Right, which again, I just felt crisis did a lot of things just to show that they, to show that Crytek could do those things. And I didn't think-- - The game was an afterthought. - I think it was like kind of them using their experience with Far Cry where they, that was their thing too, right? Was having all these islands, you could go anywhere. - Right, and the thing is like they have made that game. They've made that game twice now and they don't need to keep making that game and they haven't. They want to make a game that more people can play and enjoy where more people will see the game because I'd be willing to bet, which is, this is totally unfounded. It's just my guess is that a big, big percentage of the people that started Crytek's didn't finish it because they'd say, "Oh, well, my computer can't run this "on high, I'm gonna fuck around for a little bit. "Bored." (laughing) - Yeah. - But I mean, Crysis 2 is not a giant open world sandbox the way that Crysis was or the way that just causes. Now people are saying that just cause too is the true successor to Crysis, which is hilarious. - Wow, no. (laughing) - So it's, there-- - By some people, you mean a few people in a forum. - Well, I mean, you gotta figure that one or two people in a forum represent a certain amount of people. Whether or not that's a vast majority or not, I'm just saying that there's like this movement to designate just cause too is this amazing thing on PC and honestly, I didn't think just cause too is very funny either. Anyway-- - If you wanna, yeah, I mean, I can understand people being disappointed that they don't have the sandbox experience. - Yeah. - I get that but-- - But if the game doesn't suffer before not having it. - Exactly. - I mean, it doesn't, I don't think it suffers, it's a different game. - Yeah, yeah. - It's a different game with the very basic fundamentals of Crysis were the nanosuit and the way you could use the nanosuit to interact with the world around you. - Yeah. Do you think that people might have been less upset? I'm totally just asking for your speculation on this. Like if they might have been less accepted, they hadn't called it Crysis 2. If they'd called it like Crysis colon something. You know, like Crysis colon, New York, or catastrophe or something, but by calling it 2, it's like certain expectations are there. - Maybe, I mean, Crysis Warhead was actually aggressively linear and actually, I feel like Crysis Warhead gets narrower toward the second half of the game than this does. And it's much less interesting, like just the encounters are much less interesting and that's the other thing about Crysis and Crysis Warhead is that the fight you get into were pretty much just, well, they're aliens or guys and there aren't, there's like a kind of alien. - Aliens of Crysis suck. You're bad, you are so bad, God damn terrible. - Whereas you're constantly seeing new things in Crysis 2 in new combat situations. - I'm just getting into the part where I'm starting to kill aliens and I really like it. - Right, you don't, the part where I've killed humans so far is nothing special at all to me. - The alien, the hardcore alien stuff doesn't start until about two and a half, three hours in and then it really kicks into gear. - Yeah, see, I experienced a bad part with the humans 'cause I experienced the part where everyone complains about the AI, like being really bad. I was like, wow, this is like terrible. - Yeah. - I mean, it's not terrible, it's broken. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And I don't know if that's something that they can ever fix, but they're definitely-- - I'm running into situations a lot where like, the enemy soldiers are doing inexplicably stupid things. - And it's not, I mean-- - Things that I haven't seen games do in a while. - Yeah, and I think that that's partly resultant from the aforementioned aggressive optimization. Like the theory that I put out is that they're so aggressive in disabling certain processes and turning off and turning on AI around you within a certain radius that sometimes stuff just doesn't click over. - Yeah, mom, that sounds reasonable. - No idea if we have no idea if that's the way it works, but it sounds reasonable. - I mean, I can ask them, but they're not gonna tell me why their game is broken in the box. - Yeah, yeah, and that's what's frustrating is because the answer itself is interesting. The question is interesting, but they don't wanna tell you, you know? - Well, not for many years. - Well, they'll say in the lead-up to crisis three, they'll be more than happy to talk about everything they did wrong with crisis two. - Yeah, exactly. - And how it's gonna be so much better, right? But so far, I'm really enjoying the aliens, the way that they move up and down the walls and everything. - They'll stand around and talk to you and then come after you, and it's-- - Everything about the aliens is exceedingly better than the aliens in the first game. - I mean, before they would just sort of hover around in the air, shoot at you, sort of tentacle over to you, and then jump, yeah, and it's just not that interesting. - So far, though, the story and the way that it's told. - I mean-- - That's my review. - The story is half-lifey in its delivery and that you have-- - I wouldn't even go that far. - There is a narrative rope that you're following to get from point A to point B, but if you want more than that, you have to look around. You have to find the emails. You need to pay more attention. - But it's a narrative rope told with bad voice acting and like your little-- - I don't really think-- - You got your little autocon-- - You got your little autocon in the corner. - Bags, I don't think-- - You're annoying. - I don't think-- - Does your character ever talk? - No, and there's a reason for that, actually. - Okay. - It's actually pretty, there's a lot more going on while you're playing than you know until later. - Yeah, 'cause the whole time when the guy is constantly talking about character, I'm like, "Respond, fucker? Say something to him." - Right. - And again, there are reasons for that and those reasons are sort of explained about a third of the way through and then they're elaborated on more as the game goes on. - Yeah, and the story may totally redeem itself later on, but right now I am thoroughly unimpressed. - Yeah, you're still not even anywhere where the story has actually started, other than to say, "This is why you have the suit." - I mean, I thought the opening was strong, you know, where you do the beast landing, yeah, and where you get the suit and stuff like that. It was all cool. - Right, in the specifics of which none of you will talk about before, or all have to stop the podcast and edit it out. - No, I specifically avoided the specifics, but it's all the stuff that's-- It's all the stuff that's going along after that that I'm finding very unenjoyable and cliched and all those other negative words that I can throw at it. - Yeah, I don't think that it's particularly cliched. I think that it's dealing with more-- I'm gonna say something that's gonna make some people mad. I am getting to the point where I think that most gamers would know a good story if it bit them in the ass, because I watched the level of engagement with a game as people were playing, and most people are not really paying enough attention to what's going on to determine exactly what's happening. And I fall into this sometimes too. - It's just kill the next thing that's in front of you. - There's definitely playing through Crysis 2 the first time I wrote my review, and one of the things I mentioned is that there's, I was like, man, there's this giant plot hole, and I was very specific about what that plot hole was without giving names or reasons for it. And then I had to play through it again because we got retail, and I needed to find out if those bugs were still there, and they were. And I played through it, and I'm like, Jesus Christ, everything that happened is right there, and I was just too distracted by whatever else I was looking at, checking my email, or telling my video guy that he needed switch tapes, or thinking, I wonder what I'm gonna have for dinner? - I feel like, I feel like indirects right now, you're talking about me, 'cause I all the time have problems where I'm like, I don't remember that. - Totally, I mean, I do watch you play games while you're on your phone. These aren't review games, I'm not saying, oh, well, you said the story of this game sucked in a review, and man, you were just fucking around the entire time, like, I'm not saying that, but there's a definite attention span issue, and part of that is that it's hard to pay attention for three and a half hours at a time. - Yeah, and it's almost a chicken or the egg sort of thing where you can almost as easily argue, well, you know, the story isn't told in an engrossing enough way to keep my intention, you know. It could easily go that route, you know. A lot of times, you know, a game's story might be good on paper, but just the execution is just thick. - It depends too, 'cause there are certain games that I would never play while on the phone, for instance. Like, Dawn of War, whatever, I'll play whatever, I'll talk to you in the phone. But something like a-- - If you say Fallout New Vegas, I am totally gonna call you on it. - I don't know, something Mass Effect 2 or something like that, but I would, yeah, Fallout, again, has giant empty gaps where there's nothing going on. It's like any game where the story is like super intense and stuff that I have to pay attention. - Yeah, like, I was on the phone actually with my girlfriend the other day when I was starting my second play through a Dragon Age and I couldn't do it. - No, because it's so much text, it's wall of text. - Yeah, yeah, well, wall of dialogue anyway. Yeah, you run into too many, I ran into too many situations where it was like, oh, she had a character talking to me, like, I can't talk to my girlfriend and pay attention to the character. - And I'm sympathetic to being distracted. I mean, like I said, I'm totally that way sometimes, but I think that there's frequently more going on in the stories of the games that we play that most people completely miss or deliberately ignore because they're so busy to hammer the A button to get to the next gameplay sequence or whatever. - And I think that does happen a lot, but, you know, we're experienced gamers. I'm an experienced gamer. You know, and I don't particularly, and I like Black Ops as a game. I don't think its story is definitely really good for a Call of Duty story, but when I was in Black Ops, I knew what was going on the entire time, even when the dialogue was being overlapped by backgrounds. - Right, I think that that's because at least half the time in Black Ops, you lose control of the character. - And they put you into a cut scene. - Right. - Yeah. - Whereas Crisis is very rarely that. - It is very rarely that, and I appreciate that, but I'm also, at least right now, I'm not getting anything else from the story other than like, these guys bad kill them, upgrade, suit, move, you know? And that's as far as I know, that's all the story is so far. - Right, we're knowing where you are. They've definitely told you more than you've heard. - Yeah. - And also, again, it's a fucked situation where developers feel like they have to sprinkle collectibles to establish story around the game, especially when they think, oh, well, you know, we should just make achievements to find all those collectibles and encourage people to really look for them. But if they're achievements, they should really be kind of a pain in the ass to find. (laughing) All right, well, it's cool, right? They'll want to waste their time trying to get an achievement to find all that stuff, and maybe they'll read it, but it doesn't work that way. So I think that it's a mistake so often to hide story in those games, as opposed to placing story and letting people touch it. - But I mean, you know, I've been going up to the laptops in game and like hitting them and hearing what people are saying. You know, I got the, it was cool in the one room where you walk in and you get, oh, there was a scientist in here that was trying to figure out what was going on with people and they didn't have time, and then they got shut down by the military or the, not the military. - Sell? - Yeah, sell, they got shut down by the sell. - Which is the, the cry-net people. - Right, the cry-net corporation people, yeah. They're paramilitary arm. So I mean, like there's cool little like world story things that are happening like that, and you know, maybe just the, you know, I gotta give it the benefit of the doubt that eventually the crisis two story is just a slow burn, and I just haven't gotten there yet. - I mean, I just think that the surface story in crisis two is minimal until toward the last third of the game, and whether that was the right move or not, it's hard to say, but I think that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on, particularly the cost of everything that's happening is sort of driven home strongly but subtly, and that doesn't actually be contradictory, but I mean, it's very matter of fact about the ways that it presents it, and it's so matter of fact that you might miss it, but it's very clear in what the consequences of certain things are, and I can't say more than that without spoiling some of it, but I mean-- - I can definitely say that I'm looking forward to playing more of the game, and I was afraid that I was just gonna get into it and be like, it's a really pretty shooter, but that's all it has going for it. - And it is really pretty. - It is really pretty. - It's still very pretty. - I am impressed with how good it looks on consoles. - I haven't played it on console. - The 360 version, if you're playing on a television and not sitting right up on it, from an image perspective, there's very little difference in what you're seeing on your PC versus what you're seeing on your 360. The frame rate is a totally different matter. - Of course. - Which varies from 30 to 22 on a regular basis. And it's not running in full HD, which hurts it a little bit. It's got weird visual distortion that I won't point out to the listeners, because if they hear me say it, they'll never not see it, which is more obvious on the PS3 version, which is running an even lower resolution and has more pronounced frame rate issues. - And some weird-- - PS3 version, is that what you said? - Yeah, and some weird lighting emissions. But if you look at internet video of the 360 version and the PC version next to each other, it's hard to tell the difference. Yeah, it's definitely, it's an impressive game from a technical perspective and a gameplay perspective. It's just, there are moments where you just don't understand how the game's shipped with certain things the way they are. And I don't know that they can fix those things. - Like the AI. - Yeah, like the AI breaking. And AI is a really important thing in a shooter. - Yeah. - Really, really important. - To me the analogy, it sort of conjures up as like buying a Ferrari, but like the air conditioning knob is like shitty and breaks the first day. (laughing) Damn. - Instead of being like some heavy, thick metal, like the volume knob on an old stereo or something. - It's more like the gear sticks or something when you're trying to go out of park in the first. (laughing) - But I mean, it's, I think crisis is the first really exciting game to come out this year. And there are a lot more-- - What else have we had? Except for certain sorcery. - I'm trying to think of what else there's even been. - Well, okay, that's not fair. - Oh yeah, that's basically two. - It was amazing. The first really exciting shooter. Bulletstorm was great, but it wasn't, it didn't set the world on fire. Homefront was a fucking abomination. And I don't, I'm okay with saying it. - I didn't think Killzone 3 was particularly interesting. But I think the crisis is a, is a really cool game that people should try, even if they didn't like the first crisis, because I was sort of indifferent to the first crisis. - Yep, me too. - No, there you go. - Money hat. - And I went from playing a good game to playing a bad game that I'm reviewing. - Aw. - Sometimes y'all gotta do it. - What's that? - I'm getting a lot of fun. - I feel like there were other things that I-- - Well, Tyler was trying to play Shogun. - Oh my god, yeah. You know, I got hooked up a code with Shogun, you know, and downloaded it, installed it. And man, I was just, you know, right in the very beginning, you know, I saw on the menus, you could do a tutorial campaign, like a little mini campaign, so I clicked on that immediately. And so this is my very first Total War game. It's my first Shogun game then, obviously. So what I didn't realize about the game is it sort of has two components to it. There's sort of like a Civ 5, or a Civ 4, or a Civilization over map, where you're kind of controlling your empires, moving your troops around. And then during the battles, they're actually more like full-on, real-time strategy battles. - Yeah, in real, obviously in real-time. - Except, maybe I'm wrong. I have never played a Total War game either. But you can pause and give orders, right? And then unpause and let orders be carried out. - I don't, I don't know, that'd be high. - No, I don't remember. - Oh, I thought I had played a Total War till since like 2004. - Every time I tried to play a Total War game over the last three years, it has been a broken piece of shit. - Yes, yeah, I've constantly avoided them because people always tell me how broken they are. - It's funny because, you know, after the incident, I did a lot of researching, but yeah, so. - Well, I wanna know what the incident is, though. - Yeah, so I'm just in the over map, and it's running okay, and the fan on my PC lately had been going, ooh, ooh, you know, so I was like, yeah, oh, yeah. And then all of a sudden, you know, I turned up two graphical settings. I went in and I turned up anti, I think I turned on anti-aliasing, or maybe that wasn't even an option, and then something, I don't know, it wasn't crazy. And as soon as I went back into the map, pop, pop, pop, pop. - Dude, computer turns off, I smell burning. - Oh my gosh. - Dude, shit turns off, dude. - I should have brick, because I'm right now, I'm in deadline on a few projects, like graphic design, you know, like my pieces might work, and my immediate thought is that it was the graphics card because it just turned up some graphics, I was flipping out, dude, you know, I unplugged everything really quickly, and I jumped on my girlfriend's Mac and went to Twitter and put it out there, like, holy shit, guys, I described it to the Twitterverse, and man, thank God for all you guys, well, not thank God, but try to even say thank God, doesn't mean anything. - Nah, I shouldn't, but-- - It's an expression more than thinking any particular thing. - A colloquialism. - Yeah. - I don't know if I'm pronouncing it. So I'm super thankful for everyone on Twitter that replied because it was unanimous, like I got like 10 replies almost to me, they were like, oh, it sounds like your power supply unit went out, power supply-- - Mine's also blown out, like that before. - Yeah, yeah, and so it was like-- - Yeah, that is scary, though. - Yeah, it really, you know, made me feel rest assured, and it was actually really interesting because, you know, Battlefield 3's coming out, so I want to upgrade anyway, so I would have had to, 'cause I was running a 600 watt Thermateak thermal take. - Oh, God, I didn't buy your total piece of shit. - Yeah, we better go. - Yeah, no, no, I mean, you know, it lasts a good while, and then so what I did-- - It didn't, actually, that's a little ridiculous that it got-- - I was gonna say, that sounds really strange to me. - And I clean my PC out pretty regularly. - That's weird, I mean, you've got old wiring in your apartment, so there's that. - That is true, so-- - Well, yeah, but are you going through a quality surge protector? Or are you just plugged straight into the wall? - I'm in a surge protector. - Is it a good surge protector? Is it like a Walgreen surge protector? - It's not a, I wouldn't say it's like quality. - Yeah, then it may not do anything other than provide you additional plugs. - What we're saying is that this could happen again. - Yeah, even if it's a better PSU? - Yes. - Yes. - It was not a bad PSU that I put in the last time. - Right, I mean, you know, like, it may not have been a bad PSU in terms of brand, but, you know, even good brands can occasionally put out a faulty product. - That's true. - So, I mean, like, maybe it was your PSU that had something wrong with it, but-- - In general, it's a good idea to have things like computers on a nice-- - Yeah, it's actually-- - Or at least they genuinely, like, surge protected. - Device, yeah. - Yeah, I do have a heavy-duty one that I would, when I used to play in a band, I would plug all my shit in. - Yeah, yeah, if you still have that one around, I'd just use that one. - Oh, yeah, I'll do that then. So, I got a Corsair, I went a little overboard, you know, I got a 850 module. - I would say that's a the hit that you were okay for. - Yeah, you're okay for any of that. - I'm okay for a while. And I'm glad that my friends pointed out to get a modular one, so it's, like, clean. - Yes. - You know, yeah. - Absolutely. - Only the plugs in me. - That does make things easier, although it is-- - Makes a huge difference. - More expensive, yeah. - Yeah. - My last power supply was a 500 watt, like, not this one, but the one before that, and it had all these modular plugs. I'm like, this is awesome, so when I upgrade my shit, I'll be able to, you know, swap out these cables and everything, then, of course, when I upgraded my shit, I had to go to a whole new PSU anyway. And buying that thing, man, it comes in, like, a crown royal, like, velvet bag. I'm like, I was buying a bottle of crown. But so, you know, it got-- - That's where the extra 10 bucks went under the price. - It got me looking around at, like, graphics cards and things, you know, because I'm looking to upgrade, and I, and again, another person on Twitter sent to me that Nvidia, you know, then it was tomorrow, it is today. Now, it's gonna announce their new card, and they announced it. - I don't know if you guys read about that right now. - No, it's a 590, I actually talked to the Nvidia guy about the 590 a couple weeks ago at the crisis event. - So what's your opinion on it? Like, it seems good to me. - Way heavy overkill. - It's heavy overkill? - Yes. - Isn't it so affordable, though? It's really cheap. - What's the price? - It's like 150. - Wait, the 590 or the 560? - I wanna say the 590-- - No, the 590 is two 580s on one fucking board. - Yeah, I was gonna say there's no way that like their high-end video card is 150. - No, the TI 560 is a new card. - There's a lot of that I know about. - And I did play Crisis 2 on the TI 560 at the Crisis 2 event because they had what they called a budget gaming PC, they built for like $600 or $700. It had a core I5 that was overclocked. It had a TI 560, it had a bunch of RAM. - Yeah, maybe that's what I'm thinking. - It was running Crisis 2 maxed out at between 40 and 60 frames a second. - Nice, that's awesome, damn. - Love it. - Again, Crisis 2 is the best off to my PC game I may have ever played. - Right, so your mileage will definitely vary on other games. - But the 560 seems-- - Like a probably still-- - Sorry. - It seems like a competent card. - Well, I was gonna say you probably still wouldn't be able to play Civ 5 with all the civilizations on a huge map and have a turn, you know, not crash on. I mean, that's processor as much as anything, but yeah, it's something else. Yeah, the 590 is serious overkill. - Yeah, you know, I was actually watching the video of the Nvidia guys, they were demoing Crisis 2 with the card and they had their little counter where it showed this, how fast it was doing its thing. - So with the 590, not to get totally bogged down in PC technicality stuff-- - Well, they pretty much already have. - I know, but is the 590, like, when you say it's overkill, do you mean it's overkill in the way that like, by the time games catch up to what it can do, you're gonna have to have a whole new PC anyway and there's gonna be a new line of video cards? Or is it overkill in that like you just, it's future-proofed for like the next three years? - Performance per dollar is not good. - All right. - Well, that's always the case when a new shit comes out. - Right, but I just, I came to a sort of revelation, like, not that maybe a couple years ago that I would rather be in a two-year upgrade cycle and spend half the money every two years than being a three-year upgrade cycle and spend twice the money. - Yeah, yeah, that's actually a really good point. - Like, when the Core i7's first came out, the best Core i7 was like $1,000 and then a year later it was $200. So, it's a really, like being on the bleeding edge of PC technology is a- - It's never been worth it. - A war you will never win. - And you don't even need to. - No. - Not a for-gamey anyways. Like you can run all these games on like a quad core if you really want it to. - I mean, if you, if you can afford it and you absolutely have to have the best possible PC out there because your self-confidence and dick measuring relies on it, then a Para 590s is the way to go. - I think there's also the, I think there's a, you know, I can also see like a tuning enthusiast angle, you know, like just see how much you can get. - That sort of goes back to the dick measuring thing. - I don't know, like 'cause it makes me think about like when I was a, when I lived in Houston, I drove around this real shitty economy car and I had this really good job. And then we just sat around and we were just like, "Man, let's see how loud of a stereo we could put in there. "That's kinda fun." Like we just, you know, and I would say today, it was like, it was comically loud. - Right. (laughing) - I saw your beater. I know it's probably something. (laughing) - But, but, so yeah, the NVIDIA I'm looking at and I guess I'll be comparing them against the AMD's. - Yep. - Yep, yep, yep. - You can get AMD cards cheap, that's what you run right Arthur. - Yeah, I have an AMD card. AMD's are more competitive price-wise. I would really like a DirectX 11 capable card, but I would- - Pretty much everything you buy now will be. - Yeah, but I would have to upgrade the whole rest of my system to do it. - Would you? - Yeah. - Yep, PCIe. - I do, but I don't, but everything else would like, if I got a card that was DirectX 11, then everything else becomes my bottleneck. - Right, that's true. Yeah, you are sort of coming up on the point where it's new PC time. - Yep, but you know, I'm saving my pennies now for an entirely different reason, so I don't have to wait. - I mean, you guys are doing stuff now, so you could conceivably contact Nvidia and AMD and people like that for a review hardware. - So games. - Games, what? - This isn't a PC hardware podcast. - Did you end up playing Shogun? - I played it that long, and then the ship blew up, and I'm like, I'm gonna wait for an update. - I've actually been thinking, I think that it's pretty reasonable that people are starting to investigate PC gaming right now because of where we are in the console cycle, which is in a weird limbo, where the most interesting stuff is probably going to be happening on PC for like the next year. - Yep, and that's usually how it goes. I mean, I did think when the 360 and the PS3 came out, I was like, well, I'm never gonna get a PC again, 'cause the console cycle is always gonna be just as good as the PC, but I'm glad that things are still leapfrogging each other. It's cool. - So did you play anything since you didn't play show ground? (laughing) - I played my first ski trip. (laughing) - Did you fall in your ass a lot? How was it? - Did you do snowboarding or skiing? - I did skiing, and I-- - And I was so white. - I went with that. Like, well, I mean, I don't know, 'cause it was like, I didn't take any lessons, and you know, I just had skings with me. Yeah, yeah, it was fun, man. It was a lot of fun. It was my first time in snow, too. - You've never been in snow ever? - Oh, you are from Texas. - It's crazy. - Yeah, it was insane, and apparently the weather was really treacherous, and the second day we were supposed to ski a second day, but we were on the bus, dude, the entire day. For like, 17 hours. - This makes a lot of sense, because you sent me a message, it was like, "Dude, it's like the heavens invented snow just for fun." (laughing) And I was like, except for all the times that they kill people in blizzards. (laughing) - I said nature, I didn't say that. - Nature, shout out to him. (laughing) - I feel like if you're assigning purpose to nature, you're sort of deifying it. - That's true. - So do you ever take some answers? - So you didn't take any like a PSP or DS with you or anything like that? I know you're not the biggest portable gaming guy. - Well, you know, we all thought we were gonna be skiing the whole time. (laughing) You know, just write up or books. - You had to toss to people. - You know, no, we had fun though. I mean, like, 'cause there was basically about eight hours of the road trip. The second day we went about a half mile. So we were actually like off the bus. Even though it was like a shit ton of snow and like we just happened to be right in an area where there was like Pizza Hut, Starbucks. Came hard dude, it was tight, it was okay. (laughing) Even though we didn't do much. - Yeah. - Snow is amazing though, dude. It's fucking cool. (laughing) - Snow is very cool. Yes, I like snow a lot. - And as long as I don't have to live in it. - I thought of an idea that no one had thought, I was like, dude, there needs to be-- - A skiing game. - Rope, swing, and then you let go of the rope and fall into the thick snow. You know, like just for fun. - Yeah, but they could only do that for so long and one's about to forget. (laughing) - And then people get hurt. (laughing) - So Matt, what have you been playing anything besides Sworcery? (laughing) - Well, like, I've been rediscovering some other games on my iPad since I got like the HD versions and stuff like that, but the one new one that I did pick up on the iPad was the telltale back to the future game. And I started on that, it's fun. It's like the other telltale games, I'm like, this is rad. - And it has the real Doc Brown voicing his voice. - It is him, I'm like either it is him or that is a really good impersonator. - It's him, yeah. - And the flying impersonation is pretty good too, actually. - It is, yeah. - And I like how the story takes place like a year after the movie, so it's 1986 when it starts, you know? - Yeah, I mean, it continues after the whole lame Western train crap. - Right, right, exactly. And they make references to the other stuff, like there's a part where you can't ask Marty, you can ask Doc, like, so where are your wife and kids? - Well, not only that, but you can like, and they're very beginning of the game when you started up, you're replaying the very first back to the future, the opening part of it. And you can save the lines exactly as they occur in the movie, or you can-- - Right, or slightly different. - Yeah. (laughing) - Which I thought was really cool. - Yeah, it is really cool. So it's worth it. I mean, like, if you like adventure games, and especially if you like telltale games, this one is worth it. And I think this one is actually more playable to people that aren't in to kind of the adventure game, esoteric, the esoteric nature of a lot of adventure games where you sort of have to trial and error your way in to Obscura. The, this one is actually things kind of makes sense. I'm able to interpret what to do next in a more friendly manner without having to resort to hints. - Or guides. - Or guides. So anyway, I would say, I would say plate. And even if you're back to future fan, it's probably fun for you too. - Oh, even if you're not, you mean? - Even if you are. - Oh. - I think if you're back to the future fan, you may be afraid that this is somehow going to ruin the story or whatever. And so far, it's only making it better. 'Cause it's such a, you know, back to the future is kind of lighthearted, campy stuff anyway, and it fits really well into the telltale. I don't know what you'd call it. They're portfolio? - Yeah, yeah, there you go. (laughing) There you go. And let's see, what else? I got Sims Medieval, but I haven't been able to install it yet, so I don't know if that's any good. - I'm vaguely curious about that. - I played it at GDC, and I thought it was pretty cool. But, you know, I haven't got a chance to play the real thing yet. And I immediately, once I beat Dragon Age, I started again as a mage. And there are some pretty significant changes to the game if you start as a mage, as opposed to if you start as a rogue. So I don't wanna spoil it for people that haven't like tried more than one character class yet, but it's kind of worth it. And there's definitely different stuff that happens if you choose the smugglers versus the mercenaries and stuff like that. And people who've played Dragon Age know what I'm talking about. So, it's fun. I like, even after playing that game for close to 65 hours or something like that, the first time I'm beating it, and I went back into it and I'm still, even when I know what's gonna happen, I'm still like, this is awesome. (chuckling) It's surprisingly satisfied with that game. I didn't, I still, there are still things about the first Dragon Age that I'm just, you know, sort of weeping over quietly, but. - This has definitely been the episode to make PC gamers mad. - Oh, you mean all the people who think that Dragon Age has been dumbed down for consoles? - And the people that are mad about Crisis II. - And that are mad about, what do you mean mad about it? - About its existence on consoles and that's the baby of vacation. - And get over it. (chuckling) It's not, Dragon Age is, Dragon Age II isn't babyified. It's. - I don't even think it's been baby for the console. It's just a different game, isn't it? That's what I mean. - It's definitely reminiscent. I mean, like, well, reminiscent's even too distant of a word. It's a lot more like Dragon Age I than the naysayers are giving a credit for. You know what I'm saying? - No. - Just too slow air? - No. - Oh. - Arthur was being the voice of those people. - Oh. - But you know, I- - I'm giving those babies a voice. - You know what's interesting? Like, you never hear fucking Civ Revolution. What are they doing with Civ Revolution? - Well, and I'm telling you. - I'm telling you. - You actually kind of did. - Because the reason you didn't hear that as much though was because there was no Civ Revolution on PC. So there wasn't a Civ, a new Civ coming out for PC, but also for console. No, this one was just for console. - Right. - You don't have anything to bitch back. - Well, I guess my point was more to like, was more to the, I don't know the obsessive nerd, like the fantasy nerd or like, or gun nerd. You know, like we like our first person sure is like, games like Civ, you know, you really can't get, I don't know, I see less of an allegiance. - I don't know, I think if Civ 5 came out and it was a lot more like Civ Rev than it was as it was coming out on consoles too. - Yeah, people would have like gone apeshit. - There's a pretty big contingent of PC gamers who think that Civ 5 is a terrible game. - And they're wrong, but you know, that's always gonna happen. - Well, yeah, I mean, there's only one critic I can think of that agrees with them, but it's Tom Chick. - I would bet that if you sat down with the developers that Civ Rev have influenced Civ 5 significantly. - I'm sure, I'm sure it is not obvious. - It's not in a bad way. - And you know, it's like the- - If it influenced it at all. - Yeah, exactly. I think the big negative thing that I can say about Dragon Age 2 and the fact that it actually did come out, you know, relatively soon after Dragon Age. At least when you think about like kind of the typical epic RPG development cycle. - When you think about how long fucking Dragon Age was in development for? - Yeah. - Like seven years. - But then, you know, Dragon Age 2, it has a real dearth of settings. Like, you go through the same areas so many times. And that's like my one huge knock against that game, is that like, you know, yeah, you're in Kirkwall for over seven years, you know, the game has a pretty lengthy time span, which is cool, but Kirkwall never fucking changes. It always looks exactly the same. It's just that by the time you get into Act 3, oh, now it's sunset instead of just plain old daytime. And it's, that's really annoying. And I mean, that's definitely where they cut the budget on this is like, we're just gonna recycle the same areas. You know, you go into caves, like you're walking around along the wounded coast and you go into a cave. And it's like, oh, this is the exact same cave that I went in before, only this time I'm going in it from reverse and different sections are blocked off. But it's even the same map. So you'll walk up to a door that's closed and it'll be like, oh, I can't go through this area 'cause the door is closed. And that's how they vary up the caves, you know? And it's, that's the one thing about Dragon Age 2 that I'm just like, wow, this is, it decreases the epic scale of it all. And that was disappointing. - In the, I wanna say that there was something else that I was playing, but I can, oh, Carcosone. But anyway, yeah. - Which is Carcosone. - Which is very Carcosone. - Last week I've been playing a bunch of baby games. - Yeah, like what? - Like. - Like Dragon Age 2. Lego Star Wars, three. - That's, that game seems cool. - That sounds awesome though. - No, it's a, it's a good game. - I like the Lego game. - It is. It just, there are certain things that really, the, you know, certain things that kind of suck in the sense that like, the instruction booklet is nonexistent, right? In the game, there is, I mean, with the comes of the game, it's like a three page instruction about cover, cover, controller map, that's it. So when you, there's nothing in the game that ever tells you how to like find the other modes. So just like all the other Lego Star Wars games, you always return to a hub world. And this one, the hub world is a pair of capital ships that are engaged in battle. So you can actually at times like eventually when you unlock enough bricks to build the doors to get into these different areas of the ship, you can eventually like fly between the two ships and go to like the evil ship by evil characters, go to the good ship to buy good characters. - That's cool. - And you know, yeah, all that's really cool, but like there's like these assault missions that you never even figure out that you can do unless you happen to go to the right place on your ship and build this terminal. And then all of a sudden only from that terminal, you can access these other missions. - Are they cool missions or? - Yeah, well, so Lego Star Wars 3, what it does different than the other Lego Star Wars is it has these ground assault missions where it's kind of like control points. There's like a grid, it's like the maps are rectangle and then there's like 12 points. And on each of these points, you can use the money that you collect to build turrets, like boxes that will bring out troops periodically or like vehicles. And so then you are basically fighting against the other player to try and take over these, or against the AI in these assaults to take who can take all the control points over the whole battle. So, you know, you have to think about like, "Oh, well, they've got their heavy tanks out, so I need to call them like rocket troops to fight their guys." The AI is kind of really basic, but it's still kind of, it's like baby's first RTS. It's kind of, it's really kind of fun and it's really awesome looking and they can put a lot on the screen in Lego Star Wars 3. And on 360 PS3 and PC, it's like, it is a great looking game. Like, you know, the old Lego Star Wars games didn't look bad, but this one, they were doing some really cool things with the animation and the lighting, that there are certain levels that if you've watched the Clone Wars cartoon 2, there's an episode in the cartoon where they go to General Grievous's lair and you get to see like how he's put together and that sort of thing. And it's this episode with this Jedi Master Kit Fisto and his like, apprentice, who I don't remember the name 'cause he dies, huh? - I wasted her. - No, but he's like Adam Rachbar, but a Jedi. And in that episode, it's this really cool dark dungeon and in the game, they totally replicate that, but it's such a great level to see how the lighting effects work in that. And, but like the other Lego Star Wars games, you know, it's obviously super campy. Like, there's no dialogues whenever they do the cutscenes, so he's like, people would be like, hmm, mwah, mwah. - Yeah, it's all, it's all pantomime. - But it's, it's like, there's nothing outstanding in any Lego Star Wars games, in my opinion. Like, I mean, assuming I'm not the only one to play the Lego game, right? - Yeah, I have, yeah. - So it's like, you know, when you play those games, like the combat's okay. - Yeah. - It's like the platforming at times really sucks, but it's okay, you know, there are times, but you know, like every Lego game always has like some jump where you're like, what? But it doesn't ever bother you that you dial on the game because there's no real penalty for dying. You can die for forever, and it doesn't matter. - Yeah, and the real reason why you're playing those games is because it's just good enough, and then the charm carries it the rest of the way. - The charm carries it the rest of the way, I agree, but I also think that those other parts that on their own, no one part of them is particularly great. When they're all there though, they're just good enough that put together, they make like a game that is changing up what it's doing, and I feel like-- - Yeah, good point. - In Lego Star Wars, it's like one moment you're doing like silly platforming, the next you're doing some fighting, the next I'm flying a starship through, you know? Like, I just think that those games are kind of fun, and if you've watched the cartoon, they're cool, and if you haven't, they have like the typical Star Wars scrolling credit thing to tell you the story. But having watched the Clone Wars first two seasons, like it's like, oh yeah, I totally remember this. Like I definitely think that that is the best Lego game Travelers Tales has done yet. - Thanks. - Even annoyances aside, and I even experienced on the PS3 build or retail that I played through, I experienced one bug that made me have to restart a level even, and I still enjoyed it despite that, you know? It's just one of those things where it was like, I couldn't believe Motherfucker made me restart a level, but yeah, I still think that those like, man, that is like one of the best games you can probably get to play with a child. Like I had fun playing by myself, but man, if you have a kid, it's like one of those games you could play, and enjoy yourself, and not hate life while you're playing it with your child. (laughing) - That's actually important. 'Cause if games have the power to bring people together, then you should make it not annoying for one of the parties. - And then I've been playing a ton of 3DS games. - Nice, can you talk about those? - Yeah, this one becomes Unabargoed tomorrow. - I saw the 3DS for the first time today, actually, earlier today, and then you showed me yours tonight. - Yeah, so I've been playing Ghost Recon Shadow War. And like I was telling you guys when we're eating, you know, it's a 3DS launch game, but calling it Ghost Recon is very misleading, I think. - Yeah, it's just the label on the box. - It's the label on the box in the big old logo on the box. Like the logo on the Ghost Recon logo is like the entire cover of the game. (laughing) So it's like, it's obviously trying to get some brand recognition. - I wonder what the game was called before they called it Ghost Recon? - But this isn't like your typical Tom Clancy, like, like, well, I'm not saying all the stories in the Tom Clancy games are cool, but I'm saying-- - I know what you mean though. - But like this, all the stories are told through, like these really kind of cheesy comics. - So it's like Ghost Recon on Wii or Hawks 2 on Wii. - See, I didn't play those, either of those. You got tasks. - Those were like combination French anime type things. - That's probably how this is. - Yeah, that's what the character looks like. - Oh yeah, but then not only that, but all the guys in the game, like I was telling you guys, they're very much going, to some extent, for the vibe that you might have saw, the 360 version of Future Soldier had for a while. Like in Future Soldier, you know, when they first showed the trailers, they had the guy with like the shoulder mounted rockets that could take out vehicles. They had the people wearing like the shrouds that would make them mostly invisible. Like those things are all in this game, even though it's not called Future Soldier in any way, except that every character, obviously, you have, it's a top down, turn based strategy game, not a shooter. And all the characters are very much so geared after, like a stereotype, like the leader's name, Duke. And then the sniper is named Hayes, and he's an Asian dude, a really cool-headed Asian dude. And then there's your really kind of cutthroat stealth character, and she's a cool red-headed chick. And then there's like the heavy weapons, gigantic, muscly black dude. - I was gonna say he's got these black, right? - Yeah, Joe's. - Yes, they are, and his name's Richter. It's like, yeah, so everyone has the female medic. - You can understand all this stuff, when it's like, final fantasy seven, and they're looking at American culture, and Japanese people are like, hey, let's make the black dude, the heavy weapons guy. - This feels like a game that was made off of a Saturday morning cartoon that never came out. Like, you know what I mean? This is like the cast of a Saturday morning cartoon. - I'm a little surprised that Ubisoft hasn't tried to turn Tom Clancy into a Saturday morning cartoon. If this could be it, these seven characters doing crazy missions. So, but happened to Ghost Recon future soldier. - What I will say is that it is a fun, you know, despite not being really a Ghost Recon game, like, it is a fun turn-based strategy game. And amongst the 3DS games I've played, which I admit I've only played like four of the launch ones, definitely the most fun. - How does it look in 3D, though? - Yeah, the 3D, in my opinion, is kind of like superfluous. It's like, you know, it's like, it's there, and it's like, oh, wow, things look farther away, but it's definitely not like a gameplay thing. Like, you can put it in 2D, and it just looks like you're playing a turn-based strategy game on DS. - Right. - And, you know, and it-- - But that in itself is pretty good, though. - It's a fun turn-based strategy game. You know, and it takes into account a lot of things, like being in buildings gives you 50% damage reduction, and, you know, like being up on a ridge gives you 20% damage reduction and 20% increased damage. - Oh, that's cool. I like it when the terrain comes into effect. - Exactly, and you have to worry about like, if guys are grouped together, if you fire on one, the other two are going to get response fire against you. So, basically, a free action, even though it's your turn. So, it's just like all these little mechanics that you constantly have to keep in mind all the time, you know? - Yeah, a lot of people were throwing around XCOM comparisons, and I think they're, one of the XCOM devs is on the team of this. - Oh, really? That's cool. - I believe so. - I haven't played XCOMs. - See, that's the thing is I did not play X, but to me, it reminds me with my very limited thing of squad-based turn-based combat, you know, Warhammer 40K squad command, which I also enjoyed. So, except, you know, the Warhammer 40K, I like to even more 'cause it was Warhammer 40K University of absurdity. It's fun. There's no real universe here that I have any sort of attachment to, and the characters are all kind of cheesy, and not particularly interesting. But it's still really fun. I still think that it's a cool turn-based strategy game. - Where did that? - You know, nothing that I would imagine as a system seller, like, having played this enjoyed it, I still have not found a good reason to buy a 3DS. - And 10 dogs and cats, dude? - Yeah, I played a little, the tiniest bit of that, too, and, eh, I know. - It seems like the only reason that people were finding to truly justify the purchase are toys, like in the 3DS itself. Like the AR, games, and toys. - Ah, right. - Right. - Yeah, and hopes for the future. That's pretty much-- - I mean, there's a certain amount of that for all console launches, to be fair. - Especially for Nintendo consoles, though, I think. - Right. - You know, because they are always trying to do, I mean, like, this, you know, recent releases anyway, first there was a DS, and then there's the Wii, you know, there's a 3DS, I mean, like, these are all like, let's be really wackily innovative, and then that sort of stirs the imagination of the populace, and they think, okay, well, this is something that I can't picture what the best way to use this is, but somebody out there is gonna make something awesome with this, and, you know, whether or not that materializes, of course, has proven to be a much more difficult matter. - And then on a whim this week, I've also been playing Tomb Raider Underworld, which I guess, you know, not totally on a whim. People can play that now in PS3, I guess, 'cause they've just released a box, like a bundle. It comes with like-- - Underworld was on PS3. - Oh, yeah, but I'm saying, yeah, sorry, but I'm saying-- - Legend? - Legend, it might not have been, but they just released on PS3, a box thing. It's like legend, underworld, and one other one, all on PS3. - Anniversary. - Anniversary, that's what it was. - Oh, okay, that's cool. - So, yeah, Underworld, I just decided to start playing just 'cause I was looking at myself for something that I acquired at some point and have never touched. - Right. (laughing) - And that game, man, some of the animations in that game still look really good. There's still some things they do with lighting and stuff, too, that I'm like, wow, that's really cool. But, you know, it kind of like sucks, too, because they kind of invented that sort of game, but it feels like the poor man's uncharted in a lot of ways. (laughing) - That's a bummer. - Like, you know, like, that game feels like combat should have cover, and there is no cover. So, it's like, I don't know if you ever remember playing the other generators, but, you know, it auto-locks whenever you're firing, so then all you're doing is doing flips like an insane person the whole time, while you're doing battles, she's doing the most crazy acrobatics the whole time, the dodge bullets. Plus, you know, as a character, you kind of want to like her, you know, they obviously set her up to be like a book character, but man, she is just like a terrible person in a lot of ways. (laughing) Like, not only is she like going in there, and every fucking pot she sees-- - Destroying-- - She destroys everything. - Yeah. - Like, priceless antiquity. - Exactly. She destroys priceless antiquity, and not only that, but she kills every bit of wildlife she runs across. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It is fucking absurd. - Especially tigers. - I went to Thailand, I'm on the second level right now, I'm in Thailand, and in the time I've been in Thailand, I've killed like 10 tigers. Man, those fucking things don't need any help going extinct. - I know. - Well, to be fair, they will try to eat you. - Yeah, that's 'cause my dumb ass is in their turf. Like, some just think she's a horrible person, man. She's just a rich, privileged bitch that's rolling around, breaking antiquity, and killing animals, and that needlessly. (laughing) - She's even taking their teeth, or eating 'em, or furs. No, I think she's lots of bodies, rotsch. - Not looting 'em. - No. (laughing) - Do you not like that? But I still enjoy the game. - I totally thought that while I was playing this too. I was like, man, that's one aspect of Tomb Raider that hasn't grown up at all. - Yeah, that's just like a totally disparity in her character, right? She's supposed to be like this caring person that you would think is like-- - And she's trying to protect archeological sites from this mood. - Right, but she just goes in there and just fucking breaks pots like nothing. (laughing) Gotta find that collectible gem, fucking pot. (laughing) And it's like, what? - I need the achievement, man. - So. - Right. - Yep. - And that game's been very difficult for me to play 'cause the right off the bat and underwood, the first mission is an all underwater mission against a giant octopus, and I have really hard time playing video games with underwater monsters. (laughing) So, it was very troubling for me. Even after I killed the octopus, spoilers, (laughing) there's a part where you have to swim across the water where the octopus's body is, and I had a really hard time with that. I was like, - Really? - Yeah. - There are sharps in that water, too. - Yeah, I have a really hard time with that. - Oh, that's funny. - So, even in Mario 64, when there was like a level where you had to dive down and there was an eel that could hurt you, I should bother with me. (laughing) - Except tricks. So, I don't know how to fear underwater monsters, even though I'll go through things real quick. - Well. (laughing) We're going to take a break. Now we're gonna come back close. - Okay. (upbeat music) ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ ♪ I'm deep, fast and ♪ (upbeat music) - Hey, we're back with letters. The first one is from RJ, who says RJ here again. Like, does anybody remember RJ? 'Cause I don't-- - I totally remember RJ. That guy's awesome. - Sorry, that probably sounds fucked up, but I just honestly don't remember RJ. - I think we take a letter from home last year. - I wanted your opinion on pre-order bonuses and the possible impacts they can have on games. I've used some pre-orders as being good additions to the game bonuses you mean, but others seem to be a bit game-breaking. I personally decided not to use pre-order bonuses on the first playthrough. This was sparked by my experience in Dragon Age Origins. The Blood Dragon Armor, while not available from the beginning, killed the fun of looting in that game once I had acquired it. I picked up something that may have been an upgrade if it weren't for the Blood Dragon Armor, but would likely to sell it. Some games handle pre-order content better by making it cosmetic, good in the beginning of the game or well-balanced. New Vegas did it well, in my opinion, though I did not use the pre-order content in that game. How do you know how to do well? - Yeah. - The items in New Vegas were mainly for the early levels to give you a bit of a head start. I assume pre-orders are more retailer-driven and publisher-driven than developer-driven. Retailers want to pull people into the stores over their competition, and the differences in pre-order bonuses seem like a big help. I hear more people trying to decide where to buy a game from than I did in the past, which is a good thing, I guess. The developer likely views it as a way to increase day one sales and possibly lower piracy. It also seems to be moving past pre-orders and into purchases with things like free day one DLC, or EA's Project $10 campaign. What I wonder is what the developers think of these pre-order bonuses and their effects on the balance of the games they created. Have you ever had any conversations with them about this? What are your opinions of pre-order bonuses and what do you think can be done to make them better? - We've talked about this before, the pre-order bonuses sort of ruined mag. - Yeah, because it basically completely unbalanced, the one faction, because that was what GameStop did. The Best Buy One and everything else got shafted. - Exactly. - And I think the developers do pre-order bonuses to secure good visibility and promotion in specific retailers. - I think they do do that, and I think also though, if you ask most developers about it, they definitely want to make sure, if they can at all, that any of these kind of pre-order bonuses and things don't break the game or don't give somebody an advantage, and they want it to be something cool that actually has benefit and adds to the game. That's the ideal anyway, and that's what they're all shooting for, but of course, I'm sure just as many of them fall short as games themselves fall short. - I feel like anything meaningful has fucked up every game that it's been in. - Yeah, I've-- - Yeah, like Dead Space, for example, Dead Space 2, like the way that you guys went through with collectors edition weapons and pre-order bonus weapons really changed the way that you played that game. Like it drastically altered-- - We haven't been fucking up for me though. - I mean, but it drastically altered the overall sort of arc of that game in some ways because you were doing things that they didn't necessarily account for, that they couldn't assume-- - Well, you're assuming though that they didn't account for it. I mean, like, who's to say that they didn't go like, this is a weapon that we want to have available in this game? - I don't know, I mean, if the game is super easy with a pre-order bonus weapon and excessively difficult without it, that's sort of a disconnect between those two things, isn't it? - Yeah, but-- - I mean, because they can't tune the game to that pre-order bonus because they can't guarantee that everyone will have it. - Yeah, but I mean, I think the ideal situation is to not put something into a game that totally breaks it. And I mean, I'm sure that what you're talking about is like the force gun, like the zealot force gun that's in Dead Space, it was a pre-order bonus, didn't break the game, that game was hard enough. At least for me, it was. You know, like, there were definitely instances where it's like, all right, well, here come the pack at me, I'm gonna use the force gun on the pack just to get rid of them. - The next letter is from Aaron, who says, "On last week's show, you guys made a passing reference "to another world/out of this world. "One of my favorite old-school games. "At the recent GDC, I know there was a post-mortem "on the game, and one of the resulting tidbits "to come out of it was the announcement of the game's "pending release for iOS devices. "On your show, Tyler made mention of an XBLA release "for the game, and I've scoured the internet "and find no confirmation. "I was wondering if this was a mistake "or slip of the tongue on Tyler's part "or simply wishful thinking." - Tyler. - Yeah, I know. I've since watched the lecture. And yeah, I was probably mistaken. Or yeah, I'm pretty sure I was mistaken. I thought I had read somewhere that it was announced at GDC that it was coming out for Xbox Live Arcade, but shit. He didn't say it, but they definitely did talk about the iOS versions. - I would just advise not to get your toes up too much for out of this world on iOS, considering how bad Flashback was on iOS. He was, you know, I'll take it with a grain of salt, but Eric Chahi was saying it's the best version of the game. - You don't say, a version that they're about to put on sale. - Yeah, I mean, that's why, you know, obviously. But I mean, you know, he was a very interesting guy to actually listen to his talk was extremely entertaining and like a lot of-- - He's always entertaining. - Great insight and just to the development process of the game. Did you see the screens that they put on Facebook this week for From Dust? - Yeah, I did. My God, dude, I'm getting so hyped for that game. - Yeah, I'm just hyped for the visuals. Who knows if it plays well, but man, is it great looking. - Maybe that's where the lines got crossed as they were, maybe I read an article that talked about-- - About From Dust. - From Dust and then about another world, I don't know. - Yeah. - From Dust being the other game that Eric Chahi is working on. - Yeah, I'm making. - Um, next letter is from Phil. And he says, he likes Arthur's crisis to review. He says-- - I liked it too, Arthur. - He said, I would have liked if he gave a little more detail on the multiplayer mode. Although, I guess if I wanted more detail, that sentence just makes sense. Sorry, Matt's iPad just got a carcass on notification. (laughing) - It's short term. - So anyway, he said that. - So creepy, I need to turn that off, I hate it. He said, I've been playing the multiplayer and I noticed something that I think we all find true in competitive games. We always enjoy it more when we're doing well. Well, yeah. Do you think developers should, or maybe already do, put intelligent but weak bots in multiplayer demos or betas to make people trying it out, get some free kills to make them enjoy the game for, and thus make them more like a bite. But I don't even think there were bots in the crisis too. - No, I think that he's implying that surreptitiously or maybe under the radar or throwing these bots. - I know, because that would be way too much work. - I think that would be a lot harder to do. Even as a feature, like, come on guys, we gotta put this on the back of the box. - Yeah, bots are actually really, really difficult to do. That's one thing that would remember when Counter Strike came out on the Xbox and everybody was like, whoa, these bots are awesome. And that company, Turtle Rock. - Was it Turtle Rock? - Yeah, in Orange County. - I mean, Turtle Rock got bought by Valve. - Yeah, exactly, yeah. - Turtle Rock, those were the guys originally responsible for the Counter Strike bots that actually behaved somewhat close to real humans and felt good, and then they bought them by Valve, and those were the guys that did the AI for the zombies in Left 4 Dead. And you know the-- - Or I mean, all that. - Turtle Rock made Left 4 Dead. And then Valve bought them. - Yes, that's actually the correct course of events. So yeah, I mean, that's a lot, a lot. You can make an entire company apparently off of doing bot AI, so no, I don't think that happens. - Yeah, like Matt said, too much work. - Too much work. - Especially to hide it, like when it breaks finally and it got out, it's just too much jeopardy. - I mean, as far as more details about the online modes, like we talked about the online modes, we have press releases all over the site about that kind of stuff. That's product information more than evaluation. - That's the thing about reviews that's kind of tough. People said the same thing with Killzone, even though we had covered the beta, a bunch of stuff like that. But again, it's like, if you don't have something that's like evaluative to say, it's better sometimes not to have your review devolve into just being a details page about a game. - Yeah. And that's a tough line to walk along, to tightrope on, because people come to an IGN article and they want to know everything there is to know about the game, and whether or not it was any good. So that makes it tough for you guys, I'm sure. - So Connor writes in, and people probably don't remember Connor, but Connor was a kid that you said when I wrote in, you were interested in the robotics competition out of them. I don't know if you know this. - Oh, I remember that one, totally. - Just an update, the season started and we just finished the Seattle Regional where we won second place, Alliance, and got the Quality Award. Don't know what that means, but okay. And in a few weeks, we will go to Salt Lake City. You can look at U.S., I'm reading it, or us first org, U.S. first org for the schedule and look up logo motion on YouTube to see what we're doing. So. - I'm totally gonna check that out, that's awesome. - I just thought that was a cool little update. - Nice follow up, dude. - When I was on my 17 hour bus ride and one of the films they played that I was surprisingly got into was that movie, I think it was called something like 21. It was like about the college students who learn how to count cards. - Oh, I heard about that. - It's actually a really good movie and one of the main characters someone has, nerd buddies are making robots. And they win a competition. - Okay, I always think of Grant E. Nahara whenever I think of like battle bots. - No. - I'm gonna read this one just because the email address is just read it, like how do you get that? Good for you. - I mean, it could be fake. - Well, you can spoof your article. - He says, my name is Matt. This is actually a covert letter from Matt sent from his iPhone apparently. I've been with my girlfriend for a little over a year now. Everything's going great except for one little thing. I hate the boyfriend shit, lol. Like going shopping and all that. - Well, how do I get off the hook? (all laughing) - What is it? - Have a super cool girlfriend that really doesn't care about any of that. - Tell her that you don't really do those things and have a talk about it, I don't know. - Yeah, I just have a really cool girlfriend who's like into us doing our own thing. - Sometimes you go take one for the team, the team being your boss. - This is sometimes you do. - And I'm not really gonna answer this next email, but I will say Aaron who wrote in asking if there were any great books after that take place in Star Wars after the movies. - There's a shit load. - We answered that a while ago. But you should just basically go to the store and buy anything by Timothy's on, would be fine. - That's right, you've lent me some of those books. Those were pretty good. You've also lent me some other books that I really didn't like. - That's also true. (all laughing) Let's see. - Next letter. - Should I feel bad? - Yes. - Next. - Okay. (all laughing) - During a recent, this is from Anders. And he says during a recent alleged glitch at Ubisoft online store where it decided to price everything, every title down to a promo price of zero dollars, I obtained a few games. - A few total deal. - Where I could, I obtained a few games where I could as the server was already melting down from the traffic. Ubisoft since issued a statement appreciating those who didn't take advantage of them, should I feel bad? It's not piracy or theft. They purchased the item through their online store. (all laughing) - I mean, you knew that it was an issue with their server that was causing you to be able to take that without paying for it. - And let's put it this way. Do you like the game? Do you want to support the team who made it? And if the answer to those questions is yes, you didn't do that. - I mean, what's the real difference other than a minor case of semantics between that and piracy? - Well, the difference is like Oobie's responsible for it. - Yeah, you were taking advantage of the human error. - You were taking advantage of it. - I mean, if you want to be technical, Oobie soft is responsible for all piracy because they don't make a perfectly unpiritable product. - Right, when you fall that through, it's like, well, because the person behind the counter turns their back, it doesn't make it okay for you to take the gun off the counter. - I mean, look, I download music. I do, I also buy a lot of music. I try to support the artists that I, like if I like something and I listen to it, then I try to pay for it. It's cool that you got to try those games for free. - Maybe nice to go buy them. - Maybe you should pay for it. - Yeah. - I'm just saying. And I know that it's not that simple because like life is complicated, you could be a totally broke college student. - True. - You may be able to make a million justifications and I'm not gonna say you're a bad person for them. - Go out and tell everyone how great Ubisoft games are. (laughing) - Just give them some PR. - Be like, be like those people like hired to go and talk about companies in public just loudly. - Yeah. - I love Ubisoft. (laughing) - Our neighbors are gonna think we're crazy. - Zachary, you wrote a very short letter and he just says, "My friends and I have discussed "creating our own gaming site in a podcast. "My question to you guys is, "what do you do to create it? "Besides creating a website," he means, "how do you post the podcast on iTunes?" What I'm gonna tell you is Google that. It's actually really easy to find out. It's actually very easy to submit a podcast. - The thing that you have to worry about and you don't have to worry about this until you hit a certain critical mess of people, but iTunes does not host your podcast. - No. - You host your podcast, which means your MP3 file rests somewhere on a server that you have to pay for and any website that you have, any hosting service that you have is going to have a certain amount of bandwidth that you're going to get as part of your plan. And if more people download beyond that bandwidth limit, then it starts getting very expensive very quickly. So just be careful of that. - And even then, bandwidth isn't the only thing like concurrent connections and transfer rate and stuff like that was important. As an example, the first episode of this podcast, we foolishly thought that the bandwidth on our site could handle it. And that was quickly proven not to be the case and we put it online and it promptly disabled the site. We use Libsyn to host our podcast. - What's that cost? - 20 bucks a month, but we also-- - I think it's more than that now. - We also go for a slightly more expensive version of the service because we put a podcast often enough that we use up 500 mega storage space, I guess. You can pay for less. - I mean, there's wiggle room in there. - Yeah, you can pay for less. - But yeah, quite often going with a service like Libsyn is a pretty good idea. But if you're thinking that for now, your podcast is just going to be for you and your buddies and maybe it's not going to get a whole shit ton of traffic in the first several months, you might just want to get a basic website and throw it up there and see what happens. - So John writes in and he was writing in response to the gay Idahoan in last week. And he says, I'm a gay guy and by his definition, I'm also a bad gay, total nerd, not super fashionable. Don't look gay. Here's the advice-- - I don't know what a bad gay is. - Here's the advice I want to get you. He's like, check out gaygamer.net and he says-- - It's actually a really good story. - Because he says the GLBT group meetup, you can start meeting guys for dating. It's a different vibe. If you're not looking for romance, you're going to feel a whole lot less pressure. You can just be yourself. And he also says that the gay gamer forums are basically a good way to-- - Yeah, actually, I thought about that afterwards that I should have brought up gay gamer because it's actually a really good site. - That's awesome. And guys kissed on Glee. - Did they? - Yeah, well, that was sort of inevitable. That show's always been very gay positive. That's good. - Considering it is a very enthusiastically gay gentleman who writes and produces that show, I'm not surprised. - Yeah, good shit, yeah. - We're just totally fine. - Yep. - Let's go. Okay, write. - What, what? - That's a nice chair, Tyler. - Wow. - Sorry, Tyler. - I just got a little, okay. - Got another carcass on it. - Donald writes in. And he says, last week, you guys were talking about the idea of an FPS MMO. 'Cause when we were talking about what makes an MMO. - Yeah. - And as you were talking, I was waiting for Matt to bring up love. First person online cooperative shooter thing made by Eskel Steenberg. - That's a very good point. - There's a lot more to it than just that, but it's definitely a persistent world like you guys were talking about. He was just wondering, you know. - To an extent, I mean, it's not permanent. I mean, it persists for a while, but the world's due reset. - Yeah, they do, but it's long enough that I, and there is enough interaction between a lot of people on the server that I think it qualifies. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - But yeah, the world does reset after a while, that it's not a permanent thing. It's basically what kind of cool shit can you do? And like Eskel's always messing around with the parameters in that game and adding new stuff. So it's a really cool experience. The problem with love, I think, is that it's really difficult to get into for the new user. It's really difficult to know what's going on and what means what, 'cause it has a whole visual vocabulary that you have to sort of get in tune with in order to understand what's going on around you. So I'm gonna read this letter. (laughing) - It's scored at the point. - Yeah. - That's what you're supposed to do. (beeping) - What is that with the (beeping) writing in today? - Yeah, I know. - In advance, oh shit. - What? - In advance, please don't use my name. - Then you shouldn't read the rest of the email. - No, you can, I guess I can bleep it out. - Oh, okay. - Sure. - Hold on, yes, just hold on for just a second. Now read the email. In advance, please don't use my name. Arthur's taking care of that. (laughing) - I thought this was gonna be an easy show to edit. - I know of two friends who listened to the show and would probably mock me for a solid week if they pieced it together. But to my main problem, a few months ago, I started dating this girl, Jenna. That's not a real name. And it was going-- - You don't say it. - And it was going great for a few months until she dropped the album. As in love, not lesbian. I thought lesbian as well. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to be an asshole, I told her I loved her back, which led to a night of six. (laughing) - That's funny, the way that works. - And this title, this title, this letter's also titled 17-year-old relationship problem. - Yeah. - Sounds about right. - After this night, I found out she was completely bat-shit crazy. (laughing) Texting me at 3am, calling me at work, visiting me at school. She is 19 and jobless with apparently nothing better to do. - Whoa. - So I put up with this a while because honestly, the sex was great. (laughing) Even if she was crazy. - Sounds like a 17-year-old boy. - But it came to the point where I found her, hold on, hold on. - Hold on, I can't cash. - But it came to the point where I found her in my house. He bolded that and made it capital on my way back from a friend's house. Now, this in itself wouldn't have been odd, but the fact that it was 2am kind of got me freaked out. - Oh my God. - Luckily for me, she was hiding the fact that she was moving to the States, I'm in Canada, and fear of hurting me. So me, feeling like I dodged a bullet, gave her the goodbye hugs and told her we would keep in touch. (laughing) However, things have gone out of control. She keeps texting me at all times throughout the day and night. Some creepy ass shit, such as, I couldn't live without you. You were my world, the only thing keeping me alive. Calling the landlines late at night, which is doing me no favors when it comes to parents. - No. Now, if she is the same individual, I would have broken up with her sooner, but I have no idea what to do, what it will do to her mentor state. If I do that to her, I guess she should use a little helper. Now, you have friends that listen to the show, and you're telling me you haven't talked to your friends enough about banging this crazy girl, and that they're not still going to put this together? - Yeah, I know, even if we don't use your name. (laughing) - You're fucking an optimist. - Yeah. (laughing) - No, he's fucking a crazy person. (laughing) - Stay true. - In more ways than one, this guy is me. (laughing) - Well, this sounds like a girlfriend that you had at one point, Tyler. - This does sound like a girlfriend. - You told me there was a girlfriend you had that was like, you guys would have sex, and she'd be like immediately. I think I'm pregnant. (laughing) - And definitely the man, crazy psycho, yeah. - So, how did you handle it? - That was a hell of a sentence, Tyler. (laughing) - He's just confounded right now. - It was like a crazy psycho. - It's like those nam flashbacks, man. (laughing) - Put me in a trance. I feel like that reporter at the Oscars was gonna happen. - So, let's think this is quite like denang, okay. - Help, uh, help, uh, John, 117 over here. - Oh, dude. Oh, man, I don't know, dude. You already caused this problem. - Yeah, this is, you sort of brought this on yourself. - Well, I mean, could you really have done anything different when you were 17 years old? I mean, like some 19-year-old girls like, "Hey, let me be like okay." - I don't know, but that doesn't change the fact that I would have had to deal with the consequences of my actions. - Right. - Well, that's why I'm wondering what happened with you, Tyler. Can you share with us over the radio? - Is it anything that you're proud of? - I mean, I had like two different girls move away. - Were they psycho? - Mm, not one of them. (laughing) - It sucks, and yeah. - If this is too close to home, you don't have to share it. - No, no, no. I mean, just... (laughing) I don't know, I mean, like, I definitely regret, I guess, not being more forthcoming or being more forthright with her, but, you know, at the same time, I do realize that, you know, I was just a raging hormone teenager, you know, like... - As is pretty common. - Yeah, I mean, you know, when I was in high school, you know, the big pop star was Britney Spears, you know, or, you know, it's like sex all around, you know? I wanted to have sex as soon as I could. - I don't think that it... - Yeah, don't say. (laughing) - I don't think that in this guy's situation, it'd be unreasonable for him to talk to her about the fact that this is long distance and he doesn't feel comfortable doing it. - Right. - Maybe how she reacts, and maybe suggesting or talking about getting her some sort of help. - Perhaps in a more delicate manner than the way you told her you webbed her and then fucked her. - Yeah. (laughing) - Exactly. And it's like, in the eye, there is definitely a certain type of person that you try to let them down easy and that makes the situation worse. And at some point, you are left with no other option than to say, "I don't love you, I am not interested "in you, don't ever contact me again." - Right, so you're scarifying me a little. - Yeah, sometimes you really, really have to do that and not feel responsible for their mental state. But I would definitely try the letting down easy thing first because you did kind of put both of you in this situation. - How do you let someone down easy that already moved to another country? - Yeah. - Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, what Anthony said, it should be a pretty straightforward conversation that like, you know, we're too long distance and I can't do this anymore or whatever. And then, you try to be as diplomatic about it as possible to try to spare her feelings because you do bear responsibility here. But at some point, if she's just gonna continue being more and more crazy, which can happen, then you have no choice but to be as direct as possible. - But I would say, make sure not to send the message that, "Oh, it's just the long distance." 'Cause it's not the situation. It's not just the long distance. But it's the long distance. And I just want to take it. - You're young when you gotta learn too much about shit. Yeah, you're a fucking child, you know? - I know, man, you know. - And she is too. - I mean, you know, it's what separates the sexes. I mean, you know, if you want to break it, if you want to trail it back to evolution, you know, it's a lot like, you know, man wanting to spread their seat everywhere and the women wanting to have that man around to protect the sea. - Oh, 'cause evolution is real. Let's move on. (laughing) Please don't use my name, writes in. - Thank you for not using their name this time. - Why I'm asking this to a video game podcast, I have no idea, but I need an opinion from a neutral party. I'm reading this one because I read it and I felt compelled. I'm making, I'm 25 years old and I've been a professional wrestler for seven years now. My dream has always been to make it big in wrestling since I was six. I'm six, six, 215 pounds and in professional wrestling, guys my height and size have an easier time making it because big guys are wanted. - Sure. - I've had a few big name guys tell me that if I had the body, I would already have a contract as one of the main companies. So I spent the last several months working my ass off to get in better shape, dropping 35 pounds and severely lowering my body fat. The only problem is that while I lost a lot of weight and fat, I also lost muscle mass. I've never done steroids. In my entire career, I've been against them. However, I recently got hooked up with some and while I have yet to take them, I'm strongly considering it. I've done tons of research about them over the past several years. I've weighed the pros and cons and considered the risk of possible rewards. I'm also a personal trainer and talk to several guys that do use them. I don't drink or do any sort of drugs. Steroids, whoever seem like they could help me reach my ultimate dream. I'm not asking you guys if I should do it or not, but I am asking you guys, if you were in my situation and had to do something of questionable ethics in order to possibly attain your lifelong dream, would you do it? So the fact that-- - That's tough. - I've just been reading a book about this. - Oh, really? - And no, well, not about steroids, but about the idea of any of us being able to make a rational decision about whether we could actually know because people, it is something in your brain that tells you if you think you know something or not. - You can be convicted just like a, the idea of someone being like, if someone came a mile, so I would kill him. Like, I know I would. No, you don't. Like, that's something you can feel, but that's not true. Feeling a feeling of knowing does not make it true. - Exactly. - But it's just a weird part of your brain firing. So I can't give you an answer about what I would actually do in that situation, but your email makes me wanna say don't do it. - Well, there's actually a great documentary about steroids in sports that really looks at it from a, you know, that kind of comes at it, I guess at the angle that the listener is coming at it from. And one of my best friends growing up did professional wrestling for many years. He was short, he's really strong and he was really good, but you know, he just struggled with it. You know, he didn't have the physique and actually had a bad knee. He tore his, something. - Yeah, tore something. - That was not good. - Right, whenever it involves the knee, it's not good. - He actually wrestled with this one guy, the necromancer, and I think he was in, fuck, he was in some movie recently, the necromancer guy, I don't know. - But anyway, like, did he struggle with the steroid stuff? - You know, I don't know if he ever took steroids, but you know, I don't know, the way I think about steroids is the way I think about cocaine. Like, I've never done cocaine in my life and it's like one of those things where, if you're at a party and a friend's are gonna go smoke a joint, it's like, "Hey guys, I'm gonna go smoke a joint, "who wants to join?" Whereas, like, if they're gonna do cocaine, no one says it's like, somebody's gonna sneak off to the bathroom and do it. And so that kind of, to me, is like, ugh. - You have not been room in any places in San Francisco. - Yeah, well, I've never, I've been to both kinds of parties. It's not the thing where you're like, "Oh, there's not cocaine!" - Yeah. - You know, it's not like-- - That hasn't happened. - A number of holiday parties I've been to in San Francisco have had open cocaine usage. - Well, yeah. - Oh, yes. - Well, I can't. - Well, either way. - Ours. (laughing) A better question is, would I tell you, or would I say it on a mic, if our Christmas party had open cocaine use? (laughing) - I'm talking about the Rebel FM Christmas party, which had open cocaine use. - Well, I never got any holiday party. I never had opened in the sense that it wasn't like someone was sitting at the table with everyone around being like, "Yeah!" - Yeah, I've never had that happen either. But yeah, I get what you're saying, though. It's like, steroids is one of those dirty things that you don't wanna talk about, and like the people who do do it, kind of like keep it on the DL, and they'll share it with one another, but you don't share it with your broader group of people, where something like beer and weed tends to be that kind of more open and accepted, dangerous-- - They're risks, not just risks to your health, which have been debated, but seem like the medical establishment is in pretty solid agreement. - Pretty broad agreement, yeah. - But also just social consequences, you know? - Mm-hmm, yeah. - I'm with you guys on that. I can't tell you what to do in that regard. Just like, I can't tell you not to do drugs, or drink, or whatever. I just, you need to try to really seriously consider the consequences of your actions. - I can't tell you what I would do, but I still don't think, I don't think you should do it just because of the health risks. - I don't think you should do it either for all the obvious reasons, but I mean like, there's sort of two questions there. There's like, well, he was like, I'm not asking you whether or not I should do it, and he said that, and it's like, of course we're gonna all say like, no, you shouldn't, but I mean, it's-- - I mean, I'm not gonna say that, 'cause I don't know, I don't know what his situation is, I don't know how bad he wants it, I don't know what he's willing to sacrifice for it. - Right, but to some extent, there are certain drugs I think, even like cocaine and stuff, that generally if someone asks me should I do it, I would tell them no, you know what I mean? - And trying to put myself in his shoes was obviously I never could really, talking about that part of my brain that thinks, like you were saying, Anthony, about like, here's what I would do. It really feels to me like I would be, from where I come from, I always worry about what the long-term consequences is, and what if you're really hugely into your awesome wrestling career, and then it comes out that you're a heavy steroid user with tiny little balls, you know? - I mean, it's certainly something that can be used against you at some point. - Yeah, but I mean, like, his other question I think is actually really interesting, which is what if you had to do something that was kind of in a moral gray area, or in order to achieve something that had been a lifelong dream, and dude, that's something I really can't answer. I mean, I would like to think that I would always take the high road, even if it meant that I wasn't able to succeed in the way that I thought I was going to succeed, because I like kind of having faith in my own ability to do the right thing and have that turn out well for me in the long run. I like to think that that's the way my life works, and kind of the way that I make it work. I honestly can't say whether or not that's actually the case, but it does get really, really tough when you're presented with something where it's like, and I think even if you're just talking about the game review kind of situation, it's like, well, I have a really good relationship with this PR person from this really huge publisher, and if I shit all over their game with this review, they're never gonna wanna work with me in the same way, or I'm gonna get cut off on access and that kind of stuff, and those thoughts do go through your head, and then you have to turn around and say, well, fuck that, I'm gonna say what my opinion is because in the long run, that's gonna be what really matters, and that's gonna be the thing that's gonna build the kind of respect that'll make it so that they'll want to work with me, because if I have an honestly good opinion of their game, and my opinion is respected for that honesty, that'll be more valuable to the people that-- - But the way that argument transfers to the steroids situation is saying, well, if I'm a good athlete's under steroids, then people will understand. Bigger, stronger, faster, that's the name of the documentary I can think of, and they look at a lot of these questions, and obviously you've done research, I'm sure you've seen, I don't know, it's a, I wouldn't do it, to me, the scariest thing is the personality, the way it could affect your personality and your sort of your-- - I mean, to me the reason I was saying that I don't think he should do it wasn't, 'cause I'm not saying he shouldn't get his dreams, or shit, fuck man, of course you want to live your dreams. It's just, yeah, I've always heard a lot of negative thing about health benefits, it sounds scary. - Yeah, and are you really living your dream if you're living it under that kind of shadow? 'Cause I mean, is your dream to be a professional wrestler, or is your dream to be a professional wrestler who has a deep dart secret that they have to hide all the time? - And hide it with all the other wrestlers, and it's not just wrestlers, it's baseball players, we see it everywhere, it's true. - I mean, it's funny that you're asking this as Barry Bonds's on travel for perjury. - Yeah, exactly, I mean, I've read steroids in particular, it's a debatable topic, I think. - Yeah, I just can't-- - It seems scary to me though. I can't take a particularly moral position on it, I just, I'm much more of a mind that you need to really consider the consequences. - Why can't you take a moral-- - Because I don't do drugs, I've never done drugs, I don't drink, and it's not from a position of a higher moral standing. And I've known plenty of people that I respect, people that I admire, people whose opinions I value and who I care deeply about that are able to use drugs or drink or do a million other things without issue, you know? And I've met people who are the opposite whose lives are just wrecked by the things that they do, but I mean, your life can be wrecked just as much by poor decision-making in save relationships as it can by poor decision-making when it comes to substance abuse. - Right, like a self-destructive person-- - It really-- - Be more likely to-- - Like, for me, it's just always come down to, it's not these static things that you do, it's the decisions you make and how you handle them and how you approach things that are much more at fault or that cause problems in people's lives than these things, you know? So I can't tell him not to do this. I can just say that I think that he has to decide what's right for him, but he really needs to look at it. As opposed to just saying, well, this is the end result that I want, you know? - It's like the ultimate role-playing game. What would your character do? (laughing) You got a role-playing-- - I mean, I've done stuff in my life that I'm sure that people would be super judgmental about me for, so-- - I think everyone has. - Show? - Not me. I've had a crystal clean life. - Well, that's true. - That's, yes. - I think people are only judgmental so much until they step back and examine the things that they've done all over too. - Yeah, exactly, it's actually easier to understand where people coming from when you realize how much you fucked up in your own life. - Exactly. - So yeah, I mean, I just, I'd have a hard time saying, just wagging a finger or whatever, or even just saying that-- - I'm not saying that doing stories that make them a bad person, I just don't necessarily think it's a good idea because it's a possible health fix. - Yeah. - I mean, being a wrestler is hazardous to your health. - Yeah, exactly, yeah. A very good point. - Steroids are no. Like being an athlete is bad for you. - Isn't it more bad for you on steroids? - But that's the whole thing. It's like, yeah, how much do you want to compound it? Yeah. - But I don't know, like-- - Well, well, well. - His, the whole gray area, doing something that's a little bit morally ambiguous in order to-- - The thing is that according to professional wrestling, this is not morally ambiguous. Like you would never be allowed to wrestle if you were like, "I used steroids." - True, right, you would never be allowed to wrestle if you publicly said, "I used steroids." - Exactly. - And while there are definitely countless wrestlers-- - Well, that's what I'm saying, so it's not a gray area because it's very clear in the rules that you're not supposed to do it. So you would be choosing, no, he would be choosing to break the rules to do this. Now, it may be a rule that everyone breaks, but you are choosing to break a rule to do it. - I think the rule is more don't get caught on this one. (laughing) - Well, on the fucking books, it's not say don't get caught, it says don't do it, you would be disqualified. So, yeah, that's the, I mean, like, if you were to, if I was, if this were Knights of the Old Republic and this was a dialogue choice-- - Right. (laughing) - And I was playing, and I was playing the light side as opposed to the dark side, I would not do the steroids. - I mean, because then you have to like put yourself in the position, what happens if you do make it and you become a professional wrestler, and then in your mind, you only made it because you used steroids, and therefore you have to keep taking steroids, you know, and it could become a vicious cycle really easy. - I've done things that I've regretted in life for much, for very long, it would suck for you to reach your dream and have it be something that you regret in a way. I don't know, basically everyone's answer comes down to, think more. (laughing) - I say don't do it, I'm gonna make a stand, I'm not gonna sit on the fence, I'm gonna say don't do it. - We're just cool, I mean, I get that. - Yeah. - You can send in your letters about substance abuse, two letters at eat-sleep-game.com. You can follow me on Twitter at chuffmoney, you can follow Arthur at A-E-G-I-E-S, you can follow Tyler at dirty T, like to drink, and you can follow Matt at Talking Orange. - I was also on the mobcast this week. - He was also on the mobcast. - The mobcast. - The mobcast. - So you can go check out Matt on that too, if you can't get enough. - Is Greg Ford, does Greg Ford ever guess on there anymore? - If he ever goes to town. - Well, I know he moved a long time ago, there's Skype. (laughing) - No, they don't do Skype. - No. - Skype kinda sucks for podcasts. - It does. - So the people who wanted to record a podcast earlier, Skype kinda sucks for podcasts. - Dude, my favorite podcast in the world, they all-- - I was gonna say, I all snipe them. - They all snipe them. - They all snipe them. - They all snipe them. - Except they don't, they use webcams or something, so that they can see each other's faces. - It would be helpful if they don't. - Like, so much of human communication is visual cues. - Yeah, Skype actually works as long as you have whoever, everybody on their own individual line, recording what they're saying directly to a file that you then send to one person who edits all the source files together, don't just work directly off the Skype sound key. - Yes. - Yeah. - All right, thanks for joining us. Be well. ♪ Save the fire ♪ ♪ Accept this thing without any anger ♪ ♪ Save the night ♪ ♪ Turn out the light and close the door on your way out ♪ (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (somber music) [BLANK_AUDIO]