Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 96 - 03/18/11
It's a shorter show this week as Anthony returns from PAX and we talk about indie games at PAX East, Homefront, Dawn of War II - Retribution, Dragon Age 2, and other stuff! Then we move on to letters.
This week's music, in order of appearance:
Gliss - 29 Acts of Love;
The Joy Formidable - The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ There's nothing good on the radio ♪ ♪ Once again, I didn't know ♪ ♪ There's your hard time to ♪ ♪ The rebel that fell ♪ ♪ The rebel that fell ♪ ♪ The rebel that fell ♪ ♪ The rebel that fell ♪ (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to episode 96 of "Rebel FM." I'm Anthony Gagas, with me is Arthur Geese. - Huh. - Mash Anthony. - It's good to see you again, dude. - And Tyler Barber. - What's up, Anthony, back from PAX. - Back from PAX East. - PAX East. Is that a new venue? - Back from the cold coast. - Is that a new venue? The venue itself is much nicer, the location sucks, but. - It's much larger. - It's significantly larger. - Large. - Large is good. I saw some really cool little games, including "Toy Soldiers Cold War." "Toy Soldiers" yet "Toy Soldiers Cold War." It's a. - Does it actually take place during the Cold War? - They take liberties. Like there are certain jets and helicopters and stuff that weren't Cold War era. But, so this one now has a co-op campaign. Just gonna hit read off some of the highlights of cool things. - Whoa. - Wave checkpoints. And now they've changed it up a little bit 'cause you can explain what a wave checkpoint is. 'Cause "Toy Soldiers" is a game where it's like tower defense, except you can take direct control of the towers or you can be like little cars or planes down on the battlefield defending. The previous one was set in World War I. So in this one, because they realize that. - Modern warfare. - It sucks losing to waves previously. Like if you're like in the 15th one, it checkpoints every few waves and. - That's something every tower defense game needs. - Should have, yeah. - Right. But, in the old one, if you got a tank and you were really good, you could pretty much never use turrets almost. Or just like occasionally build turrets and just dominate with a tank. And they didn't want that to be the case in the second one. They really wanted people to use their turrets a lot more. So they've, basically they've made it now where the vehicles when you use them are constantly running on battery power 'cause they're RC controlled. And so if you're not timing it well enough to drive and collect batteries, they will die. - Just like in real life. - Yeah, so you can't sit there and just dominate with a tank the whole time. So. - That's interesting 'cause one of the things I really enjoyed about the first toy soldiers game is. Unlike most tower defense games where you either are sort of stationary defending swarms coming toward you. Or I mean, that's typically the scenario. There are many stages in toy soldiers where you actually have to push a front line by using the vehicles to take out enemy towers. - And capture their tower. - You can still do that. It's just now that you have to think, you have to be aware like, oh, battery power is getting low. I actually have to take some time away from fighting guys up in the front and run back and grab a battery and come in. - Yeah, that's interesting. - Yeah. - Also thought it was really cool in the trailer. They showed parts where it was similar to the instance that everybody loved in modern warfare where you got into the AC 360. - Oh, yeah, the AC 130. - The AC 130, sorry. - Yeah, so occasionally what happens is, so if you're kicking ass and getting a really, really high combo. 'Cause you remember in the previous game, if you like sat there and killed like X amount of guys within a few seconds, you built up a combo. Eventually, if you build up if you're gonna have combo, you get a barrage and a barrage you call it down and something will happen. Whether it's like an artillery barrage or it might be that you get to use an AC 130 gunship or sometimes the barrage might actually be a guy that comes down, hits the ground and it's a commando, but he's basically John Rambo. He has an M60 and you get to take control of him. - That's awesome. - He looks like your generic Rambo rip-off action figure, like 12 inch action figure. - So you get to take direct control to that. - It's pretty rad, actually. - And they've done a lot of cool things with the turrets to make them directly more useful for what they're supposed to be. So like if you upgrade the level three machine gun, it has a little bit of like an explosive thing and it can also shoot grenades now. Like you can choose to shoot grenades. - Like an alt fire. - Yeah, an alt fire. Every weapon has an alt fire now as well. - Oh, very cool. - On the turrets and orders for instance now, like they were pretty, you previously pretty much only built mortars to attack vehicles. Like, you know, they weren't that good against troops, like in my experience. - Yeah, yeah. - So but now mortars, like they don't do a great amount of damage against infantry, but they, anybody they hit with this blast damage is slowed. So they basically just keep infantry moving really slow. So they're way useful. - So it's like, that's a good method of using a slow tower without having to be magic based on stuff. - Exactly. And they've also got the upgraded like artillery now. The level three artillery is like a missile truck. So it just like the game just has a lot of really cool visual stuff. Like they've definitely, they were showing me like increased environmental damage. Like there's plenty of houses you can blow apart and have stuff like that. - That's awesome. - That's exactly what we want. - Yes, yes. - More blowing buildings apart. - The first toy soldiers game was just a lot, a lot of fun, you know, despite its few flaws. There were a few things that made it a little frustrating that like not having checkpoints. - Yeah, that's frustrating. - It was really bad. - You know, any kind of game. - Yeah, it looks really cool. - What's the release window on this? - It's a summer. - So, you know, the next few months. - This is what I'm excited for, man. - Yeah, really. - And then I saw-- - Let me, let me, I'm sorry before we move on. Let me ask like one thing, 'cause I kind of like one thing that kind of frustrated me with the first toy soldiers was the whole, you almost had to, you almost, and I'm also playing pixel jump monsters at the moment. - Yeah. - For the first time. - It's a good game as well. - And this game has the same sort of problem that you have to really play and fail in order to sort of know what's coming up. - Right, but that was, but the only reason that was really frustrating in the first toy soldiers was because there were no wave checkpoints. - Right. - And so now that you know their wave checkpoints, you can better prepare for that. Plus, you know, I think that if you pay really close attention to toy soldiers, you can really actually manage your money well enough to sell off turrets and rebuild the ones that you need for the upcoming waves. - So it was toy soldiers like, is it a tower defense like game where if you screw up with the wrong build like for too long, there's no way that you could fix it. I mean, I know kind of like what you just said, but I guess what I'm wondering is like, the wave checkpoints, can you go further back than just one checkpoint? - I don't know, actually, I didn't even ask about that because in my experience playing it like, I will say also that they've added, this was a big problem in the first toy soldiers, is that your only anti-vehicle weapons you really had were artillery. And in this one, they've specifically added turrets, you can build that are just anti-vehicles. - Cool, yeah, that's cool. - You have AT guns. So artillery are definitely anti-infantry and AT guns are what you use to take out vehicles. So they've added more specialized turrets that I think will really help out that when you're in like an OSHIP moment and you're kind of fucked with what you have, you know? - Nice. - And just a lot of usability things, like in the previous one, when you upgraded a turret, you didn't know how long it was gonna take. The turret just went out of commission, wallet upgraded, just little timers and stuff, like there's just, it is generally a much more refined version of toy soldiers. Like I think it's gonna be great, so. - Awesome. - And then I also played the darkness too, which is fun. And granted, the demo says in the beginning, like this might not, this scene might not actually appear in the video game when you do it. - Really, that whole like opening scene might not actually be in there. - I'm sure it'll be in there. - I'm like, come on. - But they just say that in case, you know, it ends up being different, but I played it and I thought it was fun. It actually, even the shooting and stuff, whether this is a good or bad thing to you, have felt a lot like the previous darkness. But what I will say is that they definitely change it up now. They don't want you to do, like in the first game, I did a ton of shooting and the darkness powers were kind of secondary. And this one, because they have the ability now for your tentacles to like pick up items and throw them. - And it's a grabbing gun. - And slice guys apart, like they definitely want you to just be using the tentacles like crazy. - Good, that's how it should be. - Yeah. - Damn it. I'm putting my foot down. - And I thought it was really interesting how they made it in the darkness in the previous one. You know, when you got darklings, you just called out a bunch of them. Now, and this one, you only ever get the one darkling and he's like a character. - You're supposed to have a personality and stuff. Yeah, that's cool. - But I'm also digging the art style. In a lot of ways, it kind of reminded me of, when I played it, it reminded me a lot of Borderlands the way they do the art. - Yeah, we talked a little bit about that last week. - Yeah, about how it's like they're all hand painted textures instead of like photorealistic textures. - Yeah, and even when they drop guns and stuff, they sit with like a blue light on them the way Borderlands did like colored lights on the weapons and stuff. - Oh, okay. - But. - Wow. - Right. - And then, I mean, I saw the battlefield demo, which, you know, we've already talked about, but I will say, we'll reiterate that game looks awesome. - Yeah, oh man. - And to all the people that I, while I was standing in line to see the demo, several people walked up and watched the trailer and was like, that shit is fake. - It is really? - Certainly not. - It is most certainly not. - Several people walked up and were like, that shit is fake. We're gonna find out. It's just like kills it. That's what they said. - Everybody wants to be the one guy who was right about it being fake, you know? - Yeah, no, it's definitely. - Speaking of, though, they released the second part of the trailer today. - Yeah, actually, they've not changed the-- - Yeah, it's the little section where the squatter marines run up to the rooftop and they're sort of avoiding the sniper and then they hit the building with a-- - This sniper with the 50K? - Yeah, yeah. - And they blow up the whole front side of the building with the rocket launch. - Yeah, it was awesome. - Yeah, oh my God. - Fucking it, it was awesome. - The giant violence orgasm. - Yes. God, I feel like I saw a ton of games at PAX and it's just kind of hard to remember them all. - What's the Deus Ex demo? That game still looks really cool. - I've still never seen it. I've never seen that. - Yeah, I stood in line just to go see it 'cause I've actually never really watched it playing out since like a year ago. - Yeah, so cool. - If you remember when you're next time you're on YouTube, you can look around. There's a great video from PAX East where they're showing off the hacking system. - Oh, cool. - It shows a lot of their menu UI and the design, man. I just, I love it. So it looks so nice. Like when the hacking screens, it doesn't look like a generic, you know, like Photoshop, this is a computer screen. - Right. And one game that people are gonna be talking about a lot in the next few months coming out of PAX is a, it was like a lot of people that I talked to at PAX said it was like easily their game that they thought was the coolest. Like everyone just came called Warp. It's an EA partners game. It's done by this French studio and it basically is a top down. In a lot of ways, like aesthetically, it reminds me explosion man because it's like violent, but it's also way too cute. - Oh, right. - You play as like this little guy that he almost looks like a bacteria is what I wanna say with like a little antenna. And just like. - Amoeba man. - Basically just like explosion man, you start off in like an experimental tank. What they don't realize is that your little guy has the ability to warp, AKA, they call it warping. I think of it in terms of blinking 'cause that's what he does. - Right. - He basically blinks a specific distance. Blinking, you know, tiny little transport. So you, it looks like you use this. - A link is magic and warp is science. - Yeah, it looks like he used the second stick basically to determine how far you wanna warp. You know, and you can only probably warp about like a few feet in front of your character. But basically that's how he gets their doors, their windows and he can die super easy. So with guards and stuff, it isn't like explosion memory. You can just bomb rush anyone. So you have to, you really, it encourages like stealth and really smart gameplay. And so there are certain inanimate objects you can also warp into. So he might have to like warp into an explosive barrel and then wait till the guards come by to have a conversation. Or he can sneak around and like, you know, move behind panels until he gets close to the guard and then he can warp into the side, inside of him and blow him up from the inside out. And so that's where it gets kind of violent and gory and stuff, but it's like got this really adorable aesthetic and it was just like, just they had, you know, it's what they did is they nailed that one mechanic that made it like a media like, oh, this is different from what I'm seeing everyone else do. - Yeah. - And you can kind of get it like instantly when you see the video of the gameplay and it's just like, you know, action, puzzle-y. - Yeah, exactly. I just think it's gonna be like such a unique little game and they don't know when it's coming out, but sometimes this year, you know? - Right, cool. - And then Bastian was there and I still think that's a game everyone should check out. - That game's amazing. - You know, it was an IG. - IGF, yeah. - IGF candidate and it now officially has a publisher, so. - I also saw "Fall in Frontier," which is the game by Moonshut. - Funny, I thought you said a fallout frontier. I'm like, what? - No, "Fall in Frontier." It's a tiny little indie game made by five dudes, like three of them are expungy guys. And so it's, a lot of people were describing it as 2D Halo. And that's accurate to an extent. Like you pick up one gun and they call it like the, some sort of rifle and it's obviously the battle rifle. Like a fire's triple shot burst. It looks like the battle rifle. And just like Kayla, you can carry two guns on you at any given time. - So we say 2D, is it 2D overhead, side scrolling? - Side scrolling. And it's a twin stick shooter. Like you still pull the trigger to shoot, but you know, you aim with the right stick, move with the left stick. - Halo Contra style. - Yeah, and, but the, it also has a lot in common with by the commando because you have a grapple hook. - Oh, cool. - And the grapple hook plays a big deal into using momentum, you know, grabbing guys. And of course, just like Halo, melee attacks are a big deal in this game as well. So, yeah, it was cool, especially the two player stuff. - Grapples make everything better. - It's a co-op game through and through. - Nice. - And it's all like Hamdron looking art in their own proprietary engine. But yeah, that one was really cool. And there was also this one called like dark and sanely twisted world or something that's, this one has been on my radar. - And sanely dark twisted planet. - And sanely dark twisted planet. It's an ex-BLA game also coming out in the summer. Microsoft exclusive. And it's basically like your spaceship and you're flying around this environment. - Yeah, I saw the video, but that's all I've seen. - You know, the aesthetic is almost like a, it's very dark, everything's black. It's like black on blacks, but. - If you know what vector art means, it's vector art E. - Sure. - Yeah. - I don't, but okay. - Yeah, but the whole premise is that you have the spaceship and you get different attachments for it and you have to figure out which attachment you need to get through the environmental puzzles. Whether it's like a claw to grab things. It actually reminded me of Pixel Junk Shooter in a lot of ways because you have to do shooting, but just like the way you have suits to do specific things in this one, you have these attachments, whether it's a ray gun or a scanner or other things that they didn't show yet that are, and it just has like really good art. But one thing, I noticed it has beautiful music. Like every bit of it is like fully orchestrated. - It seems to happen a lot with indie games is that like they actually, it's almost like they pay more attention to the soundtrack than a lot of AAA games do. - Yeah, that one's looking really cool. - That's cool, so. But then in a non-Pax worlds. - Well, I want to know if you saw like, did you do anything else at Pax other than see appointments and go to the like these small games? - Oh, it's a one panel. Well, I meant the one with the one panel, but one that stood out, which was called, "You have a game idea, but you're not a game designer." And it was like, "Yeah, I read about that." - That's actually a really cool idea. - Yeah, it was like one guy from Zinga, the guy that made that game, ah! - Oh, yeah. - And the head of Firehouse, Firehouse Studios, which their game just came out today when we're recording. It's called a battle, wait no, it's called a, - I don't know. - Firehouse Studios, look it up. They have a PSN game that just came out. - I haven't been paying attention, don't know. - The game is okay, but it's just a really interesting panel, just kind of talking about like, you know, what it takes to be a good designer, whether, you know, them discussing whether or not you need technical expertise. - It's Firehouse or Firehouse? - Firehouse Studios. - Apparently you don't need a lot of technical expertise. - No, they said they said that they all generally agree that it is not a bad thing to have it. - Right. - But they also said that a lot of people get the idea of Dislamble Scrappers. - Dislamble Scrappers, the game that came out of PSN from them. - Oh, it's kind of like a Tetris game. - It's kind of like Tetris, the fighting game. - Yeah, weird. - A lot of people are saying it's great. - But I hear. - You know, they said a lot of people kind of get the roles of designer and creative director mixed up in their head. Like the creative director is the big idea person that has like the really cool ideas and then the designers are the one that have to figure out a way to make that into a mechanic that's interesting. - Right. - Well, if you're a small enough developer, that usually is one person instead of two. - But you know, that panel kind of heard the typical rhetoric, right? Like what's the biggest things a designer can do? And like, you know, the one thing they all agreed on is you have to be great at killing the things you love. - Yep. - Yep. - They all had-- - Shoot them sacred. - They all had stories, you know, basically about people that, and then their advice was for people that always write about wanting to work in the industry. Like if you want to be a designer, they all recommended getting any job you could at the company you want to be at. It doesn't matter what it is. - Yeah. - Like the one guy from Firehouse Studios that used to make, he used to work at a harmonics. And he said that the guy that was the lead designer on Dance Central, for instance, just used to be in the product design group, all he did is made the plastic guitars. And then one day he was like, he just spoke up enough with great ideas about game design that they were like, you know, he might be doing the wrong thing. - Yeah, so. - That's how it happens in a lot of game studios. I mean, we all know friends that have gone on from game journalism to go be community managers and now they're designers, you know. - Yeah. - That's just the trajectory. It's just to get in the company at any level, and if you have good ideas and you're allowed, and you're not afraid to say them. - Right. - Like people will notice. - And you probably can't be a dick either. - Yeah, that's the one thing-- - I'm just guessing. - That's the one thing they disagreed about. The guy from Firehouse was like, be a dick. - Right. - And the other, everyone else was like, don't be a dick. - Yeah. (laughing) - It's interesting though, I mean, if you really wanna analyze it on a deeper psychological level too, I think what's really interesting about game theory in general is how it's sort of the intellectual challenge of it, whether, you know, especially looking, coming at it from a game design standpoint. - Yeah. - You know, cultures throughout all of human history have played games and, you know, throughout human history, the cultures that survived are often the cultures where the militaries played games. - Yeah. - You know, and it's-- - Sorry. - No, no, yeah, you know, I'm just saying, it's interesting that in this way, I don't think you need such technical-- - So that's the thing, right? Is you don't need to know coding and stuff, but what they did say was your idea doesn't mean shit if you can't find a way to prototype it in some form. - Oh, totally. - And so what the guy that worked at Zynga said is he's like, you know, he's worked at a ton of companies, like they called him like a serial entrepreneur. This guy has basically worked at a ton of studios, built them up and sold them. That's all he's basically done. - All you have to do with Zynga is have a, for their games, all you need is a fancy PowerPoint presentation to prototype it. - Yeah, they were talking shit about him the whole time. - Yeah. - But his advice though, that I thought was really true, was like, okay, so you don't know programming. He's like, find a way with cards or a janky ass version of a board game tabletop to demonstrate that the mechanics you have are fun to play. And, you know, if you can do it with the pen and paper and people are like, this is interesting, then just imagine what it would be like when they're getting to interact with it. - Remember when Will Wright first announced Sport and he talked like a really long time about prototyping, how everything that they did was prototyping. And like, that's sort of become the game design mantra ever since then, which is great because that's exactly right, I think. - So, you know, just would be designers. Did you find a way to prototype a tabletop if you don't know how to program? - Yeah, nice, that's awesome. - So, yeah, that was a really interesting panel that I went to, especially 'cause, you know, when I saw who was on the panel, I was like, oh, this is no one I've really ever heard of. - Yeah, let's see what it is. - You know, but it ended up being really cool. - Nice. - So, Tyler, you've been playing Donna Ward II, Retribution? - Yes, I have. - It's your first Donna Ward experience. - Yes. - After playing Retribution, I actually have been playing through the original Donna Ward II again for like my third time. - So, like, 'cause I've played the other Donna Ward games just 'cause you kept recommending them to me, and I never got a chance to finish them. I liked them as much as I played them, but I never did much. - Retribution's fun because it's generally pretty short, and you get to play. You can pick any of the six armies and play through the same campaign. You know, the only thing is is that, I have to say, they really don't do, it's great. I mean, I'm not saying that Donna Ward II did an amazing job, but they don't do a very good job of developing the characters of the other races because you can be any of the six, and because they will have to fit in the storyline. - Right. - Whereas, Donna Ward II had a very specific story to tell about this group of five space marine captains. - Right. - You know, commanders, so. - Yeah, and just coming from my experience on it, you know, I totally get where you're coming from because to me, it's less about the sort of individuals of the six races, and it's more about the general story of the six races. - All interacting with you. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I'm, you know, I'm-- - And even retribution, when you get far enough so I didn't even know-- - No, no. - Even retribution when you get to it ultimately is still the space marine story. Like, you find that out by the end that really this is just concluding the arc of Donna Ward II and Donna Ward II, whatever, the cast rising. - Right. - So, this is really concluding the space marine story. - Yeah, you know, but to me, the fact that they allow players to choose six different races through a campaign, I give them a complete pass on sort of quote unquote, scare quotes, recycling the single players. - Oh yeah, I had to be ambitious. I had to balance this. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, to me it's so awesome to have the choice instead of one race for a whole campaign. I mean, you know, StarCraft II, you know, came at it at a different angle in that they gave you the brief time where you played as the protos. - Yeah, and I will say that though, in StarCraft II in general still has way better levels, like way cooler campaigns. - Sure, sure, the mission designs are better than the guys. - Like, I think that Donna Ward II would have going forward as every skirmishes may be a little bit more exciting than StarCraft II. - But overall, the levels in StarCraft II are more exciting as a whole. - Here's what I will say though, is that as far as what I enjoy with RTS is, I'm enjoying Dawn of War II more than I enjoyed StarCraft II. And I see myself, I mean, I don't own StarCraft II, but I can't imagine that I would have played it twice, whereas I really want to play through it again as soon as I'm done with the Imperial Guard. - Yeah, it's easy with Dawn of War because there's no base building. There's no waiting for resources to gather. You're constantly on the move. - And the cool thing is, is controlling the hero units. You know, I'm really practicing my key commands. - The hot keys. - The hot keys. - The left hand. - Yeah, you know what? Yeah, and it's just a ton of fun, you know, switching between your four guys, or, you know, if you're bringing troops with you. - And just using their individual powers to turn the tide. - Yeah, exactly. - Like, there's like something like, oh, this isn't gonna work. Oh, but this one guy totally comes through. - Exactly, yeah. - With the one saving move. - And, you know, if you want, you can roll with your four heroes from the start of a mission, or you can switch out up to three of them for a special unit that is free to respawn, and they have additional benefits. And every unit of that type also gets extra benefits. Like, if you switch out one of your heroes, it'll be like, oh, all of your shooting troops will now have a 25% accuracy bonus for this mission. - So is there-- - If you don't take a hero. - So is there, I mean, is it just kind of a, it's just a choice if you want to mix up the gameplay? There's no real benefit to choosing one over the other. - Right, you can still call it, like unlike the previous Dawn of War games, you can still call in additional foot troops that aren't led by a hero, which the other two Dawn of War games, every squad was led by a hero. But, yeah, it's just, it's just, maybe you don't think that those extra heroes, powers are gonna come into benefit, whereas having some extra buffed out version of this troop is going to be especially useful. - Gotcha. - You know, like, for instance, do you have a guy that's like your heavy machine gunner? He has to take time to set up and take down his turret, but later on in the game, if you choose not to take him, then all the machine guns you bring don't have to set up and take down. They can instantly set up and fire. - So why would you ever take him again? - Well, because he can carry certain guns that they can never carry. And some of his guns are ridiculous. - Yeah, and he has several powers that he can use. You know, whereas the generic troops might have one power. - Oh, I see. - You know. - And, you know, he's got, he's got, maybe he has certain items that give him like the ability to call in turrets or something, you know? 'Cause they, just like the other Donald War II games, they still have the war gear that makes it like a little bit of a loop grind. And unlike the previous Donald War II games that were kind of annoying where it was like, you leveled up, you have two points you can put in wherever you want. In this game, every time you level up, it is a new power. There is no building up towards the power with points that don't mean anything. Every point you put in is a new ability. - Or if it's not a new power, it's like some kind of like passive perk. - What's I mean? - Every time you're getting something. - Yeah, yeah, you all used to. - It's not like previously where you were just like, oh, two points towards nothing, but I gotta put 'em in. - Well, that's sort of the way, right? I mean, it's even the case with Dragon Age, you know, every time you level up, you can spend, you get a new power or you can expand one of your existing powers. - Right, it's not like previous games, like maybe an older Diablo, where it was like, oh. - Right. - Well, you gotta put two points in to get to the third point for the next level where you can finally actually get it. - And they really make the loot, you know, when you're sorting out your loot and you're sorting out your leveling, they make that really interesting in that you do that right after you're done with the mission. So they do a lot of the next mission banter while you're switching stuff out on your troops. - You have a reason to listen to it. - Yeah. - As opposed to this. - Nice. - I mean, in Starcraft, you listen to it because it's interesting, right? - Right. - And you like wanna sit in that mission briefing. And this might not be as interesting, but you still get it all because you're like, "Okay, this is something to be background noise while I sort of sort out my gear." - Yeah, I'm set to just sit in there and, you know-- - Cool. - I have some nice touch. - Yeah, you know, I'm really loving a lot of the creative powers that, so far I'm only playing as the Imperial Guard, which is a brand new race, I'm told, to the Dawn of War. - To the Dawn of War II. - The Dawn of War II, that is. And, you know, they're like, kind of like this British, very war-like tribe. - Yeah, that's basically like a crazy cockney people, basically, with guns, and super expendable, and-- - Yeah, very much like you're worth as much as you are a soldier, you know? - Yeah, and they tell you that all the time. - Right. - You're not worth a lot. - And so, like, one of the heroes you have is he's called the Commissar, and one of his duties, we've talked about it on the show before, is like, you can assign him to execute one of your generic soldiers. Like, if you have a rifleman squad, he'll kill one of them, but then it'll buff that rifleman squad for, you know, a certain amount of time. And as you level up the comm-- - Spires through fear. - Yeah, yeah, it's so awesome. But as you level up your Commissar, you know, you can make that power level up things like where it makes the guys that are buff temporarily invincible, or, you know, a lot of cool shit like that. - Until you run out of guys to execute. - Yeah, I just think that this is probably one of the, it's a really good Donna War game. And then as a $30 price point, it's just crazy. - Yeah, I'm loving it. - Cool. - I'm having a lot of fun with it. To me, it's exactly what I want Company of Heroes to be. And I know, like, a lot of people, you know, they love the base building. Like, if I can have this-- - Company of Heroes, the base building was always kind of a means to an end. It wasn't very fun or interesting. - Yeah, I like the way they do in Donna War II, because it's like, all the stages are, you know, they're linear, you know, you're always progressing, you're moving forward. And when you move forward, you cap a new point, and that becomes sort of like your quote unquote, checkpoint, where you can spot guys from. - Yeah, and if you retreat, you fall back to that point. - Yeah, it's real, it's a lot of fun. And it looks great. It looks good, I feel. - Yeah. - It seems like it would be more of a more accessible RTS design as well, you know. When you don't have, who knows how many variables to keep track from. - I thought there was the one who said it originally that he felt like in a lot of ways and I agree with him. Donna War II was like the first game that felt like, you know, this could make it on consoles. - Yeah, it feels streamlined, but still complicated. - For all those console dummies, or complex. It's complex. - Well, not console dummies, but it feels like it could work with a controller fairly well. - Yeah, because it's not about having gigantic forces, it's about squat. - And you know, if you love the War and Universe, it's still great. And I think I just love this silly, kind of not too serious. - Yeah. - We want a forehammer. - They play a nice balance on it. - Right, I mean, it's supposed to be a serious story, but there's all the kinds of moments where it's like super tongue and cheek. - Well, you can tell just by looking at all these little painted figurines you have on your table here. - Yeah, they're always their absurd. - Anthony's been buying a lot of pre-painted figurines online of a Warhammer stuff. Have you actually gone to the comic book shop yet and had any actual games? - I've played actual games with my first hall. - Dasty back room. - I haven't played actual games with the guys 'cause they meet on Thursdays and so I haven't gone yet. - Right. - But yeah, now I've played games with Paul and it's actually, what I will say is I used to turn my nose up a Warhammer 40k and I think it's actually in a lot of ways to superior game to fantasy now. - I've never actually thought I would never play. - I've never actually played 40k, is it done by measurement or is it done by hexagrid? - It's done by measurement, but it's 40, whereas fantasy is like the type of game where you're like three hours is a super fast game. - Yeah. - 40k is like the speedy man's game. - Cool. - You can be done with the game of that in like 40 minutes. - It sounds like fun to me. - Exactly, that's the thing. It's like time gets more precious to me. I'm like, that's awesome. - Yeah. - Who's doing the MMO? - The MMO 40k is being done by the guys that made Darksiders. - That's right. Okay. - Which if you saw the art of Darksiders, you know, you were like, oh, the art looks like Warhammer 40k's. - Yeah, it's so done. - That was Joe Madura. - Yeah. - He did the designs for that. - Yeah, and I mean, his art style is just like it looks, it reminds a lot of Warhammer. - Yeah, it's all like bulky and everything. It's like, it's-- - He owns that studio, right? - Yeah. - Okay. - It's somewhere in between like Blizzard's World of Warcraft style and like Warhammer 40k style. - Yeah. - I feel like it's Blizzard through the manga filter. - Where is that game right now? How is it state, has people seen it? - No, I know it's in there, didn't it? - Okay. - I know, I just don't want to tell you about it. - They're a big studio, so maybe they're working, some of them on Darksiders too, some of them on that, but I don't know. - Was it the one that I read recently that they're like throwing a ton of money at it? - I'm sure they want to, but-- - Apparently they spent 50 million on Homefront, so I'm not surprised. - Jesus Christ! - I wonder how much of that studio-- - Before advertising. - I wonder how much of that is studio upbeat cost 'cause they're in New York City. - Oh, well, if you have a big studio in New York City, that's got to be tough. - Yeah, that's a game. - Yeah, damn. Although there's a lot of city business rents have gone down over the last three or four years. - Yeah, but I imagine paying employees a wage where they can live in the city is not. - Oh, that's true too. - Anyways, side's the point. - Yes. - Tyler, Tom Ward, you enjoyed it, which is good. - Very much so, I'm still enjoying it. - Yeah, me too. - Nice. - I still think that if you're only gonna go by one, you should get that. - 'Cause I have a-- - And also the embargo is up for Shogun at this point. - Oh, it's Total War Shogun 2. - And I will say that my very little experience with it and I read our review, for I Jan's review of it, like this sounds like finally that company is doing everyone right. - Wow. - Like it's not the buggy shit that they've released over and over again. - 'Cause I've always wanted to really get into a Total War. - Yeah. - I played, I definitely played medieval Total War until I just couldn't put up with it anymore. - And Napoleon was, you know, of course notorious for it. Like Arthur had like recurring problems with getting Napoleon. - Oh, I mean, everybody has had recurring problems with every Total War game. - So, but this one-- - And Charles said that Shogun crashed a desktop at least five or six times. Always reviewing it. - Wow. - But in general, the sad part thing is that that is much more stable than the other ones have been. (laughing) - It still looks super cool though, man. - It is, and that's the thing. You see, he described everything to me that you can do and stuff. It's, it, and every time I've seen it play, it is visually impressive. It is like a PCF PC game. If you want to see my new PC doing beautiful things, that is like a cool game to do it. I am really excited to try that. So, it's like the first game Sega's released in a long time that have been like, hey. - I didn't realize it was Sega. - Yep. - Wow. - I mean, the publisher. - Yeah, I know. - I'm sure they do the developing it, of course. - So, that was, you know, that's pretty much it for me guys. - Nice. - I finished Killzone 3. - And? - Yeah, then I, I feel like some of the later levels are a lot of fun. Like they're, you know, I have to say-- - Well, I think a lot of that has to do with having like the badass weapons at the end too. - Yes, and no, because, you know, at the end, I found myself mostly using the Heavy MG. - Really? I would, I pretty much-- - Yeah, I mean, pretty much if you got that one weapon, that's all you use. - Yeah, well, I mean-- - Are you shooting one? - Yeah. - I didn't like it. I'm like, I've never used the green shooting shoot. - The one that shoots at the ball. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Rips guys up there. - Green shit. - Right, I actually, I liked that one, but the gun that I was having the most fun with and was the most effective with was the-- - The Bolter. - The Bolter. - Yeah, that one's pretty badass. - Of course, the Bolter is awesome. - Yeah, but, but, you know what, I was playing it, Matt, I was thinking about what you're saying about cover in first-person shooters, and I really feel like it works here in Killzone, man. - Oh, definitely. - It's really, really, you've done well, and I love what they do with the heavy, I didn't realize this before, but if you're having, if you have the heavy machine gun, it's the most accurate, you know, if you clamp down behind cover, you get a super tight crosshair. - Yeah, and you can clamp down behind cover and then zoom in and like, yeah, that's great. - Yeah. - That's why, that's why, again, when I saw the Battlefield 3 stuff, I'm like, why is there no cover? It's just gonna feel weird to be in this super realistic situation and not be able to take cover along a wall. - Yeah, and the way they do it in Killzone is, it's nice, it's really smooth, it flows. - So without spoiling the ending, tell me though, that like story-wise and stuff isn't like the dumbest ending. - It's, oh, it's fucking game, it's just like-- - Dumbest shit. - It's just like, and oh, and the game's over. - Yeah. - And he was like, what? It's over. - It is a waterfall of video game, game cliches. - It is, oh yeah, absolutely. - And, you know, I swear there are like four lines in the whole game, hey, follow orders, no, fuck you. (laughing) That's it, script done. - So true. - Yeah, that's pretty right. - It's funny 'cause it's true. - It's annoying, but I do feel the game, the front end of the game is not as good as the back end. So, you know, if you find yourself playing through it and like you don't want to finish, I would say plug through, although I do have to admit, you know, a lot of the on-rails vehicle sections, come on, dude. I just feel like it was-- - Really, I thought they were pretty good. - They-- - I feel like they're there because they think they need to be there. They don't really serve much purpose. - The tank part, the one I didn't like as much was the snow one. - I was real shy. - I like the, I don't know, for me it's just, I get, especially with a game like Killzone that doesn't really have any breakup in the pacing when you're shooting, that's the, like the only breaks I really felt I got were like those vehicle sections. - Yeah, I guess I felt like they were generic in a lot of ways. And the ones in particular that I thought were generic were when they would throw you in the vehicles that were not your troop transport. - Fuck, the troop transport. - Dumbest vehicle ever. - Yeah, dumbest design in the world. - Like every time, every time like it came up and they cut scene with a troop transport, like Ryan and Jay Fresh and I were sitting there and we were just like, what the hell, dude? Seriously, what the hell? - Not only are you like open-topped and vulnerable, but then if you don't forget to strap in your seat belt, you just fall in your bed. - And nobody's strapped in. They're all just sort of like crouched behind the railing. - God forbid that guy hits any trigger. - And they obviously fly like shit because everyone you see crashes, everyone. - Yup. - Really is the dumbest invention ever. I mean like-- - You know, the universe of Killzone to me, it's just like, what? - It's our word.org, it's serious. - It really, yeah, it gets to that level. - You guys are really, really killing Anthony here. - Why are you killing me? - You are so full of crap. You love that game's fiction. - Oh, I like the fiction, but I agree that-- - Oh yeah. - I agree that troop transports are idiotic. The only troop chance where to make sense are the Hellgast ones, right? They're flying transports, what are they? These big, gigantic, flat ship with armored steel panel-- - Gun around them, exactly. - They open up, or the ground transports are these hardcore APC looking things where a backup or something has come out. - And it's not like you're supposed to be like these rebels that don't have any equipment or whatever. - Yeah, you're supposed to be the best equipped army in the universe. - Yeah, exactly, so-- - I know, and you're equipped with shit, I don't know. Maybe it's supposed to be a commentary on Americans going to war in Iraq without being prepared, but I doubt it. - Yeah, that's cool. I will say that their army is very forward-thinking, though, because they let you have faux-hocks. - Faux-hocks are fucking-- - Faux-hocks are fucking dead. - I'm like, wow, there's definitely some Europeans that made this game. - They have women in forward-combat operations. - I have two. - One, at least. - Yeah. - One. - What woman would be dumb enough to be anywhere near that squad? - Yeah, true. - None. - Dude, yeah, if you happen to be stranded on an alien planet with that squad, you'd be like, you guys go that way, I'm going the fucking other way. - Yeah, I'm gonna go any other way. - Yeah. - God. - Killzone 3 also has one of the dumbest, overblown endings I've ever seen in a game. Like, wait, and it's just like, you know, like overstated a bit-- - As I'm saying, the story of the game is just not good. - No, not even sort of. - Not remotely. - Yeah. - But I still thought that the shooting and the combat situations they put you in all that and the pacing is still really good. - Yeah, there's, you know, especially the missions towards the end, you know, when they really start opening up the level. - And there's like a part that they do towards the end with gravity. - Yeah. - And I thought was so cool that I was like, I'm glad in a way that you didn't abuse this all over the place, but man, I wish I would have gotten a little bit more of it. - I feel like they did just enough. You gotta grab the heavy machine going to get to that part 'cause it's badass to see your bullets flying up. - Yeah. - And I know. - Yeah, cool. - Nails on three, you know, it's definitely worth it, especially because the multiplayer is so strong. - That's what I thought. I was like, if you have a PS3, to me that's like, and you like shooters, it's like a must buy. - Definitely. - It's like, it's like a no brainer. - Don't play it with move. - Yeah, I played with move. I thought it was okay. - That's weird. I hear a bunch of people saying-- - Exactly, other people point for being like, it's the way to play. - Oh my God, like, I don't know. Maybe you just have to have it set up correctly or something. - Just around with those settings forever 'cause, you know, like basically made it a tall, thin triangle so that it took a lot for you to move up or down. 'Cause otherwise it was like, it was constantly staring at the floor at the sky unintentionally. I mean, you make the, like, it is nice that you can form the dead zone, however you want to form it to be comfortable to you. So that's a nice touch, but I always find it like, no matter what I set the sensitivity yet, any of us that were pointing at the screen, the crosshair was just jittering constantly, you know, like we're fucking super old people with really bad hearts trying to play this game. - I did like the, with the move controls, there was two settings where you could have it, where you could auto lock onto a guy. - Right. - And then you could, from them, like, point at his toe and point at his head. - Right, and I think that that's a cool feature for people that want that. I didn't like playing that way. - Right, right. I feel like that's the only way to, like, that's probably the only way to make a play to where it feels like you have some semblance of control. - Control, yeah. - 'Cause, you know, and I had such a contrast to that 'cause then that, I played Killzone three that weekend and then the next week I went to GDC and I played SoCom 4 with the gun, with the move gun thing. - Yeah. - And, you know, I don't really care about that thing, you know, whatever, but the crosshair on the screen was solid and still and felt really good when I was aiming around and stuff like that. It felt way better than Killzone. - For me, you know, aesthetics are a big part of a game for me and Killzone has just, has so many great aesthetics. One thing that is beautiful, I would just never play it with move because I think the cursor is just dog ugly. - It's like the best looking-- - It is, yeah. - Killzone too is like, I mean, Killzone is like the best looking World War II shooter that is in a World War II shooter. I'm just saying the destroyed buildings and everything look like the blown out pictures of like World War II or something you can see. - Totally true, yeah. - Yeah, with faux hawks. - With faux hawks. - I love it. - You really have a problem with faux hawks. - I do. - I just think they're awful. - I just think that it's like the stereotypical thing to give hero characters for whatever reason. All the time, faux hawks. - Yeah, like, I don't know, five years ago. - It's so five years ago. - Any Coopers? - Anyway, that-- - Anything else Killzone III and Tyler's Dawn of War for use? - Yep. - Mm-hmm, nice. - Word man. - Matt. - I've been working like a dog last week, so the only game that I had a chance to play was when I was sick on Saturday and decided I wasn't gonna work on Saturday. - Uh-huh. - Played Dragon Age all day long. - So you, too. - You're talking about two. - Two, yes. - So I've heard mixed things from people I know that like Dragon Age. - Yeah. - Couple of my friends so they liked it better. Couple of my friends that they don't like it better. - I'm a huge Dragon Age fan. There's things that I miss about the first one. But I can see where they put their development resources into this one. And the storytelling is better. - Like, that's what I've heard generally. - Yeah, the storytelling is better. And like, if I'm playing an RPG, that's my number one factor is to like, how good an RPG is, is how good the storytelling is. - So what's the character you playing? Are you a good person? - I've been like, you know how that has the mass effect like dialogue choices? - Sure. - But this one actually gives you little indicators, like a fig leaf or a piece, you know, leaf or whatever. - Okay. - And then there's one that's like the comedy mask from the comedy tragedy, you know, drama mask or whatever. And I almost always pick the comedy one because I play like a widescracking rogue. - Nice. - And it's great, I love the way it always turns out. That's the one I pick the most office and unless I feel like my character would be really pissed right here or my character would be like, trying to smooth things over right here. And it's, and I like that because it is like mass effect and I can sort of play the character as it would feel in that situation and nothing ever feels like the quote unquote wrong choice. - Other important question, who are you banging? (laughing) - I've got like three or four people on the ropes right now. I'm not sure. - Whoa! - I'm not sure how it's gonna end up. - Who are you, Scott Bromley? (laughing) - Good to get to here. - So one thing, one thing. - Gender doesn't matter. (laughing) - Who are you, Scott Bromley? (laughing) - I'm curious, we touched- - It has to have a whole. (laughing) - We touched a bit on it last week, but you know, 'cause a lot of people have been, you know, putting complaints to a lot of RPGs that are not quote unquote RPG enough. - Yeah. - How is Dragon Age two RPG enough and is Bioware trying to make it more RPG through dialogue? - Yeah, 'cause it seems like the combat is less RPG, right? - No, the combat, the combat is great. Like, I love the combat. I think the combat is actually better than Dragon Age ones. Like the powers are better, the way that the classes interact with one another is better. Like you can always, it doesn't matter what your class is. If you're a rogue major warrior, you always have abilities that the other two can exploit. Like, if you stagger an enemy or if you disorient an enemy or whatever, there's always these cross-class combinations that do mega damage if you execute them in time them well. - I guess people- - And it works out fantastic. It's so much better than Dragon Age one in there. - I guess people were just kind of worried for a while that this one, especially when they would see builds of it on 3.16 and stuff, was that it was gonna be like a button mashy action game, as opposed to more of the stopping pause. - I mean, the talking points that Bioware had for Dragon Age 2 didn't fucking help matting. - Yeah, press A and it'll be awesome for one of us. - Yeah, oh no, I'm sure. And I'm sure it can work that way if it's on easy, but I'm playing on normal. And being somewhat later in the game, I just started, I'm like at the end of the second act. No, I must have just started the third act. Yeah, and you can sort of tell 'cause there's like these major events that happen that move the plot forward. And so the, it's really cool because, like in Dragon Age 1, once I got later into the game, if I'm not paying attention to what my characters are doing, they die, you know? Like I can't just press A to be awesome, or I guess the equivalent of this PC is right click to be awesome, you know? The, doesn't have as good of a ring to it, does it right click to be awesome? But I have to play tactically. I have to use the cross-class combinations. I have to plan out my abilities and strategies really well. And like there are, they do fun things where it's like they'll throw hordes of like lower level enemies at you with a boss interspersed in them here and there. So, you know, I have a rogue character and rogues regain stamina when they attack. But I also have an ability 'cause I went down the Assassin Tree where that if I kill a creature, it also builds back stamina. So the strategy of course is to like kill a lot of low level creatures to build up your stamina and then use that stamina against the boss. And meanwhile, the boss has to be sort of crowd controlled by your mage and by your warrior. And if that's your combination, you know, I've also discovered that if you do things right and if you move around the battlefield a lot, you can have like all DPS characters. So, I mean, it really just comes down to a little bit of like, all right, well, what characters do I wanna take with me while I'm going through this? And I've only once or twice run into a situation where it's like, well, I really needed a tank for this battle, you know? You know what was crazy actually? 'Cause you're making me think of RPGs. The longest line at PAX East was for Old Republic. - Oh really? - I'm glad you brought it up. - It was an eight hour wait to be Old Republic. - I am sure not surprised. - But that's also because the demo was a 45 minute demo. - Oh shit, wow, nice. - Okay, yeah, I mean, I am very interested in this game. - Me too. - I mean, I've played it a few times and every time I played it, I was sure like, wow. Yeah, I was like, this is an MMO with some dialogue, geez, but there wasn't anything special about the combat and stuff. - Really? Well, I've only looked over people's shoulders at like PAX last year and E3 and stuff like that. And yeah, it did just look like MMO combat. And I'm like, I don't know if this was anything interesting. - The only thing that was special about it was the setting and the fact that it has spoken dialogue all the time. You know? - I don't know if that'll be enough to keep me playing. - I don't know if it'll be enough to keep me either. - 'Cause I've already given up on World of Warcraft again. So, I mean like-- - Have you really? - Yeah, I played Cataclysm and I had a really good time with it. Now, once I got to the endgame grind, I was like, all right, that's it. So, I don't know, but I did start playing Rift. Also, I should say like last week right after, like the day after we recorded. And it does seem like it is kind of a WoW clone, but in a good way. - I doesn't say it's really well done. - Everyone I've heard talk about it says that that's like the next potentially cool MMO. - Yeah, because it's actually high quality and it runs well and it plays well and you don't feel like things are weirdly imbalanced and it moves forward at a good clip from one quest to another. - And one thing I've noticed watching our MMO editor play it at IGN is, it seems like there's enough dynamic events that have happened in the world to keep it interesting where you're never just like, well, the only thing I really can do is the next question. Oh, this event's happening right now. I can totally jump in on this event. - Yeah, and I found myself doing that a lot like when the riffs open up and it shows right up on your map, oh, look, there's a rift opening up. And if you're in the right level zone, you're gonna be able to do effective combat in that rift area and you always get really good rewards for it. So everybody in the area runs to the rift. - Cool, is it kind of like oblivion gates? - Yeah, it is kind of, yeah. - And another thing I think that game does that's super cool that WoW really should get going is when you run into an area and a bunch of people are there, it automatically, if you just get in proximity, it'd be like, do you want to join the raid? - WoW does that in certain areas. - Oh, does it? - Yeah, like if you do the, it doesn't do that though in like the PvE stuff, the way that rift does it, it only does it in PvP stuff. - Ah, that's why I haven't seen very much of it in WoW. - And I mean, like in the latest, like in Cataclysm, when they released it and in some subsequent patches, there'll be things like if you need to kill a boss character so that people aren't spawn camping the boss all the time. If you go in and just get a hit on it, then it counts as you attack it. - Showing the party or whatever. - Yeah, you get credit for when it dies, but you don't actually join the party. - Okay. - And so like I do like that about rift. Like you get enough, like it automatically gives a group, if there's enough groups in there that automatically creates a raid for like the rift battle. - Right. - And it's cool, it's nice, it's fun. It totally gives you that. And I'm playing a healer character for the first time ever in an MMO. And so I hop in there and like I see all the raid, the raid interface pop up and see everybody's health bar and I'm like heal this person, heal that person, attack, heal. And I do like also in rift that has the skill trees that you can swap out all the time. Like they call them souls and you can, they learned, you know, what took Blizzard a while to realize and implement that you need to be able to switch out specs and be able to do different things at different times. - Yes, being late in the game has its benefits. - Exactly, they learned from all the stuff that while we're in from and they made a really competent MMO. Like I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep playing it. I'm interested to see like, you know, if I sort of casually do it and reach the end game, am I gonna be like, oh, well, here's the endgame, Ryan, fuck this. - Right, it just seems like all the MMOs I've heard come out and like the last like, well, basically since wow, right? - Yeah. - Is like everyone that comes out, people play for their first month of night. That's cool, but eh. And this is like the first one I've heard talking about where we're like, holy shit, it's like what you said, it's like competent. - Yeah. - It's fun, it looks great. It's like all these things that people are like, oh, this one might actually last beyond the first month where everyone had it for free. - Yeah. And I don't know if you think this, Anthony, but it seems to me like a lot of the MMOs out there are like, they know they have to be like, wow, but they're trying really, really hard not to be. - Yeah. - And they kind of fail at it. - This one just owns it. - Yeah, this one just owns it. You're just like, fuck it, we're gonna be like, wow, and then we're gonna add some features on top of it that are gonna make it interesting. And that's in, you know, that doesn't sound like a good thing, but you look at the rest of the gaming universe and that's how we've always improved on gaming. - Well, kind of picture like this, right? If you're a wow player and you're burnt out on Azeroth because you've played through it, multiple characters on the horde in the Alliance and you've seen all the quests. So this is a game where you can go in, be immediately familiar with enough new mechanics that it's like kind of interesting to you right out of the bat. - Yeah. - And you can explore quests that you've never done before. - Yeah, exactly. - Like for some people, that's enough. - Yeah. And for like my healer character, you know, I can go like, oh, I'm DPS now. Oh, I'm heal. Oh, I'm a little bit of both. And you can sort of do it just kind of on the fly. It's fun. - So. - So. But one last thing I want to see about Dragon Age is that like, I super miss, the one thing that I really miss about like the RPG-ness of it is I can't be a different race. I have to be a human and I'm stuck being a human. - Trust me, I think about that and I don't even even play it yet. - Why can't I be a dwarf? - That's the one thing that bothers me is that like, you know, there's, Dragon Age was sort of the last hurrah of old school MMO is where you could be like, a bunch of different racing class locations. - My friends that have played it though have told me that the result of that though is that there's kind of stronger storytelling because they know you're going to be this human. - Yep. - So. - There absolutely is. But you know, I did, I was one of the people that when I was done with the first Dragon Age, I went back and played all the origin stories. But apparently that was exceedingly rare. Most people didn't do it so they didn't bother putting that kind of thing in in this game. So, you know, I get why they did it. I'm just a little bit disappointed with it. - I understand the feeling too, you know, when I was getting way into the Mass Effect lore, even before the first game came out, you know, I was getting my game boner on. And, you know, I have to admit, like I was wondering, like, oh man, if you could play as a Solarian, like I wonder what kind of bonuses you would get or if you could be one of the alien races. - Yeah, exactly. - Well, speaking of game boners, I know there's no information on it yet, but tribes ascend. - What? - What? - It's on your tribes. - Yeah, yeah, it's coming out for an ex-glauge. - But it's gonna be on Xbox One of our kids. So it's gonna be for babies. - Who makes it? Who's making it? Do you know? - High-res studios, the same people that do a global agenda. And they're also working on supposedly tribes universe, which I guess is a tribes MMO or something like that. Haven't seen any details on that either. So who knows, it could totally suck. It's just like anything that comes that's just like, you know, 'cause we have like that one on instant action, fallen empire legions, that's like trying to be spiritual successor to tribes, yeah. But I don't want the spiritual successor. I want fucking tribes. I want tribes updated to, you know, modern systems and modern consoles. So like anybody who's trying to make that effort, I applaud you. Do not fail me, but I applaud you. - So real quick, because we talked about MMOs and that's the shit that, you know, definitely makes Arthur want to kill, rip his eyeballs, before we get off that train. - Let's go talk about iPhone games. - Well, I just want to give one shout out to one iPhone game. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna say what it is. I'm just gonna say its name. - You should play it. - It is called Hot Springs Story. That's all from the makers of Game Dev Story. - I started playing it, I can't get into it the way I did Game Dev Story anyway. - It's awesome. Are there where you've been playing? - Let's see, well, I can't really say much more about crisis like I had a preview go up this week. - You can expect this to talk about crisis at length next week. - Next week, yeah. - At least one of the versions. Anyway, I played through and finished Home Front against my better judgment over the weekend. - I also played through it. - Dude, was it so awesome? - I'm of the opinion, as I told you at dinner, that Home Front is poop from a butt. Whereas I thought Home Front was okay. - Eh. - Was it worth a Korean taco? - No. - I so wanted Home Front to be really great. Like it's, I don't know, I really want-- - I don't think it's definitely not great, but I thought it was, I did not regret playing through it. And if you can get a copy of her PC cheap and people are playing the multiplayer, it might actually be worth it 'cause it's, those guys were multiplayer modders to start and their multiplayer's still good. It's obviously a take on Battlefield. - Unfortunately, right now, their multiplayer is being completely dominated by snipers and they have nothing in place to stop it. - Oopsie. - Which is sort of what happened to Metal of Honor. - Which is also, which is also what I think kind of happened to Frontline's Fuel War, their last game, was that people just abused snipers. - Which I think comes from their battlefield modding, right? That's Battlefield 2? Yeah. - It's too easy to be used. - Big wide open spaces with fucking snipers. - In other worlds, yeah. - Especially when you're on a PC, sniping is so easy on PC. - Yeah. - Well, I know Arthur that, that they were really trying to push the single player too. - The single player, first of all, is about four hours, maybe. - It took me about five, but yeah. It's not very long. - Is it? - It's hideous, first of all. - Graphically. - I think it looks like an Xbox game, Anthony thinks I'm exaggerating. - I don't think it looks quite that bad, but it's definitely like, if you are not looking at the character models of like the three people you're rolling with at any given time, it's obvious that they're like, we have resources for them and no one else. - Man, I picked up the three character models you're on with all the time, look terrible too. - Oh, but I'm saying, compared to everyone else, like they put more detail into them than everyone else. - So you're saying it actually does look like a mod. - It doesn't look particularly, it doesn't look good. - That's too bad. - I mean, there are times when it runs, the resolution feels really low. Like it's definitely way sub-HD to the point where there are things in the environment that remind me of like Half-Life 2 running in software mode. - Oh, wow. - Half-Life and software mode. Did you ever play Half-Life? - Oh yeah, I played Half-Life in software mode. I didn't have a 3D video card. - Work way too, in software mode. - Yeah. - That's crazy. - Like there are points where lighting effects, like it was just like a square, like a discolored square that would shift whenever I went over a certain thing and. - Did you play it on PC at all? - I did play a little bit on PC. - The 360 version are a fucking train wreck. The PC version was done by digital extremes, not chaos. - Well, ported. - No, like it branched off and they used assets from chaos and basically like, oh, this is what you want us to do. - Right, but I'm saying it's the same story and everything, it is still a game. - It's the same game, but it's a different engine or something. - It's the same engine, it's just actually running. It's not running very well. - I'll say that, it doesn't run near as well as it should. - But performance and stuff and graphics, like I never thought they looked good, but I still thought now granted I did not pay for this, right? But having gotten a copy and just borrowed it and played it for a little bit, I still enjoyed myself overall having played through it. 'Cause it was short enough that it wasn't like mine. Well, that was what I said. - So if you do have a game fly, maybe it's a game fly? - Yeah, totally, I would game fly. - I think there's so many other high profile shooters and big games that I'm not sure. - Sure, but when you're looking for something in your downtime at one point, like, maybe you don't want to play Bulletstorm again. - I just don't understand how down your time would need to be to justify playing this game. - It's coming out so close to crisis too. - Right, and they both deal in abstract with sort of-- - Do I see invasions? - I don't know, when would you recommend-- - They take place within three years of each other? - When would you recommend someone play Medal of Honor or something? 'Cause to me, like, I feel like in my mind-- - I think Medal of Honor was a better game than Homefront. - I just feel like they're both like six range games to me. Like, at some point, playing, I don't know. - I just think that Medal of Honor is much more successful doing what it wants to do, which is to say it's not especially successful. - One thing that annoyed me-- - And it's not successful. - One thing that annoyed me that I thought the chaos should have really pursued more was in front lines, you know that one of their big shticks was they were messing with drones a lot and stuff. And in this game, they have one drone that use at one point and they don't really explore it beyond that. - No, yeah, bummer. - And I thought that was such a cool aspect because it's obviously going to be such a big part of future warfare. - Yeah, totally. Oh, well. - Yeah, I mean, he's the only one that has an arc. Like, there's a character arc to go on. - That you care about. - That you care about. There's no one else. Like, everyone else is the thinnest of Paper Quiches with very thinly veiled pot shots and things like the UN and Panko liberals and stuff like that. And it's just, it's a survival. - I don't mind it. - It's like a militia members, like wet dream. - Yeah, yeah, I didn't pick up on any of the stuff that were like pot shots at liberal people or anything to me. - We're citizens and soldiers. And here is a $25,000 rifle that I'm going to pick up with an ACOG scope and just go to town. - Yeah, there's citizens and soldiers, but I mean, there was a little bit of things 'cause it's the type of dialect you would expect from a resistance movement fighting in a country that is occupied. To me, that's what I got from it. - Yeah, I just, like they try to market it that it has a really strong story and a very well-developed story. - It would have been a lot more interesting how they stuck with their original idea, which was that it was going to be occupied by China. Again, it was always meant to be about China and then they changed it because people got cold feet about offending people. - Whatever, dude. - So it's okay if Koreans are pissed off, trying to find North Korea, no one likes them. - Well, I mean, it's South Korea, too, because North and South Korea unify and South Korea is socially swallowed up. - But that's how they get to sell it is that it really is just the face of North Korea, Kim Jong-un's son. - Right, right, right, right. - So yeah, I just, I just didn't like it. - So not only is it a bad game, but they didn't have any balls either. - Well, I got, the story I heard was that it was more THQ, told them that it could not be about China. - Really? - That's bullshit. I mean, I guess THQ was trying to get permission to run a company of heroes online in China. - So, yeah, well, and I think initially when the game came out to investors that it was about China, there was something said to them like that's not, like by Chinese people that was like, that's not fucking cool. So you're like basically not helping tensions by doing something, by making a game like this or something. - Since when does art have the responsibility to not have attention? - Not to mention, it's just so plausible, right? The people's liberation army is the biggest force in the world, like closest to a navy that could rival America's. They're working on stealth fighters. They're like the only country that really could pose a threat to us at this point. Like a serious threat, so. - And it makes for good fiction. - Yeah, I mean, what I will say is it made me appreciate little things like, it's obviously going to be a lower budget game, but what's their faces, what's a company that makes dirt? Sorry, why am I spacing on this? - Codemasters. - Codemasters, Codemasters. - The next Operation Flashpoint, which I played again recently, which I will say is actually shaving up to be pretty fucking fun. - Now that it's for babies. - Now that they've scaled it back, yeah. Like you can still get hurt, but there's no like finite amount of bandages. - I think you can turn that stuff on though. - Yes, you can, but the whole game is for player co-op. That's a game I played recently that I was like, you know. - Nice. - If I can get this for cheap, I might actually like buy this and play through with four friends because it kind of has that whole like kind of appeal that Rainbow Six had where you're playing through like kind of a hardcore game with friends. But that game is about Americans fighting China. You know, they're just like, fuck it, this is what makes the most sense to us. - Right. - And you know, I guess since it's Codemasters, people don't freak out as much. And it's a game like who else has heard about that, right? - Right, yeah, exactly. - So it's not on every bus stop in San Francisco. - Exactly. - Yeah, I don't know, I'll be surprised to see Home Front do well, long term, like this month maybe it'll sell well, but then again, fuck man, THQ has poured so much money into that game. - Yeah. - Like tens of millions in marketing and 30 to $50 million development budget. - Wow. - That's huge. - That's a... - I didn't realize the development budget was coming. - I think that's close to Killzone 2's budget. - I know, but that's what I'm saying to, I wonder how much that comes from studio overhead of them being in New York. Maybe that's why they're basically doing that rumored ultimatum of like move to Montreal. - It's not rumored. I mean, Danny Bilson said publicly that they need to sell two to three million copies to justify that studio. - Well, right, but it was also the rumor that all the chaos guys were kind of told you need to move to Montreal. - Right. - And we're not going to keep you in New York. - I don't see why not. I mean... - I don't need the Canada. - I don't understand why they need to keep this. This is gonna sound bad. I'm sure that there are lots of really nice people that worked on it that have a lot of talent, but this game is so incompetent they put together that I don't. - To me, I just don't get away with it. - And what's the second in a row? - Why you would ever wanna have a studio in New York City? Like, I know that, like, I don't mean to shit on the people that live there and love it, but it's just like, man, like of all the places you could try and buy an office and pay people to living wages, like competitive wages, like Jesus. - I mean, if they were putting together, if it was dice in New York, I'd get it. You know, if it was Infinity Ward in New York or Bungie in New York, I would get it. But this is a studio that made their name doing mod for a game, and it put out two retail games, both of which have reviewed fairly poorly, all things considered. - It's like, you know, it's just like a epic. There's a reason they're in North Carolina. It's cheap. - Yeah, but they're in North Carolina 'cause that's where those people live. - I was gonna say. - But that's what I'm saying. But the reason those people live there is, and the reason they can get talent to move out there is it's like, well, I mean, they started and they started to have a home. - Yeah, they started there. They didn't, though. They started there, and then they became epic, and then it became-- - Just like Bethesda being in-- - Well, I guess it's, I guess more in the case, it's like Insomniac. Insomniac moved up into the studio in North Carolina for the reason-- - There you go, yeah, to poach people. - We also, you all saw the situation where just right across the border, you know, the Canadian government, you know, gives pretty good tax incentives to-- - Huge tax breaks. - It's more true, you know. - Just right across the border from New York. - I mean, it's not right. - No, it's not right. - It's super close to Boston, actually. It's like, it's the North. - It's not, but I'm just saying, like, there's a lot of incentives in Canada, you know, for tax breaks reasons and these things. - That's right, that's why-- - I mean, there are just millions of other places that are cheaper, whether it's Seattle, or even probably, it's probably cheaper to have a studio in Los Angeles than it is that one in New York City. - Yeah, so, but Canada is one of the few, it's, well, it's definitely the only government in North America that's come out in support of the video games industry as a major growth initiative for the country. - Yeah, they're pretty aggressive about it. - Yeah. - But they want game talent in their country. - Yeah. - That says something. - Yeah, and, you know, because they realized they're like, all right, well, Hollywood will probably forever have the lockdown on movies, you know, unless some of the rising Asian tigers overtake it. But video games, we can still own video games and they're doing a great job at it. And, you know, it's a company that moves to Canada, saves money. Like, they pay higher income taxes and stuff, but the healthcare and everything, like, none of that is a concern anymore. - That's the thing, and it's just like, even on what I imagine, even if they're paying them, like, really well. At the studio in New York, there's no way they can afford a home. - Right. - That's the thing I've heard all the people I've ever heard that talked about opening studios and, like, places where you're like, why would you do that? It always comes down to the fact, like, volition is in Champaign, Illinois. But the reason they've stayed in Champaign, Illinois, besides the fact that that's where they started, even the reason those guys started there, though, was, oh, if we sell a game that sells relatively well, I can have a fucking home, you know? (laughing) Anyways. - So that's that. - That's not good. - That's too bad. - In my opinion. (laughing) - No, I thought you were saying something completely objectively. - I didn't review it. This is all my opinion. These are not the opinions of, et cetera, et cetera. (laughing) - Yeah, I just think it's kind of mediocre. - Yeah. - I don't think shooters can really be mediocre anymore, I think that-- - Not anymore. - We are way too late in this console cycle for there to be any excuse for a shooter to be anything other than good to great. - Yep. - I would agree. That sounds cold, but-- - I'm just saying-- - No, I mean, if you want to be, well, especially if you're talking about like we've been saying, a studio the size of chaos, you know? - I'm just saying, I thought it was me. I'm not saying, I just didn't think it was a bad game number. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like I've talked to other reviewers like at other sites and like, this is the year that people are not, they have taken the kick gloves off with shooters. - Sure, again, I'm not saying that that isn't true that comfortably there's all kinds of things that you could be playing instead, but I'm saying as that game as a product, I just don't think it's bad. - I hear you. I hear you both, actually. I listen, I'm a listener. - Shut up, Matt. - I can't hear you. - You've been kind of crisis lately, so-- - It has been, I mean, last week there was a lot of crisis and this, over the weekend it was home front and this week I haven't really had time to play any games. - Well, we have only had a couple of days and yeah, if you weren't playing games or work, you weren't playing games. - Like I love to play Shogun and maybe I'll have a chance for the weekend. - Yeah, I'm waiting to play that, too. - It's actually on our Steam press accounts, but it's not listed in your library. - Oh, weird. - Which is weird. - Okay. - Just go to the-- - You can probably expect crisis two in Shogun Talk next week. - Yeah. - It would be, I guess. - There will be quite a bit of crisis two talk next week. - All right, so we're gonna take a break so I can go to the bathroom. - Yeah, that's probably a good idea. (upbeat music) ♪ Yeah, it's when it has been two years ♪ ♪ When you're not thinking that was ♪ ♪ When you're not asking to listen ♪ ♪ When you can't call your words ♪ ♪ When you're not thinking that's actions ♪ ♪ When you're not thinking that you're gone ♪ ♪ It's 29 and 29 ♪ (upbeat music) - The first letter is from RJ and he writes in and says, "I was wondering what your personal definition "of an MMO is. "I'm not really limiting it to RPGs either. "For example, MAG can have 200-- - Because then that would be an MMORPG. - Well, he's saying, so for example, MAG can have 256 players in one match. They may be separated into smaller battles "but are still working towards an overall victory. "Do you define MMO by a number of concurrent players "in the space or is it more of a question "of how much interaction you have with other players? "Would you still consider games like Guild Wars "with their large social hubs "but smaller instant content MMOs?" - Yes, well for me, MMO means persistent world. - That's what it means to me. That's why I don't really think, I mean, I know MAG wants to be considered an MMO, but I don't even think of MAG as an MMO. It has the battles of who gets contracts, but I just think of that as a shooter with some sort of persistence. It's like, I don't know, it's just-- - Yeah, and it's like you really, even like, yeah, it has that many players in it, but there's hardly ever an instance where you see more than 10 to 15 players at a time. - I almost feel like to be an MMO in my mind whether or not this is right, it needs to have a world that you can just sit in when things aren't going on. - A hub world, right. I mean, this is essentially what the question gets down to. It's like, what are the distilled points of an MMO? And I think that's something that's very crucial is that shooters, although we do have this persistent leveling up, we haven't yet bridged the gap to having a persistent world. - Yeah, oh, that's hard to imagine, right? Like running around with a camera with a gun sticking out, being like, "Hey Tyler." - Hey, what's up, man? (laughing) Oh, I mean, people have tried, like, I actually played PlanetSide for a little while. - I'm like, Huxley. - Yeah. I never played Huxley. - Oh, fuck, I forgot that, I never forgot that I existed, yeah. - Yeah, I mean, you know, others, yeah, they mean they have tried, you know. - You so did everybody. - Oh, you know, one interesting one that's coming out soon is a firefall, a free to play MMO. That's someone with jetpacks and shit. - Oh, I heard about that, yeah, yeah. - It looks really good. - Yeah, somebody who sent me-- - Somebody who sent me-- - Takes on MMOs coming out. There's also this one called Terra, and Terra is like one where it's really pretty and it's all action and it's all skill-based. So it's like when you're fighting a boss, it's like God of War, where it'll do like things to telegraphics moves and you have to actually do a dodge to roll out of the way. It's not just like numbers crunching the whole time, you know? - Right. - You will not attack unless you're in range or your attack is however long your staff is, so you need to actually get in there and beat on it like Devil May Cry style and dodge away. That seems potentially really cool. - That's always been interesting to me too, because I mean, part of the reason why nobody ever makes games like that generally is because they don't want to take the risk of it being inaccessible to all the people that like, oh wow, it's accessible too. Part of the reason why wow is accessible is because the combat is right-click and then make sure you move your character around and press all the right buttons at the right time, you know, like there isn't any action quotable. - Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems like if you're going to make more of an action oriented game, you need to be able to support your game with a far smaller player base. - Yeah, exactly. - Because you're right, you immediately rule people out. - Right, but I'm glad to hear that people are taking those kind of chances. I want to see it and I want it to be good. - But the answer is question. I guess I don't really know. - Yeah, for me, the persistence is, the persistent world is the big key and like it's kind of stupid to say even persistent world. It's more like static world 'cause the world almost never changes. I mean like-- - Right, I guess that's the thing is like, there may be a persistent sort of scoreboard in something like Mag that he mentions. - Yeah. - But there isn't a world you get to go into. The only time you're in the world is when you're doing these battles. - And you go from one map to another, it's not like contiguous, you know? - Exactly, I'm not, once the battle's over, I'm not getting into APC, riding that APC to like our base and waiting to the next deployment. - Right, right. - My character isn't always there. Plus I'm not even one guy the whole time. I'm like a soldier dying over and over. - Yeah, it has to feel like you are an avatar in a world, I think. - I think so too. - That's a little amorphous, but-- - Even if it doesn't have RPG elements, it still feels like you need to have that part. Well, I guess in some play, you need a role to play and it needs to be a role that you are all the time. - Yeah, yeah, definitely, there you go. - The next letters from someone that writes in calling themselves Boris because they're using no real names in here to protect the innocent. (laughing) He says, "I have a situation--" - You're the guilty. - "I have a situation between three friends of mine "that I would like to hear thoughts on two of the friends. "We'll call them Aaron and Randy. "I've known for 15 years now, and I've known them in person. "While the other one, we'll call her Ashley. "I just met last October, only known her "through the internet and phone calls. "Randy left for the army at the start of last year "and was beginning a relationship with Ashley. "However--" - Arthur shaking his head no. - "Between August and October, he returned on sick leave, "met someone else, got engaged, married, "got her pregnant, and is now living with her in Texas, "all while still leading Ashley on. "As if she was the one he would marry and live happily." - She was crazy. Through a series of irrelevant events I won't bring up here, Aaron and I stopped talking with Randy. Both of us then became good friends with Ashley after finding out about the terrible things he did to her. Now jump ahead to present day where Randy just contacted me wanting to hear how things were going and make amends. Aaron and I would love to get in contact with him in person since they've been friends with him for 15 years and fix what happened between us, even if it means never forgiving him for what he did to Ashley. However, now Ashley is telling us that she doesn't feel we can be friends with either of us if we start speaking with Randy. - Bullshit. - No, I think that that makes sense. - No, well, I don't think you don't get to tell other people who they can and can't be friends with. - I don't think she's trying to tell them anything. I think that she's saying that she doesn't want to be friends with them if they're friends with him. - That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that like you as a person, telling another person that they can't be friends with somebody that you don't like is bullshit on you. - But it doesn't sound like that's what she's doing. - She's saying. - That's exactly what she's doing. She's saying you can't be friends with Randy and still be friends with me. - She says, well, she says, according to this letter, she doesn't feel she can be friends with either of us if we are able to forgive Randy, begin speaking to him again. But basically he's just like, should I never speak to Randy again to preserve my friendship with Ashley? Or should I be correct in feeling like Ashley isn't worth being friends with if she thinks she can tell Erin and I who to be friends with. - You know, it's like it-- - I'm just curious. - I'm not saying that it's what Randy did is right, and I'm not even saying you should forgive him, but I'm saying if you do choose to forgive him, then Ashley doesn't have the right to tell you who your friends are. - What I can say is maybe if you're never even friends able to be friends with Randy, I think forgiveness in general is something everyone can stand to practice more. - I think so too, and like forgiveness. - I'm not saying forgiveness means you have to be friends with Randy again, maybe you'll never be able to be friends with Randy again. - Yeah, exactly. - But it's not good hating someone for forever. - No, it's not. - Forgiveness, there's nothing wrong with forgiveness being one-sided. - I just wonder how much they let motion get in the way and they're not like looking at it. Like, you know, this girl, like, okay, like, you know, whatever, go see this guy, go see him on a weekend, but you know, he lives in a different state. It's not like they're gonna be hanging out every weekend, you know, it's like-- - You've been friends with Randy for 15 years, man. - Yeah, I mean, you know, it's so far, you know, just gonna say, hey, what's up? It's not like we're weakly going to work out. - I'm kind of curious how old everyone was this too. - Yeah, oh, I know, right, yeah. And I've been in the situation-- - It sounds like they're young. Do they say where they're from? - He didn't. I've been in the situation where I had a friend tell me that if I hung out with his other friend, then he couldn't hang out with me while we were hanging out together. You know, like he took the higher road. He said, like, I can understand if you still want to be friends with, let's just, I don't know, let's call him Standy. - Yeah, he's Randy. I understand if you still want to be friends with Randy, but if you're hanging out with Randy, I cannot hang out with you at the same time because I don't want to be friends with Randy anymore. - Sure, I mean, I had an ex-girlfriend in college that my friends were friends with, and they would all hang out, and they just didn't hang out with me at the same time. It sucked, but you know, whatever. - Whatever, I mean, forcing you to choose and putting you in the middle is like two parents that are getting divorced and using the kids against each other. It's bullshit, and it's selfish, and you shouldn't put up with it. - Well, there you've heard some opinions. - Yeah. - Opinions, Randy. - I think that she's totally justified in saying she can't be friends with them if they want to be friends with her. - Just take all this into consideration, Randy. - I find him emuls-- - Horace, that's what he called himself. - I find it childish and emotionally weak. I totally disagree. - Same, well, there you have-- - Get a bag? - I think that she was-- Not only did he lead her on, he knocked up another chick and married her. - Yes, but that has nothing to do with these guys. They didn't do anything at all. - No, it does, because if you're friends with someone and you decide that you can forgive someone who royally fucked that person over, even though you know that that person still isn't over it, I think that speaks to how much you value your friendship with that person. - No, it doesn't. - I agree-- - Not at all, not at all. - I agree, disagree completely. - Yeah, wow, you're a very vindictive person. - I'm not a very vindictive person, but I certainly can hold grudges. - That's, well, okay. - So the next-- - So there's some contrasting opinions for you. - There's next letters from Frank, who's from Melbourne, Australia. I only mention that because he put it as like his signature. So I don't know, maybe he's very proud. He says, "As a hardcore PC gamer, my most anticipated game "for 2011 would have to be Witcher 2 in May." And he says, "Since I haven't heard you guys mentioned "the game at all in the podcast, "I was wondering what your thoughts are. "Are you guys excited or has it slipped off your radar "completely?" - I'm looking forward to it. It sort of slipped off my radar. - It slipped off my radar, but-- - Yeah, but when it comes out, I'm sure I'll play it. - I mean, the people I know in the office now granted, it's one of those games I'm ashamed I never played. I never played the first-- - Yeah, I mean-- - Always heard cool things about it. - You never got around to it. - Exactly. - But everyone I know that has played the first Witcher that's checked out too, said that they've definitely done a lot of improvements, which includes making the game far less sexist than the first one was. (laughing) - I remember-- - The first one, the first one infamously had the whole-- - That's right. - Collecting cards when you bang someone. - That's right, yeah. - Like you'd get like a trophy for it, basically. And it had like a lot of ridiculous breast things. - They really think that this is gonna be worse. - They've specifically said like, "Oh, a lot of people didn't like that." 'Cause well, I remember when the game was out, like that sort of became more of a thing than the actual game itself. - Oh, of course it was something that-- - Right, yeah. - That was controversial, but the actual game I've heard is pretty cool, so yeah. I don't know, you know, I'm curious how it'll be. I'm hopefully it's not as buggy as the first one-- - Yeah, I actually-- - Because I always heard a lot of problems with bugs in the first one. - Yeah, I heard there's problems with bugs, and I actually forgot about the sexist thing. Like I remember hearing about it back in the day now, I wonder if that's why I never played it. I don't have a clear enough memory though. I'm getting old and senile. - So, okay, it's good that he started out with a little bit of saying, "You can mangle my name, or just call me William." (laughing) His name looks like it's Guillaume, but-- - Okay, spell it. - G-U-I-L-L-G-U-I-L-A-U-M-E. - Guillaume. - Guillaume. - I think-- - Guillaume, Guillaume. - Who knows? - Well, William, oh, so this was the letter where he was talking about what he thought actually, our problem was with sound and Killzone 3. And he said, "Fairly sure, the issue Tyler and company "have with Killzone 3 sound is the fact "that it probably uses, I'm gonna fucking read his text speak, "DTS colon Neo6 codec, and that their receiver "cannot to code it, whereas Arthur's can. "I haven't played Killzone 3, but I recall "infamous and resistance, too, both use that codec. "When I played these games on my old receiver "that didn't support DTS Neo6, I had no music at all "in infamous, and some sound effects were garbled, "for example, these issues went away "when I upgraded my receiver." - I didn't have any problems with infamous or resistance. - I have no idea how to do this. - Charted has like a thing in its menu that lets you designate what soundtrack you wanna use. Maybe go into your PS3 settings and see if DTS Neo is checked, and if it is, uncheck it. - Yeah, I don't know. - I mean, my receiver contains literally everything. - So, me, it's not missing audio. It's just like, you know, audio that seems right but he's saying an infamous yet garbled sounds and stuff. - Yeah, there's all kinds of weird stuff that can pop up if you have like. - So, just for Neo, like idiots like me, like what exactly is a codec does what exactly? Like when it comes to sound. - So, you know, this may be totally wrong and Arthur can probably correct me. - Yeah, I'm actually kind of looking. - Let's just go straight to Arthur. What do you know? - What's a codec? - What's a codec? - What's a codec, exactly, do you know? - A codec. - A codec. - I know what a video codec is but I don't know anything about audio. - I mean, that's the same thing. It's just a method of encoding and often compressing an audio file. - So, basically, the codec interprets the files to make the sounds appear? - Yes. - It's a series of ones and zeros. - Okay. - So, if it works like a video codec, then DTS and Dolby are just different ways of compressing and DTS is less compressed than Dolby Digital. - Okay. - DTS Neo is, I think it's simulated 6.1, like it. - Neo6. - It makes up, it basically interpolates an additional channel. - Oh, interesting. - Whereas DTS is a five channel. - DTS ES, I think, is discrete, which means that there are six distinct audio channels in addition to the subwoofer. - Oh, okay. - The PS3 can output pretty much every HD audio format, whether in game or movie. Although, for anything above DTS ES or Dolby Digital Plus, it outputs in something called PCM instead of a... It does what's called bit streaming, so it just outputs a PCM signal to your receiver, which either can or can't read it. The slims actually are a little more advanced than the original PS3s with the audio code XL output. So if you're a hardcore home theater person, a slim would be the PS3 you'd want. - Wow, cool. - The next letters from David from Seattle. - Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. - He says, I was talking with a friend the other day about our favorite Zelda games, and we ended up talking about whether the visuals in Wind Waker or the visuals in Twilight Princess would hold up better. My friend insisted that Twilight Princess was a visually superior game because of its more realistic aesthetic. I went with Wind Waker because of its simple but incredibly beautiful look. Going back to Twilight Princess now, I just see cruddy textures and ugly polygons. Whereas Wind Waker still looks awesome even though it's outdated. This brings to me to my question, what games do you feel still look great despite being outdated or technically inferior? I immediately thought of Earthworm Jim and Super Mario Sunshine, but what qualities do you think a game will need? I guess to still look great in five to 10 years later. - There are certain games, I mean there are very few games I think that hold up to where you look back and you're like, certain games like Outcast is a game that doesn't look good, but it's at least acceptable to my eyeballs when I look back. But like other ones, like hand-drawn ones, like I still think a lot of the LucasArts hand-drawn old adventure games still look pretty. - They look pretty cool. - The ones done in the Scum Engine. - Yeah, I know you mean, yeah. But yeah, I feel like a lot of hand-drawn art is timeless because it's hand-drawn art. - But then there's games like the original Deus Ex totally doesn't hold up, it looks fucking terrible. And it's because that's as realistic as you could. - I feel like realistic aesthetic is where you fail. - But Deus Ex had just terrible art design. - That's true, it did all around. But like, that being said, like a realistic game, I've gone back and played the original, well not the original. Thief 2, it was just after I bought my put together my new PC, so it was like just over two years ago. And I was still like, this is still fun, this still holds up even though I had saw a super low polygon in everything. - I mean, maybe it's just me being an idiot thinking like, 'cause I'm living in the time that I'm living right now, but I feel like a lot of the games we have now will hold up better than games 10 years ago. - I think they will. - They are high in a polygon account. - I think so too. - They're closer. - Because of stylizing and all that. - When you look at something like characters in Left 4 Dead 2, they're heads around. Whereas when you go to look at something like Deus Ex, they're heads were like blocks with textures slapped onto them. - Again, I think it comes down to art design. Like a lot of the best looking games that are out right now are just have really aggressive art design and assets that are created in such a way that they'll look good and sort of defying the limitations of the hardware that they're on. - In that vein then, what do you think are some games that you've kind of played that you think 10 years from now, you'll be like, you know, that's not gonna look utterly like shit. - I think Killzone 2 is gonna stand up. I think Killzone 2 looks, first of all, looks better than Killzone 3, and we'll stand up to time better than Killzone 3 well. - I think Dead Space holds up. Dead Space holds up pretty well. I do think that Dead Space is gonna look aged faster than people think it will. 'Cause I bet Flash is gonna get really good. - Yeah, and the aliasing and stuff like that, it's very shiny, I think. - I think games like Gears of War look really dangerous. - Gears of War and Gears of War 3 though. - Like the entire Gears of War series, I think we'll continue to hold up relatively well just because it's a very clear design aesthetic. - I think a lot of other Unreal Engine 3 games that won't, like a lot of the ones when people first were using Unreal and everything was like shiny plastic. - Some things about Halo 3 will continue to look good, like the lighting model in Halo 3 is so advanced that the particles and stuff that are going on will always look good, but already the character models already look really dated. - True. - Yeah. - But I think the impulse towards stylized games holding up longer term is the right one. I mean, those will hold up longer better. - Art ones will-- - Portal and Team Fortress 2 are games that'll continue to look good. Half-Life 2 to a lesser degree, I think. - I mean, to me, the ones that come to mind are the really easy ones, like Miramasa, will still look good in 10 years. - Yeah, yeah. - Again, it's the drawn, painted game. - That you brought up Miramasa is a game that I would bring up that is actually a really old game and they're coming up with a brand new version and it still looks great today. It is out of this world, or some people know it as another world. They're actually coming up with the Xbox Live Arcade version, the full HD, and I think what, the reason why that game still looks great today is 'cause it uses a lot of those clean vector graphics of a, and it's not trying to do a lot of textures and sort of things, and everything is uniquely hand touched. - And things like Beyond Good and Evil, just for something that people can see more recently, I mean, that game is like over five years old and I still, I don't think that game looks amazing, but I think it holds up a lot better than a lot of other PS2 are games, even with an eight-year-olds-- - Comic style. - Just because exactly the cool, just the way they drew their characters and stuff was kinda cool. - Yeah, definitely. Like, that's, you know, one of the reason why people, why the old fighting game gurus still play old street fighters and Marvel versus combat and stuff like that, is 'cause the art style actually does still hold up. - Dark Ciders. - Dark Ciders. - I think Street Fighter 3 still holds up pretty well. The alpha games hold up. I don't think Street Fighter 1 doesn't hold up that well. - Yeah, Street Fighter 1 is pretty awful. - Three looks badass still though, the art and that. - Yeah, that's true. But, you know, to more expressly address the letter, Wind Waker, definitely-- - Yeah, Wind Waker. Here's another game I'd like to bring up that Super-old that still looks, that, did you guys ever play Aladdin on the Genesis? - Yeah, that was actually a really cool looking game. - Smooth art, you know, it's like another-- - All the Disney games on Genesis look amazing still. - And in that vein, you know what game would hold up really well? I know a lot of people don't like it as much as I did, but Mark of Cree has really great art style. Mark of Cree would tell you that. - Yeah, yeah, that had a Disney style, like a later Disney style. - Maybe some arcade games will hold up pretty well too, like, certain ones like the Ma and stuff like that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Again, because they have like this really cool, or Castle Crashers will still look great 10 years now. - Well, in some games, in some games hold up just because they fit the aesthetic of the era, like the original Rez will always hold up because it's like, it's inside a computer, and it's, you know, inside of a computer, like when it was made, and so it all fits. And like, I could still see, if I walked into an arcade today and there was a virtual on machine, I would probably think that virtual on still holds up for what it was, you know? - Oh man, I think that you would be very disappointed. - I don't know. I really liked the whole-- - Oh, you remember what virtual on is? - I don't know where those games. - The model two, graphics just do not hold up. - Really? - They really, really don't. - So we only have one more letter, because, like you guys said, you guys, well, no, I mean, I went through it. I actually went through and got all the reason letters, and you guys went through a shit ton, and stuff. These are pretty much all the letters that you have from last week. So this last one is from Scott, and everyone just decided to tell us where they live this time around. He says, "I am 25, and I live in Idaho." - Shit, Idaho represent. - Not the scary part, Matt is from, just Boise. - I'm not from this. - Okay, so this is not the letter we read last week. - He says-- - I'm not from Northern Idaho. - He says, "I am also gay, came out of 19 if that matters." - Oh, that's rough. - So you can probably imagine that puts me in a bit of a tough situation meeting people. The normal situations don't really work for me. I can't go to bars because my people have bars that I can only describe as terrifying. Also, online is an option as every major dating site just has the same five people on them. They all want a quick hookup, which isn't for me either. - That's sort of a gay, he's a gay male, right? - Yeah. - I have trouble in large groups, social situations, as I was very shy when I was younger, and I have no idea how to talk to people. - Work retail. - My friends try, yeah. My friends try to help me get out of the house, but it is difficult for me to do, so as I am just not sure how to act. Most guys like me are only interested in hooking up, which makes the few situations where I do talk to someone in to disappointment. That and being a gamer means I have very little in common with others like me. I like the joke that I am the worst gay guy ever. I know you probably can't help me, but do you have any advice? A mixture of my location, my orientation, and my own unwillingness to become part of the stereotype of love me feeling very trapped. And he said, "Please note, relocating is not really an option." - Yeah, I was gonna say, other than moving, which obviously you can't. Boise has a university and-- - Yeah, wasn't it? - And any university is going to have a gay and lesbian alliance organization. - Is Boise, it's a city. - It's a city. - Yeah, yeah, it's not as big as Idaho Falls, but it's a good-sized city. And it's, I mean, I wouldn't, it's not huge or anything, and I'm sure his options are way more limited than they would be maybe even in Idaho Falls. But I mean, there is gonna be stuff in and around campus that you could get involved with. And you know, it's the kind of, maybe he's too shy to get involved with any organizations. I mean, like really the only thing you can do is like try to get over your shyness. - That's the, if you're not willing to relocate. - Yeah, if you're not willing to relocate, you gotta get over your shyness. Like Arthur said, work retail. When your friends ask you to go out, go out with them. Even if you're uncomfortable, keep going out with them until you're comfortable. - Drink until you're comfortable. (laughing) Don't do that, don't do that. - No, don't do that. - Drink until you can't feel feelings. - As the people in A.K.A. often say, "fake it till you make it." - Yeah, exactly. - So, you know, I don't know, like I have kind of like a, I don't know, I guess a stereotypical question would be, you know, you often hear like gay guys can befriend women real easily. You know, I don't know if that might be a good way to meet other guys, like, you know, girls who have other guy friends that are gay. - I don't know either. - You know? - I just don't know, I don't know enough about being gay when it comes down to it. - And especially about being gay in Idaho. - Right, yeah, I think that makes the difficult. - But I do know a lot about being shy, especially when I was younger. - Sure. - Like, you gotta get over that, that's gonna be your biggest wing block all along. - That's what makes me think about the friend angle. - Yeah, exactly. - Going through the friend route. So, try to, that's what I'm thinking, is maybe try to find girlfriends who can introduce you to guys, I don't know. - Girl space friends. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Girl space friends. - Yeah, space friends. - Women, yeah. - Find space friends. - Find space friends. - I want space friends. Everybody wants space friends. I wanna be in space and have friends. - Yeah, jazz. - But when we're friends in space. - What I will say though, is that the reason he said he didn't wanna relocate, he has a really stable job. Ultimately, what I will say though, is if you wanna have a greater chance of meeting people, relocating right now, be a terrible, I know it seems like it's a foreignated, but a stable job there might always be a better job someplace else where you might also be in an area where you might be more readily accepted and feel happier with your work. - Yeah, but it sounds like, but he says he has friends and stuff there. It's not like he doesn't have a support system there. - Yeah, I guess it is. - I thought, yeah, first I thought you were gonna say, if you want a better chance at meeting people say, hi, my name is such and such, I have a stable job. (laughing) - Shit. - I'm not a psycho, obviously. - So you can send in your letters to us at letters@eat-sleep-game.com. Remember to follow us on Twitter. I'm Jeff Money. Matt is talking orange. Tyler is dirty tea, like the drink, and Arthur is A-E-G-I-E-S. And remember also that you can subscribe to us on iTunes. You should all go out and tell one of your friends about it somewhere. And more importantly-- - You can spread us like a virus. - More importantly, review us on iTunes. We like reviews. - Reviews are cool. - Yeah, that's it. Letters@eat-sleep-game.com. Send 'em there. Not to my personally, though. - Or mine, idiots. - Oh, yeah. Thank you all for joining us. - Remember Arthur Holt's pledges. - We'll see you. Yeah, so make sure you fucking listen next week. (laughing) We'll hate you forever. (laughing) Now I'm just kidding. We'll always love you. Goodbye. (upbeat music) ♪ My love, love is the ever-changing spectrum ♪ ♪ Of a lie, a lie, a lie too ♪ ♪ Hide behind another thing to write ♪ ♪ Is it for me, like a boy ♪ ♪ Can't you see I'm good ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Can't you see I'm so runnin' me down ♪ ♪ Can't you see I'm so high on you ♪ ♪ Can't you see I'm so runnin' me down ♪ ♪ Can't you see I'm so runnin' me down ♪ [MUSIC]