Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 72 - 08/13/10
We're tired and we have zero ideas, so after talking about Warhammer 40K: Space Marine and more Arc Rise Fantasia, we do a long letters segment and shuffle Anthony off to Germany. Canadian Penis.
This week's music, in order of appearance:
Nirvana - All Apologies
People in Planes - Falling By The Wayside
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Rebel of Them, episode 72. That's why we're all gathered here today. - Well done. - You remembered. - This is what happens when I post topics and/or post the show. I start to remember like in general where we are. This is the fuck the world edition. I'm your host, Anthony Gagos. With me are my co-hosts, Arthur Geese. Arthur say something. - I'm sorry, I was checking a work email. I suck. - Oh, I'm Arthur. - I'm gonna sit here and look for fun. - I don't really care about my podcast. - We're just, we're on the hook to schedule some, or to figure out what's gonna be a Pax. - Tyler Barber. - Whatever happened to predictability and Matt Shandane. - Hi. - And who knows it's gonna be a Pax. It's part of the great thing about going to Pax is just going and seeing what's there. - Do you wanna hear anything that Tyler has to say this episode after that full house reference? (laughing) - Is that what I didn't know? - The milk man, the paper boy. - The evening TV. - The evening TV. - You got me, yo. - Oh. - You miss your old familiar friends. - That's what was in the song. - Yeah. - What ever happened to predictability? (laughing) You know, man, the paper boy. I mean, that's the evening. - You used to get yourself a deeper hole. (laughing) - Well, well, what we had was fun. - See, this was us doing sound check for really high levels, and man, Tyler just capped that shit out right now. - Walk back off when I'm. - Well, what we're doing here is, we're probably having a shorter show. We didn't have a topic this week, but we are gonna have to talk about some games, and then we're gonna read a bunch of letters. - Yay. - Every time we say it's a shorter show, then the same one's over. - Because next week's right about in the air, because I'll be in Germany seeing all kinds of Germans. - We might be able to pull a show together next week. - Um, go Germans. - So, this week, I don't know how many games people have been playing. Me, it's all been archives. Fantasia's still. - Not ephemeral, Fantasia. - 25 hours in, wishing it was over. Not a terrible game. - It's just that, before you think you're in. - My appetite for games that long, they need to do something different. - Oh, so you mean like grinding by doing the same battle system over and over and over again, doesn't do it? - I do the same thing for over 20 hours in the game like Dawn of War. - Yeah. - And it doesn't bother me, 'cause it's so much more dynamic. The situations you get in with the combat. - Right. - JRPG, it's pretty much the same thing. - Right. - Like people look at my screen all the time, and they're like, "Are you playing?" And I'm like, "Yes, because I'm just fighting mobs." I just hit the-- - No, they look at your screen and ask if you're playing because you're standing from five feet away with your hands at your sides. And it looks like you're barely moving, doing anything. - I'm not watching because all we're-- - It's a we remote and an uncheck, so your arms are just literally at your sides, and they're just moving. It's like you're twitching. I just like you're in REM sleep. - I'll do that in that game when I'm fighting regular guys is just sit there and be like, "Yeah, do this as a group." - Yeah. - Just attack. That's all I want you guys to do, attack, auto attack. - Yeah. - Like it's-- - I can't imagine we have trouble with bosses sometimes. - It's like the effort that you would have to put into to make the combat more interesting isn't worth it because even if you put in the extra effort, it's not that much more interesting. - Right. - And then Arthur brings up the point of bosses, but bosses aren't tough because I don't know how to use the battle system because I do bosses are just tough until I go and grind to the appropriate level. Like I was having really hard trouble with this boss in the game today, and then I got went out and got two more levels and went back and fought 'em, and it was like, "Oh, did it first try." - Right. - Like it wasn't even an issue. - I just hate that shit, man. - It's, well, I mean, like there was a time where it was like, "Oh, okay, this is what I expect this kind of game to be like." - The golden air of the Jerpig. - Yeah, exactly. But now the Jerbals or whatever you call them are just like-- - They're so formulaic. They're all clones of one another, and it's not interesting anymore. - And so in this one, I haven't actually finished it so I'd review for IGN, and I am enjoying it. Like I don't hate it, actually. This is my first JRPG. - Yeah. - But-- - Even amongst people that play JRPGs, this one are guys-- - Yeah. - It's getting criticized for being like formulaic, even for a formulaic genre, right? - Right. - Right. - Very cliche. - And I mean, let's give JRPGs their due, though. I think the good thing about 'em is they can have that level of like non-play where you can kind of zone out, and I mean, that's sort of a good thing. - I definitely-- - But there has to be a little bit of-- - Talk on aim and shit while I'm playing this. - I don't know if they should put that on the back of the box. - Well, no, but-- - You can talk on aim for 23 hours of the 40 hour playtime. - But I would put Puzzle Quest in with that same description, and that's a great game. Yeah. - I wouldn't. - No way. - Puzzle Quest. - I turn off when I play that game. - It's not out, it's one thing, but man, I can't do anything but Puzzle Quest and on Puzzle Questing. - Yeah, like Puzzle Quest, I mean, the nice thing about it is that you can just take a turn whenever you wanna take a turn, but well, I guess you can, most JRPGs too, so what am I saying? - I mean, I guess-- - But like the whole three up match puzzle thing is dynamic to me because it's constantly changing. Like if I move these gems over, make this disappear. Can I get a combo? Can I set up a combo three moves? - Right, I'm not necessarily addressing like the battle system on this game. - So to be fair, like in this game, if I wanted to make the battles interesting in the sense that I wanted to sit there and plan out like, oh, this guy is the ability to do a special power right now, I'm gonna do that. - Right. - And this guy, 'cause you know, and the way it works in archives is that you have a set amount of action points for all four of your guys, and so each person draws upon that pool. So you could have one guy do everything and everyone else do nothing. You know, and I could sit there and be like, oh, I want so-and-so to cast the spell, but in general, with the exception of the boss fights, the rest of the guys don't require that to worry. You don't feel like you want to do it because it just makes it take longer. - Right. - And just to tell the computer-- - Just fucking level me up already. - Just level me up already. - Exactly, like this game really should just, like I know it would make for a really short game, but if it was just like a few mobs, and then a boss, and then some story. - Isn't that kind of how Final Fantasy 13 is? Like they've taken out a lot of the grinding, except for Grand Pulse or whatever. - I've only played like two hours of Final Fantasy 13, which is barely enough to get past the opening cutscene, so I can't comment. - I still have that in shrink wrap on my shelf. - Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know if I'm ever gonna finish that game. - I've attempted to open it, but I figure if I open it and play it and don't like it, I can't talk about it because, oh, that's another Japanese game that I didn't like where people are gonna write it and be upset at me. - Yeah, and I feel bad sometimes because I do have this sort of almost irrational dislike of JRPGs. Like I'm not willing to give them a fair shake, and that's a flaw on my part, but at the same time, like I can turn around and spend my $60 on a game that I just know I'm gonna like, as opposed to like every time I want to buy a JRPG, it's really a crapshoot for me. - I don't know that it's not fair. I mean, it's just, they've lost your trust. - I don't think this game's bad, and as far as JRPGs on the Wii, there aren't that many that are like, so this isn't a bad choice if all you have is a Wii. - Right, maybe now you could play a good one. - Yeah, although I don't know what that would be. - Chrono Trigger. - Oh, you mean go back, yeah, I could play something older. - And I'm still, I'm having a pretty good time with Dragon Quest 9 on my DS. - That's what everyone says. Everyone says that's a really good one, even though it is very classic and a lot of the things that it does. - Yeah, yeah. - I heard ruthlessly traditional. It is, but I think the fact that like, it's not so ruthlessly traditional in that like, you know, you walk two squares and you're into random battle, you can actually avoid the battles if you want to, which is kind of nice. And I found that like, the amount of grinding that I have to do really is very little. It's not the kind of thing where, oh, I'm gonna have to grind all of my jobs for all of my characters up to a level, or up to a level 100 in every weapons skill point or whatever, that stuff's there for the people that like it, but it's not forced on me like it is with other Japanese RPGs. Like, I don't really have to go super hardcore into the grind unless I want to. I do have to grind a little bit, just not a ton. - Right. - Additionally, besides Arkrise, I've been playing the original Starcraft. That's what I did. - Oh, nice. - Playing right both ways. - Oh, with that book, right? - On my netbook, yeah. - That's kind of awesome. - And I will say that that game is still fun. - Yeah. - Because the basic gameplay isn't that far from Starcraft two. You know what I mean? In the very core. But the presentation stuff, man, it really makes it hard to go back in some ways because Starcraft two, the way you do like, you know, you get introduced to a mission, the cutscenes and stuff like that. Like now going back to just the little floating heads, mumbling words on the screen is so boring and dumb. Like, I just skip them just like, I have to play mission already. - You go from interactive mission briefings back to that kind of stuff, and it's hard, I bet. - And what's funny are the number of games that come out today that still do very Son of War, for instance, just as the talking heads. - It's still way more interesting. You can do other shit. - It is way more interesting. But it's like, man, Don of War two, like if that game could be like, the gameplay of Don of War two, but with that interactivity that Starcraft two had, it'd be great. 'Cause that Starcraft two interactivity really like, challenges the way you think about story presentation and RTS. - I'm starting to, I went to, we'll talk more about this when I talk about my step, but I went to Relic last week. And I was sort of getting the feeling that there is like, a pair of factions, Jesus Christ. - Most of the people that made company heroes have left. - Right. Well, there's like a pair of factions at Relic that are like, one is like really excited and enthusiastic about Starcraft two, and the other is a little bitter about Starcraft two because so many people from Don of War two ended up on working on Starcraft two. Like, I guess the guy that the chief like, balanced guy from Don of War two, Chaos Rising ended up doing the Zerg balancing in Starcraft two. - I'm sure it's an enticing offer to go work at Blizzard. - I mean, it's the big show, right? - Yeah. - But there's, I just kind of feel bad for Don of War two and that it is a much more evolved forward thinking around real time strategy game. And clearly it's just gotten overlooked in comparison to Starcraft. - I mean, it came out this year. - Well, Chaos Rising did. - Yeah. - I mean, but that's an expansion. It's a standalone expansion, but it's still an expansion. - Yeah, it's such that game really is like what you're saying. It's like an evolving what it means to be an RTS, but right storytelling, they just haven't kite gotten that as good. But yeah, Starcraft still good, but it's more of a novelty for me. Like, I want to jump in for a few missions, but I thought I would want to be engaged and like play all the campaigns over again, but not really, I just kind of want to do a few missions and I'd rather just read the story over again, like a wiki. - Yeah, that kind of makes me, like I was glad that I read the story in a wiki because I kind of thought that I was like, I don't think this is going to hold up for me if I actually go back and try it. - Yeah, should games just, every time they go to cut scenes, should they just put up the Wikipedia address? - Do you want to see this shit? Would you just rather a synopsis? - Well, that sort of a prefer that option. - Well, it's sort of a commentary on game stories in general, right? Is that they're still not good enough to make me think that like, oh, I have to see this in the game. I have to experience this in the game, otherwise it's not going to be the same. - You don't think there are game stories out there that do that? - Oh, no, there are, don't get me wrong, but I'm saying in general, I could still read a Wikipedia entry about a game story and not feel like I'm missing all that much. - Kitty Drama. - Anthony and Tyler are fighting with the cutie, that's where that awkward silence came from. - I'm like, yeah, no, I agree. I mean, there are games that make me like Mass Effect 2, I didn't want to skip something that I wanted to see every bit of that, and Starcraft, for instance, in the mid-mission things, I don't skip any of those. - No, Starcraft 2, I did everything that could. I mean, there were still times where I was like, this is so hokey, you know, but for the most part, I was like, wow, these are the best mission briefings I've ever experienced in an RTS. - Yeah, right, right. So I remember world in conflict doing a good stuff. - Yeah, that's when I never played so I can't speak to that. - Well, there you go. Apparently none of us played except Arthur. - Yeah, and then I, the only other game I've played in the last few years. - Pretty much ever. - As I played Toy Story 3, again, but I played it with a child, and I will say that I was right, children fucking love that game. (laughing) - They used to fucking fairy wings on everyone and it's a bit of jail. - Yeah, they love it, so, you know. - That's awesome. - I mean, I liked it okay, but children in the game is through and through the best game you should play with your kid. Anyways, cool. Matt, I wanna know about Civ Rev and your revelation with Civ Rev. - Yeah, well, it was just because it was free for one day last week. - Wasn't it more than that? I was getting retweet requests all weekend for that shit. - Oh, the only thing that I saw was free for that one day, but maybe I'm wrong. - You get retweet requests? - Like, I think all of us did. A lot of us got mass retweet things where it would list off four different names saying could you please retweet this for the Civ Rev thing. - I didn't get that. - Oh, I definitely did. - I retweeted the announcement on my own, but I didn't get one of those. But anyway. - I do it for a copy of Civ 5. (laughing) I can be bought, let's talk material motherfucker. (laughing) - I think you know the PR person that's behind Civ Rev or Civ 5, actually. - Yeah, you're on two K's, man. - Yeah. - Okay, so Matt. - But yeah, yeah, I got it on my iPhone and my poor iPhone 3G that runs like ass that I keep complaining about. This game runs like ass on that. But I was still like, I was taking the train ride this weekend that was like six and a half hours one way. And I started playing it and like played it for the entire six hours on the way there. And for most of the ride on the way back. And even though it's like, after the first game, I totally have the formula figured out. You know, it's like, I started out on Warlord difficulty. And then I just kept upping the difficulty and it really didn't feel like it was getting any harder. It was like, as long as I rushed to feudalism and then rushed to gunpowder. And then when you have gunpowder you have invention which allows you to get Leonardo's workshop where if you do the Leonardo's workshop wonder you can upgrade all of your units to whatever their top tier is. So like you create a bunch of units early on in the game really inexpensively. And like that formula wins me every time because it's like in Civ Rev, unlike civilization in Civ Revolution, you always end up in a situation at least I do where every other civilization around you ends up attacking you at about the same time at about the same point in the game. And so I was like, all right, I'm prepared for this. And like just about when everybody's gonna try to steam roll me, I completely inardo's workshop I upgrade all of my guys to Musketman or Rifleman and I'm way ahead of everybody else. And then I just go on the rampage and I destroy anybody who has any compunction about, you know-- - About your success? - About my success. - What's that about, man? Like why, what's up with that in Civ? You're successful so other countries get pissed. - Well they do get pissed though because a lot of times if you're really successful your culture starts encroaching on their land. - Yeah, yeah. - Slowly but surely your borders expand and they're like, fuck her? - Yeah, well think about the AI too. I mean like if the AI is like, the AI's goal is to win. It's not to play nicey-nice with you. And especially in civilization revolution, there's no like formant alliance and you two win together like there is in like, you know, Civ 4 or whatever. It's only one person gets to win. So it comes to a point where it's like, all right, either I have to take this motherfucker down or I'm gonna lose. And that's the only option for the AI. And so even if they are gonna lose the military battle anyway, that's still the choice that the AI is gonna make. - This just reminds me of moments playing Settlers of Catan, single player. - Yeah. - A lot of like cyber arcade. - Yeah, I mean I have lost at Civ Rev but usually that only happens when like multiple countries declare war on me at once. The only game that I had that was going really, really bad and I was like, all right, I'm probably gonna lose this and was just because I had like the worst starting location you could imagine. - That also can fuck you over there. - Yeah, it was like I had, I only had like one production and so I couldn't like get anything. And like the, and it seems to be like C squares, like trade squares, like desert and C squares are the ones that get you science early on. At least I think that's the way that it works 'cause I've had cities that were landlocked and they weren't getting any science at all until I got something to where I could do to build a library. - Man. - But anyway, it was the kind of thing where it was like I started in this really awful location and I only had one like one square land bridge onto the continent that was blocked by another city. - See I basically like, you're describing like stuff that you figured out when I play Civ, it's like half magic and dumb luck. (laughing) Like I'm just like, I'm gonna build a city here. I don't know if this is a good story. - I'm the role of the gods. But I'm just gonna, like even when I play Civ 4, I'm like, I don't know. Maybe there's too many cities in this little group, but maybe not like, I don't know. I'm just kind of winging it. - It's, I find that maybe it's because I've been playing Civ religiously since the very first iteration, but there's certain things that always hold true, which is you never build a city where their resource squares are gonna overlap unless you have to. And it's like, you never, you always pay attention to how much production a city is gonna have where you build it 'cause like that early production that you can get from the resources surrounding the city is critically important. And you just always know that like, it always seems to me like in Civ 4 or in Civ Revolution, in any Civ game that I've played, it's like, there's a few key things. Like the first to gunpowder wins. And like that has never been broken for me. Like, if I am the first civilization to gunpowder, I will never ever lose. And it's like, if I put it on a harder difficulty and some other civilization gets to gunpowder before me, then it becomes a real challenge. But that seems to be like just the key cut off point in all the civilization games I've ever played. So. - Man, I just cram all those fuckers in, there's dents as I can. All the cities I can fit. And then they're always like, oh, they're living in squalor, everyone's getting sick, I'm like, fuck, um. - You're a prince, totally. But the funny thing about playing Civ, and Civ Rev was like easier to figure out than any other Civ games. Like that formula I figured out like after one or two games, I was like, okay, now I can never lose at this as long as I get a good enough starting location. I still find that I really enjoy it, but it really made me want to play actual civilization. So I went and played Civ 4 Warlords, which is one that I never played more than like one or two games of. - Right, that one's all about combat, right? - Sort of, it's more just that they added a whole bunch of units and. - And Vikings and. - Well, and they added, well, they added some unique twists. Like before the, if you built the Great Wall Wonder, basically it just put an automatic city walls around all of your cities. But now if you build the Great Wall Wonder, it actually builds the Great Wall all the way around, outside of your city borders from wherever the city that it's built in. And that wall keeps out the roving barbarians. It doesn't keep out of. - Keeps out the Mongolians. - Exactly. (laughs) It keeps out, it doesn't keep out other civilizations, but it'll keep out the wandering barbarians. So it can basically give you a big reprieve because that's the big thing in Civ 4, is that you can have like really great relations with every other civilization you're in contact with, but you can still get mauled by the barbarians in the harder difficulties. It's like, the more difficulty levels you go up, the more aggressive the barbarians get and the more their technology advances quicker. So like you could be, you could still be, you know, have like spearmen and axmen and stuff like that. And the barbarians can be rolling in with horse archers and elephant archers and stuff like that and can totally take you over. But. - It's going to sound like Mongolians. If like Genghis Khan is going to come storm your civilization. - Yeah, well that's exactly what happens. And you know, then there's a bunch of other little features that just make warlords really cool. - That's why I always burn every barbarians city of the ground when I take it over. - Really? - Yeah, I don't ever incorporate it. - Dude, you should. There's a totally free city. - No. - It's so much better than like-- - It's still free city. I just send settlers to rebuild on their old shit houses. - So much better to like just take over their city than to build a city. - Yeah, but then it's named some fuckin' barbarians. - You can rename all those things. - Sometimes it's a shit language. - If you tear them down, there's like a nice, rare resource there. - The whole point though is that they need to adopt my fuckin' architecture and get rid of all that old bullshit that's around them. (laughing) - Much like monarchs from the Middle Ages you're using architecture as a means of control. - Exactly, I don't want them to see their old buildings but remember the good old days when we were barbarians. I feel like no. - Let's do that again. - But that dude's head on a fuckin' piece of wood and chop it off. (laughing) That's what I want in Civ. You know, the way that some city societies took it, like the direction where you could have your city but you could also make it like a crazy propaganda controlling the message thing. I would love Civ to go a little bit deeper like that where you could become like a dictator and do occasional public executions to like keep people in check, stuff like that. - They toy with that a little bit. Like if in Civ 4, you know, like you can have a state religion and that kind of stuff. But I mean, it's not like you really persecute anybody who's not your religion though. - Right. That's what I'm saying. I wanna be like, if I wanna be like crazy about something. - Do you wanna be Kim Jong-un? - Basically, what I'm describing here too is I basically-- - He'd like to be a successor. - Is I basically just wanna play, what's that game, Tropico? That's really Tropico. Three is what I should get. Three is what I should go play. (laughing) - So yeah, those are the two games that I've been playing a ton of and then I've been playing some iPhone games. I can definitely recommend that people go out and get the incident, which is a super, super cool iPhone and iPad game. And basically all it is is there's shit falling from the sky and you have to keep it from landing on you. And then like you jump up higher, as like the pile gets bigger and bigger of the stuff falling from the sky you jump on. It's kind of like scribble knots in that there's like a million different objects at one point. There's like a carcasson logo that falls down. And it just like, and then it's really funny. Like you get squished by something and it'll say, you know, you died from a mid-century post-modern wooden door. You know, 'cause like it has like really cool descriptors for the different things that can kill you. Anyway, it's a cool game. - I'm okay with that. I'm okay with little small iPhone shout outs like that. We get a lot of people that make iPhone games that are listeners that I'm sure, you know, that they like that we talk about that 'cause sometimes they even ask us to take a look at their games. - Apparently we received a letter from someone at GamePro saying that they do a weekly iPhone round up podcast or something like that. - Oh, nice, I had no idea. - That's awesome. - That's awesome. - For awesome iPhone games also. - Well that makes sense 'cause John Davis and Superin do his iPhone games. - Not to, not to whore out our place of employment but IGN does quite a bit of iPhone stuff. - Yeah, yeah, it's the new platform, man. I mean like to pretend it's-- - Well it's just hard because you know, like even a site as big as IGN they only have like one dude full-time dedicated to it and so you have to imagine that one guy. - Oh my God. - He's just able to like occasionally pick out like a few gems, right, but like-- - 'Cause there are more iPhone game releases every week than there are like the other platforms combined. - Right and the granted hundreds of those are like clones of GameX. - Sure. - But then there are enough unique ones out there. It's like they're always gonna get lost. You should definitely diversify the sites you read 'cause everyone will figure out like a choice one or randomly choice one. - Yeah, yeah. - Tyler. - Cool, what's up everybody? I've been playing, so I managed, I played the demo of Mafia II. I'm sure a lot of the listeners have downloaded it and played it. - I have not, what do you think? - So what does the demo consist of? 'Cause I've played a little Mafia. I'm just curious what the demo is. - Yeah, I've played it at events but-- - The demo throws you right into a mission. Is it the mission where you're killing some greasers? - No, you're assassinating a fat man. - Oh, okay, I've never seen this. - Yeah, so-- - Could you find any playboys? - Yeah, I did. Right off the bat in his apartment, I was kind of like, whoa, I thought these were supposed to be like hidden, you know? - You have them hard? - Well, they wanna put that in the demo, I'm sure. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Mafia II, it's one of those games, like when I went to C-CIV 5 at PAX East, I just walked straight past Mafia II, I just really didn't care. But then, you know, lately they've been putting out videos showing off how they're trying to make the city real dense and they're trying to do a lot of simulation with the population. Just kind of cropped up on my radar recently, so when I heard that the download was out there, I checked it out and, you know, I really like open world games a lot, especially ones that put a lot of emphasis into sort of player expression. And one thing I gotta totally couch my whole experience with is that the demo is only 10 minutes long, so it's not like I gotta full on. - To be fair, I will back up what you're about to say, though, in the sense that a lot of previews and stuff that get written of games by sites like our employer, IG&R, other places are off of 10 minute demos, you know? - Yeah. - It's very common. - So there you go. - It is, yeah. - The more you know. (laughing) - Okay. And I mean, it's, okay, so there are a lot of things like right when you look at it that just shout GTA clone, and that's gonna be unavoidable. But then the other things that are really cool that are standout about it are just like the things like looking into a building, and you can see what's inside the building, like the windows are actually transparent. - Yeah, and you see what's in there. - Is that like every building or just some of them? - Most of the buildings that I saw on this little mission, now there were buildings that you could not go, that you couldn't see in, but there, you know, required a few that I was able to check out. The street seemed like really populated. It's got like great music on the radio, you know, great. They chose a really great time period to host it in and it's kind of that like mid to late 50s. - So they've got both. It starts in the 40s, and then I guess it skips ahead 10 years and it does it in the 50s. - 'Cause they have like two full environment things. - Oh wow, okay, so the demo was like totally like the 50s. - It was the 50s set up totally, yeah. And so it just seems like a lot, you know, if you like GTA games and you're into like, I don't know, it's weird, like open world games are uniquely suited to like period pieces, I guess. You could say, and like this-- - If you're gonna make an open world, you can create a whole world, you know, so they can really draw from a period in particular. - Yeah, so it's like really drenched in a certain atmosphere that they're going for. - Cool. - So some of the things that were less impressive about the game, I would say is that, and this is just in a real short time, is that you tend to die really quick. It's one of, you know, it's a lot like GTA 4 in that sense. - I played it at Judge's Week and it was pretty hard. - It's, yeah, you gotta like play real conservative. - And there are whores with checkpoint. - Does the 360 really, the last one I played was the PC. The PC one, you know, they were touting like, look at all the crazy destructible, you know, you can blow the boards to bits and glass. - Dude, it's bad ass. Gun fights, like when you get into 'em, they're really, really to, for lack of a better phrase, cinematic, like, you know, imagine the movie, the effects you see in movies and guns and shoot outs, that's exactly what they ate, you know. It's, it's totally rad, like when you shoot columns and stuff, you know, big horizontal spurts of dust, you know, shoot out and you actually crumble away the column as you're shooting it. Like I, the level of the demo takes place, you run into this brewery and I played it twice, one time they didn't explode any of the barrels, another time they did and the alcohol dripped out of one barrel, seeped over to the other. - Let me ask people, do you start in like a hotel or apartment and then fire out the window, then make your way across the street in this brewery? Okay, that is totally what I played at Judge's Week and yeah, that part is a whore. - Yeah, it's tough, man. - Yeah, that's what I like about it is like, nothing you're describing as far as the words you're using, like, you know, you could point out, oh, well, games have done that forever, I've played plenty of games where you shoot shit, we've had destructible environments, but this one just doesn't in a particular way that's actually like, it's like a really good example of how to do destructible environments, that's what I took away when I played it, I was like, wow, they do it really well. Like a lot of games do it, but this one does it well to the point where, you know, you, you always have those moments where you're like, well, I probably can't do this, but in this game, you usually can. They've done it pretty well. - And I'd have to say from the cut scenes they presented in the game, like the character, like blocking and they're acting is really good, like the, you know, the subtle eye movements, stuff like that, they really nail, and they nail a lot of that in-game dialogue as well, like, you know, mid-mission dialogue, like when you're rolling through the big shootout with your two friends, you know, they're saying shit to you and it's, I mean, it's totally popped up on my radar in just the last few weeks. So I'm excited for it. - Yeah, I've been skeptical about this game all along, even when I did get to play and thought the combat was pretty good and like, and the Playboy thing actually just made me more skeptical because I'm like, it seems like a really desperate attempt to get some sales. - Yeah, exactly. And, but I don't know, like you're not the only person that's been saying that I really should be taking another look at this game. - Yeah, and I mean, it's not like perfect, you know, it's- - Sure. - I mean, it's not completely smooth. Like the, some things about the cover system can, if you swivel the camera around at a certain angle, it feels like even though you hit A, which their cover system is A always locks you in or out of cover, nothing else will. Sometimes A won't take you out of cover at all. You have to swivel the camera around. - But we have to play little things, little things, little things. - That's something that's probably not at the point in games where you can, why is it acceptable to fuck up cover? (laughing) - Well, and we'll, 'cause everybody just- - This conversation came up at work today and it's fucking outrageous that you could fuck up cover at this point. - Well, I- - You start from a point that works and build. - Yeah, but I mean, to think about like, how long it took people to get any of the other systems that we take for granted today, correct. I mean, like, yeah, there are examples out there of how it works and how it should work, but I mean, some people maybe, some people maybe like, okay, well this particular cover system works well for this game, but we gotta try to reinvent the wheel a little bit in our game because this particular thing doesn't work quite as well. And like, you know, it's just gonna take a little while for people to settle into a standard that works across the board. - It's funny that you seem to like this game though, Tyler, 'cause you know, for me, it's like you said, it'd been one of those games that I was like, but it's coming out of the time in the summer where there isn't that much that maybe it could be worth - Totally. - Checking out, like, I mean, it's like coming out just prior to the release of Halo, really, so maybe if it gets in that window, it has a chance. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So. - Is it 2K release? - It's a 2K game, yeah. - It's a 2K joint. - It's a 2K joint. (laughing) - It is. - I will play that, probably. - I also downloaded today, and man, I played one game of Monday night combat. - How was it? - I was also played Monday night combat. - What did you think of that? - One game in, I think, one game. Excuse me, my one game impression was a lot of fun. - Cool. - I thought it was fun too. - A whole lot, what, well, okay, so I chose the support class, which is kind of the class that's made to, you know, put towers up, upgrade them and keep your team healthy. - The tank? - No, no, no, no, he's not the tank. - Everyone can build turrets. - Is it the black guy? - No, no, he's specifically called support class. - He's the, kind of looks Hispanic, - Everybody can build turrets in this game with their money. - Well, they can spend money to make a turret come out of specific stuff. - Right, they're in placements, and you can put a turret there. - Yeah, the support guys specifically can hack the turrets, I think, and give them a cool down time or upgrades. - Oh, nice. - I played this game, and I did think that since Team Fortress sucks on 360, this is like a good Team Fortress on 360, really. - And not only that, but it has the brilliant inclusion of the whole Dota thing. - I love that. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, then the sense that you are fighting and you have creeps or mobs that are constantly, you need them to really push. And so you're trying to keep yours alive and kill theirs. - Yeah, I mean, and you're right. You know, I'd actually never thought about the Dota thing, but you're killing creeps for cash. They're killing your creeps for cash. - And then you're a cash you upgrade yourself, or the towers, or your creeps. It's so deep. - And that's so smart. Like, it makes me wonder why more games haven't incorporated that kind of thing. - 'Cause it's hard. - Well, yeah, I guess it is hard to balance, but I mean, like, if you think about it, when you're doing like a team-based FPS or third-person combat game, if you have more to shoot at than just the players, then the people who aren't necessarily like the ultimate headshot expert still feel like they're accomplishing something, yeah. - And that was the case that I experienced in my first game completely, because there were plenty of times where I would even see other enemy human players, but my particular job, I had this upgrade to where any bots that were around me got a health and damage buff. - 'Cause he had to roll with the bots. - Yeah, so I was just, I was literally just keeping all my bots alive, staying in the middle of the realm, and you know, the enemy human player was doing his own thing. You know, I had a few snipers trying to get me. - Right. - And it really seemed like a really cool, possible game to see like really high-level play matches and that sort of thing. - Like a sport. - Yeah, like a sport. I mean, like it wants to be. - Right. - Yeah, I was surprised. I had kind of written that game off too. - Yeah. - Yeah, for screenshots and everything. It just seemed generic to me when I saw it. - Man, I don't think that game looks generic at all. - Yeah, it just came across to me as, whenever I saw it, I don't mean generic. It's like, it came off to me as a poor man's TF2. I was like, "Eh, I probably won't be as good." But I played it and I was like, "Ah, it's a lot of fun." - Yeah. - Yeah. - Like one thing that they do to take the shooting a lot further than even TF2 does is like some of the Dota stuff they do with it. So you know how in like League of Legends, you can, you know, you have your abilities like on the F1 keys or whatever. - Right. - So every class has their own set of abilities. That's on X, Y and B. - Right. - On the controls. - And they have cool downs. - Yeah, yeah, and those have cool down timers itself. So like as a support, like you can throw down like a little quick air strike, you know, but, but you know, it's just like one missile that drops to the ground, a little cool down timer. - Right. - And he's got a turret you can throw down kind of like the engineer. - Yeah, and even on top of that, they have like the extreme moments where it's like you kill enough bots and they drop juice. - Yeah. - And you drink all the juice and then you can let go. And it basically is like Uber charging a person in TF2. Except any, you don't need a medic to do it. You just have to kill a lot of guys and live long enough. - Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's cool. You got the juice. - Yeah, you got the juice. - Yeah, and it gives you a little buff. - That's awesome. - Yeah, that game's actually coming. I mean, not coming along. It's out. - Yeah, it's out. - It came along. - Yeah, I think that's a, that's probably like the third best summer of arcade game, which in general, my opinion of them is raised. Out of four, I know. - I think there were five here. Oh, Hydro Thunder. - It's solidly in the middle. - Hydro Thunder wasn't that good, but there's the rest of them, man. - Plenty of other people seem to really like Hydro Thunder and I don't understand that, I acknowledge it. - The other cool thing is they have modes where it's not all just online. If you want to go in and learn the classes, you can play against the computer and you can play locally against the computer with your friends. - Oh, that's great. - Yeah, yeah. And they also have just sort of like a horde mode where it's just you and friends can just fight bots. - That's what I did, yeah. And the goal is to survive 30 rounds. And that's really cool too, because you do have to like mix up what you guys are going to do and who's going to be what class and it requires a lot of coordination and again, doesn't require you to be competitive. - So how much does the tower defense stuff like play into it? I mean, like a lot. - You need to build towers to defend your base from the bots and stuff. They're not so great against players. Players can generally take them out pretty easy, but they're a necessity against keeping the creeps out. - It's really cool. The unfortunate thing is it's not as deep as I kind of wish it would be. It's a lot like a toy soldiers and what we were saying is that there's designated positions on every map. Where you can erect the towers. But that being said, you do have like four different towers you can choose from and then you can upgrade those. - Nice. - It's totally rad, man. I played one game and I can't wait to get back and play some more. - Nice. - Yeah. That is a game I would totally recommend to people. - I have to. - 1200 points. - It is 15 bucks. - I've got to put into that with you. - Which I know is-- - Sounds like it's worth a lot of people. But yeah, I mean, if the player base is big enough and it carries on, you know, it's just like, it's just like the battlefield in 1943, you know? It's like a game that you could easily play for a long ass time. - Yeah, yeah. - On a side note, apparently we had a listener who really wanted to inform us about how wrong we were. - Yeah, 1943 and toy soldiers were worth $15. And braid was $15 when it came out. - Apparently, yes. There we go. - So they weren't $10. - Wow, we were not right all the time. - We just do like a middle segment called Retractions. (laughing) Well, all things considered on NPR does that all the time that you were wrong about. - Right. - It would just, I feel like inviting people to remind us when we're wrong would-- - No, the difference is that we're not a fucking news site. We're four dudes sitting in my living room. (laughing) - What, that doesn't lend us a sort of grovey toss? - Our living room. So, Arthur, that was it for you, right? - Yeah. - All right, Arthur, tell us about Space Marine. - Space Marine. - Space Marine. (laughing) So yeah, I went to Vancouver. - Biggest Starcraft ripoff of all time. - Right? God, shameless, shameless Starcraft ripoff. - Well, don't you mean it's the Warhammer 40K ripoff? Well, it isn't a 40K ripoff though. - Okay, now this is just getting weird. - Okay, so it was Space Marine. - So I went to Vancouver last week. A bunch of people on Twitter were asking what a number of game people were going to Vancouver for. - It was just the Space Marine. - Don't ever bother asking that on Twitter. They can't tell you. - Yeah, we can't, usually. - Nope. - Unless I said, "Hey, I'm going to New York." And, like, today, which is Wednesday, and you thought, "Oh, well, I guess he's going "to see irrational shit." - No, just don't even bother asking. If they don't say what they're going to see in the post, they can't tell you. - Yeah, duh. - I mean, like, if I say Seattle-- - Yeah, fuck all y'all. If I say Seattle, we can probably narrow it down a little bit. Hey, some of us actually respond and interact with people on Twitter. - I respond to key people. - Right. - Two or three days after the fact. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Anyhow, first of all, Vancouver is awesome. - That's what he says. - Fuck you guys who live in Vancouver, 'cause I'm kind of jealous. - You live right next to San Francisco. - Right, but Vancouver was like, take the nice parts of San Francisco and the nice parts of Seattle and mix it together with better weather and fill it with Canadians. - Better weather? I thought it was really warm there. - No, it was like 75, 80 degrees. - No, it's one of those places that's warmer in the summer and deathly cold in the winter. - Right. - Right, I understand. - As opposed to completely unpredictable all times of year. - Yeah. - San Francisco is pretty predictable. We have two summers. - Yeah. - One in July, usually, one in September. - Yeah, usually. - That's what we get. - There's a small range of temperatures that we get. - Yeah. - It's very-- - Also, Vancouver full of hot women. - Whoo! - Just everywhere. - Also, full of an scene amount of strip clubs, as I understand. - I didn't see any of those, but I didn't get-- - We gotta have something to do in those long, cold, Canadian-- - I mean, if you want strip clubs, I understand Portland is where you wanna go. - Did you see any movies being filmed? - No, I did. I was staying outside. I was staying by, like, I guess the Olympic hotels, because there was a bunch of Olympic stuff all over the place. - Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. - Yeah, man, I don't understand how anyone gets anything done in Vancouver, because they're just hot women everywhere. - Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. - Meanwhile, so yeah, I went to Relics Offices, and I got to see Space Marine played for the first time. Warhammer 40K Space Marine is the most generic title for a shooter in the history of shooter's engineering names. (laughing) But it's-- - But it is what it is. - It is not, it does not look generic at all. It doesn't look like any other shooter on the market, right? - Well, let us clarify that the Warhammer people pretty much invented that idea of the Space Marine. - Yeah. - I don't know that they did. - Of what it means to be that type of Space Marine, they totally did. - They're like people, okay, whether it's not, it doesn't matter, it's kind of like-- - Warhammer 40K is older than aliens. - It doesn't matter, Space Marine either way, like, come on, dude, it's 2010, like, don't call your-- - Right, well, I mean, that's a faction in Warhammer 40K, and if they're gonna make a game, like, I guess they feel like Dawn of War II, or something like Dawn of War isn't evocative enough, or it doesn't-- - Right, but the whole, like, yeah, the whole, like, giant Space Marine in the big bubble suit is a 40K invention. - Right, and I do think that them calling it 40K Space Marine, that isn't as much for American audiences as it totally is for the British and Eastern European, they're gonna, that's, those are the people that are like, "Fuck, yes!" (laughing) The place is where Warhammer's way bigger. - Yeah. - So, it's Space Marine. Space Marine is a third person shooter with a heavy melee element and no cover system, which sounds kind of familiar now that I think about it. (laughing) I think it's played, I only get to see it, but it looks pretty incredible. It's using tech from Dark Ciders. - Okay. - And physics and effects tech from Dawn of War and come from Company of Heroes. - So, is it, is it, I haven't seen any screenshots, so does it, is it have more of a realistic look, or more of a style like Dark Ciders? - It looks like Dawn of War II in all of this. - It looks like concept art, like paintings from, from Warhammer 40K. - That's cool. - Like Dawn of War II, if Dawn of War II was done in the same engine as Dark Ciders. - Right. - Pretty much, yeah. - Yeah, like, wow. - It's like super colorful, really saturated in parts, obscenely gory and what? - And way over the top, yeah, I mean, like, like all, everybody's kind of intentionally misproportioned. - Right, sure. - Like the, it takes place on a, it's not, what's this, the, an Empire Forge World, which is building a particular weapon that's basically Metal Gear. - Oh, well, those are common. - Yeah. - Anybody familiar with Warhammer 40K will know, I forget what they're called, but yeah. - So it's taking place in a Forge World that's invaded by Orcs, and they cannot afford to let the Orcs get ahold of that machine. - Right. - So, while they're trying to mobilize a fleet to go in and take the planet, they send in ultramarines to, to get in the way of the Orcs to stop them as much as possible. - I think they're called place. - With you, with you being the super linchpin in that operation. - Yeah, well, I know, like a captain or a sergeant, I imagine. - Something like that, yeah, but I mean, there's lots of other shit going on, and I get the sneaking suspicion that there's gonna be co-op, but they're not ready to talk about it yet. When I asked about other races than Orcs and humans, they said we're not ready to talk about anything else yet. - Which means there is. - Take from that what you will? - I mean, I'm sure you'll fight some chaos and then fight some tyranny. - The Eldar have to come in it. - They haven't said anything about multiplayer. I only saw a single player, but there's, like, you collect weapons and you essentially level up weapons and get new abilities for those weapons. - So is there anything that feels kind of, I don't know, like, strategy-like about the game? I mean, is there any, like, sort of large-scale battle stuff going on, or is it more just, like, shooter? - No, it's more about how badass the Ultra Marines are and how they just mow through swaths of orc boys all the time. - I'm fine with that. - It's actually a lot like Transformers War for Cybertron, except you're not nearly as fragile. - Mm-hmm. - And Melee is more fluid. - That's something that relic the company that made Dawn of War II, Company Heroes, the Eldon Wars, they've really understood is the lore and in the lore of Warhammer, you know, even when you play the tabletop, Space Marines are, like, one Space Marine is worth, like, 20 of a normal guy. - Right. - And I think from the videos I was watching, it was like, yeah, they pretty much make that obvious. - And Ultra Marines are the badass of the badasses. - Right, yeah. - So, I mean, there's, I see, like, this Ultra Marine character pick up an orc boy by the neck, lift him up in the air, take his chain sword and saw him in half and then drop the pieces. - Sweet. - Or pick up a guy and throw him on the ground and stomp on his head. - That's what I do. - And just punch people into pieces and just cut through giant hordes of orcs. - That's the one thing that I've liked about, like, the Space Marine and the Warhammer 40K universe is, like, most other sort of, like, fantasy and science fiction universes, it's all about the human vulnerability. - They're fodder. - Yeah, they're fodder. And it's all about our kind of own inferiority complex. - Yeah. And, like, but in the Warhammer 40K universe, it's like the humans have sort of, like, turned themselves into, like, these sort of-- - Well, the K is the way the relic guys put it, and I think this is the same way the game's workshop guys put it, is that the Empire is essentially ancient Rome in space. - Right, right. Well, and just, like, ancient Rome, the humans in this still do have a little bit of that struggle you're talking about because these guys are, like, like, the equivalent of, like, the hardest, most sure, like, badass legionnaires. And there are still, like, the conscripts. Like, there's the Empire, and there are still, like, standard guys that are just fodder. - Yeah, I mean, while-- - These are, like, gods. - It's, like, Rome, at its twilight. So, the Empire is slowly collapsing, which is why it takes months and months for them to send a fleet to this Forge world, because there's so much bureaucracy. - And what I like is that, as Space Marines are, extremely xenophobic. I've always thought that was kind of interesting about them. Anyways, they just hit all aliens. - They hit all aliens. - Well, that was part of-- - Irrational. - That was part of Roman society, too. - Was to hate the barber. - Yeah. - Everyone who's not Roman is a barber. - Yeah, actually, if you look at the artwork and stuff for Space Marines and stuff, it is all very Roman. It's all very religiously covered and stuff. - Right, and so the Ultramarine Armor is very ornate. I mean, it's blue instead of, I guess, red or whatever. - Like, gold trim. - And, yeah, it has these giant, like, gold ornamentation. My cat is about to throw up on my lap. Please go throw up over there, Kitty. Thank you. - And, is it happening? - Yeah, she's trying. - Or she's just gonna explode. - Yeah, all the armor of this-- - No, she swallowed it. - All the armor of the Space Marines is very ornate, or they'll hang pieces of religious text on them. - And as you go around the world, like you see the Space Marine, the Empire architecture-- - It's all gothic. - Yeah, super gothic, but broken down and fucked up by the orcs that have been there for like a month. So they're building fortified positions and trenches and figuring out ways to do it. And there are definitely the jetpack orc boys. - I hope they let you get a jetpack at some point. - It starts with an invasion on these Valkyries ships and you at a gun trying to shoot skyboys. I can't remember what they're called. - Sure, the guys at the rockets on the deck. - Yeah, the goofy orcs with the rockets on their backs, like trying to shoot them off other Valkyries and an invasion force. - See, I think that's cool because when they showed a early video, it looked like it was just gonna be like a hacking slash. - Right, and that is-- - So now that it's got like these shooting parts and it's got turret parts like a Call of Duty game or something, you know, it's-- - Right, set pieces. - And I like what you were saying and what other people have said to me about how there's like this large melee focus, and that's super cool. - Right, I mean, they said that most players will be about 80% gun and 20% melee. But there are other people on staff that go much more heavy melee. They like to get in and mix it up more. - And that's what Warhammer 40K has always been about. That mix of that. - And it definitely seems like both are totally viable. Don't come back up here, Kat, until you throw up. - I mean, thematically, it is-- We've already said it's over the top, which I imagine extends to anything like the voice acting and it's all like-- - It sounds like Dawn of War II. - Yeah, right, right. - And that's not bad 'cause Dawn of War II's voice acting was phenomenal. - It was really good. - Like throughout the whole thing. - I've only played like the first, I don't know, three or four hours of Dawn of War II. - And you can tell they're using a lot of the same tricks, like the particle effects look amazing. And also, they're sort of cheating in spots where they'll do a low detail model and basically just stick concept art on top of it so that it looks super detailed from where it is and it looks awesome, but it takes up no resources, which they did a lot in the cut scenes for Dawn of War II. There was a lot of like pieces of art animated and after effects that were really awesome. - Oh, you mean the non-blur cut scenes? - Yeah, the non-blur cut scenes. Or they'll texture things with concept art instead of super high resolution textures. The game is still a ways off. It's fiscal 2012 for THQ. - Oh, really? Wow. - Which means probably next summer or fall. Like they were still doing light map passes on models and modeling stuff when we were walking through. But it's in pretty great shape or at least the slice they showed us was in pretty great shape. - Right, right. - And it's definitely looking much better than the outfit, which is Relic's last console game. - Weren't war. - But some people like... - A few. - A modern game. - Yeah. But yeah, the Space Marine looks really cool and I hope the people, they market it in such a way that people look past the name as sad as that is. - No, I think the name will actually be a selling point for people that totally aren't familiar with Warhammer. - I don't know. I feel like that crosses from a recognizability into generic pretty well. - I think you underestimate the power of the generic. - I don't know. - I think there's generic stuff that hasn't sold well. I played Nailed, which is a... - Porno. - It might as well be. No, it's cool story, bro, the video game. It is a off-road racing game from a Polish developer. - Wow. - Published by South Peak. And it is essentially like a successor to MX versus ATV or off-road thunder. - I believe though that this is another game that uses the Call 4 as better than one. - It is definitely not. - You positive? - Yes. - Okay, 'cause I could've sworn when they brought it in last, I asked and they said that. - Well, if that's the case, then I don't know what they did to this engine, but they certainly heard it real bad. - So you're not positive. All right. All right. - All right. - So yeah, so it's completely unrealistic physics where you are totally in control of your vehicle at obscene heights where you're falling hundreds of feet, and maybe even a thousand feet. - Oh, yeah. - At times where like literally I've spent 20% of my time racing in the air. - And just doing tricks while you're midair? - Not doing tricks, just like trying not to crash into things. - Holding? - Oh, that's really cool. - Oh, you mean like you have to like steer around things while you're flying? - Yes, or try to land on top of things while you're in the air. - That's hilarious. - It's totally ridiculous. - But it's not equally ridiculous. - The music is like a lot of alt metal from the aughts. - That's what I think. - Like four or five year old slipknot and some other stuff. Some of it's okay. Like they have some refused in there, but they also put together like a metal super group to do original music, whose details escape me at the moment. I also saw two worlds two again and two worlds two is looking good. Surprisingly. - Yeah. - And I saw battle versus chess. - I think we talked about the last eight. - Did we talk about that last two? - Yeah, yeah, we did. - I saw it in time to talk about it. - Yeah. - Huh. Fuck me. - We talked about that in two worlds. - Oh, okay. Sorry. Fuck you, 'cause I'm tired. (laughing) - And then right now, I'm playing Kenny Lynch 2 for review next week, but I can't talk about that. I think most of the stuff I said about the previous still applies, except shit gets realer. It is the realest game I've ever played in that regard. - The realest in the sense that he's saying shit got real. - Yeah. - Not as in. - Like all the time. - Not as in that there's pulling out his eyeballs. Like it's so real. (laughing) - Yeah, it is not the fourth dimension. - Yeah. (laughing) Dude, I feel like what's the N64 kid of that? Like, you know, like, oh my god, this came. - Dude, when I played 64 for the first time, I was like, it's like I'm on the battle path. (laughing) - That's a new fucking dork. I witnessed a half an hour argument slash conversation about Star Wars characters this morning in the office. - Oh god. - It was more discussion, not much of an argument. There wasn't any one arguing that they were cool. It was pretty much everyone's shitting on them the whole time. - I felt the capacity for a future sex life slowly dwindling as this went on around me. (laughing) But B, I think that's it for me and I think we should take a break. - I have one more to add. Played Scott Pilgrim. - Oh. - Scott Pilgrim vs the World. - Fuck you, sir. - Well, it's out. - Well, you could play it too, Arthur. - Did you play it before it was out? - I played it very briefly at the Scott Pilgrim party at E3. They had like one level later. But played it a bunch after it came out. Well played it a bunch today. - It's available to all PS3 owners. - Like the area five guys who played a four player for like, I don't know, an hour, hour and a half. - I understand it is River City Ransom. - It is. It's River City Ransom and it totally indulges in it. It's good. It's a lot of fun, especially with four players. So like Ryan bought it, so I don't know how much it is. - It was 10 or 15. - Something like that. - I thought it was a DS game from the screenshots that I'd seen. - No, no. It's a purpose game. - It could be. - The downloadable Super Retro style. - Cool. - It's a ton of fun. - Man, I loved River City Ransom. - Yeah. And this game is like a very, a River City Ransom that controls really well. - Right. - And has lots of cool upgrades. And if you've read the Scott Pilgrim books, it's like a, like a Scott Pilgrim files wet dream, you know? - And one of you haven't. - It's still a really fun fighter. 'Cause like when I first played it at the Scott Pilgrim party, I hadn't read the books yet. And I was like, oh, this is like River City Ransom only. It plays really well. And it's a lot of fun and controls really well. But after reading the books, I'm like, oh, there's fucking Wallace. You know, like you see all of like the secondary characters and stuff and like has kind of all these little jokes like you use. Like if you play as Kim Pine, you use her power. You hit like an L1 trigger to use your power. And the power is a knife's chow comes down and like kisses her really quick. And it gives her like more guts power, but takes away some health. And like, hmm. Anyway. - Inside jokes. - Inside jokes. Yeah, there's lots of inside jokes. - Um, I'm with that. We'll take a break in the way and come back with a bunch of letters. So if you don't like letters, fuck you. - Word. - Word. - The Mott's success story. - I'm with the show. - From Carou in Kentucky. Just wanted to share my experiences with the power of Niamat. By the way, we're not being paid by Niamat at this point anyway. - That's what we could have been. - You totally should be. - But he says, while on vacation in Texas two weeks ago, I was listening to your podcast when you mentioned Niamat again. I looked it up and I went to San Antonio to buy it. Palmer turned home, my social life exploded. Maybe Niamat is writing letters to us now. - I know. - I am a sophomore in high school and hadn't gone out with many girls for the last two weeks of my summer vacation. However, every free night I have gone out with a few different girls. I have trouble hanging out with them due to soccer practice. - Wait, he's going out with multiple girls every night? - I believe the term is juggling bitches. - Although I think this may be one of those good kind of problems. My confidence is through the roof now and this is amazing. - The fucking sophomore in high school quoting the wire. - He says, "Love your show and thanks for increasing my rendezvous with the women's." - I have to wonder if this is because they're wearing Niamat or if the power was inside them all along. - Well, maybe Niamat is just a, it's like a placebo. - It totally is. - This is what I'm saying. - I'm fine with this. - I think what I take away that's real funny from that email, what he says, my social life exploded, makes me think of something out of an ax-body commercial. But in reverse, you know? - Except creepy and full of teenage girls. - Wait, how's that different than an ax-commercial? - Ostensibly, they're post teenage girls. - Yeah, just like the American apparel ads are, right? - Shh. - Now that I have a new girlfriend, I'm anxious to actually try this Niamat stuff and see if it affects people who are already engaged with you on that level. - It just blows her underpants off. - Exactly. I mean, 'cause I already do that on my own, so imagine if I've gotten one. - But then your lungs get really tired. It's so much easier if they just flew off by themselves. - Next letter. - Okay. - From Paul. - Hi, Paul. - He says, "I'm thinking about redoing the thermal paste on my PS3. During the last few months, the fan in my launch day, 60 gigabyte backwards compatible PS3 started running a lot louder when normally it ran barely noticeably for more than three years I've had it. With hundreds upon hundreds of hours of playing games and watching movies, my PS3 has nothing more than a silent fart. Now, even when idling in the XMB menu, the fan will rev up two speeds. I haven't had much experience in handling thermal paste, so any tips would much be appreciated. Does thermal paste wear out over time becoming less effective? Should I put down a dab of paste and leave it up to the heat sink to spread it around? Or should I spread the paste around like butter on toast? I think if anything, the fan is what's... - Yeah, it sounds like a fan issue. You were going way overboard. - Yeah, I think you might think it's the thermal paste just because, you know, it's like, "Oh, it must be heating up and that's making my fan work harder." And that could be the case, but I think it's a lot more likely to be your fan. - Yeah, it's more likely that your fan is gunked up. - Yeah, and I have no idea about how to properly treat thermal paste. - You would basically... you would take the heat sink off. This is typically what I've done and I've never had a problem with it, I've never been told otherwise. Some isopropyl alcohol to clean off the existing thermal paste. - Yeah, you should get the existing stuff off. - Yeah, you need to take the existing thermal paste off, make sure that everything is dry before you do it, and then you need to apply a thermal paste back on, and it's really kind of a pain in the ass to put thermal paste on. - Did you spread it though or do you typically let the heat sink spread? - No, you definitely spread it. Usually you need a perfectly flat surface to sort of spread it on. There's also this stuff that I bought in the past, which is basically nail polish, where you just use that and brush thermal paste on to the CPU. - The bottom line of what we recommend to him is not to do this. - Yeah, don't do this. - Like if anything, after putting hundreds of hours on, the fans are just dying probably. - I would think so. - Or maybe the fans are really clogged, something I've heard that's worked before for people is taking the hose attachment to a vacuum and vacuuming fans to try and get the stuff out. - Don't do compressed air because that can just blow gunk further in. - Right, you want to suck not blow. - Good advice all around. - All right, so the next letter is from Jordan. - Don't change your thermal paste, Jesus. - Yeah, just don't even fuck with that. Especially if you've never done it, it's just disastrous. - Opening your PS3, probably not the best first project for you, sir. - Especially I have one of those, the same model of PS3, and I'm desperate to keep that thing working, because it needs to have much compatibility. - Part of it is that there have just been games coming out recently that push the PS3 harder than it's been pushed before. Like God of War. - Honestly, if this dude wants to keep his PS3 alive longer, buy a $20 DVD player and watch DVDs in it. - Right. - If you're watching DVDs. - Don't watch blue rays on your PS3, flat out if you want it to last as long as it can. - I mean, a bunch of more hours you're putting into it, if you want it to last to play games. - Yeah, that's stress on the drive. - So Jordan writes in, he says, "I think if Anthony has to play song at PAX, then Arthur should have to draw something." But he says, "All right, I'm just kidding." But he does say, "But I really want to see some of Arthur's art." Multiple people have said that in the past, but Arthur doesn't have a portfolio yet. So that might change soon on my portfolio, since you got that DSLR. - Right. I bought a DSLR from a very nice listener. His name I won't mention on the air, because I don't know if he wants a mention or not. But now Arthur should be able to take good pictures of his art that he can be happy with putting on the internet. - I mean, I still have to take pictures at the right time of day, because I don't have baffles to diffuse light on my shit. - And he also said, "Can we tape the panel at PAX and put it up?" And well, that's something we'll look into. - We talked about it about 15 minutes ago. - Well, even if we don't do video, maybe an audio thing, we should be able to patch something in the product. - Right. - You have to record it. - At PAX, their people record the panels, and you can get the audio straight from them. - See, that's what we'll do. - So, as long as your audio guy doesn't fuck up the levels, you'll be good to go. - Every audio recording I've heard from their panels has been pretty bad, though. - Well, either way, you might have a bad quality one, but for those of you who can't make it, you can still hear it in some capacity. - Yeah. - So, new father in games from Matt. Matt, who's new dad, by the way. - Oh, shit. - During your last podcast, you guys talked about family games and how to introduce them to kids. I'm a new father as well, and think a lot about the way I'm going to let my son play games. While we were growing up, games were in their infancy, and we grew up understanding how much time could be spent, wasted on games, which our parents sometimes did not. I want my son to love and live life and learn to use moderation with the amount of time spent in front of video screens. Do you guys have any thoughts on the subject and what you would do different from what your own parents did? My parents really didn't care. - No, my neither. My parents weren't ever the type that were like, "You need to go outside and run around." - And I just always balanced the time myself. - I did too, and it was like, I had a lot of friends, you know? School friends and neighbor kids and stuff like that, and we would be inside and play a bunch of games, and they would be like, "Hey, let's go play baseball. We like to play a lot of baseball and softball." - Let's go wrestle outside and cripple each other. - MMOs are the one thing that I would be a little scared about letting my kid fit into. - Yeah, 'cause there weren't MMOs when I was a kid. - Yeah, that's what it was. - And when MMOs did invade my life, they invaded it pretty hard when I was in high school. But I don't know, I would just make sure that your kid is socialized and has active friendship in peer groups, and then I think it would kind of take care of itself. - I mean, maybe if you introduced me to the idea that, "Hey, let's play video games, and then when you're done playing video games, go take a bike ride or something." - Right, I don't subscribe to the "It will take care of itself" school, I think that you should try to cultivate and appreciate multiple things. - If you have to be an engaged parent on every front, and part of being an engaged parent, I think is to make sure that your kid is properly socialized. - Right. - Because I think that's where you end up running the risk of your kid being completely glued to the television set as they use it as an escapist tool, 'cause I did that. - It's funny when it's put that way, it's like we're talking about monkeys or something. - Well, and I think part of it's whether you're just a dead beat or dead too, like if you're there to spend time with your kids and take them out and do things, they won't associate all their free time with having to be in front of a video screen. I didn't watch TV even though I had a TV with cable in my room as a child, just because my parents were always like, "Hey, let's go do this together." Or I had friends that were constantly like, "Hey, let's hang out and not watch TV." We wanted to go out and sharpen sticks and stab each other. - I think the more you force, try to force something on a kid, the less likely they are. - Oh yeah, that's totally true. - Oh yeah, don't sit there and be like eight o'clock? TV's off, family time. - That was definitely me with sports. I felt a lot of pressure on that, and that made me progressively less enthusiastic about that. - It's always a pussy if he doesn't play sports. - It's a good call. - My brother and I were latchkey kids. - That's why I was too. - Yeah, we had all kinds of time to play video games, but it was just the fact that, you know, my mom didn't stop me if I wanted to stay in all weekend and play video games or whatever, but like, I don't know, maybe it was just because I had a lot of friends. - Exactly, I don't think my parents were ever worried that I was like, poorly socialized or something. - Yeah, I think your parents were worried that you were a little overly socialized when you were setting each other on fire and filming it. - True. My parents were just worried that I was gay. - Uh, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I had that one. - Maybe that's a universal gamer thing of our generation. - I can't. - Except for Tyler. - You can't. - No, you're telling me with all your vegetarianism and stuff? They never took that weird text. - No. - He's vegetarian. He listens to fucking dreadlocks. He's probably gay. - No. - No. - No. You were always just bringing home half naked girls. - Yeah, I just always had girlfriends. - They would have thought he was gay if they would ever stop catching them naked. - Yeah. - With girls back. - I don't know. - Well, people like me and Matt who didn't have very many relationships. - Yeah. - Our parents started to wonder. - You sure had a lot of guy friends? - Well, it didn't help when I went into when I got super involved with that. - There's anything wrong with that. - No, there isn't. But when you only have his guy friends, you don't have a girlfriend. Parents start to wonder. - Right? - Yeah. - Anyway. - Anyway. - Next letter. - Phil says, "Would the praise for StarCraft II be as strong if it hadn't been StarCraft and hadn't resonated astrologically with so many gamers?" I'm as guilty as anyone. I've been pouring time into it since launch day. But I feel like I'm giving it more credit than it deserves because of the innumerable hours they put in the original. It's a good game for sure. And the first PC game I've played in a year or two. But I'm not sure it belongs in like a pantheon of incredible games. - I think you put innumerable hours into the first one because it was a fucking amazing game. - Right. - The second picks up right where it left off. - Right. But he's saying, I've heard other people say this too, that like if another game were to come out and still use the whole dirt farming sort of mechanic, that StarCraft has and stuff, you know, and go back to a lot of those basic things, it might get criticized for those, is what some people say. - It would because you would criticize it as a copycat. You know, it's like, and StarCraft is just picking up where the legacy left off. I don't know if it's possible to separate a game from its legacy. - Not only that, but the core mechanics are still fun, but more importantly, for me at least, the whole reason to play StarCraft is all that single player mid-mission stuff you've been talking about. - If there was a real-time strategy game that was dirt farming, as you put it, and it was as well-produced and well-paced with as good mission design as StarCraft II, then I think it would get some proppers. I just think fewer people would give it a chance. - Yeah. - That's true too. - That's true. But I mean, I still think that the whole reason play StarCraft is that story stuff. Not as much to me, the other stuff. - Yeah. - Although your friend Paul has fallen down the rabbit hole of the StarCraft ranking ladder. - Yeah. I have a buddy that started trying to learn how to play the multiplayer for Reels. - Oh, no. - Like, and he never played the original. - Right, right. - So he's been watching replays all the time and sitting there working on. Working on his actions per minute and shit. I'm just like, "Yeah, man, I'll watch you play, but I'm going to play with you." - I think it was after last week, so the weeks before one of these weeks where we've been talking about StarCraft and somebody Twitter to me that like, I think you two Anthony, that they were like, "We need to start a, when are we going to start our 20 APM StarCraft II Guild?" Where it's like only people that can have like 20 APM or less. - That's the name of the guild, 20 APM. - Yeah. - I don't know if I should read this next letter. - That means you should. - Well, I don't want it to come across like the reason I'm reading it is because the guy talks about me. Because that's, that don't want to be a douche. - Okay. - I don't want to read to read it. Whether or not we call you a douche. - All right. So I'm at writes in and he says, "My name is Matt and I would like to keep writing in a lot." - I would like to confess something. I won't be ashamed to admit this, but I have a little man crush for Anthony. - I knew you were going to see that. - In the same vein as Jeff Chris has been a giant bomb, I can't help but feel fuzzy inside every time I hear your voice. (laughter) - He said, okay, so, but the reason I wanted to read it actually was that he says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He says, "This is weird, or is this normal sponsor or fan? Do you guys have any man crushes?" - I have man crushes, man. I talk to Arthur about this sometimes. Robert Danny Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio, those are a couple of my man crushes. - I thought those were just crushes. - And I've had, and in the past, I mean, before I worked it one up, I totally had man crushes on people that I ended up working with. Like, we're just people like I admired in that way. - You still have a man crush on Jeff Green? - Yeah, exactly. You know, I don't think that there's anything weird about that. - Nope. - Agreed. - I do feel weird that you would have one on me because I do not stand in the same calibers, the other people. - That makes sense to me. I have a man crush on you, Anthony. - All right, douche, next letter. - I was, hey, I was trying to read that to make him feel a little bit better about man crushes. - And I am clearly extremely serious about what I just said. - Because man crushes are totally, I was actually talking about man crushes on the way here. - Yeah, you were. - And how it disappoints me when I find out an actor's total douche that I have a man crush on. - So your mush disperses? - Yeah, I'm like, oh, wow, Jesus, never mind. - I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt is pretty awesome. - This letter was just like, it was like, vaginal oral sex. - I was like, what? - Yeah. - That's all you wrote in with? - Moving on, both please. - Sure. - So false dichotomy. - So Kyle. - Can we just do buffet? - Kyle writes in and he says, hey, I work at Signal Studios and it's awesome whenever I hear how much you guys like Toy Soldiers. That's who made Toy Soldiers, but I didn't actually work on the game. I was hired right after the game was released. - Thanks for nothing, asshole. - But I do appreciate how much you guys talk about it. To be kind of a marketer, chill. Toy Soldiers has one DLC package right now where you fight as France. It's just art reskins, but the new levels are designed with a lot of the lessons learned from Toy Soldiers proper, which I admit, I still not play that. - So do you start the mission and quit? Is the French? You just give it. - Oh. - It's one of their special units, the White Flag. - Oh no, that's the only tower you can erect. - This is the White Flag. - And he also says-- - Oh, I'm sorry, Frank. - He also says in the letter, we also have another something coming up that is probably related to this picture on our Facebook page. And the picture on the Facebook page is actually this total, total, like toy box thing again, like their old one, except it says invasion, deep space diplomacy unit, and it's like tanks fighting a giant robot. - Like toy robots from the '50s, fuck yeah. - Don't fucking tease me. - So it'll probably-- - Hell yeah, dude, I just got excited. - How cool is it when a game like that just fucking blows up enough that people are like, "Dude, let's just--" - Remember X10 when no one gave a shit about Toy Soldiers? - I know, right? - Yeah, I remember we all went to that and everyone was like-- - I remember saying that I thought it would cool, god damn it. - But I also was much more interested in talking about Splinter Cell than I was about to. - Where is that studio located? Is anybody here? - Bawful Washington. - Bawful. - That place doesn't exist. - All right, Pete writes in. Okay. I have a big problem, starting high school. - What is a problem? - I have a big problem. I'm a big gamer, but also a starter on my high school football team. View people know me as a gamer, but most people don't like that guy. So I hide him by playing football. The main question is, is it possible to be nerdy and have normal friends and/or girlfriend? If it is, how do I come out of my nerd closet? If it isn't, should I stop or hide it and wait for it to come out on its own? - Does he say how old he is? - Well, he said he's starting high school. - Oh fuck, well. - Dude, I think in this day and age, even the jockiest dudes on your team play some sort of game. - Halo. - They play Madden or Halo. Just talk to him about those and then you can branch out, you know? - And who knows? Maybe you could be the one that turns them on to other awesome games that they wouldn't know about. - And you may be surprised. - Tell them about Kurt Schilling. That guy is like a Hall of Famer baseball player and he owns his own game company. You know, it's not. - And someday they'll even put out a game. - Yes. - Maybe. - So I don't know. I don't think that gaming is quite the stigma that it used to be. Like, I feel like every, a lot of your friends that are hardcore jocks, they still play them. - Yeah. - There's some guys anyways. I still think that there are a lot of girls. - Oh sure, but I'm saying talk about it with your guy friends. I bet you, if you were to, in the locker room, be like, yeah, I was checking out Madden 11. They'd be like, fuck yeah, Madden. So, I don't know. - Yeah. - I don't know. Maybe I don't touch. - Or Modern Warfare. - Those are gateway drugs right there. - Yeah, or Modern Warfare for that matter, yeah. - But yeah, you totally got like, there's, there's no reason to feel embarrassed about being a gamer at 8 age. - Unless you're an embarrassing gamer. - True. And they exist. - Oh yeah. - Well, here's one that you guys can ruminate over while I find another letter. Robin writes in and he says, "I know in a podcast previously you answered a question who your favorite bands and artists were. I'm just curious what your favorite albums are." And so I'll just start that off and say, one of my favorites is, "Of Red, of Tooth and Claw" by Murder by Death. That's great. - It is an excellent album. So go Arthur, you've got to have like 12,000 of these that you've got. - Lately, Pinkerton by Weezer. I mentioned on Twitter and a lot of people. - You did. - Were saying, "Man, I totally agree because Pinkerton is the best thing that Weezer ever did and it was their Weez commercially appreciated." And I don't think that that's why I liked it because I also think that the Blue Album is really good and the production is awesome. Blackwater Park by Opeth is really, really good. Because it's very layered. Alice in Chains most recent album might be my favorite Alice in Chains album, actually. - I don't know. Fuck man. I have a hard time with favorites. - Yeah. Favorites are hard. - The 5.1 Mix of the Downward Spiral. How's that? - That's really good. It is pretty amazing. - Oh, fight game win rice. - It is really, really, really good. - It's like a totally different album. - Yeah, the 5.1 Mix of all the Nine Inch Nails albums are totally different. I didn't like with teeth the first time that I heard it. And then I heard the 5.1 Mix and I was like, "Wow, there's so much more going on here than I--" - Whoa. - The Buffalo upstairs just knocks something over. - Yeah, that was somebody trying to get through your ceiling. But yeah, the 5.1 Mix of with teeth just clued me into how much was really going on. - Right. - Tyler. - You know, there's a refuse shape, a shape of punk to come. - I bought that collector's edition also and haven't had a chance to watch it. - Oh, shit. Yeah, well, I want to hear it. I mean, that's one album that I-- it came out like, "When did it come out in 1998?" - 1998. It was so fucking ahead of its time. - Like, ridiculously ahead. Like, I think there's-- it's still cutting edge today. - Right. - That's how I feel about one of my favorite albums is Burning Blue Soul by The The. - The The. - Yeah, that was back when Matt Johnson, he was The The. That's all he was. That's all they were. I don't know how you say that. - Sorry. - Go ahead. - No, you've finished. - Oh, I was just going to say like he did that entire album and it's really a mixture of-- he played, you know, everything from sit-tars to guitars to like flutes and clarinets, but it's super-- it has like loops and overdubs and a lot of electronic elements in it. It's the kind of thing that totally shouldn't have come out in 1979, but it did. - One more is Rocky Vodolado, "Mix Tapes and Cellmates." And William Elliott went more songs of "Blackbird." All right. - Songs for the Def by Queens of the Stone Age. - All right. - It's too easy to come up with awesome albums that I used to from start to finish. - 'Cause there's like a billion albums. - Get a radio ahead. - Fuck that album. - That's my-- - Okay, computer by radio head. - No way. I'm on the Kia Camp. All right. So the next letter is from Drake. - Super unknown by Sand Garden. - I'm going to read this guy's full name, by the way. Just because-- - The rapper Drake? - He put both of them in there multiple times, even his signature, even his thanks. And I just think his name's Badass and deserves to be read. His name is Drake Kwan. - Nice. - Drake Kwan. I like that. - Good for you Drake Kwan's parents. - I feel like that's a good one. Okay. So this is the last week my girlfriend broke up with me. It was mutual. I'd gone to Florida for two weeks and then directly afterwards to Boston's for another two. So I hadn't seen her for over a month and as a result we just sort of fell apart. - Well after only a month? - Yeah. - Damn. - At first I was pretty chill with it and I just kept living my life as I had for the past month without her. - Yeah, that oldie is by the way. But that night I started to get super depressed. I'm better now but I was wondering when school starts up in a month, should I try to get back together with her and make things work? Or should I just move on, drop out of school and become an amber white dealer? [laughter] - Okay. - Look for answers and high fidelity. - Move on but if the sex was good, keep her on a short leash so you could, I mean, during your dry spells. - That's awful advice. - I love you Tyler. - You're a terrible person but never goes well. - It does for Tyler. - No fucking your ex is a bad idea always. No good can come from that. - I disagree. - No, it's fucking your ex's a bad idea. - Depends on the ex because one of you is always going to feel more strongly about the other. - Depends on how long it goes on. - Bullshit. No, this fucking your ex is a bad idea. - Okay. - I say this having fucked many an ex and it's always a bad idea. - I know. - All right, here's an easy one for a solid answer from Steven. - That sort of made me sound like a whore, didn't it? - What's a game sequel that you always wanted to be made but it never did happen. It never did happen. Mine would be Republic Commando 2 and KOTOR 3, don't bring up the MMO shit, I'm not hearing it. Also, was there ever a sequel that you wish didn't exist like Bioshock 2? - Bioshock 2. - All right, so but he's true, mine would either be Republic Commando 2 or it would be Beyond Good and Evil 2. Those are the ones that I would want more than any. - Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still problematic. - That's coming. - Yeah, we'll fucking see. No, no one else, any guy in the game you're like why wasn't there a sequel to that shit? - I'll tell you one sequel I wish was never made and it's the sequel to my favorite game of all time out of this world because it wasn't even made by Eric Chahi, the original guy who made out of this world and it was just like this complete bastardization. - What's out of this world too? - It was a, no, it wasn't called that thought I can't think of the name. - I didn't even know that was a sequel. - I can't think of the name. - The flashback, I will punch you in the face. - No, no, no. It's a direct sequel to Out of This World and it's terrible. Like they kill Lester in it, the redhead guy, you play as the alien the whole time with the whip. - It's just spoilers. - Right, but yeah, that's one, I wish that would have never been made. - This is a question that I could think about and come up with a lot of answers probably, but the first one that comes at top of my head I guess is because I was thinking about the irrational announcement tomorrow is System Shock. Like I really want to, I really want another sequel to System Shock and I want. - You got it. - Yeah. - For the longest time, I wanted a new River City ransom. - You got the sequel to System Shock, it was called Dead Space. - Yeah, that's funny because that's what I was saying earlier today, like when Ryan and I were actually talking about this very subject about, like, because of the irrational announcement, I was like, but I guess, you know, Dead Space is a lot of the same kind of thing. - Dead Space started in System Shock 3. - Yeah, it has all the, you know, you're running around through meat space. - I just don't know, I don't understand how that's not more well known, like maybe I'm just breaking a bunch of-- - That started in System Shock 3? - Yeah, the Dead Space was-- - I didn't know that until you just said it. - Yeah. - Fought out Dead Space was System Shock 3. - Right, but, you know, there's no shodan. - True. Well, not now. It also started on Xbox, there's footage of that, like floating around on the internet. - At E3, I was reminded that the Tron, first-person shooter, was actually a really good game. And it-- - You thought that a lot of other people I've heard saying otherwise. - Yeah, the Tron FPS. - It was just called Tron 2.0. - Yeah, it was like-- - That's by Monolith. - Like, what was that, 2003? Something like that? - Something like that, yeah. - Yeah. - It was from the studio that did Fear. - Yeah, and-- - Jeez, I don't remember that at all. - It was good. I really enjoyed it. - And that was the game between no one lives forever and Fear. - Ah, no one lives forever. There's one that could use another sequel. - Didn't that one get a sequel? - Well, I mean, it did. But, I mean, like, another sequel, I'd totally be down for playing. - I mean-- - Fuck, I just had a game that didn't get a sequel in my head that I wanted, and I lost it. - Bummer. - Balls. - Man, we get some really brutally honest letters. Like, I'm not really gonna read this next one. - Why not? - Because it doesn't-- it's just weird, but just some guy telling me about how, like, in recent late night party chat sessions on Xbox Live, his friends have all started confessing things when it gets really late. - Some of them, dude. - Like, having sex with a tranny or he went-- - All right, so this is gonna be live by the time this happens, but I figure you're all gonna wanna hear it. - Oh, my God, is this the irrational game? - Bioshock Infinite. - Bioshock Infinite, so it is, like, Bioshock 3. Okay. - That's all I know, I just got an email about it. - Are they? Either read that or don't. - What? - Tell us details. - No, that's all I have. I just have the name. It'll be announced Thursday at 11 a.m., so everyone who's listening to this will know more about it than we know about it right now. - I so wanted it to be a totally new IP. - So, my God. - I mean, like, it could be, like, entirely new gameplay we don't know yet. But, like, I so wanted it to be a new IP. - This is why they want everyone to see the video before they hear what it is. And that's what I suspected, too, when they announced that. - Yeah. - We had actually heard that's what it was a couple of weeks ago, and totally scoffed at it, and they said-- - I got worried. - I scoffed at that and they say it about that shit this morning. - I didn't scoff, and I got worried that it was true, and it is. - And it is. There you go. - Let me tap into older letters. We've pretty much already-- - Motherfucker. - Motherfucker. - Well, we don't know what it is. - Yeah, I don't know. - Thanks for going in a new direction, guys. - It could be totally fucking awesome. - It could be Jurassic Park 3. - Oh, ye of little faith. - I know. - Cinek. - Yeah, you know, two Kamerin have destroyed my faith in Bioshock. I'm sorry. - Well, I'm saying this isn't two Kamerin. - I know it's actually two Kamerin. - Yeah, but you'll still be excited for the-- - You know, it's just like, you know, we've had fucking four Halo games, and we still like Halo, you know, give it a chance. - Halo Reach looks really good. - Halo, no Halo game ever dragged except for Argue the Library as much as the last quarter of Bioshock did and the last half of Bioshock 2 did. - Yeah, but this is a studio that's made lots of good games. I'm just saying you should give them the benefit of the doubt rather than knee-jerking. It's disappointing. - No, sir. - I don't like it. - The announcement is disappointing, but I need to reserve judgment. - Right, but there's an asterisk on the end of that statement from me, because, you know, who knows? Who knows? It could be some unique spin. - Oh, another crazy. - Another game that needs a sequel, and I know that, like, people keep saying that they're working on it. I just haven't seen anything about it in a long time. It's thief. - Mm, yeah, that's apparently in the making. - I mean, you're getting that. - I know. - It's like we're getting another Deus Ex, whether we want it or not. - Oh, I want it. - I mean, we want it, but there's all those, like, really hardcore PC players, like, they play Deus Ex that are just, like, crossing their arms and frowning face in the shit out of Deus Ex. - Yeah, I heard this story. - And when it was called Fallout 3. - Right. - How can you be a hardcore Deus Ex player and not be super jazzed about this story? - Yeah, because it's on consoles, and heaven forbid that anything be degraded by consoles. - Whatever. - I don't know. - It's fine. It's a shrinking audience. I guess I can read, like, one or two more. - You sound like somebody's got a gun to your head. - One guy wrote in this letter, and it was just like, "Hey, wait. How do I lose it?" That was his whole letter. I was like, "What?" - That's his virginity. - No, he said, "Wait." He was like, "Like, body weight." How do I lose weight? - Oh. - Oh. - Oh, let's go running. (laughter) Keep your heart rate up for more calories, okay, so Joe, right, thank you. - Keep an elevated heart rate for more calories, I think is the trick. - My fiance and I are getting married in November this year. - Congratulations. - Her name is Marissa, and she listens to this podcast with me. - That's hot. - As you can expect, there's a lot of planning involved, but there's one aspect of the planning that I desperately need your guys' help on. I need you guys to help convince my fiance to use the metal ceremony music at the end of Star Wars. I already have her in the fence about this idea. - No, I've met now. I'm not going there. - So he says, "Let me see." So he wants this as the background music for when the bridal party is announced at the hall. - No. - What is wrong with you? - This would be a big win for me, as she has already shot down some of my other ideas, such as having all the groomsman dress up as Ghostbusters, me wearing a top hat and a cane with my tux. And me and my best man fighting off ninjas during the reception... - No, she made the compromise of marrying your lame ass. - No, I don't think you're lame. - I am saying it. Ninjas? - That sounds kind of cool. They could throw a skit. Like the ninjas are trying to steal his girlfriend's another castle. - So basically what it is, what it comes down to is that I don't know how serious Marissa takes a shift. She wants it to be super traditional. - How about you just shit on her parents during the ceremony? - If they're cool and they'd be cool with it, man, you know, she gets a lot of things. I don't see why you couldn't get this one thing. - I mean, I do. - 'Cause I mean, but he's saying it's like during the reception, right? - Right, it's not even a... - The reception? - No, I thought he said during the ceremony. - The bridal party is announced at the hall. Anyways, I'm just saying that I went to a friend's wedding and the two of them, and she's obviously nerdy enough to listen to this podcast, and these were two very nerdy people I knew, and they walked out to the Indiana Jones music and it was awesome. - Any time I've ever been to a wedding reception where they took the introductions of everybody with a grain of salt and just had a really good time with it, it totally starts the night off, right? - I just think it matters what type of person you and Marissa are, what type of couple you are. - Exactly. - It only worked the Indiana Jones thing because everyone was like, "Oh, that's so them." - Yeah, that's true. - Who are you that you started at Ninjas and work your way to Star Wars for your wedding? - I mean, having the Metal Ceremony music at the beginning of the reception, if that's what he was saying, I don't think that's a too big a thing to ask. - Dude, when Anthony read Metal Ceremony music, I thought of it as an adjective, like heavy metal. - Metal heavy metal stuff. - I was trying to think, did the new Star Wars films put some new metal on the end or something? - Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. - I say Marissa let him out this pool. - Marissa told they're going to ruin the wedding. Stand around Marissa. - No. - Stand around. - Don't listen to Arthur. - Marissa, I say-- - Arthur doesn't know how to have fun. - I say-- - You let him see you naked. - I say so. - I think about what type of couple you guys are and how your families would feel about it. And then ultimately it's your wedding so you get to make a decision. He's in it, but it's your wedding. - That's true too. - Speaking of Star Wars, you got any casting letters? - Oh, there were no letters. That happened all in the comments. - That happened all in the comments. - Really? - There are some great ones. I would-- - The only one I saw that I was like, okay, was Sean Elliot as the Sarlach. - That one is the wind of the whole fucking comment thread right there, dude. - Based on his fart during the PAX cast from last year. - Yes. - Sean Elliot is a Sarlach dude. - Some characters are sadly being overlooked. Like I didn't see any Jason Wilson castings. I didn't see any castings of the guy from Crystal Dynamics. - Right, but they were on for one episode out of like a hundred-- - What the heck is Sean? Sean wasn't even on an episode. - Yeah, but Sean Elliot, they know they were number him. - What, I didn't see the comments thread. So like what-- - C3P on that. You're C3P. - Of course I am. I probably wasn't like every single comment thread. - Nah, they had you as a couple different people. - Thanks for throwing me a bone, Tyler. - So a lot of me, Grand Moff Tarkin? - Yeah, a lot of people, you know. - Or Darth Vader? - That was my favorite one for you. I thought that was a good one. - You could be a Grand Moff Tarkin. - A lot of people put Anthony as Chewbacca. - It's 'cause I'm tall and skinny and covered with gold plating, isn't it? - Yeah. - Well yeah. - Live in large. - Yeah. - I thought it was your light up eyes. (laughing) Or the way your head is on backwards. - Yeah. - Definitely Robert Ashley gets Obi-Wan, Kenobi I think. - Really? - So you were calling him Han Solo. I think he could go either way. I don't know. - Yeah, he's the wild card. - Yeah. - Shit, man. - That makes sense. - Some of those comments were making me crack up, dude. - It's awesome. I didn't see them. - Yeah. - Okay, we're going to answer one more and then Arthur's going to read a letter. So this letter is from-- - Don't do it, Marissa. - Well, his letter is-- I guess he doesn't give his name, but the letter name he wrote in was Gamerog. And he says, "At the young age of 17, my dream job was just placing my hands. My friends asked me to be the drummer in their band. Music is my passion, and I obviously said yes. The only problem is I'm gay. I live in the middle of the Bible belt, and the other two people in the band are Christians. I'm not sure how the other two people in the band feel about homosexuals because the terms gay, fag, queer, et cetera have become so much more common in the past few years. The other two have strayed away from their traditional Christian upbringing, but I believe being gay could still get me kicked out. Should I lie and hide my true self or come out and risk my chance at my dream?" I don't understand. Is this like, are they like a touring band that's actually big or something? - Yeah. - Like, dude, you're a drummer or-- - You're a drummer. - What do you mean? Like, 20 bands clawing for you? - Also, what do you mean douche and fag or, I mean, gay and homo and fag have become more common over the last couple years? I feel like those have become much more wrong. - I feel like they have hair belt out in the Bible belt, they're probably just everyone says them, man. - Is it just because everyone is struggling back against the inevitable progressive bent of this country? - I don't understand, but that's a question only you can answer as to whether or not it's worth hiding who you are to play drums in a band. - No, it's never worth hiding who you are. Don't compromise yourself. And if nothing is worth compromising who you are, you'll find that your life, like, even if your band becomes, like, really successful, that, like, it'll suck later on. Like, the longer you hide it, the worse it's going to be. - I mean, what if you have to act like you're interested in chicks that show up to your show? - And then you'll get into all kind of three's company situations about the reverse. - The reverse three's company? - I mean, I do agree that he shouldn't hide who he is, and I do believe that he should tell them, maybe he gets kicked out, put a post down Craigslist and be in any other band. But I do think, though, that, you know, those terms in a lot of parts of the world that aren't California and aren't San Francisco, those are just readily acceptable, even more so, you know? - Yeah. - I feel like that's something around here. But even when I was in DC, the last week, I was like, commonly heard it. I was like, "Huh, people here just don't seem to care the same that we do out here." - Yeah. - True. - But yeah, man, be yourself and tell them, and if they kick you out, fuck those guys. And like I said, man, drummers will never have trouble finding a band. You are a commodity, dude. They will, people will be clawing for you. - Wow, I didn't know that. - Especially because everybody wants to be singer and guitar. - Exactly. And drum set is kind of an expensive thing to get into. - Yeah, two things. Drummers and bass players, you got your pick of bands. - Yeah, because no one wants to be the bass player in a band. They want to be a singer or a guitarist. - Right. - So those people are fucking diamond, doesn't you? You have to be really good. But a drummer, as long as you're good enough, people will be dying for you. - Right. - Yeah. - It's probably hard to find places to practice as a drummer too. So if you have enough practice that you're actually good, that's probably kind of rare. - Right. If you're a drummer and you have your own car, you're just like the best person on the planet to these people. Are there, did you have a letter you wanted to read? - I did. ♪ Be very, very, about, about, about, about ♪ ♪ I'm gonna sing a happy song ♪ ♪ Because then it's gonna be depressing, baby ♪ - All right, all right, all right, Jesus Christ. So I have a follow-up letter from Matthew. For those of you who don't remember who Matthew is, because we've had a lot of maths right in. - Matthew was the gentleman who was dying. - Matthew was the letter from a dying kid from several weeks ago. - Right. - I've been in communication with Matthew a couple of times after that, but nothing that I really thought needed to be read on the air. But this one I felt did need to be read on the air as a postscript to that letter. Matt is dying of cancer, I believe. When he wrote in a couple of months ago, he, or about six weeks ago, he said that he had three months to live, and he didn't want to die of virgin. - Right. - So, Matt says, "I just wanted to update you. It happened. I got a girlfriend and it happened." No one warned me that it was going to be like some bad slapstick comedy the first time. - Wow. That's the case for everyone, don't feel bad. - But I think I got the hang of it, achievement unlocked, so I guess I'm happy. - Awesome. - He also says, "I just wanted to add something to the conversation on Limbo. That is a terrible game to play when you were in my situation, apparently I'm going to have to battle spiders and terrible traps after I die. Hopefully my version has decent checkpoints." [laughter] - Very good. I love the way he's looking at that. - He says some more stuff here and there, but that's what's important. He also says he felt like Waus was a good TV show, and that he didn't waste six years of his life. - Hey, I'm a Wicke man, I'm a Wicke man. - I think I speak for everyone. I say, "Good show, Matt." - I told Scott and Brian at the office today, and they both high-fived, they sent high-fives your way. - Nice. - Good for you, Matt. - Are they here on that episode when we read that? - Yes. - Okay. - The heaviest episode of Rebel FM ever? - So, it's so good for you. - Totally. - Good show, Matt. - I'll see you someday. - Way to fuck that girl. [laughter] - So Twitter exists. - Sure does. - And we use it. - Yes. - AEGIS is Arthur. I am at Chuff Money. I've been trying to use a little bit more lately. A little bit. - Yeah, you have. I like it. - You said you're going to start planning your life in AP and action points. - Yeah, because I'm playing so much with Arcaras Fantasia. Go to Shitter, one action point. - Exactly. - I think with Anthony that might take more than one. - Okay. - And then, so you can find Tyler at Dirty Tea, like the drink, Dirty Tea, and then you can find Matt at Talking Orange. We might not have a show next week. We might, we haven't made up our mind. I will be at Gamescom transmitting. - It's fine. My surname is an important Tyler. - Well, I suppose-- - He did. - Oh, did he? - He did Arthur's first. - I did Arthur's first. - I didn't hear it because I was reading more about Bioshock Infinite. - Oh, so what he's saying is he missed it because he was being the asshole. - Yeah, I got it. - I wasn't paying attention to him podcast. - Me too. - I go on autopilot. - All right, so anyways, remember you can also send your letters into letters@eat-sleep-game.com. - Cool, and also if you guys, you know, we asked for some iTunes reviews last time. If you wanted to do us a better one, maybe suggest the podcast to a friend. - Yeah, that's even better than iTunes reviews. - Catfax. - Yay! - Yay! - You can also read Anthony and I's reviews, previews, and assorted sundry musings on IGN.com. - Cool. - Got anything cool coming up before the weekend or anything? - An archives Fantasia review. - Nice. - But you can also read my thoughts on company here is online from last week if you want. - I have a video preview going up for Space Marine tomorrow and a Cambridge review going up Tuesday morning. - My second episode of Crisis 2 TV just came out. - Yeah. - And that was all, this particular one was all Ryan O'Donnell. He edited the whole thing and he did a great job. - These are lots of awesome German in this episode or are they speaking English the whole time? - No, they speak English the whole time. - Son of a bitch. - Sorry, no awesome German. There is a lot of gameplay footage though. So. - Are you going to get to do more of those now that Crisis 2 has been pushed back to next year? - Um, we're still, as far as I know, we're still doing it. It's just that they might come out more infrequently. I don't know. They haven't told us what the new schedule is going to be for the episodes. - You heard it here, folks. Matt's still doing it. Oh. - Is it just in the podcast right there where he goes, I'd rather end it where you went. - Dude, speaking of great endings like Mad Men season 3, the endings of the episodes are so fucking awesome and that they end in really weird spots. - I wish other people in this are much true blood so I can talk about how fucking awesome the last episode is. - Vampires. - Vampires. - It's because it's totally watchable garbage. - Yeah. - It's such a well characterized garbage notes HBO. - Oh. It's a bow. - It's. - Yeah. - All right. We'll see you all maybe next week if not sometime after then. - We'll see you later. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]