Rebel FM
Rebel FM 70: 07/30/10
Join the regular crew, as well as Area5.tv's Ryan O'donnell as we discuss a host of games. OK, actually we mainly talk about StarCraft 2, but we also touch upon some iPhone games as well as the new Transformers DLC and some other minor games. If that isn't what you're looking for, you can listen in to our letters segment, where we pick the letter of the week and give that person a collector's edition of SC2.
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hey, motherfuckers, hello and welcome to Rebel FM episode 6970. (laughing) - Is that your final answer? - It's 70, it is 70. - It is 70. - It is 70, I know. - I remember it last night, time 'cause we were like, ah, 69 sexual jokes. - I actually think we managed to get out without any sexual jokes. - No, I know, but we decided before. Uh, I think we made, do we make a Bill and Ted joke? We should have if we didn't. - Oh, 69. - I am Anthony, with me as Arthur Geeze. - 70, what's episode 70? - Arthur Geeze, 70. Arthur Geeze is a seven year old man that we podcast with. - That way is so crutchy all the time. - I have to go to the bath room. - And then Tyler Barber. - Tootsie Roll. - Mash and, Tootsie Roll. - Mash and Janae. - I like Tootsie Rolls. - And then this week we also have Ryan O'Donnell joining us. - Yay. - Back from a long ex of this. - Yes, an ex of this. (laughing) - Yeah, I don't know. - Looking, Ryan's been looking for a home for the Jews. (laughing) - I found it. - Wow. (laughing) - It's in Mountain View. I had a company called Apple. (laughing) I don't know. You like Apple. - That is where Ryan would go. If he had any religion at all, that would be the place. - That would be his origin, yeah. - So, games in the games in the game. - By the way, it'd be Cupertino. - Let's just talk about it. Oh yeah, they're in Cupertino, that's right. - Get it right. - Mountain View is the home of Google. - It is. - So, StarCraft II. - Oh, we're gonna. - Yeah, we're just gonna jump right into that. - Okay. - Ball's deep right away. - Ball's deep right away. - Damn. - That's how I like my Wii. - Is anyone been playing multiplayer? So far, I've just been no time. Campaign. - Hell no, I'm full at that game. - Yeah, that's the thing is, I don't really have interest in playing multiplayer 'cause it is not my element. - I would lose. Plus, this one, like you-- - Well, the goal of the matchmaking now is that you won't lose. Like, you'll win every other match. - That's what I was, I'm not the type of guy that likes to play multiplayer in RTS very much, but playing through the campaign has made me want to play multiplayer, assuming that I get matched with someone who doesn't totally destroy me every time. - For me, I used to have people that would be like, what, you play an RTS game for the story? You know, they would think that, but like, this one's, it's even easier to justify that. - Oh, this is totally his story. - And it wasn't three of his ones. Warcraft 3 did a pretty good job with story. - Warcraft 3 did an awesome job with story. - Yeah, but this one, I'm saying-- - I think the StarCraft and Brewed War also did a great job with story for the time. - It did, but I'm saying this one's like even better because after every mission, there's like those little tiny baby cutscenes when you're back on your ship and all the ship interactions you can do. It feels a lot like a mass effect in a way where you get to walk around and talk to people in that sense. I don't mean in the sense that you can do it 'cause there's just dialogue trees or whatever. - But you can sit there and get people's perspective on what just happened. - It feels like an adventure game to me in Batoran. - Yeah. - Yeah, a little bit. - It's just a little-- - It's just a little-- - They announced that stuff ahead of time or what-- - Yeah, they knew that. - 'Cause I wasn't doing it much, watching much preview coverage or anything. And so it was a big surprise. - Yeah, that was totally news to me too. - Oh, you didn't read one of our 27 previews? - Yeah, nope. - Nope. - I mean, they actually showed that last year, I think at BlizzCon. They made you were gonna be able to explore your ship and talk to people. And that's where all the interactions were. - It was much better for me and not knowing. That was awesome. - Yeah, and like upgrading and stuff like that. - Yeah, that was all really cool. And I love the upgrade system in the game too. It's so cleverly done. Are all those powers available in the multiplayer? It's just that you have to buy the context. - So just to clarify, what he's talking about is that in the single player, you get the ability to do research. - Yes. - And so that gives you access to specific units, specific abilities. And I don't think all those, a lot of those things are not balanced from multiplayer. - They're campaign specific. - Like I actually don't think in multiplayer, you don't get to use Goliath's either. That's a campaign only. There are no Goliath's. - There's quite a few units that aren't available. - Yeah, like I know there's like medic units and stuff. - Wow, okay cool. - As far as our new medics weren't in multiplayer. - No. - What? - I don't think so. - The transports are, but do the medivacs. - That's right. - Yeah, the multi-player. - Yeah, the ships. You have healing ships, but there's no healing unit. - Right. - I had no healing units. - I'm not a big multiplayer guy, but my friend who was visiting me recently was and I had access to the beta, so I let him sit down and play. And he started with Terrence just 'cause he thought it would be the easiest. And the first thing you started doing was like, so there's no medics in this game. That's so weird. You remember I have to learn how to replay Terrence all over again. - Yeah, there's no, in multiplayer, there's like no medics, there's no vultures, there's no goliaths. - Oh, I love the vultures. - And you do get, you know, and you get all these things through the campaign. - Are there vultures in a single player? - There are. - Yeah, you unlock 'em. - You're just not there yet. - I guess not. - I've only seen like the dirt buggy things with flamethrowers. - Right, Italian. - Yeah, it says-- - But you're useless. - A lot of your classic units are still there. It's just, I think that they determined that they wanted to make the multiplayer completely new balance and just not make people jump back into the same old tactics. - Makes sense. - Yeah, but what I love about the single players that as I've been playing through, I realize like, wow, they're teaching me how to play the game and I don't feel like I'm being taught. You know, it's tutorial through gameplay, which is something we've talked about before about like, you know, how it just kind of sucks when you have to go through the tutorial stage or you have a wall of text that you have to read. - Like just looking at like fighting the Zerg, for example, like fight as Terence against the Zerg and just using Terence, it feels like Terence has been shifted much more towards infantry-based combat as much as anything. Like they have double the infantry units they used to. And Zerg, it seems like Zerg have been sort of pushed a little more towards airborne stuff. Like they have way more airborne units than they ever used to. - Oh yeah, I mean, they just have a wide variety too. Zerg have just been diversified a lot where it's not like, just make hydrolysts 'cause any more or anything like that. - Right. - Well, yeah, nobody has that troop that's just like their catch-all troop. Like Protoss, it was Dragoons. - Yeah and they don't have - I haven't again played multi, but I get the impression that Taren is made to play. I feel like a lot of people who are bad at RTS like me, like you wanna play, which is that you wanna sort of turtle up and play defensive. And now with the way that you can put supply depots right in front of the ramps to your base, they'll like shift into the ground and let you pass, but they create, they're basically walls. - Well, you do that in the original start. - Right, but you can drop 'em with the game drop. And they actually have those challenge missions that you can do and those are actually to introduce you to multiplayer shadows. Yeah, like one of the Taren ones is like defending against a Zerg rush and it tells you you will be Zerg rushed like two minutes after the game starts. And so it's just like to encourage you to like get used to that idea. - Wow, that's great. - Or there's like Protoss ones where all your given are like these little units that can make a shield and you're given the guys that can cast lightning. - You can't think of the name. - Like size storm? - Yeah, templars. - Templars. - So I teach you how to use powers. - And so you have those and so that's all you have to defend against a bunch of Zerg. - Wow. - So yeah, it's to teach you about how you can, you know, and there's one where you have all these Protoss units and you have to kill all the Zerg in a specific amount of time and the mouse is disabled. - Oh wow. - So it's all-- - To learn the keyboard. - Yeah, it's crazy. - You learn quick keyboard commands. - That's great. I did really like it when even though I haven't played the challenges, I like that it said, you know, use the appropriate unit counter to the correct attack and try not to lose any buildings in your base or whatever. And I was like, man, that's like, this is the kind of training that I always wanted to have that I always figured I would have to have somebody else do it for me. - Yeah, I mean, to some extent their achievements, I think, to do a good job of helping you get better at the game because they force you into situations that call upon you to do much more than what the mission would demand where you're not just like camping a bunch of units or one thing you're actually having to have one unit like defending this while another unit goes out and does this instead of being able to focus on one thing all the time, which I think is the way that you can play a lot of RTS's like company heroes, you don't have to diversify that much. You can pretty much, you know where things are going down that you need to pay attention to and Starcraft's one of those games where it's like, really if you ever wanna be good at it, especially multiplayer, you gotta be able to think of like 10 situations at once. - Yeah, but a single player, they do a really good job of letting you be bad at the game. Like if you play on normal, which is what I've been playing on. - Right, it's not that hard. - It's really, yeah, it's pretty easy. And you generally, you can. I mean, even though they're doing a good job of like Matt said, teaching you how to actually use the units properly. If you just build a bunch of units, diversified group of units and group them all together, one giant group, you can usually just run them right into it. - I mean, it could just be that it's super, like you said, the levels are super easy, but I kind of felt like the levels were, they were there on purpose, like they would introduce a new tech, like a new troop or a new vehicle or whatever. And then all I would do would be build that one item for like that whole level. And I felt like the levels were kind of designed to really get you to use a massive army of this one new unit. - And so that now you understand like, oh, this unit is really good against this, but it fails, you have to go against this. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But what I'm saying, Matt, is that you're right. If you just want to beat the mission at the very basic level, I feel like a lot of them, you can just do that. But sometimes they do make you branch out a little bit if you want to like do-- - You want to get like a lot of research at this point. - Oh yeah, it's holy. - And I do think that this game, more than any, has the encouragement that you want to play it on hard because they do have achievements. I mean, yeah. - I think to go back to a little bit to what Matt was saying, I did think that this is just the natural progression of them teaching you how to use units right. I specifically remember in Brood War, there was a unit called the Corsair that the Tarens had that I think the Tarens had. - All it could do is attack air. - Yeah, and Corsair was a pro-toss. - Is it a pro-toss? - Okay, okay. - But the Taren had one too, a Valkyrie. - Valkyrie. - Anyway, I think it is the Corsair, the pro-toss unit that I remember in the single player. - Like basically you could incapacitate units underneath the field. - Right, that's the one I'm thinking of. I remember the mission where they introduced that unit and thinking at that point, like wow, they've gotten a lot better at this, like teaching me in the single player how to use the units that, you know, the new units that have just been added for this expansion pack. And it's carried on throughout Warcraft 3 and now to StarCraft 2 as well. Yeah, they're doing a really good job with it. - Yeah, I like that a lot. - Yeah, how far have you guys gotten in the single player? Like I've only played like probably like three hours. - I think I'm further than both of you and Matt's finished. - I beat it. - Oh, you beat it. - Yeah, I beat it today. - Wow. - Yeah, it was a lot of fun though. The last stage I thought was really cool. The last couple stages are really cool. And now that I've been all the way through it, like I really appreciate, you can see that they've like learned stuff from their mod makers too and the kind of things that were really popular. I mean, I was actually hoping that they're, I did play one stage that was all Dota style and I was really hoping that there would be like a few more stages like that where all you're doing is controlling one or two heroes or whatever. But they did have like several different types of gameplay. It wasn't always just straight up, you know, RTS versus the computer. - And what's even more interesting is that it's non-linear, you know, which is different than I think. - Yeah, I mean, like Arthur hasn't unlocked Vultures yet, but I have. - Yeah, exactly. - It's like I've like picked a character that I wanted to help Vultures. - Viking. - Vultures? - Like a smile. - There's Vultures and Vikings. - The, the mission that Matt was talking about that was Dota-esque is a mission where you have a choice to go about it two different ways. And I played it in a completely different way. - Right, I got a different map and didn't get that mission. - Yeah, a different map and it was really, it was one of my favorite missions so far. And so Matt missed that one. I'm sure that that was a fun mission for you. - It was really cool the other way. So it makes me want to go back and do it again. - It's funny that I don't feel like there are a bunch of companies that could get away with a, like Blizzard just does it so well that it would annoy me when I played other games where they made me make permanent choices. - Right. - But I don't mind it when they're like, this is your research decision. You're fucking stuck with it the whole time. I was like, all right. - Both of them, that's, that's 'cause generally speaking, or I mean, I haven't had one so far where the choice was really easy to make. I guess we should clarify. Right now we're talking about the research tech trees. - Oh yeah, I mean, there are other choices you make. Like you depend, you decide at certain points like what kind of unit you're going to get for the rest of the game. - Right. - Like at some point you have to choose between it. Was it, I can edit this out if it's too spoilery, but you have to choose between specters and ghosts. - Right, that's the only time that happens. - Like for a very, is it really? - Yeah. - I mean, it's awesome when it does because it forces you to choose and you know that if there's no turning back once you do. - Right, that's the only time that happens. - In general, in research they make you choose between certain units. - That's except in research, yeah. So in the research trees, like so far, I'm not submitting it all the way through. I'm about halfway at both sides of the tree. And it's been a pretty hard decision to make most of the time. - The process ones seem a lot easier. Those ones, it's like, they're not nearly as cool as the zerg ones in my mind. - Sort of, but I mean, for example, there's one, I can't remember what the opposite choice was, but there was one where you can have, oh, maybe I'm wrong about this, nevermind. I thought the decisions. - Like the pro, there are a couple of different sauce ones that are really cool. Like the ability to drop in supply depots. - It's from orbit, yeah. - The ability to harvest from a refinery without using SCVs. - I chose that one. That one's really good. - Totally. I did not choose that one. - Which was the alternative. - Because the other thing, the opposing one is to allow you to train two SCVs in there. - Oh, right. - And like, check it out. So let's say at most, you know, in a single, unless you expand a bunch, in which case this is totally different, but you know, you're talking about six SCVs that are gonna be used up to use a refinery 'cause you send three SCVs to each refinery, right? - Sure. - So if I can build twice as many SCVs at once, that helps me out throughout many more portions of the game, you know, especially when I'm trying to harvest a bunch of minerals. And it's really, usually once I have a group of SCVs going and harvesting minerals, it's really easy to just say, all right, three go over here. I'll set my, whatever, my rally point to my minerals and then just click three times on the, you know, build three SCVs and boom, it's right. You know, I just figured to be able to build twice as many SCVs as you were using. - Well, that's the cool thing about those research trees is that you can just choose whichever choice like you feel is gonna be more fun for you to play. - For the way you play, yeah, exactly. I think games like Dawn of War did that really well. - And which one has a cooler art too, 'cause like every choice you make, like really does change the way everything looks. - Can I interject your tower? Would I be correct in assuming that you were not playing StarCraft II? - Not yet. - I don't, excuse me, I don't have StarCraft II now. But I was watching, but because I didn't have it, I was watching a bunch of like tutorial videos and stuff online and- - And dreaming fondly. - Well, there are actually some really good beginner multiplayer YouTube videos that like really walk players through like Bill Daughters. And so I was looking up videos like that and they were talking like about how multiplayer, if you can focus on your macro stuff and what they had described as macro was things like get your economy straight, get your, you know, make sure you have two SCVs per each mineral thing, you know. I mean, those sort of details. - I mean, even my friend Paul who's been trying out the multiplayer said that you can learn a lot just because if the replay system is so good and it tells you to get the specific time when they build things and stuff like that, that you can sit there and be like, oh, I never thought, if you're willing to go back and see yourself get beat down. - I feel like I have really put the tools in place. I mean, I don't even know about the challenges that you mentioned earlier, but the conversation with the challenges, them showing you your and the opponent's build order at the end and being able to watch the entire replay and then, you know, having the entire internet as a tool as well. - Well, and you're first thing. - That's interesting too because that makes StarCraft much more competitive now that people can't hide their strategies. - Exactly. - Yeah, I mean, you had replays in the old game as well. - Right, but it didn't break down exactly when they started building things, you know. You can follow someone's like plan. - I wonder if you watch replays and the computer's just cheating. - Yeah. I wonder if that's the kind of thing that they can turn off for tournament play. - What would they? - I don't know. - That makes tournaments more interesting if everyone can see what everyone else is doing. - Well, yes and no, I can see arguments for both, but you like that. - Yeah, I mean, maybe, I mean, I think the reason they put it in there is 'cause if they didn't, someone would have made it. Like in company heroes, people made replay analyzers that you added to your game for that reason. That's a good plan. - I mean, with it being basically, I mean, not basically, with it being a professional sport in Korea, I mean, it just makes sense that they would build all the tools right into the game from the get-go to sort of accommodate. - Well, especially when they're gonna ask you like that. - There's a helicopter that's about to land on our part. - Especially when they're gonna ask every Korean person over there to buy a copy of the game this time, you know. - Right, right. - My friend who spent the year in Korea said the vast majority of people there played StarCraft I and World Warcraft for that matter on internet cafe PCs, you know, where they only had like one copy and just installed it on all of them. - Right. - So. - I'm wondering how they're gonna make that work. Like if there's gonna be internet cafe licenses. - Perhaps. - Yeah, I mean, as far as I know there has to be. That's what I've heard. - 'Cause as it is now, it's essentially set up like wow. - Yeah. - Like you just have the client installed with a new login to your account and there's your shit. - Yeah, you can play your save file anywhere. - Yeah, it's been really nice because-- - Except for you can't do mid-mission saves. Those are local. - Yeah, that's true. I didn't know that. - I didn't know that either. It's been really nice for me because I don't have a dedicated gaming PC. I have a MacBook Pro and it's got boot camp on it. So I've been able to install the game on both my Windows XP partition and my Mac partition. And it was really nice to be able to just hop back in and go like, oh yeah, my save files right here and ready to go. It's super easy. - I was talking to my friend, friend of the show, Quality Beats. - Quality Beats. - Quality, he said he got StarCraft and he said his PC is real shitty. And he was like, yeah, man, it still runs good. He's like, it looks like the first StarCraft. (laughing) - Let's stop for a second. Ryan, can you tilt your mic down? 'Cause the mic is pointing toward your face. - You don't like it pointing at my eye? - It just doesn't pick up as well. (laughing) - That's weird. I don't understand. - I know, right. (laughing) - Talking out of your eye, is that better? - That's much better. - Okay, cool. And resume. - So what do you guys like the best about the campaign? Is it that, like for me, I think the story, all that's really cool. But what I like so far the best is that the missions are so diverse. Like the old StarCraft. - Yeah, you fuckin'... - You stole mic. - I was gonna say 'cause in the old StarCraft, it was like you either had missions like Ryan was describing earlier where it was like, control a couple of heroes and take them through this whole level and micromanage them. - Export missions. - Or you were doing like, just kill the other base. - That's not true. - To a large degree, a lot of the missions were like that in the first StarCraft. - No, no, I disagree. There were a lot of missions where it had you do weird shit. Like hold down this over mind, Sarah Britt, while you're going to do this other thing. And like, you have to dominate these different points at the same time or use this SUV to carry this thing over here. Like, that's pretty common in the original StarCraft. - I agree that they did a better job in StarCraft II of diversifying the missions. But yeah, if you do go back and play StarCraft in Grood War, I mean, I guess I should click, like I, not to completely renege on my thing, but I'm saying, you know, like, those were like the two primary ones that you often did. And there were other ones, but this one so far, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I haven't played two missions that felt the same almost. - Well, and I think that's due to what I said before, whereas there, every mission that you choose introduces a new piece of tech or like a new unit that you can use. And so like the missions are designed to be used for a new unit. - And they introduce like day/night cycles, stuff like that too. - And there's collectibles in each of the stages as well, you know, and so. - Yeah, and you choose your mission, there are always multiple mission types. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I love the non-linear story, and I love the, you guys are maybe not there yet, and maybe this is a bit of a spoiler, so I'm just gonna say it and you guys can decide whether or not you wanna edit it out. But I really like when you finally get the tacit R crystal and you can start playing as a few of the protos missions. - That's fine to say. - Because, I mean, that's been announced previously. - So what's cool about it is that, you know, I think one of the major complaints about this game is when they announced that it was just gonna be Tarens, right? - It was just Tarens. - I don't, I'm not done with it, but so far it feels like, of definitely feels like a full game to me. - Yeah, definitely. - There's a ton of content there. I'm not angry about the length or the diversity of it at all. - Me neither. - I do, you know, sort of wish I could play the campaigns of the other races just because it would be really cool and it would-- - And it will, you'll just pick $60 each time. - $60 each time. - Yeah, I mean, and it would be-- - And it would be a hundred for the collector's editions. - And it would be good to teach you-- - The collector's edition is pretty awesome. Is it flat? I will go get it while you two-- - No, I know it's pretty awesome. I've seen all the details on it and I kind of wish I could have it, but I'm not gonna pay a hundred bucks. - If ever there was a collector's edition to buy for a game this year, it very well may be that. - Blizzard does collector's editions really, really well. - Right, they always have. And you just open the case on that thing and it's like it vomits out content, right? - Yeah, I agree that just because the old ones had multiple campaigns doesn't mean that you need that to make it feel like a full game. Like, again, a game that I draw readily to compare to is Dawn of War. - Right, right. - 'Cause Dawn of War, the old ones had like three campaigns in them and stuff and then the newest Dawn of War two has just has a human campaign and that's it. But it's like the same thing as Starcraft War. It's like this like 15 to 20 hour, like epically long human campaign that's like really well done and you don't feel like dissatisfied with that. - I think I probably, I don't know exactly, I spent probably somewhere between like 10 to maybe 14 hours with the Terran campaign. And that's more than enough game for me. I mean, that was totally meaty, but I did kind of artificially lengthen some of my time because the way that I tend to play is to turtle up and build nine million units and then all send them out with overwhelming force, you know? So like a stage that probably could have been completed by 15 minutes who somebody could have been completed in 15 minutes by somebody who's more aggressive than I am took me 30 to 45 minutes. - I want to explore as much as possible. There's so much shit buried in this game. - Yeah. - There's like lots of little references. - Well, in lots of little Easter eggs, like there's a level like, this has been Katakur's thing all week. Like if you don't like Starcraft, Katakur's been a bad place to be this week. But like Diablo is in one episode, one level like way down in the corner. - Oh, that's funny. - There's a level 80 Taren Space Marine on another level and there's a Metroid and a Canister on one level. - I don't know. And not only like that, but I still again think that there are several levels that I want to replay on hard. Just, and not even so much because I want to get that achievement. Not as much that though, it's just because, but the achievements, more than like a lot of games do, like some games on 360 are really well too. But yeah, they set like a really like, man, I wonder if I could do that sort of goal. - Like they're known after Guns N' Roses songs. - Yeah. (laughing) Part of the, to go back to the differences between the campaigns though, part of the reason I'm excited about it is because of the between mission interstitial gameplay of venture mode parts. - Yeah, like what will the dessert one be like? - Exactly, the Taren one's totally like the easy one. It's like you said, you know, this game's nothing like Mass Effect, but you kind of think of Mass Effect when you're in there. And like Zergar, a hive mind that can communicate whatever across the ether telepathically and this sort of thing. In the first game, the Sarah Brits or whatever, they were giant pulsating balls of flesh. - They're like big brung testicles. - Yeah, brain testicles. - And like wait, and I'm not gonna spoil it obviously, but wait until you beat the game, then even at that point, you're especially gonna be like, well, what the fuck are they gonna do for the Zerg campaign? - Exactly, the Zerg campaign is the third one. - Second one, second. - Oh, it is the second, the protosthe last, okay. - Yeah, and then the protosthe additionally, like as cool as it is to be inside a spaceship, it's gonna be super cool to be in a protosthe temple or something like that. - And the thing about Wings of Liberty, like you were learning so much more about the world than you did before, like most of the stuff you'd learn about Starcraft War was either in the instruction book or a little cast-off bits of dialogue here and there, whereas now it feels like-- - Or you and it's inferred. - Yeah, like a ton of this stuff is actually explicitly described in game, and then all of that has a ton of inference and implication around it as to what this world is like. - Yeah, well like last week I went to the Starcraft Wiki, and I think I said this on last week's podcast too, and like read all up on the story and everything. - Even though it just fills you in as it's installing. - Exactly, but also the funny thing is is like, after going through this game, I don't think you would have needed to do that in order to get the entire story. - No, you could never have played Starcraft and just jump right in and understand like, ah, bad guy, took over, you once were friends with him. - With a lot of loyalties, many crazy things going on. Okay. - It's a minor thing and it's not even really a complaint. I'm just curious, does anyone know why they changed the voice actor for Kerrigan? - I don't. - Yeah. - No, I don't know either. - I don't know. - There were stories about it. - The voice acting is really good. - Yeah, it's number six. - Yeah, six. - Trisha Helfer. - Trisha Helfer is the voice of Kerrigan, but you know, when I was 13, I thought the old Kerrigan was sexy. - I will say, you just said that the voice acting is good and I don't disagree at all. I think some of the writing is not super cheesy. - Some of the writing is super good, but not in a way that really bothers me. It kind of reminds, playing this game in the dialogue and the storytelling and it really reminds me of, I mean, it's like an old PC game. It seems like it's a sort of trying to appeal to the same audience of people that would play Doom and Quake and these things from back in the day. I mean, they make even as a little side, the like little jokes, like the eye pistol and the level 80 Toren chieftain. Yeah, it's like all that stuff. It's like PC gamer humor. It's like nerd humor in a way that you don't usually see it in, I don't know, in console games. - I agree with mine's made that. - But it also reminds me to an extent of firefly in a lot of ways. And that's in some of the bits of the writing, but it's in big time with the music. Like the music in this one is like way better than it was in the original. And the original one had some iconic music. - I think the first game sounds like, I think the first game sounds kind of firefly-ish too. I was playing, I popped it in a little bit lately and been watching videos on YouTube as well. And, you know, for being very pre-firefly, it sounds a lot like that. - But now it's like, yeah, it's kind of where they have like real instruments playing the music track, which is just excellent. - Well, so those are music tracks. Like I had to switch 'em because like when it would come on like a shotgun, zerg, and you or whatever the name that song was, like I couldn't not hear the words and just kind of cringe. I was like, okay, this song is hilarious and I could listen to it out of this context. But in the context of it playing in the cantina in my starship kind of like ruins the experience for me. - And that's what I was talking about in terms of the writing just being a little strange. - No, not in a bad way necessarily, but I don't know. - And it's not the best written game. - Well, towards the end of the game, there are definitely some moments that are like super cheese-inducing. - Right, yeah, but it's space opera. - It's not just space opera, it's space soap opera. - Right, well, it's also like 17 hours long. - Yeah, I don't know how anybody could get 17 hours out of that game unless they were really, really trying to do like all of the achievements and get failing. - I want a space opera. (laughing) - I'm reading this thing and it doesn't give a reason specifically why the Carrigan voice is different. The Rainer voice is different as well. - Oh, I didn't know that. I mean, I guess it's, you don't care. - I mean, this sounds like you're not a sexy chick. - They decided not to use Rainer or Carrigan's original voice actors. And the voice actors that did Carrigan has also done Jesus Christ. - Do y'all will do y'all will do star craft, brood war, war craft three and world of war craft, the Burning Crusade? - Maybe she fell in child. She's like, "I want a million dollars." - Well, she did, she did some voice work for the original trailers for star craft two. And then they recast it. - Oh, there you go. - Like, hey, we got this really hot chick in the studio. Yeah, let's do that. (laughing) - I'm not big into Trisha Hilfer. - I mean, I'm not either, but a lot of the world is. - She's gonna run into the Nolan North thing pretty soon where, you know, she's in too many games or she doesn't watch out. - Well, I guess she doesn't care. - She said no one North and like, for some reason, my mind just processed it as Christopher Nolan as like inception, but no. - Different Nolan. - So you wouldn't have anything else to add about star craft from what they've played thus far. - How's it running for you guys? - For me, fantastic. I'm running at like ultra high settings, maximum resolution, my PC is two years old and it runs great. I've had no frame rate hiccups at all, even like when there's nine million things going on at once on the screen. - Well, what do you mean hiccups that stays at 60? - Yeah. - Wow. - Oh yeah, it stays at 60. In fact, the only time I've seen it slow down is during the end game in engine cutscenes. - Right, I also see that. Typically my frame rate is really good. - Yeah, it has like a, I have a GTX 260. GTX 26, that's what we got you. - Really? - Two of those and my computer at work and it runs like crap, comparatively speaking. - Maybe you need to only have one. I don't know. - It could be, I don't know. It also didn't recognize the video cards, which was weird. - Oh, that's really weird. But my 5850, my new 5850 is running in really well. - Yeah, yeah, it's been running great. I'm extremely pleased. On the max side of things though, Ryan was saying it's not so good, right? - Not so well on LSI. - Yeah, it's not so great. I mean, I don't have a, my computer is a beast for a laptop, but it's not like the same thing as a gaming machine, you know, it's not a gaming machine. - But I mean, there's a pretty significant difference between bootcamp and LSIX. - Oh yeah, definitely. When I installed it on the max side, I can run it, I mean, I'm running it a pretty low resolution somewhere, you know, like a little bit. - Like a few, buy something. - Buy something or other. And like medium settings and medium to low settings, and it's not very good. Bootcamp, I can run it 1280 by 800. It's a 16 by 10 monitor. And with high settings and ultra quality textures, and it's, I'm not getting 60 frames or anything, but it's smooth enough to play. Why? - Medium quality texture settings are what was designed for the resolution you're using. So you're just wasting video memory. - I have a bunch of extra video memory. - Is there a waste, baby? - Well, what I'm saying is that you might get a better frame rate if you turn it down to medium, and you're not going to-- - Oh, it's fine, I mean, it's totally fine. I actually like the frame rate, right where it's at right now. - We need to have PC developers come out and say, like the resolutions that their settings are designed for. 'Cause a lot of people are just like, I can't set the texture to high, that sucks. And it's like, you were running it such a low resolution comparatively speaking. - Right, there's no like hint texture, anything that pops up when you choose an option that tells you why this is better for this particular situation. - That said, it looks really good. And every once in a while, I'll flip it on, like in the cut scenes, I'll like flip to ultra settings and just see what it looks like. And I actually sort of, this is kind of weird. I sort of think it looks better the way I'm running it. There's one setting, like when I flip everything up to ultra, that makes everyone look really plasticky and shiny. And on the high settings that I use traditionally, it doesn't look like that. So the humans look more human. - Like ambient occlusion or something like that. - What's ambient occlusion? - Ambient occlusion is, I don't think that's what it is, but ambient occlusion is as two objects near each other, the point at which they become closer together gets more shadowed. So it's like when you look at the corner of your room, it's not just that the light's not reaching that corner, it's that those are surfaces coming together that are not on the same plane. - I think it's an extremely processor intensive. - I think it's the ultra quality shaders. So that's the setting that I think does it be. It makes, for example, what's the crazy marine that's always in his suit? - Ticus. - Ticus. - Ticus is always in the cantina in your ship. And if I flip it on, his nose gets a really harsh, like white highlight on it. And you know, his skin looks like he's sweaty and gross, but in a plasticky sort of way. And the way that I'm running it traditionally, that's not there. And it doesn't look like the lighting is bad, it looks more realistic. So I don't know, that's maybe I'm crazy, but I would say just flip it around a little bit, play with it and see if you actually like it better without the plasticky-ness, I don't know. Give it a try. - I don't get to run it on ultra, so. - Yeah. - I mean, you don't need to for most of it 'cause you're, again, you're-- - Yeah, I'm not. - I'm not super high resolution either, but. - Oh, my monitor is very high resolution. - I still think it looks great. - Do you run it off your MacBook onto a display? - No. - What residence is your monitor? - 19 by 12. - I've been playing it on my TV, at 1080p. - Gotcha, yeah, I've been playing 19 by 12. - I just, I have, it's more comfortable as to the desk, so. - So "Starcraft 2", people love it. - Yeah, I think it's a really good game. - Yeah. - They, I'm sure if you are a big multiplayer "Starcraft" super fan, I'd be actually really interested to hear what people like that thing, but I think the highest praise that I can say is that it's impressed me at almost every turn not knowing much about it going into it. Like, aside from having played the beta, like the single, the single player campaign really just like kept adding new things that I wasn't expecting. And it makes me want to play the multiplayer. And now that you've told me about these challenges, I really wanna try. - Yeah, there's like three per race that try and break you into specific things that you need to think about with that race. - That's great. - So I really wanna, I'm really looking forward to downloading and playing mods too. - That's what I wanna play. - I had so much fun with Warcraft 3 playing mods, and I really wanna do that. - According to someone on Twitter, Blizzard has said that they're going to make a version of "Starcraft" ghost using the mod tools. - That is fucking awesome. - When I was at Blizzard. - You know, they need to not fucking tease me about that. - Well, when I was at Blizzard, in the offices, they had said that that was already done internally before the game ever came out. - Like, Nova is in that game, which is bad enough. - Yeah, that mission was my favorite mission. - It's so good. - And then, well then, depending on whose side you take, the aftermath is also awesome. - Yeah, it was super awesome. - And the voodoo part is funny. - Yeah, it was funny. That's what I was telling. I told Matt, you gotta do it the other way. 'Cause he'd keep keeping up with your action. - I have a save point there so I can play that. - You gotta, you gotta, the other thing that I can say to commend the game is that people who do not typically care about PC games or real-time strategy games are interested in enjoying the hell out of "Starcraft 2" at work. - It's like a Mario game, man. For PC, for people who go out of their way to play it. - I used to have like 1.5 million units on release day. - Whoa. - Yeah. - That's how much it did like in its first year when it came out in 1998. It is like the only PC game I've ever seen in our office where people that, it's the only PC game where everyone in general was like, "Oh, you got a copy?" Like that never happens. - And I think people that don't usually play RTS like-- - Like you? - Yeah, exactly. - And like me. I have had lots of people ask us like, "Hey, I don't really care about RTS. Should I play "Starcraft 2?" I think definitely. - I think so too. - Because of how easy the campaign is and because of how good it is and should play it. - Here's the funny thing. I think that the hardcore RTS fans on PC are actually the ones that are gonna enjoy at the least. - I don't know about that. I think, I feel like Blizzard is sort of doing the same thing with "Starcraft" that they have gotten better at with World of Warcraft in that there's plenty of stuff there for the people that are into playing it the hardcore way. And then they have all the other stuff there for the rest of the gaming universe that doesn't play like that. - Well, there's just, I mean, there are things that, like the hardcore RTS audience, like World in Conflict, Company of Heroes, and Dawn of War. - Yeah, they've gotten kind of ways from doing the dirt farming part. - Well, the strategy that you use in those games is functionally impossible in "Starcraft." - Right. - Like you can't really aim your people and even if you did, they would still just turn around. - Right, and tanks have fronts and backs. - Right, yeah, but I also feel like "Starcraft" is one of those games that has a legacy that's gonna bring a lot of people back that really haven't played in RTS since they played "Starcraft." - Right, well, there's also the fact that real-time strategy games have become progressively less successful since "Starcraft" was big. So, I mean, people talk like, I got an email or a tweet from somebody last week that was really angry that I had the temerity to imply that the Company of Heroes wasn't successful. But, Company, I mean, I love Company of Heroes, but that game did not sell what they wanted or needed it. - I am shocked as your temerity, Arthur. - Right, and that's not to say that a lot of PC players didn't really like it, that it didn't review really well, but it wasn't, it didn't set the world on fire. - Well, a lot of people pirated the shit out of it. It has a ton of people playing it, but a lot of those people were pirates, and they know that, especially in China. - Shocking, really shocking. Well, this may be a dangerous thing to say depending on where it actually goes, but I kinda, after playing this, I really wanna play a world of "Starcraft" MMO. - I'm sure it's been discussed. - I'm sure it has been, I'm sure it's been rejected, but I would really love it. - I sure was discussed before they even made World of Warcraft. - I mean, the problem was, it's not like they didn't think of it, but I think it'd be so cool. - I would assume that the groundwork is being laid for it because World of Warcraft, when it first came out, looked exactly like character models you saw in the interstitial sequences of "The Frozen Throne," and there's all sorts of interstitial character models that are just begging to be put in a game once graphics technology gets to a point of ubiquity that they feel comfortable that they can do it. - Yeah, I just wanna say that "World of StarCraft" is stupid, that would never work because there are so many worlds in "Starcraft," it would have to be universe of "Starcraft." - No, because it would just take place in "Terran Space," and then you would have certain teleport areas to like the dark, templar areas into like ruined parts of ire. - I just think that if anybody could make like ranged combat interesting for, like I think that's always been a problem in MMOs where it's like laser-based combat stuff, it's always been really boring. And so if anyone could maybe do it to be them, maybe, but you know, there's something to be said, a lot of MMOs, you really do need that walk up and hit things to like feel like you're doing something. - It's true. How about we take a quick break and we'll get to the back? - Okay. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Let's talk about games we've been playing. - Man, those love. - What's Ryan, why don't you kick us off? The games that you've been playing outside of Star guy. - Man. - Dude, you haven't been here for so long, you can talk about shit that you've been playing even recently, you know, almost week. - I know, the thing is I'm probably just a weeknight, okay? It's gonna make Arthur mad 'cause all I've been playing sadly is like iOS games. - Well, that's not gonna make me mad, it's just not something that I'm interested in. - I know, you're just having a capable smartphone that has a game marketplace, like I'm not. - You're not into it, no. - He got one and he was like, huh, I don't like it. - I bought it and then I've regretted it 10 minutes later. - You have the droid, I do. I have one of those for a while. - There are plenty of good mobile games out there. - Yeah, so I've been playing a lot of them. I don't even know where to start, let's see. Osmos on iPad, I was just showing Tyler here, that's a great game. - Are all these available for iPhone as well? - This one isn't yet, but it will be soon and it's available for PC, so that makes it very-- - So what does Osmos actually make me intrigued? - Right, PC. - There you go, so it's a, it was an IGF winner, I think two, or two years ago. - Two IGFs ago, yeah. - Yeah, I don't, and I said winner, I don't know if it actually won. - Like not the overall winner, but it was something-- - No, it won a prize. - It won a prize, some prize. It's very straightforward, it's like imagine space on your screen and there's these sort of balls that look like, or these circles that look like cells or something like that. - I think they are supposed to be like cells or like single cell life forms really. - It looks like a combination of a cell and a galaxy. - Yeah, yeah. - So what do you do? - Basically, you are controlling one of these sort of things and there are many of them on the screen and anything that is smaller than you, you can absorb, anything that is bigger than you can absorb you. - So you're basically just trying to gather matter? - Yeah, essentially, and the way that you move is that you tap in the case of the iPad or click in the case of the PC version and sort of on one side of the one that you are and that shoots off a little piece of you, making you smaller and you can tap a bunch of times and propel yourself faster. - Just make yourself much smaller. - Yeah, it's so obscene. - Yeah, you use your masses fuel so sort of like Anthony does, like you expel things out of one end and then you move forward. - Dude, if I could actually get propelled by my, by my guess, that would be awesome. I would not pay to get to work. - That is essentially the whole game. I mean, there are times when you're orbiting around something so you have to contend with gravity. There are times when the screen is just so full of other blobby things that it's very, you have to move very carefully. - Or else you'll get absorbed. - Exactly, but that's like the core of the game and it's just really fun to play. You can-- - So there's no end. It's just fun games. - There is, there are like, I don't know, something like 20 stages or something like that. They're basically, it's like a puzzle game and you can speed and slow down time and the music is really good and as you speed up and slow down time, you know, time stretches along with it. So it sounds really cool and it's just one of the better games on iPad. Another iPad game that I just started playing today is the Secret of Monkey Island 2, the remake of it. - Special Edition, yeah. - Special Edition and it's just a fantastic version on iPad. They had done the first Secret of Monkey Island on iPhone. - Which was great. - It was cool, yeah, yeah, yeah. The interface on the iPhone was kind of fucked up. You had to like move around a cursor and point at things and then click it twice and it just didn't work right. This time, whatever you click on, it'll do the natural, you know, it'll do the-- - It'll tell you the best interaction. - The best interaction choice. So if you click on a person, it's gonna talk to them. If you click on a poster, it's gonna look at it. If you click on the ground, you'll walk there. It's really straightforward and it works really well. So it would be kind of nice if they updated the old version to work that way. I'm sure it's not that easy to do it, but it looks great. - It also has commentary tracks, right? - It does. - From Ron Gilbert. - And Tim Shafer. - Tim Shafer, mm-hmm. - I didn't know that, that's awesome. - Yeah. So that's a really great purchase. I had been putting it off 'cause I'm super poor, so I bought it today 'cause there's $10 and then, anyway. It's one of the best things I've played on iPad. And to be honest, there aren't that many great iPad games. - iPad, just the Civic. - Yeah, so that's the thing about the App Store is that there are iPhone apps, there are iPad apps, and then there are universal apps that work on both and scale properly. - Right. - And so there are several universal things that are cool. There's tons of great iPhone games, but as far as iPad-specific software games, there haven't been that many great ones. So they're just finally starting to like come out. There were a bunch at launch and then there was like nothing for a while. - I know the SimCity, the last thing that came out, I think came out today. - Yeah, yeah. - Was specifically designed for iPad. - I thought it was an iPhone only, actually. - Oh, I saw at Judges Week for E3 version in SimCity for iPad, specifically designed for it. It also hard-crashed the iPad and made them restart it, like serious restart. - Hopefully it was early. - So hopefully it's gonna change from then. - They're like, this is fine, all this is going on tomorrow. - But it looked pretty good, dude, played pretty well. - That's cool. - Yeah, finally with Monkey Island, I mean, a lot of people sort of instinctively understand that strategy games or like real-time strategy, something like that would be great with a touch interface. Adventure games, of course. - Yeah, it may be something that everyone wanted to try. And this is the first one that I played that really feels like, okay, the UI on this is, or the way you interact with it is just right. And now I wanna play like Dave the Tentacle and all my favorite old adventure games again, or even better new ones. But if no one wants to spend the money creating an all-new adventure game, I would take some of the old ones. - Well, I mean, when I asked the LucasArts people about that, they basically said that people like you that spend the 10 bucks are kind of determining whether that happens. - Right, yeah, so I don't know. I think it's-- - Come on, it would be nice if they could figure out like if the Tale of Tales Monkey Islands could somehow get on to, not Tale of Tales, you know who I'm talking about. - The Tale of Tales one. - Tale Tales, yeah. If the Tale of Tales games Monkey Islands could actually get onto the iPad somehow, those would be totally worth it. 'Cause those are actually really good. Yeah, all the episodic stuff. - There, that stuff is there. So I have Sam and Max also. It doesn't control core-- - iPad? - Yeah. - Oh, I didn't do that. - That was a launch game. - I did not know. - I think it was the first episode of Sam and Max, or maybe it's Sam and Max season two. I honestly don't know. I have it. It's a 3D game, you know, so it doesn't run quite as well. I don't know, there's something great about what they did with this Monkey Island two special edition. The graphics really do look fantastic on it. - It's a maintenance. - Yeah, it looks like more paintings. And I'd love to see more stuff like that. Just quick look at my games here. - Yeah, I was asking Ryan earlier if, you know, like with the first special edition, if you could go into classic mode. And he said he couldn't find that for Monkey Island two. - Yeah, it's not there, but-- - And on Monkey Island one on iPhone, you'd just like swipe with three fingers and then it would just go right into the old version. And I can't figure out how to do that on two. - Is it, do we know for sure it's there? - I'm sure it does, okay. - Another great iPhone game is called Hellsings Fire. It's a puzzle game where it's like an overhead sort of game where you have to put a light in a spot and-- - I've heard of this one. - And it's hard to describe. - You have to bounce light off of like, you have to make sure that light doesn't get broken up by objects in the environment. - Exactly, so imagine a top down. - Like can radiate, yeah, you're looking at top down and the light can radiate from the center and not get blocked by a box, so it reaches the corner. - Exactly, so you want, the light doesn't shine where the boxes are, but there are enemies that have to be destroyed by certain colored lights. All at once with one blast, and so you're constantly, you're trying to find the best spot to use the fire, and it starts off pretty easy, but eventually it gets pretty tricky, and I don't know, it's another great touchscreen game, just really fun. But I mean, I could go on, if you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, there's just been a bunch of great games that have been coming out lately, and then on the iPhone 4 has a great screen, and so all the new stuff that supports it, there's been some really cool great-- - There's a podcast that's brought in by Apple. - Can I answer your question as an iPhone owner of multiple iPhones, of basically every iPhone. - I have had it, oh, I didn't have a 3GS, but yeah. - Have you felt at points like there were just games that are interesting that are coming out that you couldn't play? As a 3G owner, when that was the iPhone you had, did you feel-- - Okay, yeah, there have been games where-- I mean, clearly that's not the case now, 'cause you have an iPhone 4. - Yeah, I feel like when 3GS first came out, there were a few games that, none of them, I've never been in a situation where there was a game that I couldn't play, because the only one that I couldn't think of off the top of my head was Espla Gouda 2, which is this overhead Japanese shooter, like a bullet hell game, that only supported 3GS, and iPad, it came out when the iPad first came out, so I had that, and I was able to play it there. But really, there aren't too many games where they'll lay it down like that. Oh, you can only play this on this hardware. Generally speaking, it's like, if you have the better hardware, it's gonna run better here, but you know-- - I mean, were there games you were playing that just weren't running particularly well? - Yeah, I mean, that has happened. And I mean, Matt's running into a lot of problems on his phone now, 'cause he's still using the 3G, and with the latest OS software, it's been causing lots of problems. - I'm using some kills, my phone, it's awful. - I mean, it just makes me curious, because essentially what Apple has tried to make a gaming device with a strong ecosystem similar to the way that other gaming companies have, but it's like they keep doing hardware updates, like more powerful hardware-- - Get diverse by the audience. - Every year. - Yeah. - And occasionally I hear people talk about it, but I don't hear it brought up very often. - I think the opposite is what's cooler, and what makes it such a good ecosystem, which is that the games never go away. So like you bought games on your first iPhone, and they still work at least as good, if not better, on every version that you get. And that's what, you know, I can't imagine buying an Android phone at this point, just because I've put so much money into the software on the iPhone, it didn't make any sense, they got me. Although I would purchase a, if there was an Android sort of version of the iPod Touch, I would consider that. I would never switch over to a phone, but I would consider like for $200 hopping in on something where I could play with an Android-style device. - There he is. - No, there's no hiss, I'm just curious as to, I mean, you could buy an iPod Touch and play all those games, and then buy an Android to use as a phone. I'm just wondering where that switch-ru came in that. - Oh, because I'm just never gonna not buy an iPhone, I guess, like the, because of-- - That's fair, I mean-- - Because when they come, I don't know, I guess that's just it, it's like, I'm an iPhone user, but I would dabble in that. I would dabble in Android if it was an opportunity to do it. I probably wouldn't even buy an Android iPod Touch, but I would consider it, you know what I mean? Like, if that, I think that opportunity showed itself. - You know what, I'm not gonna taunt Ryan because Ryan admits what he is. - Oh yeah, I would love-- - Which is a partisan for that, yeah, I mean, that's fine. - But what he's saying is if someone sent him an Android-- - No, no, no, I actually, so let me put it to you this way, I had a Droid, I got a Droid for free for being a speaker at GDC. And so I was able to play with it, and at the time, especially as a gamer, there was not anything that was interesting to me at all. I mean, now more, like, there's much more on there even over the last few months. - Oh, I'm sure there is. But, you know, it was fun to play with the OS. Like, I like exploring new software, it's fun. - I'm actually sad that I had to buy a Droid when I did. - Yeah, you did it just the worst time. - Yeah, I mean, I didn't have a choice 'cause my blackberry shit all over itself, and a TT can go fuck themselves. But also, it's not just that there are two other awesome Droid phones coming out, it's just that like, Windows Phone 7 is releasing in September. - Right, yeah. - And I really wanted to see what their salvo in the smartphone war was like before I made a commitment to anything. - Right, right, right. No, totally makes sense. - Yeah, and it's probably gonna be pretty good. - Yeah, I mean, granted, like, the Droid does a lot of awesome things for me, and it does the things I want it to, and gaming is not on that list. - Right, mm-hmm. - It'll be interesting to see, though. I'm definitely curious about the microphone. I think it's the type of thing where it's not gonna really be great until like a year from after it comes down. - Are they going to release a phone to go with it, or is it just a software? - It's no, it's for specific hardware, like licensed hardware. - Okay, I was gonna say, didn't Microsoft just try and release the phone recently? - No, the kin thing is like a tale of like everything that's awful at Microsoft, like turf wars. - I was just wondering if they were gonna release a new proprietary phone. - It's like turf wars and like little fiefdoms in Microsoft essentially killed. - So what happens when you have a company that's so large that it fights with itself? - Right, so I think it happens a lot in Sony. - So, before we move on-- - No, we're not moving on, just other games. Yeah, I'm moving on from talking about phones. - Okay, two more games, and then I'll call quits. And these I'll talk about really fast. The first one just came out yesterday, I think, and it's called Aquamodo Racing 2, I believe is the name. It's essentially Wave Race. If you've played Wave Race on Nintendo 64. - Does it have the announcer guy? - That's the only thing it doesn't have. - Oh, good. - Okay, don't miss anymore. - Yeah, I know, it doesn't have that bad. But everything else and collectibles, actually, they are littered on the track it has, and you can play it using either the touchscreen or motion controls however you wanna play it. And it works really, really well. It's really nice. As an iPhone, a four owner, I wish it had a high res, whatever, written display, graphics, and it doesn't have those, but it has water physics and everything, it's really fun to play. - That's awesome. - The other thing is a game I really didn't think I would like 'cause I've never had good luck with the first person shooter type games. - I think I know what you're gonna talk about in this game, looks fucking amazing. - Archetype. - Yes. - Is that the iPhone one? - Yeah, they're in a bullet shaped USB drive and shit. - Oh, really? - And Arthur put on a video and people were like, that's an iPhone game? - They're like, what is a fucking Xbox Live arcade shit? And then it's like, it's iPhone 4. Everyone freaked out. - I mean, it doesn't, I don't think it looks, I mean, it looks good, but it doesn't look like it was a washy trailer from far away. It's the type of thing where it works a little too well. And so you have the whole thing, you know, part of it is that it's fun and part of it is like, I can't believe I'm doing this on my phone, you know? (laughing) You, it's learned from, it's a modern game. So it's learned from all the things that have happened in first person shooters recently. So, you start the game, you make an account and you press a big button that says, join game now. And it puts you right into a lobby and you search for it, seven other players. - Oh, it's a multiplayer game? - It's a multiplayer online shooter. And so I assume like servers have to be hosted somewhere else 'cause they're not gonna be on your phone. - Right, exactly. So it's like Quake. It's like playing an old Quake game. It has really bad sound effects. Graphics aren't so great. - Like around Quake II level. - Yeah, something like that. - It's an iPhone 4 game specifically. - No, it works on everything. - Well, not everything. 'Cause I have the original iPhone. - It doesn't work. I didn't know if it didn't work on that. - I think it's safe to assume that it won't. - Yeah. - At this point. - You're probably right. But anyway, it works really, really well. It's pretty easy to control. And one of the smart things they did that other first-person shooters on iPhone haven't done is that they have a setting where you can have it automatically fire once your crosshair moves over someone. So instead of having to, you know, 'cause you got both your thumbs on the screen with these virtual, whatever. - Yeah. - And iPads on your screen, and in other games, you have to move your right thumb over someone and then tap rapidly while you're trying to aim and move with the others. - Really annoying. - It doesn't really work. - No. - So in this case, you just constantly keep your fingers touching the screen and just moving. And as soon as they, as soon as your crosshair swipes over a guy, fires a shot at them. - Oh, so you don't have to worry about shooting. - No, you can if you want. You like, you can tap and you will fire off shots. - But it also does do it. - Yeah, it's also automatic and it works pretty well. And it's like pretty smart way to do it. - Yeah. - And on iPhone 4, you know, it runs really, really well. It's like 60 frames and so it's a pretty solid online multiplayer shooter that you play on your phone. It's kind of insane. - Yeah, it's a weird, it's just weird to think, like that's what surprised me is I had heard that it looked good, but I didn't know it was online. That's really weird to me. The idea of playing an online shooter on my phone. - Yeah. I sat down to play a match and I was like, I'm just gonna see how it works. - Did you play a match over 3G or did you play it over? - A Wi-Fi, I was like lying in bed and I was like, I'll try this out and I tried it. And then I realized that I played like five matches in a row and I was like, this must be pretty okay. So it's not great, it has bad sound. Some of the weapons are kind of silly. The levels don't look all that awesome in the grand scheme of things, but it's a pretty fun shooter. - You step in a cool direction. - Yeah, it's like playing Quake and it's on your phone. - Nice. - So anyway, I'll talk about Gravity Hook by the guys who make Cannonball, that's another good game. Just came out today. - That's all. Yeah, name drops. - Tyler, what have you been playing? - I bought limbo. - Oh, Tyler's here. (laughing) - I bought limbo. - Nice. - Xbox level. - Did you actually get a chance to play? - Yeah, yeah, I'm playing through taking my time. I'm not a fast player by any means. - Even if not fast player, you'll still probably be in five hours. - Yeah, that's probably about right. And I love it, it's like everything I love about games. Like there, I mean, there is sort of a story there, but there's no text or anything that tells you the story. It doesn't beat you over the head with any kind of story or anything. Everything is just sort of inferred from the game. And that's totally what I loved out of like out of this world. You know, back in this-- - It doesn't mean that it is worldwide in the sense that everything will fucking kill you. (laughing) - Yeah, right. I mean, it does run into that. It can be a little bit of trial and error gameplay, but I think where-- - Isn't it, I mean, all trial and error? - But the thing, not all of it. - I know, I felt like-- - Because there are quite a few puzzles where it's almost like, I think of them as like Mickey Mouse Disney situations. Like there's that old Mickey Mouse cartoon where he's getting swallowed by the giant and like he's running up all these pieces of junk going in the giant's throat as he's getting out. I feel like that happens a lot in limbo where it's like, you just jumped on the box. You just barely grab the rope, you know, and it's my first time seeing this puzzle, but I just barely made through each little trap, you know? - But it does have a little bit of trial and error too, but the good thing about limbo is that it-- - But your death and stuff is always kind of almost rewarding in its own way that the trial part doesn't really bother you 'cause it's almost like entertaining to see him just barely die, which sounds really bad, but it's just the way that it's done, it's just like when you get shocked, electrocuted, or you get stabbed onto a pole. - When I felt like after a while, I actually got used to the silhouettes of things, you know? So I could like see dangers when they were coming. - It seems like it develops a language. Like if you're paying attention, you'll start to understand the way, like the rules of limbo. - Yeah, so I haven't played it yet. I'm like, I just mentioned the poor, and so I haven't spent the $15 yet. Not that I don't think the game isn't worth $15, I do think it's worth $15. - It's okay. - Well, you played the IGF version though, right? - So yeah, I was an IGF judge and it was entered in the competition, so I played through about half of it, and Matt was looking over my shoulder, so he might know if any of the, how complete the version I was playing was. - It was, I would say it was probably a good 70 to 80% there. - Yeah. - I mean, at least in terms of visuals and stuff, they definitely did, they added some more layers, added some more depth of field, you know, that kind of stuff, but it was, you had a really nice demo of that game. - So when I was playing it, I mean, my first impression was that it was just really great. Like you were saying, everything was, you know, no text, all the story was told entirely through the gameplay itself and the visuals, and that was really fun. But by the time I got a bit further in the game, the trial and error-ness of the gameplay did start to worry me a little bit, not to where I didn't like the game or anything like that, but I thought that more people would not like it. So when the game did come out last week or whatever, and I was seeing a bunch of my friends talking about it on Twitter, you know, the conversation was, and what I was reading was mostly like, wow, this is fantastic, this is the best thing ever. - I think the thing is, it's very trial by death, but the parts where you die, you just go right back into the situation and try to figure out. - You never have to go back for 10 minutes and play that part again or really good check points. - And it's like the unnamed Japanese RPG, Anthony was playing today where he died a boss and after we do like 20 minutes of game. - Or the named Japanese RPG that you've been playing. - He's pointing at me, yeah, Dragon Quest 9. - I've been playing Arcarise Fantasia. - Aha, not good. So I don't know. - It's not Anthony's kind of game. - I don't play JRPGs to begin with. This is the first one I'm trying to play in review. So it's very different from my comfort zone. - How far have you gotten in Limbo Tyler? Like how many hours have you played? - I'd probably say I've played in about like two or three hours. - Sit, yeah. - I was gonna say to me that another reason I think Matt that the death by like trial and error stuff doesn't get old. - That's Matt. - Matt, Ryan. (laughing) - He was talking to Ryan when he said that. - Is that, it's just the right length to where eventually you're not like, ah, another fucking box puzzle. - Right, right. - Now spikes to jump over again. Like it doesn't repeat things that much. Like it repeats a few concepts, but most of the puzzles are pretty different. - And I would say the art takes it pretty far. I mean, this game just looks really cool. Like even from the very beginning when you're dealing with that spider that's been following you for a very long time throughout the course of that opening section, you know, that thing is scary. - Yeah, I'm a little surprised that I like it as much as I do, but when it comes to small games, stuff's usually music's like a huge part for me. And this game basically has no music whatsoever. - See, and I still like that about it. - I love, I would say that I love the music in this game. A lot of people say it has no music, the ominous tones and stuff. - Yeah, yeah, it's like something like Brian, you know, a doer or something. - That's kind of cool, that sounds awesome. I don't think the music it was in when I played it. - See, yeah, I don't think people would say there's quote unquote music, but it's stuff like when you, when you get into areas like there's like ambient music, quote unquote music, it's more than melody. - Hard core bass sounds. - Yeah, it's totally stuff that I love, like stuff you just get real stoned to and like zone out. - But I'm saying there's so many games that like little games like that that require it. Like I don't think I would have liked a game, like a PB winner bottom as much as I did if it didn't have the whimsical, awesome soundtrack or, you know, explosion man, games like that, they need it. But this one is just like, the tone is set so much by the art that it does really well with just those sounds. - See, but what I'm saying is that for me, the art and the sound are exactly what I love. Like I love that kind of ambient stuff that just totally spaced out, you know, sort of sound. And then the animation too is, is really, really smooth and the character is really expressive. - I sold your boy would say. - Do you like to get drunk or high? You're gonna love this game. (laughing) - No, some of the puzzles are kind of tough. - I can't, it's like, tricky. - But, you know, it's very cool. I mean, it's very typical. And it's a great game to like, it's like one of those games that as Nick Suttner used to would said in the back of the day. It's like a great game to bring someone over who doesn't really play games and just kind of let them go at it and watch them play. Like I, like my friend Paul, he does play games but even watching him go through it the first time. Like seeing someone experiencing those things, these puzzles and stuff at the first time, it's just like, it's, it's cool to watch. Like a lot of games aren't cool to watch, but this one is just one of those. - Yeah, I mean, like that feeling you get when you walk up to the spider the first time and you have to get close enough for the spider to lift his leg and like, like he's about to step on you. I mean, just that act is like, you're scared of the spider in the first place. As you approach the spider, like the ominous noise is getting louder the wrong, wrong. You're hearing the flies buzzing around. And oh man, it's great, I love it. - Yeah. - And then like, and then when you run into the kids later on with like their spider. - It's so dumb. - It's so dumb. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very dark to thematic-wise. - Which is not just art-style-wise, but yeah, thematically-wise. - On the plus side, they're not talking about areas that are that far into the game right now. - Yeah, exactly. - I was so early in the game, I just have not had a chance to play it. - What have you been playing? - Well, Tyler, are you done? - Yeah, outside of limbo. - Yeah, outside of limbo. - That's it for you. - Well, yeah, just, you know, I'll-- - You've been playing some bad company too today. - Yeah, I got the new, you know, I've been playing the new map pack update and it's free. Yeah, it's okay. It is free, it's part of VIP. - Which one is the new Rush map? - Yeah, it's two of the snow levels. It's two of the medium-sized snow levels. One of them is turned into Rush and the other one is Conquest. - Is Nelson Bay Rush or is it Nelson Bay's Conquest? 'Cause that's one that used to be at night. - Yeah. - And now it's Conquest. - Yeah. - And fuck, what's the other one? - It's the one with the farmhouse at the end. - Yeah. - And I can't, it just totally sits my mind. That is a really cool Rush map simply because the defenders have to be really aggressive. - Big time. - Because otherwise, every Mcom station in that map is in a building you can bring down. - You mean like, oh shit. - They have to be really aggressive as a not holding the building, like actually pushing out like a pushy back. - Like say, oh fuck, there's an engineer, we better kill him before he wails on us with rockets and brings us built down. - Yeah, you have to guard the building as opposed to guarding the building. - Yeah, it's really weird too because like the very first defend station is the one where it's like right across the street from what we call the construction building which is the building that isn't complete. - It's the farmhouse next to the well. - And so basically the enemy spawn and the defending and attacking spawn, they're on top of each other. - Wow. - Basically like you can see the enemy team from your spawn when you spawn. - And they can see you. - That sounds like a bad idea in a bad field game. - Sometimes like, I'm not sure how I feel about these maps and then another thing that I'd like to broach which I brought it up on my Twitter and I went to the EA forums, I started looking around and it seems like the performance of Bad Company on the 360 has been getting worse and worse and worse. Like more and more people are getting kicked from games. - Server performance. - More and more, the knives aren't working. - That's a big problem. - We actually did notice a lot of lag. - The more lag is becoming and more and more the end victory message is messing up from you. - I also got that. I told that there was like, it just told me I lost, but I won. That's something that I'm like, no. - I was the best player on the best one. And it said we got them on the move and I'm like, lost. - I mean, you don't know where games have bugs and they have issues, but these look like problems that have been getting worse with time. - Weird. - I don't know. - I never played Bad Company 2 multiplayer in a long time. - Yeah, I haven't played it in a couple months. - Every day. - But man, God, I'm still really good at this game and that makes me happy inside. It was like my first game in forever. I jump on and I'm like 21 and 10 and I'm like-- - Nice. - Anytime you're double your death ratio, that's always good to me. - That's good. - Yep, too to real. - That's after it told me that my skill level dropped from 194 to zero. - Wish they would take that shit out too. It doesn't make any damn difference to me. I don't care what that number is. - Yeah. - And it changes every time I log on the game. - I actually pay more attention to skill level than kill death. - Really? - Yeah. - That is. - I just know because you were playing some transformers and stuff too. Has anybody here played the transformers? - Arthur has-- - I did. - I wanna play it. - Or I tried anyway. - Multiplayer DLC. - So just to break this down for you, last night and the night before and the night before, there were about 4,600 people online playing transformers on 360. That is not a lot. - No. - On PS3 yesterday night, they were about 850. - And those are just total, not counting who has the new DLC. - Right, and then on PC, there were 152 this morning. - So I had a bit of a time finding matches using the DLC maps. - That's really the, yeah. - And I could not get into an escalation match using the new DLC. - It just seems like the best majority of people that bought that game wanted for the campaign and then they moved along. - And then they play something else for multiplayer. - Yeah. - It's too bad 'cause the multiplayer, that's so good. - Exactly, like I'm supposed to be playing this to play the new maps and write opinions on them and I get caught up in playing the existing maps and having fun and I'm like, oh fuck, I have to back out because I can't play this. I don't have the time. - Right. - It literally took me about six hours to get one game each of the two new maps in this. - Wow, that's crazy. That makes me sad. - There's a XXP weekend. - Tonight's a gaming with developers, ain't it? - Yeah, tonight's gaming with the devs on Xbox Live. - Yeah, but like splitting your player base doesn't really make a difference when you're modern warfare two and you sold seven million on day one. - Right, yeah, so like transformers. - Yeah, honestly, if they were smart, it would have been free. - Yeah, at least the first couple to drop people. - Right, I know that it's totally weak. - I know it's hard to get Microsoft to allow you to release free DLC, but you get at least one, give me. - Yeah, and especially for a game like that where if you only have 4,300 people online playing, that's not enough to split your player base. - Or at least just include a map pack code in the new retail boxes for the first part. - Right, it's just hurting your player base. - Yeah, it really is. - Which is a shame because I think transformers is probably the most inventive multiplayer game we've seen this year, but it's just-- - I don't think that that's an untrue statement. - It's just like, I think the strap line for my impressions was what's Cybertronian for tumbleweed. - Less than meets the eye. - 'Cause there's nobody playing, like you'll play and you'll recognize the same names over and over again, probably, because you're just gonna ask the same people. - Cool. - And more people were playing Team Deathmatch than Conquest, which blows my mind 'cause Conquest is way better than Team Deathmatch in that game. - Yeah, they just don't wanna play in teams. - Right, well, that's possible. - Yeah, so sorry to cut you off, Tyler, but I just thought I'd have to ask that before I forgot about it. - Ah, I'm totally-- - I wanna play more battlefield bag company too. - Me too. - After playing that today. - Anytime I'm playing, y'all jump in my game. - For real. - Anytime. - I like being on Tyler's team. - I'm curious, Matt and Ryan. Sorry, I'm again looking at Ryan and saying the name Matt, but either of you guys ever played Gravity Crash when it came out on PSN? - A little bit. - I just had to review the PSN, the PSP version. - The PSP version. - Yeah. - I played it a little bit. Some of my friends told me about it because they know I'm a wipeout fan and the guy who did the music for Gravity Crash, the original wipeout way back in the day. His name's Colt Storage is his, whatever, music name. - I was gonna say that, that was like the biggest one ever. - But he did the music for Gravity Crash. Came out really, really close to when Pixel Junk Shooter came out on PS3, really close. And they're sort of similar in terms of-- - Yeah, Pixel Junk Shooter's like a vast disappear game. - And it is. And I was playing it with Matt and so it was co-op and it was fun, so I didn't get too into it. But it does seem sort of, I only played the demo, I think. It seems like it's a, if I hadn't been playing Pixel Junk Shooter right at the same time, I would have had a lot of fun with it. - Yeah, all right, I was just curious, do you play it? - Yeah. - Have you been playing anything Matt outside of StarCraft? It doesn't sound like it, if you already beat the campaign. - Yeah, well, last weekend I went up to Reading again to see my girlfriend, so I had about 14 hours there to play a more Dragon Quest 9. - So that treating you? - Yeah, do you like that by yourself? I heard it's better with other people, but. - Well, yeah, I mean, it'd be nice if there was somebody on the train to play it with, but yeah, this isn't Japan. As far as a JRPG goes, it's treating me pretty well. I mean, it's, I still have a lot of issues with it, the same issues that I have with any JRPG, and Dragon Quest 9 does not fix those. And I do genuinely feel that if you have to have a strategy guide or read a fact to get the most out of a game then that is a game design failure. It's not something that you should look at is like, oh, I sussed out all these things out of the game by putting in four times as many hours as I would have had to otherwise. I don't think that's a positive thing. - Yeah, exactly, and. - No, I just think that in Japan they really are trying to sell a strategy guide. - Oh, I'm sure they are, yeah, and it bugs the shit out of me. But the mechanics and everything, they're all pretty good. I like the different classes. I like the powers that they have and the way that they play even though it's all kind of generic and it's kind of what I expect. I'm still finding myself enjoying it, and I like the theme of it, like the kind of the overall storyline. But other than that-- - I don't think people love it. It's pretty positive, it's like a positive. That's different. - Yeah, it is a positive game. - It's supposed to talk to apocalyptic games right now. - Or with the depressing character. - Yeah, 'cause Dragon Quest Nine is all about, you're an angel and there's some bad stuff that happened and all the angels got tossed out of heaven. And so now you're trying to help people to help to restore heaven. So it's all about helping people and making good stuff happen around you. And the kind of the bummer for me, and I know this isn't a Dragon Quest Nine thing really, is that you can build your own party, which is cool, but since there aren't any really NPCs that go along with you, it feels like kind of a lonely game. - Because you're supposed to be playing multiplayer with all your friends on the train. - Yeah, exactly. - I have it, I should play with you, except I'm too caught up playing stupid diaphragms. - That aren't actually stupid, I'm just, you know, saying. - Yep, need more hours. That's about it for me. - I've been playing this piece of shit called "Clash of the Titans." (laughing) I got that game actually released this week alongside the DVD and Blu-ray, and it is awful. My review hasn't gone up yet. - Is it like third-person action or something? - It is, it's a third-person action game made by game republic, the people that made folklore. - It's almost like you're a half-god character that's interested in war, I don't know. Stop me if you've heard this one. - Yeah, well, but it's just like, but then it's not even like, presented in a consistent narrative all the time, like it's broken up into these quests where it's like quests to begin, and then you beat on some things and it says quest ended, and it goes, and that's how you have to like accept levels, basically. - And Anthony is at an advantage, 'cause we saw this movie. - Yeah. - Like we know what happened. - But I don't remember the part in the movie, for instance, where one of the characters in the movie was like, "Man, I'm hungry, go get me a fish." And you had to go beat the shit out of some skeletons to go find this fish, and then he gets sick from the fish, and he's like, "Man, I gotta stomach it, go find me some herbs." So then you went back out into the same environment and beat up the same enemies till you reach the herbs. - Well, you did get up and go to the bathroom. - So, that part was there. - That game drags on and on. It's terrible, the combat's awful. It is one of the worst looking games I've seen in a long time. It's like everything wrong with licensed games. Like if your company wants to make a licensed game, go play this, and then if you want to see how to do licensed game, go get things like Toy Story or Chronicles of Riddick or Batman. Those are like-- - See, that's the funny thing is that when you guys started working at IG and now you have to start playing really shitty games for review. - Oh, it's just Anthony never had to do that, it went up. - Yeah, no, but in the time between, he didn't have to. And for us, Area 5 guys, we really do only play the games that we want to play. And so it's always interesting to hear about this kind of stuff. And whenever I hear about a game like this, I just wonder what the hell must it be like to work on a game that you know is just fucking awful. - No one understands what went on behind the scenes of this game. - Exactly, who would you know? - Why did it not get released when the film came out originally? - Okay, first of all, this was Brash's big game. - Brash for people that don't remember was the company that was going to make that and saw and they were going to change the way people thought about licensed games. - And they had teased a huge game coming out like around this time. And it showed a guy fighting a minotaur or whatever. And then it turned out that that was Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans is developed by game republic. Folkor was game republic's last big game. Like the game, the PS3 launch game where like, - So what happened to Brash, - So what happened to Brash? - Japanese title game. - Yeah, folk souls. Brash went out of business, like that. - And all their games got bought up by other people. - And Namco picked up the publishing rights for class. - And Konami picked up Saw. - Yeah, weird. - Which makes sense because Namco Japanese, game republic Japanese. - Right, this game's awful though. - Fuck, seriously, if you spent $60 in that. - I'm so sorry. - I'm very sorry for your lots. (laughing) - Maybe it is that what Matt was saying that we get, you know, to be sort of - We get to be choosy. - Choosy and play only the good games, but it just doesn't seem like, now is not the time to be making games, either make triple A games that you know are gonna sell like a motherfucker, or don't spend the time and the money. - You know, if that's not even enough. - Like there's something really creative that has like a really big niche that you can fill. - That's not enough this year, every year, like there's been, or every month of this year, there's been one or two big games that have kicked the shit out of everything else. - Yeah, I know. - And that includes some pretty good games. Like Dark Ciders and Bayonetta, both got their clock cleaned by Mass Effect, Bioshock 2 ate up a lot of room in February, and March it was Battlefield Back Company 2. In May and June, it was Red Dead and New Submario, or Submario Galaxy 2. And I kind of wonder if that's gonna happen in July again. - You made all the games that I've been playing as a Susie gamer who gets to choose what I wanna play. - Well, that's just it. It's like I either play those games, or I play indie games. - Exactly. - And like more small games. It costs like a fraction of, you know. - Right. - And some of these games, like that Aquamodo racing I just told you about, like that's, I mean, I haven't finished or anything, but that might be as much game as I got when I played Wave Race back in the day, and that was an N64 cartridge that cost $60, and this thing cost $5. - I know, what's like, I don't have to tell you that every single game you named is probably better in Clash of the Titans than costume, it's like 120 at the price. You know, it's like it's a $60 fucking game. - I mean, it's clear that they're just trying to push it out at the same time as a DVD because they couldn't rank the movie, the theatrical release, right? - Yeah, I don't know, man. That was awful. And then I also deleted every save from my 360. That's awesome. - I heard about that, so how'd that happen? - 'Cause Anthony is a putz. - Yeah, it's like I recovered my profile on a memory card, brought it home, put it in my system, went to connect to live, and I was like Arthur, I can't connect to live. I don't know what's going on. Turns out there was a conflict between the profile, my memory card, and the bunk one now still on my hard drive. It didn't know which one to use to connect. So I went to delete the one off my hard drive, select delete profile, and then the default, when you hit A, the next time, is delete all associated content. - And what did you say to yourself when you saw that? - I said, "Holy shit," and I turned off the power button. - No, no, no, before you select. - And then I thought to myself, no, then I thought to myself, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine, I turned off the power so fast, everything's gonna be okay. And then I turned it back on, I was like, no, all my saves, and that's a short amount of time. So, yeah, I lost every save for everything, which isn't that painful about everything, except that a couple, only a couple were really painful. Like certain ones like halfway through Batman, it's really a turn off to me the idea to play a game, even if I liked it, that first half again, and then I lost my Mass Effect 2 to play through. - I was gonna say, Mass Effect 2, yeah. - That's what I lost. Mass Effect 2 to play through. - But if you were to play through Mass Effect 2 again, this time maybe your crew would survive. - Well, I only lost one person, in Mass Effect 2. - Yeah, but dude, don't you remember the conversation? - No, Mass Effect 2, one person, and the person I lost was perfectly accepted, right? - Mass Effect 2, when I saved everyone my second time, it just wasn't the, emotionally it wasn't the same as ever. - Yeah, I lost one person, and to me, the one person I lost was the most acceptable loss. So, like, I wouldn't-- - Kelly, how's it Kelly? - No, it was the robot. - Doctor, oh, okay. - Fuck him, he's a robot. I hate robots, man. Like, as soon as he was with me, there was like, we have this dangerous mission, I was like, so the fucking robot, no one cares about him. - I like the robot. - I like the robot. - I think he's awesome. - My robots arrived? - Yeah, well, and when the robot apocalypse comes in, they're like, wow, we can trust him in our homes. They can be self-conscious. I'll be like, fuck you, you know, fire bomb your building. (laughing) - Robot lover. - That's, yeah, you're gonna be a fucking robot lover. - It's calm, guys. - So, all I can do is fucking robots. - Yeah, that in Starcraft, so, really, I haven't had that much time for anything else. If I can clash with the Titans, fuck that game. (laughing) - That's your professional opinion. - Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, you know, the people that made it right, it's like you said, it sucks that you get stuck tasked with the shitty game. You know you don't have the budget and the time you want, but I think it makes you, I think probably in the long run makes you a better critic, though. - I don't think that that's what the problem with that game was. I really don't. I don't think it has anything to do with budget or time, 'cause clearly they had a lot of time to work on that game. I just think that it's another Japanese action game that doesn't get it. - All I know is that Clash of the Titans was worse than 99 nights, too. - Wow. (laughing) - Those are bold words. (laughing) - That's saying something. - Two games I will never play. (laughing) - All right, throw it in the trash. What are you, Arthur, do you have anything besides Starcraft? - I reviewed Hydro Thunder Hurricane. - That's right. - How is that? - I liked it significantly less than it seemed like a lot of the other reviewers have. - Did you love the old one on Dreamcast where you fucking in love with it? - No, I actually wasn't. I kind of, I want to play the new one, and I think I have a code for it, so I might just do that. - I just think that it's frustrating and redundant and pretty boring, and I'm sure that some people would say it's not fair that I call it ugly. They'll throw up that it's a live arcade game as an excuse, but we're at the point where if you want to do a visually impressive live arcade game, you need to figure out a way to make that work, saying people expect less because it's a live arcade game isn't good enough anymore. - No, I'm actually looking limbo. I mean, probably different style of game, but then you have games like Shadow Complex, which is smaller than Hydro Thunder Hurricane and- - And it does a more realistic style. - Yeah, that's a cool working. - Yeah, good point. - There are just a ton of really good looking live arcade games that aren't lazy about it, and then use it as an excuse. - Racing games, I would argue, it is trickier to like come up with a quality arts. You know, you can't stylize like a game like Hydro Thunder, which is an existing- - You totally could've stylized. - Really, I haven't seen it, but I'm just guessing that it wouldn't work as well. You know, like my frame of reference for a fast paced like racing game is like wipe out and that game looks killer. - That's the thing about Hydro Thunder, but that cost $20 also, and was it dumb? - Is the Arthur told me like the way he describes it, Hydro Thunder isn't fast. You don't ever feel like- - Real fast, like races take kind of a long time, and you spend a lot of time getting knocked around and going up into the air and not controlling very well and missing the rings you're supposed to get, it's just not, I did not think it was fun. I thought it was barely possible for what it was, and I say that appreciating the arcade game, but the arcade game, my memory serves to make me believe that the arcade game was bite-sized chunks. Like it was on a timer, you had to get that next checkpoint in 30 seconds or you were fucked. And this is just like, oh, well, I'm at the back of the pack halfway through, I guess I better redo that four minutes of race again. - Just seems like with all the good summer arcade games coming out and just our general arcade games that are out already, $15 is like on this game, just seems like. - Also, there have just been a ton of really awesome racing games over the last seven months, and for that game to come in and just say, oh, I'm a racing game, I'm a live arcade game, I can do all this bullshit that arcade racers have been fucking people over with for like close to a decade now is okay, it's not. - Right. - It's boring, I got a lot more fun. It does have really good multiplayer support. - Yeah, you can play like four people local, right? - You can play four people local, you can take four people in one system and I'll go on Xbox Live, which is nice, you know? I mean, that's something that you don't see very much. - No, definitely not. - But yeah, it's just, I didn't think it was fun. Meanwhile, there are other sites that are giving it like fucking nines and eights, and I just don't, I don't understand. - What other racing games do you like this year besides Split Second? - This year, not anything else that's come out this year other than Split Second, I didn't play Blur 'cause I wasn't interested, but I mean, four is the three, it was fantastic. Dirt two was amazing. A lot of people I need for Speed Shift, I did not. - Okay, I thought you were talking about games this year. - Well, no, I mean, last year, last year. - Okay, yeah, last month it was Split Second, Blur and Mod Nation Racers. I haven't played that, is that good? - Mod Nation Racers. - Greg Miller seemed to like it. - Yeah, I've played it, and to me, it's like Mario Kart on PS3, it's fun if you want that, but for me, it comes down to playing locally. Like, I'm not really interested in playing that game online, but unless I had friends play online with it, but I typically don't on PS3, but like, if you have four people over, you have four controllers, it is a fun game to do. And if you are super into editing tracks, the track editor in that is really, really good. All set. - All right, and we talk about the worth of games, and I think next week, we're gonna talk more about the worth of games, but $15 seems like a lot for what Hydro Thunder has to offer. - Man, talking about worth of games is so hard. - You know, it is. - It's just the same thing over and over. - There are certain games that you just feel out. Like, you know, it's like, it's so hard with like, Hydro Thunder doesn't seem like worth 15, but then you see games like Toy Soldiers that are 10, and I would gladly pay like, like Toy Soldiers are also the biggest seller like this last year. - You're constantly seeing new shit in Toy Soldiers. It's always showing you something different, whereas Hydro Thunder-- - Just like limbo. - Yeah, it's just the same shit over and over again. Like, it never changes. - Yeah, it's too bad. - Like, I have a different sea monster or obstacle tossing me up into the air and making me hit the back button to re-center myself. Awesome. (laughing) Over the weekend, I was playing Dawn of War II, because I got the new video card and I wanted to put it through its paces and get it tweaked before I got Starcraft. And Dawn of War II is awesome, and on hard, it is really fucking hard. - Yes, it is. (laughing) - Anthony came in and was watching me play-- - Yeah, it was like, are you playing on hard? 'Cause you're dying a lot. - Yeah, 'cause my guys were just getting annihilated. And I'm hoping to get through that so I can play at the expansion. - I still haven't played, I still haven't played more than like, a few hours of Dawn of War II. I think we were talking about doing it on a game club once or something, so I don't like it. - So a fantastic game, and the expansion's great. You can port your characters in, but even if you don't, they give you decently leveled characters to play the expansion with. - I do not want to have characters to bring in. - In general, to me, that game is like, Dawn of War II to me is like, in my mind, just not as good as single player game as Starcraft is. Like, it's good for a lot of other reasons, but it doesn't have the storytelling like Starcraft does. - Right, it's just from a shared gameplay-- - But from a shared gameplay, it is fantastic. - Right, yeah. - It is easy to get into for not heavy RTS players. - There's no building, let's say. - There's not an RTS. - There's no base building whatsoever. There's no resource management. - It's all a small army micromanaging. - Right, right, right. - Imagine squad-based Diablo. - Yeah, exactly. - Like right down to the loot. - Yeah, and the way you equip them and you put points into trees. - Yep, cool. It's, yeah, it's an excellent combination of action game in RTS. - Yeah, right on. - With a lot of positioning, it takes elements from Co and runs with it. It's the most accessible game that Relic ever did and I think it's the most successful game. - Dawn of War games, in general, have always been pretty successful. - I don't just mean like successful as in, it's sold well because, I mean, I think it did. - Yeah, I'm pretty sure it did too. - I just think for what it wanted to do and like how accessible it is, it is their most successful game. - Oh yeah, I mean, the homeworld games and stuff. Those are not accessible. Those are difficult games, really. - And I still think that if ever they were going to bring an RTS to consoles, it should have been Dawn of War, too. - When the played Ace Combat joint assault was a PSP, joint base combat game. It's actually not awful. I played a different game that made me appreciate it all the more, but I can't talk about that this week. - Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it. Yeah, sad trumpet on that one. - Oh, you know what I did try that I can talk about because I tried out the BioShock 2 single player DLC. Have you guys heard about that? - No, I have it all. - It's not like a campaign thing and there is a story to it loosely, but it's actually just a series of six areas with three levels in each. And it's where you have to, it's basically they're called the Protector Trials and you're playing as an Alpha Series Big Daddy and you have to protect a little sister while she harvests from one specific body. But the catch is that you have a very specific loadout for each one. So it'll be like protect this little sister while she collects and it takes way longer. And it'll be like, and you only have ice and a shotgun. That's it, that's all you have, like make that work. Or it'll be like on this one, all you have is are the ability to lay down traps and the ability to trap spears. That's the only ammo you'll ever be given. You will never be given normal spear shots, just trap spears, you know, like it breaks it down into basically forcing you to play outside your comfort zone. You know, you can't, some of it just run and gun the easiest ones, but then the hardest ones are like giving you nothing but like slowing down people, items and then having, like it may just be like ones just drill, that's all you're gonna get is like drill perks and stuff like that. So, I mean, if you really, really liked those, those like intense parts of having to protect a little sister, it's cool. But I don't know, it's five bucks. I don't know if that's enough, that's cheap enough. Like people really want to do that over and over. Like that was something you really loved in Bauschach to. For me, I enjoyed those moments, but I don't know that I would want like a series of nothing but intense things out of a game like that. Like, I don't know. - Yeah, it's like those moments are the tense parts. And then when you finish them, you're like, whoo, that's horrible. - Exactly. You had the rest of the game to pace that out. This is like, that's all it is. It's just like, I don't know. - This is crescendo after crescendo. - Yeah, it'd be like Left 4 Dead if you played nothing, but like for me, it's the same reason why I didn't kind of, I was never, that into those Left 4 Dead things where it was just see how long you can survive. Like, that was never that interesting to me either, just 'cause I was like, that's not what I want. - The fun of those was the setup at the beginning, but. - Yeah, right. Well, you get the setup in this too. - Oh, so it's the same purpose. - It doesn't start until you place the little sister to start harvesting. - Gotcha, gotcha. - And you get money by killing spicers. So then you have to use that money to go buy, to make sure you have enough health on you at any given time, to make sure you have enough ammo on you at any given time. So you're having to manage that on the fly, what you're doing it. - Does it feel like this is just like another small download that repurposes shit from the existing game? - I mean, sure, it totally is just taking, I mean, the whole catch of it is whether or not you want that extra challenge of not being able but having specific things dictated to you what you're going to use for this, but. - I'm really surprised that they're pushing this DLC. - That's apparently the first of several planned, single-player DLC things that they have coming. - Crazy. - So. - And with that, we're going to say we're, I'm going to be, on this check. - Yeah. ♪ I know you can't recall anything at all ♪ ♪ Oh, I was sending you a day to figure out ♪ ♪ Your blood to crumble ♪ ♪ Just below your feet ♪ ♪ This is how I'm bound together ♪ ♪ For my sweet, direct and shallow ♪ ♪ This sinking ship has been from ages ♪ ♪ That will tear us apart ♪ ♪ This is how I'm bound ♪ ♪ Whisper out the waste of my heart ♪ - Okay, hello. - The first letter is from Nick, and he wrote in about Death Smiles, because we were talking about how we didn't understand. - Oh god, you're going to read this letter. - Yeah, he says, "The very good reason why Death Smiles "is a $50 retail game instead of a downloadable title, "and that is Treasure Fans. "People who like Treasure Games will buy them even at $50, "especially if it's in a limited edition box. "Hell, people were importing the Dreamcast version "of Ikaruga for $50 to $70 back in the day, "and a lot of those people probably bought it again on GameCube." - Ikaruga is a better game than Death Smiles. - Shmoops are easy to localize because they don't have a lot of dialogue, and since it's probably a very limited run, they are pretty much guaranteed to sell out everywhere in the States after a few months and become very hard to find. At that point, they can just put it on Xbox Live Arcade with games on demand for $20 for anybody who heard about it for word of mouth and still wants to check it out. So, that's one of the things. - That's not the one I thought. Someone wrote, very offended, that I said Death Smiles is a bad game. - Oh, he was, wow. Now this guy was just kind of-- - And then goes on to explain to me why Shmoops are considered good or bad, and then it's just that he doesn't seem to get that I understand why Shmoops are considered to be good or bad 'cause I do like a Shmoop every now and then. - I don't think you understand, Arthur. - This next letter is from Avi, and this is something we all do, but I figure you can tackle this 'cause I think you say it a lot too, and I do too, but he says-- - You say it to Arthur. - As someone who respected your criticism on terms such as compelling gameplay, I was disappointed to hear the words level design come out of all of our mouths. He's like, what does that even mean? What denotes good level design? What denotes bad level design? - Something that you can intuitively discover a path through, I think is good level design, levels that direct you forward in an organic way. - And that tell us story. - That too. - Tell us story what they're meant to tell us story. - Yeah, exactly. They don't necessarily have to tell us story to be a good level design, but if there is a level that tells a good story, that almost immediately implies good level design to me. - Levels that teach you how to play the game, levels that expect that you know how to play the game and play off your abilities. - A good one though, Arthur said a big one is always levels that you can make it through without being like, where the fuck am I? - Yeah. - And if you want to go see horrible level design, go see Perfect Dark. - Yeah, Perfect Dark is awful. - Yeah. - How about no dead ends? And if there is a dead end, there should be something in there working-- - You can trust your chest. - Either, yeah, either something to pick up or something visual that tells the story more. You know, I don't office, you know, like an office park or an office building would not make a good level, a game level, generally speaking. - You know, the worst thing in the world is when I go underneath a waterfall and there's nothing under there. - That happens sometimes. - There should be a collectible or treasure or something underneath every waterfall in every game. - Or it just shouldn't be there accessible. - Exactly, it shouldn't be as your water, the cave behind the waterfall should not be accessible unless there's something back there. - Good level design is somehow consistent without feeling repetitive. - Yep, it follows the rules that the game designers establish for the world. - Yeah, until you get to the boss fight, right? I think you can just throw everything out the window. - Like, you may not understand why level design is good, but you definitely appreciate good level design while you're playing it. - And battle level design stands out like a sore thumb. - Yeah, even if you're not necessarily sure why you're dying over and over again or why you're not having fun, like you might feel like it's your fault that you don't understand where you're supposed to go. And sometimes that's probably true. - Yeah, I mean, I feel like as we're talking about it, it's something we can say in conversation, but if you were gonna write it out, you would wanna say it has battle level design and you would wanna explain that. - Yeah, and if you say something has particularly great level design, you might wanna explain why. - And if you wanna like, I mean, the half-life to expansions that have the commentary tracks, like hearing those guys talk about, you know, moving stuff around to make things visible and whatever, like to draw your eye in a certain location, like if you wanna learn about how those guys who arguably make some really darn good levels who you wanna hear about how they do it, you can just listen to commentary tracks. - Like playing ODST last weekend, it struck me that the level design of new Mombasa is generally pretty good because there are constant visual cues telling you where you can and can't go. And they're very organic. And it's like, oh, if something's green, then chances are that's an area where I should head or if Virgil, the superintendent wants me to go somewhere. He'll slowly start lighting things up or if there's an enemy nearby that's like, if there's a hunter in particular nearby, he'll show me like big-ass caution signs and stuff like that to try to keep me from going somewhere or he'll direct me to like a shotgun or a rocket launcher. - Yeah, and they use in ODST, it uses the most basic level design mechanic of all in that this is light and you want to go toward the light. - Right. And color and let's color. - I think it's sort of what you were saying, Anthony, like if you have to use some sort of HUD element to tell players where to go instead of just being able to like, you know, the player should be able to sort of figure it out as they're moving forward. - Like if the levels are here. - Splinter cell conviction, I felt, had pretty good level design because you almost always knew where you were going and how you could use the environment to tackle situations. - I mean, they did a really good job with the little HUD that would flash in the wall. Like this light can be turned off, you know, light switch. - Well, at first, that's good. But after a while, you don't need that because you understand like the way that splinter cell is designed, like the rules of the world. - Right, and you understand like even in that situation, you understand like what traps you can set off. Like if there's something hanging overhead that's suspended by a chain or a cable, you know, you can shoot that to drop it on people. - Like in limbo, if something looks dangerous, like you'd start to understand the look of danger pretty early on. - Yeah. The next letter is from Jim, or Jimbo, as I know him. (laughing) - And he says-- - You two go way back. - I do actually have physically met this person. - Oh, really? - Okay. - Yeah, so I do know Jim. - There you go. - So he says, "This question is for Matt, if he's there." And actually for Ryan too. - Fine, oh shit. - I just received my first print copy of EGM, the summer 2000 issue Mortal Kombat cover. I've been enjoying the EGM online magazines and I subscribed a month or two ago. I'm completely stoked that the print version is here, but I feel like there's been no fanfare for what seems like a momentous occasion. I expected people to be talking about this or see some coverage or ads. I know it's not an employer per se, but as someone who at least does work for EGM, do you have any insight on this? He says like, "I didn't get an email "or see anything on the EGM site or other gaming sites "even talking about it's release. "I'm just curious, is it a money thing or something else?" Like Starcraft 2 coming out, competitive ad space. - Wait, is he talking about the print mag? - Yeah, yeah, just the final, like the first issue of the print one finally dropping, you know? - Yeah, that's not the first issue. - It's not the first issue. - The first one was a couple months ago, right? - Yeah, yeah. - The first issue was Mortal Kombat though? - I don't think, so here's the thing is like, we work with the EGM guys, but we actually don't have subscriptions to the print magazine right now, so the only one. - Can't they do that, can't they? - I'm sure they could do it. We just haven't made a big stink about it. - Yeah. - And you know, we just need to probably email someone. - There's been a lot of-- - I think it's time to stink. - There's been a lot of changing of the guard happening over there. - Yes. - They basically hired everybody that used to work at G4TB.com. - Yeah, so, you know, which means our connections are continually getting tighter and tighter. And, you know, I'm sure we'll get the print issues soon. I actually do have the Mortal Kombat issue because they had it at E3 and I grabbed it there. - Yeah, that's why I thought that was the first one. - So that's the one I've seen. - But as far as they're being a big splash, Jimbo's right, there hasn't been a big splash. - Yeah. - And I don't know if that's money reasons or if it's just one of those things where, you know, all of these, you know, the places that you find out about gaming news are all essentially competitors to EGM and they're not going to report on it. So, you know, unless EGM was to go out and buy some ads. - It's a story if it's not, if EGM dies, but it's not a story when it comes back to life. - Yeah, I guess not. - What is it first, but I mean, personnel changes from place to place or like publishing schedules from place to place aren't something that-- - And it actually what, you know, it may be the kind of thing that it was just too long 'cause the, you know, EGM announced so long ago that they were coming back and then it took about a year for it to actually happen. And by then I think people were just like kind of old news and not really paying attention. - So, and as a guy who's, you know, sort of working on it, the magazine and the digital magazine, they're getting better. Like they, when they started, they didn't have very many writers working on them. A lot of it was freelanced out and the staff is getting continually more and more solid. And I think, you know, especially in the last week or so since our really close friends, Skip Sterling and Patrick started over there. I think there are going to be some really positive changes, especially to the digital thing. And I got a chance to see the iPad version of it at E3. And that actually works. I like the digital version of the magazine, but as the video team, some of our videos don't play as well as I'd kind of like them to on the current digital version. But once the iPad one comes out, it's just going to be all quick time and it works really, really well. - Cool. - Yeah, it's, I'm looking forward to the future of that product. I think it's going to be really cool. - Yeah. - The next letter, it's from Suco. He says, "Hello, I am longtime listener since first podcast. "Recently, I noticed a changing dynamic "in your brotherly chemistry. "Uncertainty, what happened? "I believe us listeners who have noticed this tension "would appreciate all hosts to give each other "one long hug. "How could we embrace one-on-one? "If this happens, you make us very happy "and we believe podcast will greatly improve. "Great day." - I feel like the podcast has been good. - That was an awesome letter. - Yeah. - I just think they want us to hug. - Suco, for you-- - I'm not here to make gay porn for you, sir. - No. - For Suco, for you, I will hug everybody in this room before I leave tonight. I promise that. - This is not the Solami Express. - It is for me. - It's not the midnight meet train. Or even the daylight savings time meet train. - So Jack writes in and he says, "Now that Everquist 2 has been announced for you to play, "would you consider going back "if the experience was the same as it was "back in the day when you played? "It was not the same." - Oh, that's great to you. - Yeah. - Dude, if it was the same, no fucking way. - No, I mean, even free to play. It's just at this point, if I'm gonna dedicate that many hours of my life, I'm gonna do it in a game that's really good. Like, wow. - You're doing a game where you have a Thor pet. - Yeah. (laughing) I think that free to play can be great, but I don't think I'm the target audience for that free to play thing. - Me either. - Thor is a really cool pet, isn't it? - It's a really cool looking pet. I don't know what purpose it serves. - Oh, no purpose. It's just like, that's a pretty cool pet. It almost makes me wanna play wild. - I've got rockets. I've got rockets, I fly, which I'm not supposed to do. - What? - Does the Thor fly in StarCraft II? - No. - Yeah, the Thor pet definitely flies around. - Really? - Yeah. - Weird. - Agreed. Agreed. - Weird, weird, weird. - Next letter. - Okay. It's from Craig, from Philly. And he says, "In podcast past, I've heard you guys trying to cut back on some words that become cliche." We got a couple of these this week. Compelling a visceral to name couple. However, with the past few weeks, I've heard Arthur, not just Arthur. All of us actually have used the term atmospheric a lot. Often in connection with games that cultivate a suspenseful air, limbo, singularity, bio-shock. Is atmospheric specific enough? It seems a little vague. Most games have atmosphere technically, and I rarely hear games called environmental, unless we're discussing where the puzzles come from. Can we not find more descriptive words to describe the atmosphere? - Atmospheric has a specific connotation that environmental does not. - Yeah, I was gonna say like, atmospheric is actually a perfectly descriptive adjective. - Yeah, it's part of critical language. - So, I mean, like, yeah, you can expect-- - But I guess he's saying that maybe isn't visceral, part of creative language or something. He's saying. - I think that it's because visceral is so overused. I guess, for me, I don't feel like atmospheric is so overused, but-- - Visceral is so misapplied so often. - And it's just like one of those things where it doesn't matter what the word is. You could always expand upon a thought, and you could expand upon those expansions. There has to be some point where you kind of cut it off and just hope that people get what you're saying without you having to mumble out a treatise on it. - That's why a lot of times, I really don't like these kind of semantic arguments, like just semantics sometimes, and especially in the games, kind of what we do, games discussion, it can get really particularly hairy, and I think a lot of arguments can be run in circles or even miscommunicated because of them. - It's one thing in writing, just because you assume that in writing, people have had the time to really choose their words wisely, but when it's a discussion, I don't know, when it's five guys sitting down, shitting out of their mouths. - Exactly, it just, words come out, and it's like, you were saying, do you, how long do you really want to think about, we could, someone could pose a topic, and then we could sit for five minutes silently, and think about what we're going to say, but-- - Okay, I think, just to close it out, I think that Visceral and compelling, in particular, words that press releases have taken to using, literally-- - That makes it hard. - And then, so you see that, and then you see people who write in the game's press use those words over and over again. It sort of becomes this thing where people are writing like a press release. So if atmospheric becomes the next big thing in press releases, then it's going to make me less interested in using it. - As long as none of us ever use the phrase mixed bag, I'm okay. - That's what we try not to do. - We'll keep friends in to talk about the mixed bag that was our transformer discussion last week. (laughing) - I'm really sorry for being that fan, but I gotta call you guys out on this. Normally, you guys are on the real and genuine, so when you make Transformers references and make glaring mistakes, like saying Optimus Prime turned into a gorilla in Beast Wars, the Dinobots transformed into a giant robot. It makes you guys look bad. - Wait, Optimus Prime wasn't a gorilla in Beast Wars? - He says, "I'm just saying Optimus Primal "turned into a good--" - Oh, shut the fuck up. - No more reading any of that letter, next letter. - For real. - Jesus Christ. - Down with that Vito. But yeah, okay, I just thought that that was so. - I was deliberately so that I would tell that guy to shut up, mission accomplished, shut up listener. I love you, but really. - He's probably right about the Dinobots though. - Wait, what was the Dinobots thing? - He just said they didn't turn into one big guy. - They didn't turn into a big guy. - No, who said that? - I don't know, I don't know. - But I remember last week somebody saying that and me agreeing with them. - Dinobotron? - I don't think I ever saw a big Dinobot. - Mega Dinobot. - Exactly. - So John writes in and he says, "I know I'm not the only Australian "who wanted to get my hands on the secret scent "and I like that he capitalized that. "When you revealed how it was pretty difficult--" - Am I right? - "-- sorry, when you revealed it. "However, it was pretty difficult. "Nay, almost nigh impossible to get it shipped out here. "Just wanted to give a shout out to Josh, "who's another listener who imported it "and distributed it nationally "for all the rest of the Aussies." - Holy shit, intense. A lot of nerds who want to get laid. - So Josh, that is really cool of you to distribute it yourself after importing in bulk. - Dude, you've really got to get ahold of those guys and get them to start paying you money just to have this podcast. - Yeah, take a dollar, turn it into two. Let's see. - Especially in Australia, Australian dollars, even. Yes, yes, yes. - Sorry. - It's all good. - Am I trying to fill that air? - My laptop's actually going very slow. - That happens. - Okay. - Bye, Max. - Sam writes in, he says, "I want to play an MMO, "but I don't have a supercomputer to play WoW and stuff. "I don't think WoW requires a supercomputer." - No, it doesn't. - I'm pretty sure it doesn't. - So he says, "I was wondering "if there are any good console MMOs. "Or should I just wait to try out Final Fantasy XIV? "Whatever happened to Marvel Universe Online?" Yeah, that's it. - I would probably wait for Final Fantasy XIV 'cause I actually think Final Fantasy XI sucked. - Well, in DC Universe Online, I think is coming out to PS3, right? - I'll be real curious to see how that does because there's no cross-platform play. They just announced that this week that PC players will not intermingle with PS3. - Well, I know that that was the same with Everquest and that one did okay for a while. - Did it really? - Yeah. - I think the servers will at least the servers wrong. - I think we are in a more brutal MMO environment than we have ever been. - Well, and it's also, I would be willing to bet that the Everquest servers weren't as expensive to run back in the day. - Buck in the day? - Okay, this is kind of a funny one. So Rodney writes in and he says, "Arthur Geeze, you craft your bastard." That's the title. (laughing) He says, "So I listened to Arthur "about Assassin's Creed II despite his incorrect feelings "and Fable II, that it's not the best game "of this generation." (laughing) He says, "I did not expect to have a 9.5 out of 10 experience "with the AC2, but expected it to at least "be significantly above average." Hold on, I know, hold on. - I always think it was gonna be a 9.4. - I can see Ryan's squirming point. - Disappointed with the game. Disappointed with the game. I decided Arthur and I simply had different tastes. I wasn't that annoyed because I'd only spent $40 on it. Later on, Arthur was talking about how he does not enjoy Red Dead Redemption. So I thought with our differing opinions on games, I would enjoy playing it. So I bought Red Dead and find that, again, Arthur's tricked me into buying a game that, for me, did not offer much fun. Eventually, I decided Arthur was just a malevolent bastard. (laughing) - So true. You don't even know. - Man. - That's right. I actually say Red Dead is awful, so you buy it and hate it. - Yeah. (laughing) - Yeah, I mean, it's just funny 'cause as soon as he said, the Assassin's Creed was like a crap game, I'd just tell Ryan, be like, "Oh, fucking kill this man." (laughing) - And then it happened. - He's dead on Red Dead? - And then I made, yeah, and then I realized that I wish I was here for Red Dead discussions too. Man. - Yeah. - Rawr. - That's okay, I brought up the stuff that you said. - Yeah. - What did I say? I don't know what I said. I love that game. - He said it was atmospheric. - I said it was atmospheric. It was visceral and compelling, and it has an amazing soundtrack. - But the ending was kind of a mixed bag. - The ending is a mixed mag. - Nathan writes in, and I'm gonna throw this letter out there 'cause it'll be a good one for me to look for another letter while you guys talk about it, is... (laughing) He writes in a lot, actually, this kid. And he says, "I don't know how he's a kid, huh?" - Well, I just say about people, I don't know. I was wondering if you guys have any other hobbies that didn't play in video games. I know you've mentioned it previously, but I thought I'd ask anyways. - Sure, masturbation. So lately, what I've been doing, and this is to try to lose weight also, but I've been walking a lot, so I walk around my neighborhood 'cause it's a really cool neighborhood, and listen to podcasts now, surprisingly, which I'd never really done before. I highly recommend walking around your place and getting more familiar with-- - Walking's a great hobby. - Well, if you live in a city, I guess, not everyone can. - Well, walking, it sounds good, too. - Yeah, walking and listening to podcasts. My favorite podcast right now is Radio Lab, by-- - Radio Lab is so good, I'm really glad you turn me on to that. - Anthony, do you have any hobbies? - You play music. - I do, but it's pretty much like a zoning out thing that I do sometimes. I'm not very, like, it's super into it, as I used to be. - Psychological lubricant. - Yeah, really, more than anything. I hardly ever record or actually write what would consist of a complete song. - I'm trying to convince Anthony to play something at PAX so we have our panel. - Oh, that would be awesome. We'll see. - Now he's gonna get bullied into doing it. - Beyond that, I really don't have that many hobbies. I occasionally make shit out of clay. Really terrible things that, like, I made like a-- - Seems like an easy thing to do, make a shit out of clay. - Well, I mean, I made a squid attacking, like out of the, you, a bake in your own oven clay, I made like a squid attacking a boat. My dad used it as a paperweight in his office and this dude walked up and was like, "Ah, how old's your son?" (laughing) My dad was like, "Yeah, it was like 28." (laughing) - He told the story on the podcast. - So, so yeah, so I occasionally like to do little art things. I don't claim to be good, just purely for fun. But other, you know, I like to do stupid shit, like some weekends I wanna go gold panning or I wanna go use the metal detector that I have sitting over there. - It's never been used. - Yeah, I keep saying I wanna use it. I'm waiting this weekend, I think it's time. - I think it is time. - Yeah. - You're gonna find fucking buried treasure. - That's cool. - Is that what they're calling poop? - I also was constantly schemed to become independently wealthy. - So, I don't have to worry. - You try to come up with a big idea. - Yeah, it turns out that dildos that sink with your iPods already taken. Dogdoors fit. - That shit has been around for as long as iPods have. - Dogdoors that only unlock when your dog comes to it, already invented. All the little things I think of they're already done. - What about the light up door knob? - I wanted light up door knobs, but it turns out there's a lock that already makes that not worth it, so I just keep scheming. - Matt, do you have any hobbies? - No. - Other than your girlfriend? - No. - I do not. - Tyler. - Seriously, all I do is play games. It's awful. I'm a terrible human being. - Like Miyamoto, my hobbies are a secret. Is that really what he says? - No, it's Nintendo that says they're secret. - Yeah. - That just makes me think that he's like a serial killer. (laughing) - That he likes higher children. - In order to get the dreams that I turn into your Nintendo games, I steal them out of the brains of children, eat children's brains. - I'm picturing him paying a woman a lot of money, just to beat the crap out of her and then she leaves and never talks about it. - Aw. - Anyways. - I want to know about your hobbies. - That's fine, I don't have any hobbies. - No, now we're talking about your hobbies. - Yeah. - What do you talk about? Hobbies are just gonna be dead air. - We've actually talked about my hobbies on the show over and over again. People keep asking and I keep saying, "I'm drawer." - He does. I saw him draw a unicorn earlier today. - I did. It was on request for someone's thing. - Out of trouble. Was it a robot unicorn? - No, it was just a normal unicorn. - Oh, okay. - When I read. - The unicorns are cooler. - Right now I'm reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lac." - Arthur reads a lot. - Reading school, I started doing that again. - That's what I do instead of playing games. Like I don't play handheld games I read. - I do read. I guess I didn't think of that as a hobby. - And I only have one. - But I'm gonna throw that out there because I don't sound like such a loser. - I have one Kindle book on my Android and I'm just like, "I really don't want to read books this way, but now I have to because I bought it." - I also like taking photos. Matt does that too. We shoot photos. - It's true. - I'm thinking of buying an entry level DSLR. - Yeah. - The Canon T2i would be a great place to start. - That would be a good place to start. - What's the price for that? - 800. - That is not entry level. - That's like-- - Entry level, okay, let me rephrase that. That's entry level photographer and videographer if you want. - Yeah, exactly. - That's a scary entry level. - Yeah, that's man. - Yeah, but that's-- - Yeah, but that's-- - I have a huge, pretty DSLR-- - The DSLR aren't cheap to begin with. - I just want to take pictures for reference for paintings and stuff. - Oh, well, you might not even need a DSLR then. - You take pictures of paintings. No, I need a DSLR. My hands aren't steady enough to get good pictures out of a point and shoot. - Yup. - Not my experience. - So you need a DSLR with an image stabilizer? - That's pretty much all of them from what I've been seeing now. - Yes and no. You really have to pay attention to the linger buying. - Way to shit on my dreams, Matt. Thanks. - No, I'm just cautioning you. So you don't just go buy DSLR thinking it's automatically gonna be image stabilizer. - Oh, I have like a shitload of outstanding student loan payments do right now. I'm just been thinking about it. - Hey, I know how that is. - That's why other hobbies, student loans. (laughing) - I'm only gonna read one relationship letter. - Let's do it. - We didn't get any particularly exciting ones this weekend. Nobody was like, "Ah, I'm gonna be raped by two people," or something like that. - What am I gonna do? (laughing) - That would have been so funny. (laughing) - They got raped by two people. - Oh shit, what am I doing? - No, but the funny part was I'm gonna get raped. It was like, it was like the school bully. Like, I'm gonna beat you up after school. Like, I'm gonna rape you after school. All right, man, kids got it hard these days. - What are you saying, I don't know. - No, I don't know what I'm gonna jerk off to. - I used to be beaten people off by the black pole by the morning before, man. - Ah, I'm used to just worrying about wedgies. - All right, shut up by Anthony, read the letter. - All right, Josh. - This became crosstalk cast, Jesus. - Josh says, last summer there was this girl I kind of liked who liked me too. She asked for my number, texted me first, drops tons of hints about going on a date. The problem is, it was the summer after our freshman year and I was a giant wimp. Long story short, she ended up going out with another guy for all of this year instead. It made me realize that if I had the opportunity again, I needed to grow some balls and ask her out. - True. - She took up and she's available. She's expressed no interest in me this time around and we don't have many mutual friends, so here's my question. Do I start spitting game out of the blue this summer or wait until next school year? Or has my chance come and gone? What if it's too late next year? - I'm in the come and gone camp. - I think it's probably come and gone, but fucking try anyway, dude. What do you got to lose? - Exactly, are you just, you know, like wife, think about it, just try. - Go do it. - It sounds like he's built this up in his head so much that there's no way it'll be anything but disappointing slash heartbreaking. - Dude, no way, it's just get your heart broken and then just move on. - It's both. His situation has come and gone, but if he moves on, gets a new lady, she sees that situation. Once this lady's over with, then you go back for that 'cause you're like, welcome to the wild side. (laughing) - Yeah, I don't think that's the way it works Tyler. - It's the way it works for Tyler. - The last letter, Marie, just from Patrick. - My title is in a different dimension. And it's kind of a letter to both of us. Says, "Anthony, you have a beautiful head of hair. "Don't squander it, do not get frosted tips. "Do not get a weird angled buzzcut on one side or head. "Don't try to have it straightened. "Don't wear a hat, which I am right now." - I do not qualify for locks of love if that's for this. (laughing) - I am 23 and have seen the riding on the wall in the form of my older brother who is now one to two years away from full Patrick Stewart. - Hey. - I know that in a year or so, I will be getting an extremely short buzzcut which will eventually transition into a Michael Jordan, Arthur Geeze. I am very-- - I'm just going to say this right now. Patrick Stewart is nailing girls in their 20s right now. - I'm at peace with my fate, but know this. Anthony, you will never have to watch a commercial for laser scalp stimulation treatment and have your girlfriend to five years say quietly, "I wonder how much that costs." (laughing) He says, "I can tell you to go fuck yourself "or that I fantasize of scalping you "and wearing your hair." (laughing) - I nearly urge you to respect your thick mop of hair which in turn shows respect for non-haired men everywhere. - I don't know, where did this come from? - I have a question for Arthur. When the time comes, I'll probably wish to keep my beard. How should it end at the top when my scalp is bare? (laughing) It mostly seems non-haired men with beards ending it in a short, sort of diagonal cut as if their sideburns went around behind their ears. - You look like a wrestler from the '90s. - Yeah. - Yes. - This has faded in, I guess. - He says, "All the best in the sincere "and better fuck you to Anthony." (laughing) - That was an awesome win, I think right now that's kind of what I got going. It's fading into the light. - Yeah, I mean, your hair transitions pretty naturally. - Yeah. It transitions from being there to not. (laughing) - Iron Man 1, Jeff Bridges, is that who the villain was? - Yeah, his is just a very, he pulled that off. - Yeah, very few people can pull that off but he's also the fucking dude. (laughing) - Bruce Willa. - Look at Bruce Willa. - Look at Bruce Willa. - He pulls off the shaved head. - Yeah. - Bruce Willa has a beard. - Yeah, he keeps it clean. - He has stubble a lot of time. - Jason Statham is another example of a dude with hardcore baldness. You know what, Jason hasn't gotten to it, I'm telling him now, Jason is going bald. (laughing) - I also turn Jason Statham. - Yeah, yeah. - I would say the man that made me realize that if I ever started to go bald, I could like deal with it 'cause I think he looks awesome. He's in this foreign film that is worth watching. Anyway, it's called, in English, it's talked to her. - It's Ablachon Ea, it's a Spanish film. But anyway, yeah, it's by Pedro Almodovar. - Does it have Penelope Cruz in it? - No. - Wow. - Maybe a main character in that film or one of the main characters, Marco Zoolaga, is like this random dude, he's bald and I think he looks awesome. And then when I saw that film, I was like, "Hey, if I went bald, no big deal, "I'd just do what he did." Which is basically what Arthur does, keep it close, little bit of facial hair. - Patrick Stewart, man, Patrick Stewart is a hero. It should be an early hero. - The thing is that Patrick Stewart is a little bit older, whereas this guy, you know, I think that the whole point of this guy's story is he's running into it as a young man. - He's like 25. - You know, like Bruce Willis. Okay. - I did that, I was bald by the time I was 27. - And Andy, you did a bunch of different things. You did like, "Hey, Hachi" for a while. - Oh, I totally did the "Hi, Hachi" thing for a while. - I do enjoy the shit out of my hair, but both my grandparents and my mom and my dad said, "And my dad have a bald spot right on those." - Well, yeah, but they didn't get that until they were in their late 30s. - Yeah, so. - So you've got like a decade, at least, of more hair, so I'll fuck you. - So we wanted to get a special distribution of the Starcraft away to the best letter. - Ooh. - And was there one that stuck out to you guys for me? - There was, it was actually the first one, I think. - I really liked Josh's letter, 'cause it was really well written. - Patrick. - Oh, you're right, Hachi. - I liked the hair one. - I thought it was really well written. - What was the first one, what's the first one? - Yeah, what was the first one? - What was the first one? Did I close this shit, how did it start? - The first one was Death Smiles, actually. - That was the first letter. - Death Smiles. - Level design? - Yes, I liked the letter. - That was from Ovi. - Yeah, that was a pretty good one, too. That was actually a good criticism. - It's true, it did make a good conversation as well. - Yes. It's a toughy. - I think we answered that question the best. (laughing) - Can we give the prize to what we did best? - I mean, there's a consolation prize. - Oh. - That they can pick from, actually. - Of. - Well, I figured that one person is getting the Starcraft II collector's edition, and the other person can have a making of DVD and see how soundtrack CD or a retail copy of Crackdown 2. - Oh. - See? - You don't lose. - You don't lose, well. - I really wanted to feel about Crackdown. - As far as the quality of the letter, I still think that heroin was really good. - Yeah, Patrick's was really well-written. - It was funny. - I just feel like we've gotten the baldness letter 7,000 times. - See, this is good, though. We're having a little debate. (laughing) - I thought it would be a clear-cut choice, and you're right, that other one was good. - Oh, I like hair? Is that what you're saying? - A clear-cut. (laughing) All right, let's give the letter of the week to Avi, and then we'll give the backup one to Patrick. - Patrick is the hair. - 'Cause you touched upon an old concept, but you did it so well. - I was rooting for you, Patrick. I was gunning for you. I got shut down. - So, Patrick, you write in-- - Well, both Patrick and Avi should write into the Rebel FM email address. - Well, we'll respond to Avi, like to get his information, and Patrick will need to tell us if he wants the StarCraft II, making of DVD and Soundtrack CD, or a retail copy of Crackdown 2. - Oh, yeah, I suppose we could just respond to them. That never even occurred to me. I was like, "You tell me you're interested." (laughing) "You listen to this. I don't want to write to you." (laughing) - So, what's I have to do here the better? - Yeah, I guess we can do that. Arthur thinks ahead. I'm just like, trying to keep the distance. - You spit hot fire. - No, I'm just kidding. Anyways, you've listened to this show. It's fucking over now. (laughing) - We have Twitter accounts that we use sometimes. Chuff Money is mine. Arthur's is A-G-I-A-E-G-I-E-S. - Well done. - Tyler's is dirty tea. Like the drink Matt is talking orange, and Ryan's is Ryan Adonal. - Yeah. - Just right now. - It's just really good. - With two Ls and two Ns. - Two Ns and two Ls. - Two Ns and two Ls. There you go. Our letters. - Let us see more Chuff Money tweets. Come on. - How about any of your-- - It hasn't seen 'em any. - Any would be a good start. - Any. (laughing) - You wanna know what's going on with you, man? - I don't know. - I don't know you anymore. - I think you deleted all your Xbox Live saves through Twitter. - Yeah, that was a very depressing thing. That was really depressing. - So why don't you tweet about positive things, huh? - I will. (laughing) - Tweet every time you masturbate. Oh Jesus. (laughing) You guys got it. And then two minutes later, 10 minutes later, Anthony is now marked as spam by Twitter. (laughing) That's Twitter since we need more. - I believe your account has been hacked. I'm like, no. (laughing) - And then two months later, you'll get a genuine account. - You know, jerking it over and over again. (laughing) - All right. Yeah, and that would also be like an HR violation in a lot of ways that'd be like, man, how much does this guy jerking it at work? (laughing) - Right, because you would obviously be the only person jerking it at work. - Anyway, sorry. - I would say well-- - I'm just, boom, boom, boom, boom. - Letters at eat-sleep, dash game is the email address that you can send your own letters into. - And I think we're gonna try to make it a point to be giving away stuff more often on the podcast. - Yeah, probably not every week, but when we get some shit, you'll get some shit. Go take a shit. - I would like-- - Yes, shit. - Everyone on the podcast in "Memory of Starcraft" to listen to the Terence song "Starcraft Con." (upbeat music) Review this on iTunes. - I think that shit was sound. (laughing) - No, people are still helping me. - Eat your fruit and vegetables. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]