Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 51 -- 02/10/10
Matt and Ryan from Area5.tv join the regular crew to talk about an array of games we've been checking out. Highlights from the discussion include Heavy Rain, BioShock 2, as well as more than a few IGF games. After that we move onto a lengthy letters segment before concluding the "normal" show. However, for those who are interested (and more importantly have completed Mass Effect 2) there is an extended "Mass Effect 2 Spoilerthon" after the ending song. If you want to hear all about the varying ways we've played ME2, give it a listen. Enjoy!
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ Nothing good on the radio ♪ ♪ Once again I didn't do ♪ ♪ It's the right time to ♪ ♪ To wrap all that hell ♪ ♪ To wrap all that hell ♪ ♪ To wrap all that hell ♪ ♪ To wrap all that hell ♪ - Hey. - Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 55, Rebel FM. 'Cause we're fucking skipping forehead. That's how fucking-- (laughing) - That's pretty pimp. - I do like how we antagonize certain elements of our listenership. - I mean, just the people that, it bothers them enough, they have to write in about something, so insignificant. - That you got the number wrong? - Yeah. - You know what, guys, I'm really tired and not feeling terribly enthusiastic. - Yeah, people also think that. I'm like, "Motherfucker, if I didn't want to do this, "I would not do a full day at work and then do this as well." - You want to do it? - Yeah, I totally want to do it. - 10 or 12 hours a week. - So, yeah, I've amongst all the planning and everything. - It's not like we're making a video show. - Yeah, so I'm gonna think I-- - So wanna work. - With me is Tyler Barber. - Trying to survive the oak landers. (laughing) - Trying a Donald for Mary 5. - Pow, pow, swack, twack, oak lander. - And then mesh engineer, you know. And then Arthur Geese. - I'm just trying to think of Mad Max jokes and coming up short. (laughing) - So we're here to talk about video games. So this show is also gonna be different format than the other ones. - Because what? - So you should know better than to change things on the internet. - Yeah, so it's what, you know, standard what people have been playing segment in the first part, followed by letters. And instead of a middle segment, we're gonna have the same thing as the last time after the break, after the ending, basically. I'm gonna leave the room. And then Ryan, Matt, Arthur, and Tyler are gonna spoil the shit out of all things Mass Effect 2. - Thank God, I remembered what I talked about last time. - And this time. - It's gonna be exactly the same. - Like last time before we started, I was like, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. But really, there weren't that much in the way of spoilers last time. - No story spoilers in the way. - But we are really going to spoil the shit out of Mass Effect 2. - Yeah, so if you haven't played-- - You are revving, oh wait. (laughing) - Statute eliminations like that. - I even knew that, and I've never even played that game. - Bruce Willis is a ghost. - So. - You're fucking fired. That's the most cleashade spoiler ever. - Game away, die hard. (laughing) - I thought it was just die hard four. (laughing) - That's where I was in space. - I didn't see your die hard four as it was just long, all along. - Ah. (laughing) - So what games have people been playing? - Maybe. - Well then she started, yeah. - Why don't you start? He never starts. - I started last week. - I felt really awkward. - Are you serious? - And it felt really awkward. - Shit, let's keep the trend up. - Exactly. - Let's go. - Let's just do it. - Fire away, Anthony time. - I've been playing handheld games. Actually this week it's been like all Sony all the time for me with the exception of Bioshock 2, which I had played last week, but have now put up the review about. - Well you talk about heavy rain and handheld games, and then we'll all talk about Bioshock. - I mean too much about everything. - I mean, heavy rain, so there's not, I don't want to say too much. Even in the review, it's like a really delicate thing about how I should write it. - Don't worry, he gets all the spoiling out of his system with me at work. - No, I didn't spoil anything for you really. - Well shit, I haven't watched any coverage of that game intentionally, and you just blank, like, oh yeah, the blank scene, and I'm like, I can't fucking believe you're talking about that. - Well, I did talk about something that became infamous because they showed a DD3 to everyone. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I don't know if most people know what that was, but a DD3, everyone was talking about it. So it's just kind of like. - Not all of us got to go to A3. - No, but I mean, even if you read coverage, it was like the thing people talked about 'cause it was this really intense emotional scene. And so, I mean, a lot of people talked, I mean, it's just in a lot of ways amongst all the people we know is such common knowledge, I assumed, you knew. Just like, there's enough things, it's like, it's like a enough coverage to go around that, hey, you play as a big daddy. It's like, I didn't think that would be a surprise to anyone. And just like the scene and heavy rain, I didn't think it would be a big surprise 'cause everyone was talking about it. - I think you play as a big daddy is different because that's the conceit of Bioshock 2. - Right. - 'Cause this was a major plot point of heavy rain. - He's talking about the marketing and the PR rock angle. - But first off, the thing that I told you in heavy rain isn't even a major plot point. - Oh, I mean, I see. - It is a thing that occurs and then it's over. - I said no idea. - No, it's not, what you heard was not even, like the major plot line in heavy rain is far too complex to explain in a sentence. Like, it really does go all over the place. - They're a little, they're little scenes that they do, like the one that I told Arthur about, which are important, but they're not important to like the overall story. They're more just important to understanding. - I wanna know if you fight the internet. - That's exactly what I was gonna ask, literally word for word, if you don't fight the internet. - Yeah, as long as you don't fight the internet at the end, like I said-- - No, I don't know. - I didn't know that was that end. - That was an individual-- - If you go up to see ends with the fight against the internet, it happens. - I don't know, no, as far as I know, this one's very much grounded in reality. There's no magic going on. - I appreciate the public service you guys do, making me decide never to play Indigo Prophecy ever. - Indigo Prophecy is fantastic. - It's a great game where you fight the internet at the end. (laughing) - And it ruins it. - What? - It was like-- - It was a totally awesome day, but you shouldn't my mouth at the end. - I don't know, I just think that that's still game worth playing in a lot of ways. - I think so too. - Yeah, me too. - I would totally play Indigo Prophecy. - But so heavy rain, like I said, there are these scenes that are emotionally important and cool to the overall game for all the characters, but the main thing that they're there for is just to give you a little bit of insight to why character X may be like the way they are. The really crucial story things I haven't spoiled at all. I mean, and even some of those are hard to spoil because they're set, like basically people won't talk about heavy rain as like, what did you think of the story overall? People will talk about it to that degree, but most of the time when people sit down and talk about heavy rain, like my instances of talking about it with people today who've played it, we're like, what did you do in scene X? How does that play out for you? - Oh shit, that happened for you? It's totally different than what happened for me. - Like for instance, it might just be that you chose to use a different item to do something than I did. - And we're gonna have some of that in the Mass Effect two spoiler thing. - Man, like I've only been playing for an hour and a half and it is clear to me from reading reviews of it today and from talking to Sterling that I'm just at the part where you're like, this game is not good, this game is not good, this game is not good. - See, I never felt that that game, there was never a point when I was playing where I was like, this game isn't good. Like I could tell like, like it was just like leading up but again, I also liked Indigo Prophecy. - Me too. - And I also like Shedmoo, which was a ton of you know, - Shedmoo, too, represent, against the best shit ever. - Right now I don't have like awesome story to go with and like the characters I've been introduced to so far for the most part have just been sort of boring and cliched and so what I'm left with are the controls and the interface and I'm just, I feel like I'm working with it. - I, again, I mean, that's a perfectly valid opinion, like I don't think everyone will like it but I totally didn't find like the characters like boring and stuff and even like the mundane things of like grabbing orange juice and shaking it or playing with my kids, like all these little things like I was, I did enjoy but I also liked Shedmoo again. Shedmoo too, you did dumb shit like move boxes. - Indigo Prophecy, and do dumb stuff, yeah. - And I'm down with dumb stuff as long as it feels like I did it because I chose to do it rather than like it making me do it. - I mean, I have never been forced to drink orange juice. - Right, I mean, I was choosing to do all these little things because I was, I just wanted to see how they worked and it's better, but I mean, - Matt and I saw demo D3 and it was a very short demo. Basically the same area that, - I got to try it for a little bit too, which was great. - Right, you held the controller and I watched and told you to hit X, but I'm just kidding. The screen tells you to do that. - Square, triangle, X, X. - I still think it has the best implementation of visual UI for timer events ever. - It's where you're looking already. - I've been playing a little Dante's Inferno lately. I had to stop 'cause that game was driving me nuts, but when it has the quick time elements show up on the screen, they have this sort of sheen on them and like a terrible texture in the background that makes it hard to see what button you're supposed to be pressing this on PlayStation. - Oh, oh, 'cause I never had that problem. - Yeah, on PlayStation. - I mean, on 360 it's colored, so I guess that it's colored here too, but it's faint, you know? Like the colors of the actual buttons are faint. - I mean, on the if 360 it's like, "Join B button!" - Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. - I think the thing about "Heavy Raines" is gonna be one of those things that people either just don't really care for or it's gonna be one of those things that people absolutely love. And so far I'm on the love train as far as that goes. - It's a nice train to be on. - But, you know, for me, it's like Arthur's right. Like a lot of the characters are pretty cliched. Like it's like, "Not a detective guy." Yeah, we already know what he's like, "You've seen fucking movies." But the reason that I like playing him as him more is that to some extent it's kinda like the way you, like I'm not saying it's Mass Effect 'cause it's not. But in the way that like I've heard people say that, you know, "Your Shepherd is your Shepherd," because of the decisions you make, like that detective, I make him be the way I wanna make him be like, like when I want, when I go and interview someone, I can be a dick, you can be aggressive and try and intimidate them into telling you what you want, but I always go the compassionate route. - Right, right. - Like I know you're hurt and blah, blah, blah. You know, so even though he is like kind of a cliche, like he's my cliche, because I've made him into this route. - This is my partner, Detective McVegina. - Yeah, I never go out, I never do the dick route with him. Like I intentionally don't do that, you know? - In Mass Effect 2, I feel like there's like basically three possible ways to play it. You know, there's the renegade, there's the paragon. And then there's kinda the middle ground where if you choose mostly non-paragon or renegade options, you'll get different events that happen, you know, in the dialogue trees. So there's around three, once you've played it three times, you probably have seen everything that you could possibly see in that game, is my guess. But I was hoping that Heavy Rain would be a sort of shorter experience. - It is, I think it's only like eight hours. - Right, that you could play in a wide variety of ways. - But from what I understand it could be drastically shorter than eight hours, because for instance, I'm pretty sure I could have lost a character at like two hours in, but I intend, I worked my way out of it, but he could've just died and I would've never played any of his other segments. - Right, right. - You know, I mean. - That's kinda cool. - I was pretty curious as to how I feel after I played it more. - Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a different, a wide array of things that can happen. Like I was talking to Nick and just between like me and Nick and some of his coworkers, like we've done things way different a lot of times, you know? - Nice. - A lot of it comes down to like, well, who you want your characters to be. - I mean, that was perfectly evident from the demo we played at E3 even, because he would pull out items from his coat and stuff that you literally didn't have to have at all. So unless you found it in the environment and picked it up and did this specific thing with it, you know, you play it out in a totally different way. - Yeah, I mean, it's a super, if you are a person that is susceptible to games, like being emotional things and stuff, which, or just movies, like I'm easily moved and movies and shit, I'll say it. Like, and story is one of those things if you like look at all my reviews and stuff, like I almost always talk about story. Like I don't talk about graphics or anything 'cause that shit really doesn't matter to me unless it's really bad or really great. But like story is one of those things that I always notice. And like, for me, it's like playing like a heavy rain is good because it's an interactive story book in a lot of ways. Like I do these things, but a lot of times I'm just along for the ride and I enjoy that enough. - You got to play Mass Effect 2. I'm not trying to take away from heavy rain. - I want to play Mass Effect 2, trust me, I want to. - You got to do it. - I just, I mean, if nothing else, I respect that Sony and Quantum Dream like put as much money as it seems like they did into making this game that they took the chance to make it. - I will say that I love the introduction to it. Like you do like this thing and then after the big like one of the big story arcs starts, that's when it does like the introduction with like, and the way it does the credits and stuff like kind of coming out of the street and then it does all these weird up close things and the people's faces. - That's a pretty common thing in a lot of TV shows. - Right, right. It does a thing like the same thing you saw when you saw Splinter Cell Conviction where it would have like as the game was like playing and it would be like bam, director. - Like, I don't know if you've seen Fringe. - Or for instance, like the way that they constantly put things up in zombie land. You know how they always put the rules up in zombie land every few feet like on top of a car. - But I haven't seen that movie. - Like so this game does that as well. I almost called it a movie because a lot of ways for me, I go about it more like watching a movie than I do playing a game. I don't know. - It sounds like exactly what I was hoping it would be. So I'm really looking forward to playing it. - I'm enjoying it so far. I have not finished yet. - Yeah, big thing about this game is gonna be, I guess your expectations going into it. - Yeah. - Right, my expectations were actually really low going into it. - Really? - Yeah, I, it was just another one of those games that I was like, maybe I should be shit. - My expectations are probably a little bit too high. - I was gonna say it's your most anticipated game over here. - Yeah, I mean, there are some things that'll know you, like some of the voice actors are really good and some of them are bad. - Some of them are a really French person trying to be American. - Exactly, yeah. - Wow. - And some of them are really good, but then yeah, a couple of them you're like, whatever. - And some of the character models are really, like the chubby private detective is a really great character model. - But at the same time, it's like, they really do ride that fucking uncanny valley of like, it's like that time where you're like, oh, it almost looks good, but it's got like, that thing that makes me realize you're a robot. - It's my hinge, my muscles. - Yeah, exactly, you know what I mean? But it, you know, I am enjoying it. And then I've also been playing, I started it last night, a so-com game, Fireteam Bravo 3 for PSP. - Oh, shit, wow. - So I never played any of the so-com games ever. Except for the PS3 one a little bit. - We tried to play that one. - But yeah, Fireteam Bravo for PSP. It was actually, I mean, it's a pretty cool game. I mean, it's got like the world's most cliched story. You know, it's like, we're dudes, we're killing dudes. - Right, that is a pretty cliched story. (laughing) - But it's a, it has really good squad commands, controls for, you know, only having one analog stick. And, but you can sit there and give orders to guys and tell them to, you know, it's like, in a lot of ways it reminds me, playing Rainbow Six, and it's intuitive where like, you just look at a door, hit circle, and then they'll like, move it and clear it, or you can tell them like, breach and clear, like, flash and clear. You know, it reminds me almost of like, Rainbow Six in a lot of ways. And, you know, there are some things that make the shooting, it is what it is, 'cause it only has one stick, right? It auto locks on, and that sort of thing, you know. But, it is pretty fun for a portable shooter, and supposedly I've never played it, but I've always heard that the Fireteam Bravo multiplayer has always been pretty excellent on PSP. - What was the so-come on PSP that you and I played Ryan? - Fireteam Bravo. - Yeah, the first fire, I think they control really well. - Yeah, and it actually came with-- - With the headset, right? - It came with a headset, and like, we played multiplayer with the headset online, and I remember us doing it on the PSP, I was like, wow, this is-- - It was a long time ago. - It was a long time ago, but I remember, I remember at the time we were saying to each other, wow, this is almost like playing a PS2 multiplayer game on a freaking PSP. - Yeah, I mean, I-- - First chat, crazy shit. - Voice chat, yeah, I know. - I forgive it about six months, and it will be a PS2 game that you can play multiplayer on. - Well, or at least it's a PS2 player. Maybe, I don't know if they'll do a PS2 multiplayer at this point, but yeah, so that was pretty cool. And then I've also recently gone back and started playing that Warhammer Squad command game, which I've never talked about on the show because it was one of those games I played long before the show ever existed. That was like the first review or second review I ever did for OneUp, and it's basically, it's made by Red Links, who's the same company that makes Trials, and it's pretty much one of their-- - Really? - Yeah, it's pretty much one of their only games that they made outside of Trials for consoles, and I was like, man, you know, Red Links is good, 'cause that game's really good. Like the PSP one is only so-so to me. I don't know if that was Red Links as well if someone else ported it, but the PSP one is great. I mean, it's like-- - Wait, yeah, you just said PSP twice. - The DS one is so-so, the PSP one is great. - Okay, thank you. - The DS one is just like-- - That is absolutely the opposite of what I thought you were saying. - The DS one just has like lower, like it is so much lower res, and it's harder a little, like honestly drawing lines with the analog knob almost works better than sometimes the stylus. - Wow. - Well, just 'cause it's not the whole point of the squad command is that it's turn-based, so it's not like you're under any pressure to draw a really quick line, but yeah, squad command is like the most accurate portrayal of like the closest you'll get to playing Real Warhammer 40K is squad command. Like Don of War is a great game, but it's not traditional 40K 'cause it's all real time. You know, it is a fantastic real-time strategy set in the Warhammer universe. It is amazing at that, but this is turn-based, so it's like the equivalent of dice rolls whenever you take a shot at a guy and whether or not it's gonna work, and you know, guys have action points that you have to sit there and think about and you outfit, you make a little unit army before you go into battle, and that's what you're stuck with through the whole thing. - Right, right, that's cool. - Yeah, it is really cool. I think it's a great game, even for people that don't like Warhammer just for a turn-based strategy game. - What was the hair that went up your butt to play that game? - Oops. - I don't know, I wanted to play something on-- - All right, that's my phone. I wanted to be totally coming over the recording here. - I wanted to play handheld lately. - It's off now. - I have a soft spot for handheld games, so, and I was just looking for something to play and I was looking at all my DS games, and they're all great games, but they're all like games I play for 10 minutes, not the ones I sit down and just really get into. - 'Cause their real console experience is sort of, that's the thing with PSP. - Right. - Is that it feels like sometimes I can get into a game easier than I can on DS just because it feels like-- - Right, like when I played Resistance on PSP, that's like a game I'll play for multiple hours. And not that there aren't DS games I do that with, I mean, I plan on doing that on Tuesday with the new Phoenix right when it comes out. - Maybe you'll do that with Ghost Recon Future Warrior. - Maybe, although, you know, who knows if it'll be good. I mean, maybe the PSP one. - Maybe. - But why wouldn't you play that on? - There'll be like four different versions to play, so, I'll play the HD version. - Yeah, so I played a couple of-- - 'Cause that's the type of games I like in no-week controls. - Couples in how I like, right? According to the internet, the other time you were telling me that, I don't know. - It depends on which message they were reading. - Oh, I see. - And then I played Bioshock 2, you know, that game. - What's that? - It's this game made by 2K. - Which game? - Never. - Well, the main game is made by 2K Marin. - It's made by 2Ks. - Made by, well, the main game is made by a 2K Marin and then I think they had help from 2K China. - It's more like 8K in digital extremes. - To be fair, 2K Marin did, I mean, it is their game. - They live very close to us, so they could beat you up if you make fun of them too much. - I'm just saying. - They'd probably run out of fuel for their drill before they could get to me. - I thought the game was, I thought it was a really good game. I mean, it's not like the biggest thing that hurts it for me in the long run is that you know, the first time you got to explore Rapture and see it, it was like such a, that is like such an experience unto itself that what I compared it to in the review I wrote was like a magic trick. The first time you see like, like the first time you see something like Avatar or something, right? And it's like such a spectacle, like fuck, that was awesome. The second time you see it, you're like, still that's a cool movie, but it isn't like the first time you see it, like, you know, or another comparison I made when I was out to lunch, I think with you and Ryan stuff was like, it's like when they first rolled in Jurassic Park and see that fucking dinosaur, their jaws drop, and it's like the other guy that's worked there every day, he's like, yeah, whatever, dinosaurs. - I was like, today I was on the internet, someone asked me what I thought about it, and unfortunately all the metaphors and comparisons, I'm coming up with make it some more negative than I think I feel, and the one that came in that vein was that as a sequel, it's positioned somewhere between the Lost World and Jurassic Park three, and that it sort of has the same aesthetic trappings, and in some ways it has the same sort of feel and spots, but in other spots it's like they implanted the scenery and the sort of conventions of it in something that doesn't feel like it did before. - I guess to me though, it's like the only reason that certain things don't feel the same is that the wonder of seeing it off for the first time isn't there. - You know, I mean, a part of me wonders if it's that, or just a simple fact that in Bioshock one, I know there were so many moments where they would introduce you into areas and the way they would introduce you to them, it would be just really interesting and fascinating, like the intro to the first one, like you started at a plane wreck and you walked down this completely pitch-black spiral staircase, and that whole sequence is amazing, jumping into the bathysphere and going down into the bathysphere-- - Right, because you are going into the unknown-- - For the first one, what am I doing? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I understand they got a big advantage there, but in Bioshock two, I feel like the intro, except for like one kind of major story point that I won't spoil, it's pretty vanilla. I mean, it pretty intro-- - It should go. - Well, it also, I mean, it presupposes that you've played Bioshock most. I mean, like, especially story-wise, it's like, yeah, we know you've seen this place before, but you're back now and you're sort of in different shoes and enjoy it. And then they, at the end of the intro area, they pull a little trick. They have their set piece that really does make you go, okay, there could be something new in this game. And then, it's kind of like a lot of the modern sequels we've seen lately, like Mass Effect 2 or Assassin's Creed 2, where you're like, okay, well, they did think about the first game a lot and what the problems were and what worked and what didn't, like, hacking as much simpler and faster and cleaner in this game, you know? - It's not a pain in the ass. - The way that the photo uses, it's not a pain in the ass as long as you're using the default control game. - You have plasmids. You have plasmids and weapons out at the same time. And the fact that there's a dedicated melee attack button. I think those two things combined make combat so much more-- - So, it's a day on, 'cause I'm playing on PC and I feel like I have to-- - It's shift, it's a dedicated-- - It's shift on PC. - It's shift on PC, yeah. - It's a BE on the 360. - All right, I have not been using the dedicated melee button. - Yeah, any time with a gun, you'll just pull it out and hit him in the face with it. - So I just started it today, I'm only a couple hours-- - But I mean, so far-- - That's good to know. - You know, I mean, so far in the game, you know, I've probably played like two hours, three hours. There's not been one single moment where it's like you're in the bath sphere and that splicer is ripping out the door or like you're in the staircase and one of the splicers kicks down that burning piece of furniture or you see the burning elevator drop and crash and that crazy guy come out. - There will be moments like that in the game. - Yeah. - But it is true that a lot of them are later in the game. - I also feel like it just drags on its delivery for so long on all of those moments. Like there are parts of the game that just sort of start to stretch out longer than it seems like they should, at least as far as I am into the game and I'm not even sure how far I am in the game. - No, you're pretty far, you're like three fourths finished. Like, as a side note, like I'm only now feeling like the combat is better in the game, where I am now. - Well, I mean, I feel like, I mean, compared to the first one, the combat's immediately better to me just 'cause of a dedicated melee attack button and plasmids and guns out of the-- - Even though you didn't agree. - As a guy who wasn't using the dedicated button like a dummy, the-- - The drill is-- - The drill is just-- - The drill is just a better weapon. - I felt like, again, I played the console version the first time and I had to be very accurate with my crosshairs to actually hit someone with the wrench and I would constantly over steer basically. And then it was worse 'cause the plasmids were the same way. So I'd go up to a guy, I'd try to wrench him, miss, shoot like the plasmid, my electro bolt, like right by his head and then try to wrench him and miss again, I felt like I just couldn't control it, right? Whereas in something like Call of Duty, obviously, that doesn't happen. - I still feel like-- - I'm playing on PT and it's sort of like that now too, almost. - Yeah, I still feel like the controls in the, like my problem with Bioshock 1 is that the PC controls just never quite felt right to me. Like the mouse movement doesn't feel right. And the trying to use the different keys or something that I'm going to get used to, but in Bioshock 2, I feel like the mouse movement has the same issues, it just, I can't aim things-- - Did you try it on locking a G-Sync? - On PC, I just did it. - I just did it today. - I mean, on PC though, it already runs super smooth. Like it feels good to see it. - It feels like it runs really smooth to me. But that's what I'm saying is that the combat feels to me, the mouse movement to me feels the same as it did in Bioshock 1 in that it's not as good as other FPSs. - It feels sluggish. - It feels sluggish. - And clunky. - Yeah. - Like it feels like all these disparate things that are sort of glued together that work well, but sort of take a little doing for them to interact with each other. - And it's not that there aren't smart things, like the, what do they, the, 'cause you have a rivet gun at the beginning and you get trap rivets that you fire off, which I think are-- - That you can pick back up. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, that is the thing. - That's the key. - That's the key. - And it's like so much faster than line trap bolts from the first game, you just like put 'em wherever you need and whichever ones didn't work, still work when you walk the climb on those or something. - I object. - That was Anthony's rivet gun. - Yeah. - Oh, I really hope there wasn't a rivet in there. - One of the sad things. - It's a trap rivet. - I mean, you know, what we're talking about, the guns, one of the sad things also, and this one, you know, I sound a little bit down on it, but I actually really enjoy Bioshock, too. - I'm enjoying it. - But the, I felt the first Bioshock, the pistol in that game in particular, had one of the best sounding guns of this generation. You know, I'm not saying the best, but-- - It's just always coming toward you. - You know, just, I mean, just the sound and the way that gun would kick back, it felt amazing, okay? But like the rivet gun, you know, I haven't, you know, leveled it up that much yet, but dude, it sounds so fucking weak. - Well, how does your telekinetic powers? - And the other reason the rivet gun sounds so weak is like not to be a total apologize, but I'm saying it's just 'cause I imagine it's air power. - Yeah, okay, and yeah, and I can understand that, too, but still, man, like you still need some kind of like piece of giant metal like that clings together and makes a loud ass noise. - The rivet gun gets a lot more satisfying once you unlock the ability. - Once you fully upgrade it. - Once you unlock the ability where it will shoot, it will light people on fire. - Right. - I can't imagine it. - I'd imagine it did, but even like the telekinesis, like when you pick up a chair and throw it against the wall, like if there's no crackle or nothing, like it just, it feels very, very empty. As a way that the first game, I feel like the sound is not so exceptional. - I think the sound design is still really good. - Pretty good. Like that's one thing that it would have been really hard for them to fuck up 'cause the sound, like I'm sure that the audio like tools were all just in place. They're like, okay, well, the one thing we don't need to touch guys is the fucking sound 'cause that was fine. And it doesn't seem like they changed it. Like the music may as well be the same thing. Although it's sometimes-- - I ran into a bug, I have a bug where if I quick load, anytime I quick load, it gets stuck in combat music. - I've had that happen to you. - I was gonna say Arthur, I think that's what happened. - Arthur had a timer, it was like, nothing's going on. - Man, yeah. - It's like fucking me in the air with this combat music, I thought that finished that part, but maybe it's just a tense section, hey. - No, it had to do with it for me, it was a quick load. - I think for me after playing it, as far as I have more than anything, it doesn't feel like the cohesive experience that the first one did. Barring if you want the stuff that happened after the major reveal of Bioshock, which a lot of people felt like it went on too long, which is one of the things I find funny that there's certain people are so excited for Bioshock too, because I remember some of those same people saying, we didn't need the six extra hours we had of Bioshock after the first 12. - Yeah, it just feels like a series of downloadable content releases. - I guess, I mean, on the opposite side, like I finished it and by the time I got to the end, I actually felt that the storyline was like more cohesive than the first game was than I felt like. And I felt like much more than the first game it gathered into like a much more like, when it came to the conclusion you were like, ah, here it fucking comes and there it was and it was good. Like, you know, the first game to me was like, what Arthur said, the big reveal, then eh. - But I mean, for me, the big reveal was all I needed in the first Bioshock. I think that we are approaching Bioshock from slightly different trajectories. - I mean, the big reveal was amazing. I mean, don't get around. That's like the big reveal in the first Bioshock is part of the reason why it's like, it sits as like one of the best games of the generation and it will, you know, but I just think that this one gathered. Like, I'm not saying, obviously I don't think Bioshock 2 is as good as Bioshock 1, but it's just that I think that the story comes together better and comes into a more satisfying conclusion. - Why do you think that? 'Cause otherwise I'd have to move out. - So, there are actually people that I've seen. - You can have a different opinion of me 'cause then I just move out. - Well, no, a different opinion. I just like opinions that are so like, it's like saying that the earth is flat. The saying that the second Bioshock, that this is a better game than the first one. - That's a little bit of hyperbole there, but okay. - Yes, it is. - I mean, there are reviews that I've seen actually that say, well, this is a better game than the first one than I just don't understand. - I think for them, maybe just-- - Those people are totally Holocaust deniers. - I think, oh, it's just that these people I've met you, it's little things like the plasmids being out at the same time. - I was gonna say, it's gotta be like gameplay tweaks. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That just to them is the best thing about the world. - For sure. - But I feel like in comparison, the mechanics of Bioshock didn't feel as dated among its peers as Bioshock 2 feels dated among its peers. - Well, I disagree. I thought it felt dated even back then. - No, I'm not as. - I guess. - I'm saying that it didn't feel as-- - I don't know, I feel like the tweaks that they added to the game, the fact that Melee actually works for me now, that I don't know, everything feels faster, really streamlined in a positive sort of way, and yeah, the environment's not as good, but some of the set, I mean, I'm not far, but the main first set piece I saw in the main two, I thought we're pretty good. I'm not saying it's better than Bioshock 1 or anything like that. I'm not far enough to make a judgment, but-- - It's gonna be interesting for me because I never finished Bioshock 1. I only got like a third of the way through, my hard drive crashed, and then I never got a chance to go back to it, so I never finished Bioshock 1, so-- - But I am gonna finish-- - I'm really glad that I didn't just spit out like-- - He knows it. - I know, it's been too long, and I have too many gamer friends, like I know the review, I know the full story, so it's not a mystery to me. - Is there actually limitations lifted on that? - Yeah, let's just leave it alone for now, 'cause it just came out-- - I am alone. - And some people probably did the deals where they got the first one with the second one, and stuff. - Yeah, and so it's gonna be interesting for me because I am gonna finish Bioshock 2, because in my opinion, some of the best set pieces and everything that people are in the last two and a half hours. - Right, cool. - And combat, the gathering stuff has actually stopped dragging for me, but I also, I'm Mr. Gene Tonic for whatever reason, and I keep spending Adam and buying to Gene Tonic slots. - If you're gonna go to the trouble of doing the gathering with the little sisters and getting that much Adam, yeah, and you might as well get fucking all 20 Gene Tonics. - Yeah, like I have 18 Gene Tonics on right now, and I am like, passive does not mean weak. - Yeah, it is. - If someone hits me, they get iced, fired, and light-naked. - Exactly, I did the same thing. I was basically like, you will never want to touch me. - And actually, right now I'm using a plasmid that makes it so that, or I'm using a Gene Tonic, so that plasmids take like a fraction of the eve they would, but I can only use the drill. - I would totally use that. - Me too. - I mean, and you can upgrade the drill first. - And you can upgrade the drill to use less gas. - Yeah, the drill is the weapon I use more than anything. If you upgrade-- - Is that at a power to the people station? - Yes, if you upgrade the drill, you get the ability to make it like, not use as much gas. - Stronger. - Have farther travel distance, and then eventually, I mean, this might be a slight spoiler, but it's just an upgrade. Do you not want to know? - Yeah. - Okay, the modifiers? - It's just like the max modifier for it. - Oh, I don't know what that is. - Well, I mean, the one that's not a modifier, 'cause you can see right when you get to the first Gene station is, or the first power to the people station, is that while you're spinning it, you can get that upgrade to the Deflex Projectiles. Right, and I-- - Is that the one I can't see? - See, there's actually one more thing after that that you get that's actually super cool, but you spin the drill, and it even deflects when people pick up objects and throw them telekinetically at you, you can even deflect those. - That's so-- - That's fucking cool. - I just neglected the drill the whole game, because honestly-- - The drill was the weapon I was wanting to make. - I just love the drill. It was useless, but now I finally got to the point where I have a bunch of stuff to augment it, and I'm using the drill dash like crazy, and that's a lot. - The drill dash, that is what makes the drill. - But I'm fucking running out of gas after every fight, and I'm like, "Oh, where's that goddamn clown?" - I just, I'm at the very beginning of the game, but all I do is elect her boat people, the whack-up boom, and whack-up, and I'm like, "Yeah, stay away." - Automatic critical. - It's a big drill in your face, yeah. - Yeah, it's an automatic critical hit if they're stunned with the-- - Should I, should I say, my peculiar issue? Like, control-- - I mean, yeah. - You can control it. - You can control it. - I mean, that's true. - Yeah, I'm sure other Southpaw people are-- - So if you have not bought Bioshock yet, and you play games with Southpaw Sticks, which is where you reverse the look and move Sticks, there is a strange bug in Bioshock 2, where if you have your six Sticks, set the Southpaw, and you go over any interactive object, which is a crate, a little sister, like if you have a little sister on your back, putting her back into a tube, like-- - That's so awful. - Food, an Eve thing, any, like, if you're hacking? - This is actually a-- - Yeah, 'cause there's nothing that you can interact with in Bioshock 2K. - And hacking occurs in real time while you're still fighting and moving around by the way, so when I'm hacking, it does this too. - They want all the people that complain about this to go in the message, what's it complain? - So that they can be identified as something-- - So that they can identify you for the planet Clarkon, and we can fucking hunt you guys down. - So anyway, if you're doing any of that, it switches the Sticks for the duration of the time you're doing that. Like it switches them back to the default configuration. - Seriously. - Like if I tap the left shoulder button to switch plasmids for a second, it switches the Sticks. - I didn't play many PC games lately, but this game has been the buggiest game that I played lately. - What sort of bugs have you had on PC? - Just little things, like I'm using all default controls, except one, like the use button. There's no-- - How it's F, and it's like, why isn't it E? - There's nothing bound to E, it doesn't make any sense. So I bound it to E, and it doesn't-- Like after a while, I was like, I can't pick up objects, I can't loot these guys. The E button, oh, the F button works. Okay. So I just like kept using F. - Like I was saying before, I understand that it was a small team, and a short development schedule, but it would be nice if they fixed it. - I do think that they didn't take them that long to make it by the time they actually decided to make it. There was a lot of people. - I would be willing to bet that the number of man hours was somewhere upwards of three times. - Oh, I imagine with the amount of humans that were on it, that is really true. Like all joking aside, five studios, two years, three delays. - I thought there was only four studios in the beginning, the beginning. - No, there's-- - There's five. - Four, two Ks, and digital extremes. - Yeah, and a little intro, but that was two K-Maran, two K-China-- - Two K-Maran, two K-A-S-T-R-A, two K-A-S-T-R-A, that's what I'm missing. - Yeah, I didn't actually take that as all of those companies made out. I was like, ah, it's a two K family game. - No. - Oh, really? - Those are all the studio, that's why there's a little sister with all those blocks. - Yeah, it's all the blocks, I just really didn't think. I knew, and I knew digital extremes. - We have a person-- - It's our family and our cousins. - We have a person that listens to this, that's from the guy that made, like, design the levels, I think, for digital extremes, for this, like, he listens to this. And so-- - So that's interesting, 'cause I didn't know anything about the multiplayer until Fresh was describing it to me today, and I was like, that sounds pretty awesome. - It is, yeah, really, really cool. - Sounds really, really well made. - Yeah, I checked it out today. Did anybody else check out multiplayer? - No, I haven't got any chance. - I mean, the way it launches you, and it has, like, an initial story-type thing to it, and you have, like, your house that you always get to come back to that you live in. - Yeah, I mean, that's like the coolest thing. You know, when I jumped in, it took me to a different screen, and I saw the option on the menu. It was, like, prologue, and I was like, well, what's this? And, you know, it sort of took over control of the camera and, like, walked me up to a TV set. And, you know, I noticed the camera was kind of, like, panning to the left, and I was like, oh shit, I got control of this, and, like, I'm in my apartment. You know, you're walking around, and you have, like, you know, shit, you can go do in your apartment, and then you hear, like, stuff from a loudspeaker, like-- - The funny thing is, is that the review event that they had for that multiplayer, which that's how they did the multiplayer reviews, they didn't have anybody play the prologue thing. Like, how dumb is that? That's, like, the coolest thing about it. - It is so cool, like, you see, like, a televised message from you through Ryan, and it's, like, really well done, and it's, like, you know, I mean, they say what you owe about the multiplayer, but that stuff is, like, really cool. Like, they've obviously put time into it. - The concept of it, too, makes me think, like, it's an amazing way to bridge single and multiplayer. Like, the way that, you know, you have your, it's almost like you have a little mini hub, you know, and then you select, like, okay, now, let's go do submissions, you know. - It's a way of integrating the first BioShock into the mythos of BioShock, too. - And making the multiplayer myth part of the mythos, as well. - Yeah, it makes sense. - And it's really, like, you fight each other. - And it's done well. - Oh, like, you know, I even played it, and, you know, the saddest thing is, it took me a while to find a game today. - Right, because I would. - Because I had to leave searches and jump into other maps. - That's what I was saying about, in my review, is like, it's like, yeah, it's really well made, but like-- - I think part of the reason is, 'cause it's like, a lot of people think, like, why would you play multiplayer in BioShock? You know what I mean? But, like, when Fresh was describing it to me today, I was like, damn, they took the time that you have, like, a character. You choose, like, one of, like, four types or something like that. - They have all the Call of Duty tropes. - And it's got, yeah, it's got unlocks. It's got, like-- - Loadouts. - Visual rewards where you can unlock new masks for your character and stuff. I mean, it seems like it has all the stuff that a Call of Duty multiplayer sort of, or a game, a multiplayer game coming out post Call of Duty 4 should have to try to make it, you know, make bang for itself. And it sounds really, oh, and it takes place during the, like, Civil War of the Spicers, so it's, like, Rapture right when it's about to fall, and that sort of stuff. I didn't even play this thing yet, but I, like, when I was being told about it, I was like, damn, I should go try that out. - That sounds great. - Some of it was, it, like, that was pretty smart. It was telling me that the reason they thought that BioShock had a multiplayer was-- - BioShock 2. - BioShock 2 has a multiplayer. Wasn't that they even expect a bunch of people to play it, but that having multiplayer in a game decreases significantly the people that will go and trade it in, because they perpetually think I might come back to this. Whereas the first BioShock, it was like one of those games, I finished it, you hand it to a friend, or you trade it in, because you've beaten it. And this one, they're hoping to get away from that, because now it's like, that might be a game I touched something. - I'd love to see that, I'd love to see that equation, you know, like, how many man hours and how much cost do you put into your multiplayer to keep people from trading it in? - Well, yeah. - One of the, the sort of depressing, or slightly depressing facts about the first BioShock, because it wasn't a retail failure, but it tapped out at like 2.5 million. - Yeah, it's definitely not a retail failure. - It's not a retail failure, but that's, and it's pretty good, but it's not like at the level of like other games. - I mean, that's more than pretty good though, and the scheme of things, except for like, Gears of War or Halo games. That's a pretty huge success. - I just think for where it sits in the pantheon of this generation, like as far as its response and how people feel like it changed stuff, it just, I wish that it had sold more. - I mean, just, yeah, I agree too. It just seems like a lot of people these days, if it isn't like selling like 5 million, which is only something like Gears of War or something do, it's like, it's still a community. - I would guess the irrational guys aren't mad at all about me. (laughing) - I mean, I think that is a very big success for a game that, you know, the irrational never had a game. - I am curious to know how many BioShock 2 will end up selling because when I talked to a certain member of the team when I was at the BioShock 2 event, they told me that early numbers already indicated they were going to more than make back their money just off pre-orders. Like, man, 2K in their financials has been anticipating like, has been saying to their investors, we expect to sell 7 to 8 million copies. - I mean, that's what I'm saying, I just want to see because, I mean, they already knew they were going to at least make back their money just off of the pre-order numbers, so. - It's just like the idea of doubling or tripling the sales of the first game is mind-boggling to me. - Yeah. - It's just another platform at the same time. - I mean, maybe they looked up how many use sales it did or something. - That's what I mean, like, you can't really, that's the type of, like you said, it's a type of game you can hand on to your friends. Like, who knows how many people out realistically played it. - Yeah, two cool things about multiplayer. - Yeah. - I really want to mention, I think they do that's really neat. For one, there are all these neutral turrets that are sorted through the stations and you can just run right up to them and like you hold down A and it's sort of like - There's no hacking many games. - You hack it. - Nice. - And then, cool. - Remember how in the first bow shock you had your camera where you took pictures of the enemies and kind of gave your bonuses? - Dead rising sort of thing. - Yeah, in this one, like say if I kill an enemy, like Anthony, and if I go research him and then I'll get damage bonuses on against him. - That's awesome. - Yeah. - You can basically make people into your nemesis. Like, it's just fucking cool. - Can you research them? Can you research them like before you kill them and get a bigger bonus? - You can research them. And I think, no, actually I think it's always off bodies. It's all, yeah. - You can't take out a camera. Like, it's just something you do. - Yeah, yeah. - The body's on the ground and you walk up to them and hold down A. - That's super cool. - Yeah, and then, you know, the multiplayer and other cool part is that, you know, you don't place big daddies in multiplayer, but occasionally there will be big daddies suits. - Yeah, depending on the mode. - And it basically makes them like, they can never get any more health. They just have their health bar, but you know. - It's like they can have the superstars. - Exactly. - So if your team rolls around with you, you can be like the fucking anchor point that just rolls in. - Yeah, I played as the big daddie today and like, I didn't die the whole round and I had some like 15 kills, it was ridiculous. - That's awesome, yeah. - So yeah, play the Bioshock multiplayer so I can hop on and not have to look for games like Tyler. - And if you wanna just for achievement whores out there, the PC version is different achievements than the 360. - They always are. - Well, I'm just saying good, but what I mean to say is that this is actually a games for Windows Live game. It's not just a games for Windows game and it's games for Windows Live. - You haven't logged in like you did on this one. - No, it logged me in automatically. I've been getting my games for Windows Live achievements. - Nice. - You wanna borrow the 360 version when you're done? - Yeah, really. So, double up. So yeah, double up. - It's actually kind of stingy with points. You have to play a lot of multiplayer to max out the points on this one. - Yeah, there's a quite a few multiplayer achievements. - Achievement's on anything, so. - I did an Assassin's Creed II. - I did an Elder Scrolls. - I loved it. - You did an oblivion? - Yeah. - Well, the point. - I mean, oblivion like the achievements or what dragged you through the entire game. It's like, oh, so that's what I'm supposed to do. - Yeah, that is true. - Yeah, but don't you have to become like the-- - Yes. - Yeah, you have to become like Archmage and the Master of Thief. - Yes, and I did all of that. I became the Archmage without casting one spell. (laughing) - It's pretty good. - All right. - Anything else? - Not that-- - Bowser's Inside Story last night, right? - Yeah, I started Bowser's Inside Story, but I've only gotten like an hour into it. And it does have fantastic writing, but I don't know yet, you know? I don't know. I never really got super into the other Mario RPGs, so I don't know how I feel about this one. 'Cause despite the fact that it is like an RPG with like more combat that you have to pay attention to, like when you auto attack, it gives you, isn't just like other RPGs for like, turn based, where you just hit an auto attack and attacks. Like when it does it, there's the option to do timed attacks and do extra damage and dodge enemy attacks. But I still don't know that that sort of game is gonna really draw me in. I mean, the story is hilarious. Like it's just about like the, every year I've ever seen it, it's like the about the Russia game that I'm being attacked by the Blorbs. - It's weird, I don't really like those games so much anymore, I don't know. Super Paper Mario and GameCube are on Wii, Wii, Wii, Wii. Wii was my most disappointing purchase of that year, probably, I thought it was just really bland and yeah, I just think this would be like a great game if you had to fly across country or something. - Yeah, Fresh and played a lot of Bowser's inside story and everything he said about it sounded really great. I just haven't had a chance to play it. So that was the one that went back back to Conner. So that the main villain talks in Ingrish and it's what he's doing when we're-- - He definitely talks like an internet weird Ingrish speak. - That's pretty cool. - Yeah, you will be happy with the fantasy. He's like what I'll say, just stuff like that, like it doesn't make any sense of that. What are you trying to say to me? - Matt, what have you been playing? - Other than Bioshark. - Other than Bioshark too, yeah. - Other than Mass Effect 2. - I've been playing a bunch of mag. - It's a dumb ass game. - People have it 25 or 26, something like that. - Oh man, you're way higher than me now. - The big problem that I've run into with mag is that pretty much the only gun you need is the machine gun and I just see everybody running around with the exact same loadout. Everybody has the med kit that you can heal your health self with and that you can revive your teammates with and they have the machine gun and then most people have the machine gun and they're high enough level. The first thing they get is the ACOG site and then they get the stabilizing grip for the machine gun and basically-- - It's not right guys. (laughing) - It's not the greatest noises that I've ever been recorded on this part. - Sorry, I had to raise my mic there. I tried to do it stealthily, but-- - Didn't quite work. - Yeah, I'm sorry but-- - Sure. - Well, just wait until it's your turn and see what I do. - Do you think that they'll patch that? Like, do you think that they're gonna treat this like an MMO where they're constantly doing patches? - I do, I do, yeah. - Yeah, specifically just even thinking about the fact that they basically hired on a community manager just for this game. I mean, he used to work at IGN, Jeremy Dunham. You know, and they brought him on because they look at this as like a long-term thing that they want to support for a long time, especially. Basically, the way it sounded to me was that as long as people are there, they wanna keep it going for as long as they can. I mean, and they do view it very much like an MMO. That's why they structured a lot of the upgrades and stuff to be like more like long-term, like engaging and more significant in the long-term than a lot of other games 'cause they really wanted to feel like an MMO in a lot of ways. - Which is good 'cause it needs more maps. - Right, I mean, they wouldn't talk about that when I recently talked to them, but I mean, I have to believe that that's coming. - Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm already bored of the maps that are there because the only mode that I really wanna play is domination because that's the one that gives you the most experience points because there's 256 players and you are constantly running into other people at, into the other team as you're trying to capture or defend the objectives. So, but I still, I like it. You know, I'm having fun with the combat. It's really interesting to me because it gives me that battlefield vibe, but in battlefield, I'm totally used to leading people 'cause there's a bullet travel time. In this game, there's no bullet travel time. - Oh, everything's pixel accurate. - Everything's pixel accurate. - Who do you think is pickle accurate? - It's pickle accurate. I've had a couple of glasses of wine in case you can't tell. - It's about faulty. - Pickle accurate is probably the single record. - Everything is pickle accurate. And then it's like, but you'd think that would make sniping fun, but they've purposefully designed the maps so that there are almost no good sniping spots for either team. And once you have your machine gun with its 75 bullet clip mounted and you have the two, like the ACOG site and the stabilizing handle like I was talking about before, basically your machine gun becomes a fucking sniper. Like there'll be somebody who's, you know, two or three pixels tall on the screen and I just tap with my machine gun and I can kill them from a distance. So there's no reason to have any other weapons. - Yeah, I know you make me feel like I should respect because I've been all assault, I mean assault rifle, yeah. But I always find that the reason I die a lot in times in combat is that I end up running out of my clip. - Right. - The reload even in that game, even if you get the enhanced reload speed, still pretty slow compared to a lot of other games out there. So maybe I should just switch over. - Just follow the herd, man. Do what everybody else is doing. Get your health kit and get your fucking machine gun. That's all you got. And especially 'cause I'm playing SEVER 'cause that's what my pre-order bonus was at. - Yeah, you and everybody else. - Yeah, and apparently I've read this kind of a thing that on the domination maps when SEVER is defending 'cause it depends on who's defending, which map you're on. And each of the three PMCs have their own map. And so when I'm defending SEVER on that oil rig map, we never lose. And basically I just stand there while the enemy rushes at us. - It's true. I was sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you. - No, no, no, it's okay. - It's just I was talking to the guys from Mag the other day and they basically said that at this point, SEVER completely owns the 256 player. Like it just cannot be taken from them. - Why did they do that? Why did they have the pre-order bonus be all one? - I asked him about that. And I think that was, yeah, I don't even know that that was necessarily their decision. I know 'cause me and Tyler were talking about this. - It seems like a big-- - It was like fuck up. - Yeah, because it was like for the other faction, like the faction I am, I think you had to pre-order it from Best Buy or something to get the one I have. - But I actually don't think it's, I don't think it's the pre-order thing that's the problem because when you're on the 256 player maps, you still have, you still have balanced teams. It's not like the teams are unbalanced. It's just that the map is unbalanced. - Well yeah, that map is unbalanced. - Well, I thought the maps were mostly like giant, like four way sort of thing. - They are, they are, but certain teams have, I mean, it's not-- - It's not exactly clung. - No, they're definitely, they're actually really different. I mean, they have the same objectives, but the maps are different, the architecture is different, gotcha. And when you're defending as sever, basically the architecture of the level makes it so you can't lose. And then when we're attacking, when we're attacking Raven in Alaska or whatever, or whoever it is, I think it's Valor in Alaska, whenever we're attacking them, they can't hold us off. It's just not defensible. And it's just an oversight on the map maker's part, I think. And basically, you know, as sever, when I have that machine gun med kit load out 'cause, you know, the med kit is a great way to get experience. And then everybody's throwing their team at our brick wall of machine gun fire. I get 750 to like 1,100 experience points every single map. So I'm leveling up constantly. It's, in my opinion, that makes Mag kind of broken currently. - So what happens when you max out your level? - I think your max level is 60. - 60 and then-- - That's the time. - Yeah, and then you start. I mean, then you have the option to start a character in a different faction, if you want. - Yeah. - What level do you have to be at to start commanding everyone? - Oh, like 40, I think. - Something like that, yeah. 'Cause I'm level 20, like I said, 24, 25, something like that. - Honestly, the other, sorry. Again, not good. (laughs) - 'Cause I'm like level 24 or 25. And I just have the one to become, it goes squad leader than platoon leader, right? - Yeah, so you can-- - And I can be a platoon leader now. I haven't actually tried to be a leader at all, 'cause I don't know what the controls are to actually designate the attack points for your squad. And I'm afraid to jump into the game because this Mag, that's the Mag's other big problem. No help at all. - I'm pretty sure, so that was the thing that I, when I asked them in the post-mortem I did, that like some things they would want to change. And he said that one of the things they'd wanted to change is that they didn't make it a good job of telling players where they can find tips and stuff. And so all those controls for commanding and stuff are available in one of the tabs that you see. - Oh, really? - You have to find them. - Okay. - But they are there. - Okay, good. - Like he told me now. - A real commander knows where to look, man. - And he told me that, and then during the post-mortem, I was like, I reviewed this game, and I don't even, I didn't know that. So I mean, Matt, you know, it's like, we both played how many hours, and we've never found that? - Yeah. - You know, but I mean, the one thing I will say is like, I haven't reached a Matt level of being able to command platoons, but I have heard people say that with that game, it's at its best when you're just commanding squads anyways. Because platoon leaders and the officer in charge, they don't have the ability to sign objectives that award different experience. So platoon leaders, even though they're like, the lowest command level, they still have the most, like, significant effect on how the battle gets changed. - Yeah, 'cause it's low level micromanagement of, you know. - Of eight guys. - Yeah, right. And as long as you're fighting around your objective, everything that you do gives you bonus experience points. So if the squad leader is the only one that can set those objectives, the squad leader is actually the one with the most power. - Yeah. - But I haven't actually played a game yet where I've played a game where I've had some really good squad leaders. I haven't played any games yet where I really felt like there's been any direction above that. - Interesting. - And that's about it. Other than Mass Effect 2. Oh, I did play some more Dragon Age. I played the Dragon Age. The DLC returned to Ostegar. - No one cares about Dragon Age. (laughing) - Yes they do. Fucker. Matt does. You're right, they probably don't, it's just me. - No, they do. Like, Dragon Age sold really well. It just Mass Effect sold about the same amount of copies and about a week. - Yeah. Well, as was to be expected, really. - I mean, I'm kidding. Like, I enjoy Dragon Age, I play many hours since. - Well, I just wanted to say real quick that returned to Ostegar is a little disappointing. It might be worth five bucks, but it's a little disappointing. It's 'cause it's all combat and very little RPG, like no dialogue trees. - Not much disappointing DLC lately, who fuck it. Maybe they should just focus on making, you know, the main games that actually kick fucking ass. - Oh wait, they did. - Not worry about nickel and dimeing us. Oh, I know that's true. - And Tyler some fish. - Four dollars isn't nickel and dimeing. Four dollars is like, all right, here's a tip. - That's so many nickels and so many gasps. - It's 40 dimes and 80 nickels. - Why, you're gonna math. - You're stating it. - Math is hard. - What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna edit the podcast so there's actually less of a gap between when you said that and how long you took me to figure that out. - Dogger wheelchair. - So I'm actually, I'm saying it before you're even done with your statement. That's how awesome it is, Tyler. - In addition to Bioshock 2 and some more Mass Effect 2, which we can get to later, I downloaded the demo for Bad Company 2. - I still haven't played that. - I'm so wanna play the game. - Tyler, we need to play together. - Oh fuck. - Well, I mean, I didn't even wanna love it man. You've been hot on that game ever since like day one. - You've been waiting for retail, aren't you? Isn't that what you're saying? - Man, I was waiting dude. - What happened did your friends in Texas finally realized that it was great too? - No, no, they've been playing it and they've been trying to get me on. I just, you know, for whatever reason. I was like, oh man, I probably should play it. Just have something extra to talk about on the show. - It's because you got to play Mass Effect 2, isn't it? - No, I'm still playing. - All of a sudden you have all this free time. - No, you're not done with Mass Effect? - No way, dude. I'm on Mass Effect 2. - I'm gonna spoil this shit. - No, no, he's finished it once. - All right, all right. - I'm on Mass Effect 2. - Shit out of it tonight. You're reppin'. - All right, but I mean, dude, I don't feel too. Oh my God, like, I mean, I might be biased, dude. I mean, I did it. - To what? Like, bias to like a game that you enjoy. - No, towards Battlefield? - Bias towards Battlefield between Battlefield and Call of Duty because, like, I enjoyed bed company more than I enjoyed the first Modern Warfare. - That's how bias that's preference. - You know, what can do opinions? - Yeah. - And so, I am definitely, again, feeling like, you know, I'll enjoy bed company too more than I will Modern Warfare 2 just because I feel like it's the best video game version of G.I. Joe's ever. - I'm enjoying the demo from Bad Company 2 more than I have enjoyed Modern Warfare 2 since I played it. - Dude. - Wow. And to me, it's, to me, it's a, you know, visually it's a lot more interesting looking game. And like the audio in it sounds amazing. Like, you know, the gun firing in a distance. What's up? - I say fuck a lot in the video. - Yeah, yeah. The team chatter, like, they're really the AI, you know, they're a lot better this time at, like, pointing out shit to do and objectives and stuff. - Like, just naturally, like, just like you look at it and he just calls it out. - Yeah, I mean, that's one thing I noticed. That's a big difference from the first Bad Company is your AI teammates are a lot more active with their chatter. - So, wait, demo is not just a multiplayer demo. It's single player as well. Single player, wait, what AI-- - Okay, I'm sorry. I'm saying AI, but what I mean is-- - It sounds like the automated verbal cues that people send out. - Yeah. - Okay. - To be clear, sorry for the-- - Wait, what didn't work, did you get that? - Yeah, no, no, this is definitely, we're definitely playing old players. - All of my other friends are AI's. - Playing with some of my listeners. - Man, as with Australia. - As we listen right now and, you know, and I'm like trying to, like, look up a few letters to read, like, you know, prep them a little bit while we do this and I, there's one I gotta-- - Can I-- - You're just gonna boss the lettering right now. - I can't interrupt. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah, it's interrupt real quick. - Oh, aw, come on. - It's titled, it's by James. I'm sorry, it's just-- - This is awesome. - I could do it. - It's like, you're the guy that walks in then while we're watching one movie and tells us to go into the room and watch some of another one. - I think you gotta do it, just do it. - Okay, well, I'm probably hyping it up too much now. - Just read it, dude. - It's hilarious. - Too late, you have to read it. - It's from James and he just said, it just starts off, I was listening to, and it's titled, where both of them brought me a new friend. And it says, I was listening to episode 50 and under the stove, a mouse appeared. He was drawn to your voices and we listened and laughed to the podcast. His name was Charles and we'd become quick friends, but soon I grew hungry and ate Charles. Thanks, Rebel FM, for a new friend and a tasty meal. End of letter. (laughing) - Weirdo. (laughing) - That's what I had company too, Tom. - Shit, not madness, sorry. Just, I read that and I was like, "Who the fuck right said?" (laughing) Sorry. - Yeah, yeah, but I, you know, I even love sniping a lot more in this one. I feel like the snipe controls are just a lot better. Like you can actually down dudes a lot easier than it is to down people in 1943. - Does the upgrades happen as quickly as they do in Modern Warfare, or is there like a longer sort of-- - I don't think so, because I've, you know, I'm pretty good and like I've played quite a bit and I've-- - I believe you don't need to prove anything to me. What's your part of the best? - My KD ratio on bad company too is way better than it is in World War two. - What about you? - Is it like what point what? - It's like 1.6 or 1.6. - Oh, it's like, it's a, man, see, that's the thing. It's like most of my time, my kill does the ratio. It's like point something. It's like, at least I'm 0.8. - I don't know, like I, this is my rain man online shooter moment with bad company too. It's like I fucking dominate in that. - It's because everybody who would have played is playing Modern Warfare 2. - Yeah, all the really good players are there. - Gonna kill my, kill my buzz. (laughing) - But man, I'm loving it, dude. Like I'm loving choosing the sniper class, parachuting down, jumping on it. Like before I jump on my four-wheeler, like throwing a whole bunch of C4 on the front, haul ass down to the little, the box that we're trying to detonate. And like, there's this one little mini gap in the fence like where the four-wheeler fits through just perfectly, dude, and I drive it up there, dude. - Nice. - I just imagine the team's like, trying to shoot at me, but I'm going too fast. - Oh, you pull it like you have C4 in the front of you? - Yeah, so I just jump off and detonate the kite, dude, and like get objective damage. - Like such a battlefield. - In the beginning of the battlefield and getting in a tank and just bombarding the enemy structure on the other side of the map, like knowing like, okay, well, if I angled up that way, it'll land at that gun exactly right. - Yes, and like, like little things, the way the bullets have tracers and stuff. Like when you're shooting in the sky, like there are these little UAV drones that can really fuck you up in this, like little remote controlled helicopters. - Right, right. - And, you know, just when you're aiming up in the sky, you really get the effect of the tracers. It just gives me that like, that ass, like I'm in a war zone, you know? - It, I felt like, I mean, I played the PS3, what the bay that I guess is what it was, the one that came out before Christmas, and it felt really hyper-real, sort of like a really harsh lighting. I think it's a different stage. - Yeah. - That's in the Xbox demo than the one. - The Xbox one is snow. - Snow, okay. - The PS3 one is like a desert stage, right? - Yeah, yeah. There's like a, yeah, there's like a train, there's a train tracks, but yeah, it's like desert-ish. But, yeah, I thought that, you know, there's, the thing with Call of Duty is that it's 60, 60 FPS, so everything has that really smooth sort of feel, but it still feels like really gamey because of all the UI and HUD and stuff that's going on. - The sound effects and all that. Where, so Battlefield, Bad Company 2, just seems like a little bit slower, a little bit more methodical, but not by all that much, just enough to, you know, make it feel deliberate in a good way. And I, so yeah, I'm looking forward to it, but I was staying away from the Xbox demo just so I could get that full retail experience when it does come out. - Right, yeah. (laughing) - Anthony, no. (laughing) You got another one? (laughing) - No, man, it's just, I'm not gonna read another letter, it's just that I will say that the caliber of letters ranges from like, like great, good questions to like relationship to just like, I learned how to give a girl an orgasm recently, like, what, why do I, why, why? - Why? (laughing) - You have to read that one now. - Sorry, gosh. - The Bad Company 2 is awesome. - When's that come out for reals? - March. - Three, three weeks? - Four weeks? - March something. I need to jump into that demo. - I'm sure you'll know when the absolute fucking bombardment of videos starts, which would be about next week. - I do a really good job of avoiding all that stuff. - Yeah, I don't see hardly any of that stuff these days. - Yeah, unfortunately I have to post all of it. (laughing) - When you have your own company, that's the one thing you don't have to do anymore. - Tyler, anything else? - So I played a few demos of a couple games, like just playing a bunch of 2D games demos. I downloaded that Xbox Live Arcade mat hazard game. - What did you think of that? - What did you think of that? - Yeah, what did you think of it? - It's like two player side-scroller. - Right. - I don't know, man. Like in the demo, you know, it seems like they're trying to go for a 2.3D contrivive, but like, dude, I got killed like 10 times in the first, like two screens. - Uh-huh, shit. - Well, we do know you suck at games. - I don't suck at people like this. - Some people like that shit, though, with the old, like, side-scrolling games where they're just like brutal. - But even still. - What's the deal with this game? Like who made it or? - It's from the same guy who made the mat hazard. - Yeah, I just, I guess, I don't know who that is. - But, you know, some of the things that were cool is that it did the whole thing that Shadow Complex did where they, actually, they did a lot more than Shadow Complex where they have guys in the background and you turn to the background. And it's a little bit of a different control the way you turn, you turn with the triggers. You don't turn by rolling the analog stick, you know? So, I mean, I thought stuff like that was okay. And, I mean, but it just sucks to say that really, probably the main appeal of that game is like Will Arnett's voiceover. - Oh, that's awesome. He's the voiceover for you. He's the main character. - He was the main character the last one, too. - Yeah. - God damn it, that sounds brilliant. - Yeah, honestly, that really is the only reason because the game is so fucking punishing. I was just like, okay, not fun. - Dude, it would be easier to find Will Arnett and have him beat you up than to play this game. - Probably, yeah. I mean, yeah, I had game over before I even finished the first stage. - Wow, you didn't finish the demo? - You know? - No. - Oh, fuck you, Tyler. Illusions, Tyler. - What other demo would you play? - I played Exit, the demo to Exit. - Is that the title, that's game? - Yeah, it was on PSP. - Yeah, okay. - Topical, correct. - I like Exit. I played on the PSP one. I played Exit almost to the, almost every stage. - Man, the game is really good. - There's a lot that I really love about it. And like, number one, the animation is really, really good. - Yeah, it's cool. - And like someone like me, I really appreciate that and the art style is really badass. But like, man, that game more than any game was like a case study of like terrible tutorial or like terrible teaching. 'Cause it's, the entire first chunk of the game teaches you every minute mechanic that you're gonna do in the game. Instead of like teaching you piece meeting them out. - Yeah, and like saying, here's this iterate, woo. - I hate you so much. - But yeah, but other than that though, man, it's still like a really badass, - I was not a public game. - Yeah, I really, I really-- - You whipped it off the chair. - You're a goddamn liar. - Oh, I was not expecting them to have such a fury. (laughing) - That's such a fury. - I really liked an exit. At least when I played the PSP version, I really liked how the different people that you're rescuing, they have like different abilities and that really incorporates into the puzzle design. And you have to start planning ahead. Like I have to, toward the end of the game, I had to start over puzzles probably 20 times while I was trying to figure them out. - I don't like that. - Yeah, it's a very matte sort of game. - Well, it's almost like trials in a way, I guess, in that way. Like you get so far and then you go back, but I don't know. But don't compare it to trials. - No. - Same to say, you know, you know, I think I wonder how much that tutorial sort of, you know, 'cause it's very much a Japanese game. - Is it? - Yeah. - Kaido? - Yeah. - Yeah. - They made space invaders. - Why no, I know. (laughing) - I'm just a Taito, I always say Taito. - Oh, fuck, it should be, you know, it's Taito. - T-A-I-T-O. - It's Taito. - I know they're a Japanese company. I just didn't know that it was developed in Japan. I thought it was like this game. - I always just assumed it, I assume it is. I saw it at TGS first, the first PSP exit I saw at the TGS. - That's a pretty good indicator. - Yeah. - Probably from Japan. - Exactly. - So, you know, after Final Fantasy 13 comes out, from what I hear, it does the tutorial thing that I think we like more, which is that it slowly kind of teaches you things that you should go on instead of saying like, here's the first hour and a half of the game where we're gonna tell you every single thing you need to know, and then you're never gonna see anything new. - What about the DS version? Have you guys played that? - Isn't it the same though? - I don't know, I was just wondering if that was-- - No, I played it on PS3. - It's supposed to be the same. - Okay. - You played it on 360. - Yeah. - Yeah, a lot of work. - That just seems like a game I would wanna play on a DS myself. - Really? - Yeah. - Okay, Anthony also wants to play Dante's Inferno on the PSP. - That's true. - What, why? - God of War was great on the PSP actually. - The Dante's Inferno PSP might be a little bit more-- - I don't know, I think the God of War on PSP feels like exactly-- - A compromise. - I think it's exactly the bare minimum of what it needs to be to be a God of War game. It's like God of War has these nine bullet points, and we're gonna have every single one of those things, but no more, no less. - That sounds kinda like Dante's Inferno. - I don't know. - I was gonna say I started playing a little bit of that, can't play anymore. - I don't know who I-- - Really? You can't play, I finished Dante's Inferno. - I don't know who I like borrow it, but that's because certain games like The Force Unleashed, I thought the DS one was awesome. I don't know. - Excuse me. Sorry I copyrighted that, but-- - Anthony has also admitted at work that he has a bizarre fixation on handheld games. - It's true, I have a gizmondo. - You do have one. - Yeah, it's a murmur. - Che has one too. We use-- - Do you have a GPX2 as well? - I had GP, a Game Park Wiz. - That's the one that you put emulators on and stuff? - Yeah. - Cool. - That's the one that you would put emulators on and stuff. - No, you would. - I want to, it's just-- - What are you doing, what are you doing? I thought that was the whole point. - It is the whole point. I just haven't, I've been fucked, every time I've tried, I fucked it up. So I haven't weighed enough for my friend to do that. - I thought Arthur was like saying, "You are the pirate." - No. - Anthony. - Oh, no, I'm totally, man. - The stuff I would play in my game park anyways, it'd be all like SNES games and stuff. - I have everything, basically, that I would ever decide to get a ROM of, it's just like I don't have the system anymore. - I do wanna take a quick second on thinking about that. And just say if any listeners out there want to sell me their copies of the first two Phoenix Wright games, you should email me. - I think I have a Phoenix Wright one, I might be able to get up with that. - Just to clarify, Anthony has paid $500 for a half-life guitar that should retail for about 250. - Can I see that? - You can take advantage of it. - That's awesome, so yeah, I really do want it. - Did you show about holding it in the photo? - No, that's why it only went for 450. - Oh. (laughing) - And he paid for shipping, which is really the funny part. - I thought you had it. - He wasn't at IGN? - It was, but it's funny that he paid for shipping. (laughing) Although he did get, to be fair, he did get personal courier service from Dana Jungle Ward. - Yeah, to my desk. - Well, that's nice, I love Dana, so. - Yes, so it was worth the $13. - Awesome. - So yeah, sorry, I will buy this. I want a bad. - Phoenix Wright. - Phoenix Wright, so firsthand too, I think I have one. - I have one, I might even have two. So is that it for Tyler? - That's it, man, that is it. - Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. - I already went, well, thanks for not listening the whole time. - You remember, Mag. - It's funny that you say that, 'cause I'm the only one that's all what people in the magazine or has the laptop open. - I just wanted to see if there was a photo of Sean in this irrational gaming former story. - Yeah, I don't know, I'm silly like that. - Ryan already knows what I'm gonna say. - And I was listening to everything that Tyler said. - Yeah, I commented on all the prepping emails. - Yeah, so anyway. - It's by how distracting I am. - What have you been playing that isn't Bioshock 2, or Mag, or Exit? - Bioshock was the big thing. I played-- - I'm sorry, I need to. - I'll just do your thing, and I'm gonna smoke a cigarette white, I don't even smoke, but I'm gonna have one right now. - This is great radio, guys, thanks. (all laughing) - So, I've been playing the IGF finalist, 'cause this is the final week of judging before it's all over. - I don't know why you're playing those, because indie games are totally pretentious, they're all like artsy-fartsy bullshit. - You had to bring that up to the internet meme cast. (all laughing) I blame myself, oh my lord. - Anyway, just tell us about the indie games, 'cause they are awesome, actually. - Yeah, how's that coming, man? I remember seeing the finalist list, which one a lot of really cool games-- - Is you had to think of your top three, these things. - Man, I don't even wanna talk about three of, you have a minute. All right, here we go, fast ones. The coolest game to me right now is kind of, it's the artsy-fartsy one, 'cause that's what I've had to ask myself a lot. - Is that what it's called? - No, yes. - Oh, yeah, that's what it should be. - Artsy-fartsy pretentious bullshit indie games. - That'll be our game. - Yeah. - Well, that's about rubble of fat. - Well, that's just it, is like, when you're judging these things, you have to like, ask yourself, am I gonna give it to the sweet, like, super polished platformer that does everything, right? - Yes. - Or am I gonna give it to the, you know, the thing that does something I haven't seen before does something interesting. - No. - But they have the different categories though. - They do, and so, - Avant-garde one, it has its own category, like it's called. - Are you kidding me, there's an Avant-garde category? - It's called Nuovo. - Nuovo. - Yes. - That sounds worse than Avant-garde. - I am inserting Avant-garde on my own. - Guys, we need to wear this more pretentious than Avant-garde. - Okay, I'm just gonna say that this game, this particular game, the one that I'm talking about, the artsy-fartsy one, is called Trauma. And it's a game that is all done in Flash, and it is basically like navigating Google Street View, kind of, in a-- - I think a preface with someone else, yeah. - The premise is something like a girl, a woman was in a car crash, and she's alive, but in the hospital, so she has these like vivid dreams, and you're kind of like moving through these dreams, and she's trying to solve this sort of graphical adventure, like a-- - Sounds like a Silent Hill game. - Sort of, but imagine a Silent Hill game if it was made by like a philosophy student in college. - That sort of sounds like a Silent Hill game already. - But I mean, not dark at all. - Okay. - Like-- - Braid? - By like an intellectual, sort of. That's what I mean, it's kind of the artsy-fartsy game. It really is kind of more like braid in tone. It sounds like the artsy-fartsy-fartsy-fartsy-fartsy game. - I'll just say that it's interesting, like the way that you actually navigate through these spaces, it's all point and click mouse, like I said, it's flash. So you kind of look at these still images, they look like photographs, and as you kind of mouse over different parts, they'll sort of start to shift and shimmer a little bit, and when they shimmer in such a way, you'll know that you can click in that spot, and then it does this kind of like zoom into a new photo. So I guess what was interesting to me is that I played this game probably longer, and got more, every stage has different outcomes that you can sort of secretly find. I played it longer than I played any of the other IGF releases, even the really polished, super polished platformers. And it was surprising because it's not the thing that everyone's gonna really enjoy, but I think if you, it's the type of thing you could show to your mom, and she would be like, wow, this is pretty interesting. It has gestural based mouse controls as well, where you like draw specific shapes while holding down the mouse button, and it causes different things to happen. I don't know. It's a type of thing where it's just really, it's probably really easy to try and get into, and you'll know pretty much right away whether or not you're gonna be into it, and if you do get into it, it's probably gonna suck you in pretty well. - Have you played the one that's like a game where you have like a pen that you have to like, - Go around the magic marker? - Yeah, max the magic marker. - Yeah, I keep meaning to play that. - I should, that's, I gotta try and play it. - 'Cause the new Blaster Master came out this week too, and I really, really, really wanna play that, and I just forgot to do it today. We've been so busy with this dumb show thing that we do, that it's a stupid job. It's a lot of work. - I don't know, I mean, from hearing you talk about trauma, like it seems like you've already made your decision for what your vote is. - No, I just decided that I didn't wanna talk about 12 things today, but that's what I'm trying to juggle right now. - I mean, the super polished platformers I'm talking about, like they're super meat boy, which is... - Also very cool. - Very cool, very hard, but in a good way that's super addicting where, you know, every stage, every attempt at a stage might be no longer than five seconds or something like that. - Right, it's explosion man. - Yeah, exactly, it's conquerable hard. And it sucks me and I play it for hours and hours at a time. There's another game called Rocket Birds Revolution, which is kind of like a, it's another Flash game, but it's more like out of this world where, or old school 2D Prince of Persia where-- - Flashback. - Yeah, Flashback where the moves feel very deliberate, but highly, what really well animated, there's good combat in it, story's really good, the art direction is really good. What else is in there? Oh, that's not a finalist. Oh, Monaco, really, really cool game. - Yeah. - There's actually been two versions of it 'cause there was one during the first round of judging and then a much more polished version that's come out during this final round. And it's kind of like a co-op, a four player co-op game, like a Left 4 Dead or something like that, but imagine it looking like a kind of four bit, a four bit game with special effects is kind of what it's like. - Oh, almost like a top down Metal Gear in some way, right? Would you say a little bit? - Yeah, sort of like Metal Gear. But you're like vision cones and you could see their vision. - Yeah, like that's Metal Gear, like the first Metal Gear. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, but four bit. So you control a-- - Like Atari. - Yeah, with special effects. So imagine everything is a giant like half inch by half inch pixel, right? Like all the graphics are drawn on these giant blocks, but they can constantly shift and change color based on vision cones and whether or not you're looking through a security camera. - Wait, wait, wait, wait, is this the one you showed me, Tyler, that's like a hardcore tactical game? - No. - No, it's not tactical. It's like a heist game. So at the beginning of the game, you choose one of four different classes, a hacker, like a climber. I don't know, I can't remember the exact names of each one, but they all can do the same abilities, but based on which class you choose, you have certain abilities that work faster. So if you're a hacker, you can find security camera terminals and like walk up to them and use them and it happens really fast. Some of the other ones will be like unlocking doors is really fast or climbing out of a window and up a chimney is really fast, that sort of thing. So it's this kind of 2D overhead perspective, four bit game looking game with a bunch of blocky characters that where you break into places, work as a team and avoid AI characters and try to steal stuff and break your breakout. And in the most recent version, there's like little kind of cute side view cutscenes, still the same graphic style, but at the beginning of the game, it'll, anyway, voice acting's really good. I think it could be, it's like the indie left for dead, basically. And it's pretty cool. I haven't gotten a chance to play it for a player yet. And I think that's where most of the fun in this game is gonna lie 'cause there's a lot of strategy and that sort of stuff, but it looks really cool. In a really cool retro way. And it seems like it's a type of thing, it's gonna be super easy to get into, but there's gonna be a lot to get out of it once you can figure out a bunch of cool strategies and stuff like that, so. - It sounds like something I would play if it was on Xbox Live, if it was on Xbox Live. - And I have no idea where it's gonna end up. I'm playing a version on PC right now, but it seems like the type of thing that would be perfectly suited to Live Arcade. - Nice. - All right. - So yeah, indie games, there's a lot of cool ones. - For the win. - All right, what? - Speaking, I mean, am I going or are we just stopping? - No, you're going. - Well, speaking of artsy farty games, I've been playing Smailancer's Predator. (laughing) - Well, can you talk about that? - Honestly, I really haven't played enough for the retail version to even talk about it. - Well, yeah, it's embargoed to Monday, though, so. - I mean, I played, like I can talk about the multiplayer demo, I don't know. - You can talk about that, yeah. - If anybody else has played the multiplayer demo. - I haven't played that one. - It's on Xbox Live now? - Yes. - Oh, I didn't know that. - I'm not sure I want to hear it, though, 'cause that's pretty pretentious. - Well, I know, but. - Game over, man, game over. - This is my show. (laughing) Like, so the last game that Rebellion was really known for was Alienware's Predator, which was 10 years ago. And ironically enough. - Which is Predator. - The PC one. - Or the Jaguar one. - And the Jaguar one. - Oh, okay. - And ironically enough, Alienware's Predator on Xbox Live or on Xbox Live sort of plays like a PC shooter from 10 years ago. (laughing) I jumped in and I was thrown into a marine, which I saw everybody complaining about, but I then proceeded to kill nine people in a row and quit because I killed nine people in a row with no problem because my pulse rifle clip had a hundred rounds and no recoil. And it shoots exactly where I'm aiming. - Right. - So. - That is old school. - Yeah. And that was it. - But that's, but even though, I mean, old school can still be fun, but it's not fun. - It's not, I didn't think it was particularly fun. Like, I'm confused as to how an Alien player would have fun. Like, I know that they can crawl in walls and I know that they can play strategically, but. - And just get one hit kills if they do, right? - Yeah, if they do it right. But meanwhile, like I am unloading literally a hundred bullets in their direction without reloading. And it's not like the trade off of using a saw in like other games, like in Modern Warfare 2 or any online shooter. Like there's no trade off. - Right. - It is a stream of death for a good 10 or 15 seconds. - It's weird. - I mean, it just wasn't fun. - That's a bummer 'cause I loaded up Sirius Sam. Sirius Sam HD, the demo on Xbox Live. And I was like, man, this is so old school but this game still is great. It's still so much fun. And it's the same kind of thing where, you know, it's pixel perfect precision wherever you're aiming is wherever you're shooting. But I guess it's just, you know, I guess if AVP is supposed to be like, you know-- - Sirius Sam is like, you know it's a remake. I guess it's the thing. - Yes, it's the exact remake of the classic game, yeah. - I don't think it's breaking any embargo to say like, like so far the sound design is what sticks out the most. Like it's helping to create atmosphere and single player. But like you were talking about before, I think a lot of that just has to do with the fact that like the motion tracker sound is like the most instantly evocative and like the emotion provoking sound in cinema or game. Like you know exactly what that sound is and you know exactly what the higher and higher pitched noise means. And it definitely fucks with you with that. And aliens sound like aliens in the pulse rifle sounds like a pulse rifle. - Yeah, it's like they already had great sounds to draw upon so I imagine they would just use those. - But other than that, like I reviewed Chime and then stopped playing it. And then a couple days ago, my boss talked about how he was up until four in the morning playing Chime. - Or if they found out there were leaderboards. - Well, not only that but friends leaderboards. - Like I talked about my Rain Man moment during Bad Company 2 but I like seriously had my, having Rain Man moments on Chime. Like I am like in the top 100 on a bunch of maps and like in the top 1000 and everything else. - Wow. - Because I suddenly everything clicked. And then I played that and Andy and my boss was playing that. And now Tom, the other team Xbox editor is playing it. And Gerald, the game spider is playing it and Will marked my fucking words. Anthony's boss is going to start playing it and Dana is going to start playing it. - Yeah, it'll be really great. Then all these people will be playing it at work and not fucking working. - Pretty much what was happening today. - Well, that's okay. You can take up all the slack Anthony. - It's just got, exactly. It's just got the leaderboards. I mean, it's just like Geometry Wars was powered by leaderboards. Like see your friends on that and be like, oh motherfucker, I beat my score. I better jump back in and play that. - Yeah, for use it more about the friends part or about the overall part. - About friends. Like I don't like, there's some other dude. I'm like, wow, congratulations. You got eight million points in three minutes. Like Bravo, I will never do that. Like Nick Suttner. - It's just a robot that you beat Nick Suttner. - I can beat Nick Suttner. - But a controller in the hand of. - I can take Nick Suttner. Which is the same thing that with Geometry Wars too. We just like went back and forth on pacifism until finally like he hit 253 million in pacifism. And I was like, there's no way I'm gonna ever beat that. And then one day I'm just like, I've gotten the zone and outscored my 17 million points. And our scores have stayed at those two spots forever after. But Chime has sucked me back in and that game has so much more depth than even I thought when I reviewed it. - Cool. - It's so good. - Five bucks. - It's five bucks. - Charity. - Play Chime. It's like drugs. - For charity. - For charity. (laughing) Drugs for charity. It's the best kind of drugs and other than that. - And then we've talked about Bioshock, which has been a great deal of what you've been playing lately too. - Yeah, I mean, and I beat Dante's Inferno. - It's size Ryan. - Honestly, the combat in Dante's Inferno is awesome. The puzzles in Dante's Inferno are a fucking crime against game design. - I don't know, I feel no emotion for that game or no positive emotion when I'm playing it, you know? Does that make any sense? Like it's like super-- - It sure is a game. - It's super stale. Like it's hard to, I mean, God of War II, is it really old game now at this point? But it's like, it's a far more exciting game. Things happen that are cool. I mean, you're going to hell in this game? - It's more bombastic, more frequently. - There's bigger things. There's, you know, a crazier moments. The set pieces just aren't there. I mean, you can't help. When something mimics something so exactly, you can't help it compare it to the source material. - Dante's Inferno has more boobs. - It is so-- - So Dante's Inferno has a 60 frames per second frame rate all the time, and they are just obsessed with hammering on that over and over again, and it was a mistake. - Yeah, it was. - Flat out, like, visceral. I don't know if anyone from visceral is listening to this. You were insisting on how great an idea it was to go for 60 frames a second. It was a fucking mistake. That and having the marketing people in there telling you what you needed to do game design wise, like, was a mistake. - The marketing was awful for that game. - Like, not just that, but it feels like marketing was making decisions as to how the game would be designed. - Well, that's what yours, yeah, that's what you're making an assumption about. - No, I said, feels like I'm not saying, I heard that someone's such a such a sitting at the table. - 'Cause that would be weird. - It feels like it's based in sell enough, so they were trying to play Dante's as safe as they could. And it doesn't fix any of the things that they could have gone upwards with in the genre, and it fails in a lot of regards. - It feels like the most brown game ever for a game that, you know, isn't brown all the time. - It turns blue at the end. - Well, even though the lust part is purple, but it's like the brownest purple ever. And the part after it is the gluttony part, and it's like the brownest red ever. Like, I mean, I don't know what to say other than it's like super stale and-- - It just like visually, and just aesthetically, like when this console generation started, a lot of people would make fun of certain games because they're like, it just looks like an Xbox game with higher resolution graphics. And this looks a lot like a last gen console game with higher resolution graphics, like the particle effects and all that stuff that we expect just aren't there. And it hurts the experience. - And it's hard, 'cause you're, you know, it's like, it shouldn't be about the graphics, but when a game is like about, you know, these types of games are about spectacle in like, Arthur said the combat is generally really good. And that's why when I'm playing it, I'm like, why am I not having a great time with this? - Mechanically, I enjoyed it, mostly. - It's pretty solid. - And then the last boss I spammed one attack, no joke. Like the holding the left trigger and why over and over and over and over and over again, and basically beat the last boss. - I don't know, I'd be, if you need an experience like that right now and can't wait whatever the month until God of War, whatever comes out, three comes out, then play a band that instead. - I think that's-- - Or go back and buy God of War collection. - Yeah, sure. God of War II is a wonderful game. God of War I is a good game. - Just don't play either God of War game on the hard. - Oh wait, is Matt Lee on this podcast? God of War I was great, so game of the year. - Why, it's not like Matt Lee's gonna do it, he's gonna, what is he gonna do? - I was just fucking with-- - Get all Matt in you, it's gonna be you. - Yeah, I just wanna fuck with Matt Lee on, I don't know. 'Cause Resident Evil 4 was a, a much better game than you. - Matt Lee on the old school, one of politics on the show. We're gonna take a break 'cause that was a fucking hour and a half. - Wow, this was more like an hour and 20 minutes 'cause we had like 10 minutes of bullshit before. - There was like-- - But there was a great song where Ryan's talked about Oaklander. I am an Oaklander. - I don't know, oh God, I hope I got that. - Break, break, break, break, break, break, break. Break. ♪ Leave tomorrow ♪ ♪ For if tomorrow ♪ ♪ Help no fear ♪ ♪ There are wounds that are not meant to heal ♪ ♪ And they sing ♪ ♪ In many very thoughts ♪ ♪ Come inside ♪ ♪ Let the fire burn you alive and sing ♪ ♪ Baby soon ♪ ♪ There are wounds that are not meant to heal at all ♪ - The distance. - You guys yours far away. - Middle. - You fucking guys. - Hello and welcome back. - You're a fucking guy. - The first letter is-- - What kind of guy is that? - We're gonna start the letter off with an intense one. - Sweet. - It is kind of relationship one. - Really? - It's not even like someone that wants to get in relationship. - Do you save these for when I'm over on Rebel Week? - No, we pretty much have 'em every week. So, okay, I listen every week and thoroughly enjoy the show, blah, blah, blah, here are the facts. Just about to turn 30 in a 10-year relationship married for the last three years. Neither of us has ever been with anyone else. We never had sex before marriage, not for a lack of trying on my part, but I learned to be patient. I know someone like this, by the way. - I know someone that's waiting for marriage as well. I totally respect that, but-- - We think. - No, no, this person I know for a fact. I mean, this guy wouldn't lie to me. He's the different person you don't know. - Oh, okay. - But now three years into the marriage and still waiting to have sex. - Wait, what? - What? - I don't think we're qualified to answer this one. - And he says, again, not for a lack of trying. Divorce. Now with the close of my 20s approaching married and virginity well and truly intact, I'd say it's safe to assume I've reached my breaking point. - That's not even married in the eyes of God. - Yeah. What would you do to force a problem? - A nolment. - What is the problem? - Yeah, there you go, a nolment. - You get that shit annulled. - He's married for three years and they haven't had sex, ever. - I'm pretty sure that that's-- - Dude, ancient fucking villages-- - That's not a marriage. - Ancient fucking villages. - That's a tax arrangement. - Ancient fucking villages would not consider that a marriage until you did the fucking deed. - I, you know, I gotta tell you, I think your wife might be a man. - Or your wife is a lesbian. - That's possible too. - Like, she's your, her beard. (laughing) - He wrote into us. - I know, I just wanna know, I like, that's, I just wanna know more details just as a person, like, I don't feel like you can, what, what kind of, what is she saying? Like, what is, what are the reasons? - I don't believe this. - You don't believe it. - Dude, I don't know man, I mean-- - I hate to throw the shit in the fan, dude, but I don't believe it. - I think I might be with Tyler. - Yeah, I'm kinda not taking it seriously. - I'm starting, yeah, I'm starting to see Tyler. - For years. - As much as it terrifies me, I am becoming in the Tyler state of mind. - I guess because I've known some insane people, though, who would do weird shit like this. - That's not weird, that is unnatural. - That's what I said, insane people who would do weird shit like this. - Right. - Like, but again, what he said, it's not a right? It's not a marriage. - I mean, it's a deception because, ostensibly, one of the reasons you got married is because you thought, "Oh, well, we'll have sex then," right? - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, definitely this guy is definitely saying-- - If the reason you were waiting before was religious reasons, God says it's pretty much okay to bang away. (laughs) - So this way, God is like, you can go. - Well, it's not just that like sex is necessary to intimacy. I mean, God, come on. - Like sex. - Nah, you guys should both see a fucking therapist and then a divorce lawyer. - Yeah. - How about that one? - Yeah. - I think they should get a divorce lawyer and then he should see a therapist. (laughs) - A nalment. - Okay. - Prostitute. - So that was the most intense letter I saw, but I just, I felt like I had to read it just 'cause when I was like, "Ah, whatever, 10 years you waited for marriage." And then he's like, "But now we're married, Anne." And I was like, "What the fuck?" - What do you mean, whatever you waited 10 years. - No, no. - You date someone seven years and never have sex with them. That is also fucking weird. - No, that's the thing is I know plenty of people who have a strong religious upbringing that that is the way they roll. Like, you know, I have a friend whose family has always been like that. - Seven years, those people would get married when they're 18 and fuck all the time. - Yes, most of them do. That's what I'm saying, but I'm saying it's not unheard of. - He's been dating that girl since he was 20. - But the part of being married and having sex, that was the part that I was like, "That's fucking, "that's beyond it." - Wow. - That it took them seven years to get married a time during which they had no sex is weird enough. - Maybe, maybe, I think it's more what he said he was reaching his breaking point. I was gonna say maybe it's really special, man. Like, gonna stay together for that long. - That maybe his breaking point, this is like stretching my suspension of disbelief. - Yep, all right, next letter. - Yeah. - Yeah, sorry. - Bullshit. (laughing) - Oh man, that one's lighter. - Where's Penny? Like, who is this, what planet are you on? - Yeah, I wanna, god, I wanna talk to the wife. - Next letter, please. That was like watching "Grave of the Fireflies" all over again. - Okay. - So. - Yeah, so no sex is exactly like getting hit by an atomic bomb. - This letter is from Josh and he says that. I'm currently studying for the bar and after unsuccessfully trying to juggle studying video games, time for my girlfriend. And, sorry, a new year's resolution to exercise more. I came to this ad realization that I needed to take a break from playing video games. It's been about a month since I last sat down to play a game for more than 10 minutes and I won't be gaming anytime in the near future as the bar exam is now two weeks away. I'm a firm believer that we all have more free time than we care to admit, so my restriction is making you feel a bit like a baby and a hypocrite. Consequently, I'd feel better if any of you answered in the affirmative to the following question. Have any of you imposed a restriction on your own gaming time? - Yes. - If so, what was the reason? And what was it like to jump back in? I plan on bringing video games at the end of the month playing video games, but not too much. I don't want my girlfriend writing in that I've been choosing gaming over sex. (laughing) - We don't want your girlfriend writing in. You can choose a video over sex. - I don't want your fucking girlfriend writing in. How about that? (laughing) - She should be leaving the kitchen to go to the computer. - I went back to school for three years and during that three years, I played hardly any games at all except during my breaks between quarters. So, yes, if out of the things that he listed, he should stop playing video games while he gets out of the shit in order. - I think, I mean, your time is limited. That's, I mean, and as long as you're entertaining yourself and something like when I was in college, I played far fewer games too, but I never told myself to play fewer games. It just happened naturally when I was going to classes. I was working at EB and I was writing a news for this website Planet Dreamcast. So, I was getting a lot of whatever my gaming sort of stuff taken care of by the jobs I was doing. And I didn't, even though I was still playing or, well, buying as many games as I had been, I wasn't playing quite as many. So, it was sort of like unnaturally limiting my game time. - It is important to take a break though, sometimes and entertain yourself. And if you're not doing that, you're also doing yourself some harm. - I thought it was cool too, because I thought I was losing my ability, I was like, man, am I not a gamer anymore? What's happening? - I think that's what he's afraid of, but you can still play games randomly and not play every day or even every week and it's not like you're no longer. - Yeah, once I got a job and, well, a job closer to this one in the industry, the one that I'm doing now, like I started playing games like crazy. And so, yeah, it's just different times in your life. You'll have more time to go to it. - Right. - Yep. Anyone else have any other input in that? - Well, plus he said the bar is in two months. - Two weeks. - Two weeks. - Actually, that's the bar I was very far away. - It's like a week now. - Like in days. - Yeah, it's been, I mean, since he written. So, I mean, after the bar, maybe. - Well, I told you you're not a dog, that's fine. - You know, I would just say that if he's waiting until now to stop playing games, to study for the bar, it's too late anyway, you should just keep playing games. - I mean, the thing is, - I didn't say that. - Is that I've dedicated myself to exercising a lot more. So exercising along with recording these podcasts in a week, and I still find times just that I, you know, I come home at times after work and I just watch movies and stuff. But I still find time to play games. It's not like, you know, I actually know that lately I've been spending less time playing video games than I did a year ago, but it's not like I didn't have to actively set a goal. I just do the things I want to do. And if I want to game, I game. - Some people are list people and some people aren't. I'm not a list person. I don't need to tell myself what to do. I just do whatever I want. - I just try to spend my game time better. - Yeah. - By playing Alien vs Predator. - The next, well, there's a difference. That's earning you paycheck. - True. - The next letter is from Ryan. And he says, "I'm wondering how the length of time you guys spent playing a game would compare to the time spent writing a review for that game. And if any of the co-op game guys are there, time spent putting together a video segment. Would you tend to play the game more, replays trying to alternate paths if you were doing a longer review, or does the play time just depend on the game itself? Do you think that a single playthrough is enough to judge a game on? - Yeah, I think less than a single playthrough of a game is enough to judge a game on. - Depending on the game, yeah. - It all depends on the game. I don't think there's any hard rules about anything. I think sometimes the first impression of a game is still a valid impression. For us, yeah, doing the game... - Sometimes the game reviews think things a long time. - Well, yeah, the last, the way that we used to do co-op before we started going live, sometimes if it was like an iPhone game or something that we could play for maybe two hours and totally get the game and be able to do a review chat on it, then we do the chat, then we capture footage, then we edit the segment and we've spent 16 hours putting a segment together for a game that we may be played for two or three hours. - Whereas writing a review, like, I mean, there's no way that writing a review will ever take-- - Most of the time you play the game way more. I mean, unless you're just having writer's block or something. - If it takes you 12 hours to write like an 800 to 1100 word review, you are probably not meant to do this. - Right. - You're doing it wrong. - Right. (laughs) - Like, I understand, well, no, I mean, some people do have, like, it takes them a long time to write, to compose their thoughts, like, but I don't think. - Yeah, but if you can't put 800 words together in 12 hours, you probably shouldn't be a writer. - Here's my throwaway figure for how long it takes to make a game segment on co-op the old way. Whatever, 12 to 20 hours to play the game, depending upon how long it is, shorter if it's a shorter game. One hour to actually like, you know, talk about it and record our chat on camera while waiting for people to get there. Two to three hours for capturing footage and between 10 and 15 of editing time, shorter if you're Matt, who's the fastest now? - Weirdly enough. - I used to be the fucking fastest, but then I, I lost it. - I started drinking all day. - That's not true. - And then-- - I get really obsessive about the co-op editing style, I'll say. - Yeah. - I spent my time doing it. - Well, the live co-op actually bore a pretty good-- - You're pretty good at passing resemblance. (laughing) - No, no, no, no, no. Rhino Donald after two glass of wine and a beer. (laughing) It bore a pretty good visual, visual similarity to the pre-recorded co-op. - We sweated the fucking shit out of that. I wish I could show people the rehearsal without, and then use the fucking men in black and then erase their memory. - Oh, why? 'Cause the rehearsal thing, like, did it look like PBS or something like public, not even PBS, but like public television, like where they let me in our throne, we just stood there. (laughing) - The first, okay, so we actually did two rehearsals that were recorded. One was just of the Mass Effect segment, and yes, PBS style, like, hey, weren't you supposed to roll that clip right now? That could come in-- - Public access, people, public access. - Yeah, like Tim and Eric. - Yeah, just awful. And then the second rehearsal looked like a PBS show, especially the Jonathan Mann segment, because we had a green screen up in the background-- - Nice. - With a co-op, like logo with rainbow graphics going on behind it, that matt threw together in like five seconds, just as a placeholder. So it looked like, one of my roommates was watching as we watched this rehearsal. He's like, whoa, we just went back in time to the 70s right here, and I was like-- - It's like a Sabbath plan on like, on some random-- - Reading on like late show. - Like reading rainbow or something like that. - Where's Jordan? - But yeah, we, it's hard because, you know, we're working with a revision three staff who are fucking great. I love every single person that's helping us on our show. But they've never done a show like what our show is like. And our goal was to make it look as much like the old show as possible. So we really worked hard and we got it. I just didn't think it would come together as fast as it did, but we got it looking pretty good for the first episode. - And if you could just start broadcasting in HD, that would be delightful. - Well, you can download the HD version. - Broadcast. - It's gonna happen. - So the next letter is from Tyler. And he says, I have a great first rehearsal for us. I don't know, this his name is Tyler. And he says, I have a question. - Why do you read my letter? - I have a question for Tyler and Arthur, but if Anthony wants to answer, it's fine. (laughing) It's like full yet sarcastic emoticon. - Well, it's true though, because- - Smiley face, clown face. - Because this is something I have no, like I really have no understanding of. So he says, okay guys, I'm seeing your high school right now and I want to pursue graphic design as a career. - Don't. - What would you recommend is the best way to approach this? I plan on going to a local college then moving to an art and design college. But other than that, I have no idea what to do. - Shit. - So I, that was like, well, I don't know. - Where does he live? - He does not. - I know, I'm not saying that like you know. - No, a lot of times they do write where they're from, but he doesn't say. - Go to a really good school. - Yeah. - Be prepared to be in a lot of work. - But I think he's just wondering if there's anything he can do like before while he's at his local college. Like even before he goes to art college, there's something he can do to like make himself have an edge or something. - I know that I was living in Southern California and in Southern California and Pasadena, one of the best art schools there, Art Center. And when a lot of my friends who were in high school who went on to graduate from Art Center later took their like weekend high school courses where you're there, you're using the real equipment, the real teachers are there, and you're basically doing the equivalent of what you would be doing in college, but you're doing it at a high school level and getting college credit for it. - Don't expect to go into Art Center immediately after high school, 'cause the average age of an incoming freshman at Art Center like this was in 2000 or 1999 was like 28 or 29. - And you'll come out of it with about 80 grand in debt, at least for two years. - Yeah, but even say, man, two years. - I don't know, dude. - Like how you probably don't need this school, right? - I, you know, I didn't go to art school or anything. I don't even have a degree in design. I just really took to it and I was just natural. It's like I've found that it's like either people are naturally good or they're not. - I mean, to be fair, like for instance, the guys that do a lot of the humor feature and a lot of the artwork for that, one of them went to and graduated from art school, but the other one did not. And again, he just got into doing graphic design 'cause he kind of just took to it and then has done stuff for like redesigning John Deere's logo and stuff like that. - Art school is not gonna teach you graphic design. Just flat out. And in fact, on most college campuses, at least in the UC system, there's this weird pissing contest rivalry between the art program and the design program. - I think it's just that some people think that, you know, if you learn to be a good art and you can produce really good art, you'd maybe be able to have an eye for what looks good. You know, it's like-- - Artistic composition? Like for painting is different than graphic design compositions. - Yeah, I mean, a lot of graphic design is that, like just, it's like, if you just know what looks good, like, you know, a big help for me was I had two really good friends that were excellent designers. You know, I still game with them. And, you know, they were able to like steer me along the path, but, you know. I feel like there's definitely something to be said about the natural talent. Like, I always wanted to be a graphic designer, but I just never went and did the schooling for it. And I had a lot of friends who were naturally better than me at it and then did do the schooling on it. And when they did do the schooling, they learned a lot of like, you know, the fucking, you learn the words and the way to talk so that you can talk to your clients. And that was just it, is that it felt like almost like a factory where they were coming out with - Skills. - Literally the, not even the skills, but the like templates for this is how this industry works, exactly. Now you're gonna be able to go tell yourself and get jobs. - A good piece of advice is looking to what programs they have to teach you how to use your skills to get work. Because that's like a lot of liberal arts colleges that have really good quote unquote art programs. They don't tell you anything about selling yourself or marketing your work. Because that demeans somehow like the artistic process. - Which is like, you know, it's two sides of the coin. Like the Art Institute, they're really big on like getting you job ready. Whereas like the California, CCA, California College of the Arts, they're much more like feeding just the creativity. - Well, but I thought that they also focused, at least somewhat on like how to sort of get yourself out there, but. - Not from my impression, I took a tour of their campus like several years ago. - Several years ago. - Side, yeah. That place is much more liberal, theory-based. - Yeah, it's much more like. - If you, I mean, if you want a job, then theory-based is not the way you wanna go. - I learned about film theory, and that's why I make very little money right now. Woo hoo. And depressing comment of the podcast award goes to. Hey man, I do it with my friends, so I like making very little money. - Yeah, I understand. - He also asked a question of if a shark fought a T-Rex who would win, if the shark could fly. - T-Rex. - T-Rex, 'cause he could stop. - Next letter because Arthur's no fun. - Well, if it's a great white shark, it's probably about as big as the T-Rex, so this is shark Jesus Christ. - Well sharks look cooler. - With all this talk about, this is from Zach. - We're gonna need a bigger T-Rex. - With all this talk about Math Effect 2 amongst the gaming community, I'm surprised the romance scenes aren't getting very much buzz. I started the game thinking, "Ha, I'm going to have sex with Jack because she doesn't wear a shirt." So I was incredibly surprised that my quest for sex with-- - You should just stop reading that letter. - That you can have sex with people? He's not gonna spoil anything. - It sounds like it's about to spoil the way that that sex scene unfolds. - No, he just said that, he just said that-- - I don't know. - He just said that he was surprised that having sex with her turned into one of the most touching and heartfelt moments in gaming. - Oh my God, I can't believe, I don't know the answers to any of this stuff. I wanna leave this-- - I know exactly what he's talking about. - I know. - And I feel like-- - I just wanted to hear that if you guys thought that it was-- you guys said some of the things that the romance scenes in this were actually much more heartfelt. - We'll talk about it in the next segment. - I haven't seen a romance scene. - That's what I can't get laid in this game. (laughing) - I haven't got laid either. - I have. - I'm saying see how, but we can't get busy for some reason. - Okay. - It makes me sad right now. - What's that? - You screw me out right now. - Next letter. - This guy named Jake is writing in and he wants to get a tattoo. And it's like a line from a song, but what he wants to know is I also have yet to decide where to get it on my body and which type font to use. - Typeface. - Yes, so his two questions are what is a good place for a first tattoo and what type fonts would look good or should I, you know, just like a line of the one-- - One of the first words, I know the type one face. - And his type face. - It's small of your back in Times New Roman. (laughing) - Comic sans, left cheek face. Underneath your belly button. - My first recommendation is this always seems like a very bad idea to me to get a tattoo of words. - There should be like a three year wait time. - Well, he's already heard all about this. He's already thought about it. - Do you know what the phrase is? How long is it? How many words? - It's like four words. - Did he say? - Mustache. (laughing) - Yeah. - What, no, read it. - All right. - Yeah, 'cause I mean, that's gonna have a huge impact on what font he would-- - Definitely. - 'Cause that's a complicated getting song lyrics, it's called, it's just fight off your demons. That's what it says. Fight off your demons. - I mean, it depends on what he has in his head. Like, one thing I think always looks really good. You know, Matt said avoid words. I think like it's like specific types of words. So it's like one very classic tattoo style is like script tattoo. Like where it's like very script font. That's like really swirly with like, you know, why is that just-- - That's a tattoos. - You know, a little like essay. I mean, you can get them different style. - Yeah. - I mean, something like that would make me think-- - Straight up essay. - That's the, nah, I disagree. I think you-- - Don't look like you're in the Latin kings. - No. - That English is the way you learn. - That's, there's, you know, there's, I don't know, you can approach it from different angles, like. - Get it all illuminated manuscript style. - Yeah, maybe the band that you got this song from has like a certain way they do their logo or something. Or it's not, it seems to me like script is what-- - Tattoos are hard, man. - What you want to do? - Yeah. - I, you know, I'm sure it's, I mean, I'm sure Arthur sort of like Nine Inch Nails was the fucking thing when I was 16, 14, 13, and even late into my 20s. And I still wasn't a lot of Nine Inch Nails, but I thought, you know, that one song lyric from that one song that sounded so fucking brilliant touched me so much when I was 18, does not sound so good now at the age of 30. So, I want a tattoo because I think they're fucking badass, but I still haven't figured out what to get. I think, I might, I think area five logo is the first thing that I can honestly say if I got that right now would mark this time in this place, and I would think that it was sort of cool. But like, it took us creating something ourselves for me to find the right thing for me. - I mean, I'm not gonna talk shit because I plan on getting a band logo tattooed on me at some point, so. - Metallica? - No. Jesus Christ, I wasn't so many bad dogs at this. - Band logos are cool too, because they're timeless. - It depends on the band logo. - Depending on the band. - In a way. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like, like people that I've seen that have black flag tattoos, it's like black flag is kind of-- - That represents a very specific-- - Exactly, that's the thing. - And they have a cool logo. - Exactly, or like the Misfits. - It's, yeah. - Those are all things, but it's like, it's like, yeah, but I mean, if you're gonna get some tattoo of a band that could very well end up shitty in the long run, it's like, or like the artist's-- - Yeah, I guess some pretty one tattoo might have been a bad idea. (laughing) - Or like the artist formerly known as Prince's, the, that period of his life when it was a logo. - The only person who can have that on anything is Prince. Like, if he wants to have a fucking guitar that looks like that, that's-- - I've already got it, it's my tramp stamp dude. - Oh. - I guess I'll look for that to next. - So I'll do one more, and then that way, you guys can get in your Mass Effect talk. This one is from Jamie, and he says, I'm a big fan of the podcast, I've been listening since day one, I heard an episode recently where a listener asked you guys about recommending podcast, and I was wondering if you could recommend any good blogs from the gamer community as well. I followed Jeff Green, but that's pretty much the only one I know about. You know, and he already reads the gaming sites, but he wants to know like, if there's some people's blogs out there that he should check out. - Like individual blogs, time set, watch. - Or he says, the gamer blogs from either developers are enthusiast pressed. - Okay. - So, game spite. - Yeah, game spite. - Game spite's great. - The independent game source? - Yeah, I call it TIG source. He calls it the independent game source. - I like TIG. - That's what it was fun to say. - You know who keeps that up to you, Tony? - Derek, you, he makes Aquaria, and he makes Spielunky, which was one of my favorite games. - That's right. - What does he make? - Spielunky. - No, it was the one before that. - Aquaria. (laughing) - That was for you, buddy, I appreciate it. So, those are a couple good ones, and then I-- - I mean, hold on, Blit Blit, I really, really like. It's, the interface for it is all visual, and it's not just game related, so you gotta be, it's a little more artsy-farcie too. Blit Blit.com. - I recommend Steve Gainers' blog. It's at Fulbright.blogspot.com, and it's, he's a, I believe he works for, I believe he works as a game designer at 2K, and he has a very, very cool, deep, kind of intellectual, thoughtful look at games in a game design, and it's a great blog. - Pretentious is what you're saying. - Yes, it's pretentious and artsy-farcie, so it's definitely not for certain other bloggers out there. - Me. (laughing) - Tiny cartridge is another good one. Tiny cartridge. - Ryan's just going through his book food. - You know what I am, just think of like a video game, tournament, and adjective, and put them together in ad.com to it, and I bet you it will come across as well. - Just like losttheories.blogspot.com, it exists, and I just made that up, it does exist though. So that's gonna wrap it up, and then now, I'm gonna disappear. Aw. - Oh wait guys, you're gonna, what? - One more. You should, if you haven't, no, this is actually good. You should go to-- - No, well the other ones are recommended, but shitty, so this is good. - Well, if you haven't read Jordan Meckner's, he calls them old journals. I don't know what the URL is, but type in Jordan Meckner, the guy who created Prince of Persia, and look up his old journals. He actually kept journals when he was making the original Prince of Persia, like way back in the day, so it's like-- - Back in the '80s? - Yeah, super historical take on the industry from the inside from one guy who actually did something really cool. - Does he talk about how revolutionary Carateco is? - No, he actually talks about how he's gonna leave the industry after that, 'cause he wanted to do what he's doing now, which is making documentaries. - Well, he's also consulting on the Prince of Persia movie. - Yes, but anyway, really good for those documentaries. So, you guys should remember to listen to our friends' podcast, the mobcastibitmub.com, the Geek Box, the Geek Box.net, and then you should check out the Area 5 Live Co-op Show, which comes on now, Tuesdays at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. - And it's up for download, like a few hours after that. I watched the Flash version of it at like 6 p.m. So, the Revision 3D guys do a good job putting up real fast. - Yep, and that's it. Remember to send your letters to podcast. I was about to say podcast at GameSpy.com, 'cause I'm so used to podcast. - You do other podcasts? - I do the GameSpy podcast. - Yeah, I know. - So, it's letters@pondashleap-game.com. That's what it is. Letters@eat-sleep-game.com, just so you remember. - All right, what do you have to read, Tyler? - You can find me somewhere on the internet this week. - Why? - Besides here, I was on a gray matter podcast at crudepixel.com. - I'm just gonna go that up. - No, no, it's actually really cool. A listener, Michael Manning in the UK, did an interview with myself, Jenova Chan, who made flow and flour. - I like Jenova. - And he also did an interview with, oh God, I totally forgot. They're these two guys that are developing frozen synapse that Game I showed you. And he basically asks us what our opinion of the future of multiplayer gaming is. And it's just like one interviews with everybody. - I'm totally gonna go off. - What's your opinion of the future of multiplayer game? - Oh, sorry, I don't want you to start it up. - It's good. - Isn't the podcast? - It's a really good podcast. Like, I encourage you, it's really well done, actually. - Nice. All right. - So, in the event that you actually heard any of that and I didn't bleep it all out, go listen to that. - You are such a dick. - That's so awesome. - I'm James, that fielding Tyler. - He's Kirk Hammett. - No, he's Jason Eustic. - Oh, right. - We've been chasing the podcast with my crushing glove. - crudepitzel.com. (laughing) - No, get out of here. - I'll make you a continue listening if you want mass spectees for all three. Yep, you've been warned. - It's sorry, Metallica. No one can complain, they got two. Jesus Christ. - Hi, Anthony, I love you. - I miss you already. - Mm-hmm, hmm, hmm. - Come back. ♪ It's my life ♪ ♪ There's a show that's hard as hell ♪ ♪ The vision never dies ♪ ♪ My son never read me well ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Only time back ♪ ♪ You're the star of the masquerade ♪ ♪ No need to look so afraid ♪ ♪ Jump, jump, jump on the tiger ♪ ♪ You can feel his heart but you know he's mean ♪ ♪ Sun like a never machine ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Okay, so if you're listening to this, we're about to spoil the shit out of Mass Effect 2 for you. And not like last time where I said spoilers a bunch and we didn't actually really spoil anything. We were discussing major plot points, deaths, or lack thereof, endings, speculation about the next one, and the general bullshit. So if you are not interested in Mass Effect 2 spoilers, if you have not finished Mass Effect 2, if you're going to play it, you should stop listening. So, five, four, three, two, one. - You're revving. - I can't believe it. (laughing) - So just starting right off of that, like the fact that they kill you, that the way that they start the game, that is the most elegant way that they possibly could have started out the game. 'Cause everyone was like, I mean, you're importing your character, but really, what could they do? Like, how are they going to explain how you'll start over from the beginning? Because they said that you'd start over from the beginning, and the elegant solution is to fucking kill you. - Yeah, I was actually a little disappointed that my character in Mass Effect 2 doesn't, 'cause all of the other people in your party look super high res, but I feel like my main PC character looks a little bit more like a Mass Effect 1 character than Mass Effect 2 character. - What is with you and Mass Effect technical issues? - I'm just saying. The Mass Effect, I think my Mass Effect 2 character doesn't look as high res as the other 12 members of my party, at least the face. I mean, the body and the armor is fucking awesome. - You created it from scratch though. - I know, I don't know what it is. - My shepherd looks funny. - My shepherd looks fucking badass. - I think I'm playing on 360. - Yeah, I'm PC. - I'm playing on PC, and my shepherd, I'm not saying that she doesn't look great, 'cause she does look great. She looks like the full on badass marine that she was in Mass Effect 1. - It doesn't matter, you're dealing with the game, the whole game looks so weird on PC anyway, so. - Well, wait, I mean, as I'm playing on PC, do you feel, like, how do you feel about, like, the frame rate difference? Like, are you okay with that, or do you think it's jarring, or? - What do you mean, the frame rate difference? - He never saw it on, he played the first one. - Oh, I played Mass Effect 1 on both PC and 360. - I mean, I guess it's not the same, because the frame rate on Mass Effect 2 on 360 is so much better than it is in the first one, but I have a hard time looking at the PC version of Mass Effect 2. - People have to understand, I'm a fucking video guy, so when I make this complain, it's because, like, to me, 60 FPS and 30 and 24 FPS, like, they look very instantly different to me, and so when I saw the PC version of it running, when Matt was playing it, I was like, fuck man, it looks like news, it looks like a soap opera, it looks like, you know, it doesn't look like a film, and Mass Effect 2 seems so cinematic to me that it seems like should be running between 20 and 30 frames per second, and that's what you get on console. So, it's what I like. - It's a tech consideration, nothing else, but I mean, but you get high-risk textures on PC, you get all sorts of fun stuff, and I'm sure you can edit some INI file somewhere and, like, lock your frame rate down, which is something I would do if I was playing it on PC. - What this comes down to is that it didn't bother you at all, like, you just didn't even notice it. - No, and I actually think that it's different, too, 'cause when you're sitting on a console, you're sitting back from a television. When you're playing something on a PC, I have a monitor that's, you know, maybe 16 inches from my face, and it feels like, when you have something that's a really high frame rate, it feels more immersive. - Yeah, not for me. - Fair enough snob. But, yeah, console gamer snob. (laughing) - No, dude, there are games when 60 frames per second is, like, necessary, but Mass Effect is totally not one of them to me, and if I have a choice, I'm gonna play it at 24 frames per second. - 60 frames isn't necessary in Mass Effect. - All right, let's tech talk more spoilers. (laughing) - You are Revinz. - I saved everybody. - God damn it. - Me too. - Oh, did you? - Yeah, I saved everybody at the end. - So, let's talk about the start at the beginning of the end. - That's what I kinda wanted to do, instead of jumping right to the ending. - Let's talk about the beginning at the end. - So, I mean, major thing first is the archangel buildup. Was really cool. - Yeah. - Unfortunately, I had that shit spoiled for me from the review document. - Aww. - 'Cause, like, the second page of the review bundle was, like, a list of story spoilers that they didn't want you to talk about. - That's what I saw the first one. - That's what the first one is. - Archangel equals Garris. - It's all, yeah. - Please do not talk about archangel being Garris, and I'm like, "Son of a bitch." (laughing) But that whole lead up, like, to finding Garris, to finding archangel, like, it's just done so well. This is really just gonna be us sucking Mass Effect 2's dick for another 47 minutes, isn't it? - Sure. No, yes and no. I mean, I felt like I haven't had a really good opportunity to nitpick, and, like, when it's spoiler free, I feel like I can nitpick some more. But, yeah. - Why don't you nitpick, then? Because I feel like going through just chronologically is kind of hard. - Well, we're gonna talk about a lot of it if we end up doing it that way. Why don't you talk about your thing, and I'll talk about my thing, which is sort of talked about on the show, but I'll actually start throwing in the actual names and places. - Right, yeah. Some picnics, please. - Do your thing. - Well, my big nitpick is that there are no deep lesbian or gay relationships in the game. They do not exist. I mean, you can have a casual lesbian fling if your shepherd is female, obviously, with Kelly, but-- - It's not who feed my fish, whatever. She fucking told me she'd feed my fish. - Same thing to me. - And my fish died. - Same thing to me. - I should've gotten an achievement. - I hadn't even-- - My fish never died throughout the whole game. - This is before I even made advances on anyone else. - Why is she not-- - Wheat had a wonderful time. - This mind should not have died 'cause she told me she was gonna feed them in, then they died. So, Kelly, you did not do your job. - I think it's that she feeds your fish most of the time, but you're not supposed to totally fucking neglect your fish. I went back there, you know, at the beginning of the game, before she was feeding my fish, I fed them every time I went back to the Normandy. I went back there and-- - I do that after my fucking fish died. - And then once Kelly said she was feeding them, I fed them every three or four times I went to the Normandy. - All I'm saying is if I'm stepping out and somebody says they're gonna feed my animals and I come back and my animals are dead, it's their fucking fault. - If I'm gone for a few days, and Anthony says he's gonna feed my cat, I come back and my cat is dead for starvation. - Okay, so if you-- - Well, I've found her the first day. - If you leave on vacation for three months while you're like solving a whole bunch of-- - I would still be pissed if I came onto a dead cat. - Besides, Shepherd says several times this is a military operation, you know? So it's like you expect efficiency amongst your crew. - She saved my fish. I never, my fish survived the whole time. I think you guys must have cheated on Kelly too. - But anyway-- - That being said, no, I was actually like in the back of my head I was like, okay, try not to be Mass Effect 2 Defense Force. Try not to be Mass Effect 2 Defense. That is absolutely a valid complaint. And it was in the first one kind of, and Dragon Age obviously did a better job of having the potential for homosexual relationships. - Dragon Age has homosexual relationships. It has like, what is it? What has it been gave by sexual transgender? It has transgender relationships even. Yeah, because I mean, well, not really relationships, but if you go to the whorehouse, you can have males and females, which are in quotes as your sexual partners at the whorehouse. - So it's implied transgender as opposed to-- - It's implied, yeah, but it's not-- - I don't think I ever got busy at the whorehouse. - Well, the whorehouse is about as deep as a relationship as you can have with Kelly and Mass Effect. - True. - So at least I got conversation out of Kelly. - Yeah, really. So I mean, all I'm saying is that as far as I'm concerned in Mass Effect 2, this is the one area where BioWare made a big step back for them as a company and in terms of the franchise. It's not there, and it should be. - I mean, the politics aside, all that stuff, it just bummed me out because I expected it, right? - Right, it is, it's my permission. - If I go into Shepherds or into my room, Liara's portrait is there on my desk because I had some sort of relationship with her in the first game that would have gotten me a pair of more achievement than Sam's hand. (laughing) And in this game, like I decided fairly early on, like I'm going to pursue Jack. My female Shepherds will pursue Jack and I could never make it happen. - Oh man, this is just like-- - Just to assume Jack would be interesting. - Damn, like-- - No, no, I tried real hard. - Like, this is me learning for the first time that you can't have like that. - Yeah, no, well, I mean, BioWare has said it in response to people asking. - Wow. - And it does surprise me that they would just omit that. - At the end, like, and I don't wanna say this, I wanna say this following this statement with a lot of qualifications in that, like, I have no idea what the decision-making process was as to why those, as to why gay and lesbian relationships are not in a mass effect. But from an outsider's perspective, the only reason that I can see why is because they don't want another bullshit sex box scandal. - Right. - And because that, like, if they have the balls to go even further in Dragon Age than they've ever gone in any of their other games, and, but they don't do it in Mass Effect, the only reason that I can think is because they know Mass Effect was gonna sell a lot more titles, and they don't want it to pop up in the media as a scandal. - There's no fucking the space hamster in Mass Effect, too. - Sweet. - Sweet. - No, I do think that that's a valid criticism, and I don't, like, it doesn't necessarily make the story worse or the game, like, mechanically unsound, but I do feel like people become really attached to, quote, their shepherd. - Yes. - And it is, I'm sure it's a bummer for a lot of people that they can't express that. - I mean, it's kind of funny. They pulled back the gay and lesbian thing, but they totally played up the cross-species thing. - True. - As a female shepherd, you can get it on with Garris, which is kind of a little freaky for me. I mean, I'd slip with Tally. - I tried. So, this whole thing bummed me out, because, you know, if I'm role-playing my character, I felt like a lot of people think this game isn't a role-playing game, 'cause it doesn't have as much stats, bullshit, whatever. I'm role-playing, like, hardcore in this game. I'm playing a woman, I'm playing a lesbian woman based on my experience in Mass Effect 1. So, you know, like I said, I chose early on to pursue Jack, and when it became clear that that wasn't gonna work, then I started pursuing Samara, and then I realized that wasn't gonna work. And sooner or later, I've tried to pursue so many people that I feel like, like I said, I didn't get-- - Mass Effect 1. - I never could make a romantic relationship happen with anyone except where I got close with Thane, but it never took it all the way to where I got the achievement, which tells me that there's more to see, right? And I still can't figure out how to activate that, which is a huge bummer. It makes me think, "All right, well, I missed out," and it's because I had expectations that weren't met based on my previous playthrough. - On the PC1, I don't think, while I was looking at the achievements, and I don't remember there being an achievement for having a real-- - It's called Paramore. - It is the Paramore? Okay, I did get it actually with Thane. - And it pops up, like, for me, like, romancing tally, it popped up at the best possible time it could have, because it's like, as soon as she jumps on top of me, it's like achievement unlocked. (laughing) - I'm like, "Yes, yes, by aware, yes." That is the greatest timing of an achievement notification I've ever seen or heard of. - It was actually really killer for me because I got really close with like a lot of characters. Samara, I told, you know, it was like, "I can't do this 'cause of the just the dark code." - I actually thought that was really cool the way she kind of breaks your heart right there. - And she walks into the other room, and she says, "I don't want to talk to you right now." Yeah, that was really cool. And then with Tally, she said, the way we do it is we link suits, and I would link suits with the, I would link suits only with another Korean. But I don't feel that way about anyone who's a Korean right now, and then, you know, my dialogue option is like, "You know, that's cool, Tally." And she says something like, "Yeah, I know what you mean." Like, I'm really flattered that you would say something like that, and Tally basically implies that you were right in thinking that she meant you, but it never goes any farther than that. And every time you go up and talk to her, she says she's calibrating the engine still. - I mean, yeah, I'm pretty sure that you just can't. - Exactly. - There is one other, I think that there's one other female in the game that isn't Kelli, that you actually can initiate sex with, because-- - I don't think so. - I believe there is, because eventually, you have the opportunity to kill Samara and take her daughter. - Right. - And I believe you can initiate sex-- - You mean during Samara's mission? - Samara's loyalty quest, so where you're hunting the-- - Right. - Is it the yak? - You don't-- - You don't actually initiate sex with her. What actually happens is, 'cause I actually ran through it both ways, 'cause I was curious. I was like, well, maybe this is the one spot in the game where you can actually initiate a lesbian relationship or something, and what actually happened was she just almost takes over your mind and then Samara busts in the game. - I'm not talking about that. I'm talking like, if you can choose to let Morden kill Samara. - Yeah. - Morden will be a part of-- - Morden becomes a part of-- - Yeah, Morden becomes a part of your party. - Right, well, I didn't-- - You can initiate with her. - I didn't wanna make, I didn't wanna make, I didn't wanna make the statement that there are no lesbian and gay relationships. I'm looking it up. - I mean, there essentially aren't. There's no meaning full, there's no meaning full, like gay relationships. - And like, actually, and while we're on the relationship tip real quick, the one thing that like, really bugged me almost as much was the fact that it was a missed opportunity to do something that a game has never done before and take a relationship past the we banged level. You know, and that is, you know, take your relationship from the previous game and have that be really involved in the second game. Like, instead of Lyara being some random person that you get some quests from, you know, like, re-initiate that relationship again and make it deeper in the second game. - I mean, there are implications as to why that is. - Yeah, I know, I mean, there are good story reasons for it and like, I thought it was pretty powerful like when you first, like, 'cause my relationship was with Lyara, with Lyara. - That was fine. - Was first met. - Mine too. - Yeah, and it was like, oh, well, that's, you know, that was touching that they first met, but now they can't be together. So, but I feel like that's a missed opportunity. It's something that no game has ever done and now I'm wondering if, all right, so is every game you have a different mate? Is it like a fucking Magnum PI, you know? - I do kind of wonder about that if that's gonna play a part in the next game. Like, if the person you romance, and it implies that your crew ain't breaking up this time at the end of the game. - Right. - Assuming they survive. - Yeah, you know, I was gonna add, Matt, you know, not just your romantic relationships, but also, like, I mean, with Garris, like, there were times where I, where I felt just so scared that he would die because I have so much attachment to Garris. - Yeah, yeah. - I could have felt the same way if they would have thrown Rex in my party, you know, a few other guys, you know? - I feel like it actually, for me, Garris being in the party instead of anyone else, because basically the way it works is they're, you get Garris and Tali, right? That's it. - Yeah, yeah. - And I feel like the way that that fits in the game is mostly organic, with the exception of-- - I agree. - Ashley or Caden, who just sort of hate you because-- - Right, that seems really random to me. - It's very, that's one of the few sort of contrived moments. I mean, granted, it's in keeping with Ashley's character. I never really got to-- - It's not in keeping with Caden's character though. - I never really got to know Caden. - Yeah. - Because-- - I killed him 'cause he sucks. - Yeah, and he sounds like Karth, but he's not as good as Karth, so he's dumb. - So he had to die. - I did, that's why I killed him. - I, like, other than that, that was fine for me, but I feel like maybe I like to Garris so much because Garris was part of my posse from the first game. Like, it was always me, Garris, and Rex. - Nice. - In the first game. - Man squad. - It was. - Garris and Tali were definitely two of my favorites from the first game, so I'm glad that they were such a big-- - Yeah, and I mean, Tali was cool in concept in the last one, but not sort of like their overall, whereas in this one, I feel like she's much more fleshed out. - Oh yeah. - Like her, the flotilla mission where you go, like Tali's loyalty mission is pretty good. - It's pretty good. - It's pretty good. - Yeah, it's awesome. - I actually, it's really important to be her mission because I always felt that Mass Effect 1 was much less of a game than something like Kotor because I really always thought back to that mission on Manon where you did the trial with the son, I believe the guy's name was. I think I mentioned this the last time I was on the show without saying anything about who's it was and that sort of thing, but when I got to finally do Tali's trial mission and see the flotilla which is fresh as me at the beginning of when I first started to play, is there anywhere in the Mass Effect universe you'd really like to go and I thought to myself the flotill is the one place I'd really like to go. - And hey. - And there it was. And I got to do the mission that I felt was missing from not that I wanted exactly another trial in there, but I wanted something as deep where the conversation was as meaningful. - It was dialogue driven. - Exactly. - And it was there, I really had a great time with that. - I was actually, here's another one of my nitpicks is that the cinematic when you go to the flotilla, totally disappointing. Like ridiculously disappointing. - Like the pre-rendered cutscene, 'cause I've read the books and stuff like that and the way that they describe the flotilla is 50,000 ships that are all like hodge podge mishmash from all over the galaxy. You can't tell one, you know, like they're just like this awful collection of junk. And then you fly in and it's like, the cinematic has like 10 ships that are all the exact same. Like they just duplicate it from model. - I wanna stop, it's not even just that the books say that. If you read the description when you click on this-- - The codex, yeah. - The codex, not even the codex, you click on the thing in the galaxy map, you click on the flotilla and it says a group of 50,000 ships that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it says it right there and you see it. And it's like, oh, that looks like a hundred ships. - Design wise, like the flotilla section sort of underwhelming, like it's not a very big place because you basically go to three rooms and then on the mission. - Right. - But as far as establishing the quarians as a race, like as far as like their quirks and who they are and like their politics. - That was great. - And like their visual stylings and what it implies about their culture, it does so much and so little. - Yeah, I think last time I was here, I said that one of my favorite voice actors was on there and I now know who it is. It was a, well, the character he voices is Cal Regan, who's the guy who was on, fuck, I can't remember the name of the guy. - The place for the planet. - Well, it's the first, it's the first mission where you actually go and find Tali where the sun is beating really hot. - Yeah, that's their Quarian, it's a Quarian planet that was taken over by the Geth and then, yeah. And like you have the option of having Cal Regan like go out there in a blaze of glory with his rock launcher, you make him stay back. - That's Adam, that's on a ball boy. - Yes, and that's what I was gonna say. - Yeah, which I'm glad that he's your favorite voice actor. He is the most jarring Quarian of all the Quarians because he is the only one that doesn't have an Arabic or Persian accent. - And it wasn't, it's funny 'cause I actually thought he was a different character. I didn't think when I met him on the Flotilla, I didn't think it was the same guy that I had met on that planet. I was like, who is this? I mean, the story was, like the words he was saying was like, yeah, I've met this guy in battle somewhere before. It can't be that guy though 'cause I remember this voice. Just like even the way he says goodbye to you when he's like, you know, like I'll catch you later Shepherd, you know, whatever dumb banter it is, like just sounded so sincere. And I was like, man, that voice actor really is great right there. - It's understated. - He turned out to be Jane, who would've known him. - It's understated, which is not something I typically hear from him in a game. It's usually the Jane bravado as opposed to like the sort of loyal soldier. I'm assuming that everybody like told him to stay down and not to get himself killed. - Yeah. - Tyler, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - I got him killed. - You got him killed? - You passed. - So what, does he become significant or something? - No, well, I mean, you know, that was the whole thing. He felt like such a small character, you know, it actually turned out to be a more important voice actor than I thought it was gonna be. Originally, when I was playing the first time, I thought like, who's this random ass guy who delivered these lines so beautifully to me in this part of the game that doesn't even really matter? Like, 'cause, you know, I play in headphones and I don't know that one particular moment I was just like, I'm in it right here. Who is this Corian? And it turned out to be-- - I mean, but then again, like, you don't know if he could actually show up again in Mass Effect 3. - Exactly, I mean, it randomly got killed, you know. - For example, the green Asari. - The green Asari. - From Mass Effect 1, who is the victim of the Thorian. - She all up. - Like, she finds you and asks for your help and then implies that you will see her again because she wants to do you. - On co-op live, I use this as an exact example of one of the elements in the game where if you've played it before, you actually get a mission from her. There's a gameplay that comes from saving this woman. - And if you didn't, then you don't miss it. - And then there's also, did you play the first one? - Yeah. - Okay, so what did you do with the Rachnai? Did you kill the Rachnai Queen or did you let her go? - I played through twice and I think I killed her once and let her go one, like-- - Okay, so while I was playing the first one, I let the Rachnai Queen go. - Yeah, because she explained what had happened and it made sense to me. And so a representative of the Rachnai approaches you. I think it's on the Asari trade world. - It's on Ellium, the same place you meet Shiyala. - Yeah, so she approaches you and tells you that they have not forgotten you. - Right. - And I love that they bring that back because it implies that the Rachnai are gonna play a pretty big part in the third one. - See, that's what's so awesome about like, you can kind of see it coming together for Mass Effect 3. Like, the one thing is like, I'm glad that I had that I released the virus into the heretic guest so that they would come back and recombine with the other guests. - I think that too and I really agonized over that. - I agonized over it too, but I'm glad that I did it because they say afterwards that it made the guests stronger and I'm like, well, that's gonna be good because I'm gonna need the guest to fight off the reapers in Mass Effect 3. - I mean, but will it, what? The question is, there are decisions that I made in this game and going back to Talley's loyalty mission where I wonder if I made the right decision. Like, I helped Talley cover up what her father did with the guest. - Yeah, and I, yeah, sort of in a paragon sort of way where no one got hurt. - Well, yeah, but I mean, little white lie where no one got hurt is a really good way to pave the path for something awful to happen later. - I mean, even that there's a moment after you do Legion's loyalty mission, after you've made that choice that you're talking about where there's a cinematic on the whole of Normandy where they're fighting and they say like, Legion says, you know, I found out that Talley had this information that I felt it was important for me to send back to the rest of the getth because it will impact our survival as a race. And Talley's saying like, look, I can't let you send that back. You're putting us in jeopardy. Like, and you, you know, at that, that's the point where you as a player are supposed to make a choice between Talley or Legion on your squad. And if you have an a paragon points like I did, you can straddle the line. - Yeah, you can straddle the line and calm the situation down and keep everyone alive. - Which you can do with Miranda and Jack as well. - Exactly. - You have to have a really fucking high paragon score to do that because I have heard a lot of people on forums and online say, yeah, I was doing just fine until I fucking lost Jack's loyalty when her and Miranda fought her. I lost Miranda's loyalty when really Jack and Miranda fought. And then one of them died at the end. - I feel like that is the spot where I realized that having played the previous game as a paragon was like really helping me because it was the first time in, you know, when you're on the Normandy, that's like, you feel like that's overall game story arc missions. Whereas when you're on like any one of the planets, you're basically working on whatever's happening there. So when this thing, this very important thing happened on my ship, I was like, oh man, this one, this part's pretty fucking important. I'm glad I can calm this down right here with my paragon skills. But even if you'd done everything totally paragon up to that point in the game, I don't think you'd be able to solve that situation. - If you hadn't played the first one? - If you hadn't played the first one. - Because you get the paragon bonus at the beginning? - Exactly. I started with almost a full bar of paragon out of whatever four or five that are on the-- - I mean, I think I started pretty high, but I don't know that I had that much. - I don't know, I mean, it's maybe it is possible. - Like I maxed out the tree that increases your paragon and renegade points, like, because, I mean, like we talked about before, that's like how I like to play these games, like, having as many conversation options as possible. - It's one of the things we were talking about when we were talking about how people are saying the game isn't RPG enough. In the first game, it's almost a waste. 'Cause you do, you have to put points in to persuade and intimidate. And I'm always gonna put those points there first because that's the way I play. And I think a lot of people play it that way. So I thought it was kind of brilliant for them to just like pull it out of this game, you know? When you point points just based off your paragon and renegade-- - It's based off your actions. - What you do, how you act, the decisions you make, rather than, you know, when you put points into something in your menus, it gives you, like, a legitimate instant combat feedback option, you know, makes something very, very much stronger than it was before. - Did you also notice that there, I don't remember this ever happening in Mass Effect 1, that there are times where the paragon choice it also says lie. - Yeah. - So like, it's like BioWare saying, you know, sometimes in order to do the right thing and in order to be the best, in order to do the right thing, yeah, you need to lie to people. - Yeah, and I didn't always, like, there were times where I just didn't-- - Yeah. - But I just, like, and then, so I actually really had to think about the Geth decision. Like, I thought that that part was brilliant in that it, quote unquote, humanized the Geth. - Yep. The part that was really hard for me was, and I think one of my favorite of the loyalty missions is Mordens, actually. And also, god damn, that was, that-- - I actually-- - The Genophage, yeah. - Yeah, man, like, the Genophage part in the last game where you had to decide whether or not to destroy, like, the Krogan clones that Saren-- - And they pretty much confirmed to you in this one that it was the right decision to destroy. - That even rex and the Krogan on Tuchanka agree for the most part. - But basically, that was, I mean, you know, I think of myself as a person who can, you know, reason things out and, like, the game had me stumped. Mordens arguments were strong enough at points where I was like, no, the first time I played it, I made some decisions that I thought were incorrect and I eventually, at the kind of very end, you have the, one of the dialogue options is something like, that's garbage, that's baloney. And you tell them, like, dude, everything you're saying is bullshit, like, come on, what it came down to is, I had to, after I'd finished the mission, I thought to myself, like, no, look, the reason this is wrong is because you can't punish people, people for doing, for something that they haven't done yet. You have to wait until they act, until you can say, like, all right, look, the preventative measures are one thing, but the fact that rex was in place as the, as the chieftain when I was there and was making strides into making the Krogan better people was as much of a kind of, like an example of how things can change and why you do need to get people free will before you punish them. And I had made dialogue decisions that were wrong to in line with my beliefs during that section and I thought, wow, that's crazy that, like, the game was that convincing that my opinion could shift and I really, it fucked me up so much that I thought, no, afterwards, like, oh man, I was wrong about that. - Well, it's not just like, tonally, the game isn't gray. Like, decision-wise, it forces you into these points where you're like, well, I don't, I'm not sure what to do. Like, Morton confides in you like his responsibility for the Geno page and you have to sort of decide, like, whether or not that's something you keep in confidence and then on his loyalty mission, when you encounter his assistant who's carried on the work of ridding the world of the Geno page but doing it in a really horrible fucking war crime, like Nazi Germany medical experiments sort of way, like, you have to decide whether you destroy his research or kill his assistant or keep his research and all these different choices. And that's just another point where I had to sort of agonize and I still wasn't sure if I had done the right thing. - 'Cause, again, you don't know if it's gonna come back and bite you in the ass in Mass Effect 3. - And that thing is like, you know, like, on the choice at that part, like, I decided to, the first time I played it, I destroyed the work you'd done. The second time I kept the work, even though I'd made the right dialogue decision I thought based up until that point. And then at the last decision at the game after you defeat the giant terminator, which I'm sure we'll get to later, it was very clear to me that, oh, I'm gonna destroy everything that, you know, this stage, every piece of work they did on this station because so many people have died for it. So, you know, like, but they didn't know over the course of this one game with two similar decisions, I still made opposite choices. - Well, and I'm always like, and, you know, how we talked about before about how this clearly is a role playing game, like, sometimes I make decisions based off like me, Matt, as a person who would be in this situation, but other times I'm thinking like, what would Shepard do? - What would this commander Shepard, whose role I am constructing do in this particular situation? - For me, it's Arthur Shepard, that's what I'm playing. (laughing) - I actually have like two very distinct personalities that I'm working on, like with both of my characters, you know, I mentioned on the last taping that like, I feel that my renegade character is sort of me rewriting the Darth Vader origin story. - Yes, nice. - You know, and that's totally where I'm taking it, like where I could not believe how much I loved, like when I saw that facial scarring, I was like, oh fuck yeah. - Facial scarring is great, this goes so hand in hand with my Darth Vader, like what I'm trying to do here. And it's awesome, like now that I'm at the end of the second one, and I finished it, like my thought is that now Darth Vader is at the point where he's like wearing the mask, like at all times, and now I'm like just picturing my Shepard underneath the mask is like creamy white with like these terrible fucking scars. - But now Darth Vader still has to save the universe. - Well, I'm saving it Darth Vader's way. (laughing) - I'm like fucking Frank Sinatra of space. - I'm gonna say I like, I can't wait to do it. I'm gonna have to play through Mass Effect One as a renegade first, just so I can feel like I haven't seen the whole experience, but I've been watching over fresh shoulder, I know. I've been watching over fresh shoulder as he's been playing a renegade, and the renegade interrupts are, I mean, not that I haven't done any in my game, I have, but like, he's obviously seeing all of them, and I've seen a few. - Every single one almost ends in like 10 seconds of super sweet animated like action sequence. - That's the greatest way cool. - The renegade moment I actually did was during Miranda's loyalty quest. Like towards the end where you like, you realize that her friend is betrayed you, and that they're gonna try to take you, and like, the camera just keeps zooming over to that big crate in the background, like fucking crawling across the screen, and then it goes back to you, then it goes back to that. - Yep. - It's like, fuck it, this is what Shepard would do, and I'd just take out my pistol and like, I shoot that, and I think Miranda just like, blew away the guy in front of us. - Yep. - And I was just like, that was badass. - Yeah. - How can anything that bad ass be evil? - And the other thing is like, when I'm playing the game, again, 'cause you just assume that you're gonna always do the paragon and renegade things, they pop up in red and blue, and your eye goes to it, and you're like, oh, I can do a paragon or renegade option now, I'm gonna do that right away. Fresh was telling me about this scene. He was talking to Grunt in the ship one of the times when you ask questions about him. And if you avoid doing the renegade options, he says something, you know, it's at the point where he's trying to decide whether or not you're badass enough to like, hang with. And so he did one of the normal non-paragon and renegade options on accident, 'cause he was just being his way through the thing, 'cause he was trying to make it through a section, and Grunt somehow got mad at him, and his shepherd pulled out her gun and shot at him like four times. He like pushed her up against the wall and basically got one last shot off that nicked him and like made him pissed off enough to say like, all right, I guess I'll hang with you. It wasn't the way it would have ended on the renegade choice. It was a totally different way, totally different animations, totally different story, and I was thinking, man, there's, you know, I thought there was two ways to play this game, renegade or paragon, but really it's like, there's renegade paragon, and then there's this whole other set of options that, you know, would probably be really fun. - Yeah, all those dialogue options you never choose, 'cause they're not paragon or renegade, have outcomes that might go figure. - Yeah, I mean, there's more than two choices. - It makes, I don't know, it's just like the fact that there's as much care and as much animation and as much, you know, like action as there would be and the other options was really surprising to me. - Yeah, I was looking out for one character from the first game, it's, he comes up to you and he's a big fan of you. - Yeah, come on. - Yeah, he was in the ride. - Do you ever run into red in the Conrad Verner? - You never know him? - Where? No, I haven't. - He's on the earlier. - He's like, he's trying to shake down a bartender. - Yeah, he's like, and he's wearing in seven armor. - Like replica, in seven armor for the first game. - Right off, this part of the game is bugged. - He didn't appear for me either, so I feel like I definitely remember the character from the first game, but I must've done something where he didn't show up in two. - I mean, this part of the game, like I'm pretty sure Bioware has gone record is saying that this is bugged. Like it always assumes that you pulled a gun on him in the first one, even if he didn't. Like because it told me that I pulled a gun, I'm like, that doesn't sound like this. - I was like, I didn't pull a gun on Conrad Verner. Interesting. - I was not scared, convinced straight. - Yeah, it's like, I convinced Conrad Verner to like, stop trying to be a specter, you know? But yeah, you run into him in Ileum and he's there and he's like wearing armor that looks a lot like your armor from Mass Effect 1, and then he says, yeah, you can get some pretty convincing replicas made if you pay enough money. - The thing about the situation where he's shaking down the bartender unknowingly for the gun vendor is that there are a lot of different ways to handle this. Like you can scare him off or convince him to stop or you can investigate the gun vendor and tell him that he was fooled or lied to him. Like there are just so many ways to solve that situation that it's in, it's just such a cursory side mission. - Well, I thought it was really, I bet that that bartender is gonna show up in Mass Effect 3 as well. 'Cause there's a lot of dialogue and a lot of background history for why that bartender is there and she talks about her family and what it's like to be a matriarch running a bar and everything. Dude, this is a character that absolutely is gonna carry over in Mass Effect 3 just because she has such a rich background. But, I mean, it'd be kind of cool even if she didn't because she's just like this flavor character in this area. - Man, we better run into the fucking Shadowbroker in the third Mass Effect. - Oh, we will. That's like the ending of the game and then talk about it. - Massly R, his whole point is going after the Shadowbroker. - I mean, you know the reason that she's going after the Shadowbroker. - Yeah, and he's working with the collectors. Well, not just that because she was the one, I thought it was brilliant. She was the one that gave your body to Sarah Brooks. - Yeah, yeah. Fucking awesome. - Which, by the way, did she accidentally give you to the Shadowbroker and then had to get you back? - Yeah, she had to save you from the Shadowbroker. Yeah, like, I actually didn't find that out in my first playthrough. I only got that little bit of story from Lyara, like last night when I was playing on New Game Plus. For some reason, that particular dialogue option, I chose something else different there. And I didn't find that little bit of story. I'm like, oh shit. So when her friend got killed, it was because the two of them were going to get my body from the Shadowbroker. And I was like, wow, that's deep, man. - And I like that they manage, I feel really sorry for Bioware. And in any efforts they make to try to write stories around these games because of the sheer possibilities for player action that they don't want to tread on. Like they've made it extremely clear, just by virtue of Mass Effect 2's existence, that it's not just going to be like, we're assuming that you did this, and that's the way it is. Like something I've heard a couple of times from people this week, and this is slightly tangential, but they've wondered if my thoughts about Bioshock 2 were tainted by the kind of sequel that Mass Effect 2 is. Like if I just can't look at sequels the same way again. And I don't think that's the case, but I do think that Bioshock 2 is indicative of sort of like the old school way of doing sequels, which is either to ignore the first one entirely as far as like the main plot points, or to assume that you did something. - Gotcha, well, and like, yeah, like Deus Ex 2 assumed that you chose one particular ending from Deus Ex 1. - Yeah, out of like seven? - And I think it was only three, but yeah, same kind of thing. And yeah, so yeah, we better run into the Shadow Broker in Mass Effect 3, 'cause he was trying to sell my body of the collector's motherfucker. - What are your favorite loyalty missions? - I mean, I really liked legions too. I thought legions loyalty mission was great. - Yeah, that one was great. - And you know who had an unusually, and I think it was just because of the acting, and at Zaid's loyalty mission was pretty good. - I haven't played any Zaid at all. Like I have not had a chance. - Zaid's combat is awesome, 'cause he has the Inferno Grenade, which is awesome. - I just haven't had a chance to go back to Mass Effect 2 since I beat it for review, unfortunately. - What's cool, like, you gave me the code for the service network, 'cause I'm borrowing your copy, so I just got to play the Zaid missions with my Paragon character. And I'm gonna go get 'em now with my Renegade, I'm gonna have to go back in with the New Game Plus, but my Renegade character totally fucking put 'em in his place because I'm playing Paragon, you know, I role play, and I did a Paragon interrupt option, and basically fucking told Zaid-- - When you did a Paragon or Renegade? - It was a Paragon option. And he was like, I should put a bullet in you, this and that, for doing, for endangering the team. - Oh, right, 'cause he's watching you, yeah, yeah. - So, the interesting thing is, it seems like in Zaid's mission, you might actually have to play more if you do the Paragon options and-- - I mean, I've heard that if you play a Paragon, you can't get his loyalty, or it's extremely different. - No, I got his loyalty straight out of the way. - Everyone was loyal on my team. - And people, so just fight out, you can lose loyalty once you have it. - Yeah, oh, you can? - Yes. - How do you lose loyalty? - The Miranda and Jack's situation, the Tali and Legion situation. - Gotcha, gotcha. - Basically, it happens right after you've gained their loyalty essentially. - Yeah, 'cause once you've done both Tali and as soon as you've done Legion's mission, then they have their squabble and then, yeah, you can lose it. - Did anyone agonize over activating Grunt or Legion? - No. - No. - I definitely stood in front of that pod that Grunt was in for a while thinking, 'cause they kept stressing, like, well, I don't know if you want to do this. And I was thinking, I don't know if I want to do this. - I already had Rex on my ship, I figured he was a pretty badass program. - Yeah, I knew that he was gonna be a character because he was fricking on the box art. - Yeah, I mean, I was trying to avoid all that. Like, slightly off topic, after playing through the game, like, are you thinking back to all the shit that they fucking revealed in some of the trailers that they showed? - You know what, I avoided most of it. - I avoided most of it. - They've had giant chunks of the ending and of the last sequence in the fucking trailer for the game. - Really, wow. - I'm not surprised. It seems like that happens a lot in games now, which is why I avoid all this stuff. - Yeah. - So I have to say, my ending the first time when I beat the game was super depressing, and I'm gonna go ahead and straight up blame Jay Fresh for it. (laughing) - He played the game before I did, he played on debug, and he told me that Legion was so, he said, the last character that you unlock in your party is so cool. I can't wait to get him so that we can talk about it. And man, I waited and got him at the very end of the game, and I wish I'd had him earlier because he was so cool, I would've liked to use him in more combat situations. And I was like, all right, I'll check it out. I'll go get him as soon as possible, which means that I went to get the IFF relay, the Reaper relay, which is one of the main story missions that you do where you meet Legion, and immediately, well, not immediately, but shortly following that is when the collectors come and take everyone off your ship. - Yeah. - So, which is a rad mission, love that Joker mission. - Okay, first of all, it is awesome seeing Joker like drag his ass across the ship. You can totally get killed as Joker. - You can. - Yes, I have got killed. - That is what I mean. - If you would get killed, it would just be mission over. - Like, after, when you're going up the stairs. - Oh, it is just mission over. - When you're going up the stairs and you watch the shadows go by, like. - You can walk up too fast. - I went up too fast and got killed. - Right, you can, the first, in the first room, even though they tell you, I didn't know it was the first time I was dumb, 'cause I was like, whoa, I'm Joker. They, he tells you, like, follow the track lighting on the ground to, I miss that. So, I was like, just like walking around, looking around, I'm like, whoa, the Normandy's getting blown up, and then that, right by the galaxy map, one of the collectors comes to the door and starts, like, fighting with two of the guys that are standing in their yard. - They just take some out. - Yeah, if you stand there long enough, that one will kill you. Pretty much any of the ones you see will kill you. The worst, or the awesomest and worst part in that is when you come down the second floor, and the guy's like, Joker, stay behind me. I got you, it's no problem. He walks around the corner and immediately he gets beaten, and then you see Kelly get dragged into the elevator and the door closes and you're like, nah, Kelly. - That also has one of the funniest fucking parts in the game. - I was, that's exactly what I was going to do. - Like, where you go to the AI core, and you have to enable Edie's connection to the rest of the ship, and you're like, oh yeah, like, we're all gonna be under your thumb now. - She says, she says, oh great, more vent crawling for me. And she says, I love the sight of humans on their knees. - Yep, it's like, that was a joke. - The look on his face is priceless. - And it's funny, the first time I watched it, and I was like, that beat is so long there when he's just holding it, but it's really not. It's exactly the right length. - That was a joke. - That was a joke, and great fucking dialogue. - Oh man, that was really, really good. - That's another thing, it's just that the game is so much funnier. - Oh yeah, it is. - I never even thought of Joker as Seth Green in the first game, but in this game, he told me, I was just like, he has this. - The moment where you're told, like when you're in the cockpit, that Jack and Miranda are fighting, he's like, oh yeah, go, go see him. Take pictures. - Yeah. My favorite Joker moment is after the collector sequence that I was just talking about, and the crew gets taken, and you walk back to see how he's doing, and he says like, actually, no, man, next stop, I'm getting off the ship. I'm out of here, this is crazy, everyone's gonna think it's my fault. - Never mind, I'm okay, all right, I'm ready to save the world, it's all good. (laughing) - Okay, well I did the same thing that Ryan did, is I went and I got Legion like way too early, I went and got the Identify for Interfo signal, that's what that stands for. - Yeah, I have FF. - Yeah, really? - Yeah, sweet. - I went and I got that. - It means something, it's not just if. (laughing) - I'm a dumb gamer, I don't pay attention to this. - I went and, well, I don't think it's because-- - Totally, that is a familiar problem. - The only reason why I think I remember that is 'cause I just did the thing where the elusive man told me to go get it, and he says what it is. But anyway. - They should have brought you to go sooner than you. - They do, and like I win and I got it, and like I'm not thinking that like, oh my crew is being liquefied back at the collector base, I'm thinking this is an open world RPG where I can go and do this mission whenever I want. So I went and I explored every single planet in the fucking galaxy before I went to the collector. - I think at that point maybe I'd just been like so married to the idea that this game is gonna hold me to what I do, and like my sense of urgency that, like I think I did one mission after that, which was I finished up Liara's mission. Which was kinda cool. - Yeah. - And that like you go around to the different terminals then you have to sort of, you have to figure out that it's none of the suspects, that it's her secretary. - Right, is it, I wanna know if it's any, I mean 'cause I guess as it has to be, is it ever anyone but Liara in that situation? 'Cause I thought it was Liara because, you know, that was my relationship in the last game. No, it's all-- - It's always Liara. I mean, Liara is always the one who dealt with your body. She always felt that loyalty to you no matter what. - Well, 'cause I heard that it's kind of, you know what, the first scene of the game when you're in the ship, the ship's going for it. - Well yeah, that can be kyden, that can be-- - That can be Kayden, Ashley, an unnamed character. Liara, it can be lots of different characters. - Okay, I really thought that the part that Liara played should've and could've been played by probably three or four characters from the-- - I thought it was actually really cool that, I mean, Liara on Ilium was really interesting and I like that it referenced that she was not her mother, that for better or for worse, she's making her own decisions because it did cross my mind that she's like, you are kind of freaking me out right now. You're a little scary, like talking about how like, if I got near the Shadowbroker, there wouldn't be enough, like, they would need to scrape up what's left of him after I throw my biotics at him. - Yeah, exactly. - Like, you were an archeologist. (laughing) - Yeah. - But, well, I mean, like, to go back to the collector stealing everybody off your ship, it's like Ryan and I both spent, like, that whole last part of our game in a ghost ship. - Yeah. - And it's so, it's so crazy because like, there's no, 'cause when you're walking around the ship normally, there's, you know, the audio effects of background, well, the incidental dialogue, definitely, but there's also like just background audio of the chatter, you know, and it's like, that's gone. Your ship feels so, so silent. - It's a ghost ship. - Yeah, and so, like, my ending, like, up until the, my triumphant saving of the day, even though, like, most of my crew got, all of my crew got liquified except for Chocolos, the, it was still, it was still kind of a depressing end, but Ryan's was like, even more depressing, 'cause he had his end on top of the ghost ship thing. - Okay, so, yeah, I lost the crew. And, okay, well, so first off, did you do the upgrades? Did everybody do the, like, all the ship upgrades they did? - Yeah, I had every upgrade. - So that was totally obvious to everyone. - Yeah. - If I, well, my guess, I should probably outfit myself as best it says I can. Apparently, a lot of people didn't. - I actually wanna do a playthrough with various upgrades installed in once, like, I'd like to see, I wish I could go through, I wish I had the PC version, 'cause, like, that girl, that woman who made all the saves of Mass Effect 1, so you can, you know, pick and choose every version of her possible ship. You know, like, I wanna save files for the next game that are the same way, so that I can go in with, like, you know, only one character survived for my party. All right, my whole party survived, all that stuff, 'cause I think it would be really interesting to just try it out, and different upgrades. That was my favorite part. So, the closing act of this game, as Matt put it on our show, is like a choose your own adventure game. There's lots of decisions that get paid. And what was really moving to me from the first moment is, like, you go through the Omega 4 relay, the game's been building up to this the whole time, and you start watching what is essentially just a cinematic sequence, but you can tell, at least on Xbox anyway, when you're playing it, it'll, like, play a little video, then it goes to black for a few seconds, and then it comes back, you can tell when it's loading, it's, like, checking all the data and the variables. - It didn't load for me, but it might be because I had the disk installed. - Oh, yeah. - It seemed less like it would be cinema, real-time cutscene, pre-rendered, real-time cutscene. - It wasn't a long load. Like, a fraction of a second. - I'm not even that. - Just long, that's what I mean. Like, that's what made it cool, is it was just long enough to know, like, oh, it's thinking right here. So, I can really tell that every single one of my decisions was being calculated, like, you know, do you survive this blast by the collectorship here? Do you, you know, and of course, it was down to what upgrades you had and all the, you know, but it was nice to see that it was thinking about that, part was not a video. - Yeah. - Yeah. - See, I had, I had three of my team members die right here when you come out of the relay. - Really? - Wow. - Yeah. - Right away? - That, yeah. - So, what parts did they die on when the collector shot at you? - Yeah, so, so when we got shot, Jack was standing at the terminal and she got it. - Whoa. - She got totally blown up. - Oh, wow. - Did you not have the shield upgrades and stuff for sure? - I don't know. I mean, I did, I did do ship upgrades. I don't know if I did them all. I mean, pretty much everyone upgrades the ship. - Yeah, you have to do one upgrade for every one of your cast of characters. - Yeah, which is, man, that's fucked up, especially if your romance, Jack, because getting the paramour achievement with her is like, not what you expect. - That's cool. - I mean, do you know? - No, I don't. - Okay. - I really, I'm gonna spoil this for you. - I'm gonna play it as a dude and I'm going to romance the fuck out of Jack. - Are you telling me I can't spoil something on the spoiler segment of our podcast? (laughing) - I prefer if you didn't, but if you must, go right ahead and I have to stop you. I have to. - All right, dude. - Just tell me. - For the listeners who did. Okay, so fucking Jack does not get you the paramour achievement. If you have sex with Jack, that romance option is closed to you. - Nice. - Nice. - Basically, the paramour, like the paragon, paramour route with Jack is cuddle time and she cries. - Nice. (laughing) - And so like for you to bond with someone like that, like after all that time and then for her to die at the console, that's fucked up, man. (laughing) - Yeah. - It's like a Captain Kirk death. - I know, yeah, and then like when we crashed, a fucking giant steel bar went straight through Thane. - Oh my. - Oh. - Straight through him. - Oh my god. - Oh my god. - And I was like, oh. - Geez. - And Thane is so awesome. - And like this is exactly what I was talking about the last week I mentioned, like when I watched Saving Private Ryan, I was nervous the whole time because I never knew who was going to be taken from me from the screen. - Yeah. - And like that's how I felt at this moment. It's like from here on to the end, I have never been more engrossed in a video game in my life. - Yeah. - Man, that's even worse than my, like how tense I felt 'cause I just didn't even occur to me that it would start wiping out people that quickly. - I thought it was possible, like I said, because it was doing all these loads, but I knew that I had gotten all the upgrades that I could possibly get. I'd double checked every guy to make sure I had every single thing before I went through. - And I mean, Thane is like, if you're a female shepherd, Thane is like one of the prime romance interests. Like one of the reasons they put Thane in the game, actually, is to have a hot alien love interest for female characters. - Right, because the only other option was Jacob. - Or Garris. - Or Garris, yeah. - Garris is not hot. He's got the range, he's got the flexibility, you know. - I like the part where it's like you're romancing as a female shepherd, you're romancing Thane and Morden says something about kissing Drell and how that you can get, it's like, you know, licking a poison frog, basically, you can-- - So you got you high. - You get high. - You get high. - That's awesome. - And I need to lick a Drell. - So you lost three people there. So you lost Jack, you lost Thane, who else did you lose? - Okay, so those are only two people I lost on the way in. - I lost two more during this ending. - So at the very beginning, they start asking you questions like which way do you want to go? And I always ask, like, there's got something like, should we blow our way in or should we just like, do something and then just look for other options? - It determines your urgency for rescuing your crew, like, or what priority it is. It's like, well, I mean, the mission is what's most important and this is actually the amount of time that you guys took to go into the Omega-4 relay is not the only thing that affects whether or not your crew lives. - Really? - Like the amount of urgency you demonstrate and the amount of care you demonstrate for whether or not your crew lives determines to a large part whether part of your crew lives or dies. - On my second playthrough, I knew this 100% exactly what you're saying. So I was very urgent about saving my crew. But my first time through, I think I made a mistake. And plus, I had taken forever to get there, like Matt said, 'cause we'd done every fucking mission in the entire universe before getting there. - So at the ending, I mean, like, did you just go, like, let's blow through the front doors to try to save your crew or did you actually do the alternate route? - I did the alternate route, but I made the mistake of missing the piece of text that tells you it makes perfect sense. So dumb, like I said, I miss the small details sometimes. It tells you to put a technician in the pipes. - Right, in the pipes, yeah. - I missed it. - Oh, you didn't do that? - No, no, I did put someone in the pipes, but I missed the thing where it told me to put a technician in the pipes. - Oh, no. - So I was thinking not as shepherd, I was thinking, all right, who would, if I had to let someone die, who would be okay? - They did. - I threw Jacob in the pipe. - Oh, man. - So this is where I actually had to pause the game and walk, I was at work when I did this. And I had to pause the game and sort of pace around my desk for a while, thinking this out, because it's not just, you have to determine who's going through the tube and who's going to lead the fire team? - Yeah, right. - And that whole time, I was just thinking as shepherd. - Exactly. - I was like, okay, who can go through the tube? - How would Commander Shepherd see the situation? - Who can do this? And I will admit that I thought, okay, if someone has to die, who can I do without? And who has the biggest chance of success? And that, for me, that was Legion. - Legion's a very good person, I chose. - I thought I was going to send Tally through that tube after all the work it took to get that mask off. (laughing) - Well, for me, I threw in Tally because I thought if anybody could do it, she could. - That's what I thought, too. - That's what I thought, too. - And some people did. I mean, I've heard people say that Tally died in the tube for them, or Legion died in the tube. - What? - Well, anybody can die in the tube. - Anybody can die in the tube. - Anybody can die in any tube. - Yeah, yeah, if you take too long. - If any tubes are deadly in effects. - Series of tubes. - If you take too long to open the doors, they fry. I mean, there's a little health meter there that shows you it. - And they'll remind you over the come and it's all shepherd I need to move on. - Yeah, like I did, so the very first time that I did this sequence, I chose Tally for the pipe because I did see the thing that said technician. And I chose Zaid for the fire team leader. - Oh, that would be such a bad idea. - Because while Miranda said like somebody with experience, I'm like, in his description, it says a veteran, like the most rizzled veteran of everything, you know? And I was like, all right. So, and he's been in a mercenary company forever. But what happened is that like, you know, when they're trying to push the doors shut after you meet in the middle, so to speak. - Yeah. - Tally got capped in the head. And I was like, 'cause they're like, get in here, get in here. We're pushing the door shut. And then Zaid goes to the door and is shooting out the doors of the collectors as you're trying to close it. And he's like saying, like, shoot him back. He can give him back. And then Tally just gets popped right in the head. - For me, it was more than, more than died right there and died right there. - Oh, oh, oh. - Same situation. - All those people that are dying are like the people that would hurt the most. - Exactly. And so what happened, so I was like, no, no way is Tally gonna fucking die. And so I went to my previous save and they don't let you, they don't let you save. - But they don't save in there at all. - And so before you go through the omega relay. - You did it all. - Oh, I totally did that, not only that, but I have a post-it note attached to my TV at work that says the save number before going to the omega relay. - And so like I went back through and did it all again and I was like, all right, I am Commander Shepard. Who do I trust to lead the fire team? 'Cause Tally clearly can make it through the tubes, but this is clearly based off who I, whether or not the person goes to the tubes. Yeah, and I'm like, all right, I'm choosing Garris. - Because Garris let all those mercenaries on Omega. - And then I chose, so I chose Garris and then when they're trying to push the doors shut, Garris that time, he went like, suppressing fire, keep them off them. And like he said it and like everybody lined up and was like firing, suppressing fire out the door and we got it shut and nobody died. - Which makes sense because Zaid is like this grizzled veteran, but he's also a loner douche guy. - He's out for himself, yeah. - I did it also, my second time through, when I didn't fuck it up, I did it with Garris and I know for a fact you can do it with Miranda as well. Miranda, you can have lead both of the fire teams. - I think Jacob can lead the fire teams. - I would imagine that Jacob can lead. - But that all makes sense because they all have experience-- - All leaders. - You know what's weird though? Like when we had the decision to kill Samara or her daughter, like it was super late and I accidentally chose to kill her daughter, but you know, it was my renegade playthrough and I wanted to save the daughter, but like it was one of those things where I juked myself to picking the wrong one. - Yeah, right. - So I tried to reload and see if I could do it differently, but it wouldn't let me. Like when it came to that decision, it was like set in stone. The decision did not come up. It just played the cinema of me killing her. - Whoa, whoa, whoa. - Yeah. That's not the way that's supposed to be at all. - I mean, actually that's kind of awesome. - It's not like that for y'all. - No, so no, that's right. We know you made us join us. - See, that's what I thought every choice was from that experience. - I had no, I mean, I don't know. - As far as I know, you can, Samara can be the one that dies and you end up with a different party member. - Yeah, yeah. - You end up with-- - Morinth. - Morinth. - Yeah. - Who has a different power, who has different abilities. - Yeah, and I tried to reload and get her, but-- - I, this is, in the last mass effect, there are definitely points where I'd save and try something over and over again. I actually never did that. - Yes. - I didn't either. Oh well, except for that I played the entire ending again. - Right. - But it wasn't just the ending. I played the entire second half of the game again. Basically what happened is I chose the wrong fire teams I lost Mordin in the part where you lost Tali. - Right. - I lost, who else? - So second part where you have to pick a biotic and a fire team leader. - I chose Samara and that is the obvious choice and the biotic team. - Is that when, when you discover the fate of your crew, I think? - Yes, and I was like Matt where Dr. Chaka was lived, but that was it. - Okay, so I walked up and I actually got everybody out. - Wow. - The first time. 'Cause I was like, the whole time I was playing this, I'm like, I am spivin' this fuckin' suicide mission. All these people are getting through and God damn it, my crew is comin' home. - Nice, so like, but I thought you were saying earlier that it depended on how you went through the pipes and stuff like that. - Well, I don't really-- - Isn't it that part? Like how you go through the pipes so I don't know that that affects whether or not the crew survives? - Right, gotcha. - I think the manner in which you express the urgency of saving your crew. - There's about two or three dialogue options around the IFF relay mission and going through the Omega-4 reactor where you get the choice to say things like, "We gotta move now, I'm getting the crew out of here." - Or you say, "Well, we'll keep an eye out for the crew, "but the mission is what's most important." - Right. - And I was like, "No, fuck that, the crew comes home." - Right. - Basically, anytime you have the opportunity to say something about saving the crew as fast as humanly possible, and if saving the crew is something you wanna do, you gotta choose those options. - It'll be interesting to me to read it, to read a fact, maybe it's out there already, but to read a fact, yeah. It'll be interesting for me to find out if it's based just off whether or not you go right into the mass relay after the IFF mission or if it actually is based off dialogue choices like that because I learned from Dragon Age that there are, at least in, there are game designers at BioWare that'll make critical game-changing things happen off of what seem like incidental dialogue. - Yeah. - That's, and- - And I mean, I'm fairly certain. - I'm really certain that they said that that happens a lot in mass and it moved on past afterwards. - It feels more definitive when you make those decisions, right? - Okay, so after you either find the crew or watch them become liquefied. - Then there's the second part where there's a second fire team. - Well, you also, like I had to make the decision as to who to send, if they were gonna go back by themselves or if I was gonna send someone back with them. - Right, I sent Jacob back with them and they got, and he and Dr. Chalkwas got back fine. - Okay, so- - I sent, oh, go ahead. - I was just gonna say I sent the doctor back by herself. She was the only one left. - Did she make it? - Did she make it? - No. (laughing) - Ryan? - I sent back Legion both times, I played the game and he made it back safely with Dr. Chalkwas the first time and the crew the second time and everyone was fine. - I sent Grant because I figured that if anyone was a one man army, it would be him. - Did it work? - And I just never, yeah, they all survived. He made it back safe. And I, honestly, like I thought Grant was awesome. Like he was actually a pretty cool Kurugan and I was worried that he wouldn't be and his loyalty mission was awesome. But I just, I didn't use him very much. - I used to want. - So I sent him back. I was like, well, I'm not gonna want him again. - Did you ever see Grunt when he had his environmental helmet on? - Yes, helmet is awesome. And like when he speaks the bottom plate moves. (laughing) - That's awesome. - So yeah, next part, you have to pick a biotic. - Yeah. - To maintain your field and another, and again, you have to pick a fire team leader. So I picked Garris again. - So did I. - Man, Garris did great the last time. - Yeah. - I chose Garris and Samara. - Yeah, that is what I did and it worked fine. - I used Miranda as my fire team leader in Samara. - Cool. - Cool. - That's what everyone did fine there. - Yeah, yeah. - Regardless of the biotic you pick, they can't get carried off by those things. - Regardless of the biotic? - Yeah, I mean, it just depends on how fast you move because there's a point where Samara looks weak. - Oh yeah, that's great. - Well, I looks great when they do that too. - It's not how fast you move. I thought that she only moves at her own pace. I was like only moving when she-- - And near the end she'll say speed up. And I mean that-- - Well, I mean, I was only moving as she was moving is like I, 'cause I can't leave her little bubble. - One thing I couldn't tell if it affected it, but I was hoping that maybe it did because I was putting points into it. Do you know how every single character has like their one attribute that you put points into that increases their health and their, you know, their kind of basic stats? I tried to make sure that every single one of them was at least level three, if not level four, before going into the end, just in case there was, it was tracking things like hit points during these sections that they would have enough to make. - Like there's an invisible DM. - Exactly right. - I just auto-leveled on my people, honestly. - Oh, really? - Yeah. - Crazy dog. (laughing) - Micromanaging is like so much fun, especially when there's-- - Micromanaging should have mine like, I respect my guy four or five times, but-- - Just your guy. - Yeah, just my guy. - So, but I mean, no, your biotic can get carried off, they can die there. - Wow, interesting. - Well, I know they can die, but I thought it was only if you chose the wrong biotic. - I don't think so. I mean, Jack is pretty powerful. I know that some people have gotten through with Jack, but I think it might also have to do with how fast you kill people. - That, I could believe that too, yeah. - See, that's funny because I really thought that in this section, one of the most interesting things is that, and I'm gonna take it back now, 'cause you're right about the tube section, there's a little bar that shows you if you don't open the next hatch in time, yes, something bad can happen. But aside from that thing, where there's a visual indicator on screen, I'm fairly certain that your combat skills, how fast you kill things in this section, don't affect the outcomes, all based on the decisions you made going through, so that, I really think, like a person who wasn't, like, as down with the shooter-based combat, let's say you're playing it on EZ, you would, it would be your decisions that determined who lived or died during this section, not how fast you killed the collectors. - I'd be curious to pick someone from BioWare's brain as to how all the scripting worked, although I don't know that they'd ever tell us, 'cause that's like telling us how the sausage is made. - Yeah. (laughing) - So I made it through that part with everyone alive. - Yeah, me too. - Everyone else did too. - My second time, I did everything with everyone alive, 'cause I figured out the formula, I know how they made the sausage. (laughing) - You have to pick a fire team leader one more time? - No, at this point, you decide who comes with you and everyone else stays to hold down the fort. - Yeah, okay. - Yeah. - So I brought, I think, Morden and Miranda? - I brought, yeah, I brought Morden and Miranda as well. - Or no Morden and Thane, because when-- - I brought Morden and Miranda. - My positive aspect too was always either Morden and Garris, or Morden and Thane or Garris and Thane. - I used everyone in the game, that's one of my favorite things in the game. - I mean, occasionally I'd bring other people. - No, I mean, I really like every mission switched it up 100% of the time on purpose, like this was really fun. - I brought Morden and Miranda to kill the Terminator. - I killed, I brought Miranda the first time and then saw a cool gameplay sequence happen at the end with the elusive man, that where she shuts him up and turns him off. And so I knew that was gonna happen, so the second time I took Miranda again on purpose to make sure that-- - Yeah, it was so cool, 'cause yeah, you take Miranda with you and after you've killed the final boss and everything, like the elusive man, it's where the elusive man gives you the choice of salvaging the collector technology for Cerberus or destroying it, and I chose to destroy it. - Well, he doesn't give you the choice, like he implores you to save the time. - Yeah, yeah, but I mean, you have the choice. - Yeah. - And I was like, no fuck that, we're destroying this whole thing. This is too dangerous to live, yeah. And the elusive man says, 'cause it's coming through like Miranda's Omni tool. And he orders Miranda to stop you from doing it, and she just cuts him off midsection. - Says, consider this my resignation, be you. - Yeah, and cuts him off. - Fucking awesome. - I was like, that is so fucking sweet. - And that's loyal. - And fresh was playing it, and he was watching me do it, and he said, oh man, I had something like that happened back on the ship, but Miranda wasn't with me during this part of the game. So her moment with the elusive man happened much later. - Yeah, that for me had happened at the ending, yeah. So I wasn't offended by the last boss. Like I thought it was a little hokey, but like it was fairly in keeping with the other stuff that they had already talked about, like and I don't think that the reapers would give a shit that it looked silly to have a giant human figure. - I thought it looked dumb, but that they storied it up enough to explain it away basically. - Like I respect John Davison in his opinion on this is fine, I disagree with knocking the game a full point. - See what what I don't understand though is, and I've been trying to figure out a story reason for this, and I can't think of one, is if they construct the reapers based off the organic DNA, liquefying the DNA of the race, and then the reapers supposed to take on the identity of that race, how come every single other reaper they've ever shown in the game, and the cinematic that they show at the end of the game, all the reapers look like exactly the same squid. - Like the sort of hand, hand of the tail. - I mean, I'm assuming it looks like hand. - That's either what they were originally or that's another species that they took over. - Yeah, but the thing is, they imply that they do this to species every time they come back to harvest the galaxy, that they do this, that this is how they reproduce. They reproduce by harvesting the galaxy and making new ones of themselves. So has every single species ever, since the beginning of the time, looked like a hand, except for this particular generation. - No, I just get the impression that they, because they actually are taking the resources from every living thing in the galaxy at once. Like when they, that's the whole point, is let everyone build up until their space varying. Come in, fucking melt everyone down. They probably get enough resources. I mean, this is freaking nerdy and dumb, but they probably get enough resources from that melting down of everything to rebuild their entire fleet in the image of whatever. They need to be the master version at that particular time. Does that make sense? - All right, yeah, I'm satisfied with that. I mean, like, who knows? - Lovefest continues. - John Davison is right, it looks dumb. Like I can't imagine how, I mean-- - It looks really cool when it's falling apart though. - They could have done so many smaller things. - That is, like, if you really had tens of thousands of like humans and other humanoid creatures like feeding into this thing, they could have made it really dirty and gross looking and fucking with ice coming in and out. - I'm really glad though that it wasn't just some like fucking meat monster. I'm so tired of having meat monster. - I would have liked to have seen a giant regular ass reaper to take down halfway built and stuff. - Yeah, I think maybe it was designed to inspire horror that like this is what it's doing with all the humans, that it's like creating a new reaper in their image. Like it's human, blah, blah, blah. - With four weak points on it, that glow red and... - Yeah, I think it probably could have just been done a different way where it's like, you know, it's internal organs look like human internal organs or something like that. - Or it's just like made of human bodies like some of the other like abominations where... - Just something that doesn't look like a Terminator. - I wish that there would have been a way to end the experience with either a giant battle or dialogue options where you could basically like, you know, you could finish it without having to pull out a gun basically. - I actually think that, I mean, this may not be correct, but I think that if you choose not to destroy the base, that there's not that whole ending sequence where everything is crumbling and you're running away. - Yeah, but that's after you fought the thing. - I chose not to destroy. - Oh, you chose, did you have any sequence where you run away? - I remember having to run away, yeah. - Okay, oh well. - Like escape. - Yeah. - I mean, it was easy, right? - Like there wasn't, it wasn't really doing anything, it was just like a cutscene. But I know that like at that point, I was super paranoid because we jumped off a thing and some of us got buried in rubble and fell and my character got up and looked at Thane and pulled him up and he was alive. And then we went over to Morden who was buried under rubble. - Yeah, I remember my game about that. - And there was like this really like fucked up, when we were like, "Oh fuck, I lost Morden." - Right. - But he's alive, but other people lost Morden at that point. - Really? - Wow. - Yes. - Like you can lose characters at that point. - Right. - Every point we've talked about, people have lost character. - There's still a point that we got to where I lose another one. - Wow, what happened to you? - The jumping. - When we're running back, Jacob catches one and falls. - Oh yeah, no, yeah, I caught, who was it? I think Thane in my first playthrough caught a random bullet around this time in the game as well. It's just like-- - What the fucking shit is over and something's gonna die. - I ended up losing my entire crew and three major crew members. - So, my first playthrough. - At this point, after talking with Will Tuttle, a game spy a lot, like the only possible way we can think of that you, Shepherd, would not survive the suicide mission is if you lost every crew member. And as you tried to jump into the Normandy, there was no one there to grab you or it was Joker that tried to grab you. And he couldn't hold you. - I mean, it's-- - That seemed like, 'cause they made, I mean, granted, it's supposed to be like this super dramatic slow-mo jump, but I really did feel like this is the part where I could die. This is the part where I could die, it occurred to me. And the thing is like I knew, like talking to other people, like I knew going in that I could lose people, like Eric Brodwig from IGM, like did a second playthrough before I had finished mine, like where he just went through the game as fast as he could and he lost everybody. - Wow. - Did he lose Shepherd too? - I don't know if he lost Shepherd, I don't know, but he lost every party member. - You can lose Shepherd, everyone knows this, right? - I mean, that's what they say, like I'm not sure. - Yeah, you can't, you can't. - I'm pretty sure I've heard online like the people that lost Shepherd. - No, there is a cool tip in the game. You can, well all I'm saying is you can lose Shepherd and now it is clear they've said 100% that if you lose Shepherd, your save file just doesn't import in three. - So it's a Shepherd, but not your Shepherd. - You start over a new, like if you're starting a new game, you do not, your character is just not importable. - I'm gonna be really interested to see how that, they play that. - Well no, he's saying he started Shepherd is just not yours. - No, you literally have to start a new Mass Effect 3 game. You can go through Mass Effect 2 again and try to have a different outcome but your gameplay where Shepherd died, they said they felt like you couldn't, it couldn't have been a suicide mission if you couldn't die and if the consequences for dying weren't like real and they're super tangible. - I just hope that like the possibility for so much character death doesn't mean that like none of those characters are important in the next game. - I know exactly what you mean. - Yeah. - I know what you mean. And that's why I wanted to have saves. Like I'm glad that I did it wrong the first time. One because it was super, I'm sure your playthrough was very similar. It was like, like you said, the most emotional, the hardest decisions, the worst I felt after a game ending, but still like in, wholly impressed by the experience. But I was to press that night, I thought I couldn't sleep and I thought, man, I'm a bad Shepherd. Like, when I was like, man, when I beat that, I was so fucking uplifted as it went through like the Normandy showing everyone. - Showing everyone. - And they're shit wired and like, yes, sir. And I'm like, fuck, yes, I'm Commander Shepherd. That's the right you worship me. You all lived. - And Jack is like cocking your gun and she nods at you like respect. - Yeah, exactly. That's right. I am the man who lived. - My worry is like, you know, I was watching the co-op show you guys did live and you played the side by side clip of Ashley and Caden. - Yeah. - And it's like, it basically showed you, it didn't make a shit difference. Like what choice you made of who to survive, who survived in the first one. I mean, the only difference that mattered was who was in the cut scene. - That on that particular one, but the Rex decision is like much more important. - Right, yeah. - I kind of wonder if that's maybe just because no one liked Ashley or Caden. - I do. - Like 'cause I don't know of anybody that liked either of those characters in the last game. - I liked both. - Wow, I didn't like either of them. - No, I didn't like either. - Free of nature. - Yeah, I guess so. - I liked them. - I liked every other character better than the characters. - I sneer your-- - I guess I do like other characters better, but I still liked them. - I mean, I did agonize over who to sacrifice in the first one, yeah. - Yeah, oh, I'm not saying I did agonize. I'm just saying like, I hope a lot of these big decisions don't turn out to be just that. Like it just determines who's in the cut scene. - So I know exactly what you're saying. See, my big, I'm hoping that Mass Effect 3 is like, it takes over and I'm pretty sure it's gonna work this way is some characters from Mass Effect 1 come back and then you have some characters from Mass Effect 2 and those make up your party. They'll probably introduce some new people on top of that. - Yeah, and it's-- - Yeah. - Like I am already more hyped for Mass Effect 3 than I was for the first and second game combined. - Yeah, Mass Effect 3 is gonna be the game where you unite the entire living organic and guess galaxy against the Reaper threat which you see at the ending of the game, thousands of ships coming at you. I mean, man-- - Which really made me glad that I saved the Rachnai at the end of the first game. - And then you spared the guess. - And I spared the guess. - And I'm like the-- - The Progen like you. - I can't have a think like, can't wait to go to the Turian homeworld, can't wait to like hopefully get a better look at the migrant fleet this time. Like I wanna go see the Solarians, I wanna meet the Hana, I wanna go to the place where the Hana are, you know. - But what I worry about is like, how could they possibly live up to this? Like that is like, that will literally be like the most like far reaching epic game. - Because Mass Effect sold millions and millions of copies and they can throw a giant team at the game. - I mean, it's already, tech is already, they're already working on it. - Yeah, I'm hoping like, I hope we get a lot more weapons this time around, like I know, you know, one of the big trade off was to make the differences in the weapons more significant. I hope that they can continue that like, you know, there's a reason for each one of these types of weapons, but like still just give us a little more, you know. - I don't mind the loot being gone, but I'd really like some more loot. - No, I understand what you're saying. - I mean, you know, the way Call of Duty does, you know, assault rifles and all these things very differently and different fields. - Like a reason to switch between the different kinds that you get for example. - Yeah. - There's a reason to have a switch between the-- - Yeah, between the heavy weapons, I mean. - Well, no, the assault rifle, like the basic one just, you can hold it down and it's a spray and pray, but the second tier assault rifle is extremely precise five shot bursts. And then you have the, oh, well, if you have the DLC, then you have the collector assault rifle. - Yep. - And then-- - For the collector's edition. - Yeah, right. All right, you're right. - The collector's edition gives you the collector's gun. - Yeah. - And then they just released that free DLC yesterday where you can get-- - With the terminus shotgun. - Or the Cerberus shotgun. - The Cerberus shotgun, which is super sweet. - How did you know that? - Yeah, there was, and a free armor yesterday. - Which-- - But I don't wear any of the armor 'cause it covers my face. - Yep. - And I'm gonna be honest with you, I was wearing face armor when I re-encounded Lyar for the first time and we kissed through the mask. - That's, it was super anti-climactic. I was like, I can't fucking believe I did this. That mask is never going back on. - This is not a, like, I'm not saying that they're right about it 'cause I do wish you could take on and off the mask. I mean, just take it off for cutscenes where you see your face, whatever. But I think when I go through my renegade playthrough, one of the things that, you know, kind of like the way you were saying about your Darth Vader and you like the scars and hiding your face and all that, I think my renegade, it's gonna, I'm gonna be okay with wearing the helmets and wearing the armor. Like, that's just gonna be part of his character as he hides himself away from the wall. - The scars look so badass in your eyes glow. - So wait, at the beginning of the game, my idea was that at the beginning of the game and from as soon as I can, I'm gonna wear helmets and stuff and then not 'til, like, the last act of the game. - Oh, take it off. - I'm gonna take off my helmet and he's gonna be fucking badass and scarred and like, you know. - Yeah. - Like the one helmet. - You are fucking nerd. (laughing) - Get this sort of helmet on the-- - Death mask. - Yeah, the death mask, you know, that I have my renegade wearing that and it alters the voice a little bit. - And, oh, it does? - And just a little bit, it makes it sound like-- - I did that a little too, yeah. - Sick. - And it's got, it doesn't have like, the little thing in front of the mouth, like the lights. - It might. - Oh man, I never put it on. I just, it increases both your Paragon and Renegade scores. I do know that. - So it's tempting. - So it's tempting. - Intimidation or something. - Intimidation or persuaded. - Yeah. - Okay. - And it looks cool too. - Yeah, it does look cool. Jesus Christ, it's like 10, 20. - So yeah, this game made me sad the first time I played it, so I had to go back to a save file that was 20 hours early. I'd put 41 hours into the first time and then I went back to a save at 20 hours and played again. And by the time I was done the second time, my clock's at 52 hours, so I put 70 some odd hours into this game. Just to finish my one regular Ash Shepherds play through, so now I have a save file. - I don't know why you didn't just start New Game Plus instead of going back to it. - It was a snafu because on the, I don't know if it's the same on the PC version, on the Xbox version, you can have a certain number of saves and that's it. - 32. - 32. - And somehow, remember I came into your room and asked you like, how do you do New Game Plus? I can't figure it out. I go to start a new game and it says import ME1 character, but I turned out that after I beat the game, my, it auto saved, but it didn't get a real, I forgot to real save after it. So, I lost that save. So, I have a save before I go through the Omega 4 relay. - But that's your last one. - But I'm gonna have to do that 90 minutes again, lose all those characters again, feel like a total bastard and then save it, and I'll have that one, and then I have my save right, I saved everyone, which was, I'm glad I did it, that's the way I wanted to play it, but far less emotional. Like, I figured out the systems at that point, I knew exactly, I knew I was gonna save everyone. - Right. - And so, it was not as fun. So, I'm glad I have that. - So, even though you finally got the good ending and the achievement, you've experienced the pain of the bad ending, and that's, it was far more moving, far more realistic, like that was cooler to me. - To me, we almost shouldn't qualify it as like bad or good. Like, Ryan, to me, it sounds like, man, your first ending, you know, it's like what you're saying, it was so much more impactful for you. Like, man, you should have just left it at that. Like, in movies, we don't have that decision, you know? We leave no country full of men thinking, God damn, this is a fucked up planet. (laughing) - But that's the beauty of video gaming, is that there's, that did happen, and I don't lose it. Like, I mean, I just explained how I did sort of things, but I mean, you know. - So, your consequences lead to these things. - And it's fun to go in and figure out how the systems work, and because the first time it was like magic. It was totally, I was mystified the entire last, I was like, why is this happening? Like, dumb things, like, right? I missed the thing that said, put a tech expert in the pipe, like, that was a dumb mistake. - Well, man, if I think if I had gone through it, like, if I hadn't reloaded because I was so upset at losing Tali, I think I only would have lost Tali at that ending sequence, but. - And her crew. - And that would be the death of my crew. I still lost my crew. - That'd be the death that haunts your shepherd until the end of Mass Effect 3. - Yeah, exactly. But like, I, but I, I was out and I went back and I did it and I saved everybody. And, but at the end of it, it, I was exactly like you, Arthur. I felt like so totally triumphant that I was like this. Yes, I am Commander fucking Shepherd and I just ruled the galaxy. - And this Max Effect. - Favorite store? - The Citadel. - Favorite store in the Citadel. - So finally, really quick. - Oh, okay. - This is one. - I was just gonna say, like, I'm with you Tyler and I actually think you're right. And I sort of wish I had done it that way, especially since I've played the game and got the good ending. And I didn't feel the same feelings that I felt. I'm gonna make a point. I know Heavy Rain's coming out and it's sort of the same way. You can lose your characters, the consequences of what you really matter. - Yeah, that doesn't really just go back and save. Like that game just auto saves. There's no staggered saves. - So I'm getting myself in the spirit right now so that when I play Heavy Rain, I'm gonna let the cons, I'm gonna play the ball as it lies. - The only way to change that is deposit is something that happens and turn the system off. (laughing) - Ordinarily, I would do this. I'm not opposed to doing this. - It's so enclosing because we've been going for an hour and a half. Good on BioWare for actually, this being the first time that they've ended a game in a good way that allows DLC to make sense, since you can keep going around the fucking galaxy after you finish the game. And if you didn't save your crew, then it's still your ship. And if you didn't save your crew, then everyone's back and happy. (laughing) - Couldn't deal with the crew being lost. I had to have lost every one of my main characters, but it was that being on the go ship in the end really. - Well, yeah, because the squad are the ones that are supposed to be on the suicide mission. The crew is like, "Oh, too bad that Captain died." (laughing) - Kelly was feeding my fucking fish. (laughing) - I bet she didn't feed a goddamn thing. (laughing) I wish I could have seen her turn into a blood bubble. (laughing) - But save Kelly. - But I hope that they give us good meaningful DLC, because I mean, I hear this, I hear stuff is okay, but the norm in the crash side stuff is kind of okay. I think it's pretty impactful if you go, if you do it right away at the very beginning of the game. - Yeah, I mean, it was impactful for me when I did it, but it was, it wasn't a ton of content. - No, it was not a lot, but it was free. - It's neat. - It's neat. The new armor that just came out, not the best, the shotgun, pretty fucking cool. And not only that, the story behind, you know, like if you read about how weapons will work in the Mass Effect universe, it's that they're, you know, they're shaving off little slivers of matter and firing it out at a high speed. The new shotgun, like, shaves off wedges, so they're more aerodynamics, so the gun works at longer range, you know, like the story for us all day. - They say that violates little weapons ban treaties. - Exactly, so soldiers aren't supposed to carry them. - And the clips are like taken from death, heat exchanging technology, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, Jesus Christ, nerds, fucking nerds. That is the Mass Effect to Squarecast, segment of the podcast. - You are Revit. - Congratulations if you made it through three and a half, god damn hours of Rebel FM. 'Cause I'm fucking tired of me now. - Yeah, me too. - Paramore me, none of you. I'm never tired of you, Arthur. - I'm never talking about Mass Effect again until-- - I know. - That's-- - Or until the next, until awesome DLC comes out and movies. (laughing) - I'm tired of giving them a match. - God damn wire, and when they do the GBC talk about how the awesomeness of Mass Effect 2, I will see you in the front row with your taking notes. (laughing) And on that note, good night, witches. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - Can everybody talk at once? - Check it out, check it out, check it out. - Cheers. - Hey everyone, I'm talking about-- (indistinct chatter) - I'm so creative. - One, two, three, four, five, four, five, five, five. - Microphone, microphone, microphone, microphone. - There's so much in the world. - It's sort of like an acting class, and I always tell this to fake like we would. - I gotta see it with my own eyes. - It only works if you're talking into the mic. (laughing) - I know you're going to send her a chord in the frame. - I'm so gordy. - I know it's hard to pay attention to the mic with your penis in your hand. - Peeer. (laughing) - What do you say? (laughing) - Hold on a second. - What is this, episode 51?