Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 49 - 01/29/10
[feigned enthusiasm] Greetings human, and welcome to episode 49 of Rebel FM. [going through the motions]This week we're joined by Area5's Ryan O'Donnell and Jay Frechette as we talk about MAG, the Assassin's Creed II DLC, Darksiders, and more, then follow that up with letters. [barely conained excitement] Then we have a final section devoted entirely to Mass Effect 2, which has been set after the rest of the show so as to be easily avoided. We don't give any hardcore plot spoilers, but we do talk about the game and make veiled references to events in Mass Effect 2 for over an hour. We had a lot of fun and hope you enjoy it. Mass Penis.
This week's music, in order of appearance:
Oasis - Slide Away;
Now It's Overhead - Believe What They Decide
(upbeat music) ♪ You're right for the bell ♪ ♪ There's nothing good on the radio ♪ ♪ Once again, I didn't know ♪ ♪ There's just a hard time to ♪ ♪ You're right for the bell ♪ ♪ You're right for the bell ♪ ♪ You're right for the bell ♪ ♪ You're right for the bell ♪ - I know it's very significant. - Uh, hello, and welcome to Rebel FM episode 49, the fuck Mass Effect 2 edition. 'Cause everyone fucking hated that game. I'm Andy Agos, with me is Arthur Geese. - Hello. - Tyler Barber. - What's up everyone? Ryan Adonnell. - Hello. - @5.tv, as was. I don't know, what should I call you? Should I call you by your real name, or should I call you J-Fresh? - It's pretty much everybody. Within games of media, that's pretty much it. - @ary5.tv's J-Fresh. - Hello. - And they don't really hate Mass Effect. As a matter of fact, it's gonna be a different formatted show today. It's gonna be a standard games we were playing, segment in the beginning, and then some of your letters. And then after that, Arthur, Tyler, Ryan, and Fresh are gonna join you again, and they're gonna talk about Mass Effect 2. And the reason we're putting that after the last song and all that, is so that anybody that does wanna hear that shit can, you know, move on. Stop the podcast after the letter segment, and you won't hear anything about Mass Effect 2. - You should come back and listen, you know, whenever you've done playing, you know? Right, but the game at this point's only been out for two days, so, I mean, for-- - That's a bummer. - Hey man, I had played like 25 hours by that one. - That's true, I put in quite a few hours. - It's not their job for everyone, so. - It's true, there was no Martin Luther King Day, holiday, after two days. - A lot of people are unemployed though, so, you know. - Which means they're probably not buying Mass Effect for some time. - Aw, they could have rented it from their-- - Use your gameplay code. - Don't they have those blockbusters or whatever? - So what games have you guys been playing that aren't Mass Effect? - Well, not much, I played Dark Ciders, but I'm sure you guys have talked a lot about that, so. - But you did like it. - Yeah, it was good. - Because I remember last time we talked about it, you were kind of using it. - Oh, that's right, yeah, no, yeah. - And then when I saw that you liked it, I was like, yeah, I knew it. - Yeah, no, it was a really impressive game. I wasn't expecting it, I think it came out at the, basically, the perfect time of the year, you know. - You think? - Yeah, well, unless it was gonna come out much later. - Well, I mean, the reason I say that is 'cause it came out against Bayonetta, and I think that a lot of people said Bayonetta very well. - I mean, we don't know what Bayonetta sold because it's still January, but I just don't pay attention to that sort of thing, numbers, I mean. - I'm hesitant to make NPD predictions on a game like that because the last time I did that, I know, I would nix that in her dinner. - Okay, let me, let me, let me rephrase my statement. I could care less if it came out at the right time for the numbers, I mean, I know all that stuff's important. I just don't think about it. It came out at the right time of the year for me because I would have ignored it most of the year. - And it came out right when I had a chance to play something new and it hit the spot, it tickled, it hit, it scratched an itch that, you know, spirit tracks didn't quite do exactly for me. - One also, I mean, because the release calendar at the end of your last year was a little thinner than say 2008 was, like there weren't really many games where you needed that cleanup period to catch up for from last year. - But yeah, dark starters, that was good. And then I downloaded just before I came over today, I downloaded the Assassin's Creed 2 DLC, which I played as well. - Battle of Forley, and I have not finished it, so these are not complete impressions, but it seems, it's kind of disappointing actually, and I don't know if it's because I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect, and I don't even know what that means, but it's really linear. - Mass Effect 2 is like Fight Club for video games, everything else has the volume turned down. (laughing) It's, and I love, I mean, I still love Assassin's Creed. I don't know, it's just like the way it's structured is you load your game once you've downloaded it, and it like sucks you into a new load screen, and then immediately warps you to Forley, and the memory start position is right in front of you, and then right after that, I mean it just blasts right into it, and every single mission picks up right after the previous one, so it's incredibly linear, there's no chance to like take a breath, and-- - From what I've heard about as much as you played though, it made it sound like that's like halfway, right? - Yeah, so I have played all of it. I got it on Saturday, so I could do up to MaxBox's impressions, which is just our way of reviewing DLC, and you, it's not just that you're halfway through, it's not, it is a pretty big disappointment, unfortunately. - I mean, maybe it was cut out for a reason. - Well, there's that, yeah, it was cut out for quality, and so they gave the game out on time. - I also think the part, so it starts with the Assassin's all kind of meeting up, and Ezio, right. But the important part is that Ezio's brought the Apple of Eden to like show them for the first time, and so there's this kind of really, it's kind of cool cinematic where they pull it out, and they're all kind of looking at it, and Ezio touches it, and all this magic stuff comes out of it, and it's cool, but I feel like the end of the game would have been less impactful if you had seen that cutscene in place, so. - I don't know, I think that it's sort of cryptic enough in sequence 12, which is what, it's called the battle of 4.0, but it is sequence 12. In the way that, for those who are unfamiliar, Assassin's Creed II had 14 DNA sequences in it, and you skipped from 11 to 14, because 12 and 13 were corrupted, as I said, which is a nice way of saying, Jesus Christ, we don't have the time to finish this, and the way that it introduces 12 is by saying, oh, well, we fixed these sequences, except it doesn't fix those sequences, because it cock-blocks you at the end of 12, like it just cuts it off and says, oh shit, it's corrupted, which is unfortunate, because that's right when it's really starting to get interesting. - Spomer, the one thing that I think is totally positive about it is that there's this thing called, like a secret memory start, special memory start, which allows you to ride Leonardo's flying machine. - And through the achievement. - Any time, oh, right, I forgot, you missed the achievement. That's funny. Yeah, you can, is it in the other towns as well, or is it just in Forley? - I think it's just in Forley, I didn't see any other special memories anywhere. - My guess is they'll add it in the other DLC. - I mean, once you finish that sequence, as you're about to ride into the mountains of Forley, like it dumps you into Florence. - Got you. - But yeah, it does give you the option to get that achievement or trophy if you didn't get it before, and actually, I feel like Forley is better designed for the flying machine than a-- I was able to make my way all the way around, like basically do a lap. - Yeah, and just keep flying and be cool. - Yeah, it was fun. That part of it's rad, but I feel like that should have been in the game to begin with, so. - Katarina Sforza is awesome, though. - Oh, great dialogue. - And she did, she gave me like the opportunity for the headline for a preview or piece that I'm most proud of. - What it was. - It was a, it's Mrs. Sforza if you're nasty. And I don't think I'm gonna have the chance to reference any more Janet Jackson lyrics anytime soon in a headline. - Sure. - But yeah, I mean, she's awesome. She's actually probably my favorite character in the Assassin's Creed universe now. - Because she's vulgar. - Because she's vulgar and she's not, she's powerful sexually, but not in the stereotypical video game way. She's very assertive and independent and not like flashing her tits all over the place, though she acknowledges her sexuality. And she's very unapologetic about being a sexual person. - I, yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's exactly how I felt about her. Great dialogue. - She's a real good role model, you know. - So what you're saying is she's a whore. - No. - I'm just kidding. - She did have her husband assassinated, but that's beside the point. - I mean, was it like the, like the lumenary of the missions? Was that what it was that just sort of made the DLC not feel that great or just the missions themselves from the episode? - So basically it's straight up linear as more linear than anything has ever been in Assassin's Creed. So you begin the mission and the idea is that you're all standing around and talking and you're outside of the Forlea base. You're standing in Ramania and like, you start to walk back there and you're supposed to escort her when you are, you see a bunch of citizens running out and they're like, someone's attacking, you gotta get, you know, whatever. So you basically just combat them as you're running into the facility straight through and a mission will stop like right when you get to the gate, right when you get to the front of the base and but it starts right after that. As soon as you're done, it says, do you accept the next mission? And you say yes and then it picks up again. - It's from point A to point B, from point A to point B the entire time. - Yeah. - Oh wow. - It's just really weird 'cause it's not structured the way that any of the other parts of the game are. So it really does stand out. It feels rushed and sort of incomplete and you understand why they cut it. And also one of the mechanics in Assassin's Creed II that didn't work very well is the chase mechanic where you're chasing one person in particular and you're supposed to take him down. Like you could do that with the messengers like where you would tackle them and get money or whatever. There are two missions in this that depend on chasing people and both of them are fucked and in one of them. There are a bunch of people that go off in every different direction and you're supposed to only follow one but all of them put a marker up on your map. So you're supposed to lock on the one guy and chase him and if you don't immediately find him and lock on to him, you're fucked. - Wow. - Like you will, he will die and you will have to start that sequence over again and fall in. - So yeah, I just, I don't know how-- - You guys are describing some of this on super fun. - It was not, she's got it all. - I mean, it's really not fun. I mean, it's-- - Would you say that it's even worth $4? - Yes, I would say that because countering it's forts is awesome. - You get the, you can fly around again. I enjoy doing that and-- - And the story is interesting and so far is what it gives you and I would say that Assassin's Creed II has earned a gimme as far as DLC goes. Like if the next one is bad, then I'm gonna have more-- - I was gonna, so even though it's disappointing, it's still worth buying? - I would say, I mean, it's $4. I mean, Ubisoft was pretty canny and pricing it that way. It doesn't even cross the $5 threshold. It's not even, you couldn't buy an Xbox Live or K game for how much this costs. - That's a good point. - And Bonfire the Vanities is supposed to be, like in, actually open up a new area of Florence that wasn't available for us. That interests me a lot. - And I mean, that should be huge, whereas the Battle of Forlay, like the Siege of Forlay is much smaller. - Are the prices the same on both of the deals? - Yes, they're both $4 and they're both pretty big. - Yeah, so I mean, definitely, there's no way I would have not gotten it as a fan of- - Sorry, go ahead. - Yeah, there was no way that I would not have purchased it. - I mean, how could you say no? It's like Assassin's Creed II DLC for four bucks. - Yeah, yes, it was Forlay Day, though. It only took you three hours super linear. - You said they were pretty big, so. - The DLC is probably like 90 minutes of that. - So it's not that big? - No, it's not. - I mean, part of what made Forlay so awesome in Assassin's Creed to me was that there was essentially one mission, a mission where you meet Katarina Sforza for the first time. It was just that and then there's an Assassin's Tomb there, but all that stuff is totally optional. So it's kind of like you pass through it and it made the game seem so big because there was this entire area that you didn't even really have to do much in. And now, so now when you have, let's say this content was inserted, you can't help a picture in your mind, like this at some point was part of the game, right? Proper, and it's so it kind of makes the area seem sort of less interesting in a way because you realize, oh, there was going to be this mission here, it's not just there for fun. - And also Forlay is easily the worst-looking part of Assassin's Creed II. It's all grays and muddled blues and greens. Like it's just-- - Still beautiful, I would argue. - I just feel like it's not really much to look at. - What happens if I were to download it and like not even playing Assassin's Creed II would it go in linear order or would it make it in that first? - I'm not sure. - That's what I introduced it is like, it's funny in Assassin's Creed II, without the DLC, it jumps from 11 to 14 and there's like a 10-year time gap. So you go from Ezio still like in his 20s to Ezio with a very masculine Italian beard in his 30s. And like in just in better, darker armor. And then this, when you first show up on the Forlay dock, which is where the mission is, you're masculine Ezio again, but then you sort of go back in time to clean-faced Ezio. But something happens in the DLC that explains the beginnings of his beard, not so much why he keeps it. - Okay, so we don't know though. - So, no, what I think-- - Oh, you didn't tell us that it was a beard origin story. - Yeah, there is a beard origin story. - Yeah, I think that's two dollars of four dollars of worth right there. - Right, yeah. - Which is what it says too. - I have not gotten there yet, so I'm ready for the beard origin story. You make me wanna go home and finish it. - I'm sorry for this, man. - So, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if you haven't played it if you would encounter it after Sequence 11, or if they would still say it was corrupted and then let you go back into it afterwards, because-- - That would be very interesting to know. - The way it goes from Sequence 11 to Sequence 14 is fairly dramatic and as a contrivance to skip two sequences works pretty well. - Yeah, I did not. When that part of the game came up, I thought it was actually kind of cool. And it wasn't until I realized, oh, this is going to be the DLC later that it was kind of like, oh, I don't really mind. That's kind of a cool way to insert DLC into your main storyline. I can get with that. - And they set themselves up for it because they just dump you back into the game after the credit sequence saying, okay, well, while we're doing thing, I won't say because it's part of the ending. Why don't you go back in and see if there's anything else you can find. - Right, yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. You should play it, but get your hopes down for it and then it'll seem better. - If you like the story, if Assassin's Creed II's story and world appealed to you, then it's something that's- - I mean, that seems to be the only reason to play Assassin's Creed just mainly because the story and the world are so awesome. - No, I mean, no, no. Assassin's Creed II are awesome. - But I mean, do you think that would be enough? Like it seems like the story and the world are what really draw you in and the mechanics that they're good is like, yes, thank God. - Well, it's just that this one, like I said, because it's so, because the story, it's linear and then you're not in a new area. So the second DLC where you're in a new area that you haven't seen before and I hear they're adding a new maneuver as well, is that true? - Oh, the Spring just. - No, no, no, in the second one. - Oh, I'm not sure. - So, when they announced the two DLCs, they said that you're actually getting a new move. - The only feature that I'm demanding they give with the next DLC is the ability to replay a sequence. - I don't know. It just seems like when I was listening to Arthur to talk about it and you guys talk about it, it always seems like the story was like the coolest cent. - I mean, I love the story, but I mean- - The environments really are- - It's really the way that the entire game came together. - Right. - Like everything just compliments everything else. It's like, oh, I'm doing all this cool shit and all this free running in this completely believable world with these completely amazing characters. - So was the first game more like, 'cause I'll free the minute and play, is the first game more like cool mechanics, but the story and world didn't quite come together or is it like the opposite? - No, the war in the game came together. - Well, there was a cool world and there was cool mechanics, but the story was a little silly but it was, you could play the first hour of that game and see everything that that game was going to throw at you. - Well, it doesn't help that they metroid you at the beginning to- - Right, right, that's true. - I mean, it played the first hour. - So you've seen almost every mechanic in that game, essentially, I mean, it gets like slightly more interesting, but you have to really enjoy running around those towns. - And there's not much variation of mission structure as people have said and Altair is really kind of an unlikable dick for most of the game. - And Ezio is not Ezio a little likeable. - Ezio is a likable rogue. - The Assassin's Creed II, constantly from the beginning of the game is throwing new stuff at you, missions that feel different, taking you to new places, showing you new mechanics, like it's what, four or five hours in before you first arrive at Montezoni and like start- - Yeah, I think so. - And you realize like, man, I have this huge villa that I start modding out and I'm going to get all this on, you know, whatever, all these weapons to unlock, none of that's in one. - Well, I think the way I would sum it up is, Altair is like a character where you could see him never getting laid and Ezio is the kind of character that gets laid all the time. - Yes, that's true. - Okay. - That is true. - What else have people been playing there? - Ryan, anything, anything else? - Oh, I got nothing, I'm sorry. - That played dark side Ryan, that was mine. - How many hours of Mass Effect II have you played? - Since it's released. - 39. - Is that including time in the pause menu? - Time in pause menu and probably at around 37 and a half. - And you're almost, from time to time, almost. - I have four or five more secondary missions plus the final main story arc. And yeah, I spent an embarrassing amount of time mining for resources. Oh, I did too. - Everyone I've seen play that game. That honestly, nine times out of 10, when I walk by someone playing Mass Effect, it's on the mining screen. - Yeah, it's fine, I don't know. - It's such a satisfying noise when that strikes pain. - It's very satisfying. Seeing a little vector being drawn on the screen. - Launching probe, anomaly detected. - Yes, that's what I'll love to hear. - Tyler, have you been playing anything with Mass Effect II? - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I checked out, you know. I've been, I checked out two kind of like shooter games that won Xbox Live Arcade game. I think it was Capcom or Sega this zero day attack. - Zero day attack. - It's a square? - Square, that's we did it. - Square, that's we did it. - Is it like what type of shooter? - Zero day attack on a bullet. - Like a bullet hell shooter. - No, it's called a-- - No. - Zero day attack on earth. - Yeah, that's it. - Oh, that's totally not the one. - You're thinking of Death by Cube. - Yes, that's not the one. - Yeah, what type of shooter is it Tyler? - It's almost a top down, but it's like top down like 2.5D style, I don't know. It's like isometric, but it's not a bullet hell game. No, it's not. - It's like a geometry wars game, right? - It's sort of like a geometry wars. Like the arenas are like a sort of Google map looking shots of cities with a few buildings that stick out, you know, as a geometry. - Oh, so like the floor in any of his combat game? - Yeah, yeah, a lot like those, but it's really cool because all the enemies in the games are these like really giant alien creatures that are shaped really badass. And it looks like, you know, the arc directions, like a combination of like Independence Day meets like Godzilla or something. - What about the music? Tell me about the music. - Oh, the music, it's like classic. I don't know what the music's like. - Is it good though? Like with a lot of indie games lately, I'm finding the music more more. - Well, this isn't really an indie game. It's like a, it's an arcade game. - It's X-Blaw. - "Splosion Man" was one of the last ones I played where the music was only. - Man, I really like the music in "Splosion Man." - I like the donut song. - That's the one I remember. - The arcade remember the "Splosion Man." - Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was one that a lot of people talked about. - Yeah, I mean, it was good for like the first hour, but then you know, you lose your life in that game. - It's like having sex, according to share. - Sorry, but back to what you've been playing. - I forgot about that. - Watch co-op. - Yeah, but, yeah, I've been playing that, but I did play-- - And you're right, too. - But I bet I did play-- - Oh, she loves Newsome Murray Brothers Wii. - I did play one indie game that had really good music. It's an Xbox indie game called "Leave Home." - Yeah. - And I think somebody, were you talking about that, Ryan? - Matt was talking about it, but I watched it. - Matt was talking about it. - Yeah, that's right. - What do you do? - It's really cool. If I understand right, the game is only five minutes long, right? - Yeah, that's right. - And it's really fucking hard. Like I couldn't get past-- - I was gonna ask you, did you not know that it's only five minutes hard? Like, it's only five minutes. - I mean, but that's the whole thing. So it's a side-scrolling shooter. You know, if you're familiar with like R-type, if you're familiar with these types of games, that's what it is. The whole thing is, is when you squeeze the trigger, you have a turret on top and below your ship. - That's right. - And it shoots. - And so it's got like, it's got very abstract, neon sort of geometry war-like graphics and-- - This sounds kind of like revs. - There's another Xbox Live indie game called Groove that we also mentioned on that episode that really looks like geometry wars. This game looks, it's not really-- - Yeah, no. - It's better, it has better graphics than geometry wars. - I just like to say-- - The visuals look very cool. - I just like to say that I love the geometry wars to somehow stake out a claim on anything that uses shapes as its style. - Well, I mean, it's-- - Glowing shapes, that's all us. - Why your geometry that blows neon colors? I mean, a lot of people know geometry wars, that's why I use it. - It's not all about tempest thing, it's more like-- - Boxes. - Lat polygons and boxes and that sort of thing. It has a really, it's a really cool look. I think that game looks really cool. - Yeah, and the music's really badass. - And I assume it's super cheap as well. - Yeah, it's an Xbox Live indie game. - And I have to check this out. - It's home. - Yeah, we're home. - And it's like, you know, it's like, it's one of those games, like, you know, I'm always talking about design and fonts and everything. It's one of those games where I go into it in every step of the way, I'm like, this is a good design menu. These, this is a good choice of fonts here. The UI is good. - I agree. - You know, do we know, is it made by like one dude or something? - I think so, yeah, it's one guy, I'm pretty sure. I could be wrong about that. - No, I think it is. - I think it's one. - I think it's a message mat or something, recently, or me. - Yeah, it's really good though. I mean, you know, and I'm not the type of person to really get into stressful games like that, but I still had fun with it. - Yeah, it's a cool game. - I like to chill. - I like to chill. (laughing) - There should be the sound of a bong, but I'm just saying that, I'm just saying. Did you hear about a... Exactly. Thank you for, thank you bong, noise makers. - No problem. - No problem. - Did you hear that the number one, like selling indie game last year made like a hundred thousand dollars? - I did see that, turns that to, is that like? - I made a game with zombies, isn't it? - Yeah, I made a game with zombies. - Fucking sold like a hundred and sixty two thousand units or something. - Leaf Home was on that list. - Yeah, Leaf Home. - It was pretty impressive 'cause it was only like two dollars. - Exactly. - It was one dollar. - It was a dollar, and it sold all those cookies. - And the game under it was RC AirSim. They had it play a step four dollars, and it made, I think it made more. - Yeah, I mean, it didn't have to sell as many. - You know, RC Sim games cool too, but it's more like a gimmick. Like, it's like you play it for a few minutes. That was neat. - I mean, how do we feel about that? Something like a weapon of choice can't break even, but I made a game with zombies and it does like six figures. - Weapons of choice is really ambitious, and it's a really cool game. But I mean, the zombies thing just was at the right place at the right time and doing the right things. - The guy who made it has a lot of sort of marketing behind him. I mean, he was the first dude, James Silva, I think is his name. He's the guy who dishwasher samurai, and he won the Microsoft thing, so he was like his face was everywhere. So he was kind of their poster child for that indie development scene there in the beginning. So I'm sure that helped him as well. - And a lot of people just downloaded 'cause it was 99 cents. - Right, yeah, like how you gotta hear the song? - And it's one of those things, like you just look at it and you instantly get it. Like, that's one of the great things about the game. Design out, top down, you kill a horde of zombies. Let's go. - On text. - And text, yeah. - It isn't on strobe light floors. - And that game, I think, wouldn't have done as well as it did without that stupid song, though, 'cause for whatever reason, that's like a novelty for people, too. - Right, I mean, but that's ingenious, like to market your, to sell your game for the cost of a fucking MP3 download. - Yeah. I mean, he probably didn't think it was gonna sell, so why not make it 99 cents? - I mean, think about how much time it's probably took that guy to make that game like 40 hours, maybe. - And he made 100 grand off of it? Something like that. - Is that the cut they got that? - Yeah, he, I mean, he was gonna never do interviews that he made a lot of money from that game. - Nice. - I'm glad. - Well done, Jamie. - I saw it on-- - Buy me something. - I read "Tig Source" stuck on. - Advertise on our fucking podcast. - No, I don't know what that is. - "Tig Source" is Derek U's site. Derek U is a made aquaria and spelunky and a bunch of other cool indie games. - You in that fucking spelunky game. - You said "Tig Source", the independent gaming-- - Gaming Source, yeah, I'm sorry. - Put him down with your acronym. Yeah, I check this site all the time. - Yeah, the independent gaming source. That's where I noticed that list for the first time. If you wanna, if you're listening and wanna find the list of what indie games, Xbox Live indie games sold. But yeah, it was really kind of heartening to look at it and go like, all right, there is a market there for people-- - And people are looking at it. - You know what, I think is one of the most fascinating things is that there's, it shows there is a market for applications on the Xbox. Like, half of them were apps, weren't even games. - Well, yeah, sure. - There were stuff like-- - You're not in the suits. - Stuff like, or like the game. - Seven to eight in the suits games now. - Yeah, there were, but there were two massage games. There was like one game that allows you to hook up your rock band or guitar hero drum sets to it. Play your drums, the LED game. The one I think that had the time. - And there are apps just like you said to ones that are just like aquarium. - It's an aquarium. You can stare at it, fire, stare at a fireplace fire. - But it makes me wonder like, man, what if Microsoft sort of opened the gates up to people and let people sort of try to make apps with like easier access of mail, like messaging or something? I don't know, you know, I don't know. These are just me. - That's a clever idea, I don't know. - The Xbox 360 is essentially a computer. Why not let, you know, people do some interesting things? - 'Cause they don't want people to move away from the computer. I think Microsoft has made it clear that their strategy is the 360 as an extension of what you see. - I understand why. - I'm just saying, you know, it would be nice. - I would require things that Microsoft to work together. - Right, I know. - Tyler, have you been playing anything else? - Oh, no. - Oh, man, you guys, you're fucking Mass Effect. What have you been playing, Jay? - Mass Effect, yeah, that's pretty much it. - What do you mean, Jay? - Nothing? - Guilty. - Useless. - Yeah. - No, wait, you played dark. You played dark cider. - I played dark cider, but yeah, we already went. - What do you think about dark cider today? - To talk to that one, sorry. - Give us your-- - Do you like dark cider? - I did like it a lot. And I agree with you on the timing and it wasn't just so much January and having times to play. I think Ryan and I both went through this. We were having a lot of talks that we were kind of craving a Zelda title. And we talked a lot about how the Zelda games had gone to more of a larger open worlds and using boats and planes and trains and all sorts of stuff to get around the world. Now, that was sort of boring. - I just sort of missed it a little bit. - Because now we know that the next fucking Zelda is gonna have a hang glider in it. - Did you feel that that game was too long? Like, I knew people had complained about the link and I was like, the link didn't bother me at all. - I'd argue the opposite. I wish there were more dungeons. - Yeah, originally there were. - I mean, but then again, I mean, I've heard people complain about how hard that game is and when I watch people struggle, I'm just like, you're doing it wrong. - Yeah, that's the thing is like, I didn't have any trouble by the end of the game. I was just like, like an into, like switching between things, dodging left and right, like the people I see that are fucking up all the time is because they forget that the stick, I mean, the right bumper allows you to die. - So I'd say those people stay the fuck away from Dante's Inferno and God of War III. - Yeah, right. - The main complaint that I had with the combat was that there's certain maneuvers. The ones, they're kind of like charge moves that you do using the, I guess you hold down either - Yes, the left bumper. - L bumper or right, yeah, L bumper and hit a button and those are the only attacks that can't be canceled using the dash slash block button. - I am right here. Oh, sorry, go ahead. - Oh, and usually really great. The games, the action games that have great combat that are kind of God of Warish usually let you cancel most any move. Even, you know, even modern warfare to one of the reason that game feels so fast and great is because any single maneuver that you do can be canceled. If you start to do a melee, just hit run and you're gonna write right out of it. If you start to reload, you can cancel that. You know, and that's what really makes it feel fast and fluid and awesome. - Yeah, I guess I didn't have that problem 'cause I basically never bought moves because I'm really terrible at fighting games. So I spent all my orbs and stuff on like health items and stuff and I pretty much did everything with just a couple of moves and just normal attacks. Just because I'm really terrible at being like, "Ah, shit's going down, I should do this move." Like, that just doesn't work for me. - And I played at the exact opposite. - I mean, I still did combos, right? But my combos were like sword, sword, fist, fist and then pull out my gun or something like that. You know what I mean? It was just like, it was like mixing up the weapons rather than sitting there thinking about button combos. - I was actually got pretty good at including all of the weapons, even, you know, like 'cause you can switch quickly on the new pad through all of them. So I'd do like, you know, whatever. What's the glaive, you know? - Yeah, I mean, I pull out my pistol and then, you know, switch to my cool gauntlet hammer thing. - I just really like seeing you do that motion with your hips. - Yeah, I mean, I agree that that's the super combos I did, but the moves you buy where it's like hold X and hit left on for like, I couldn't. - They're all really straightforward, actually. It was just like one or two, one variation. - Yeah, but I also don't know how to throw a fireball in Street Fighter consistently. - Well, it was just back plus bumper plus a button. - Okay, that makes it sound sort of complicated. - Back plus bumper plus a button? That's, yes, three things. - I'm telling you, my brain does not compute when it comes to the issue, that's why I said. - Can you pat your tummy and rub your head at the same time? - I don't know. - I don't play guitar and sing it. - I can't even, like I was, you know, I can't consistently throw a fireball in Street Fighter. Okay. - Okay, okay. - I can't do that either on the exact same way. - I just wonder if you just can't be pissed to learn. - Sometimes. - So, but I still enjoyed the combat dark ciders and didn't have trouble with it. - One thing that originally, oh good. - Oh, I was just kidding. One thing that did bother me a little bit was that the dash and the block are the same point. - Yeah, if you're not standing, it's perfectly still, you will dash. - Which could be a good counter. - I basically always just dashed. - Yep, me too. - I started playing this a little bit last night for the first time, 'cause I decided to wait until they patched the 360 version to fix the tearing. And they did patch it and they did sort of fix the tearing. They also cut the frame right in half. - I can already tell that I'm gonna be the guy that explores every area and finds all the soles you can before he moves on. - I would have done that if it hadn't been, that I was reviewing it. And eventually I had to be like, I gotta beat it. Like I didn't find all the pieces of the, that whatever armor. - A Bissell armor? - Yeah, I really wanted to see what that was like, you know, but I still have no-- - Oh, we still have to do that. - Yeah, we're not, so we're not done yet. We're at the quest at the end. We have one or two more sword pieces to grab and two more armor pieces. - I wish we could gift avatar items 'cause there's Darksiders avatar armor. - I saw that, but I got cheated, or I'm not cheated, I accidentally bought new Ezio clothes today. - So-- - Are they awesome? - They're awesome. - Originally I was supposed to have like a, like fuck somewhere between you. - I thought I was an outfit for Ezio in the game. I just took off my Ezio clothes. - I know. - Damn it. - You guys are ridiculous. - Well, we can match again and it'll be cool. - I'm still waiting for N7 armor. - Oh, that would be freaking awesome. - Like you act like it's not gonna happen, it is. - I will. That's what, when he said it, I realized it was gonna happen. I can't wait. - I can't wait. - I mean, my avatar already looks like my shepherd, so. - Dude, I made my avatar one time and then never touched it again. Like-- - I mean, your avatar looks enough like you. - Nah, there's no real curly hair option that isn't an afro, so. - I just, I'm extremely poor and I've admitted now publicly to buying two Ezio costumes for my avatar. - At least you said this one was on accident. - It was on accident. - It was on accident. - I really thought it was, quote, accident. - I thought I was buying, no, I thought I was buying an outfit for Ezio in the game. - Was it really just that your heart was letting your fingers do the walking? - I walked, I had also downloaded the DLC at the same time, so it booted me into Forli and then I had to travel back to Montreggone just to see where to put on this new armor and it wasn't there, I quit the game. And I was like, oh wait, no, so you did, you bought it on purpose. - Yeah, still, you're super poor and you were buying in-game armor that just changed the way you looked. - That's what I'm sorry. - Okay, yes, that's true, it's still dumb and nerdy, I still suck, but I didn't mean to pay for avatar equipment twice. - But since you bought it, are you wearing it at least because you bought it? - Yeah, 'cause it's cooler than my previous hits. - You're like the guy that bought drugs and got the wrong drugs. (laughing) - That's yes, exactly. - And just said, oh well. - Yeah, we might as well do these. - Well, they were good drugs, I'm not gonna throw them away, got them, I can't turn them back. - I've been kind of meaning to try this anyways. - You got Riffy's instead of E, it's fine. - Yeah, we understand. - No, yeah, I suck, I shouldn't buy that crap, but. - You did? - I did. - Yeah, the original concept for darksiders, it was supposed to be four player co-op from the very start. - Wow, I don't think it would have worked. - Darksiders, the four, so. - Do they want to like all four horsemen? - Yeah, but they were like, this is our first console game we ever made and we don't totally know what we're doing. - And they've been an engine, I mean, that's not someone else's engine, that's their engine, right? - Yeah, I think so. - Which is actually pretty robust. I, like the in-game cutscenes look really good and that's pretty uncommon. - But, you know, actually. - I wouldn't be surprised to see the next game, assuming there will be a next darksiders. - Oh, there will be no darksiders. - I mean, maybe, we don't have that sold either, I mean. - I would like to see these guys get another shot though, they definitely attract. - THQ needs like a big franchise like this that doesn't have Warhammer in the title. - THQ is a big franchise, it's called UFC. - Yeah. - It's their current big franchise. - Yeah, but they share that money, whereas darksiders is them. - No, darksiders, they don't own the studio that makes darksiders. - I would not be surprised if they do by the end of the year. - Well, the next game still, who knows when we'll see darksiders too, 'cause the next game they're working on is an MMO, so. - Oh, wow. - A 40K MMO, a Warhammer game. - That's right, I just want to give, they're visual games, right? - Yeah. - Props for, you know, have they done anything else? - No, they all worked, I mean, this is their first game as a company. - Right, right. - Before that, a lot of work for NCsoft. - Okay, yeah, I mean, it's a really, really well done game. I mean, I've always wanted someone to take on a Zelda head-on like that, and it's not fair to say that it's just, but the structure of the game is Zelda. I mean, that's what it is. - They said that they find those statements as compliments being compared to a franchise like that. - Yeah, I mean, and if you listen-- - It would be more fun than a Zelda game has been in long time. - Amen. - I mean, to me, it was more like a mixtape of all the best moments from a lot of my favorite games. It ages just as much out of the classes and-- - Got some time stopping in there. - Yeah, I would, I don't even want to say the other games, 'cause I don't want to spoil the things that are in there, but there's plenty of different games that influence this game, and every time I saw the influence, it just made me happy. I was like, "Ah, that's awesome, that's really awesome." - It's funny, 'cause some of those things that they've been said that they took ideas from, they said that they were in pre-production and already had these ideas implemented before those games, they had ever heard of them. - We were talking about the last one. Yeah, that's awesome then, good for them. Like really, 'cause that mechanic in particular, you can cut this out if you want, that mechanic creates some of the best kind of light, almost like, it has the craziest light puzzle that I've maybe ever seen in a game. - Absolutely. - And you know, when you come upon a light puzzle in a Zelda style game, it's, it should make you go, "Ah, 'cause we've seen them in every goddamn, I mean uncharted as one, they're always boring, but this one was really cool. - They're always like pushing a couple of mirrors around or something. - Yeah, this one was hard. - I don't think you can cut that out, I don't think we gave it out that way, but. - Yeah, the way they accomplished it, I thought it was really well done. I also enjoyed, I wish they could have fleshed out a little bit more, but man, I love that they put it in it that there's boss fights that use the portal mechanic as well, which I thought was just awesome, because it's a mechanic I've seen in other games, but I've never seen it used in combat. That was a first for me, and so being able to implement it where there's something there actually trying to hurt me and I need to use that to hurt them, I thought that was really well, which is awesome that they put that in there. - Four. - Wait, were we turning up J Fresh real quick? We're turning J Fresh to J. - Oh, I'm sorry. - He suddenly became excited. - Yeah, he started talking about darksiders, and I got all fired up. - So anyways, we're not even gonna edit that, you just heard us adjust levels in the fly. - Yeah, which we can do. - But I mean, judging anecdotally, as far as like the height meter for dark stalkers, like I was on the bus side. - So what? - Darksiders. - Hello, I've said darksiders twice. - I've said that's a game that no one knew about when it came out. - I think, no, I think a lot of people knew about darksiders, but it's just, I was gonna ask how you guys felt about how it previewed versus how it plays. - Oh, that's pretty obvious. - I mean, I saw that game several times, and every time I saw it, I was just sort of underground. - When I saw it at PAX, I was a little bit more positive on it than Arthur was, but again, it previewed like it was just a God of War clone or something. - And in that regard, it's not a good God of War clone because the combat is much simpler. - Yeah, right, it's just that it's part of like that part of this whole package, but they couldn't show those huge dungeon puzzles because they're pretty elaborate a lot of times. - That's true, I just kind of wish they had like thrown you into one of them somehow. - I mean, I agree because everyone I talked to in the press that went to E3 and stuff walked away from it being like, whatever, I could really care less about that game, like especially when it was-- - Especially when it was just a day in Atlanta and Dante's Inferno, which is the preview cycle I thought that the game, all I saw, I didn't read any previews, all I saw was one little video diary, dev diary thing, and it showed the first area of the game, which is like a, you know, burnt out city. And to me, it looked like wow with okay combat, basically. And I don't even know how I thought wow, but that's like the impression that he was like-- - Because he looks like Arthur and the Raven guy from Warcraft 3. - That's exactly, okay, so that's exactly why I thought it looked. - His art style can be a little bit wow-like at times. - And his sword looks like fucking Frostmourne, except broken at the tip. - Yeah, so I kind of wish they had just shown a dungeon and let me know, 'cause if you're willing to-- - Or the horse, the horse would've been good. - Yeah, I love that. - If you're willing to accept that it is, I mean, on the top level, the kind of structure of it is Zelda. I mean, it has the best combat from a Zelda-type game, a Zelda-style game, probably hands down, no question. And then, you know, you throw in all the tools, which are really really fun. - The story is like, totally like, it has no right being at all cool at all, because it's like this Heaven and Hell story, and it takes itself so seriously. It's like, I was telling a lot of people, it's like more, way more metal than brutal legend is, except it's taking itself seriously, and brutal legend is not-- - I thought brutal legend a lot when I was playing this game. - Yeah, it's just because the game is so metal. It's like you have a sword that harvests souls, and you trade souls in for like this, and everything-- - For bigger swords. - Everything you get might as well be called like the Doom weapon or something like that. But I mean, at the same time, like the story, like I totally followed it, and thought it was kind of cool, you know. - I like the voice acting of the Mark Hamill character. - Right, it's basically the Joker with the sound effect on. - Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, the art direction isn't my alley, like it's kind of a amalgamation of wow and some-- - I mean, you either like Joe Mads art or you don't. - Yeah, but it never really bothered. Once I started playing it, I was like, yeah, this isn't for me, but it's really quality work. - It's really well done. - It's really well sculpted. - Yeah, and yeah, it was a big surprise. I really liked that game. - Yeah. - And that should be the last time we talk about Darksiders. - Never again, we're gonna talk about it next time we're on to it. - We might, because I'm playing Darksiders right now. - Nice, I just started it last night. - What else have you played this night? - Jay, was there anything else? - Nope, that's the only thing I've played. - So the Mass Effect, I played some Darksiders last night after they patched it. - I'm gonna-- - Talk about that again. - I fucking found, I'm pretty sure I found every blue chest at the beginning. And the weird guys at the beginning that look like Mr. Oogie Boogie are really annoying. - I know you're talking about the guys that shoot fire out of their gut? - Yeah, that explode in the souls. I just can't find a good solution to beating them without taking a lot of damage. - You need that first dungeon? - Oh, well, that's good to know at the beginning of the fucking game. - Yeah, it's called dodging. - Yeah, let's see if you can dodge this motherfucker. Obviously played a lot of Mass Effect, which I reviewed and gave a 10. Played the Assassin's Creed 2 DLC. I've been playing a fair amount of Dante's Inferno this week, retail, and the embargo for that's next Wednesday. - So you can't really talk about it? - I can say a little bit in that the retail build is cleaned up significantly from the preview builds. - So you can say that? - Yeah, I can say that, I think. 'Cause I'm not giving anything a boy about the game other than that, it's been tweaked a little bit from preview builds. And I think that in the end, EA's decision to relentlessly preview that game over and over again is gonna hurt it because people aren't gonna give it as much of a chance as they might otherwise because they think that they've seen it already. - I really wish I had not played the demo and didn't know much about it other than that it was sort of got a warish and then it had come out and I had gotten a chance to play it. - The demo is not indicative of the way the final game looks. It looks a bit better than that. - Why is everyone talking so quiet? - That's how I speak now. If you're looking at the waveform, pay no attention. - No, I'm not, I'm just listening to everyone. Everything energy's dropped. - Well, I started talking, that's why I sucked the life out of the room. So I'll talk more about that next week 'cause EA was kind enough to give everyone copies of that well before release, but mixed feelings about Dante's Inferno, but I can't, I'm not sure. - I was gonna say that's probably pushing it. - Like I'm really not sure how I feel about it and I won't be sure until I finish it. The CG in that game is fucking amazing though. Over and over again, the CG cutscenes in that game are just really fantastic. I played the Battlefield Bad Company 2 demo today. - Whoop. - And that is a Battlefield ass, Battlefield game. - Are the vehicles extremely tough? - Yeah, and that's sort of-- - Don't worry. - That is a concern because they definitely take multiple rockets to take out a tank. - I will say that I've never seen a dice game come out balanced when it released ever. - I just appreciate a Battlefield game coming out that worked on the first day and for a big part of today, this game was broken. - Well, the demo wasn't supposed to go live, right? - I think it wasn't supposed to go out live when it went live. - Well, that could be why it was broke. - That could be why it was broke. It could also be because EA's servers are again, not up to the task of handling it. But I just feel like if EA insists and are one of the only companies that have a deal to do exclusive servers for all their stuff, they should keep it working. But it just takes, it's got the sort of learning curve to go from playing Modern Warfare 2 to playing Battlefield, just like playing 1943, there's learning curve going from like Call of Duty and stuff like that. - I didn't play that, so this is the 360 demo? - Yeah. - I played a little of the PS3 demo when it came out in December or whatever. And that was of course right in the middle of Modern Warfare 2 fever. And yeah, the learning curve was a bit strange, like I felt like I was getting killed and constantly running back from a starting point very far away and then I handed the controller to Jay and he was smart enough to find out that you could spawn much closer to your squad. So it was just all these little things that... - But you need to be in a squad, otherwise you're stuck at the attacking starting point or whatever and it's just, I don't know, so far I want to like it in certain things I do like. And of course it helps when you get used to the way it controls and start getting a lot of kills. But first of all, like the match I was in today, the second match, I only played three matches, the third match I was in actually took like 35 minutes, which is kind of a long time to be playing one match online. - It's 'cause it just kept on going back and forth, capture losing. - No, it was. We were the attackers and they were supposed to defend and like you do point A and point B and if you get it, then it says base taken onto the next objective and it's point A and point B again and like the attackers have 75 spawns to do it and like we would go down into like 15 left and then take the point and then get the next one and go down to 15 and then take the point. And it's just frustrating because when people are working together, like you really get stepped on and when they're not, is die over and over again. - Sounds like Battlefield. - Exactly, yeah. I tweeted earlier that I don't understand why people don't work together and then Jeff Green was like that is Battlefield in a nutshell. - That's very true. - I mean, I'm looking forward to it. It is something different, the modern warfare too. And I like the class stuff like I really had, I had fun playing as a medic. And I would have had more fun if I had known that the defibrillators work as your melee weapon, which I didn't until someone told me. - Oh, that's cool. - That'd be a fun melee weapon. - Which is like a one hit kill apparently. - That's awesome, that is awesome. You shock them and they die. - So I imagine, I don't think you'd swing 'em over your head. Although that would be awesome. - That would be really cool. You like me nunchuck the paddles at 'em. But I mean, didn't you go to a battlefield thing last week? - No, I didn't go to that. I either of us did. But yeah, that and the single player trailer this week has me more excited for Battlefield. But we'll see. I remember when Battlefield 1943 came out, I said I am not fucking buying the next one until it's been out for a week and all the server issues are fixed. - I will buy a day one. - Me too. - And now this may be the page that I've got. - Awesome. - Kudos to them, to the excellent Queens of the Stone Age track on that trailer. - Exactly, I picked the obvious Queens of the Stone Age. - I know, that's why. - So it's my favorite track on that album. - I mean, it's still on the best Queens of the Stone Age album. - Yeah. - But it's not the obvious Queens of the Stone Age song. Other than that, I think that's it. Just a lot of Mass Effect 2, one of the last two weeks. - Yup. I wanna hear about your game. - I haven't been playing very much either. I've basically only been playing one game. I mean, I beat Ratchet and Clank a crack in time. - Oh, I feel about that, yeah. - How's that? - I thought that game was fantastic. When I played the first couple hours, it didn't grab me like the last future game did. Tools of Destruction. That was my first Ratchet game, by the way. And so when I played that one, it totally like wrapped me up and I beat it like over two days. Crack in time, I played for like two hours and then didn't play for like four months. And then I just got into it again and then I just beat it over the course of like two days again. - Nice. - And I, I loved it. - I really liked it too. - It takes the story to like a cool place. It leaves it open for games to come in the future, but it really does like put a, like a conclusion to, to a certain story arc that's been present throughout most of the games as I gather it. - Yeah, kind of final. I mean, I think it's a-- - Is it the Zoni story? - Well, yeah, it is about Zoni. I mean, that's in it for sure, but it's also like, you know, it's kind of the, you know, the crux of all the Ratchet games for a long time has been about how he's the only Lombax, right? - Oh, yeah. - And so this, this kind of settles the case of Lombax's one or another. - I might sound like I didn't play it, but I played most of it. I just didn't quite finish it. So I'm not, I don't think I'm too far away from the end, but I really did. It was the same sort of thing where at the beginning I was like, yeah, I don't know. And then a few hours in that started really grabbing, grabbing me once I started getting into the space combat stuff. - I mean, it's such a cool game, despite the fact that basically Ratchet and Clank are never together until like the last 30 minutes of the game. - Right, right. - So they're always separate. - I loved the mini planets. That was probably my favorite part of the game. There's some really excellent platforming puzzles that used all the different-- - Yeah, those got actually really addictive for me. I like normally don't do a lot of collecting in games, but in this I did like almost all of it. And then when you beat the game, you can either choose to go into a challenge mode or go back in time before the last boss and collect everything, which is what I have done. - Yeah, one thing I've always loved about the series, I always call the Ratchet and Clank sort of a gamer's game 'cause they've always just had a jack of all trades, just a little bit of it platforming action puzzles. And I think this was sort of a culmination of what they've been doing a lot, especially in the past two or three where it felt like the platforming was really strong and adding those little miniature planets where that was the focus was just that, was really good. The combat, like some of the scenes where you're fighting and some of the planets was just huge explosions and dozens of guys, just the scale of it was really good. And I actually really enjoyed the time puzzles with-- - The time puzzles are really good. You basically make clones of yourself to get-- - That was really a part of the game that I really enjoyed when I was playing it. Like the Ratchet stuff just didn't, I mean, we keep saying didn't grab me. I didn't really enjoy the Ratchet. - The Ratchet stuff grabbed me once I had like rocket boots and stuff like all these things that is great. - That's what we're waiting for. - That's what we're waiting for. - That's like four hours. - It is, but the game is also like 12 hours long. So I mean, what's up? - What are you talking about in the car? Like I feel like games have a sort of obligation to grab me a little sooner than that. - That's why I was kind of, I wouldn't have played it unless I was playing it for our show. - Okay, well that's fair. - I mean, I'm just saying if you bought it or you thought about getting it, you have to give it a chance. Like it starts off slow, but when it gets good, it's really good. - I feel like it's super good. - I didn't play much of the three PS2 ones, but I played Future Tools of Destruction and the shorter Quest for Booty. And like them, it's been an upward curve, I guess I would say. Like this is my favorite. This one is my favorite one so far and yeah. - What will the next and some X series be that can use penis jokes? - I mean, yeah, it has great writing. The writing that's great, the characters are like super good. The story's even like kind of hilarious at times, even though it's super archetypal, right? It feels like you're watching like an animated movie. - I like it much better than resistance, so. - Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy, Insomniac, easily Insomniac's best franchise. - It's a bread butter. - And I mean, it's Insomniac's most beloved franchise. I mean, you can look at the auction that IGN has up and you can see that the ratchet stuff is like blown up. The resistance stuff, huh. - I think that the ratchet stuff just sort of denotes Sony's commitment to doing sort of good, like solid games as opposed to worrying about the constant blockbuster mentality. And in a way, I think that's something that Microsoft becomes a really concerned with a lot, but like the ratchet games never do huge sales, but they just have good legs. - Maybe not in the US, but that's the thing is they sell worldwide. I mean, it's even big in Japan. - But even that, I mean, they're not like, it's no right, I don't think any ratchet game has hit like the four or five million mark. - No, probably not, no. - But like they all like cross the million threshold and they get like a million five more. - I think they've been pumping those games out. - The ratchet and clank are like closest thing that my mind Sony has to a mascot. Like there's like a lot of-- - They used to be, they wanted Jack and Baxter to be. - Yeah, but the ratchet and clank are so much more lovable than Jack and Baxter will ever be. - I think it was one of the first games that got packed in with PS3s. - You know what's funny too? - Not in the US. - I will say this, you know, we always hear Nolan North in all these games, right? He's in every fucking game. - Yeah, the Nolan North Free experience. - No, he's in this game, I found out. - But he's not playing Nolan North. He is the voice of the secondary caretaker guy, the goofy one that's like-- - Yeah, we talked about that. - We talked about that. - I couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it. - Once you know it's him though, you can tell it's Nolan North, I think. - I mean, I didn't know until the credits. - That's weird to me. Like I was reading the interview with the Mass Effect voice after this week and they're like, "Yeah, I do a bunch of BioWare games, but I'm always in the background. You never knew who I am." - Yeah, I just thought that that showed that he does have some range, you know what I mean? He always gets told to be-- - To your players. - To be Drake, you know. - I don't know that he's told to be Drake so much as Drake is not that unique of a character. - No, when I talk to the guys that are making SoCom who have Nolan North as the main voice, they said when they had Nolan North in the studio that he was like, "Oh, thank God." 'Cause he got tired of everyone telling him specifically, "Can you do Nathan Drake for this game?" "Be Nathan Drake." Like, so he hasn't told that. - You don't come from marketing standpoint, that's exactly what they want. That's why they hired him in the first place. - Yeah, it's working out real well for Darkwood. Do you play anything else? - Um, you know, I've been playing something else. You know, I've been spending Poop Socking Mag 'cause I'm trying to get high enough level to actually-- - That is way, that is a funnier sentence to me than it perhaps it should be. - You know, Poop Socking Mags. And then I've been a, yeah, I've just, I'm only like level 13 now. - Magging up in your moms' hands. - There's level 60, and you know that it's like, there are really cool things about that game, there are also really things that annoy me about it. Like, there are three factions, and when you make one, you can only, you have to pick at the beginning, and then you're like, that faction, that character's associated with your mindset. - What are the factions called? - There's like Raven, which is like, really rich guys, and then there's like Valor, which is basically America, and then there's SVR, or Svor, however you wanna say it, but Sever, however you wanna say it, they're like the Russian army with like ragtag equipment and shit like that. - So, yeah, so what is the difference between the three? - As far as I know, I don't know that there is a difference. I mean-- - It's not like a-- - I don't think that it's like, yeah, I don't think it's like the certain guys get different, I mean, they have different guns, but I wanna say ostensibly, they're just reskinned. - Right, okay. - But I don't know, because the only way to create a new character is to do a different PSN ID. - Ah, right, so it's like Sever for life, like you can-- - Or to reach level 60, and then you can make a new character. - It's like Russian mafia and shit. - Geez. - How many hours would you predict? - I've already played like probably eight hours, and I'm only level 13. - Wow. - And I'm sure it takes longer and longer to get levels as you go on. - Yeah, I mean, it's like an MMO in that sense, and it's like an MMO that when you level up, you get a talent point, and that point in the tree, it's not like a modern warfare where you unlock a new rifle just because you're like, oh, you hit level five, here's a new rifle. In this game, it's like you spend your two, you spend like one point in the talent tree for rifles, and you unlock the ability to put like a stabilizing grip on it. You know, that's not like something you just get through playing with it, and then like you put in like three points and you can buy a new rifle. You have to buy it with your leveling up points. So I'll sit there and spend like three levels where I don't spend anything 'cause I wanna get the next level up of rifle, you know? I mean, I do like the class creation system 'cause you can basically make your class however you want and each item just has like a cost associated with it, and like the most your character can be worth is like 3,400 points. So, you know, you give them heavy armor that's like 800 points, taking off the total, and you have to balance all that out. - How many different builds can you have? - Four, five, five. - Generally speaking, I mean, the big thing about Maggie's, the number of players in the game, are you finding that when you join servers, you know, it's typically full, or is it like 200? - No, I mean, I don't have trouble getting into full games at all. - I mean, and does that make it, I mean, is that appealing when you're in the game? - The thing is that you may all be on the same battlefield, but they really spread you out to where it's basically always like a 32 on 32. - Got it. - To like-- - Does it feel like a 32 on 32? - Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It feels like there, you'll see the other objectives are being completed, like you need those other teams to do what they need to do for you to win the overall battle, you know, but you're 32 guys, it's like your objective is like take out this wall, take out this bunker, and then go conquer this base. And then once you do that, you gotta hold it until your other teams can complete their objective. - Do any of the, so, do any of the teams on your team, these like sort of subgroups of 30, some of them-- - So they're broken up into like groups of eight as well. - Does it ever feel like you're on like the, I don't know how to say, but like the cool team that's got the best objective, like sometimes there's a group that's doing like-- - No, it's shoot the wall, shoot the bunker, but these guys are digging latrines. - Right, yeah. - It's pretty, it's pretty-- - These guys assault the palace at the end. - As far as I can tell, it's pretty much all the same. - It's like everyone does like four similar goals to get to that one point. - That's what I was wondering. - Even the maps are kind of like cross-shaped, right? - Yeah, like that's like the 256 player maps really are like shaped where it's like four identical battlefields heading towards that one ultimate goal, you know, and-- - Is there a part at the end of the battle where all of the players end up sort of really close together? - I think so, the couple of 256 player battles they played though, like, it never got to that point. We never made it, like my squad never made it in, but we were just getting beat on. But, you know, it's random whether you're attacking or defending, like you don't know which one you're gonna get thrown into. When you start, you have to level up too, so you have to be at least level eight before you can do a 256 player battle. You can't before that. Up to then, you can only do 128 player battles. So-- - Only. - And you are saying that you have to get to level-- - 15 before you can give orders, which I haven't really seen, and that will change it because you know how you're saying like, is this person's goal to do this? From the way I understand it, when battle commanders are there and stuff, you'll be able to give orders like, he'll be able to say, take that bunker instead of this bunker, and when he designates it, like when the game designates orders from what I've seen like, you know, go take this bunker, anytime you're doing it, it's like you shoot a guy and you get five experience plus five experience for doing the goal that the game wants you to do. And then once there's battlefield commanders giving orders, you get additional experience for listening to them too. That's how they encourage you to participate. - That's a good, that's a great idea. - So like, yeah, it kills are worth 10 points if you're trying to do his objective rather than five, you know, stuff like that. - And so he's got a UI to issue these commands, but it's not just like a voice command, like, hey guys, go do this thing. - No, no, no, you'll see it on your mark, like that thing will flash now, and you'll know. He can also like, once it gets like really high level, like battlefield commanders and stuff, like heal everyone within like X radius of them, you know, and can call in things like artillery and stuff from what I understand. If they completely alter the game, like that's why I was telling people, I don't think it will be the same game in two weeks that it is right now, because right now, most people aren't even level 10, you know, so there's basically a card ever anyone giving orders. I've seen like one game where there was one platoon commander ever, you know, like that was like the level 15 guy, so. - So in theory, once people, there are people that are up there at the high levels. And let's say you make it to level eight so that you can actually get in 256 player game. At that point, if I bought the game four weeks from now, I'm level eight, I get in the game, there are gonna be people issuing me orders and stuff like that. - Probably, yeah, and some of those people will have probably better equipment than you two, you know what I mean, like when you get to the higher, though the equipment really doesn't make that big of a difference, 'cause even the rifles, like the better rifles, they're not like so drastic that it's like, it's kind of winning. - Call of duty, that's in a way. - That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about is do you feel like, is there the chance that people are gonna get sort of like, like MMO, PvP stuff moves so fast that if you're not in on the ground four, then you just get sort of phased out? - 'Cause there isn't enough equipment that's like so spectacular in that game. It really is a lot of skill rather than the gear that you have. Like a guy with the default rifle can totally just headshot you one shot, you know what I mean? Like if he's really good. - The, back in the SOCOM days, it really did feel like the players that SOCOM is a huge, huge, huge community and I always felt like I could never get in. It was one of those games where if I came into it late, I could never get into it just because everyone was already too darn good, you know. - Yeah, I don't think that's most online shooter. - But this one, I don't really feel like that 'cause I feel like the gear that you have right off the bat, you have access to the heaviest armor right off the bat. You do, like everyone has access to heavy, medium, light armor. It's just how they wanna make their class. - Sort of don't feel that way about modern warfare somehow. - Really, I feel like that came in particular especially because of how much advanced gear you unlock. - I agree that theoretically, that's how I should feel about it 'cause that makes perfect sense but there's something about the starting weapons in that game and the controls that just, I mean, yeah, it's hard for maybe a match or two but once I pick up the controls perfectly, then it doesn't really matter what I'm holding. I can still kill guys, I don't know. - Contrary to what people have said too, like they're actually our surprising amount of people playing it with microphones. If there is a lot of communication going on, like people are giving, you know, people can't give orders yet, right? But they are communicating, like, let's attack this together. We'll swing around to the right, they're calling out people by name. - I don't find it that surprising actually, I think you-- - I know, but a lot of people have, like, even jokingly to me on Twitter or in the office been like, "How people actually talk?" You know, and I'm like, "Actually, yeah, they do." I mean-- - I mean, I would surmise that the people that are playing this are like the hardest of the hardcore so-com fans in particular. - Exactly, so they already had headsets. - So, yeah, it hasn't, like, what, the last three or four so-coms have all come with headsets. - Right, and-- - And since no one's playing, so-com anymore. - But yeah, it's the coolest thing for me is I'm all about being a support unit. Healing is like a great way to get experience in that game, and there's something like, extremely gratifying to me about being a combat medic, basically. - I feel like that playing battlefield, actually, like there's much more kind of mechanic going on. - Yeah, I mean, I just love seeing someone down, and you see this, like, big red flashing red, and you know, you can see them bleeding out. - I'm coming! - Which it took players a while to not just, like, get down and mash X, which is, like, kill yourself, because at first, when there weren't medics unlocked, like, you get a med pack to heal yourself, but the ability to heal other people, bring them up, that's later. - What is the benefit in waiting for someone to heal you, other than just going up? - You don't. There is no respawn time, and, like, if there's, like, the respawn point is, like, 100 yards behind you, and there's enough medics with you, you can keep the front moving, even if people are getting downed. - Okay, well, I mean, in battlefield, like, each team has a limited number of spawns. If you heal someone on the ground, then they get that spawn point back. - This is just that a lot of times, whether or not you have the people to make the push, like, because it's such a large scale, right? There's 32 people, if nine people die, and now, like, 10 people are still running back from the spawn, which means there's only, like, five up front, you're pretty fucked, 'cause they're gonna be all right there. So, the attacking side and stuff a lot of times are defending, if, like, people are getting blown up and stuff all the time, it's like, that medic can make the difference between holding that point or not, because they don't have to go respond, 'cause the respawn times can be anywhere between one second to 18 seconds, depending on when you get into the cycle, so. - It all sounds pretty team fortress, too, like, except for, you know, team fortress. It's kind of a, the medics are more of a pre-emptive-- - Right, so you can heal people back. - I do, you can do that, too. I can heal people while they're wounded. - Oh, that's nice. - But, I specifically put points in to bring people back when they're downed. - Got it. - 'Cause that gives me-- - Oh, so there's different types of meds. You can-- - Every guy can heal themselves, right off the bat. Like, everybody can get a healing pack to heal themselves. - Wow. - Then you can unlock the ability to heal others. And then, if you continue in that support route, like I did, you can bring downed people back. - So-- - And that's what I do. I'm all about bringing the downed people back. - This actually sounds really cool. I mean, I don't think I could, we just have to play so many games all the time. It sounds like the type of game that really will pay off if you just play hit for a really, really-- - I am having fun. I mean, that being said, there are some things that are, you know, it's not exactly the prettiest game. - Right. - I mean, it can be downright ugly at times. - But-- - Mechanically? - Yeah, that's what I want to know. - I like the controls, but I also like, I don't mind the six acts. I mean, the play's the controller. - I like it a lot, but-- - No, no, no, there's no tilts at all, actually. And it's smart, it maps the shooting naturally to the top button, instead of the bottom trigger, which that's-- - I'm the opposite, I'm the guy that likes the shooting-- - See, but I played PS2 shooters, so that's how I always were, was the R1 button. I mean, you can change it. - Oh, sure, yeah. - But I mean-- - Actually, you can't always do that. It bugs the shit, I mean, uncharted too, but-- - Yeah, I mean, it is a pretty cool game. I mean, it's not, like I said, it has its issues, right? Like, I really think that the ability to only make one character and one faction and have to stick with it. Well, cool, because you like, get really dedicated to a faction. It's a little annoying, like, you know what I mean? And there are some issues right now with certain factions. It's like being on a horde server, right? Where there's like, in World of Warcraft, where like everyone's playing horde, and you're like the 10 alliance dudes being like, fuck. And then this, it's like, just like the beta, everyone's playing the sever, guys. Everyone. - Really? - Yeah, and so it's like sever out numbers everyone by like at least two to one. - Why is that? - I don't know. I guess people like their aesthetic, the ragtag like grenade launchers tied to their guns and stuff, I guess. - That's kind of cool, yeah. - That's what I'm saying. So in the other ones, they're very much like the one I play Raven, which is probably the least popular, is just like the clean cut douchey Italian dudes, or something like the Europeans. - They were all boys. - Who are all about having like the best gear. And yeah. - Yeah. - Well, you've convinced me that I kind of want to play it. You probably don't think. - No, no, he's actually convinced a lot of fucking people about this. - I think it's really cool to try. You know, it's like what I told you, right? Like when I played your preview event, I was not very impressed. And so with like coming out, I was like, man, this game probably won't be that good. So I wouldn't know with really bad expectations. And so far I've been impressed. Like I don't think it is a great game, but I certainly think so far I'm having a lot of fun with it. - Madam. - Who knows how it'll be once I start seeing all the squad commands and stuff. Maybe they'll fucking up, maybe they'll be great, I don't know. - Matt and I were given a private demo at E3 of it. And it looked good. But I mean, it just, when I was hearing about all the stuff, I just thought to myself, this just doesn't sound like me. But everything I saw looked really cool. And in theory sounded really cool. It's just the type of thing where once you get into the live environment, if it all holds together. And that's the only way you can do it. It's a nice squad that I can give orders to that we're all my actual friends. - Do you think that buying this game, it is 60, right? - Yeah, it's 60, but. - Do you think that if I were to buy this game, I would be able to get my money's worth playing like 14 or 15 hours and just not playing anymore? - I mean, probably. - Like I mean, I-- - The reason I'm after that. - If I had bought this, I did not buy this. But if I had bought this with like the eight or hours or so I've put into it and the more I plan on putting it. I would be satisfied. Like it's a really cool game. I am slightly worried about what the PS3 like a population playing mag will be like once bad company comes out. That is a game I could see tearing people away from that. - And that's why I wonder is because like there are other multiplayer games on the horizon that I am more interested in than this. - Yeah, I mean, but surprisingly, mag has a decent population. - I wouldn't be too worried about it 'cause like you said, the Socom audience is really huge and this is going to be the hardcore song. - And lots of Socom audience is huge, but we bought the fucking Socom PS3 game and tried to play it and couldn't find a game. - Yeah, but it didn't work. - This was like six or seven months ago. - Which is why it didn't work. And so it's like they gave up on it. - And I think that people will stick with this probably a lot longer only because by the time bad company comes out and have invested the time that it takes to get up to the point of giving orders and stuff. It's like an MMO, right? EverQuest 2 came out, but people stuck with EverQuest 1 'cause they had poop-socked it for so long. They didn't want to give it up. Like I could see this having that same thing. Like it sounds punitive that you don't unlock things on more than one character and stuff. But at the same time being so locked into that one character, I think is like going to make people want to stick with it a lot longer than they probably otherwise would. - Mm-hmm, well. - You know, who knows? If they do, like right now, there's only nine maps. You know, three 256 player, three 128, three 64 player. - See, man, I'm not even like a big player. - But yeah, it doesn't matter because the maps, the maps are good. Like in general, I have not been loaded into a map like I am in Battlefield 1943 where I'm like, fuck. This map, you know what I mean? Like in this one, I'm like- - There was definitely that map in 1943. - In this game, they're all similar enough but well enough design that I'm like, yeah, cool. It'll be fun. - Nice. - Awesome. - Yeah. - Well, great. - Another game to play. - Yeah. - Damn you, Anthony. - Anything else? - That's it. - You played the Eastern Front stuff on Co, right? - Oh yeah, I did try that. And you all should try that too. If you have company heroes, it's free. - Oh, it's free. - I thought it was, I thought it was for pay. - No, it's not free. - You basically can't charge Vermont. - You know, it's free, my time. - Well, it needs to be balanced. I think they've done some balancing but it needs more. Like when the game first came out, the way I understood it was the guy that was in charge of balancing on their little team was kind of like it. I didn't want to listen to other people and you always had to go through him so certain things didn't get balanced as well. - You were mostly kind of a dick. - No, I was about to say a Nazi but that was seemed harsh. But he's gone now so apparently they're working through a lot of the balance issues that were there. Like when we played it opening night, it is cool, right? You just put it into your co-folder and you can go online and play and it doesn't change the fact that you can play normal co-games online. It just marks games with the Eastern Front Army as Eastern Front. So it works perfectly with co. It does have some-- - Even with their matchmaking? - Yeah. Well, I don't know about matchmaking because I never use matchmaking ever. - Wait, you never use matchmaking? - Hardly ever. - Oh, you always do server browser shit where you guys can lay your fucking ant-line traps to grief people. - Well, we make our games all the time, right? We don't do matchmaking. - Where do you play traps to grief people? - No, I mean, the thing is that we want good games a lot of times to do the games that we go in there and we stomp over people unless that's our intention from the beginning are not fun. They're not satisfying, which is why Eastern Front so far was not as satisfying because we would just walk all over people and it wasn't 'cause we were great or anything. It was just 'cause the army is so good that you could build like six snipers and those six snipers would roll out and murder everyone. It was like they would make things in that game that were never meant to be combined, like bombing runs and strafing runs and they would have a plane in that game that the Russians had that could do both at once. It was like those things were never meant to be combined. - Like that they had something that could do that. - Yeah, well, it makes sense speaking of it because it's an aisle too and aisle twos were good bombers and good strafers. And so like-- - At the same time? - Yeah, I mean, they could drop bombs and hold their guns, you know? It's just like, they did a lot of things where it was like, oh, that's really cool, that makes sense, like they have like-- - It's so, it's more historically accurate than like balanced gameplay, basically. - Yeah, it has a lot of things that are like cool nods, right? Like Russian guys all the time, American guys, everyone did it as well, but Russian guys did a lot road on top of the tanks, so you can call on tank riders. And it's basically a tank except it has riflemen on the top as well. - Oh, that's cool. - You know, it's sitting there. And, you know, they had a lot of really cool ideas, but like, you know, what you would expect, right? The riflemen unit has four guys with rifles, four guys without, but it's still, you know, most units in that game only have four riflemen. But with the Russians, they're only shooting at four rifles, just like everyone else except you have to kill twice as many. - See, what would make more sense is if they only had three rifles and three behind, so that they had less firepower immediately, but immediately reinforced? - Well, and the other thing is that Russian guys can't, so another thing that's big into, the company here has a big part of the game as far as strategy goes, is that it's all about retreating, knowing when to retreat, when to reinforce, and the Russian army under no circumstance can retreat ever. They do not have the button to retreat unless neither units, no. - Unless there's a commander unit, right? - He can make them charge, but they can't ever retreat ever. Even with the commander. - So they can break suppression if they're-- - They can break suppression and run away, but they don't get the retreat function where you lose control of them and they run back to base ever. - Oh. - So, I mean, and I think machine guns do extra damage to them too. So it's like if they get caught by a machine gun and you don't have a commander there. - So do you think they were kind of relying on that to be the catch-all balancing of the Russians? - Probably, but then you get the commander's unit, which is like four dudes, and I think the commander's usually the last one to die, and that basically breaks it, 'cause then they can just run past any machine gun, you know what I mean? - So the commander needs to be more fragile, among other things? - Yeah, and probably less of them. They need to be pretty-- - There should be like a small percentage point chance that one of the soldiers in a group turns around and shoots the commander. - But yeah, and they don't have access to other things, right? They don't have normal mortars at all. They don't have machine guns at all. - Oh, wow. - But they're all infantry, basically. All infantry in a bunch of fucking tanks, which is about right, but-- - There shouldn't be a bunch of fucking tanks, so the Russians did not have that many tanks. - No, the Russians had more tanks than anyone. The Russians had like, the Russians by the end of the war were making something like 2000 tanks a day. - Really? - Yeah, that's why they won. Was not because the T-34 was a great tank, but because they could, they had so many of them that they would knock over tiger tanks by driving into them, because there were just so many of them. Like the Russian army built more tanks than anyone. - Wow. - I know that because I watched military channels, top 10 tanks of all time, and the T-34 was number one. - Told me about that. - Specifically because they could produce it in such a rate that it just didn't matter how many they lost. They would just be like, "What, we lost a thousand?" - They were the Zerg of tanks. - That was only half a day's work, so. - Yeah, we'll make that by lunch. - Yeah, yeah, that was a Russian man. They lost, you know, you look at their numbers, but it didn't matter to them, but yeah. You know, it's really, it is cool. Like it's a novelty at this point, right? I don't think it's like something that people should really play with, but if you go in there and you toy around with it, it is like pretty impressive that a team of people built this mob, modded it co, and I even heard someone joking from THQ one time be like, "Okay, we should just buy the assets off them and do it, right?" 'Cause they've done all the time and the art and everything. - 'Cause then, "Oh, it looks totally legit." - Yeah, and they have all the buttons. They've done custom artwork for all like the build this button, you know, and they've taken sound effects from like recorded T34 tanks and stuff and put them in the game. - Yeah, even their own sound for the, even rifles and stuff. - Even Russian voice acting. - Yeah, they've done everything. It's, it is impressive just for that. That's why I'm saying like as a novelty thing, it's, it is super cool. At this point, it's just not quite balanced as it needs to be. - It makes me think of, you know, Sid Meier is doing the big talk at GDC this year, and his whole thing is that his whole talk sort of thesis is about how reality should stay out of games. Like this type of reality, like, you know, "Oh, well, Russians had this, this, and this." Well, you know, it's not the balance. - Right, at some point, you have to make it a game. - Yeah. - You know, one thing I will say that they're missing out of the Russian army that I wish was in there, was dog bombs. Yeah, I wish there was dog bombs 'cause the Russians would do that. They would train these dogs to, to know that-- - The hue of all people. - To know that, yeah, I'm an animal person, but I just think it would have been a cool little thing just because it's like, the Russians would train dogs to run under tanks, that that's where food always was. They would only ever put the food under tanks. And so then they would strap these bombs to 'em with a switch that would flatten against their back and blow them up when they were done under tank and it's got combat, and then they'd release them during combat and they'd all go run under tanks because they think there was food there. Fucked up, but-- - Wow. - I just thought that would have been a unique unit in the game. Jesus. (laughing) Killing dogs, not okay in video games though. - No. - Apparently. We're gonna-- - Anything else? - No. We're gonna, I just bought Santa Hill for PSP, the original one 'cause I never played it, so I'm gonna play it on 'em. Yeah, that's it. - I just wanna play more Mass Effect and I play it. Like, I'm not done yet and I just wanna play another one. - I can't wait to start with the game. - Yeah, do it again. - Keep going. - Fuck you guys. Let's take a breaking guy. Let's take a break. We'll read some letters and after that, and that's like a lovey bonus drive again with. ♪ I don't know what to say ♪ ♪ And tell me ♪ ♪ And now that you're mine ♪ ♪ We'll find a way ♪ ♪ I'm trying to see this sun ♪ ♪ Let me be the one ♪ ♪ Who shines with you ♪ ♪ And the modern ♪ ♪ We don't know what to do ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're all we are ♪ ♪ We'll find a way ♪ ♪ Do what we're done ♪ ♪ Let me be the one ♪ ♪ Who shines with you ♪ ♪ And we'll see the slide away ♪ ♪ Slide away ♪ ♪ Slide away ♪ (upbeat rock music) - Hello, and welcome back to our letter segment, and I'm kicking it to Arthur for the first one. - Yeah, you'd think that knowing that, I'd have a cute up and everything. This one is from Michael and Aaron Morris, apparently to two people who are at this. The subject is game prices, game club and farts. Kung Fu gold chain here, and I'd like to ask a few questions. One, what the hell happened to all the stories? You guys still make me laugh, but I haven't heard any personal defecation stories in a while. That shit is right at my alley of mindless humor, and it makes me laugh my ass off. - I didn't pick this one 'cause I didn't think you'd want to get into defecation stories. - He's asking why there haven't been any. - Well, I miss you in my pants in a while. - I had a pretty close call running about a month ago where it was touching go. But-- - Turtlehead was popping out. - I think the, yeah, that's as far as I'm gonna go because people I know listen to this podcast that aren't gamer. - Continue the letter. - Tyler, did you have a poop story? - Did you share your pants? - No, but this is a story I can share on the benefits of getting belligerently drunk. The benefits? - Yeah. - Okay. - So one time-- - It's all. - One time I was in Italy and we got on a train with this random guy that we met from Austin and he had a bottle of Jagermeister. - Oh, geez. - And so we were drinking all night and we were riding into Naples and eventually I had to throw up. So I went into the restroom to throw up on the train and while I was throwing up in the toilet, I went to flush and when it flushed, it just opened a scoop where you could straight up see the railroad tracks hauling ass under. So if I wouldn't have been drunk, I would have known not to walk along Italian railroad tracks 'cause you might step in human shit. - I think that's the way most trains are. - Really? - I don't know. - I'm not as trains in Europe. - Yeah, in Europe, maybe. - None of the other trains, none of the other ones that we saw went to the ground. - That's all right. You don't want to walk under a plane considering it pushes piss out. - But that was my, it goes into a tank. - Yeah, and all the other trains I've been on. That one was-- - According to the dark tower. - That night we got all our money stolen. - That's why you can't flush coke. - How did you get all your money stolen from you? - 'Cause you were belligerent. - Because the train into Naples is notorious for having people that wait for backpackers to fall asleep and then they sneak into your cabin and rifle through your stuff and steal your money. - And you were drunk and sleepy, which meant you weren't gonna hear anything. - Yeah. - All right, question two. - That really happened. - So word to the wise, don't be drunk and sleepy on the way to Naples. Number two, I wonder if Game Club would get popular enough for a high profile publisher like Sony to pay you guys to play games like God of War series and the Eco Games to promote an upcoming Blu-ray package. Ratchet and Clank, Jack and Daxter, Silent Hills. I know for a fact, if you guys played a game like Sire and I would mind it and play along. - I mean, we will never, while I'm involved anyways, and I think I speak first all, we will never play a game that someone told us to play for money. - Hot. - I don't think anyone would ever do that because there's too much of a chance of us being honest and saying this sucks. - I mean, yeah, listen to our game clubs a lot of times. I mean, if we talk about it for so much and it's such specific things that even games we like, there are times that were brutal. - Heavenly Sword comes to mind where I think that a lot of us didn't necessarily disagree with the reviews of God, even if we enjoyed it. - I mean, just like I enjoyed Call of Duty, but man, that game was fucked in a lot of ways. - Yeah. - I mean, a lot of developers have liked what we had to say, but I don't think publishers so much have enjoyed our takes. - And I think it's, yeah. It's because the developers know the problems with their game as well. - Yeah. - Because it's so long after they've been selling that they don't care and-- - Yeah, they feel less invested and there's happy someone else is still playing it. - Yeah, and can appreciate the things that they like about their game. And number three, do you think game prices will get lower than 60 bucks before the next generation? - Yeah, I mean, oh, before the next generation? No. - No, I think it'll be the next generation. - Yeah, when the next generation comes out, then we'll see games that are like 40 bucks new. I don't know, they will-- - I don't think so. - No, you think they'll still be 60? - No, I mean, honestly, I know that everybody freaked out when games got raised to 60, but it totally makes sense. The games went up in price. - So you don't think it'll get lowered? - No, I think that, okay, for a huge AAA games, I think that 60 will say the same. I think that for other publishers and developers to survive, they need to sort of become more flexible and experiment with price points. - I mean, it just wouldn't surprise me. It's like once the other consoles were out, you know, a lot of PS2 games dropped to 40, like brand new, 40 bucks. - I don't think that's what it means though. - I thought that's exactly what he meant, like before the next generation comes out, but I think he assumes, 'cause I think he assumes it's a foregone conclusion once the next generation goes out. - But PlayStation 2 games didn't start costing less until the Xbox 360 was out. - That's what he's saying, so he assumes that it's gonna be a-- - He said it before. - I know, so he assumed, but that means he also probably assumes it's a foregone conclusion once it comes out, and that's what I'm saying. Do you think it'll happen once they come out? I do, like the Xbox. - Only because generally when the next generation of consoles comes out, AAA titles stop appearing on the previous generation unless they're first party. - Yeah, or Madden, so. - But even then, I mean, it's like that's not the lead skew for Madden anymore. - Yeah. - Right. - Isn't what he's asking our game prices going to go down because people are poorer right now, and they don't wanna spend money, and we're gonna complain. - Yeah, but people are still playing. People are still spending 60 bucks a little bit less. - Like there's a lot of talk about how, like, game companies didn't sell as many games, but I don't feel like they released as many games last year. - Anyway, yeah, I don't think prices are gonna go down in this generation. - No. - I think that there's, if you want to buy cheaper games, there's plenty of places to get cheaper games or free games now, and that's brilliant. - And how much did Modern Warfare 2 cost on PC? No, that's right, $60 because they knew people would pay it. - Yeah, I guess it just depends what they know people will pay. - And they, I mean, people were used to paying 60 now. - Yeah, but I mean, I don't think Bioshock 2 on PC, it's gonna be 50, Mass Effect on PC will be 50, yeah. I just think that not all games will be like that. Are you done? Was that it? - Yeah, he had three questions, I think that's enough. - James says, "I recently had the worst thing happen to me "that could ever happen to a gamer. "I returned home late from school to see an empty spot "in my entertainment center, spot where my consoles were. "With my 360 PS3 and GameCube gone, "I have a pit in my soul. "My question is, have you ever had a console stolen? "And if so, how did you deal with it?" And I brought this up 'cause I'm pretty sure that you guys both have, right? Yeah, console stolen. - He's pointing at Jane. - Yeah, Jane. - Oh, the Halloween party. - Yeah, didn't you guys get something stolen? - Sort of. - Yeah, see, it's not, it wasn't mine, so I didn't feel personally invested in it in the same way. I felt, it felt almost worse for the time when it happened. What happened was it had a giant party at our house. - 'Cause it was 2008. - Yeah, yeah. - I remember that. - You know, I'm sure if you listen to shows like this, you know, we, when you work for a company like OneUp or whatever, you have debug consoles that play the burnt developer versions of the games, the builds that gets into you, preview builds, review builds, that sort of thing. And so, we had one at our house 'cause Jay was reviewing something like that, and during this party, it walked off. And it sucks because it's not, that's not good for anyone. Those consoles don't play any retail games at all, so that guy couldn't go to a store and buy a game with it now. - Yeah, it looks, and it looked identical. The only thing that would have told you that it wasn't a real Xbox 360 is there's a tiny sticker on the back that says demo kit. - It's where the serial number is, right? - Yeah, it's very small. It's super small. There's no way it's gonna look at that when he's just thieving. - Yeah, so he's gonna, he's gonna turn it on at home and debug menu would pop up that looks funny. And I hate to say it, but I think there is a way to, you can, through the debug menu, turn it into a retail Xbox 360. - Ooh. - Yeah, I think you can. - I don't know, man, I've looked at all over on... - There is, it's a spot when you... - I have tried. - When you format the drive and it says press any key to format as a debug, press the Y key to format as a reto. - Yeah, but it still won't play retail games if you do that, yeah. - Oh, it just formats the drive that way. Anyway, yes, it walked off. It sucked because we felt responsible. Those are essentially priceless. You can't go to the store and buy one. - I mean, they belong to Microsoft. - Yeah, they are owned by Microsoft and it was our company was responsible for it. Someone's name was on a contract. - But then they laid everybody off two months later. - Yeah, so fuck that noise. - But it was really disappointing though. - It did suck. It made us not want to throw parties anymore, you know, 'cause we do have a bunch of crap around our house that... - I had just a teensy bit of relief at the same time because my personal 360 was in that room as well, like pretty much next to it. - And Russian roulette. - When I saw there was only one 360 sitting there, you know, at first I'm like, I can't believe this. Someone sold 360. But when I saw that mine was still there, at least my personal one, I felt at least a little bit better. - It's amazing who ordered that. - We had to not get a nice meal, yeah. - But yeah, but that's awful that happened to him. That's terrible. - Well, if it's your 360, I mean, there have been - Kansas way, and GameCube. - Yeah, we're a police have tracked the IP address. You know, I know, I reported on an in-story exact, with that exact story over on Christmas. - I mean, theoretically, yeah. If you registered your Xbox, who knows? Maybe you could talk. - Yeah, definitely report it for the police. - File police report, for sure. - The next letter's from Josh, and it's also semi-depressing. - I'm great. - It's not really, but it's kind of just funny. So me and my girlfriend have been going out for three years now. She is awesome, and a semi-gamer who likes Yuri, which is female and female Hintai, and... - As opposed to Yale, which is boy on boy. - Yeah, got it. - She is a little on the chubby side. I love her very much, but don't know how to get her to exercise a little. I hate seeing pics of us, and seeing that I'm skinnier than her. Am I a dick? - A little bit. - Yeah. - A little bit. - Well, I mean, look. - For writing to us about it. - Yeah, that's what I mean. - Look, I love her very much, but don't know how to get her to exercise. I was just gonna tell him the only thing I would recommend is if you want her to exercise, don't be like, "Hey, you need to start exercising." You should be like, "Let's start exercising." - Yeah, that's how you do it. 'Cause I want to get in shape. Don't make it seem like it's about her at all. - Or, I mean, pick activities that you can do together that are exercised. - Exactly. - Rock, color, you want to start simple. Go on walks, you know. - Get a dog. - Yeah. - And walk that motherfucker all the time. - Hang out together and do things that she, find things that she likes to do, and if all she likes is, why did he tell us that she likes hand tie? - I think he, I think that she's so cool. She like, "Oh man, she's exactly, exactly." - Okay. - He might as well have been like, "Oh, she loves me nuttin' her hair or something." Like, whatever is weird. - Whoa! (laughter) - Damn it. - I struck a nerve for Tyler. - It would have never come out. - Wow. - I was gonna say, I mean, there are other less terrible places for that to go, but sure, she's a total keeper, except for she's kind of fat. - Yeah, well, one thing, I don't want the listener to think that they're a dick for riding into the sand. So I think it's a genuine, you know, it's a hard subject to broach. - I mean, you obviously like her. - You're doing so. - Yeah. - But you should, yeah, like we said. - Yeah. - And you know, don't tell her she needs to do anything. - Don't tell her she looks fat in those genes. - Yeah. - Seriously, figure out a way to do things together. - Exercise together. - The next letter is from Joe, and it says, "I have a question for Arthur. "I was just wondering, what preferred art mediums "do you enjoy working in? "How do you find time to work on some of the art ideas "you have?" - You see, man. - I'm not Andre Serrano. - Oh, okay. - Yes, I know you're talking about dick. That's real. - Yeah. - You know, the-- - No, stop. - The album load. - Stop, see. - That is blood and suffering. - I feel like you guys have already given me too much. Like, I know Hintai Girl and Girl and Hintai Boy and Boy now, which I did not know before this podcast. - Yowie is Boy and Boy. - Askie's. - Hintai Girl. - I felt like I'd already forgotten it and now it's-- - So, I wonder if Yuri is designed for boys since Yowie is designed for girls? - I would assume so. I mean, generally when I paint, I'm painting in oils now, just because that's what art school does to you. That's what it did to me anyway. And then I'll do digital stuff sometimes, but it's hard to find time. - How do you feel about pastels? - Like chalk pastels or oil pastels? It just depends on the mood I'm in. I've done stuff with both, but I haven't worked in chalks in a long, long time. - That was always my favorite in school. - Yeah, me too. - And outside of rock. - It's super goddamn messy. And honestly, I find oil paints less messy. Like, I'm pretty conscientious when I paint. Like, I don't make a huge mess when I paint. Like, people are surprised when they see like how condensed all my stuff is. - Arthur's in his room naked, just screaming at the top of his lungs, flinging paint. - Ah, you dirty bitch. - That's what I'm looking in the mirror. And then like, I haven't been able to draw for a couple of weeks, so I was drawing this morning while we were stuck in traffic. But, and then drawing digitally sometimes, like I have a nice wake home tablet. - Awesome. - Steven writes in and he says, "I was wondering if you've ever played a game for a long time, but never completed it. I've put 18 hours into Far Cry and still not even come close to finishing it. I feel that I got my money's worth though. Same with Demon's Souls. After 25 hours in and many exciting boss battles, the game's magic wore off of me, just like it has for Far Cry 2. So I ask, have you ever stopped playing a game because the, you know, the magic, the feeling you felt for it that was worth your time, just kind of wore off? - Far Cry 2, actually. - Same, yep. I, it used to be an epidemic for me. I think the reason was different back when I was a bit younger. I guess PlayStation One era, I played a lot of Japanese, well, played a lot of Square RPGs at the time. And I had this thing happen where after Final Fantasy VIII, which I completed every game that I played after that, I would get to basically the very end when you had gathered your whole party and you were making the kind of final push to the boss and stop this happening. Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy IX, and a few others. And I could never figure out what it was. Like, I just didn't want the story to end or what would happen, but I used to get right to the end and not finish. - Indigo Prophecy was the one I was telling Arthur about all the way up to the end of the final boss fight. I was like, no, it's just dumb now. I just stopped. - I don't think I finished Ocarina of Time, actually. - I'd either. - Oh, it's a good boss battle, actually. The final one. - I got to the-- - But everything I'm before, it's so-- - I got to the boss battle and when Waker I was like, oh, I already played all these bosses, not playing. - Can I just take a second? We don't hate Zelda. - No. - I do. - Or I don't hate old-school Zelda. - Absolutely not. - Like, a Link to the Past is one of the greatest gaming memories I will ever have. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. - Well, Link to the Past. - Legend of Zelda, Adventures of Link, Link to the Past. - Link's Awakening. - Link's Awakening, the Oracle Games, Minish Cap. Even, I love Wind Waker, even, I think it has tons of faults, but I think that's my favorite of the 3D of all this. - 2D Zelda's. - But yeah, 2D Zelda's, I love the overworld. I like overworlds that have legitimate rewards and I feel like that's missing in the new Zelda's. And one of the reasons I think Dark Siders was kind of cool is that it had scratched that itch. - And Jay, you were gonna say something I cut you off. - Oh, no, no problem. I would say it's games that I usually play a healthy amount of and never finish is probably every open world game I've ever played before Assassin's Creed 2. - That's fair. - Okay. - So, the nice thing about rip-action girl is that everything you did contributed to progressing. - And that one's on my top of my pile of shit. - Ah, that is my top of my pile of shit too. - I'm super excited to play that. - You know I've never played it. - The multiplayer has jetpacks, man. - I've played the multiplayer. I have played the multiplayer. - I have no excuse. - We did a multiplayer. - I have never played the multiplayer. - Yeah, well, I was a comic on you guys did that. - Yeah, it was fun. The next letter's from Selby and he wants to know about Alien vs Predator. He said, "I wanna know if you guys could talk "about this game, but you mentioned "a couple of times in the podcast. "You don't think it will be great?" - That's why. - That's why. - Part of the same developer. - That's interesting. - Rebellion developed Rogue Warrior. - Oh, that's right. - We looked it up today. - Yeah, the other company quit. - Yeah, Rebellion made Rogue Warrior. - Yeah, that doesn't. - So, it was the same company that made Rogue Warrior. - Yeah, it's confidence. - Wait, she just watched a new video for that today. - Why did I think it was Gearbox that made this game? - Because Gearbox is doing-- - Gearbox is making games which was put on hiatus and then say you're cut off funding, pending the performance of Alien vs Predator. - Yeah, so this is-- - That happened when they canceled the Obsidian Aliens game. - All right, that just goes to show how out of the loop I am on this game. - Did you see the video for the Obsidian Aliens game before they took it down? That looks so fucking cool. - It did, it looked really cool. - Fucking Mass Effect with Aliens is what that game looked like, and they canceled it. But it could have been alpha protocol with Aliens. - I mean, yeah, maybe it was never gonna come out. But yeah, that game I just, I mean, that yeah, they made the first Alien vs Predator games and yeah, those were cool, but since then-- - They didn't make the first two. 'Cause everyone forgets about the Jaguar game, man. - That was made by Rebellion. - Wasn't made by Rebellion? - Yeah. - Wow. - That's the thing is that they made other games that were good, but it's like, since then they fucked up, man. - Okay, so, but it is the same, it is the original Aliens vs Predator developer. - They did, yeah. - But that's kind of interesting, I guess. - But then, I mean, look at what they did between Alien vs Predator 99 and now. I just, I have a whole lot of Rogue Warrior, so. - Yeah, you shouldn't do that. - I mean, if it's like a third as bad as everybody says, it is, so I'm just gonna-- - I played Rogue Warrior. - I played Rogue Warrior. - Rogue Warrior's pretty bad. - I can't get excited about a game called Rogue Warrior. - Everybody stops at the same point with Rogue Warrior if they don't finish, it's like 20 minutes in, and I'm not like, that's not, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, 20 minutes, it's like, everybody literally stops at about the same point in the first mission in that game. Unless they're next up there. - Yeah, I mean, I would like for it to be good, 'cause I would love a really cool Alien's game to play, 'cause like I said, I did like the PC ones, the early ones, I thought those were fun. - I really love the mechanic, you know, just the simple little things of increasing the field of view and making you fast and then making you run on walls. - Like, starting off bursting from a dude and then having to like worry about hiding where you're a little alien. - Yeah, running around. - Like that was fun. - As an Alien was genuinely like different and fun, like a good thing to do in first person. I wasn't as into the Predator mechanics, they were so cool, but to me it was all about running around. - Remember when you found the Predator Alien? - Remember when you found the Perdalian? - Yeah. - Fucking awesome. - A Predator Alien, is that what that is? - Yes. - Cool. - It was in a cocoon at the end of the room and if you really wanted to cheese it, you could throw your disc at the cocoon and kill it in one hit. - Yeah, so now I'm more excited again. So there you go. - I mean, I have seen Aliens like 37 times, so. - Let's see, let's see. - Whoa. - I just opened this letter because, you know, like occasionally I'll open them just based off the title and this one was called, "Just to Make You Feel Uncomfortable." - All right. - Great. - And it's really short. It just says, "I'm masturbating. "We're able to fit him in the background." (laughing) - That's F-ed up, yo. - How does that even work? - I don't want to know. - Your mom's coming in the room. - Yeah. - Your mom's coming in the room. - Okay. - You're coming in your mom's room. - This is from Ben. And he says, "I have a couple of quick questions." And he says, "First, you guys are always talking "about screen tearing and I'm wondering what this is. "I feel like I probably have seen screen tearing. "I just don't know what it is." It's exactly what you're thinking. It's like the screen looks like only half of it's refreshing. - Horizontal breaks in the screen. - It's when one part of the screen moves and the other doesn't. - Yeah, and then it refreshes. - While you're turning the camera. - While you're turning the camera, yeah. - Yeah. There's a thing called B-Sync, Vertical Sync, that basically locks these things. This screen tearing stops it from happening, but the way it does is it locks the refresh rate of the game to either 30 or 60 frames per second, an even number, and then you never see the screen tearing. - Well, it's not just an even number, it's an even number that matches the refresh rate of a standard momder. - Right. And then his second question was when we say the words gaming community, who do you classify as gaming community? Is it just people who follow game news, people that play multiple genres and appreciate games? Or are you also including the people who just play like COD4 and Halo 3 and that's it? - I think if you consider yourself part of the gaming community, you're part of the gaming community. - Yeah, I'd never split hairs like that. - Yeah. - Don't think about it. - Oh, we don't either. - Tyler, you roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll. - Thank you, Tyler. - That's a jellyfish. (laughs) - It's like that episode of SNL with a rock. - Whoops. - It's got Bill Hader playing the alien on the sports cast. (laughs) You have no idea what I'm talking about. - I don't, but there is that one old skit where it was like Tonto, Frankenstein, and like something else, caveman. - Fail. - Yeah. - SNL, not into it. - The last season was good. That's cool. - That's one of those shows that it's like South Park for me now where, you know, I don't watch it regularly and I kind of, not as interested as I used to be, but when I watch it with friends who watch it regularly, they seem to know the right episodes for me to watch. So like the two or three episodes recently I've seen of SNL were hilarious. - The Rock Obama, oh, I understand that. - They have been good lately, man. This year and last year, Kristen Wig. I watch it for her, mostly. - Who's Kristen Wig? - She's the one that does like-- - And face. - Yeah, real thin face, real skinny. She does like the blonde, she blonde. - No, she's got like kind of like brown hair. - Oh yeah, she's easily like the strongest comedian on the cast. - She's not knocked up or right, knocked up. - Yeah. - The girl that's always trying to lose some weight. - Oh, okay. - Yeah, I like her. - Where you go home, where you're sold. - I thought she's a blonde less than that. - Go take the weight that's on the scale and subtract 10. - I thought she was blonde for 70s. - She was blonde in that. - Okay. - I think she's naturally. - Okay, this is the last letter I'm gonna read. It's from Trevor. It's not depressing or anything. This is this letter is more for my Anthony, which isn't true. It's actually more for everyone 'cause I'm not qualified. But I'd still like to everyone's thoughts. I played Oblivion and loved it. Then I played Fallout 3 and I didn't think it really compared. Then I went back to Oblivion to play through the shivering I was expansion for the first time and I saw how bad Oblivion had quickly aged. I've spent 50 plus hours in both games including all the DLC for Fallout 3. But I think I have to give the edge to Oblivion because of how much I enjoyed at the time playing and how amazing all the different guilds were. Thoughts? He's one stone. - You're wrong. - I think I like to Fallout more in the end. Even though it took like Fallout was another game that I played the first couple, like first couple hours and I was like, eh. But then when I finally sat down and got to like the fourth hour, I was like, Jesus Christ. And then I just blew through everything. - You played as much as Fallout 3 in a one-way period as I played Mass Effect 2. - Yeah, I am pretty much just, I am disappointed that I have run out of content to play in Fallout. - I theoretically want to feel that way but for some reason those games don't hook me. I'm a BioWare guy. Like I like the story rather than, I always feel so lonely in-- - Fallout is like a collection of experiences and scenery as opposed to a story. - I love the world. I think that's why if I had to, I played more Oblivion because like you said, at the time it seemed really cool and open and fun and I did one Oblivion gate and never did any of the other ones but definitely did a bunch of quests in the world until I realized that almost every quest was the same. I got really lonely. I had that guy with the yellow hair from my fan following me around. - Did you do the Assassin's Guild? - I think I started doing the Assassin's Guild. - The Assassin's Guild quest in that and finding all the DayDricks shrines are definitely my favorite parts. - I did some of the DayDricks shrines. It was definitely an arch-made, I was-- - Did you ever see it rain flaming dogs? - I did. - What? - Yeah. - It's one of the DayDricks quests. Like for the, I think it's actually for the God from the Shivering Isles, like you find his shrine and he wants you to basically-- - I think flaming dogs seem like his stuff. - Go to this town and make these cat people like basically think that the world is ending. Like that's your job. So it's your idea. It's your job to sort of like do all these pranks that make it look like this prophecy is being fulfilled. - And one of those is-- - So like you-- - Dogs at fire, raining dogs. - Well that's the end of it, but like you also need to get like this special cheese that they have there and steal it and put it in the middle of town. So there's like this horde of giant rats that go through the town. - That was really cool. - And a bunch of other stuff. - It was a really good quest. - That's awesome. - I think you have to kill one of their sheep or something like that. And then you read this incantation to the center of town and like the sky goes dark and it starts raining flaming dogs. - But in general, that's how I think everyone feels like they all have these awesome stories to tell about their time with Oblivion and stuff. But Fallout, it's just a better game. - It's just more compact. - Fallout is the game everyone wanted Oblivion to be. Like you know, it's like what you're saying Arthur. It's more compact. It had a lot of the fat trimmed off it just. - In Oblivion, you had to go to places to see things and Fallout, you couldn't turn around without falling over something to see. - It's like they learned and improved upon it. Just like Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2. - And never-- (laughing) - Well I never thought that they, nothing felt cut and paste in Fallout. That was my favorite thing about it. And they still, no one does a game like those guys where every freaking piece of the environment is something that's real and legitimate that you can pick up or move and it's really great. I wish I enjoyed those games more. I do. - Well try, God damn it. I really enjoy watching people play those games too. - And I love hearing stories about people playing them. I just, for whatever reason, I just don't have the focus to do this game. - Where with all that? I mean, you and a lot of people, it's not. - It's just not my thing. But for whatever reason, Mass Effect hooks the shit out of me. - I love that. - I love those Bioware stories. - Remember to send your letters to letters@eat-sleep-game.com and listen to the mobcast at bitmob.com. The Geekbox at Geekbox.net and check out the Area 5 TV podcast, video podcast, they do it at area5.tv or revision3.com/coop. And then, so that's it. I'm gonna leave the room now. Music is gonna play and then you guys are gonna hear about Mass Effect 2. And it's gonna be spoilery, so. - So don't listen if you don't watch it. - So just the ending. - We're not gonna talk about the ending. - Yeah, I'm gonna try to make it so that we're not spoiling any huge story things, but that some stuff will be discussed, so. - If you haven't played it at all, then you'd probably be disappointed with it. - Spoilers. - Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. - Yeah, spoilers. - Spoiler listening. - Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Spoilers. Fucking spoilers. ♪ Hand me in hand ♪ ♪ We fight ♪ ♪ Please, yeah, please don't ♪ ♪ Wonder why ♪ ♪ There's love on your cage ♪ ♪ More to you ♪ ♪ Are the high ♪ ♪ Don't care ♪ ♪ What is wrong ♪ ♪ To there ♪ ♪ Inside ♪ - All right, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoilers. - This is the part we talk about Mass Effect 2. - We talk about Mass Effect 2. - So, Mass Effect 2. It's not bad. - Game of the Year. - Yeah, I'm just kidding. - Well, I mean, I don't know. It could be the game of the year. - It is. It's definitely one of those times where we can't forget about the big thing that came out in January. - I mean, everybody talks about like, like last year, a lot of people mentioned how, oh, well, it's too bad that infamous came out in June 'cause everybody forgot about it, but you know what? No one will forget about fucking Mass Effect 2. - Absolutely not. You know, I got worried going into it. I loved Mass Effect 1. I beat it twice, and it was a game that I looked at, and I was really, just like Assassin's Creed, I was just really in love with the potential that was there. There was a great story and a great world, but it just felt like it was hung up on some technical stuff, a lot of RPG busy work, a lot of interface stuff wasn't very fun. I didn't like the menu system, and the combat was just, you know, I think the term shooter for babies was used quite a bit during the Mass Effect 1. - Well, yeah, the way the shooting in that worked, is that if basically if you were finding your gun and something came within your reticle, it was hit. - Exactly. - But like I was saying in the car, as we were trying so hard not to talk about Mass Effect 2 and failing, is that Mass Effect 1 felt in a lot of ways like a game that had a lot of different pieces that weren't glued particularly well together. And particularly the planet exploration feels like something that was tacked on because they were running at a time. - And not only that, I mean, before the game came out, they really talked about the planet expert, you're gonna be able to go to hunt. They said hundreds of planets before the game came out, and there will be things on all of them. And I don't think they really delivered on that. - I mean dozens of planets, to be fair. - Right. - But really when I sit back and I think about it, and I remember when I went back to go play Mass Effect 1 and I was looking at my game saves and like the single player missions that you could go on, there's like eight or nine. It's like the first three you've got the Citadel to go to, and then basically the third act. - Yeah. - You know, and it's just, you go to IOS, and you go through the conduit, and then bam, you're back on the Citadel, and that's it, you're done. And so when you stick to like the single player stuff, there's just, I was like, wow, there wasn't really a whole lot there. - And I think as opposed to the multiplayer component of Mass Effect. - Sorry, I couldn't help it. - You mean the main storyline? - Yeah, I mean the story was great, but yeah, just basically. - I mean, occasionally there were moments like, I know a lot of people can blame about the side quest, but there were moments that I really enjoyed. Like there was a point where you found some human biotics holding like a senator hostage, like a council representative for the humans being held hostage by these biotics. And basically you'd go in, and if, for most people, the only chance you had is that you could shoot them. But my Paragon score and speech score was so high that I actually talked them down and no one got killed. - Nice. - And I knew that Mass Effect 2 was not fucking around when that came up. - Yeah. - And I got an email from them, and then I heard a news thing on the, on, I think I was in the Citadel, but like there's like the Alliance News Feed Network or whatever that plays on almost every planet you go to. And I heard the news report that that council member had basically gotten reparations for the biotics that the Alliance had been working on. And I was like, that's fucking amazing, because I totally got that guy to do that. - Like Arthur, I played, the first thing I always put points into in RPGs now, and I think this is something that can say that Jane Pinker was the one that really taught me to play RPGs this way. I don't know. She just inspired me to always put my points into the talking options first. - Oh, yes. - And so I did the same thing. And that was my favorite parts of Mass Effect 1. That, and the conversations really, I mean, to me were the key awesome. I loved the conversation system. I loved the look of the characters. They just looked great. And the voice acting was really cool. I liked that for the first time. I was a big fan of Kotor. And, you know, in Kotor, there's the traditional text tree where your character doesn't speak the line. Is that right? - Yeah, well, I mean, that's the BioWare thing, is that usually your character doesn't speak the line. And Dragon Age is a good example of the way that BioWare used to make games. - Mmhmm. - Because Dragon Age is basically fucking Baldur's Gate 2 with 3D models. - Right. - So the fact that your character has a character because they speak the lines, the fact that you choose the lines, you know, before it's their time to speak so that, you know, it's seriously 10 minutes into Mass Effect 1. - Yeah. - You're gonna get the hang of it. And you're gonna be having conversations in real time. It's like a movie playing out in front of you that you are controlling. That was incredible. But aside from that Mass Effect 1, like we said, the combat, not really there, a lot of extra fluff, not really jelling together. I was a big fan of Kotor and this game did not, Mass Effect 1 was potentially really, the future was going to be great for the series. I could tell. - I loved that the combat was a third-person shooter. That's what they decided to do. I loved that idea. - Yeah, me too. And I'm not a big Star Wars fan anymore. I loved Kotor, almost precisely was, because it was a game that I really loved despite the fact it made me like Star Wars, the best Star Wars thing that ever, ever have played scene. - I mean, the story that was masterful. Like it was classic Star Wars, more so than any of the prequels was classic Star Wars. - Exactly. And it was just so vast. I've told this story a lot, but I played it over the course of a family reunion on travel with my family to see family members that I haven't seen in a long time and ended up spending a lot of time in a hotel room with Kotor. I played for 50, 60 hours and I loved every minute of it. And I'd never before Kotor had gotten into any Western RPGs. I was always, like I said, a Japanese RPG guy. That was what I was into, but it just sucked me in. And the scope of it, the number of planets you visited, the variety of the missions, it was great. You know, one of the things that I complained about when I played Mass Effect was that everything felt real small, whereas everything, even though the levels in Kotor aren't vast, they feel vast, and they just had some incredible missions, like the one on Manan, where you, I think the guy's name is Son, and it's a trial scenario. - Yeah, I remember that. - I really, really enjoyed that because it was clear that there were so many different ways that that was going to play out. And without getting into specifics, you know, to me Mass Effect 2 feels like, it feels like Kotor in ways that Mass Effect 1 did not. And so the scope feels like that, the amount of options or the amount of variety in the quest is like that. And combined with the new conversation system, the fact that the shooter combat actually feels like a real legitimate shooter now. - It's like an awesome shooter now. It's basically, it's like, it's the, to me, the best game by where it's ever made. - Yeah, I'm going home. - And I agree. I think you were saying, Jay, you think this is your favorite third-person shooter? - This is the most fun I've had. - Okay, that is an important distinction, sir. - Yeah, that's true. So tell us why. - Well, you know, shooting itself has been done well in a lot of games. I love Uncharted. I love Gears of War. - Call of Duty. - Call of Duty. - I'm just going to say flat out, one of the things that surprised me is that the shooting in Mass Effect 2 feels more responsive than a number of Unreal Engine 3 powered, like, flat out third-person shooters. - It's not just the shooting in that-- - Aww. - What was that? - Darkpoint. - Aww. - Army of 2 is a more recent Unreal Engine 3 shooter that doesn't feel as responsive as Mass Effect 2. - Oh, go ahead. - I was just going to say, I mean, it's not just the shooting in this and that the guns feel great. The aiming feels good. Ryan brought up a great point when we first played it. There's a camera shake now when you fire. - The sound effects? - Yup. - Okay, so like you said, the reticle in Mass Effect 1 was this big circle. Now it's a pinpoint. - It's like Pixel-- - It's crosshairs. - It's crosshairs. - Exactly. - There's the screen shake. You know, you get-- I started with a pistol hiding everyone's class will be different. Another great thing about this game is eight different classes. All feel totally different. - Yup. - You shoot a pistol at the very beginning of this game, and there's kick from it. There's screen shake. The sound is correct. You have to aim perfectly, and then they, you know, unlike the first game, ammo is another factor. I mean, it feels like a real shooter. - I like that there's more strategy involved with how you use your powers, not just in how you combine your powers, but things like if I want to use singularity, then I need to arc it over things. Or if I'm using pull, it shoots out a disc like the grenades in the last game. - And again, you arc it over things. - Yup. - Fresh taught me this. At first, I wasn't using it 'cause I sucked at it, and I thought, oh, I just-- Everyone's always behind cover. I never hit anyone with it, and you said-- - Yeah, I mean, you look at the-- when I was-- I played a sentinel class, and so I have throw right away, which is-- I love, love, love the throw. - I hated throw at first. - What? - Okay, so here's the thing. I played in a depth. - Okay. - So I had singularity and warp. - Yeah. - And pull and throw as the powers I could shoot. - What classes was everyone I'm curious? - Tyler. - I'm playing the Vanguard. - Vanguard? - Vanguard. - I'm also-- - Who had fucking awesome, like the tech armor on Vanguard's. - No, no, no. - That sentinel. Sentinels have amazing armor. - I agree. - Adepts have singularity. - Adepts have every biotic power. - Okay. - You and your-- I have a-- I had tech armor as my power for my class, and then I started with throw, I eventually got warp, and I had cryo blast ammo that I could do as well. Oh, just the-- I'm sorry, not the ammo, though, that the attack. - Yeah, blast. - I'm a Vanguard. So I had a lot of points and it's iterated at the beginning, and I have charge and pull. Charge is fucking great, but-- - Near the end of the game. - The thing that I find interesting is that for every character except the Adept, any biotics that you have have to be used in conjunction with other people on your team. 'Cause pull and throw are useless by themselves in comparison to every other biotic power. - I disagree. - I think so, too. - Pull, like, the effects of throw are essentially doubled when someone is in the air. - I agree with that. Absolutely. - And no one else has the ability to combine pull and throw, but an Adept, which means that if you want to maximize the biotic potential of your team, someone needs to have pull and someone needs to have throw. - I don't like that, though. - And the cooldown for both of those is half of any other power. - That's not entirely true, too, 'cause not only throw, you can use warp. - Well, you can-- - 'Cause warp hits it, then it detonates. - Well, yeah, but even then, that just detonates, it doesn't lift someone off the ground. - Right. - Whereas I have singularity, which also lists people off the ground, and I can combine that with throw, but there's no point, because by the time singularity, like my cooldown comes back from singularity, it's usually over. - That's simply not true, though. Like I used to pull at the beginning because I also had incinerate ammo, which basically burns through anyone, especially at the beginning of the game, so he pulls someone, like lifts them up and then shoot them like three shots or like a quick one second burst and they're dead. - Well, I'm just talking about like combining biotics, more than that, but that's fair, okay, so, but more specifically, I feel like throw is not particularly useful, because I mean, even the beginning robot's throw doesn't kill in one hit. - Oh, I said, I don't use it to kill him. - See, I, the Vanguard, I didn't choose pull, I chose the other one, the Shockwave, because it's one of the newer powers, and man, I had a great moment where, you know, it was a fight on a bridge, and I shot off Shockwave right down the center of the bridge, dude, and shot two dudes right off the edge of the bridge, and I was just like, fuck yeah. - That is something else that throws good for us, knocking people off of cliffs. - Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite things about it is it recharges very fast, it fires very quickly, and one of the things we were talking about earlier, you know, you have your aiming reticle for your gun, but you have a second reticle that's for your adept powers, basically, and so as long as that's sort of like we were talking about Mass Effect 1, where if you're pointing in the general direction, you're going to hit him, that's sort of where this is. If your reticle's in the general area of a guy, there's a secondary sort of icon around him saying you're also aiming at him if you're firing your adept power, so that's your, here's chance to sort of-- - It's like the active box. - Yeah, you're-- - Swipping around corners, or you can designate someone as a target, then aim up, and then select the power. - And that mechanic, I never got tired of doing that. Having that ability to where it wasn't just about aiming at a guy straight on, it was about finding creative ways to get guys who were behind cover, or catch a guy while he was in motion. - And also finding what certain enemies are vulnerable to, like the fact that most glasses will have an easier time weapon-wise with husks than a depthswill because, I mean, granted I have powers, but they take a lot of cool down time to use, and husks usually outnumber me, but they die instantly going into a singularity. So I can just fire off like all these singularities, like landmines that the husks just walk into and instantly die. - I thought one thing was interesting was the learning curve of the combat. I mean, at the beginning of the game, the guns felt right, and that's why I felt like it was fine. I wasn't losing battles or anything, but I didn't feel like I was a badass because I was just shooting like I ordinarily would. I used, I loved the charge attack, but it was, it would put me in terrible situations like I would, because you can blast through walls and through cover and like up into, you know, there might be guys perched in a cover spot above your position, and you can just charge right up there. Your team will be left far behind running up a bunch of stairs to get there. - And it's really easy to die if you're vulnerable. - Exactly. - And later in the game, once my shields were up and I, you know, as much stronger, you know, once you power up any ability to the fourth level, you get to choose one of two, like specific powerups for it. Usually it's an area attack or like a kind of focused, more damage attack. - It's like your weapon damage or like your shield cooldown or your power cooldown. - I really like the way they handled that as far as assigning points to your powers. - Also like the fact that you get to fucking respect. - Yeah, yeah, you know, in the first Mass Effect, if you went to the moon mission, you got to basically do this, you know, where it's like you choose one or two specializations for your character, you know, but now it's like you're saying, you know, once you get to that fourth tier of any power, whether it's like you're doing your, your add up all the way or a specific power, they give you two tiers to go down. - So like my charge ability, which was semi useless, even though it was cool at the beginning of the game, became very useful once I chose the specialization where it actually slows down time when you come out of it. So, so I charge up to a guy, it goes into slow-mo, which gives me a sectoro blast blast and then spin over to the next guy who's standing next to him, shoot like a shot of incinerate ammo at him, sets him on fire and right around that time, you can see that my little, the hemispherical thing come together that lets you know, oh, you're ready to go again and I can charge into that. - That is one of my favorite UI elements. Is that cool down medical play to me? - It lets you know. - Man, that is great. - And all of this I think makes it a lot more, this makes me not miss the inventory abilities that are gone. I mean, the, I didn't hate the inventory in the last game. I hated inventory management in the last game. Like I, I actually really liked having guns where I could slot in different abilities. Like I feel like I really had control over what I was doing, but I think in a way I felt that because I didn't feel like I had much control over how well I was shooting. - Yes. - Whereas in this, like your skill affects how well you're shooting and, and the shooting feels so good that it's like, like there are some shooters like Halo where it's okay if you're using the same kinds of guns throughout the entire game because the combat feels so good. And I think Mass Effect has something similar in that it's okay that you're using the same weapons and essentially the same abilities of the whole game that are slowly improved in power because they're always fun to use. To me, it's like when you're playing a game, you're, you want it to be fun the whole time. So a game like Mass Effect 1, when you're in the menus, like you're still, that's still as far as I'm concerned, that's still gameplay time. - It certainly counts it on the clock. - It counts it on the clock. And I spent fucking hours of game time in menus in Mass Effect 1. In Mass Effect 2, I'm never, never, never in menus. It's always just game. - A lot of people play through it without ever even using the tactical pause very often although I did that all fucking time. - I hardly use the wheel hardly use it at all. - I think it's because I was the adept and I had more powers than I could map. - Right, yeah. That makes sense. - Because by the end, like my entire thing is full of powers. - I had like two powers more than I could map and I just used them less button. - I did like how the mapping, how the map button mapping was done, how you could have up to three powers just to put and press away. - And that I think is, we started talking about why this is your favorite most fun shooter. To me, it's because in a game like BioShock, which is a game that combines shooting with sort of magic powers, but you're constantly using one, right? But in this game, I'm using all the magic powers I have that are mapped to my triggers, my gun combat and then having access to the powers of my other friends on the D-pad, it's just like so convenient. - And multiple guns. - Yeah, and then beyond that, like are there game, I've been trying to think about it, but the way that they have the, so the D-pad is so fucking useful, it's whatever you're pointing at, if you're not targeting an enemy, it's, if you press left or right, it sends one of the two. - It works like a squad based first person shooter, like it's sort of like Rainbow Six. - Exactly, but I feel like in Rainbow Six, you still, like you're holding down another button first. I can't remember a game that does it with so few inputs that just feels, I wouldn't command my squad to cover, like you know, like I played it like a squad based shooter, like you go to this cover, you go to this cover and I go forward, you go to this cover, you go to this cover, there's the enemies, magic, you know, warp, overload, fucking, here comes my lift coming over, oh now I'm charging in, blast, blast, blast, charge the next guy, blast, blast, blast, everyone's dead. - Yeah, it's so fulfilling and like so, it's all like your own creativity coming into the play, it's just outstanding and it's a fucking RPG. - Yeah, letting me kill guys doesn't interest me, how I can kill guys is what interests me in a, in a shooter and that's where it is, it's the exciting part is when I see a group of guys is how am I going to do this, and I have a lot of great options to mean about how you do it as well. - And I mean, the game is not, you're not so powerful that you can just like roll through most situations, like you're going to have to think about it. - Yeah, absolutely, like, tower, what were you going to say a second ago? - Shit. - Towers, squad base. - You were saying, oh yeah, you know, Ryan, the way, the way you're talking about, you know, games like Brothers in Arms, you hold down a trigger, you see the little reticle and then you have to put the reticle where you're going and then let go of the trigger and that tells them this is just on the D-pad, you just point and, but, but, but I, I will say one, one thing, I mean, I love Mass Effect 2, so it's like I'm all on, I'm all on. - I can't say bad things, you don't have to call up loud. - Yeah, on the love train. - No game is perfect. - I love, I love. But one thing that fucking irks me to know end are the two floating heads, the icons of your squad members. - Oh, this is the design. - What's the point of having no HUD if you're going to put two fucking message board floating gifts? - I don't like being there's a HUD though. - That's a huge board. - Gifts. - You know, that is what they are. - That's what they are. - That's what they look like. - It's just a very minimal HUD where you've got your, yeah, when it goes into combat, you see your little, a little bit of shields and everything. - I mean, you can tell what condition they're in by the, like, the condition of the HUD. - Yeah. - I agree, but artistically speaking, aesthetically speaking, that could have been a different. - But the thing is, like, when you're walking around and it's just your crew and there's no combat, the heads are still there and it's just so distracting from a game that looks so beautiful. - There are other things that are distracting, like little glitches, like when you're scanning a planet and then leaving, you're flying around the galaxy, there's still the little hit, "Artifier Probe" thing stuck on the fucking screen. - Oh, weird. No, I never saw that. - I have never saw that. - It happens to me every fucking time and it happens to Tom Price at work as well. And actually, Tom has seen more bugs in this game than anyone I know of and I've encountered a few. - I have seen, it's not unbuggy, I will say. But never to the point where it really bothers me, but every once in a while I'll see someone standing in place, they're not supposed to be in a cutscene or in a dialogue if you have seen it before and so you're pressing B to skip through it. Sometimes it'll kind of trick the camera a little bit and it won't focus on the person that's supposed to be-- - Yeah, that happened to me during Thane's loyalty quest. - I think it's the first time where you see him do, like the drill, have this ability to do total recall of any memory they've ever experienced and it does this weird sort of cinematic thing where it shows their face like into the zooms in and they're not blinking and then it flashes and shows their face from a slightly different angle. It was doing that except his face was not in frame. - Oh. - So it's just like showing the background, zooming in and zooming in and like, "Okay, this is weird." - Man. You know, I mean, on the plus side of it though, from talking technically, I mean, the leap in this game from a technical stance from Mass Effect 1, it might as well be a different fucking engine. - It's unbelievable. I just could not believe how good it looked like this was the same game, the same like series. - I mean, I remember when they were talking about, I went and saw the talk that they did from Mass Effect 2 at GDC last year and one of the things they were talking about is they changed their development method for this game to make sure that the shit that happened last time around didn't happen this time, which includes there's just so much crunch at the end where they were just throwing things in at the last second without checking it in that performance would just get worse and worse as the level came, like took shape and like certain stuff just got slashed out of the game wholesale at the very end when it was finished because it wasn't performing correctly, and that just never happens in this game. - In the first game, when you go to places, I mean, the most developed looking area is probably the Citadel, but even the Citadel looks like kind of barren, it's hard to believe that anyone actually lives in this space and that is something that never even occurs to you in Mass Effect 2. - Which is funny because the Citadel is actually much smaller in Mass Effect 2, like the area you can cover is much smaller. - Well, I think the way they fixed that Citadel was like the only hub that you could go to Mass Effect 1 where now you have multiple hubs that you can cover. - I think the thing is that in Mass Effect 1, there were a lot of places you could walk to but not as much that you could do, whereas every time you go to a planet in Mass Effect 2, you are doing something the entire time you're there, like you just go from quest to quest, from conversation to conversation, like whether it's like finding a crew member or doing their loyalty quest, or some other random thing that you need to do, like if it's a fetch quest or some variation of that, before you get information to find it or access to an area, there's so much happening that you almost don't realize that they're these pretty small areas. And it also helps that the skybox and everything going on are much more reliable. - Oh god, yeah, I was going to bring that up, I'm glad you did, man, like when you're on the heavy populated cities and you just like look out over a balcony or something into the, just the drawn, the static background, man, it starts right from the beginning. Like of the game, like if you're listening to this, I'm assuming you have played at least a fucking hour in Mass Effect 2, or if you haven't, then you don't give a shit. But spoiler, at the beginning, when the Normandy is attacked, when you walk from where the, where you're getting everyone out with, first of all, I love the fact that I imported my character from Mass Effect 1 and my romance interest was Lyara, so Lyara was the character that I was with that was getting everyone into the, into the shuttles, I started a new game and picked a female character and it was Caden, I saw someone else start the game and they had had Ashley as their romance interest, Ashley was the one that was leading everyone into the shuttle. - That's crazy. - And it never shows their face or your face, which is how they get around it because that's before you do any of the character stuff, but once you do all that and you walk, like you're the only person left on the ship other than Joker and you walk out of that area and on to the bridge with the Star Deck or whatever, and yeah, you see it all fucked up and blown open and you look up and you see pieces of the Normandy floating in zero gravity above you, and that is just one of the most intense, like majestic sequences in this entire game. - All those chairs coming off? - Yeah, that you can zero gravity and you bump into them, like this is, this is the point in the game where like I was on Twitter, I said Mass Effect 2 goes from zero to boner in like two minutes and I was going to say a funny little anecdote about this part is when I saw when I went to see Mass Effect at E3, they brought everyone in and they said, "Okay, we're going to show you a scene that's about three-fourths of the way into the game," and they showed us this scene. - Yeah, really? - Yeah. - That's all right. I realized today that one of the points they've been showing in a lot of Dante's Inferno preview events is actually about three-quarters of the way through the game. - Wow. - Okay, also I was going to say, so I had two Mass Effect characters that I played through the first Mass Effect all the way. I had my Renegade and my Paragon and so on my Renegade choice, I had, what's the new character's name, the Marine guy? - Jacob. - Jacob, he was the one that came and got me first, but my Paragon, I had Liara come and get me. - Jacob can't possibly have been there. He's not on the arm in the knee. - Yeah, what? - The new character. - No. - Yeah. - On the Normandy. That's a big deal. - That's who it was. - No. - What? - It's impossible. - Now you're making me think I'm crazy. - I think you're crazy. - He's cerebrus. He wouldn't know. - No, they weren't there yet. - The stuff that Jacob does is actually takes place in the Mass Effect iPhone game. And so he was somewhere else, I think, when they went there. - That's interesting to know. - Yeah, there's a way to import your Mass Effect iPhone save to your EA account online and that will sync with your 360 EA account or your PC account. - Yeah, impressive. I noticed this because I was having a lot of syncing problems with my fucking DLC shit and I noticed that you could do that and it made me want to play the iPhone game. - And if you haven't played the first Mass Effect, what I don't think people realize is that the way that you're answering questions right from the beginning is determining what it thinks you did in the last game. Whether or not you let Rex live, whether or not you let Rex die, like whether or not the council is human or if it's still aliens. And actually, just to tell you guys flat out, like there are decisions that you make and just like conversational tone shifts that you make later in the game that will affect what happens. Like things that you just think, "Oh, well this is just how I'm responding but the game is going to keep going on normally." Like the sense of urgency you show or just the tone you take with certain things will determine the way that certain things unfold. - That's totally true. Like I've ever seen a sequel carry over your character and your decisions that you made in the first game as well as you've done it. I think that is the killer feature. - I'm going to do this sort of in code but Jay, because Jay is the only one other than me that's beaten the game. When you go through the Omega 4 relay, the stuff that happens right after that, that is affected by how you reacted to going through the relay before you did. - I know. Which is awesome. - I was talking to a lot of people and they have extremely different experiences with the stuff that happens after that. - Oh, I mean I haven't gone through it yet but I know exactly, I think I can tell exactly what you're talking about. - That's not just that. - The urgency with which you win through it. I mean it's not like the same thing. - I mean once you, stuff happens throughout, it's not just that, it's throughout the game. Like your responses and your urgency determines a lot. So when you import your character at the beginning of the game, there's this list of like 10 items that pop up. It says you're, you know, your status of rex, status of, you know, you're loving. It doesn't even say you're loving. - I don't remember ever seeing that. - Yeah, there's a... - It shows you everything you do. - Maybe it shows hammering a, let me finish talking and I'll tell you, it says about 10 things. It says status of rex, it says status of council, it says basically 10 things, whether or not your paragon or renegade, something like that. So at the beginning of the game, when I saw this screen, I was like, oh, those are the 10 things it took. That's freaking awesome. And that is not it at all. - That blew me away the amount of stuff, like little things, like you were saying emails from people that I say, because I was hardcore paragon. So I saved everyone in the first game. So everyone I saved was sending me emails. You know, we were standing around in one of the towns and this, sorry woman. I don't think you should say what happens with that, because that is a pretty awesome moment if you played the first one. - Anyway, what I'll say is that this person came up to me that I'm not going to say where they were from. Jay, who was playing a debug copy of the game, said, I never, this, you know, I never saw this person coming up with dozens and things like that. - And like there's a quest after that. It's not like this person comes up and says, hey, how are you doing? Like blah, blah, blah. It was a fucking mission that you did not get to do if you did not import the character. - And there's another emissary that you may come across that you will just never meet if you didn't do something very specific in the first game. And it's presented in such a way that you think this is going to be fucking huge in the next game. - Well, the thing that this really does really well knowing it's a trilogy and now a seeing actually in execution that your decisions really do matter. It's actually going to affect the outcome in your relationships. It made everything I was doing a Mass Effect 2 so important to me. - Not only that, but like I was saying earlier in the car, like it almost makes Mass Effect a better game because all of a sudden every decision you make in the first Mass Effect holds so much more weight. - So much so that like I didn't want, I want to play a Renegade just to see all the options in Mass Effect 2, but I don't want to do that. I want to go back and play a Renegade in Mass Effect 1 first. - So that you can have those ripples throughout the entire thing. - And it makes me angry because I don't want to play Mass Effect 1 again, but I have to. - I've never played a game that made me suddenly appreciate everything I did in another game more. I've never played a sequel like this. There have been games where you carried equipment over, like I think Baldur's Gate 2 did that, where your equipment and skills carried over, but I've heard a lot of people complaining that Mass Effect 2 ditches the role playing element. - Whatever. - But this game is so much more about playing a role than any game I have ever played. - Dude, that's exactly what I was about to say is that in this game, I feel like I'm playing a role more than I ever have, because my Renegade character that I brought over, it's like I'm trying to go through this progression with her, so it's like I'm getting even more and more angry. I did quite a few Paragon options in the first Mass Effect, but now I'm going more towards the Dark Side, so it's like I'm doing this real long drawn out arc for myself. I'm just so invested. - There is stuff that can happen throughout the last quarter of this game that if you have a character that you took all the way through Mass Effect and you have a character that you've taken all the way through this and you've made all these decisions and you know that they matter, you've seen what they do, where you'll be torn the fuck apart by things that can happen at the end of the game. - Oh, I was torn the fuck apart by little, little, little things, like, and it's even worse. I've been playing it on this, so I was playing a Paragon before, and in Mass Effect 1, that was the only thing that mattered. Oh, I want to get all of my Paragon points so that I can, you know, get all the options that I need in conversation to be able to do the right things. - I love that there's no conversation skill point in this, like it's just the more Paragon you are, the better the Paragon options you have, the more Paragon points, the Renegade points you have, the better the Renegade options, you can do both. - And that is brilliant, and this is the only game where I've ever, and to some extent Mass Effect 1, but this game in particular, like, no problem doing Renegade, it makes me feel good to get both Renegade and Paragon points. - The interrupt system makes it so that it's fucking impossible not to do Renegade shit sometimes. - Dude, they'll put the camera down by someone's hand, like, when they're just, like, ready to grip their gun. - I love their controller. - Okay, your controller shakes, they vibrate your controller to get you to do it. - I have to, I have to write something up tonight on my favorite moments for Mass Effect 2, and I'm going to tell you my favorite moment because it just occurred to me. I fucking head-butted a Krogan. - I did that too. - I did that too. - That is, by far, the most badass moment I felt in all of Mass Effect 2. You're on the Krogan homeworld, and this Krogan clearly doesn't like you, he doesn't like why you're there, he doesn't like anything about you, and he gets in your face, and you're next to a shaman who's the keeper of Krogan lore, and he gets in your face, and the little Renegade thing pops up in the lower-off corner, and I'm like, "Paragon, Renegade," and my guy just steps forward and smashes him in the face. The one that I'm thinking of in particular happens after that once you're doing Grunt's mission on that stage, and there's, again, a bunch of Krogan's that come at you, and the Renegade option stays on the screen for something like, it feels like 30 seconds. I'm sure it's really-- - It's just like-- - You know you want to do this. - You know it. - The camera shows your face, you get mad. The camera shows your hand down by your gun, and Shepard is just reaching for it, reaching for it, the controller starts to vibrate, and I'm like, stop it, stop it, I'm not going to do it, I'm going to be good in this instance right here, I'm not going to get mad, everyone's going to live, and that's never happened. - And then there are Paragon moments where something really devastating is happening to a crew member, and you can comfort them, and that seriously affects your relationship for the rest of the game. - Or are you much, much later in the game, you run into someone that you-- that shouldn't have lived. - And I've never been so attached to every individual member of my party in an RPG than I ever knew. - And that's the thing that surprised me is, we'll go ahead, Tyler, really quick. - I'm sorry, I didn't even mean to catch you. - No, well, so in the lead-up to this game, they'd show stuff like Subject Zero, and like Thane, and like they're all, "It's a badass assassin, you're collecting all these renegades, and you may not survive," blah, blah, blah, and they're like, "This is fucking Gears of War II syndrome, and Mass Effect II," like where they just want to be more badass, and be more edgy and extreme, and they kept saying, "Dark middle chapter, fucking Empire Strikes Back," like the marketing speak in this game was turning me the fuck off of everything about it. And then I go into the game and play it, and every character is amazing and interesting and complex, and no one is exactly what you expect them to be. - Yeah, I totally agree with that. - Should we talk about which characters we think are super duper awesome, or should we leave that? - Maybe some of the early ones, and I love the professor. - Oh, yeah, Morden is-- - Morden, I enjoyed every conversation I had with him. - Did you ever get to the point where he had to gently tell you that he's not interested in you sexually? - Yes, that's hilarious. - No, that's hilarious. - Like, if you keep talking to Morden, I think eventually at some point, like, he thinks that you're interested in it. - Actually, just how that happened, and it's funny to the way he handles it, because the way he approaches it, he makes it sound like it happens all the time. - Yes. - Oh, that's awesome. - That's awesome. - And I know, you're working long hours with me, a lot of people will do this, it's just, you know what, check it out. - I mean, he talks about how I think he entertained the idea of a Turian once. - Yeah, and this character is a Solarian, for those who are familiar, they're like the tall, slinky characters. - He is the sort of the gray alien type ideal, except like, instead of both little head tentacles, he's got one that's missing. - Yeah, and the great-- - I'm not so good. - Well, I was gonna say, not because not only is he the doctor, he is fucking Solarian Special Forces. - Right. - He's never hardcore, right, he's like the brains and the brown. - But like, one of the crazy things about this character in particular is like, it's almost like he has like these schizophrenic tics, like they have camera angles for this character that none of the other characters get, like they'll throw camera angles off to the side and blur them, like really quick, like a real quick different change of emotion on his face. - I need to talk about the cameras, and I was actually, before you mentioned it, I was gonna say like, as a cameraman, as someone who cares about film, seriously, aside from the things that get carried over from the first game, my favorite thing about this game is the conversations and the camera angles during the conversation. - The presentation is so much more dynamic. - And I knew they could do it. That was the one thing I knew that from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 would change because all it is is extra time to work on. - I mean, that's one of the first things they showed, like at the GDC presentation, they're like, look at our new dynamic conversation system. - Yeah. - The cameras are just fantastic. Talking to my favorite character, do you want me to say? - I love Jack. I think that is one of the coolest characters that has ever been in a game when I saw what she looked like, and you know, I couldn't believe that this character was in this game. - I expected to hate Jack completely. - So I did too. - Like seeing any footage whatsoever, seeing any talk about how she's like this badass bitch covered in tattoos and the way she spoke, just like, fuck that character, and this makes me less excited for this game. - Yeah, I thought I would want her to ignore it. - Yeah. - I agree. - Just fantastic. And some of it, like you were saying, they do these awesome camera angles with Morden with Jack, especially if you're talking to her in the Normandy. She's standing in a particular location where there's this giant red lighted thing, a battery or something behind her, and so they get to do these really wonderful silhouettes where she's just all black, surrounded by red, looks like something out of a Tarantino movie. - She's in the ducks area of the engineering. - Right, right. - Somewhere to be alone. - And it's just incredible thing, the assassin. When he's, like Arthur said, he can remember, perfectly remember every memory he's ever had, and when he does, his eyes get all twitchy, and he talks fast and-- - Which is weird that his eyes get all twitchy because he has two eyelid sets. - Yeah. - And, yeah, that is weird. But they do this thing where they move the camera in real close and make it move, start cutting like an Oliver Stone movie. It's like really quick and fast, and they even increase the brightness on his face so the colors get all screwed up and the saturation is messed up. Like, the amount of work and time and effort that went into all these things because you realize no one's gonna see everything, the way you play it totally determines the outcome of these conversations. Like, everything that happens to you in your game is something that another player might never see. - Yep. - I mean, it just blew my mind, and part of the avatar aside, I really like avatar, but I've been not liking CG, highly CG movies for a long time lately because after I played the first Mass Effect, I thought, man, if I'm gonna watch a movie where everything's generated by a computer, I'd better be able to freaking control the outcome, let me interact with it somehow. And so, Mass Effect 2 once again proves to me that, man, interactive cinema, let's go there. I would love to play some game experiences or whatever that are about two, three hours long that have tons of different variety of outcomes and let me control it throughout the course of it. That would be a wonderful way to play or to experience, you know, to change film, you know what I mean? And Mass Effect 2 is a perfect example of what's amazing. - Well, in other games that are story controlled by you, it's like, oh, well, I get to control the story, and that's how games are strong, but usually games are still weak in story because the story's just not very good, whereas this, there's just so many just amazing personal stories. Like, every character in the game that you can recruit has this amazing personal story that you deal with. - Yeah. - Like, you get to know everyone and in a way, everyone gets a little fucked up in this game. Like, there's no one that leaves unscarred, but some of them are better for it and some of them aren't. Like some of them, like, yeah, they made a big deal about the fact that they don't expect you to survive the end of the game and maybe your crew won't live and fight out right now, you can lose everyone. - That is amazing. - At the end of the game. - That is incredible. - And I've talked to a lot of different people that did a lot of different things like in the end game and came out with a lot of different conclusions. And you can lose everyone and I have come up with a situation along with Will Tuttle at Game Spy. Like, we can only think of one way, one or two ways in which Shepard wouldn't survive, but they seem totally plausible. And I'm only saying that not to be a spoiler, but to tell you that, like, like, everything that you think, oh, this doesn't mean anything, like, your decisions matter. But it's just like-- - That scares me. - There was a point near the end of the game, like, there's a point where you have to make some choices as far as people that do things. I paused the game and walked away for a while, like, and really had to fucking think about what I was gonna do. - I had to go outside and have a cigarette. Like, I was just like, I mean, it was just, it was so tense, it was terrifying. The entire, like, 90 minutes of that final third act-- - Exactly, because they spent the entire game, like, drilling into your head, the shit can go wrong. - Yeah. - Loyalty missions, like, it's not just, oh, do this, he's loyal. Like, doing a loyalty mission doesn't actually guarantee that they're gonna be loyal. I didn't know that until today. You can fuck up a loyalty mission and fail it and just not be able to do it again. - Loyalty missions were, like, one of the nicest surprises for me, too, because I was still going into it with the Mass Effect 1 mentality, where you had your main story missions and that's where the meat was. That's where, like, the levels were, where the story was, where the narrative was, where all the combat was, and all the side stuff was just wasn't that as much fleshed out. So when I did my, Mordon was the first story, no, I'm sorry, Miranda was the first-- - Yeah, me too. - The mission that I did, I remember going through it and it was this whole new environment. It was great combat. It was tons of great conversations and hard decisions and getting to know all the characters better. - With a great fucking renegade moment at the end. - Great renegade moment at the end. And then I was like, at the end of it, it hit me. I was like, every single one of these characters has a second mission that I'm gonna be going on besides just recruiting them. - Finding them is often, like, a crazy enough mission, exactly. Yeah. - And then, not only that, but, like, finding the missions and the pace of the missions also seemed to go just much faster than the first game, like, I feel like I'm going from mission to mission to mission. - Oh, so you know how, like, we've talked before about Oblivion and Fallout on the podcast about how, like, it's weird that they suck you into this loop where you're like, "Oh, we'll just one more thing. Just one more thing. Just one more thing." You realize it's, like, three hours later. The first Mass Effect was not like this. This one is very much like that. - Very much. - Where you find yourself sucked into a loop. It's, like, watching a TV show on DVD. - So it's exactly what I-- when I walked out after playing it, I said, "When I play in most games, story, narrative-wise, structure, I feel like I watched a film." When after I was done with Mass Effect, I felt like I just watched two seasons of Battlestar coming back up. - Exactly. Fucking exactly. And, like, I've heard people complain that the story isn't as strong as the first one, but I don't feel that that's the case. I feel that it's just that there's so much other stuff that happens, that there's, like, this main plot thread hanging in the background that keeps things moving. But in between, there are all these stories where you get to know everyone. - See, I think if people aren't getting into the story, honestly, I feel like that's player error. And I don't feel like you're digging into it. - You're doing it wrong. - No, I just, honestly, with this game, what I like about it is you're getting what you invest into it. I mean, they don't beat you over the head with the story or make you get every little plot point. I mean, the stuff that I've read both the books and so they'll, like, throw out little conversations, just a new story that'll reference something from the books, which is really nice for someone who's in business. - Yeah. I really need to read the second book. I've only read the first one. - You know what? Honestly, now that you've done this, there are numerous things that are brought up from the second book, and it made me happy that I read it. But if you're not doing that, if you're not going in and having conversations with the characters and getting to know your characters and getting attached to that world and getting immersed in it, I mean, that's how I got into the story. Just sort of, if you're just taking it at face value, then, and you're not investing into the world, I don't think it's fair to say like the story sucks. It's like where you didn't try. - I don't think there's any excuse for it. I just don't get that complaint. So what are people saying with the story? - I just, I think it was the OXN review that complained that you didn't feel that the main story was strong enough. And also, John Davison in the Game Pro review felt that the ending, like the ending was ludicrous to the point that it made him knock off half a star. - See, I wouldn't agree with that either. - I wouldn't agree with that either. - Narratively, it was a little, but I don't, see, I don't even think it, I feel like it matches what was established before and suited what you needed. - Yeah. - And the gameplay. - Which is really awesome. I didn't even care. - Which is really, we can't say anything more than that. Like even for Matt and Tyler because he's not that far. - We will see. I can see why someone would get upset about it from a story perspective, it didn't bother me either. - I really liked, I will say this, I really liked the first overall story and the second one, while I don't think it's bad, it's not particularly holding me, but like what I am getting into is what you're saying. It's all the periphery stuff. - To me, the periphery stuff is it. - Yeah. - Yeah, exactly. - It all blends back in. - It's just like, it's like, I don't know who, if anyone watches Fringe, but Fringe has all these crazy side stories that sort of contribute to this overarching narrative of what's going on. - What about, I mean, even lost, I mean, lost is all about the story, it's, every, it's, it's not, I don't want to say soap opera-ish, but I mean, the character, it's character driven story. The story of the, the overall story of the game is, it's there, but I mean, I feel like, I feel like that story is there to sort of, I feel like there's good enough conclusion in the beginning, middle and end, but it is, in a way, set to establish the world that will weed into the next game. - Exactly. - But it doesn't, it's not like, the Empire Strikes Back comparison just is made fucking over and over again, and I hate that it's made over and over again, but it's apt, as opposed to something like the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, where it's just like, oh, this should happen, and then it's done. It's not that. And then even at the very, like, there are major decisions that I am desperate to see how they'll unfold, and the third one made just right up until the very end, like, just huge decisions that you make throughout the game. - You guys make me want to beat it tonight, dude. - I was right, after I beat it, I was like, can I play Mass Effect 3 now? - I, yeah, or I, man, I was just so haunted by finishing this game, like, not haunted in that, man, that's really intense, although it was, I was uplifted finishing the game. - I agree with that. - Because everyone survived. - I lost one. - I lived, my squad lived. - I lost one. - Oh. - And so-- - That's all right. There are people that lost way more than that. - Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, with the amount of decisions they were throwing and how scared I was the whole time, like, honestly, one, I was like, oh, thank God. - Only one. Didn't, didn't BioWare say that the next one should be faster coming because they really wanted to overhaul this one. - I would be really surprised because I was shocked that this one came out on time. - It is. - It is? - This is the first BioWare game I've ever seen that didn't get delayed. - Yeah. It feels so big. That's, like I was saying earlier, it's like, co-taught to me where I just couldn't believe how many places, how many missions, how, you know-- - And you're still not done. - I'm not done. I have, like, four or five more major missions before the ending bits. - I've got, like, six, seven hours to go. - Exactly. And I say this as a guy who called, basically called Assassin's Creed II, my favorite game of last year, one of the things I was thinking today was, man, this game makes Assassin's Creed II this huge game that was so big, it made it feel small to me. And it's, I've played them for almost the identical amount of time. So it's not a-- - Oh man, you've got a lot more time to go then. - Oh, I know, I know. But it's like, it's part of, we haven't talked about it, but part of the reason my time is so long is because I have an incredible amount of resources. Dude, I saw his resources. It's absurd. - Yeah, I'm obsessive to the, so every time I would go to a new area of space, I'd have to go to all the surrounding and adjoining areas of space. - I did the same thing. I have 100% in every system and 100% in every galaxy. - Nice. All right, cool. - At least there's one dude out there. - But I'm interested to spend all of it, though. - No, you can't. - No, well, I mean, you can come kind of close, like, platinum is what for me was below. - I'm down on platinum, yeah. - The thing that I loved is that if you read the fucking planet descriptions, you know what you will find. - Oh, yeah. - Except for one thing, I figured out the secret to finding element zero. - What is it? - Garden worlds and former garden worlds. Anything that used to have a life-sustaining atmosphere or has one, has a shit ton of element zero, barely. - It's totally true. - Sweet. - Which is awesome reading like the descriptions for planets, it's like, this used to have an atmosphere and there are signs of civilization until it was completely annihilated by orbital bombardment, and I'm just thinking my app that there's some fucking element zero when there's something. - I can tell, like, I didn't read all the descriptions, although I did notice that it told you what was there. - The planet services, if you could have a lot of those. - Yeah, you can tell. You can look at it and you can say, like, all right, this looks like a planet that people once lived on. Boom, element zero there. - Nice. - And you were the one that, I mean, we figured it out pretty early on, planets that are small and close to the sun are the rich planets, bigger planets, gas giants, that sort of thing, moderate to poor. - And I love watching as you're mining a planet, the thing go from rich to good to moderate to poor to depleted. - Yes. And just the overall experience, sort of the mining, I know that's been a point of divisive contention a lot with people reviewing the game. - I just feel like it's something that you don't necessarily have to do. - It's awesome. - I heard Adam Sessler talking about it today and he makes a good point in that they probably felt like they had to make it a little tedious so that you don't break the economy. - Yeah. - I thought it was really well done. It's like, if you feel like you're doing, going through the game and you have everything you need to make it through, you don't need to do it. If it makes you mad, don't do it. - I mean, there are only some upgrades that you should really, really get. - And honestly, I never had to spend more than 20, 30 minutes at a time and I was able to buy every upgrade I wanted. - And I think that for what it is, I mean, it's really simple. It's one mini-game, extremely elegant. I play with, I have a-- - And really satisfying. - A 5.1 gaming headphone things and they, every one of the four, you know, there's like a different vibration and different sound for every different element as you're kind of going over it. There's a graph on the side, the visual graph is awesome. - It's awesome. - And each one of the sound effects is different for every one of those four elements. And based on its location on the graph, like I can't remember, it goes element zero, then platinum, or radium, platinum, palladium. Each one of those appears in the proper spot in the surround channel. So like, if you're hearing element zero, you hear it on your left. If you're hearing palladium, you hear it on your right, the vibration, the way that you do, I mean, if you're playing on PC, you're losing this. But on console, unless you plug in Xbox controller, but on console, I can do almost all my searching through the vibration of it. And oh, I'm on PC, I watch Matt do it, the fucking cursor moves so fast. - All the PC is cheating, the PC is so cheating. It's not even like you're putting a game. - There's a few issues in the PC game, which is weird because usually it's all PC's superior platform, but looking at the PC play is strange to me. And we had a fucking ridiculous Twitter debate about this, but it just looks like Thunderbirds or something, like it's like a meat puppet opera. - This game is so highly cinematic, so very cinematic that when the frame rate is increased, it looks like video, it looks fake to me. - Imagine Avatar shot on a video camera. - I would agree with that, yeah, I would agree with that. - There's something else about, maybe it's my TV, I've played it on both of our screens. The contrast is higher in the, or either that or Matt had it set wrong when he was playing on PC. - I mean, you can see all that. - Yeah, all I'm saying is like, to me, the experience looked better on Xbox 360. I can't say, I mean, I feel like using cinematics look like they're running at 24 frames per second, and that's what it should look like. - Almost all the reasons that you would play it on a PC last time, like the very real inventory system upgrades and the very severe performance issues that have been fixed. - And the combat controls feel great. I don't feel like you need a keyboard and mouse to play this game at all. - It's very elegant the way that it's all mapped to the controller, like you were talking about. - Yeah. - I totally agree with that. - Man. - What else does this say? - The soundtrack is great. - The soundtrack is so frightening to you. - And I will say, especially the end game, and really just any very cinematic experience, like actually one memory that comes up very, very clear is when you're recruiting Thane and you're making your way across the bridge to the other skyscraper to go meet the CEO. - Which is what they've been showing at a lot of preview events. - Exactly. But you know, I'll never forget it was now, the music was just slowly building up and it sort of comes into view and as I'm going, you see the wind blowing everything across. You can see the view which got the sense of vertigo and the music just kicks up and it's like really upbeat ads. All the guys are coming to you. - And something else cool about that whole section, I'm not going to spoil necessarily, but as you're going through that, if you explore and really like see every part of the areas you're going through, it really develops Thane's character in a way that you don't necessarily see until much later. - That's true. - And I mean, that's all I can say, but if you look around, like you will learn more about Thane than you thought you knew about Thane. - The voice acting is incredible. - Again, Thane's voice in particular I really like because his voice is not at all what you expect other than the fact that it sounds like he's dying of emphysema. - I was talking to Fresh about this, I mean, I was doing someone's loyalty quest and I came upon this character who I think was only there because I had saved them at some point earlier, so it's someone that you could totally miss. And the way he talked to me, I mean, I know this is so general, I'm not saying anything. It was a random character that meant nothing to the game, basically, who was just giving me that little extra sense of you've done something before. And the way he spoke to me felt so real and he was, I realized, man, this is some throw away character, but I want to look up that, I feel bad. I'm going to find, next time I come on the show, I'm going to have the name of the character and the name of the voice actor, just so I can give him his, like, that one minute that I talked to him about, that two minutes that I talked to that character was just truly moving, really well done voice acting from, you know, whoever it was, I don't know, amazing. - Yeah, really across the board, I can't think of anybody that felt was weak as far as my characters are concerned. - No. - Or even secondary. - I mean, I really can't. And it's just like the kind of people that they are, it shows through on their voice. - Laugh out loud moments in this game. The game vendor? - Yeah, the game vendor, I guess. - Man, I was going to sit at all. - There's also the Quarry and Turian dating conversation on the sit at all. - Oh, that's a really, really listened to that entire fucking conversation. - The fashion that's over there, I'll do the Quarry and Turian thing. - The fashion, yeah. - The personal advertisements. - Yeah. - Shepherd. - Come see the old show that you were recently dead. - Yeah. - For your funeral needs, consider sorry Barry aware. I'm just like, I don't believe this is happening. And then if you do like sponsorship for stores, I'm Commander Shepherd. And this is my favorite store in the sit at all. - I always end. - Every time you walk in front of that store after that, that's what you hear over the PA. - When you go sponsor chefs. - If you go into any store on the sit at all, I think if you have an appropriately hyperagon rating. - Yeah. - You go to the Renegade and they just give me the discount because I just fucking bitch. - There's that. - So I guess. - Space asshole. - You really like to. And if you go to every single one of the stores on the sit at all and you do that and you're like, hey, do you want an endorsement, the way Shepherd talks them into it is different every time. - Yep. - Which is very cool. - But it's always the same endorsement. - I was saying that I was gonna, that they were actually a confront me at some point. - So was I. - So there are points where I wasn't endorsing certain stores as like, I don't know. I don't want to piss off that guy. - Maybe a Mass Effect 3. - Uh. - Wouldn't that be hilarious? - Oh, hey, it's the space whore. - Yeah. - Oh, I went to such and such parts yesterday and I found out you're their favorite store to fuck you. - Fuck you. - Fuck you. - Fuck you. - What do you gotta say about that? - Commander Shepherd. - What if all the. - Mass Effect 3. - In Mass Effect 3, I have to pay double at every store because I endorse it. - I know. - Oh, son of a. - Mass Effect 3 is just like a bunch of lawsuits one after another. It's just like, ace of turns. - Check your email on the Normandy and it's just like, you have been summoned. - You just got to go to court the whole time. - That's your first council meeting. - Commander Shepherd, there's a process server waiting in the docking bay. - God. - Space him. - Yeah, just moving experience over what I loved going to Omega for the first time. - I mean, there's just so much shit. Like the ED Joker dynamic that develops are really close to the game. - Wow. - The. - Which leads. - Oh, sorry. - That leads to one of the best lines in a game I have ever heard. Like one of the best lines and reactions I have ever seen and heard in a game. - Which one? - No, no, I can't say it with Tyler in the room because he hasn't gotten there yet. - Oh, all right. - I was going to have my favorite lines and reactions. - You're going to close your ears thing. I want to hear it. - There's a point where Joker is panicked and like where you have to enable, okay, spoilers. Spoiler, spoiler, spoilers. This is more spoilery than what we've talked about previously. You have to allow ED access to the right ship. You go to the A.I. Corps and enable that. - Oh, God. That was so funny. - And she says, you will have to crawl through this secondary air duct to get to this part of the ship. Oh, great. And he's like, you're probably enjoying this. And she says, I enjoy seeing humans on their knees. And then it pulls away to Joker and like the stone-faced expression on Joker's face. - What? - It's fucking classic. - Yeah. - And then it waits three beats and then she says, that was a joke. - The funny part is I played that part twice and in the second time I played it, I noticed that the beat isn't as long as I thought it was, but that first time you feel you are Joker in that moment and you're like, ah-ha. Actually I would say one of my favorite ones in the early game is when you meet, oh man, I feel bad. I can't remember his name, but the chef basically it's on Norman. The mess guy and where you're kind of like, what do you do on the ship? Where are you from? And he's kind of basically explains that he's the janitor and the cook and you kind of bring that up. Like so the guy who cleans the toilet cooks our food, he's like, hey man, I just do whatever I want. You know, just whatever slips through the cracks. I clean it up. It slips through the cracks and I just, I mean, awesome. - It's way funnier than I expected it to be. Like there are a lot of jokes about the entire game. - That joke in particular, like when delivered, it's like such a gamer nerd, like kind of internet-y sort of dumb joke and they pull it off. Like the voice acting is so good that even though it's silly, like it's still good, it feels right. - It's like the zombine joke in Half Life. - Yeah, that's very easily gotten screwed up, but it's perfect. - It's, it has the best characterization of any video game I've ever played. - There's only one moment that really pulled me out of it. You want to close your ears for a second? One more time, sorry. - Yes, spoilers. - Swirlers. - Swirlers. - Swirlers. - So after you get Legion, there's a moment like it was the second, first or second time I went in, I walked into the AI core to go talk to him and he was doing the robot. Did you see this? - I didn't see it. - I did not see this. - Okay. I got into the AI core and he's going seriously doing the robot and I was like, that's too far. Like it actually pulled me out of it. I was like, there's no way this can be doing that. - You know what? I would accept it. - There you go. So either Arthur, Arthur takes it. - I'm gonna have to go on to YouTube and find that clip now. - Yeah. Anyway, just like the Gilbert and Sullivan moment, okay. The Gilbert and Sullivan moment is also classic. That is one of the greatest moments in a BioWare game ever. Have you seen the Gilbert and Sullivan moment? - No, I haven't yet. - Okay, you'll get there. - But yeah. - I like, okay, and just like a small thing, I like that Kelly is there to tell me that people want to talk to me. - I like that too. - Kelly. - In the last game, you had to keep people with you the entire time to get their stories, which means you could play through once and not get everything. Like you didn't understand the people. And in Mass Effect 2, I mean, as long as you go and talk to people, you will get everything. You will understand everyone. - And you'll never get sick of walking around in the Normandy. - No. And honestly, I installed the game to the hard drive, which made the load times much more tolerable. - Oh, interesting. - I wish I had a bigger hard drive, so I can do it very instantly. - I mean, you can install one at a time, since it only needs one disk at a time. Like I would-- - I know, I just-- - I would highly encourage you to make the space. - Speaking of, though, I do really enjoy the load screens. That's-- - Which is funny, because like, when-- before it came out, when they said, oh, we have some new way to take care of the elevator thing, everyone is excited. And then like, there was some snarky, I think, Kotaku post that said, oh, yeah, it's a fucking load screen is the way they cover up the load screens. - Yeah, best load screens ever, man. - They are great. - Every single one is exactly related to whatever you're doing, and even the ones that I thought weren't related to what I was doing, after I looked at them for a while, they were. - Yeah. - Like when you're leaving, like the trajectory of your shuttle and the Normandy catching it when you leave behind it and shit like that, the load screens at the beginning, after the big event that we're not going to talk about, because that is still like the most awesome beginning to a video game I've ever fucking seen. - Yeah, it's cool. - Even those load screens are amazing. The one that I-- - Yes, we're complimenting the load screen to deal with it. - The one that I thought that didn't make sense. There's one that looks like a circle opening, and then there's like a bunch of things, and I realized, Jay, he's like, yeah, they're going through decon-- they're going to the Citadel, they're going into this new area, decontamination area, and then boom, you land and you're right there. I was like, shit, every single one, it's totally impressive. They just look great, like whoever did the 2D art, the motion graphics and that are just, yeah, great job. - You're going to have to look at load times, there's no way around it, you know? The game's going to have it, so-- - Yeah, you better use to it if you want your fish to survive. But the load time, when you install the load times, are actually, I didn't go up to my quarters very often because I was worried about load times, but it's actually like not bad at all. - It's not that bad. - I never-- - And it fits better than spending $2,500 that the Citadel over and over again to buying a fish. - As much as you expect in an open world game like this, I don't see any more than anybody else. - Space hamster. - Yes. - Squeak, squeak, squeak. - Did you get all the ships? - I think so. - I have a wonderful display of ships. - I have all of them. I just got sovereign, actually. - Yeah, on the quarry in fleet, no less, I think, right? - Actually, sovereign, it appears in the store, one of the stores on the Citadel at the very end. Oh, one more thing. So, okay, so I'm the type of gamer that gets really obsessive as we mentioned, resource gathering and all that. When I first went, I'll go to an area, and then I grab all the missions that are possible in that area, do all those missions before I move on to go to the next place. I'm like, I feel like I'm clearing it out, which is why go do these crazy resource gathering missions. I'm clearing them out. I never have to come to this far reach of space ever again. So, my fourth time or something on Omega, I'm walking through an area I've been a million times. Not even just getting from point A to point B, because I'm doing a mission that I need to do there. And some random dude stops me on the street. Not only does he stop me, he gives me a new mission that sends me off to two different places. - Oh, I know what the mission you're talking about. - So, it's the type of thing where, I mean, that's something I've never seen in an RPG before. I always, and I've always wanted to see, it's like, if you're going to put, you know, ten missions on a place, make five available at the beginning and slowly put the other five of them in there so that I feel like it's an actual living place that's liquid and mercurial and things can change. That's something that happens in this game and it doesn't happen in many other RPGs, at least not that I know of. - Also, love the pot-driven side missions. - Yeah, totally great. - Like the crazy robot virus. - Yeah. - Yeah. - That's fucking awesome. - Or I just came upon one of the ones that you told me about really early, where you find some mercenaries that are on some planet, this is one of the missions you find from scanning a random planet. - Oh, yeah. - And they do this mission, which, oh, and the other thing is the side missions, those type of side missions, the ones you find on the planets, they're a little bit shorter than ones in Mass Effect, but every area is unique, so they don't feel cut and pasty. I feel like they're the perfect length. So you get this one mission, perfect length, finish it, and it leads to another mission in a totally different area. - Did you find the-- - In a totally different area. - The derelict alliance ship. - Yes. - The one that's suspended. - That's the one I'm going to next. - Oh, I did that. - That thing is so fucking amazing. - That was amazing. - That is so intense, like the whole time you're, oh man, I'm not gonna say anything about it. - Man, I'm ready to stop talking. - Okay, and on that, I think we're actually going to wind down because we've been talking for more than an hour about Mass Effect 2. - Have we seriously been talking about this for an hour? - Yes. - Wow. - This game's really incredible. I mean, I don't know what else to say about it. - I mean, I could spend longer talking about it. If you guys had beaten the game, just talking about the stuff that could happen, it could happen. - I'm really dying. - It doesn't necessarily happen. - Hey, you can do a hold of the podcast or something like that. - If you want to, I'm down to come back next week and do it. - We'll see what happens. - Anything podcast. So if anyone's down, if you want to let us know, we'll talk about it. - And you can cross host on area five. You can bring your cameras. - Yeah, you go. - Hold on. - Yeah, on that note, I think we're gonna wrap up, but Mass Effect 2. - Pretty outstanding. - We kinda like it. - It's an okay game. - It's not terrible. - You know, it'll tie me over. - It's not the worst game I've ever played. - It'll tie me over until Tropico 3. - I did, at some point, exclaim while Jay was watching me play, because I was having so much fun. I had a huge smile on my face in one particular scene that I'm not going to talk about because Tyler's not quite there yet. I think I said I wanted to, I would kiss BioWare on the mouth. - On the mouth. - On the mouth. - I would use some tongue. - Yep. - I have a girlfriend. I'm happy with her, but man, that part of the game was so incredibly awesome. And every other part leading up to it, which is what finally made me exclaim, "BioWare, I would kiss you on the mouth." - I don't like laying superlatives and cliches down on something this soon after launch, because the launch goggles are still on. - Oh yeah, definitely. We're still playing it. - But, I mean, like, I'm gonna stay away from like, there are people saying, "Oh, well, this may be the best game I've ever played. I don't, I need distance to say something like that. This is the best game that BioWare has ever played." - Oh, no problem. And that's what they say. That's exactly what they say about it. Like, Dragon Age is the love letter to their past, like from their past, and this is like a love letter from the future to the future. - Yeah. - Like, what to expect, yeah. - I think, seriously, it's that it's the way that the decisions from one lead to two will lead to three. I've just never seen anything like it. It really does. - And it's really been a core of what they wanted to do. - It does take it to a whole 'nother spot. - Yeah. - Yeah. Definitely delivered. - And on that note, you guys need to go home and I have to pee. - Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. - Peace. - Peace. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [ Silence ]