Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 44 - 121709
Greetings and welcome to Rebel FM Episode 44! This week we eschew the middle segment entirely as we start off talking about Bayonetta, Army of Two:TFD, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and more, then move on to a doublewide letters segment including one host's secret concert shame. This week's music, in order of appearance: Criteria - It Happens; Florence & the Machine - My Boy Builds Coffins
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ There's nothing good on the radio ♪ ♪ Once again I didn't know ♪ ♪ There's your hard time too ♪ ♪ The rebel of hell ♪ ♪ The rebel of hell ♪ ♪ The rebel of hell ♪ ♪ The rebel of hell ♪ - Well, welcome to our rebel FM. My brain just paused there for a second. Like the electrons stopped firing. So I was just like, man, you know what I said. - I wrote the, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Well, FM. - Yeah. So we're here. My name's Anthony and I goes with Tyler Barber. Hey, how's it going? And Arthur Gies. - You can sound a little more excited about it. - I know people actually, one of the things I did see, 'cause the other day just to torture myself, I looked at our negative iTunes reviews. This was yesterday and-- - The other day, meaning five minutes ago. - They're overwhelmingly positive. I mean, we have like four and a half star average. - Oh, really? - And, oh, went down. - Yeah. Yeah, I mean-- - I thought it has some bad let's be realistic. - Oh, it is. Yeah, it's just originally when the podcast first started. It was all five because, you know, it's a bunch of people just being nice to us after the layoffs, but-- - And I hope people don't feel that obligation. - Which is fine. And, okay. - Yeah, I know. It's just certain people didn't like the dynamic of the show anymore. I, that's fine, whatever, the-- - That's okay. You can go listen to Next Suttner's Park. Oh, that's right. - Well, no, I-- - That's right. - Yeah, the more, more, more of the criticism I get is like the cock and dick jokes, but we don't do that many. - No, and sometimes we will blow it. - I think people will blow it. - Criticize that we sound tired and stuff, and the honest part is that sometimes we are tired. It's not that we're tired of making the podcast because I like to do this for everyone. The reality of it is, though, is that, yeah, a lot of times we're tired because we always do this after working normal day. - And now in addition to Anthony's general lack of enthusiasm, I am exhausted. - See, my general lack of enthusiasm. This is why I have my best friend in my hand right here, Joe. - Barely getting through every day. Just one hour to the next, crying yourself to sleep. - That's what you think my life's like. It's not that bad. I actually admit a decent mood a lot of times is just that some days are more tiresome than others. - You like tiresome to sleep like one or two nights a week, right? - It's a good thing I know you're joking. - I am totally joking. - I was hoping you'd keep going. - You know, and people would also be like, people, I also see the complaint that we don't have guests anymore. And, you know, actually, I did want to take them home just to be like, you know, the main reason that is is because back in the day, when we were all unemployed, it was really easy to find a time that worked for our guests. Like, we could just do it no matter what. They'd be like, I can only record between 11.30 and one o'clock on Tuesday morning. And you're like, okay, we can do that. But now it's like we're very all set within a lot of ranging schedules. So that makes it much harder. - Also, not to disparage people because people are generally very nice, but a lot of people in the gaming industry, total fucking flakes. - Yeah, we do get a lot more guests set up than what show up. So, let's talk about games. Peep, peep, peep, peep! (laughs) - Okay, not at all. - Well, wait, today, today the format is we're gonna do what we've been playing in then a double wide letters trailer park session. - Yeah, assuming that there's a lot of letters. - I like calling it double wide. - The double wide letters. - I'm assuming that there's a good amount of letters. - I'll bet you do take it. - You know, there's been a lot of letters we haven't read. And a lot of them we haven't even looked at. So that should mean that we're gonna get our fair share of awful ones and good ones. - You know, we're not gonna read the fucking Penn House form letter we got this one. - Yeah, so you can each-- - To the guy that sent us a letter. - Or your girlfriend can. - To the guy that sent us a letter about a girl peeing on him. - I don't believe you, sir. I think you're a liar. - And even if you're not lying, like, I don't know that that's not our, this is not an area that we wanna talk about. So-- - Not on the air. - Now, if you're peeing on her, then maybe-- - Well, that's the way it's supposed to be, right? - Yeah, so let's talk about actual video games. That we've been playing. - Yeah, because-- - And how? - Yeah, unless one of you guys has been playing a video game that involves peeing on someone. I can see that being an Xbox Live indie game. The R. Kelly. - The R. Kelly, yeah. - Oh, god. - Imagination machine. - That shit wouldn't last a day. - So anyways, what games-- this is like the fifth time I'm gonna say, it's what games are people actually-- - Actually been playing-- - The Tiler. - You know what I picked up? - Break it up. - Because, you know, the way you were, you know, you're talking about it, the game I really wanted to enjoy last week was Banjo and Kazooie. Banjo, Kazooie. - Banjo, Kazoo. It should be Banjo and Kazooie. - Banjo and Kazoo! - But it's just Banjo, Kazooie. - Oh, okay. - I like the banjo's and the Kazoo's. - And the Kazoo's. That's my version of the Kazooie. - Banjo, Kazooie, now it's a bolt. - That's a bolt, correct, yeah. - And man, I-- - You've been listening to some bolts. - When I started playing, I was immediately reminded why I stopped playing. It's, the game, it has the rare trademark of being needlessly complicated. Like the way you gotta like, bring these jiggies to this machine, get the puzzle pieces from the machine, take 'em and bring 'em into this machine. - That part is kind of tedious. The only thing I'd say is that at points, it seems like they intentionally make it complicated. Like, it becomes a puzzle thing. Or at least with one of the worlds that I had to unlock, it was a pretty comp, not pretty complicated, but it was a, like, a thing where you had to put this piece in a cage, like you get it in a cage, and then you go across the water and go up to the top of this crane and bring the thing up and put it into another cage, and it rolls toward the level unlocking thing. - But you're saying you don't understand like where, when you like grab a jiggy, it doesn't just like appear in an inventory. - Yeah, it's just like-- - Yeah, it's just like having to put it in the car. - The hub world is very complicated, and they give you a lot of information right up front. They give it to you, like, you know, I don't know. It just seems really, really complicated the way they handle all the new items you require and everything. - Yeah, but on top of that, despite all that, you know, I'm still having fun with it, and I kind of just wish, like, I don't know, there was a mode of the game where it was just all, they just give you all the pieces and you could just go and build some stuff, but I guess that takes up the fun. But-- - No, it doesn't take out all the fun. I think it just gets you straight to all the fun. - Right, brings you straight to it, yeah. But yeah, I guess that's where my frustration lies is that I don't want to-- - Have you built any cool vehicles, though? - No. I have not built any cool vehicles. - Have you built any vehicles? - 'Cause I don't have that many parts. I don't have a whole bunch of-- - Tyler will not be with us next week. - Parts. - I mean, the base parts you get right off the bat, you can do quite a bit. - Yeah. - You don't actually have to gather that much. I mean, you can't do the cool thing, like, make vehicles a blow apart or make fun of you. - I mean, let's be fair, you need to have imagination. - Well, no, no, like, but what I'm speaking about is, like, the first set of emissions, at least, from what I've seen so far, they pretty much provide the blueprints that you would need, like, if you need attack, you know, the taxi vehicles or, like, vehicles-- - They do, I mean, those are usually good templates to start from, if you want. That's how I generally did it. - Basically, I have ignored every blueprint they've provided. It's always been, well, what do I want to do to get this done, or, like, I will create a vehicle and see if this applies. And that has helped me to sort of completely destroy a lot of the most base time trials. Right now we're playing the watch Anthony get the shit been out of him by his cat game. Sorry, I just didn't want her to attack her until I heard her stuff. Anyways-- - Instead she hurt you. - Yeah, no, she's back to attack. - Okay, so more banjo. - Yeah, and, you know, just, I don't know. It seems like a game that really wants, I don't know, put Roblox in front of my building fun time, but I'm willing to give it some more shots, and I want to unlock some more pieces and stuff. I can't wait to get to the aerial-- - Did you download it, or did you buy it new? Or did you just-- - I've owned it, yeah. I've had it for a long time. - I do kinda wait. There have been times, or I mean, not even times, but I mean, the whole reason that I'm playing the main game is to unlock more pieces to play with. - Yeah, I mean, I spend a lot of times in that game, like once you like, the first time you get like a spring that allows your car to jump, then I set their driving around the main hub town just being like, what parts can I now obtain? I would just go around hunting them mercilessly, so. - But to be fair, the level is also like, without the levels there would be no reason to make the vehicles. - Yeah, yeah, and I guess like my other frustration just comes from the angles, like what you're building the vehicles for. It's not like, you know, there was one challenge where the challenge is basically like, you're inside of an Xbox 360, and you race to the very top. It's just like, you know, you're just racing in the top, or I don't know, like I want meteor challenge, I don't know, maybe-- - They are different. Some of them are like, I mean, they are like, in a lot of ways, like almost like MMO quests, in a lot of ways, very short, little things, like gather X amount of X in this time. - Yeah. - I could see, like, I don't normally like time things, so I'm actually surprised I liked it as much 'cause they put you under a time thing, like, all the time. - Well, that's how they determine whether you get a jiggy or not. - Or a trophy, or just, yeah, I mean, but I still, I don't know, I enjoyed it a lot. - And some of the games too seem like really, really vague, you know, and I got this one mission, and he was like, it was something about like, I think he threw his friend's possession into the volcano, and he wanted you to go retrieve it, but I was like, well, where do I get it? Like, I was driving around this volcano forever, could never find what I was supposed to get, or anything, never so. - And you've got to come back too. - Yeah. - To really do, like, effectively. Like, some of them you can get by, and just squeak by and get the jiggy piece, but if you want to, like, go back and get the trophy, you're gonna have to do it later with like, really awesome parts. - Yeah, so. - For me so far, I've felt like I've spent so much time in the garage, making different shit from what I have, that I always have something that will handle the mission in front of me super well. And then if I don't, then that's actually part of the fun part is saying, oh, okay, so now I need to think of something completely different. - Is the only way to go into the garage by going into a new level? No, you can always hit the back button, right? Oh, okay. - Or as a starter. - If you're inside a world, you can do anything at any time. If you're in the hub world, the only way you can fuck with vehicles is to go to the garage. But if you're inside of, like, the Xbox level, you can edit your vehicle at any time. - You can't fly. - Yeah. - So. - Hmm. - I mean, you can even, like, attach part. You don't even have to do, like, the blueprint thing. Like, you can attach parts and take things off as banjo. So. - Yeah, yeah. - I was just getting frustrated, like, those little balls that roll around were just fucking you up. - Yeah, and like, you know, flinging the seat, like, way off of the vehicle, like, so far. And then, like, I try to pick it up and run it all the way back to the vehicle, and then the balls come-- - It's true early on before you, like, eventually you'll be able, like, armored things that every, you know, that won't be so as vulnerable, like, I guess you kind of have to stick with it through that initial learning curve of having those pain in the ass moments happen. You're like, now I should maybe put armor all around my seat all the time, so that something else falls off first. - I just never had my seat locked off, that's weird. - You gotta get ran pretty hard from behind, unless you put your seat up front, but you can't do, which I haven't done before. - I did that with my spatula. - You put the seat all the way up in the front? - I will, or with one of the spatulas, I have many spatula variations. - What else have you been hitting up? - I've really crested a performance barrier with Modern Warfare 2 online play. - What does that mean? - And what that means is, last night, I've been consistently killing higher and higher and higher and dying less and less. Dude, last night I played my best game ever. It had 30 kills, seven deaths. - Jesus Christ, Tyler. - Was that how much of that was like, like, was that like, you just being awesome and running on the level, or was it like, at some point you got like an AC 130 and all of a sudden just gave people a life? - Yeah, no, no, it wasn't an AC 130 or anything. It was just one of those in the zone games. Actually, I've not manned an AC 130 yet. What is your preferred loadout? - I switch up all the time, and I'm generally the one who's trying to convince my friends to try other classes, to try other gun types, 'cause like I have friends who be like, oh, you know, I'm level 70, but I've never tried to sub the sub machine guns, and it's like, what? - I mean, some people, when they find something, they feel like works. - They just-- - I mean, even the original Modern Warfare, I basically almost exclusively used the M4. - When I feel like the reason people do that is because they're holding on for dear life to the only rope they think they have, because in that game, things escalate so quickly, and the people that are doing well, just do better-- - Not just that, but sometimes when you switch to like a sub machine gun, now all of a sudden, you don't have a red dot site or anything for it, and say you gotta start all over with that customization. - Yeah. - And run again. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, I can understand that, but I don't know what to use to say. - I don't know where it is, but I go through all of them. I'm going through every single gun and getting enough kills to where the next goal is 300 kills, and then I move on, so that way I'm leveling up really fast. So, and I actually enjoy unlocking all this stuff with the guns. I actually enjoy starting with the iron sights and then working your way up. I don't know, there's something fulfilling to me about it, and I even feel the same way about prestigeing. Like, I will prestige once I go past level 70, just 'cause I think it's fun, gathering all that shit. But yeah, definitely have a zen moment yesterday. - Tiffany's cat is losing her shit. - Do you, like, the only guns I've ever had a really hard time playing with in Modern Warfare, like, without failure, shotguns? - Dude, yeah, that's one gun-- - I don't use. - I don't use. - I don't use. - Yeah. - Like, it doesn't matter if it's an automatic shotgun. I just can't ever seem to hit anybody with that goddamn thing. - Yeah, and I plan on using the backup shotguns because you always see guys run around with, we call them the double dildos 'cause they look-- - Yeah, what the fuck are those dildos? - They're, like, amazing when you see people do it. - Yeah, basically, like, you can get shotguns as your secondary weapon. - They're, like, single hand lever action. - They're normally single hand, but if you use them enough, you unlock a Kimbo, which lets you dual wield them. And, like, a dual-wielded, the dual-wielded secondary shotguns is instant kill, one shot. Doesn't matter, but the range is really, really shitty, but dudes can really terrorize. - Well, I'll just approach in the point where I have no interest in playing Modern Warfare. - It looks ridiculous when you see somebody using 'em, too, 'cause they're shooting and then they're, like, spinning them. - Yeah. - And stuff, I don't know. I see people do that all the time, though. They are absurd. - I'd hope before Modern Warfare, too, had come out that they would make it a little less insane, and instead, it has gone completely the other day. - I did hear that they've gotten rid, like, one of our, yeah, listeners wrote in and said that he'd noticed that they'd gotten rid of certain guns. They didn't make sense to him at all. Like, there's no more AK-74U, which was actually a gun I used to really like in the submachine gun class. - Well, they just replaced it with a different gun, I'd imagine. - Yeah, it's just, you know, it's just weird. Like, he thought it was weird that they wouldn't have, like, new gun and AK-74U. - Right, like, bring 'em back to the old standbys. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. - I mean, they also made it so that the M16 is a super high-level gun. - Yeah, I noticed that. I really don't like the gun you start with. It was an AUG or whatever. - It's something like that. - Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that gun. - Yeah, yeah, it's okay. I did pretty well with it. But, yeah, I'm still having fun with that. One of my friends actually experienced the glitch where it gives you infinite ammo where it throws you in the private match. - I had no idea this was a glitch. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is, okay. So, like, for 360 versions of Modern Warfare 2, since they fixed the javelin glitch. - The javelin glitch. - The javelin glitch, there's sort of been two new glitches introduced, and one of them is where it sort of bumps you into rooms that have infinite ammo, and basically there's no, like, reloading, there's no, like, you don't need to cock a grenade to launch grenades, you can basically just, like, go in and just-- - Oh, my God. - Automatic fire grenade launching and shit. And a couple of my friends were getting this bug and talking about how annoying it was, but one of my buddies, who's the type of gamer who loves to run in Grand Theft Auto and just create mayhem for hours. You know, he likes that instant gratification. He was, like, of the mind that it was actually really fun and could be a fun different mode, you know, a different mode of way of things. - The thing's awful. - It does to most people, and most people say the same thing, but I also saw one of the guys on G4 TV today blogging about that same issue, how though it was annoying, how I saw it. It could, you know, present an interesting new mode. Like, one of those happy accidents mode where, like, I would jump in with a saw and just hold down the trigger and never stop. - Right. - I guess you don't even have to reload. You might as well just use the most accurate hip fire weapon you can, you know. - Or the noob tubes. - The look on your face to me, Arthur says, like, I don't even know what it says. - I'm not saying move on. I'm just, it's not that. It's just that, like, modern warfare to his left in an area where I'm, like, interested in the game. And now I'm just sort of, I acknowledge that it exists and that a lot of people play it, but my interest has gone to almost nothing. - Yeah, it bothered me when I went to go play it. Like, I really didn't know that whole thing that you can't be in party chat, but you can be in a private chat. That didn't really make sense to me. Like, most of the time when I party chat, it's usually just one other person anyways. I just forget about using private chat these days, even though that's like the thing we used to do back in the day. - And annoyed everybody doing it? - Yeah, but yeah, I don't know. So, what else you've been hitting up? - That's it. That's good. - My game's up. I'm playing modern warfare to every single night with my friends from Houston. It's so good. I love it. What have you been playing, Arthur? - Not modern warfare, too. I've been playing the hate modern warfare, too, game. - Arthur's been stuck in the earlier parts of 2009. - Uh, somewhat, yeah. So, because of Game of the Year stuff, like I've played almost every game that we're considering for Game of the Year, except for stuff that I will literally not play and will not discuss whatsoever. Like, the sports game conversation I won't participate in because I'm not really interested in playing Madden or-- - Or NHL games? - Or NHL games. I mean, I played in the NHL game this year and it was fucking terrible. But I was playing, for the racing game category, we nominated Need for Speed Shift and dirt, too, among others. And I hadn't played either of them, so I thought that I would try those out as a means to make a more informed decision. 'Cause that's one of the more contentious categories, I think, at Team Xbox for racing game. - I would guess so. I mean, considering that one of the games up for it is a Microsoft first-party game exclusive could make it more contentious. - I think it's just contentious because, in my opinion, there are two front-runners. And I mean, reading the reviews for Need for Speed Shift, I expected it to be a lot more fun and I'm not having any fun with Need for Speed Shift. - Yeah, I've just heard, I guess it comes down, it's like there are people, it's like one of those games, it's like, you're gonna like shift, you're like fours, it's one of the other, more than the other, and it's kind of-- - I don't even know-- - They're both great games. - It doesn't seem like that to me, it just seems like either you would like dirt, too, or you would like fours that like Need for Speed Shift doesn't do anything particularly well, it's just competent across this sort of cross-section. Like you can try to play it like an arcade racer and do okay, you can try to play it like a sim racer and do okay, but it doesn't excel the way that fours of three does, it being a sim racer, or it doesn't excel the way it being, as I was putting it to you earlier, like dirt too feels like Mario Kart for grownups. - Yeah, I just heard the people that like the shift who liked it because of the, they actually liked the way it tried to get across the feel of racing, that come across it all when you played it. - I mean, the only thing I can think of is that the cockpit view, it seems more sort of dynamic and not as static as certain other racing games do, but again, like driving from the cockpit feels wonky and weird and Need for Speed Shift to me. - Do you think you'd like shift, well, this is probably an easy question, do you think you'd like shift more if it had a rewind feature? - That would help a lot, yeah. And actually, it's funny that, I mean, Dirt 2 came out before, or Need for Speed Shift. - Right. - And Dirt 2 has a rewind feature, which is good, but you can only use it a certain amount of times. And if you set the AI higher, you can use it fewer amount of times, like, I have it set to serious, is the difficulty setting I have it on, which sounds extreme, but there's four difficulty settings and it's number two. - Yeah. - But they give a good challenge, they're aggressive, they bump, they'll try to spin you out on certain courses if you fuck with them. But like you can do it three times on that, and after that, you're just bummed, like there's no more rewind. And that's fine to a point, like it's better than none at all in which is what Need for Speed Shift has, but after playing Forza and then going back and playing Dirt 2, and Need for Speed Shift, it's just like the frustration factor that I felt was absent from Forza because of the rewind feature is more sharply felt. - In Shift, I mean, not in Shift, in Dirt, is it more like, is it less of an issue being able to rewind? Like, is it like a, you know, is it the type of game where if you fuck up and you're out of rewind, it's like, well, that was that, you know, or is it like you can come back and still do well enough to continue the game progression? - Okay, so you keep saying that this is something that you keep presenting to me about racing games and about Need for Speed Shift in a particular because you heard me ranting about the lack of a rewind feature. I do not play racing games to come in second. - No, yeah, I'm just wondering, but you said in Shift, you know, the thing is that-- - The progression in Shift depends on earning stars. - Right, that's what I'm saying. And this one is, can you still progress if you don't, if you don't, like a lot of times, when I, like, when I were, you'd motor storm for PSP, I would get first and most ever, and then that's like what I really wanted, but the occasional getting third place, if I really didn't want to play that track again, it wouldn't like hurt me. - See, but that speaks to the game not being fun to me, like, not wanting to play the track again. - Well, I mean, certain tracks are better than others, is the thing. I mean, I-- - I mean, I don't see, like, in a series of events in a racing game, like being, okay, well, I'm gonna come in third on this one and then first on a couple of others, and that's good enough. Like, that's not why I'm interested in playing those games. Like, if I'm competing in a race, like, it is first or I start the race over. - That's fine. - It's just you and I have different mentalities when it comes to it. - And, like, in Forza, that's not a problem because you can, if you make a mistake, you are not, especially in the end, which is a problem that racing games have had basically forever, which is that if you fuck up near the end, all of your progress is done and you have to do the race all over again, or you finish last, or you finish third or fourth, or whatever, where with Forza 3, that's never an issue because you'll just back up and do it again. And I feel like it makes you a better driver because you learn how to take those turns instead of going through the entire race all over again and forgetting how you fucked up, and then eventually maybe you fuck up again and you have to do the race over again and you forget what it is you did wrong. I feel like it contributes to learning how to control your cars better. - I was going to ask, In Forza, do you end up not having to, like, even repeat races? Like, you can pretty much do it first try. - Exactly. - Every time. - I mean, first try with quotation-- - Well, right, but you're not gonna replay the race. You're going to get first eventually if you're willing to use the rewind enough. - Yeah, well, assuming that your car can do it, I mean, like, even you might realize that your cars can't do it and you'll quit the race and you'll try to come back later. I mean, need for speed shift. Like, there's definitely several instances where I just kept restarting a race and getting more and more frustrated every time because the game handles a little strangely and it doesn't handle the way you'd expect and it has a racing line like Forza does, but the racing line is not accurate. It'll say green, which in Forza means you can floor the accelerator in your fine, whereas shift will show a turn, like, a mild turn with green. And if you go full speed and try to turn gradually, you'll wobble out of control, basically, and spin out. - Yeah, I mean, I think a large part of my enjoyment, like, dirt too sounds like of all the games you described, the one that I would actually probably like rather than Forza or shift. Yeah, 'cause for me, it's like, it's like a lot of times for me getting, like, third place is good enough if it allows me to progress only 'cause for me, getting first place in a lot of racing games isn't an option. So a lot of times, I'm like, yeah, I did it, I placed. Like, for me, placing a lot of times. For you who likes racing games and is pretty good at them, I can see that being like first or nothing. But yeah, for me, it's like definitely, it's a task a lot of times to get anything about third. - But I mean, now just imagine if, like, instead of getting first, you were constantly getting fourth instead of third and having to run that race over and over again. - Yeah. - Like how frustrating that becomes. And it's just another thing that keeps me from feeling like I'm progressing. But dirt too is fun. There was one race in particular today. There are a lot of different kinds of races in dirt too. There's normal, just track racing like you're used to except it's on dirt, go figure. It's on dirt. There's these races that take place on more bumpy terrain that generally you're racing trucks or jacked up vehicles on huge tires. There's rally racing where you're just trying to take a course as quickly as you can and you're racing against other people's times. And then the one today that was giving me a lot of trouble was called last man standing, where basically it's a race and if you destroy your car, you're out. And eventually it starts a timer that takes down to 20 seconds and whoever's the last person there like just is dropped out of the race. - Okay, I was going to say, I remember this mode in the DS version of dirt too. - Yeah, so like number eight is the first one to go then seven, then six and like by the time. - It'll be great if they blew up. - Yeah, that would be awesome. Maybe next time. So I mean, that's fun, but again, it's just you use, dirt too has an awesome interface, but unfortunately there are times when it's so excited to show you how cool its interface looks that it obscures the track. And when it's a night course and it obscures the track and it causes me to suddenly slam my right side into a wall that was sticking out a little bit and damage my wheels and lose a race, that gets kind of frustrating. But dirt too is a hell of a lot of fun. I just don't think that it's as, I don't feel as satisfied playing dirt too. - I'm gonna say it almost seems like it's just like, like, you know, I know that in the scheme of things they get lumped together in their own category. - They're very different games. - Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, like forza and dirt. They both involve cars and getting first, but. - Yeah, I mean, dirt too is, again, like the way I put it was it's Mario Kart for grownups. Like there's no shells or no power ups, but it's about power sliding all over the place and like ricocheting off other cars and spinning cars out and being aggressive. And I don't feel like Need for Speed Shift does that particularly well, even though it ostensibly tells you you can drive that way. And then forza obviously is not about that at all. Like forza is about precision and you get rewarded for that precision. Whereas if you fuck up your car in dirt too, it doesn't cost you any money at the end. Like it's just like, sweet you won. - Nice. - Way to go. Your car is still rolling across the finish line. - Yeah, it should be. - Yeah, I mean, that's the one thing about the racing genre that really always has always turned me off just like how penalizing sometimes it can be. Yeah, especially more semi-wins. That's because for me, I just not good at it. - Right. - Yeah, so I mean, like, again, which is where the rewind feature for forza comes in, like because instead of having to do the lap over again and just quitting, like you just back up and keep going. Like I played forza three a lot more than I played forza two for that reason. - Are the leaderboards for forza two? Did they differentiate people who beat races without using rewind? - Yes. - Smart. So there is a reason to do races without rewind. - Practice with the rewind? - Yeah, I'm sure there's the super hardcore people who think the rewind features for babies or whatever. - Yeah, you can turn it off. I mean, you don't have to do it. But those are the people that wouldn't need rewind anyway, probably. - Right. - So in addition to playing old games, we also played army of two a couple of weeks ago and intermittently more since then, since we're both on the review. - Army of those I've hardly played more. I played like a half hour by myself to see what it was like by myself. - Yeah, I played about an hour by myself 'cause I put up a preview today about my single player impressions of army of two, the 40th day. - What specific mode did you guys, did you play a single player or that multiplayer mode? - We played multiplayer as well. But when we played before, it was just co-op campaign. So, it's alright. The end. (laughing) - I was waiting for that. - Nah, I mean, it's better than the first one so far. - Yes, I would go so far as to say it's a lot but in the first one. - Yeah, I mean, the first one, I kept playing it 'cause I bought it and it wasn't 'cause I enjoyed it. - Yeah. - You know, the first one was, in my mind, it was very much like a sea range game, like a mid-sea, like just a straight up sea, if I was gonna go the one up scoring. And it sort of tapered off much closer to the D or F category towards the end. - Towards the end, it just got boring. Yeah, just really, I don't know, that game is. I mean, that game had a lot of like okay ideas and stuff like that. Like the idea of working with the teammate to do all those things. - It had a lot of promise. - Yeah, it's just a lot of it comes off very forced. - So the, I mean, the weird thing about army of two, the 40th day is that like, it just can't have as much promise as the first one because it's the sequel to the first one. - Right. - Like it executes on all of the promise that the first one had so much better than that one did. - Yeah, this one doesn't do any backstory. There's none of that, there's none of like, before you were badass or this is how you do it. Like it does have a tutorial kind of, but not like the type of tutorial, the first one. - Yeah, no, it's. - Like this one very much is just like, eh, five minutes in, now you're shooting people with real bullets and murdering them. It's like, you know, they don't fuck around at all. - Luckily, murdering people with bullets is much easier in this one than it is. - Yeah, and the first one, it was like the first uncharted where guys took way too many bullets and it kind of felt like you were shooting like a bunch of rubber bullets into a person in the first one, but in this one, it's a lot more like, you know, one shot to the head or three shots to the body and they'll generally go down, unless they're heavily armored, which there's a fair share of those guys too, to mix things up. - It's just, it's more satisfying to shoot guys in this. It doesn't necessarily always feel easy to kill them, but it feels like you are doing the damage you should. - Yeah. - And then the upgrade mechanic has been revamped. In the sense that you can upgrade from anywhere at any time, which is nice. - And the money you collect, whether through co-op or single player, all contributes to the same sort of thing. - It's like, it's sort of like in Diablo 2. - It's like a profile's account of money in the guns you've unlocked, and you get money at a rate that is vastly larger than you ever did in the first one. - Like candy, I believe is the word. - Yeah, like you don't even need to like, in the first one, you know, you kind of committed yourself to a gun in this one, you're like, I know I dropped like almost $300,000 in this gun, but whatever, I'll just move on to a new one. - We can only talk about the first two levels. - I don't even know what those are. So I'm going to only speak in general, at least. - So the first level is the sort of semi-tutorial thing where you're in the streets of Shanghai, like after you land. - Oh, yeah, that was pretty boring. - Yeah, where that's the most awkward the game looks as far as the characters go, because you see Rico and Salem without Armoron. - Rios. - Rios. - Rios. - Rios and Salem, without Armor. And I think it's Rios in particular, it looks freakish without his Armoron. - He's a little bit longer of like, he has like really low shoulders and kind of a neck that builds up in his head. - And his shoulders are pressed super close into his body and his arms sort of come out like penguin wings a little bit? - Oh man. - It's because, yeah, it's because they animated them to be wearing Armor all the time. And so when they're not, it's like, they built them to look like right with Armor and... - They look wrong without it. - Yeah, 'cause in reality, you know, when people wear Armor and stuff, they look weird then. Like when you see a football player, they look weird because that puts them out of proportion whereas they're actually pretty proportional with their Armoron, so. - It's a better, it looks a lot better than the first one too. Right now, everything looks more wet than the last game did everywhere. - Yeah, I mean, that could just be that the Unreal Engine has been improved since then too. - Oh yeah, that's absolutely what it is, I'm sure. But I mean, just as far as like art design and stuff, it's a lot more visually interesting than the last one was. - Yeah, I think that's just because the environments are already way more varied, even in the first two levels. - Yeah, but even then they take like the office building and do something more interesting with it and the instead of it just being buildings, like it becomes, oh well, these are buildings collapsing and oh, we are running along what used to be the side of a building that collapsed into the side of the skyscraper. - Nice, they don't introduce you very well when you're playing single player to how to do certain things like co-op sniping or anything like that. It just like do co-op sniping and you're like, what? How do co-op sniping? - You know what your training is for single player, co-op. - Yeah, so. But I mean, so far I'm having fun with it, which is more than I thought that I would say about it. I don't know if we can talk about the multiplayer rather than the co-op. - Yeah, I don't think we're supposed to talk about multiplayer at this point as far as I know. - There are some weird design issues so far. Like there's no subtitle option whatsoever. - In the game, yeah. - Like there's no captions. - I usually turn those on. - I don't know about you, but I usually have them on. - Really? - Even if I'm playing with audio. - I don't because this is gonna sound way dumb. I don't like the dialogue. I don't like the spoilers, even if it's like a few seconds. - Even if it's in the millisecond. - Yeah, like you'll read the text and it'll be before they necessarily say it. - I don't know. - Yeah, I don't know. - That is fair. (laughs) - It's a little more expensive. - You know one thing that, I don't know, and this is gonna sound like really lame too, but one thing that attracts me, the designer in me to army of two, what's it, the 40th day? I think get around that. So is the whole aspect of being able to like design your helmet or your armor in the multiplayer and shit. I'd love to go. - Well, as far as I saw the design, you usually just picked pre-made design. - There, I mean, it looks like there's a way to do it, but we couldn't figure it out and we didn't have a lot of time. We didn't spend nearly as much time in the multiplayer as we did with the single player. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, it might not make it into the final game, but I'd seen like shots where it was almost like MS paint style where you could do, you know, the way they had the flame on the guy's helmet or whatever. - I would be amazed if there was that sort of editing on their own. - Editing. - That would result in some people's shit that yeah, they wouldn't have anybody on their mind. - But yeah, I know. But like I said, I have seen a screenshot of the UI of that work that's working. - Yeah, it's a lot more fun than the first one is even if the cover mechanic sucks. - Yeah, the cover mechanic is bad. Ouch. In the sense that like, you know, in Gears of War. - Or any other third person shooter of Merit. - You run up and just hit A, you know, and it doesn't matter if you're standing or crouching. They take cover and if you go to a left or the right edge of the cover you're on, they naturally peek around it. In this one, if you're facing with your gun barrel out to the left and you walk to the left cover you'll peek out around it. If you're facing with your gun barrel to the left and you walk, you edge over to the right corner you'll just back away from the cover. - So you have to switch shoulders and then it doesn't, when you attach to cover it doesn't automatically crouch behind it. - Yeah. - Like it just sort of attaches you and you either have to stand or crouch on your own. - Yeah, you know, instead of just being like when you shoot you then stand from a low cover there's none of that. It wants you to actively do it. And I just feel like that feels a little bit backwards from a way that a lot of third-person shooting games haven't done it. - Yeah, I mean, you know, I can think back to when I was playing a lot of gears, especially multiplayer is my instincts would always be to crouch as soon as I went into cover but that would, you know, if it was like a wall that covered my whole body in full standing, I would still do it. - There was no real crouch, you know, gears you just run around and you just held A and then A automatically brought you down. - Except if you're running in this by holding down A and you're toward cover and tap it again it will slide into cover the way it's supposed to. - Yeah, but yeah, there are plenty of times that I got hurt unnecessarily in that game 'cause I would be like, run to cover and I'm like, I'm barely gonna make it with enough health and then I'd be like, "Ah shit, I forgot to crouch immediately." And then boom, down, so. - Ta-da. I mean, we'll talk more about it. - Single player, I did notice though that when I was playing and I would get down it, I never once had my teammate successfully revived me. - Really? - Yeah. I don't know if that was me being out there too much but he could never get to. - No, in your place though, it might be the case, man. - He might have been going home. - He could never get to me without dying. - Anthony Gagos is commando. - Right, he runs behind 13 enemy soldiers. Why can't my party get through you? - Yeah, maybe. - Yeah, we'll talk more about that next month once it comes out 'cause again, we both have to review it. And then the other game I am playing for a review that I can talk a little bit about is Bayonetta. - Bayonetta. - Bayonetta is Japan the game. - When I think of Bayonetta, I think Devil May Cry. - Devil May Cry with more movies and insanity. - Yeah, and also just a much better combat mechanic, the Devil May Cry has ever had. - Much worse music. - Also true. There's a lot of jazzy j-pop. - Jazzy or danceable j-pop? - Yeah. - Do not want. (humming) - With a lot of winking and like, gleaming and weird shit. And I am not exaggerating when I say that I have, I've had the disc in for about three and a half hours now. And out of that, at least an hour and 15 minutes has been cutscenes. - Yeah, well. - Like there, this is the most cutscenes in the game. - The Metal Gear and you'd be talking about the scene. - No, I mean it's Japan. - I feel like Hideo Kojima would look at this game and say there are an awful lot of cutscenes in this. - Look, isn't it? - And they're all like, at least Metal Gear was meandering toward a point. And it's, this is just completely stupid. Every turn. - Right, I can't imagine what the story would be. Oh God, I don't, what is the story out there? I don't know what it is. - I don't think I'm far enough to know. - Like yeah, it's, like I, you know, - I walked in at one point and I saw Arthur fighting a giant statue with a baby face. And. - Which is in the demo. - J-Pop going on and him shooting people. - Basically, like those are, those are angels, like different choirs of angels and the way that it works is like they'll have, from a certain view you'll see the chair of the face. - And they have like a demon face underneath it, right? - And then they lift up their head and it's like some kind of animal thing, which is their way of being edgy, quote unquote. And in some, sometimes a creature design is kind of cool, but in other times. - Oh, I agree that it's insane. I mean, it's like, it's the weirdest looking creatures, but. - And I mean, so far the problem with it is that the crux of the combat really comes down to using the dodge move at the very last second before something hits you to initiate which time, which is when the screen turns sort of purple and you can, and everything slows down. - Do you kiss everyone till they die? - No, no kissing that I've seen. You do air kisses occasionally before you do your giant hair dog. I'm not making that up. - Right. - If you've seen the demo, you know, and I'm talking about the giant hair dog. - I've seen screen shots. - Eventually, so far it's gotten to a point at times where it's really hard to see if something's about to attack me because there's so much shit going on on screen. And there are parts so far where the game just looks so bad, like in cutscenes and it's distracting. Like to the point where a lot of them look like cutscenes from the first Ninja Gaiden on Xbox. Not on Nintendo. It was like that bad. - Well, no, I mean, even, I mean, you could just say cutscene Ninja Gaiden, even next gen ones in my eyes roll. - That's a good point. - Dude, I swear to you, I popped in Ninja Gaiden too. Watched about like two minutes of the story and I was like, this is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in my life. - Yeah. You can pause cutscenes and ban it, thankfully, which is good. All of that being said, the combat does have a good core to it. - Right. - Like the mechanics are very solid. The combos work well. - That was a little insane when I watched you do it. - Well, I mean, but for me, it's controlled chaos because I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. - Okay, yeah, I was gonna say 'cause like one second I'd watch you, you were hitting people and all of a sudden you were spinning and the circle and your boots were shooting everywhere. And it was like, what's that going on? - Yeah, I mean, like you've got guns attached to your feet. (laughing) We're throwing things at Anthony's cat before she attacks mine. Like she's got guns attached to her feet and guns on her hands. So basically she'll be firing for, she'll be break dancing with bullets coming off of every limb. - Which, hey. - Yeah, I mean, hey. - If you can pull it off. - Japan, you know? - Right. - Japan. This is the most Japanese game I have seen since I played 'til, like... - It was like a point of national pride for Famitsu to give it a perfect score. Like, how can we not? - There might as well be Japanese flags everywhere. Yeah. But yeah, like I said, there is a core mechanic there that is good, that is really fun, that is much more fun than any time I ever spent with Devil May Cry. - I just don't see how that game is expected to like perform here in the States. Like a female lead character like that, with all this insane shit going on in J-Pop music. And even when you see like the cover of the retail game, it's just like her and the word bayanetta. - Have you heard of boobies? - Yeah, I guess, yeah. - She, it's like, it's also, at times, it's Japanese objectification of women, the game. 'Cause bayanetta is just such a ridiculous caricature of women. - And she's just a leather. - Except she's just not a leather, yeah. Exactly like the better you're doing, the less clothing she's wearing, basically. Like that's how you know you're doing it right, because she will become more limited. - No, you never see it, you never get nipples. They never take it to Saboteur Town. - Weak. - Yeah, well. And there's an upgrade mechanic to it in a store and all that stuff and little mini games here and there. There's a weird arcade mini game where you're, it's like a first person view thing where you're shooting floating enemies for points. - What are you shooting them with? - A gun. - Okay, well I wasn't sure. Fuck, don't look at me like I'm asking him same question, right? - That gun. - But she's got four of them. - I know, but they had a frol, I know. - You should frol. - I know you're shooting them with your hair or blazers out of your eyeballs. - Bullets from your nipples, I don't know. - You can literally tell me bullets from your nipples and I would probably believe you with bayonetta. - Well, you'd probably ask, you'd ask me to confirm this. - That costume's coming with the DLC. - Because that is the same game ever. - So this is another sort of Japanese thing that Ninja Gaiden had this problem, where there's no inverting the sticks for first person shooter control and that kind of bummed me out. - Ouch. - I'm having fun with it when I am playing it. When I am watching it, I am waiting for the cutscene to be over and I have spent a lot of time waiting for cutscenes to be over so far. I am not through chapter four yet. So I still have a long way to go. A long, long way to go. - I know in Devil May 4th, Devil May 4th. - Devil May 4th. - Devil May Cry 4 came out. It got a lot of, you got a lot of criticism because the general game design was sort of archaic. In other words, the way it would deal with finding keys or the way they would send you through a lot of the environments twice, whatever. How is the general level progression in this? Is it just like arena fight? - It's extraordinarily linear with some puzzle moments here and there. Like there are these statues that you activate that will shoot a lightning bolt down toward you like which will damage you. Except the point is that you're supposed to dodge it to activate which time as a platforming puzzle type thing. So today I got stuck on one for a little while before I realized that what I was supposed to do is activate the statue and then a timer counts down for me to activate the lightning. So basically I'd activate this thing, activate the timer, run over to this wall. I'm supposed to beat the shit out of while time has stopped and then activate the lightning and dodge it so that I would have enough time to destroy this wall. So that's the most complicated puzzle so far but there has been a point where I had to explore a little side tunnel, get a key, and then bring it back up to a door. But usually progressing involves hitting things. - Right, until a door opens. - Yeah, as it should, you know, like America. - The game. (laughing) - Other than that, I think that's it, honestly. I don't know, I'm tired. - I can tell. - Bay netta. - I can tell you're just tired. I played the zombie island of Dr. Ned. - Ned. - Ned. - Ned. - Ned's the one in the normal game. - Ned's the completely unrelated scientist who looks nothing like Ned. - Yeah, they do a really good job of keeping the especially. I mean, the whole game is tongue and cheek and borderlands but the zombie island of Dr. Ned is really, really tongue and cheek. - Yeah, I think once you see a fucking mustache, paste to a surgical mask, you know what game you're playing. - Right, and like, it's, that is a, I don't know how much that is, 10 bucks, I want to say. I think it's 10 bucks. - I think it's 10. - Yeah, that is a substantial piece of content. For $10. Really, that's cool. - Like just data wise, it's a third to size of the install of the game. - It's about, I don't know, an hour, like the main quest probably takes about, if you're pushing it and I'm also a soldier who can push pretty hard, it took me about like three and a half hours, probably do the main quest. And there are a ton of side quests as well. So the total time spent there, I probably spent another five or six hours. You know, that's like, it's pretty substantial now. - Yeah, that's a pretty good return on investment. That's around Fallout 3 DLC levels of-- - Definitely. - And not just that, but it's not just like, it's not just thrown together, right? Not just like random quest. I mean, this is like stuff with like full voice dialogue, full character introductions, the way that they do it, the really stylized way that they did it. - Cool, yeah. - And the quest are really cool. It's definitely like a Halloween type treat 'cause it's like, you're dealing with like werewolf type characters and-- - And it's a completely separate area too. So there's that. - Right, it's completely unrelated to the other game. There's like no consequence in the other world, you know? And then, I don't know, you get some good loot out of it. - I need to spend some more time playing through that. I never got to see any werescags. - Yeah, you see werescags, which are like werewolves. - Except scags. - And so yeah, it's a, I thought that that was probably, I mean, it had the same effect actually that Borderlands had for me, which is where I started playing and I wasn't into it. Like even when I first started playing Borderlands, I wasn't that into it. But then around like level 10, or like in this case about the hour in, all of a sudden it clicked and I really liked it 'cause at first I really hated fighting zombies and the zombie island of Doctor Ned 'cause it was like, all they do is come straight at you and they were way too simple and I don't know. You know, it was just like off-putting to fight things that never tried to shoot at me. But they do a really good job of spawning some behind you too. Like they come out of the ground or come out from holes, the little tiny holes that they crawl out of and then stand. That eventually, especially in parts that you do that are in like a city environment, they do like a really good job of making you feel surrounded a lot. So all of a sudden you'll be like doing really well and one hit from a zombie will take away all your shields immediately. So you're just like, wham and all of a sudden you're like, what? And it's right behind you and there's like five there and five here and all of a sudden you're like, you know, on the O ship patrol, so the zombies are. - That's not a fun patrol to be on. - A cool little side quest. That being said, there's a supposedly a quest to get turned in zombie brains that I never got ever. - Oh really? - So I don't know. - Did you go back to the boards? - Yeah, the board is now read as then I can't get any more quests from it. So I don't know if I fuck something up or what? Did something out of order. So I never got to turn in these zombie brains and I collected thousands. So yeah, I played that. And then I played some Heroes of Might and Magic for DS, which is a pretty cool game. Just came out. - So Heroes of Might and Magic on DS is not. Heroes of Might and it's also not Heroes of Might and Magic in the traditional like Heroes of Might and Magic RPG sense that it's been. - Is it Clash of Might and Magic Heroes? Is that what it's called? - I think it's, let me see. Talk for a second. - This is. - You know what, what kinds of letters? I got about 8 million of this week, Tyler. - What's that? - What are some guys going bald? - Oh, great. - We've been putting those boxes of mail pattern baldness. - It's called, it's called Might and Magic, which is an old franchise, isn't it? Might and Magic? - Yeah. - You're paying me asking that question, but yes. - I was fucking with you. Might and Magic, sorry. Might and Magic, Clash of Heroes. And so when you see it, the cover is awful, by the way. Let me see this. - Oh yeah, that's weird because there, I think there's a series called Clash of Might and Magic and there's Might and Magic Heroes. - I think that's why I'm getting it. - Might and Magic, Clash of Heroes. - That's, I'm getting fucked up. That's why I'm asking him, I think, I'm having a really big brain fart. And that's why I'm like, is Might and Magic an old franchise? I know it is, but there's also Might and Magic. - Tyler. - I forget. Anyways, the cover's awful when you see it. Like, if you go on the store and you see this, you'll be like, man, this game looks awful, but I'm telling you, play it. And it's like a, it is a color matching game, like a puzzle quest. But it's, it's only random in the sense that when you first start all your units that you deploy onto the battlefield have colors. And so when you deploy them, they all fall, like Tetris blocks all at once. And then they end up in random groupings. And then you have to either like slot them left or right or to make them disappear temporarily so that they all come together. And coming together in groups of threes is what doesn't attack. If they're stacked vertically, they'll do an attack. If they're stacked horizontally, they'll make a defensive wall. And so it's just doing all these things and utilizing the fact that each turn you only have so many moves before they take all their moves. And it's, it's, it's a, it's a pretty intense strategy that goes into it much more so than puzzle quest where you're just matching colors. You know, puzzle quest, you had spells and stuff too, but this game has spells as well. - Jesus. - And it has a substantially better story, even off the first hour and a half I've played than puzzle quest ever had. You know, 'cause puzzle quest, the story was like so inconsequential. And this, it is very story driven. So it's actually a really cool game. It makes me sad because in the scheme of things we didn't review that on GameSpy and we didn't consider it in our game of the year for DS considerations because, you know, nobody played under the radar. So, and that has already been decided at this point. - But it, it looks cool, you know? - It looks like a Japanese fucking RPG. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, the, it does. The way that they're sprited, the sprites are done and the way that the characters look like in the stat screen stuff. They look like Final Fantasy. Yeah, they do characters. - They're spelled by one of the greatest name developers around, which is Capybara Studios, I believe. - Yeah, it actually shows a picture of a Capybara. - Okay, Capybara, they're the ones who did, I mean, I did show it. - But yeah, it is a really cool game. I actually like, that's been like getting a lot of buzz in the IGN offices 'cause people have been interested in checking it out. - And 'cause it's got a pull quote on the front from IGN? - Well, but yeah, it's not, I think that might be why we got maybe extra copies since IGN. But yeah, it's actually a really cool game that I would recommend people checking out. Like, you know, you can't rent it, but I think if you like the puzzle question, you like kind of turn based, color matching strategy puzzle game, you might-- - If you're interested in imagine might magic. - Yeah, so it is really cool. I don't think that people would be disappointed. - Does it make me a bad person that I kind of wish that I could just download it on Xbox Live and get some achievements? - It would be a cool Xbox Live game, really. I mean, it would, or a WiiWare game. Both of those would be cool venues for it. - Have you played multiplayer yet? Because it does have single card download play. - Oh, really? No, I haven't tried multiplayer yet. - Well, currently the instruction booklet it does. - Single card multiplayer play is also a nice thing because that is really rare these days. Most DS games that are trying to push it technologically, they do not allow for a single card play. - Most DS games that would like to sell more than one copy. - So, yeah. But yeah, that's a really cool game that I've been checking out. I've also been playing, I don't know if I talked about it. Did I talk to you about Bookworm on DS? Nah, I talked about that last time. - Are we talking about this last time? - Yeah, you brought up a little bit. Yeah, well, when I talked about it in the car, you asked me if I was gonna talk about it for the show. And for some reason that made me think that I hadn't. But yeah, I mean, I talked about it. So, I've been playing more of that. And Mario, March of the Minis, some more, you know, just some more DSI wear. And then, I also have been playing Army 2, which we talked about, I'm playing dark ciders, but I can't talk about that just yet, unfortunately. - Pixel junk shooter? - Oh, yeah, I've put that junk shooter. Yeah, I've reviewed that. That was for since last week. - You later found the fuck out of that this weekend. - It's really not that long of a game. Total to beat it is probably like less than three hours, really. - You were playing that for a while longer than three hours. - Well, I stopped for a large chunk of that for quite a while to play something else. And I ended up having to go back because if you're, you can beat it in three hours, no problem. If you pay a lot of attention and collect like gems in the game, but I didn't collect enough gems, so when I got to the last level, I couldn't unlock it because I hadn't been good enough about collecting all those gems. 'Cause I did not understand for the longest time that I was gonna need so many of them to unlock the final level. So I was only kinda grabbing it if I saw them. I wasn't actively seeking them out. But yeah, the Pixel Junk shooter, it's like a, it's weird that they called a shooter 'cause as a shooter, I think that that game's only mediocre. Like, it's not like a crazy bullet hell game. You know, it's like a 2D game where you're flying around and it's dual stick in the sense that one stick aims, one stick flies, but to shoot, it's still pulling the trigger. You know, it's not like it's just you hold the direction and it fires in that direction. - Kinda reminds me of there's this Genesis game, like near the end of the Genesis. This is a lifespan called Subterrania. - I never played it, but that wouldn't surprise me. I mean, this is all about being underground. - And I feel like Subterrania had a developer for it that became super famous, but... - The reason you don't wanna shoot in this all the time, and that's why you pull the trigger is because you wanna save guys too. So you have like a grappling hook that allows you to grab guys. And so shooting is pretty much just a mechanic to do two things, either kill the occasional enemy or to fuck with the environment to cause things to happen. So like if there's like a bunch of lava, you need to get through. Chances are there's probably like a wedge of dirt blocking like water that you could shoot out the dirt and now the water will rain down and cool the dirt. I mean, cool the lava into like dirt you can shoot through. Or like in later levels, there might be ice. So you might need to free lava to melt like a path through the ice. - Yeah, and this game sounds so cool. - Or there's like magnetic oil looking liquid. And so you will get like a magnetic suit that makes all the oil like go away from you. So you'll be just like going through oil flows and there's like this little circle to your path around you. - Nice. - And sometimes you'll have to use that magnetic suit to like push the oil into like a vat to fill it to activate a switch. So it's much more of like an environmental puzzle game than it is a shooter. - Yeah. - But that's what makes it so cool is working with all these various elements. - And it's so weird because this game they had that contest to name it. And they went with a generic name that's almost a mislabeling of the game. - In a lot of ways, I feel like it is a mislabeling of the game, but like, you know, pixel junk environmental puzzle game. (laughing) It's horrible. - Yeah. - I don't know what you would have called it. Like pixel junk earth or something like that. But it's not about earth, but you are like always in the ground. - No. - Or if they call it like pixel junk elements to me would have been better. - That's the one that I came up with. That's the one that I thought was gonna win. I thought they're gonna call it pixel junk elements 'cause it just was that one of the entries or something? Like, I don't know. - No, but it's just because that's what makes sense to me 'cause you didn't want like fire and water. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. - Gas. - No, no, no. I mean, I saw you dealing with all that, but I did see you shooting an awful lot. - Yeah, I mean, you shoot at enemies and you shoot to blow out dirt to search for objects and stuff, but. - You occasionally shoot the things you're trying to save. - Yeah, you accidentally shoot the guys you're trying to save a lot. - Okay, and you can kill them then. - You can kill them. So that's why they didn't want to give you the trigger happy. - Exactly, yeah, 'cause if you were just pointing at it in which direction you're fine, you'd just constantly murder them. As it is, you know, there are definitely times that the environment will try and kill them. So like, you'll have to like shoot out a wedge of lava to like break ice to get to the guy. But at the same time, you'll have to like fly with the lava and grab him before the lava pools up enough to cook him. You know, and there's no health in the game. The health is a heat bar. So like, if you fly too close to lava for too long, you'll die. So you have to be really careful and you know, manage your heat. So if you're getting really hot, you'll fly into some water to cool yourself off. You know? - It's a super cool game. - And then it has all the signature, amazing style, amazing music. - It does look good and the music is really good. It's really weird too. Like, you know, like there's like, it doesn't, it's not like it makes sense to the game, right? It's like, it's good, but it's, it's like, there might be one time where you're like an underground level rescuing these scientists and there'll be like this line that's like, if you're in the music industry and you do something, you're a sellout. And that's like the line it says in the background. You're like, what? Like, you know, it doesn't make any sense in the game, but it does sound really cool in the scheme of the music. - Yeah, I think what was it? Ryan O'Donnell said that the, that they actually got this group, I don't know if they were a German group or-- - It is done by somebody that's supposed to be one of them. - Some sort of electronica group to the music. - That being said, the one thing that, like to varying degrees, like bothered people, most people just wrote it off because the game's so fun anyways, including me, I mean ultimately the game's super fun, but it is really short, you know, three hours long and it does kind of feel like Ryan O'Donnell or Matt said, like half a game because when you beat the last boss, it just does like to be continued. You're like, all right, you know? It's like, to be continued when. You know, all the other pixel junk games weren't like that or it was like a, like it was going to go into another game. So sure, yeah. How much is it? - It's 10 bucks, I think. - Do you feel like it's enough game for 10 dollars? - Yeah, I mean, it's super fun. - Dude, that sounds like enough game for 10. - 'Cause especially playing it with another person changes things too. I mean, it's the same level layout, but like for instance, those levels were like, I'm saying where you get like a magnetic suit, so you have to like fly through the liquid and it's completely surrounding you, except for what's being pushed away. They only give one suit during those times. So the other person doesn't have it. - So you just have to sit there and coordinate, yeah, where they're flying right next to you. - That's cool, man. - So. - See dude, this game and then I guess last week with Dan Shoe really telling me to check out Pixel Jump monsters, I think I'm finally gonna hook up my PS3. 'Cause I haven't hooked it up since I'm in the Pixel Jump game tournament. - You said I'm in the Pixel Jump game tournament with the exception of Racer, in my opinion, are good. Like I didn't think Pixel Jump Racer was good. - Yeah, that's one I remember people not being too. - But monster is, I mean, for especially for you, a person that loves tower dance games. - I know. - And I bought Eden, like why wouldn't I've bought? - Yeah, in my mind it's like shooter, monster, Eden racer. Except there's a big gap between Eden and Racer. Like I did not like Racer, but I thought Eden was pretty good. And then yeah, beyond that, what do we say I was playing Arthur? I thought we had another one, but I can't. - No, I think that's it. - Yeah, it's been a relatively slow time. - I mean, I saw that your boss was gonna go see Bad Company 2 today. - Yeah, there's a Bad Company multiplayer event today. - There was a Mass Effect thing yesterday too. - Yeah, everyone got to play a few hours of Mass Effect. - First 90 minutes, I understand. - Yep, dang. - And Andy Eddy had nice things to say about it that I'm sure will be put up in a preview next week. - Well, I can't imagine most everyone. I'm trying to imagine who the guy is that came back and he's like, there's this fucking company BioWare making this piece of shit, Mass Effect. - I don't know, I mean, I think that, I mean, it's certainly been possible that people have been given the chance to play a really anticipated game and it wasn't really a joke. - Right. All right, well, then let's take a break from the Convection. - Let's see what it's like. (upbeat rock music) ♪ I'm starting playing the campaign club ♪ ♪ 'Cause it's down to one man ♪ ♪ And now I believe I ain't that tough ♪ ♪ 'Cause I ain't that tough ♪ (upbeat rock music) - Welcome back to the Rebel FM Short Edition. - I don't know if it's going to be short. - You'll be able to throw that. - This is the double wide edition, remember? - Well, the double wide letters. - We gotta get the more similar. - We gotta get the more similar. - Chris writes in. Excuse me, Annie says, just wondering, are there any genres that you outright don't like or a popular series you have deep down gripes about? For me, I find racing games to be pretty lame. As I've kind of explained a lot of times, I'm just not good at them. I don't find much fun in retrying the same track again and again, until you get first place or whatever. This guy's like touching on what we talked about a second ago. - Mm-hmm. - Although I do quite like arcade influenced racers, such as Burnout and Outrun, just wanted you guys to know I rode in, by the way. This is me. - Oh, okay. - Undercussive. - So that's what you're doing in the bathroom right now. - Which is an arcade game. It turns to games. By the way, Anthony is awesome, Arthur sucks. No, in terms of games, Call of Duty just seems to be one of the lamest games ever. - I was actually looking over your shoulder as you wrote this email. - I have tried to get into them, but find them boring and linear with little to no interesting AI and the level seem like they're designed to actually make you feel restricted. It can be good sometimes, but I hear. - So how about you, Anthony, Arthur, and Tyler? Games I don't outright don't like. Saying I don't like them is one thing. I don't enjoy fighting games. I am not good at fighting games. I do not have the ability to remember in my mind the combos very well at all. I just can't do it when I'm under pressure and there needs to be like that split second where you gotta be like down forward A, I'm just like, I fuck it up every time. - Which is funny to me because you memorize like the most obscure strategies and fucking tactics for company of heroes like instantly. - Yeah, just fighting games. It just doesn't click, I don't know. And so I'm a button mashing when it comes to fighting games. I mean, I enjoy-- - So you like SoulCelber. - Well, yeah, I enjoyed some Mortal Kombat back in the day. But in general, I appreciate the Street Fighter 4 is a good game, but zero interest in it ever. - Tyler? - In general, yeah, yeah, so I agree with Anthony on the fighting games and the racing game and sports games in general. But another thing that just like completely turns me off or like is stuff you were like describing in like Bayonetta. Like that heavily Eastern influence game design just does not interest me one bit. Like, and that could span a whole bunch of different genres, you know, action, adventure games, just anything rotten Eastern design I really don't enjoy. Although there is a certain brand of Eastern game is that I do like like nobody, no being a boy or a shadow of the closet. I love the more artistic sort of stuff, but not the traditional. - I have not enjoyed a 3D Grand Theft Auto with the possible exception of some of Lost and Damned. 'Cause I feel like it's all style over substance and that the mechanics have always been compromised and that I would rather have a more limited set of things that are done really well that I find fun as opposed to the quote unquote opportunity to do whatever I want. I would rather have a more guided experience that is polished. - No, that me and Arthur sufficiently like alienated or just invalidated. - I actually think we covered pretty much everything between the three of us when I think about it. So you too hate Asia and I hate the UK. - Yeah. - So Go America is what we're really saying. - Yeah, maybe if America made a fighting game. - It's called USA. - It was called Mortal Kombat. - Britain. - Right. - Brenton writes in and I don't know that we're really gonna have any advice for him. - I think not. - 'Cause Brenton doesn't really ask a good enough question or given a specifics. He titles it relationship letter, but I just wanna read it 'cause it has a really funny typo. I have a little problem. I am currently trying to obtain a girlfriend at my high school and having some trouble. - I tried to do it- - This is not a treasure in Zelda. - I tried to do it everyone says of no trying too hard to get girls interested, but they don't seem to be taking the bait. I feel if I do try hard that they're usually adverse to it or I mess up. This is my favorite line by the way right here. I've had rendezvous with woman, but mostly at parties. I guess my biggest problem is getting girls to stay around. Help. Come on, come on guys. - I've had rendezvous with woman. Why are you not laughing? (laughing) - I was bad before. - I think I was inwardly chuckling a little bit early about that. I know trying. - I've had rendezvous with woman. I'm gonna tell you that every time I meet a girl- - I've had rendezvous with today. I've had rendezvous with woman. - It's not just that it's worded incorrectly. It's like, why would you word it like that? - rendezvous. - rendezvous and who called my woman in high school? - In high school. - Maybe he's hooking up with college girl. - Maybe he's hooking up with the teachers. - I've had rendezvous with woman. (laughing) - No, honestly, I don't know. That's such a, honestly, man, you didn't give us any details to be able to help. - Yeah, we don't know really what you're doing. - You should not be trying to find a girlfriend so you can say you have a girlfriend. - Yeah. - The end. Did I mention it last time about the letter that I got that I think we got from somebody it's saying that they found it funny that two guys without girlfriends were giving relationship advice to people who wrote in. (laughing) And I actually, that was one of the few emails that I was like, you know what, I wanna take the time to respond to this one and simply say that just because not all of us talk about our romantic lives on the podcast does not mean we don't have them. - Yeah, I mean, you know, I did talk about it on GFW radio, but even outside of GFW, there was a couple of other instances that I never talked about, so yeah, I don't know. I share a lot of really embarrassing details, but I generally try not to share the embarrassing details about the other person unless I feel like it's okay. - Occasionally people I have dated listen to this podcast, and that is a can of worms that I had federally closed. - Yeah, anybody you date, you should just not let them listen to this podcast. - Actively restrict them, chain them to the floor. - They do a fucking Google search for my name because that is what people do now. - Eugh, so gross. - Or it's not that they like, oh, that's your name? Type, type, type, it's like, yeah, I do a podcast. Like because this fucking podcast takes up an awful lot of my time. What do you mean you can't hang out these days and these days? Oh, well, I sit around in a living room with a bunch of assholes and talk about video games. - What the fuck after you can't hang around this day or this day? Everyone has commitments like that. Probably these same people are like, I can't hang out this day in this day 'cause it's my gym time. Oh, what the fuck? This is your gym time. All right? - That's depressing. - Scott writes in-- - This is what I was talking about. - And he starts off with kind of a dirty part, but then he actually has a real question. - Could you skip the dirty part? - Hey guys, I'm working my way through the backlog. No, and I just listened to number 39, and I heard Anthony say that the show was sponsored by Meat Spin. I was wondering if you guys have ever heard of, this is another site that I wanna check it out, phonetrace.org. - Whoa. - It's an awesome way to prank people to see Meat Spin because it starts off as a website that says you can find yourself on a Google map by tracing your cell phone number. And then it zooms in on the map, and just when it looks like it's gonna zoom in all the way, it changes to the Meat Spin video. It's a great way to fuck with your friends, even if they have already been to the Meat Spin. - I'm not sure one of the tens of thousands of people who listen to this podcast, in which case, the jig is up. - Oh, I just want these people to go and use it on-- - Yeah, use it on-- - People, I just want to disseminate that in from you. - You wanna start your own project, Mayha. - So yeah, so he says on another note, I was wondering if you guys have any guilty pleasure games that are a little embarrassing. He also says that when he envisions Tyler in his mind's eye, he thinks of the physicist named Dan on Lost. - That means nothing to Anthony and I. - No, but I figured that might mean something to you. - I know exactly who he's talking about. That's a, hey, man, it's a compliment. And see, it's awesome from saving private Ryan. - Oh. - Oh. - I could actually see that in some ways, now that-- - He's only on the spot. - So, guilty pleasure games, anybody? Killer Instinct. - How is that a guilty pleasure that comes? - There are a lot of people that shit all over that game. - Well-- - There are a lot of people that defend fucking way worse 'cause it's-- - And I also think that Shadow's the Empire for 64 is good. - Yeah, I think that too. I, people-- - Game's not good. - I like it. - If you went back in time for when that game came out and you sat down in front and that's, you couldn't find it better than that 3D action game. - I beat it multiple times. And it was my only 64 game at the time, but still, it was a good game. But yeah, beyond that, I don't-- - I mean, I don't generally feel guilty about that. - Yeah, that's the thing is like, I like games like Viva Pinata, I like a lot of Cutesy shit, but I don't feel guilty about any of that. I love those games. - I mean, I played all the way through Kain and Lynch, but I would hardly call that a pleasure for a lot of it. - If anything, I mean, I would, my guilty pleasures would come from like music or-- - Yeah, exactly, I mean, as far as games go, a lot of the, I actually take pride in the fact that I have a really diverse taste and that I'm not gonna just take on something. - Okay, Tyler, what's your, what's a guilty music pleasure? - Again, I'm not, I'm sure you don't really feel that guilty. - Yeah, I don't feel that really guilty, but I know sometimes when I say that like-- - What is a musical pleasure? - I know when I tell people that like, I love Kanye, that that could sound weird. - I like Lady Gaga. - I really like Kanye's music. - Like more, bigger one though? - Abba. - I will rock some fucking Abba. (laughing) - That's your most embarrassed, I'm not gonna say mine. - Oh, come on, I like, I like a lot of embarrassing music. I mean, I'm just naming a couple that appear off top of my head for whatever reason. But I mean, I like a lot of, I like shit, I like fuck, I'll say, I like Fallout Boy, I like pop music, I like crappy pop music. And I acknowledge that it's crappy and I still like it. - I will actually give you two, I will give you my guiltiest concert attendance. - Oh, that's a good one. - And probably the guiltiest CD that's on my concert. - Concert attendance and I haven't attended any guilty concerts, but I'm particularly, what is like, when he, when he was hitting Houston, what am I about to hear? - I've seen Creed in concert. - Uh oh! - Do you wanna know who opened up for Creed? Think about the worst band you could think of to open up for Creed. - Lit. - I actually don't have a problem with Lit. - You know who I-- I was just, I don't know, I was pulling something out of my ass. - I can't even think of who would be, who would be opening for Creed that would be that bad. - Wait, wait, wait, wait, gimme, gimme one, yes. - Who? - Who? - Yes, guess, you didn't hear him guess. - Three doors down? - Oh no, I never saw three doors down. - Wait, it was Nickelback. - Oh fuck. - But you know who was opening before them was Seven Dust and I actually don't have some of those. - Maybe the, maybe the like guiltiest concert I've been to, which I'm not guilty of the second band. - That was for Creed's first record, that was my defense. - Who, what was their name? They came to UC Davis. Why can't I think of what they're called right now? It's driving me insane. Fuel, is that a name? - I like Fuel. - Yeah, it is Fuel. - Yeah, it is Fuel. - Fuel writes really good pop. - Fuel was the headliner, yeah, and I liked them, but saliva was the band that opened for them, and that was, that was something else. - And then the album that I probably feel the most sheepish about when it comes on, and I keep listening to it is Evanescence's album. - Well, one of the old albums I used to rock when I was a little kid was-- - No, this is like last week. - Was Ninja Turtles coming out of their shells. - Well, that doesn't count. - That doesn't count. - Yeah. - Yeah. - No one will ever respect my opinion again. - Creed and Nickel back together. - Man, that was before. - Why'd you go to see that? Was there a girl involved? - I did go and see it with my girlfriend at the time, actually, but this is during Creed's first album, and I don't actually, whatever, I feel-- - No, there was a lot of people that enjoyed that. Yeah, but it's just since then. - Oh, you motherfuckers that hate on Creed. Like that first and second record sold like millions and millions of copies. - Yeah, that guy's just been doing blow ever since. - But I think it was mostly because Seven Dust was opening, and I really liked Seven Dust, and I still like Seven Dust, although-- - You feel like all I specifically saw 'cause they came to UC Davis, and I had to walk like three blocks in my dorm, so-- - I saw a AFI and Nine Inch Nails. - Yeah, I remember when they came to school as well, and I was like, nah, I'm not gonna wait for fucking tickets like everyone else. There was ridiculous Nine Inch Nails. - Just bought AFI tickets like that. - In my Inch Nails tickets, I definitely had to freeze my fucking ass. - Yeah, I decided. - Man, dude, I've never seen them live. I really want to though. - That ship has sailed, my friend. - I know, I know, and actually-- - Of all the cables for you to play with on the MacBook, that's probably the worst. - Yeah, and you know, I really missed out on the ultimate one, like when the Fragile came out, like that's my favorite Nine Inch Nails album is the Fragile, and that album, they toured with Foo Fighters. - They also toured with the perfect circle on that tour. - Yes, they did as well. - So, damn, that would have been awesome. - So, you guys, Damien wrote into us-- - Are you happy we talked about music, assholes? - Damien wrote into us, but he's not the only person that wrote into us about this, but no, this is actually not criticizing us or bashing on us. - Really? - Yeah, he-- - That's what I think people seem to agree on. - He just says, I'm sure that you guys have heard of the crazy, crazy politics that us Aussies are having to put up with when it comes to video games. - It's one guy. - Regarding the lack of an 18 plus rating. - One guy. - So, basically, this is what he says. So, I'm not super versed in it because I have not been reading the gaming blogs or anything lately at all. - I do every day. - So, basically, I know you do. - I have to know. - So, basically, the Australian government is slowly realizing the people above the age of 18 actually do play video games and that they might need to change the ratings. They're holding a public consultation about the R18 plus rating. So, basically, us here gamers need to speak up. It would be fantastic if you could spread the word on the podcast. I know from listening to past letter segments that you do have an Australian audience, and I really think we need everyone we can get to make a submission to the government. The full discussion paper and submission forms can be found at www.ag.gov.au/gameclassification. And the reason I will bring that up is 'cause we do have an Australian audience. We are one of iTunes, Australia's top podcast of 2009, so. - Nice. Yeah, yeah. I've actually been reporting on this story at GameSpy and, yeah, it's like a website. They want to hear from people on both sides. They want to hear for and against. - So, what's at stake is that all these games that are being banned, they could potentially get, but they would be marked as a new rating of 18 plus. - What is at stake is the allowance of the R plus 18, right? Which would allow games like Left 4 Dead and these other ones that get banned to be sold to people that are 18? Yes. - Unfortunately, my admittedly basic understanding of the Australian Constitution leads me to believe that this will do nothing because there are six attorney generals in Australia. - That are like against it? - No, basically they all have to agree to change that ruling. - All of them together? - Yes, and five of them are absolutely of the opinion that it needs to change, and one of them refuses repeatedly. - And it needs 100% unanimous? - Yes. - That is balls? - Yeah, it's almost like the government in California. - (mumbles) - So, let's see. I'm looking at that one, didn't have a question. I opened it 'cause I'm just going down the list. All right. - So you don't have a guilty concert attendance? - You know, I mean, I was thinking back a lot, but no, man. - You too, my Bobby Brown. - My first concert was fucking Primus and Helmut. - My first concert was L7 in Maryland, Manson. - Nice, that's a good answer, man. - That concert was, that was fucking trial by fire. - Yeah. - Manson is good live, man. I'm not a Manson fan at all, I don't own his albums, but every time I've seen him live, I've been entertained. - That was the Antichrist Superstore tour. - Cool. - Okay, this is the, this is from Dami. - Oh, that guy, hi Dami. - But he writes in specifically to you. - Oh, geez. - No, it's not bad. He's, he actually says in his letter, you know, he's always the Nigerian gamer, but now he says from Logos, Nigeria, currently in Lynchburg, Virginia. Isn't there like an unfortunately named place Lynchburg? - Especially if you're a Nigerian. - Yeah. - I imagine you're quite black and you're in a town called Lynchburg. - I do imagine that his skin is very dark. I really wish you hadn't said quite black. - Yeah, that would-- - Continue, sir. - Make me nervous. - I don't mean to meet in that in a racist way. - No, I know you don't. - I just mean that, you know, that's a good thing. Fuck, man. Tyler wishes he was black. - Um. (laughing) Some days. - I'm gonna have to edit all of this stuff. - You don't. You don't have to edit it out. You really don't. - So what is Dami doing in Lynchburg, Virginia? - God. (laughing) Now you just made me, whenever Arthur talks about the, I gotta edit button, it makes me nervous. Like-- - No, no, it's fine. - Like, I don't fucked up. (laughing) - You're done fucked up, boy, but keep reading. Every once in a while, I'm reminded, God damn, this restart later Windows bullshit. Everyone's and I are reminded by the fact that Arthur is a fellow Zoom owner. Since my original 30 gigabyte first gen Zoom is succumbing to multiple static provoked restarts, I'm finally going to make the jump to a Zoom HD. I was just wondering if Arthur has also made the jump or if he plans to. Also, with the HD having a pretty powerful NVIDIA tech or processor, I'm excited for it as a gaming platform. Although thus far the selection is rather limited, there are some pretty good games available. And then he concludes by saying, do you think that the strategy of free games with pre-roll ads that Microsoft is currently pushing with a Zoom is a viable one, a viable one of must they open the development floodgates to make the very capable ZNHD, a competitor in the iPod touch gaming space that's mainly directed to you? - So I'll answer those backwards. First of all, no, I don't think it's a viable business model because they're not enough Zoom selling to get those ads in front of enough people for it to be worth it. I have not upgraded to a Zoom HD for two reasons other than until recently I was unemployed. First of all, I also have a Zoom 30, which I am having no problems with whatsoever. And there's no point in me spending that much money for an MP3 player that only has two gigs more storage when I already have about 80 gigs of music that I can't fit onto my existing Zoom in addition to the 30 that's on there. And also I go running with my MP3 player and from what I understand the controls are swipe-based entirely and that's not like it's really hard to swipe a control on an MP3 player when you're running, which is why people use iPod shuffles and shit that have physical buttons. - Yeah. - Where my Zoom has physical buttons so I can navigate that. - That's when I was in the shuffle just like clips to your sleeve or whatever. - Yeah, I mean, none of that's a problem. But also I just, yeah. So I couldn't really run with it and it doesn't have enough storage space to justify the expenditure. But there's definitely the whore in me. - I mean, the whore in me even wants one just 'cause it's like there are games on it. I'll buy. - And I mean, I would love if they sold a high capacity one because that would finally convince me to invest in a Zoom pass. - What would be high capacity for you? - Like they have 120 gig Zunes. - So 120 gig or more? - Yeah. - Is like what you're looking for? Okay. - Which is a lot I admit, that's way more than most people will ever need. - So Jocelyn writes in and she says, I just wanted to say that while I love PopCap games myself I feel like I have to point out that I feel like they should start realizing that they don't sell only to casual gamers. And the fact that their games only support 4.3 and are extremely low res with no option to change them is kind of getting annoying, at least on the PC side. Doesn't. - I feel like-- - These filled out my whole screen. - Yeah, I had decent resolution options and 3D acceleration too actually. - Yeah, so I'm not sure. I know it could sound like I'm expecting too much from their games, but if they're still selling for 15 bucks and even smaller games like Osmo support wide screen and custom resolution. Anyways, I just wanted to point out when nobody ever talks about PopCap should consider crafting their games knowing that they sell to a lot more hardcore gamers. - Yeah, maybe they changed with zombies. I've haven't played Pegel on the PC so I don't even know. I always thought Pegel filled my screen too. - Well, you had a square or a 4.3 monitor until-- - I've played it on this though too and this is technically a wide, like the dimensions. - This meaning is my book that he's reading off of. I mean, I think that you are discounting their strategy which is to be as accessible as possible. - Right, I guess she's just saying that why can't they be accessible while at the same time giving her the option to run it all beautiful if she's that type of person. - Again, I feel like plants versus zombies filled up my 24 inch 16 by nine monitor just fine. - I agree. So I don't know, maybe she's playing older ones, like the dream or something. - I mean, that's a common complaint with PC games until fairly recently. I don't remember if there's a adequate wide screen option and say fear on PC. So there wasn't even an adequate 4.3 option in fear. It was like 10, 24 by nine or 1280 by 960 or something like that. - That means nothing to me. I only know the resolution for 720p and the native resolution of my monitor. - Which is 1400 by 900? - Yeah. - So. - Why I know the native resolution of his monitor is anyone's guess. - Gary writes in and he says, "I was hoping to make this letter short so if it turns into a lengthy letter, which it didn't, feel free to add as you see fit." - I didn't read. - And he said, "In my head I hear Arthur interrupting Anthony and saying, 'Oh, we will.'" - You were close. - He was close. - When writing an article or review, what sort of events or emotions do you experience before it goes live? Are you ever cautious or worried that some reader is going to point out a major flaw in your writing style or effectual error? Have you ever thought to yourself? - Funny you should mention that. - No, he doesn't say that. I added that. - I know. - Funny you should mention that. - Have you ever thought to yourself, "I'm just some guy. Why would they ever want to read my writings? What do I really know about games?" - Also since most of the game sites out there make a big deal about promoting their staff with writer blogs or profile pages, not games by. Have you found out troublesome that someone has so much access to you as a person without ever meeting? You were seeing face to face. The whole having access to me, dude, I don't have a private Facebook page, you know, so people can get access to you. Fuck, you look up my name on YouTube in a fucking picture of Yotto with a flush light comes up. - I may be able to one up you slightly. Someone sent me a link to my email of a thread on gay gamer that happened to have my picture in it. - Oh, oh man. - Well, which is fine. I mean, I'm not-- - Was it a fan club thing? - It was people talking about one of you do things to you? - No, it was attractive guys in the gaming press was a thread, if I recall correctly. - All right, I don't think I'll put on-- - Asshole saying, 'cause I'm not, I don't think I'm, yeah. - I don't think so either. - So-- - Dude, hey man, some folks, some folks, yeah. - Some people like people that dudes that have heads that more closely resemble penises than-- - No, just cut a gouging it. So yeah, the whole about what emotions or events do you experience before it goes live. It depends what the game is. Like when I post Pixel Junk Shooter, I'll give it a second link. When it comes to posting something like a review of Halo 3.0 DST, or a review of Uncharted 2, where I know that my score will be contentious, even though it's ridiculous. - Things that are really good are really bad. I feel a little, a little boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo. - Really good is easy. A lot of times, well, shit, apparently not, 'cause it's Uncharted 2 and I thought it was really good and still wasn't good enough for people. - Before my Assassin's Creed 2 review went up, I did remember thinking I really hope that I wasn't the only person that loved this game, 'cause then I will look like that guy on my first day of work. Saboteur, I agonized over the score for a while. - I usually agonized over every score. That's just the type of person I am. We have a rubric at GameSpy, so I just sit there and I read it over and over again, each one means, and I sit there and think about my text. - Is there any game who score you're so not sure of? - There are games in hindsight. I think we've talked about this before, we're in hindsight. I feel like maybe I scored it higher than I would now. I don't feel like it holds up the same way. - Why, I don't mean how you feel the game would score now so much as back then you should have given it a different score. - Yeah, there are. - Like I kind of feel like I gave Saboteur to have a score. - I kind of feel like, well, I don't want to name games, but there has been a couple of games this year that I feel like I gave probably about half a star too much to. - Do you have O-D-S-T to high score? - No, O-D-S-T is fine. The O-D-S-T is a four to me. It has a four out of five great games. - Yeah, it's a solid four. - That's perfectly fine to me, but it's actually a lesser game that I just felt like I scored two-eye. - Scorable notes. - So he says, do you ever feel like that I'm just some guy? Why would they ever want to read my writings? I felt like that when I first started. I went up, but at this point as ridiculous as it is in the scheme of things, I've been doing this for like almost three years now and worked it both one up in EGM and now for IG and Entertainment. And it's like between those two in a lot of ways, I am a lot more experienced than a lot of people in a ways. And that's kind of ridiculous because people don't stick around. - People have repeatedly brought you on to write as opposed to you just sticking it out somewhere for an extended period of time. - Right. So I feel pretty confident. A lot of times as far as like me having an opinion. And I have a lot of people who read my stuff before it goes up to make sure that I'm backing it up well. Sorry dude, that's close as it can get. - That's fine. - Yeah, I don't know. I'm not too worried about people taking me seriously or not because honestly, most readers don't realize who actually works for the website anyways, like when they were talking about Ryan Scott's preview of Star Trek Online, they were like-- - Do you mean his review? - Yeah, his preview. His preview of Star Trek Online, they were like, who is this guy? Just some guy you paid randomly to write this preview for you? What a joke. And it's like, no, actually Ryan Scott's been working in this for like seven years. - I thought Ryan Scott's official title was random douche. - Yeah, it's like, you know, it's ridiculous. So people don't generally know who's staff and who's not, especially with a website like Team Xbox or maybe Team Xbox because they have Team Talk, which helps. - I think Team Xbox, they do just because there's only three of us. - But like at GameSpy, people don't know who's a freelancer and who's not because we don't have any blog pages or anything like that. If you listen to our podcast, you might have an idea of that, GameSpy debriefings on iTunes. - GameSpy.com. - GameSpy.com. But yeah, other than that, you really would have a hard way of knowing like who's staff. - Did you put up the debriefing to it? - I did, it's up right now. - New debriefings where you can hear us talking about a bunch of people's really rude comments to us. I picked a bunch of rude ones and sprung them on the people who wrote the articles while we were in there. - So we really need to listen to that. - Yeah, the actual podcast, if you want to know like a little taste with the GameSpy debriefings is a really off topic podcast a lot of times. It's very much just like general nerd conversation along with retro games a lot of times, but today started off with the comment thread that started in the Star Wars, the Old Republic preview thread where people started talking about how the example Gerald gave, Gerald Valoria, a writer at GameSpy, gave of the Jedi counselor class and the Jedi Knight and the differences between them and who in movies represented them. People started arguing about how it was wrong. Like there's no fucking way that guy has a Jedi Knight. - When I believe Gerald's examples were provided to him by LucasArts. - By Bioware, the Bioware, yeah, the example he gives is Jedi counselor who uses a lot of like force powers along with lightsabers, but he's more of a mixed thing. It's more like Obi-Wan. Whereas Qui-Gon is more of a Jedi Knight like straight up sword fighter and people didn't think that was right. - Is that backwards? - No, it's not. That's what people get thinking. But Obi-Wan does tend to win with a combination of force powers and lightsabers. Whereas Qui-Gon tends to be a pretty, you know, but I think the better example to me would be would be that a Jedi Knight would be like Mace Windu. You never see that dude use force powers. He just fucking wails on people, right? - And he goes out like a punk bitch. So he does, yeah. So Nick writes in and he says, "I'm looking for some advice, not with a relationship. "I listen to podcasts a lot and I've always wanted "to start my own. "Also, I moved away from my hometown, Boise, Idaho, "just this summer and I'm going back to visit my friends, "perhaps for the last time in a long time this Christmas. "Some of them agreed we should record a podcast together, "mostly for posterity. "Of course I wanted to sound good and all that "so I can look back on it without cringing. "Do you guys have any tips about the technical side "of podcasting, i.e. Mike's and accessories to use? "How far people should be spaced from each other "and what I should do in post-processing?" The weird thing is that if you're only gonna do this once. - Why the hell are you worried about it? - I would just buy like a portable recorder and pass it around because if it's just for posterity, like even the crappy quality, we'll almost probably be endearing in some way, I wanna say. - For sure, yeah. - But you can get a decent portable recorder, portable digital recorder for like 700 bucks. - Also, you wanna know a mic that works pretty well that most people have around a rock band mic. - Yeah, I mean, you don't have to go super high tech unless this is something that you're going to then take back with you and start doing regularly. - If you're using legit mics, pop shields are good. - Yeah, although some mics have a really good, they're pretty good with the stuff internally. The ones we have are really sensitive, which are MXL 2006s. But yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure what I would recommend for you. - Right, yeah, sounds a little-- - I think you should consider a portable option. - Load tech. - Because if you're gonna go a non-portal option, then you need like a mixing board, and then you might need like, and then you would need a computer that you could run Audacity on to run it from like the mixing board to USB or Firewired. It gets really complicated. So if you're wanting to go more complicated, you know, I would just look up cheap portable podcasting, like you could even Google that and you get some really good options, but I don't know. - Yeah. You can even get good MXL mics, like what we have except USB versions of them that plug straight into the computer. So I know that's what CPD use is to record the cheap ask gamer podcast. So yeah, as far as post-processing, level later is a decent program for working out the levels. - If you need it, I mean, I feel like-- - You don't always need it if you get the levels right, but considering it doesn't know what he's doing, level later it can happen. - You don't want the waveform to be big when you're recording. You just want it to be consistent, by the way. - Yeah, big waveforms were only important in like the super early days of digital recording, from what I understand or something like, and like, and it was mostly important in analog more than anything that you were getting consistent, like just under peaks, so. - Like you may notice that the sound quality on the podcast, not necessarily the file quality, which was fucked up every now and again, but it improved a while back. - What he's trying to say is it improved once Arthur sat down at the boards. - No, it was actually after Robert Ashley discussed digital mixing with us. - So, Knuckles Toledo writes in, I guess that's what he wants to be called. - I'm worried about why his nickname is Knuckles. - He's written to us before, he says, while you were chatting with the new EGM guest, I was surprised that you didn't bring up the, give me what is mine incorporated letter you received. I'm sure they were right again, and again, to address this, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to have a fellow listener's back. I, this is probably, give me what is mine incorporated. It's just like warning us, you're gonna get a letter from give me what is mine. - I can see that. - The effect of the matter is, is that give me what his mind should write the new EGM, if he's gonna write anyone. So, when they open up and have their little letter of contact us, you should write them up, give me what is mine, and be like, hey, remember when you fucked me over? - Maybe he's too busy stroking it to Maxim or whatever. - So is it not their placement magazine? - Yeah, I think so. - So there's pretty much only one less letter, but we haven't really got to. - Who, man? - Who, man? - I'll do a good start. - It's a, it's a, it's a fairly lengthy relationship letter. - Oh, Jesus. - Hold the computer upward a little bit so you're not looking down. - Eddie writes in, and he says-- - Recite it like it's Shakespeare, bitch. - He says, let's see. - Throw an accent on it. - I was listening to your show from day one, and these, and then these things called graduation marriage, moving out of my own and finding a job all happened in quick succession, as well as the crap I'm about to write. But now that life is stabilizing, I've been happy to go back to various podcasts, and this is one I look to forward to each week. I promise I will write you back with something relevant to the gaming world, but I thought I might as well give a crack at a relationship letter. I'll try to summarize as best I can. I was recently accused of emotional infidelity. Essentially one of my ex-class friends who is a newlywed woman accused me of emotionally cheating on my wife with her. The accusation came out of nowhere and wasn't technically for my friend, but her husband, who said a bunch of things that weren't true anyway. The evidence they threw at me was by and large and accurate, discrediting the accusation, but not making the situation of losing a sister like friend any less hurtful or confusing. I would never cheat on my wife, not physically and not emotionally. I trust her more than any other person. I love her more than any other person. I tell her more about myself than any other person, et cetera, et cetera. - Wait, can we just stop for a second and remind him that his wife is not here right now? - But I also rely on my close friends a lot on an emotional level, both guys and girls because I need that kind of social balance. Okay. - Just read it all, you started it. - Okay, so if I was emotionally cheating with this one girl I'd be emotionally cheating with about three or four other people, boys and girls alike. I think what has been really shaking up this whole pile of crap is that my friend had assured us that she was comfortable with her friendship with us, that she didn't feel awkward and promised us she'd let us know if she ever did. But then suddenly and out of nowhere all this stuff comes up and contradicts everything she's ever said to us, leaving us to wonder why she would make up a bunch of lies just to cut us out of her life. Maybe she was lying the entire time she was her friend. Either way, not a pretty thing to happen. She was a bridesmaid in our wedding for crying out loud so I can't understand why she would attend such a ceremony if she thought this was true. I think it's her husband using this as an excuse to cut her away from us since she's been cutting away from all her friends since she married him. Without burying you in the details of the situation which has really chopped away my trust in female friends on top of other events this year I'll get to the question. What do you consider to be cheating? Do you make a distinction between physical cheating and emotional cheating? How so? And then yeah. So yeah, how do you guys define it and have you ever had a sticky situation involving accusations of cheating? I actually pride myself on the fact that I fidelity is extremely important to me and I've never cheated on someone or to my knowledge helps someone cheat on someone but that being said, physically anyways. There have been a couple of times that I've gotten emotionally close to someone who did have a relationship with someone else. One in particular, the Arthur was around for. And we both worked at the record stop the second time after we got fired. - Oh yes. - And so she had a boyfriend but you know it was the stereotypical like-- - He was a douchebag. - He was a douchebag treating really bad and-- - Or at least that was her story. - And her and I hit it off really well and I never let anything come of it because of the fact that she was in a relationship but there was definitely some times with the conversations we would have and stuff that were not purely friendly. And I think that there is a point where you can be emotionally like not totally like, I guess true to someone. - Also, just throw it out there. She had a pretty amazing rack. - Yeah, she was beautiful. But yeah, I mean, there is a way that you can be like emotionally like an infidel to people. So. - I don't think that's the way it is. - No, it is, by the way, it is. An infidel, you should be killed. - Yeah, yeah, I've never been in a situation where I've been accused of cheating, you know? That, I don't know, it almost seems like maybe it's a character trait, like infidelity. Sort of thing, what I have been in your situation, Anthony, where I was chasing a girl who had a boyfriend and my take on that is like whatever, All's Fair is in love and war, as long as it's like not your friends that is in the relationship with the girl. - Oh man, tell her shit. - You know, if you don't know the other guy, man, you're trying to get the girl, go for it. - But what if he's-- - How are you a fucking dog? - What if he's a really good guy? Hey, that happened to me, man. - If he was taking her business at home, it wouldn't be a problem. - Yeah, it's like, I liked that girl a lot and I thought I would be better to her than her boyfriends at the time, so. - Yeah, I don't know. - I have a hard time being a home wrecker for life. - We're talking about boyfriend girlfriend. I'm not talking about marriage now. - But in our age, though, nowadays, but in our age, nowadays, fucking boyfriend and girlfriend can mean a lot, practically married anyways. - Yeah. - Like shit, you and Jody, you'd maybe just be boyfriend and girlfriend but when I think-- - Correct. - You guys, it's like, it's not the way that I thought about a boyfriend and girlfriend. - Yeah, I live together. - Yeah, you know. - For sure. - There can be dirt to it, but that I have been emotionally invested in someone. - Yeah. - And there can be. But I think you know when-- - Exactly, that's the whole thing. I mean, it's a gray line, but you know if you're emotionally cheating. - Like, maybe she was. - And-- - If you're bringing out the book of rules, like to decide whether or not you've been unfaithful, then you probably have been unfaithful. - But I think maybe the problem was maybe she was emotionally unfaithful. Like, she really liked you. Maybe that's why she was a bride man. You're waiting for all we know. - Or, I mean, you, I feel like he called it already, which is that she has been suffering contact with all of her friends since being with this guy. So-- - Maybe this just made the cut easier to do. Yeah, I don't know. - I don't, I'd get a little oogie about discussing my relationship history on the podcast. - No, it was. - It was anything but particular, or anything but-- - No, but now it was. - They forget you, you know, that just encourages me. - Well, I know it encourages you, and I can tell you later, but-- - Um, no, just enjoy your wife. - Enjoy your wife. - Enjoy your wife. - We did. - Yeah, enjoy your wife. I'm planning on getting mine in the mail soon. - You know, I can understand if you had like a really good friendship with this girl, but if she's gonna flake out on you that easily. - Yeah, I tend to, I tend to put things in perspective like that too. I've had people like, you know, pledge the world to me as far as like friendship and stuff go, but if they can ditch out on a friendship it's so easy, that kind of speaks volumes about their investment in it. So. - Never pick one of those kinds of letters again. - Why? - That was not a relationship letter. That was a crazy social situation letter that goes, man. - We talk about all kinds of things on this podcast. - Sure, I don't know. That just went into a weird place, I feel like. - That went into a weird place for you. - For you. (laughing) - All right, so that's it for our letters this time. You've suffered through now like an hour and a half of our bullshit. - I don't know, an hour and 47 hours. - Hour and 40 something minutes of our bullshit. And next week's podcast should be, well, the next couple weeks are gonna be kind of weird because with the holiday break and stuff, Tyler's going to Texas for a week and Arthur's taken off to Vegas for a few days. Now I'm gonna go see my family for a few days. So next week's podcast might just be something extremely short and special. Maybe if we manage to put it together and then other than that, the week after that we'll probably do a show though it might just be me, Arthur and probably a guest to replace Tyler for a week. - And then more. - And then probably we'll do Game Club this coming Monday but then we might need the week after that off. So, yeah. - Yeah, family stuff during the holiday. - I mean, look, you guys are hopefully gonna be busy with your families too. So, and if not-- - That's what you need entertainment the most. - And if you're not and depressed, go back and listen to our old episodes when the show was actually good. - And my dad just got laid off. - What was that? - He needs a little. - I don't know, but go read iTunes. - Oh, did he really? - Yeah. - Oh fuck. - Got laid off. Well, Bing Bing. - Merry Christmas. - Yeah. - Oh. - On that note, please go kill yourself after subscribing to our podcast. - Just make sure you have a family member that doesn't want to-- - So, subscribe to our podcast, dig the podcast and go listen to our friends' podcasts which you can hear the mobcast with old EGMers at bitmob.com as well as the Geekbox which has Ryan Scott from GFW Radio and GFW Magazine at Geekbox.net. Talknet. - I also hear that Ryan Scott works at a gaming website today. - Yeah, and then me and Ryan also work at GameSpy and you can hear us in the GameSpy briefings together where we argue and argue all the time. And then beyond that, you should watch co-op at area5.tv or revision3.com/co-op. Work in the internet, find you Tyler at twitter.com/dirtyt. I occasionally throw up a twit. I try to do it often. And then, GameSpy.com for some daily news. - And Arthur. - You're a sneaky fucker looking at me when you're asking Tyler. - Yeah, yeah, that threw me off too. - Yeah, twitter.com/AEGIES. You can also find my idiocy@teamexbox.com. - Yeah, dude. - What? - Oh, nothing. - All right, what am I gonna say? - Spill it. - There needs to be like a team idiocy website where it's like just the exaggerated. - There already is. - F-O-X and E-W-R-S.com. (laughing) - But I mean for video gettin' in his hand on that note now that Arthur has alienated our right wing audience again. (laughing) We're going to-- - Go abortions and teen pregnancy. - My goal, we're gonna see you next week. - And support teen pregnancy and abortions. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Check, check, check, check, mix, check, mix. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - That sounded weird. - This chair has a really hard bottom. I mean, it vibrates like, it amplifies. - Yeah, it does. - Like that one you did here on the floor. That one's in that blue my mind. - That's the way you do it, man. You gotta get the right angle. - It's like a garden hose. You know, when you put your thumb over the top of the spot of a garden hose. - Yes. - It's the same principle works if you like stretch your penis long ways. Shoots your piss really far. - Yes. - You could pee over fences that way. - Yes. - You also have to pee for like three times as long. - True. - It takes like three times as long as you get the job done. - Yeah. - And you could get splashed back on your hand, which could then itch later. - What? (laughing) Why does your piss itch, Tyler? - Urea, it is generally acidic. - Dog. That's why you, if you get bull nettle, throw it on there. - Are you sure it's not the gonorrhea? - If you get what? Bull nettle, bull needle. - Oh. - Nettle I think is right. - Bull nettle? - Bull nettle, you're supposed to wet Revan on piss stuff. - Well, yeah, honestly. - It neutralizes the-- - You get into bull nettle and you piss on it. - Same thing with jellyfish, right? - Oh, okay, I thought you were saying that you use the bull nettle in response of pissing on yourself. And I was like, is this a problem? - Dude, you pissed all over me. Quick, get me the bull nettle. - I stick bull nettle shards down my urethra. (laughing) - No. - That would be bad. - Man, it's like-- - Man, you sneezed on me. - Could you do that music? - I stick bull nettle shards down my urethra. (laughing) There was one letter in there that was like, my girlfriend's into kinky stuff, though. - We're not reading that shit. This is not Penn House 4. - I saw that. I was like, I saw the guy's letter. I was like, what? I don't even know what to tell him. - Oh. - Tell him to stop writing fake letters. - Mm-hmm. - We don't have time for his shit. - There you go. - That letter's probably real, which is the weird thing. Whether or not the letter's real, that's definitely a real situation. I'm sure there are guys out there with like freaky girls and-- - Oh yeah. - The girls are like, whoa. - Let's just put that all on the girls. 'Cause it's definitely, it would never be a dude asking some girl to pee on him. - Well, no, I'm just saying that there are some guys out there. - And that, man, if it was a girl writing it, I'm sure, shit, who knows what some girls have to endure, dude. - If you had a dollar for every time you peed on a girl, Tyler. - No, no golden showers. - Tyler's not into the pee stuff. - Mm-hmm, no gross shit. - Everything is gross to somebody, Tyler. - This is true, but I'm saying like normal. - Pissing on people should be gross to everyone. - That should be like beer poop. That should be gross to everybody. - Hard? - You guys have not seen the beer poop video? - No. Oh, dude, it's horrible. It's like one of the most horrible things I've seen in my entire life. - Is my entire life being beer into their asshole? - Yeah. - And then shitting it out? - Yeah. - All over someone's face. - Okay. - Why have you seen that? - Because at the dawn of the age of the internet-- - No! - My friend, Danny, infamously sent around this email with the subject line, "beer poop." - And you watch. - No one knew. No one knew these things back then. - It says "beer poop." - It says "beer poop." - What are you gonna think? - I would probably click on it if you said "beer poop." - It's 1997. You just got your 56K modem installed. Your friend sends you an email saying "beer poop." You don't know what to think, dude. - I'm gonna send you an email labeled "penish it." (laughing) - I'd actually be curious to see if "penish it." 'Cause it can't happen. Is that a video? - Penis don't know what we're calling. - We should start recording. Before I murder both of you. (laughing) - No, we should keep going 'cause let's continue to be able to, like a washing machine. (laughing) - That video, man, it's stuck in my mind. - All right. [BLANK_AUDIO]